Everyone dispersed, and the good mood lingered. Regretfully, I released Becca’s hand and walked to my office. I hadn’t even sat down when Maddox and Aiden came in. I tensed when Bentley followed, shutting my door. It was rare Bentley joined them, so I knew something was up. Maddox and Aiden sat in the chairs, but Bentley remained standing. It was his way of controlling the room.
I waited for them to speak, unsure what was happening.
Bentley met my curious gaze. “First off, you did an outstanding job. What Richard said was correct. I have never seen anything so smooth in my life.”
“Good,” I responded. “That was my goal.”
“He tells me the report you created gave him information it would have taken him hours to collect. He is beyond impressed.”
“Great.”
“As part of our partnership, I’m going to let him have access to that report to use. License it to him and The Gavin Group.”
“Okay, I’ll make the arrangements.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew an envelope, sliding it toward me. “This is for you, with our thanks.”
I didn’t touch it.
He pushed it farther. “You earned it, Reid. It’s yours.”
I picked it up, feeling the weight of the heavy stationery. The envelope was thick, my name written in black in Bentley’s neat cursive on the front.
I met their gazes steadily. “Thank you. I didn’t expect anything. I was only doing my job.”
Aiden snorted. “Reid, you go above and beyond your job daily. We’re all aware of what you do around here. You deserve it and more.”
Something prickled at my eyes, and I blinked to clear them. “Thanks,” I mumbled again.
Maddox chuckled. “Okay, we’ll leave it there. We have one more thing to discuss with you.”
I slid the envelope into my desk drawer. I would look at it later in private. Grabbing a pen, I pulled my notebook close. “Okay, what do you need me to do?”
“You won’t need notes,” Maddox assured me. “I spoke with Bentley and Bill in the legal department about your passport.”
“Oh.” My embarrassment reappeared, my ears burning with heat.
He tapped the desk. “You’re coming to the wedding, Reid. You can apply for a passport, and you should be able to get one. There are no travel restrictions where we’re going, if you have a record. Bill is going to work with you on it, and he’ll also help you apply to clear your criminal record.”
Bentley spoke up. “I’m surprised you haven’t done that. Your lawyer should have advised you.”
I snorted. “I had a string of public defenders, Bentley. I never had a lawyer who cared.”
“You didn’t check into it?”
I tossed my glasses onto the desk and scrubbed my face. “To be honest, no. When I got out of jail, I just tried to survive. I did everything I was supposed to do. I stayed within the law. I followed my probation to the letter. When that ended, all I wanted was to move away from it.” I met Bentley’s gaze. “I never thought about the future. Travel, a job . . . other things—all of it seemed unattainable.”
He shook his head. “It’s not, Reid. You have a job, a new life, and people who care. A future. You have proven yourself worthy of it to us.” He cocked his head, studying me. “When will you believe you’re worthy of it yourself?”
His words hit me, and I stared at him.
He leaned on the desk, his voice low. “We’re your family, and we take care of family. This company will help with your passport issue and stand behind you to get your record cleared. Whatever you need, we’re here for you.” He reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “Stop letting your past get in the way, Reid. Grab life and live it.”
I gaped at him, only able to nod in reply. Bentley rarely got personal. Aiden and Maddox were the ones I spoke to the most.
He straightened up and tugged on his sleeves. “Okay. I’ll leave you to figure it out. Bill has already started the paperwork. You need a picture and two guarantors. Any of us will sign for you.”
He strode from my office, leaving me with Maddox and Aiden.
I met Maddox’s gaze. “Thank you.”
He rose from the chair. “Bentley was right. We’re family. You helped me, and I’m returning the favor. That’s how we work here at BAM. We have one another’s backs.”
I extended my hand. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”
He shook my hand, hard and fast, and winked. “Yeah, I think I do.” He left with a wave.
“You okay, kid?” Aiden asked.
“Yeah.”
He stood. “The day I hired you, I told you not to let me down.”
“I remember.” I looked at him, incredulous. “I didn’t expect any of this.”
“You’ve earned your place here, Reid. You’ve held true to your word and made me proud. You made all of us proud.” He indicated the drawer. “That is our thanks for a job well done, and the rest is because, as Bentley said, we’re family.”
His smack on the back was much harder than Bentley’s was.
But I was grinning as he left my office.
After lunch, I stopped by Sandy’s desk. She finished typing on her keyboard and looked up with a smile.
“Reid.”
“Sandy.” I winked.
“Coming to schedule your days off?”
I shook my head, laughing. “I don’t need time off.”
“Yes, you do. Aiden is insisting on it. You have so much overtime, it is frightening.”
“Overtime?”
She sighed, pulling up a file on her screen. “Aiden figures we owe you about a month in extra time. Last week alone you worked the equivalent of two weeks. Add in the weekend, and it’s even more.”
“Can I see that?” I indicated her laptop.
She handed it to me, and I scanned the file. Aiden had been keeping better track of my hours than I thought. With a couple of taps, I erased everything and handed it back. She glared at me.
“Put that back, young man.”
I shook my head. “No one asked me to work all those other hours, Sandy. I did it because I love my job. I am not taking time off for it.” I chuckled. “I’d only come in here anyway, so why bother?”
She huffed in frustration. “I told Aiden you would say that. They want you to take some time off and enjoy yourself.”
“I enjoy work.”
“Maybe you could spend some extra time with Becca?” she asked with a wink. “Bentley is giving her a few days off as well.”
I frowned and shrugged.
She pursed her lips. Standing, she came around to the front of the desk. “What is going on, Reid?”
Before I could answer, her phone rang. She glanced at the screen with a frown and held up her finger. “Excuse me. I need to take this call.”
She lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
Her face turned ghostly white, and tears sprang to her eyes as she listened to a voice on the other end. She made a choking sound, and her trembling hand reached out, gripping my arm.
“No,” she whispered. “God, no!”
Her phone hit the floor, and she buried her face in her hands, falling hard into my chest as her legs gave out. Panicking, I shouted her name, trying to hold her upright.
Chaos broke out at my yell. Aiden came running down the hall, his eyes wide when he saw me.
“What the hell?” he shouted, scooping her up. Maddox followed him, Bentley close at his heels. They all gathered around her, concerned.
Maddox grabbed her phone, speaking fast into the mouthpiece, demanding to know who it was on the line. His eyes grew round and he turned his back, lowering his voice. Aiden carried an incoherent Sandy to Bentley’s office.
Maddox followed with a grave face.
“What is it?” Bentley demanded.
“It’s Max. He had a heart attack.”
Sandy’s sobs grew louder.
“He didn’t survive.”
I tugged
on the collar of my shirt, uncomfortable and tense. I had never been to a funeral before, and I found it overwhelming. The flowers, the music, the people, and the sadness.
Jesus, the sadness.
I stood close to Sandy. We all did. Since Max had passed, one of us had been with Sandy all the time. Even when her stepson, Aaron, arrived and Colin was around, we stayed nearby. Colin’s sister, Jennifer, arrived last night and we had shaken hands when I offered my condolences, but I hadn’t spoken to her otherwise.
I didn’t know what to say.
I didn’t know what to say to anyone. I recalled the feeling of sadness when Mrs. Reid was gone, the pain of losing Rodney, and the anger of not being able to grieve his passing with anyone. I felt the loss of Max, saddened by his death, yet in the face of the devastation of his family’s grief, it seemed insignificant. I didn’t want to take away from their pain by expressing mine.
The first time Sandy had brought me to her house, Max was accepting and kind. Our conversations were always spirited and interesting. The affection between them was obvious, and he teased her about her adopting yet another “misfit,” as he called us. The term made me laugh, given he was including Bentley, Aiden, and Maddox in the description. I enjoyed spending time with him. Diagnosed with late-onset MS, Max struggled with his failing body, since his mind remained razor-sharp. They’d had their home refitted to accommodate his needs, and I developed some cool voice-activated systems to augment what he already had in place. I knew the disease took its toll on both of them in different ways, but Sandy was devoted to him.
Now, she was lost. It hurt to watch her. Always vibrant and filled with light, she was a pale shadow of herself. The shock of the massive heart attack that struck Max had taken some of her life as well. Colin rarely left her side, and Bentley, Aiden, or Maddox, often all three, stood behind her, carefully monitoring her needs. They were worried over her lack of tears. She hadn’t wept since receiving the call. Not once.
She did all the right things. Shook hands, kissed cheeks, accepted murmured words of condolence, and offered platitudes of thanks. She was dressed in a black suit, her hair swept into its usual chignon, but everything was off. Her suit jacket gaped open, her hair not as perfect as usual. Her expression was empty, her smile forced and sad, her posture defeated and closed off with her grief.
Somehow, that hurt more than Max’s death.
Van appeared beside me, his gigantic frame poured into a suit. Used to seeing him in T-shirts, jeans, or overalls, I had barely recognized him. He had his jacket pulled tight across his shoulders, the sleeves taut around his biceps, and he looked as uncomfortable as I felt in my suit—as if we were pretending to be someone that we were not.
“How you holding up?” he asked, shaking my hand.
“Fine.”
“I see you boys are keeping a close watch on Sandy.”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Did you know Max?”
“I did,” he stated. “I’ve done a lot of work at Sandy’s place. She is constantly changing things, and Max let her do whatever she wanted. We had some great conversations. He liked to watch me work.” He shook his head. “He worshiped her.”
“She felt the same for him.”
“I know. I liked being around them. It was always a lesson in how a relationship should work, you know?”
Since I was failing at my first attempt at a relationship, I couldn’t offer him an opinion. “She’s going to miss him.”
Van nodded, draining the cup of coffee he was carrying. “She will. And as sad as that is, it’s a testament to the love they shared. We should all be lucky enough to have someone miss us when we’re gone.”
Then, as if he said too much, he turned and walked away, his long stride carrying him fast.
Becca stepped beside me. “Are you all right, Reid?”
I glanced down at her, offering her a tight smile. “I’m fine. It’s Sandy who needs our help.”
She frowned, edging closer. “I know you spent a lot of time with him. Sandy said Max was very fond of you.” She indicated the guys behind Sandy, watching over her. “She said he was fond of all of her adopted boys.”
“He was very kind. He never judged me. I appreciated his company.”
She slipped her hand into mine. “It’s okay for you to grieve, Reid.”
I swallowed and looked away. “I’m fine.”
She sighed. “You keep saying that. You’re fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine. I think I hate that word.”
I was at a loss how to respond to Becca. Another week had gone by without being alone with her. Without touching her. I missed her easy company and gentle spirit. I missed her body and the deep sense of belonging I had when we were together intimately. I wanted hours to be with her. To talk and laugh. To make love to her. To be us. But Sandy took priority, and Becca understood that.
At least, I thought she did.
“Now isn’t the time to talk about it,” I murmured.
Her hand dropped from mine. “Will there ever be a good time for you?”
I faced her, keeping my voice low. “What does that mean?”
Our gazes locked. Her eyes filled with sadness and confusion. “I know something is going on in your head, Reid. It’s been messing with you since the launch, and now you’re burying it along with your grief. You’re using it to push me away.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m trying to help Sandy. She needs me.”
“Of course she does. She needs all of you. But Bentley, Aiden, and Maddox are still going home to their partners and talking to them. You’ve completely shut me out. Your door is closed at the office, you don’t respond to my texts, and you walk right past my building when you leave Sandy’s at night.”
I frowned. “What?”
“I saw you twice. You went right past me. You could have stopped. Even if all you wanted to do was talk, I would have been there for you.” She cupped my cheek. “I wanted to be there for you, but you refuse to let me.”
I stared at her, silent and tongue-tied, my emotions and fears at war in my head.
She shook her head and stepped back. “You’re right. It’s not the place. But Reid, you need to find the place and the words.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Or I might not keep waiting.”
She slipped through the crowd, walking away from me without a backward glance.
And I let her.
I handed Sandy a cup of tea, the steam carrying the scent of bergamot into the air. She accepted it with an absent smile of thanks. I sat across from her, sipping my cup. I wasn’t big on tea, but I didn’t mind the occasional cup, and Sandy preferred it to coffee.
Glancing around, I grimaced at all the arrangements in the room. Despite the fact that the obituary asked for donations to the MS Society in lieu of flowers, they had arrived daily. The funeral home sent a vast amount of them to various nursing homes and hospitals to add some brightness to those places.
Aaron had left to return to Ottawa, with plans to come back next week. Jennifer had only stayed for the funeral, leaving for Europe the same day, anxious to return to her life. Colin was back at work in the busy ER, having taken most of the week off to be with Sandy.
Bentley, Aiden, and Maddox were at home, after spending the bulk of the day with Sandy. I worked then came to spend the evening with Sandy. Neither of us had eaten much of the casserole someone had brought for dinner, but at least I got her to eat a little.
“This is the hard part,” she mused.
“What?”
She set down her tea, pulling a shawl around her shoulders. With her hair down and free of makeup, she looked younger than her years, despite the exhaustion on her face.
“We had a long time to prepare for this, but I still wasn’t ready. Max always thought the MS would kill him before anything else.” She sighed. “In many ways, he would have preferred it happen this way. He dreaded thinking his body would wither away, leaving him trapped.”
I shifted in my chair, my throat tight.<
br />
“People gather when someone dies. They hover and check, make sure the spouse or child is being taken care of, then after the funeral, they go back to their lives, and that person has to learn to live again.” She pulled her legs to her chest, linking her arms around them.
I cleared my throat. “You’re not alone, Sandy. We won’t let you be.”
She shook her head. “No, Reid. You can’t babysit me all the time. It’s part of the process. I have to learn to live again. It will take me a while, but I will do it.”
“I’m here. We all are—anything you need.”
“I know, and I’m fortunate. I never had kids of my own, but I have you boys, and my grandkids—especially Colin. You all bring me so much joy. I consider myself fortunate.” She was silent for a minute, playing with the fringe on her shawl. “I have been very lucky. I have a job I love, people I care about. My marriage was the greatest blessing. I loved Max so much, and he was crazy about me. Right from the moment we met—it was instant. We had a wonderful life together. Not perfect, but no one’s life is. I have so many amazing memories.”
She leaned her cheek on her hands, studying me. “That’s what life is, Reid. Building memories. One sweet moment at a time. You build and store them. They help bolster you when you need them.”
All I could do was nod. I had no words to offer.
“Right before I got the call, I asked you something.”
“We don’t have to talk about that right now.”
“Yes, we do. I know you’re struggling, Reid.”
“It’s not important, Sandy. You’re the one I’m worried about.”
She smiled sadly. “I’m grieving for the life I have lost. For the love that I will miss every day. What you’re doing is far more painful to watch.”
“What I’m doing? I’m n-not doing anything,” I sputtered.
“You’re shutting down. You’re throwing away the chance of a lifetime. You’re letting your doubts and worries dictate your actions.”
Reid: Vested Interest #4 Page 16
