Page 12 of Colby
When she went by to pick up the diapers that were needed at home, she only had to wait another twenty minutes for the food.Hudson was the stay-at-home dad, and she loved working at the foundation.Not that he didn’t work there as well sometimes, but so far her working outside the house was giving them both pleasure like they’d never had in their work and home life like never before.They’d always been living paycheck to paycheck before, with having to pay for child care and working too.This was working out so much better for them both, and they rarely fought about the silly stuff, too.Not really fight, but snip, she supposed.
After dinner, almost too full to move, they put the kids to bed and sat in the living room talking about the family.Hudson was going to take the kids over to the grandparents’ tomorrow and hang out while helping with the new rose garden that Denver was helping put in.Thanks to Colby learning how much they missed everyone, they were now spending time with them more than they had before.The elderly couple had done so much for the family that they hated to think about the time when they’d want to move on to the next step of their life voyage.
Going up to bed later than usual, the two of them checked on the children and made their way to their own bedroom.It was a wonderful night, and she couldn’t believe how much she’d enjoyed her day.Being an attorney had been all she’d wanted as a child, and now that she had the opportunity to be one, she was the best that she could be.Snuggling up to Hudson, she realized that this baby she was carrying was going to have all the things that the others hadn’t, simply because they were happy and had money now to burn.All her life, she had wanted children to go along with her good-paying job, and now that she had both, she couldn’t believe her luck.Nothing could have prepared her for the love that she had for her little growing family, and she couldn’t have been happier than she was at this moment.Kissing Hudson good night, she went to sleep with a smile on her face.
The next morning dawned rainy and dreary.But with her heart full of love and understanding she didn’t see the puddles of rainwater nor the dark clouds that were hanging over the house.She could only see the goodness in the day and was whistling when she got to her office.Working for the foundation kept her busy, but it was the lovely perks of getting to see her family throughout the daythat made her feel good.
The first thing she did was pull up her email.Having gone through it, she then got her phone messages together and sorted them out.Still having a wonderful day, she answered the correspondence with a smile until she got to the one from Ronin.He wanted her to call him as soon as she got the message.
Fearful that he was going to tell them that this wasn’t working out, she called the number that he gave her with a heavy heart.Just thinking that she was going to have to move back home and start over again made her slightly ill.When put on hold from the household staff that he had, she nearly started biting her nails again.Something that she’d not done in almost two years now.But she was so nervous.
“Hello, Ivy, my dear.Thanks for getting back to me.I have some contracts that I’d like to send you to go over for the foundation here.”She let out a long breath, one that she’d not realized that she’d been holding, and then ended up putting her head between her knees.“Honey?Are you all right?Talk to me please, before I have Parker bring me there to see what—”
“I’m fine.I was just nervous that you were going to tell us that we’ve done something terribly wrong and you were pulling the works from us.”He didn’t say anything, and she felt the need to explain more.“I’ve been having such a wonderful morning until I saw the email from you to call you, and my mind just went into overload.I don’t know why it did, but there you have it.I’m sorry to have worried you.”
“It’s fine.Really, it is, but I’m worried that you would think that from an email.Have we made you feel like we’re only going to do this for a little while?I mean, this is a forever job for your family.And you’re doing such a good—that’s why I wanted you to go over some contracts for me.The attorney here isn’t as good as you are, and frankly, I’m sort of jealous that you don’t work for us here.”She told him that she was only as good as he allowed her to be.“Thank you for that.And I’m sorry that I ruined your good day.It wasn’t my intention.”
“It’s fine, really it is.And my good mood will come back to me soon.I’ve never whistled before today.In fact, I didn’t even know that I could.”He laughed with her.“I’m sorry.I really don’t know why my mind went there.Probably in the back of my mind, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop or something like that.”
“I understand that.When I first got with my wife, it was difficult for me to get my head wrapped around having a seemingly endless supply of money.And with the investments we’ve made, including your family, it’s come back to us tenfold.We’ve been very fortunate with the way things are going for both our families.”She agreed with him and told him so.“Good.I’ll be more careful next time I email you.It didn’t have much information in it, so I can see where you might well have gotten the wrong message from me.I’ll send those contracts over today, and you should have them by lunch.I hope you’re going to have a wonderful lunch too.”
“I’m having leftovers from dinner last night.Hudson and I pigged out on Chinese food, and I was able to have enough for today.”He laughed and told her that they’d had Chinese food last night, too, yet there were no leftovers.“I don’t know what I’d do without having a bit for the next day.It’s why we order so much.Perhaps you just need to add more to your order.”
“Then we’d be eating that too, I’m afraid.”After she received the email containing the contracts, they hung up.Ivy liked to print out contracts so that she could mark them with a red pen when she found things that were wrong.After the first page, she knew that this contract needed to be not just not signed by Ronin, but it needed to have spell check used on it as well.The writer of the contract should never have allowed this to be sent out.Once she was on the second contract, from the same company, she called Ronin back.This was just ridiculous.
She told him what she’d found and told him that she wouldn’t do business with a firm at all that didn’t bother to check their work.Ivy told him that she had more red marks on the first page than she’d ever seen on anything but a first draft of one.After pointing out a few of them that she’d found, she also told him that there were too many loopholes in the paperwork that she thought they were trying to fool them into signing something like five million dollars away before the work had even been done.
“I could barely get through it with all the mistakes.And you said your own attorney looked this over?I’d fire him, too.Or her.Whatever made them think that this was going to work for your company makes me think that he should go back to school and learn how a sentence is structured.My goodness, it’s—why are you laughing?”He told her that he’d never heard her so worked up before.“Well, if I’m going to approve or disprove something, I want it to be for a good reason.This is just shoddy work all the way around for whoever sent this to you, and then your own attorney for not telling you what a piece of crap this was.You can have me do it.I’d love to talk to the person who thought that this was a good thing to send out.But for your own attorney to tell you whatever he did without mentioning the loopholes, not to mention the errors in it, should be fired.”
He was still laughing, and she wanted to smack him.She wouldn’t, of course, she wasn’t that stupid.He was the king of their kind.But just to have him laughing at her made her see red.But she held her tongue and waited for him to finish.
“I’m sorry.”Another bout of laughing before he continued.“I’ve really enjoyed this and must have needed it more than I thought.I will take the attorney to task once I find out why he did such a crappy job, as you put it, and then perhaps fire him.But for now, I’m going to assume that he didn’t see it.Which is worse, I suppose.But I do promise to take care of it as soon as I get him in my office.”
“I just don’t understand why you thought it to be so funny.What if you had signed this without consulting me?There would have been major setbacks to this.”He said that he had been told not to sign it.“Then perhaps he’s doing a better job than I thought.But still, to have thought of you reading over this paperwork with all the errors on it makes me a little angry.”
“I can tell.”He didn’t laugh this time, but coughed, and she was sure that he was laughing at her still.“Anyway, if you could write up a letter to me telling me about the mistakes, I’ll make sure that my man here gets them.And I can’t thank you enough for making my day a bit brighter, too.I needed that badly.”
For the next hour, she wrote up a summary about the contract being as objective as she could be without losing her temper again.When she sent it off, making sure that there were no errors on the letter, she got busy with her other business.Today started out good, but now she was worried about Ronin and his contracts.She’d ask him to send them all to her before he signed anything, but she had enough work of her own to take care of.
~*~
Emma was on her first stop when she realized that she wasn’t going to be home tonight.And she’d been looking forward to sleeping in her own bed, too.As they were unloading the boxes, she reached out to Colby and let him know that she had to work through the night with unloading, and he said he understood that things came up all the time.
She had wanted him to be mad.Upset that she was breaking a date with him, but he was so calm that she—no, she realized that he was distracted.Like he had too much going on to let her bother him too much.
“What’s happened?”He asked her what she meant.“You’re very distracted, and I want to know why?Is there someone with you?Are you unable to speak to me at this time?”
“I got this letter from Taylor with a check in it.It’s for the two of us, but I’ve not opened it yet.”She asked him how he knew there was a check in it.“Because I can see it, there is just enough opening in the envelope to be able to see it.Want me to open it with you now?”
“Sure.But if she’s firing me, I’m going to be pissed off enough to take the check and shove it up her ass.I’m doing the best job that I can, and I won’t have her saying anything differently.Understand?”He told her that he doubted that she’d fire her for any reason, and she’d not do it by mail.“True, but stranger things have happened, you know.”
“I do know.All right.Give me a second to get this open, and I’ll read it to you.”She felt the moment that something startled him and was worried about it.“The check is for half a million dollars, to us both.But it says that it’s for Colby and Emma Tucker.I don’t know why she’d do that when we’re not married.Or we could be in the eyes of the law.They file things like this just so it’s taken care of and—”She said his name.
“Just read the flipping letter and let’s decide on whether or not to murder her for giving us so much money.”He said that was a good idea.“Yes, well, I do have them on occasion.Read the letter.”
“Dearest Emma and Colby, My grandparents died.Don’t be upset with finding out.I didn’t know them at all, as they were my mother’s parents.They were making it up to me by leaving me this money because I had to put up with their daughter.It would have been nicer to me had I gotten some kind of warning about her, but there is nothing I can do about it now.Anyway, I don’t need the money.Nor do I want it.It feels like it’s dirty.I want you two to use it to fill out your home.”Emma asked him how much it would cost to fill out a home.“I don’t know, but I’m betting that there will be leftovers from it.Let me finish this as it’s not that much longer.”
He paused like he was reading it ahead of her, and she nearly told him to read it to her, too.However, he explained how he was working too and couldn’t wait to get the fishing trip finished so that he could go home.
