Read Online Sweet Justice by Cynthia Reese - Free Book Online Page A

think about it. Katelyn had been still fighting for her life, and something about suing anybody at that point seemed almost guaranteed to jinx her progress.
    Her coworker had insisted, even to the point of bringing an attorney that she knew to see Mallory in the hospital.
    Chad had sat down with her, put her at ease right away. “You’re not taking anything from anybody,” he’d pointed out. “They took something from you . They took Katelyn’s health away, now, didn’t they? Shouldn’t they pay the medical bills?”
    And so she’d allowed him to look into things. He’d been enthusiastic about the merits of the case—a fireman admitting that he’d left a poor helpless teenager in a burning building? Surely any jury would award them the medical expenses and give them a little money to help recompense Mallory for the days she’d had to be away from work to stay with Katelyn.
    Those medical bills... Every single day in the ICU was another ten grand, and it went on and on, setback after setback. Mallory had only been able to afford the bare-bones catastrophic insurance plan for her and Katelyn, with a deductible that was ten thousand dollars, and her coinsurance after that was 40 percent of the negotiated rates of service, until an out-of-pocket max of twenty-five thousand dollars. Already the monthly payments for that deductible and her 40 percent were eating into their tight cash flow, but what else could she do? File bankruptcy? Her parents would have never countenanced that.
    No. This was a new day. The county would help pay that debt—what was twenty-five thousand dollars to a big county government anyway? The lawyer assured her that the county carried insurance for exactly this situation—it wouldn’t actually cost them anything.
    And that was all she needed, those bills paid off, the slate wiped clean, so that she and Katelyn could start over. Mallory had a job, wheels under her that didn’t require gas, a roof over her and Katelyn’s heads—they would make it.
    They had to make it.
    She’d passed the shop where she’d be working and pulled to a stop at the traffic light to check the big old-fashioned clock hanging off a bank’s granite exterior: 9:30. She had time to duck in somewhere and change clothes—but where? Was the library open?
    It wasn’t, but the squat and rather ugly municipal building a block or two from the downtown was, and she availed herself of the public restrooms. By the time she locked her bike to the bike rack near the shop and pushed open the door with its carefully scripted name, BASH, on the glass, it was 9:45.
    Eleanor Bash, the owner, looked up. She’d been unpacking and steaming something seriously chiffony and yummy to Mallory. “Good morning! Did I see you wheel by here on a bike?”
    Mallory blushed at the thought that Eleanor had spotted her on that old bike and in that terribly childish helmet. “Uh, yeah. Am I late? Should I have come in the back?”
    â€œGracious, no, but next time, feel free to use the bathroom in the back. I even have a shower in there, if you feel the need. My brother cycles—to the point he shaves his legs, can you believe it? I know all about how a cyclist needs to clean up.”
    A huge weight lifted off Mallory’s shoulders. She’d hoped that her first impressions of her new boss had been right on, and it looked as if they were. “That looks lovely—how can I help?” she asked.
    â€œDon’t you just love this color? Lemon yellow probably won’t sell until spring, but, oh, I hate the winter!” Eleanor shuddered. “How about you start checking off that packing list? Sometimes this particular company, bless ’em, shorts me, so I have to be extracareful.”
    The workday had begun, busy enough, though nothing as hectic as the city boutique she’d worked in previously. Eleanor had warned her at the