“It’s crazy, right?” Callie could hear Lexi in the other room. “Two hundred and four freaking million dollars… I just… I just can’t believe it!” She spoke so fast into the phone, Callie wondered if Seth could even get a word in. “We’re going to have the best wedding this town has ever seen! And a house! And you can get a new truck.… Hell, you can get five new trucks!” Lexi finally paused for a second. “No, I’m not pranking you.”
Callie laughed. She couldn’t even imagine what was going through Seth’s head at this moment. She glanced at the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by a breakfast bar. Her sister was hurriedly pacing the small area back and forth, trailing her hand over the Formica counter. Hanna kept saying into the phone, “Yes!” over and over again as her smile stretched from ear to ear.
“It’s about sixty-eight million each before taxes,” Hanna said, scratching her head. She paused and then did a quick twirl. “Babe, we’re set for life.”
As she continued listening to her sisters, Callie tried to think about what she should do with her winnings. She didn’t fantasize about new cars and houses. None of that mattered to her.
Callie stared at the cracked phone in her hands. She felt like she should be calling someone to tell them the news. She had friends, but no one important enough to be the first she told about this. One of her sisters laughed in the background. Her mind flashed to Garrett, but she quickly shoved that thought away. What happened at the happy hour was still fresh in her mind. She needed to move on. But as she sat there feeling pathetic on the sofa all alone, she couldn’t think of anyone special to call.
Actually… that wasn’t true. She opened her contacts and hit the first name to pop up in her favorites list. The phone rang twice.
“Mom,” she said quickly into the phone. “I’ve got some crazy news.”
CHAPTER 6 Hanna
The morning sun peeked in through the navy blackout curtains that didn’t actually block any light, and the birds chirped merrily outside of the window, waking Hanna from a deep sleep. She rubbed her eyes and snuggled into the crook of Tom’s shoulder, inhaling the lingering woodsy scent of his aftershave. She wished they could just stay in bed all day. Her head was pounding with a familiar headache that only came after drinking cheap wine. She slowly remembered guzzling the bottle of champagne at Callie’s the night before.
Wait. She sat up quickly. Her head pounded even more from the sudden movement.
Flashes of the guy on the TV reading their numbers and the selfie with the ticket flooded her memory. A jolt coursed through her. Never in her life had she questioned whether something was real or just a dream, but today she wasn’t sure.
Hanna poked Tom on the shoulder. “Babe,” she whispered. “Are we really millionaires?” She expected him to grunt and call her crazy before going back to sleep.
With his head still on the pillow, he opened one eye grudgingly, then slowly smiled.
Hanna squealed, leaning in and kissing him with more passion than on their wedding night. She looked down and realized she wasn’t wearing her usual combo of cotton jogging pants and an old T-shirt. “Looks like we both got lucky last night,” she said with a giggle, running her hand down the silky white lingerie on her body.
She gave her husband another peck on the lips, his beard tickling her chin, and grabbed her phone off the nightstand. Thirty-eight new messages. They were all texts from her sisters throughout the night. As she scanned them, it looked like Callie had calculated everyone’s share.
I’m setting up a meeting with a financial advisor this week, but I crunched some numbers quickly, her responsible middle sister had texted at two fifteen in the morning. Hanna could just see Callie sitting up studiously in bed by herself, getting joy from looking up the latest tax codes. From what I can gather, if we take the lump sum and pay taxes on everything, we’ll each walk away with around $22 mil!
Hanna’s skin tingled as she stared at the number on her screen. That was more money than she ever could have imagined making in her lifetime. She looked back over at Tom and smiled. “I think I’m gonna quit my job.” She had been working at the nursing home for the past seven years and had probably spent more time griping about her boss and coworkers than she did actually helping the residents, which was the only thing she wanted to do in the first place.
“Do it!” he said, squeezing her shoulders with his strong hands. “You deserve it.”
She held her shoulders back, feeling lighter already.
“Maybe I can finally start my own construction business,” Tom said, leaning his head against the reclaimed wood headboard he had made for her as a gift for her twenty-fifth birthday. He was so talented with his hands. “Bobby-Joe and I have always talked about doing it.”
“I would invest in you,” she said with a husky voice, running her fingers through his messy brown hair.
“Maybe my first project can be to finally fix up this old place.” He gestured to the house around them.
“Actually…” She straightened her posture and turned toward him on the bed. “I was thinking—what if we just say, ‘screw it,’ and buy a new house? This one is so beyond repair, really.” She braced herself for his reaction. No matter how many times she complained about the old house, he always defended it.
Tom didn’t react for a few seconds. It looked as though he was actually giving thought to her proposal. Maybe, just maybe, he would finally agree that it was time to move on. “We can’t leave this place,” he said with a groan. There it was. “It’s got family history. Don’t you want to see what we can do with it? Fix it up like we’ve always wanted to now that we have the money?”
“It would take forever,” she explained, thinking about how horrible it would be to live in a construction zone. “Plus, I’m tired of waiting.” There were some things that she would miss about it, of course. It had an original fireplace with an embellished mantel in the dining room and a charming bay window in the living room. And it was in a quiet neighborhood with a decent-sized lot and a pretty backyard covered in mature pecan trees. But Hanna couldn’t even remember the last time she took a moment to enjoy it. She was always doing something else, like hand-washing the dishes since their dishwasher was always on the fritz, or unclogging their one toilet upstairs because the pipes were so old. It felt like there was never free time to enjoy anything because she was always dealing with the stupid house. She shook her head. “I just think it’s time to start fresh. There’s that beautiful new subdivision you worked on that has a bunch of houses for sale.” She wanted to tell him she had already picked out her dream house, but didn’t know how to explain her self-guided tour of the place.
Tom raised an eyebrow as if he was pondering it.
Her heart beat fast.
“I guess if you want a new house, we’ll get a new house,” he finally said.
She clapped her hands together quickly and put her arms around his neck. That was easier than she thought it’d be. “I knew you’d come around,” Hanna said sweetly, touching her forehead against his.
“It’s kind of hard to say no to the girl who just made me a millionaire.” He let out a small chuckle and kissed her cheek. “But seriously, it’s your money, so I’ll support you if that’s what you want.” He paused and looked around the room with a nostalgic look in his eye. The crown molding was cracked, the once-white light fixture was now yellow, and the springtime humidity was seeping through the window that wouldn’t close all the way. “I still don’t know why you’d want to give all of this up, but…”