Emerald Fire (Christian Romance) (The Jewel Series) (10 page)

Robin finished stretching and came forward the three steps to hug Maxine. As she released her and stepped back, Maxine put her hands on either side of her sister’s swelling stomach, leaning her face close enough that her nose touched it. “Hello little niece or nephew.” She smiled as she received a kick in the nose. “Hey, let’s sit. You can put your feet in my lap.”

Robin smiled as they took a seat at the desk. “I don’t need to put my feet up, but thank you.” She held her hand out and Maxine took it and bowed her head. Robin blessed the meal, thanking God for the food and for the relationship that only sisters could share.

Maxine felt the sting of tears in her throat when it was over. It wasn’t until she chewed and swallowed the first heavenly bite that she asked, “What did you want to talk about?”

Robin washed down her own bite of hamburger with a long pull of water before answering. “I want to start off by apologizing for getting so angry with you. That was wrong of me. Please forgive me.”

Maxine cocked an eyebrow. “Sure.”

Robin put a hand on the side of her stomach and shifted. “Secondly, I want to ask just what you’re doing.”

“I’m sharing lunch with my sister. What do you think I’m doing?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been a big fan of your closeness with Barry. He is …“ she paused and corrected herself, “… was married and you two spent an awful lot of time alone.”

Maxine felt some heat creep into her cheeks. “Alone while his wife was …”

“There’s no reason that one person’s wrong should justify another’s.”

“Barry and I were only friends. It never went further.”

“I understand that. But you just used past tense, and now that there isn’t a wife in the picture, will it stay that way?”

“How should I know the answer to that?” Maxine surged to her feet and grabbed an empty box. She snatched a picture frame off the desk and shoved it into the box.

“Maxi …”

A paperweight and a stress ball followed. “No. I’m not listening to anymore. I admire Barry’s ability to have worked at being faithful to that – that woman he was married to. I don’t know what will happen in my future or his future. I just know that he is one of my best friends and I have always enjoyed spending time with him. I realize that you’ve never understood my relationship with men and that you condemn it in your mind, but I can watch a football game with a widower and not end up like our mother!”

Robin’s eyes widened. “Is that what you think this is about?”

“What else is there?”

Robin teetered her way out of the chair and put a hand on her lower back. “Maxi, I’m concerned about you. Not because our mother was a drug addict who moved from dealer to pusher and hauled us with her. I’m concerned because Barry has been pulling away from God, and I’m worried about his anger right now.”

All of the steam left Maxine and her hands stilled. “His anger?”

“His anger. He’s spent weeks pushing everyone aside. He won’t even talk with Tony or pray with Tony about it. He is full of anger about Jacqueline’s pregnancy, his marriage, her death. I’m worried that he’s going to go through some all out rebellion and take you with him.” Her eyes filled with tears and she dashed them away with jerky movements.

Maxine rushed forward and took Robin’s hand. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Maxi, I know you believe in God. But I also know that you go to church to please me and Sarah. I know that. I know you don’t have the zest I have. But I also know that you will. One day, the Holy Spirit is going to knock you in the head with a two by four and you’ll not be able to deny it. But starting a relationship with a man who is so angry will pull you away from God.”

Maxine couldn’t fathom why Robin was so upset. It didn’t make sense to her. She put her hands on either side of Robin’s belly. “You have so much going on right now that worrying about whether I will start a relationship with Barry Anderson should be at the bottom of the list.” She pulled her close and hugged her. “I love you. And I so appreciate how much you love me. Did you know that?”

“I know you do.” She pulled back and looked deeply into Maxine’s eyes. “But, please. Keep this conversation in mind as you go forward from this day.”

To make Robin feel better, she smiled. “Of course.” Gesturing back to the desk, she said, “Let’s get that meal eaten. I’d hate to face Casey’s wrath if we sent back plates with just one bite out of each burger.”

“After work tonight, can you help me run an errand?”

“Sure.” Maxine sat back down in her chair and picked up her hamburger. “Where are we going?” She took a big bite of the delicious sandwich.

“I have a box of Bibles and hymnals I need to take to Craig at the prison. Tony usually goes with me, but he’s not free tonight, and they need them for a worship service Craig’s leading tomorrow.”

Craig Bartlett was Robin’s biological father who was currently serving the remainder of a 20 year sentence for a double homicide committed decades in the past. One of the lives he had taken had been their mother.

Maxine nodded and swallowed. “Glad to help,” she said.

Robin put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Thank you.”

BARRY
didn’t know what to expect when he walked into his offices after court on Monday afternoon. He felt a very real uncertainty about how people would treat him. Almost all of the staff had attended the funeral, and those who hadn’t attended had most certainly heard about his outburst by now. So if he felt a bit of trepidation as he stepped off the elevator, certainly some justification for that feeling existed.

The receptionist’s face flushed and she stammered as she bid him good afternoon. He thought she would actually thank God outright when the phone interrupted them. As he walked through the outer area and past secretaries’ cubicles and desks, a wake of first silence then murmuring and whispering followed. When he finally made it to his office area, his own secretary quickly hung up the phone and stood. “Mr. Anderson,” she said, grabbing at a stack of messages. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to be in or not today.”

A war widow with two teenage sons, his secretary, Elizabeth, had worked for him since he opened his own practice. Her knowledge of the law often rivaled his junior associates, and he occasionally wondered why she didn’t bite the bullet and take her husband’s pension to attend law school herself. She typically dressed in conservative pantsuits and wore cross necklaces in all different styles and colors – whatever matched her suit of the day. She wore her hair in a long braid every day, and had never removed her wedding ring.

He paused beside her desk and set his briefcase on the floor by his feet and his travel mug of herbal tea on the corner of her desk so that he could thumb through the messages. “There’s no reason for me not to work today,” he said.

As he thumbed through the dozens of messages, she let out a breath. “I’m not quite sure what to say about that.”

The wall of callous defense he’d shorn up before entering the building fell at the look on her face. He immediately felt like an inhuman heel. “I apologize. I think I was prepared for this to all be a bad experience. I was defensive before there was cause, and that made me rude.”

“May I say something?”

“Of course.” He gripped the messages and mug in one hand and bent to pick up his briefcase.

“I realize that your marriage to Mrs. Anderson has – had – been strained for sometime. But despite that, she was a human being whom you shared a house with, if not a portion of your life. If you don’t allow some grieving, despite everything, you’re going to regret it at some point.”

“I appreciate that, Elizabeth. Thank you.” He gave her a slight nod. “Now I have work piled up from the last week, I’m sure, and I need to get to it.”

He left her standing there, gripping her necklace. He imagined her thinking about her late husband and wished that anything to do with his late wife wouldn’t cause her any pain. Elizabeth didn’t deserve any pain for anything.

Shutting the door behind him, a signal to everyone in his firm not to bother him, he entered his office. A decorator had taken the former football player persona to the extreme, but he’d never had it redone. People who came to see him because of his past life expected the decor to be what it was, so it did no harm. The dark green walls with stark white trim held shadow boxes of signed footballs, autographed photos, and Super Bowl posters. The hardwood floor had scattered rugs that mingled the colors of his former team with the colors of the wall, and flowers and knickknacks around the room drew it all together.

In one corner of the large expanse, a leather sofa and two leather wing-backed chairs formed a sitting area around a heavy wood coffee table. He often met with clients there. Removing the barrier of the desk lowered defenses and in many cases, fear. In the opposite corner and closest to the door, a conference table that comfortably seated eight crouched beneath a crystal chandelier. His huge desk, especially designed and customized to accommodate his large size, filled the other half of the room. It sat in front of a picture window that overlooked the water and the financial skyline. He purposefully picked the location of his offices for an easy walk to the courthouse. Credenzas on either side of his desk held the customary law journals and business books. He rarely opened them. He much preferred the ease of research using the slim laptop that he pulled out of his briefcase when he reached his desk.

Along with the half dozen messages she’d left on his cell phone and home phone voice mails, his mother had called here twice. He needed to go ahead and call her and get that out of the way. As he picked up the receiver of his phone, he sorted the messages between personal and business. The business stack was very small compared to the personal stack.

He quickly dialed his parents’ home and his mother answered on the first ring. “Hi, mom,” he said, sitting in his chair and swiveling it around to look out over the water.

“Barry.” She made the word a whole sentence. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I’m just fine, mom.”

From her end, a deep breath punctuated a long pause. “As long as you are. Do you need anything?”

Barry closed his eyes and felt an unfamiliar rush of emotion. He needed something. He needed to erase the last twenty years and hit restart. “I just want to get the next few days out of the way so that everyone and everything can go back to normal.”

Another long pause. “Okay. Fair enough. Do you want to come to dinner Sunday?”

“I would, but I’m going to the game. How about Saturday?”

“Your sisters will be here.”

With a short laugh, he thought of his three older sisters and shook his head. “Might as well get it all over with at one time.”

He could hear the smile in her voice. “Saturday it is then. See you at six.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed as he hung up the phone. He scribbled a note on the message slip which would later go into his laptop calendar just to ensure he would not forget. He knew that absolutely no excuse, no matter how grand, would allow him to duck out of that dinner.

Feeling a huge weight lifted by walking into his offices and then that simple phone call, he ignored the stack of personal calls and started making his way through the business calls. As he ended his third call, he pulled his laptop out of the briefcase and docked it, connecting it to its various plugs and ports, connecting the battery to power and the network card to hard wired connectivity. He didn’t yet trust wireless networks to keep his client’s information totally secure.

While concluding typing in the notes from the last call, his office door flew open and Tony Viscolli marched in. At his heels, Elizabeth looked surprised and a little bit angry. Tony turned around and gave her a smile. “Don’t worry, Liz. He’ll be fine with the interruption.” He shut the door in her face and came all the way into the room.

Tony always looked like the cover model of a men’s fashion magazine, whether he was going to a business meeting in some handmade Italian silk suit or sailing in the harbor in white Dockers and a cable knit sweater. This morning proved no exception. His gray suit, light blue shirt, and dark blue tie authoritatively announced confidence and business acumen. His dark hair and Sicilian features perfectly complemented the light fabric.