Page 40 of Beside the Rolling Waves
There. It was far more than he needed to say. He could have just said,I’ve got money, don’t worry about it. But he wanted her to understand that it wasn’t a matter of having a limited amount of money. While the money that he had was finite, it was also far more than they needed.
“All right. Wow.” She looked back down at her notebook and stared at it, either processing what he said or unsure what to write about that. How does one put down,he has more money than we could ever need?
“Now tell me about your horses,” he said, wanting to know how long the person who was watching them was going to beavailable. “How soon do you have to go and relieve the person who’s doing the work?” He squinted at her. “Do you have bookings that you need to be there for?”
“No. I sold them.”
He blinked, then straightened and pulled back, shock radiating through his body. “You sold your horses?”
“You sold your business,” she said, looking at him like it wasn’t any bigger deal than what he had done.
“But I didn’t want my business. I didn’t love it. And I just sold a piece of it. A piece that I was brokering that was set to make me a billionaire. I…” He paused and looked around. “I know we’re supposed to be talking about the babies and the schedule and the things we’re going to do, but…”
“And that’s what we need to talk about. I sold my horses, you sold your business, I imagine we probably both did it for the same reason. I wanted to be able to do the best I could for my sister and her babies, and to do that, I needed a reliable vehicle, and I needed to be able to leave without being tied to the stable. I also lived above the stable, and it wasn’t a fit place to bring the babies home to. Selling the horses enabled me to buy a reliable vehicle and move down here permanently. Or as long as my sister needed me.”
She looked down. Obviously her sister didn’t need her at all anymore, other than for her to keep her word about the babies.
“Wow. I’m sorry, you can’t hit a guy with that and not give him a chance to breathe.”
After hearing what she had done, he knew it was time. He couldn’t keep from telling her any longer. He stood, walked over to the couch, and held his hand out. She looked at it.
“What?” she asked, giving him a puzzled look. And then her eyes went back to his hand.
“Take it.”
Her lips pressed together, but she put the pen down on the table beside her, put her hand in his, and rose, standing before him in front of the couch.
They stood face-to-face, close enough that he could feel her breath on his neck and feel the heat that radiated from her body. See the pupils of her eyes and the fine lines that were at the corners where they didn’t used to be.
“Five years ago, I lost everything. I had been trying to build a fortune, you knew that. Learning business, investing, and trying to…basically trying to become rich. But I wanted to learn to be a businessman. I wanted to be able to support you in the way that you deserved.”
“I didn’t want that,” she said.
“I know. You know how many times over the last five years I thought back to how the more I seemed to live for money, the more you tried to tell me that you didn’t want it and seemed to actually start to hate having money.”
She looked away. She knew he was right.
“Anyway. I made a couple of risky decisions, because I was getting impatient. They should have made me money, and fast, but I ended up losing everything. I had to declare bankruptcy, although I paid every penny that I owed back, with interest. Even to people who wouldn’t have made me pay them back.”
“I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you,” she said, and there was a tremor in her voice.
“But I was ashamed to face you. I was ashamed for you to know that I wasn’t the big businessman that I was trying to be. That I had failed miserably, failed hard, failed spectacularly bad, and I just didn’t want you to look at me and see someone who was less than.”
“Rodney. I saw you at your worst.”
He knew she was talking about his high school years, when he’d stepped off the straight and narrow and become rebelliousand dabbled in things he shouldn’t have, definitely walking away from the Lord for a while.
“I guess I didn’t see it that way. I wanted to build back better, for you to see that I was successful. I wanted to go to you, not as a pauper who had been stupid and lost everything but as a rich man who could offer you the world.”
“Yeah, that’s nice,” she said, sounding unimpressed.
“Everyone I talked to advised me against it. They told me to be honest with you. They told me that you would understand that I made mistakes, that I failed, but you wouldn’t understand why I shut you out. But I just didn’t listen. It was my pride.”
She pressed her lips together, probably remembering their conversation a few days ago, when he’d accused her of being prideful and that was why she didn’t cry in front of people. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she just wanted privacy. But he knew it applied to him.
“So you didn’t hate me?” she asked, and it seemed to be a hard question for her.
“Of course not! I loved you. I love you more than life.” He couldn’t help himself. His hands came up, and he gripped her upper arms, wanting her to look up to him. “That’s why I didn’t. Because I loved you and I was ashamed. I didn’t think that you could look at me and love me the way I was. I felt like I needed to have money and be successful in order for you to see someone who was worthy of you, because that’s what I felt like you deserved. A successful, rich, smart man, who deserved the amazing woman that you are.”
