“Construction? Building houses? I’m not that great with a hammer.” With a nervous laugh, I considered the bigger picture. My hammer abilities were the least of my concerns. My mom was leaving me with an adorable man. Adorable as in old and quirky?

She laughed. “I’m sure there’s office stuff you can do.”

I nodded several times, trying hard to formulate an image of adorable in my head. Kittens were adorable. “Okay. Yes, I can do office work. Thanks for asking him.” Mr. Adorable.

She glanced over at me and smiled. “Of course. I want to do everything I can for you. Lots of lost time to make up for.”

Chapter Three

It took us forty-five minutes to get to her place. I’d never been to Colorado. Never seen the Rockies. I couldn’t stop gawking at them in the distance. How had we lived in Nebraska for nearly fifteen years and never headed west? We’d made a million trips straight south to Texas and a few trips out east to visit my mom’s parents. But never west.

“Home sweet home. I know it’s not as nice as your grandparents’ home in Houston, but I want you to feel like it’s yours. We can decorate your room. Paint. Whatever you want. Fisher said as long as we don’t tear down walls, the sky’s the limit.”

“Fisher?” I asked while climbing out of her Subaru Outback.

“Fisher Mann. My landlord.”

“Interesting name.” I chuckled while my mom retrieved my suitcase from the back of her car.

“It is.” She grinned, nodding toward a cobblestone path that wound around to the side of the sprawling ranch home with an unobstructed view of the mountains.

“There’s a door to the house through the screened-in porch, but I usually go in through here because there’s a locker area to put coats, shoes, purses, etcetera.”

She unlocked the door, and I followed her into the basement. It was nice—way nicer than I expected, not basement feeling at all. A wall of west-facing windows gave it depth, not that it needed any illusion. The vast family room held a mammoth sectional, big screen TV, and a pool table.

“You’ve bought a lot of stuff.”

“Pfft …” She shook her head. “No. The family room came furnished. I purchased beds for the two bedrooms and bedding. Towels. Kitchen stuff. And by me, I mean my parents loaned me the money.”

“I see.” My other grandparents. I saw them three times while my mom was incarcerated. My father wasn’t exactly accommodating.

“Let’s see if Fisher is upstairs. I want you to meet him; then we can grab food and spend the rest of the evening catching up.”

Catching up … I found that odd. The catching up would be very one-sided. There was no way she had that much to catch me up on in regard to her life.