Bad Girls Don't by Cathie Linz

good at either thing—playing it safe, or waiting. However, once inside, she did knock on Owen’s door and wait for his invitation to enter.
    “Hi, Owen. I got you a surprise. Do you have a minute?”
    He smiled at her. “For you, always.”
    “I know how much you’re into the lottery, so I got you some of these cards.” She spread a handful of them on his desk.
    “The Pennsylvania Lottery is the only one that uses the funds to benefit senior citizens, you know,” Owen told her.
    “So you only participate to help seniors, huh?”
    “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Here.” He handed her a few of the cards. “Those are instant winners. Do me a favor and rub them with a coin for me.” He handed her a quarter. “My fingers are a little arthritic today.”
    Skye felt badly for him. “I shouldn’t have gotten this kind, then. Sorry.”
    “That’s okay. So what did you get?”
    “I have no idea.” She held up the ticket to him.
    “Not a winner. Try another one.”
    “You do realize that the chances of your winning is probably something like one in a billion.”
    “Actually, for this game, the odds are a little better.”
    “You call this a game?” she scoffed. “Baseball is a game. This is a waste of time.”
    “Let me see.”
    Skye showed him.
    “Not a winner. There’s one left,” he said.
    “You know what you are?” After rubbing with the coin, Skye didn’t even bother looking at the card before showing it to him. “You’re an eternal optimist.”
    “Son of a buck! You know what you are? You’re a winner !”

Chapter Four
    “Right. It’s kind of you to say so, but I’ve got to go—”
    “I’m not kidding!” Owen’s face was turning red with excitement. Or maybe he was having a stroke . . .
    Great. She’d given him a gift that gave him heart trouble.
    “Calm down,” she urged him. “Take a deep breath.”
    “Are you listening to me? You’re a winner!”
    “Here, sit down.” Skye hurried to his side and lowered Owen into the office chair.
    He popped right back up. “I don’t need to sit down.”
    “Okay, okay.” She was aiming for a soothing voice, but that wasn’t one she used very often. She sure didn’t want to sound bossy like her good-girl sister.
    “You’re not hearing me.”
    Skye tried to be sympathetic. “That’s a problem for a lot of people these days, the feeling that they’re not being heard. That their views and emotions aren’t valued.”
    “I’m not talking about my views or emotions! I’m talking about the lottery!”
    “Which you take seriously.” She patted his arm. “I get that. Really I do.”
    “And do you get that this is a winning ticket?” He waved the card right in front of her nose, his arthritic knuckles almost hitting her. “An instant million-dollar winner!”
    “Yeah, right. Very funny, Owen.”
    “I’m not joking.”
    “Let me see.” The way he was flapping that card around, she couldn’t read a word.
    A second later, Owen was the one leading a shaken Skye to a chair. She jumped up a second later and hugged him. “I’m so glad for you!”
    He blinked. “For me?”
    “You’re a millionaire!”
    “I was already a millionaire. A number of times over.”
    “Well, now you’ve got even more.”
    “It’s yours.” He held it out to her.
    “No, it’s not.” She gently pushed against his hand. “I gave you the lottery ticket as a gift.”
    “And I’m giving you the million dollars as a gift.”
    “That hardly seems a fair exchange.”
    “Skye, you need the money much more than I do. I’ve got no family left, aside from my pain-in-the-behind nephew, Milton. And heaven knows I don’t want him to have this. Think of what you could do with a million dollars.”
    She shook her head. Money had never been important to her. She’d never bothered worrying about it. Somehow, some way, something always came through.
    “Don’t you have a dream that you’d like to see come true?”
    “Plenty of them,” she