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loved her.
    “Hang on,” Dina said. “There was that 7-Eleven she worked at for a while as a cover up for what she was really doing. She must’ve thought I was dumb to believe money like that came from selling bubblegum and cigarettes.” Her smile fell. “Completely slipped my mind. But no, I’m not about to believe that’s where you know her from.”
    Beau smiled thinly. “It’s not.” Walking into a 7-Eleven years ago and coming face to face with a young Lola might’ve changed his life. Before his money, he’d been like any other boy trying to get a girl’s attention. For the most part, he was too distracted by work to care, but he couldn’t imagine walking away from Lola back then, before he’d ever tasted power—or rejection.
    “She never worked here?” he asked.
    “This place? You mean the diner with quicksand floors?” She laughed at her joke. “People get stuck here. Mario in the kitchen came in to use the restroom twenty years ago. I didn’t want that for her. She can do better than her old lady.”
    “Lola’s very smart,” Beau agreed.
    “Pity she got stuck on the Strip,” she said.
    “At Cat Shoppe, you mean?”
    Dina eyed him. “No. I’m talking about Hey Joe, where I said she works now. Not that I did any better for myself, but I wanted her to become something. She was a proud little girl, though.”
    “Pride’s not always a bad thing.”
    “You don’t watch out, pride’ll get you. Lola didn’t want nobody telling her what to do, especially me. Thought she knew better. She had a fighting spirit. Too much. Then she hooked up with Johnny, and he calmed her down lots, but while she’s with him, she won’t go much of anywhere.” Dina was barely looking at him anymore. “Johnny’s a good man, but sometimes I wonder where she’d be now if she hadn’t met him. Maybe this whole side of town’s quicksand.”
    A hint of thickness in her voice made Beau wonder if she missed her daughter. “Why don’t you two speak?”
    Dina shook her head slowly and looked up at the ceiling a moment. “I wasn’t a good mom. I know that. She knew it too since she was little. Like you said—she’s smart. Smarter than anyone in my family.”
    Beau’d heard enough of Lola’s childhood to know Dina could’ve done better. The fact that she kept Lola out of the diner said something, though. She saw the same potential in Lola Beau had. “I’m sure you weren’t as bad as you think.”
    She snorted. “When I got pregnant with her, I quit smoking. Not because I was worried about the baby, but because it made me sick. Nausea, heartburn, all that. I was pissed about it, thought it was unfair. I loved my cigarettes. What’s that say about me?”
    One of her bushy eyebrows crinkled. He wanted to tell her that everybody made mistakes and that most people never copped to them. They went on thinking they’d been good people. Beau had seen it in business time and time again—those who owned their mistakes, like Beau, were successful because they didn’t make them a second time.
    “Anyway, when I found out about the stripping,” she continued, “I told her to stop. Said I hadn’t done much for her in my life, but I was putting my foot down. I think that made her want to do it more.”
    So Lola had been stubborn from the start. It didn’t surprise him, and he understood why someone like Johnny had tried to tame her. Wild horses were as easy to lose as they were to love. “Were you ever close?”
    “No. I never planned for her. It was her dad who wanted a kid until he had one. He bolted when he realized it wasn’t all fun and games. Took me a lifetime to get over it, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want good things for her.”
    It’d been a while since Beau had taken an interest in anyone’s life when it didn’t benefit him. Even Brigitte. He set down his fork and got comfortable in his seat. “Tell me more.”
    “Not much to tell. She was young when he left, and I got all the