“Who pays twice what we paid. Apparently her business has tripled since our troubles. And a good bookkeeper is hard to find.”

“Chloe…”

“I love him, Summer.”

Summer swallowed. “You fling that word around awfully easily.”

“It’s the way it is.”

“He’s a suspect in a crime.”

“We’re all suspects. When they discover the truth, he can come back here.”

“Is that what he wants? To come back here?”

“Well, no. But for me, he’d do it.”

“So he loves you too?”

Chloe’s gaze slid away.

“Oh, Chloe.”

“Okay, maybe he won’t say he loves me, but I know he does.” Chloe sank to a love seat behind her. “He’s just embarrassed about his past, and what we all think of him.”

Summer sat next to Chloe, tucking a leg beneath her. “I know I haven’t been around all that long, but—”

“Uh oh, is this the mushy speech? Where you say you care about me and don’t want to see me hurt?”

Summer laughed. “I was thinking about it.”

“Save it. Your side of the family gets hives using the L-word.”

“Do not.” Summer braced herself. “I love you.”

“Hmm. Soon as you can tell the rest of the family and Joe, I’ll really be impressed.”

Summer found herself crossing her arms defensively. “We were talking about you.”

Chloe patted her arm. “Whatever makes you feel better.” She rose. “I’ve got work.”

And so did she. Summer went back to the annoying computer and told herself to concentrate. She wasn’t lifting her butt off the stool until she made serious headway into the receivables issue.

It took another hour to figure out it wasn’t her fault that the receivables really didn’t match. They didn’t match because someone had messed with the books.

Specifically, with the money going into the books.

Summer sat everyone down at the table in the back room. Camille, Chloe, and Tina. Bill was there too, he’d stopped by with lunch. She put the pitcher of tea in front of her mother and moved the sugar to safety in front of her aunt, then opened the laptop. “We have a problem, a big one.”

“Sounds serious.” Tina eyeballed the computer as if it had wings.

“It is serious.” Summer took a deep breath. “Someone’s been messing with the receivables. The totals from the bank don’t always match what’s on the cash register receipts.”

Tina frowned.

Camille began pouring tea.

Chloe blinked in confusion.

Bill, a man who’d given a perfect stranger the shirt off his back, shook his head. “What?”

“I know. It’s crazy. But we’re missing money.” Summer put her hands on her hips and surveyed the group. “So. Who makes the deposit?”

“Whoever’s going past the bank,” Tina said with a baffled shrug. “You’ve been here a while now. You’ve seen how it works.”