As if he didn’t know. The only thing her brother and father wanted to talk to her about these days was money. Not surprising since she was the only one who could hold a job for more than a few months at a time. Or, in Bonnie’s case, two or three jobs.

Still, one didn’t throw snark in the face of a dying man, so she pretended to fall for the nicety and sat her ass back on the sofa.

Her dad wasn’t quite as quick getting settled, the swollen gut that came as a byproduct of his failing liver just one of the sad realities he had to face. “Now,” he said once he was in his recliner with his feet up. “Tell me what brings you here.”

Seriously? They were going to dance around this? Usually he was all get-in-and-get-out with money business so he could get back to sipping his whiskey on the sly. “Um, bills?”

Her dad—or Buzz as his buddies called him, since he was always on the search for a good high—waved her comment off and smiled. “No talk of bills. Without a transplant, I’m gonna kick it soon, and those high and mighty assholes have said they’re not giving me one. So, no point in either one of us bailing water with a thimble anymore. Now...tell me how that new job is coming.”

New job?

Which one? Answering phones at the TV station, or the dive bar where the owner had practically handed over managing the business Sunday through Wednesday every week? And how the heck he’d call either one of those new considering she’d been doing both for over six months was a stumper.

“Well, uh...” She dared a glance at Kevin, who’d lifted one of the blinds and had taken to staring out at the empty lot on one side of the house like all the answers to the universe were gonna start rolling in any second. “The TV station is good. I sit on my butt, answer the phone, and don’t let crazy people through the front door. It’s easy money so long as I don’t lose my shit with anyone.”

Her dad laughed. Or tried to. It came out as a mix of a cackle and one hell of a smoker’s cough. “Public relations. You were always good keepin’ people in line. That’s why people lean on you.”

Lean on her? From her side of the coin she’d call it taking advantage of her. But hey—she’d never found the courage to tell anyone in her family no, so who was she to complain? “Yeah, they don’t call it public relations. They call it a receptionist. But it’s inside and I haven’t had a fight break out yet. Can’t say that for most nights at the Dusty Dog.”

“Oh, yeah.” From the look on her dad’s face he’d forgotten all about the bar gig. “How’s that place doin’ anyway? Last I heard, that rusty old bastard who bought the place was about to go belly up.”