Laying a Foundation: Bonus volume: Includes series prequel, The Groundbreaking (The Love Under Construction Series) (81 page)

“Neither is Vic’s, but that doesn’t make him any less a brother to us. You’re part of this family now, if you want to be,” Tony told him.

“We really hope you want to be,” Mark added. Bart and Freddie nodded, and Bennie extended his hand to John Henry, who took it hesitantly, then shook it heartily.

“I’d like that. I’d like it a lot. I’ve never had any siblings. And Nikki, I’m so sorry for what happened with Travis. Are you doing okay?”

She gave him a warm smile. “I’ll be fine. I’m feeling stronger every day. I’m sorry about Travis too. He didn’t leave me with an option, or he’d be alive today. If you want to apologize to somebody, it should be Laura Butler. She’s still in the hospital.”

“Speaking of Laura, I need to go by and check on her,” Vic said.

John Henry chimed in, “I’d like to go with you, if that’s okay.”

“I think she might like that,” Vic replied.

The whole room and everyone in it seemed rung-out and exhausted, then Freddie spoke up. “Well, while we’re all here together and confessing all of our sins, I guess I’d better tell you myself.”

“Oh, god, what?” Bart groaned.

“I’ve asked Molly for a divorce,” Freddie blurted out. There were several gasps around the room.

“What the hell?” Tony asked.

“Well, you know my assistant, Felicity? She used to babysit the kids next door.” He paused. “She’s twenty-six.” He blushed deeply. “But I started sleeping with her when she was sixteen.” Tony groaned loudly, and Mark, Bart, and Bennie looked at Freddie like he’d lost his mind. Vic shook his head and looked at the floor.
This just gets better and better,
Nikki thought sarcastically.

“Man, what the hell is wrong with you?” Tony growled. “Have you completely lost it?”

“No, she makes me happy.”

“Dirty old man,” Bennie mumbled.

“Hey, no judgments, okay?” Mark countered.

“Thanks, Mark,” Freddie told his oldest brother. “Anyway, I made her my assistant at work so we could spend more time together. But it’s not enough. I want to marry her; she wants to marry me too. So I asked Molly for a divorce.”

“And are you still sleeping with Molly?” Tony asked. “Does she know about Felicity?”

“Yeah, she knows, and yeah, I’m still sleeping with her,” Freddie answered sheepishly.

“So you’re unfaithful to your wife with your mistress, and you’re unfaithful to your mistress with your wife. Holy shit, man, that’s some kind of fucked up,” Tony told him. Vic nodded.

Nikki looked at Freddie. “I’ve got a question.”

“By all means, jump right in there,” Tony groaned. “I’d say don’t make things worse, but I’m not sure that’s possible.”

As usual, Nikki cut directly to the chase. “So are you screwing around with this girl because Molly is a bitch, or is Molly a bitch because you’re screwing around with this girl? Which came first, you know, the chicken-slash-egg thing?” Nikki asked. Everyone nodded and looked at Freddie, who was now firmly implanted on the hot seat.

“Um, she’s a bitch because I’ve been screwing Felicity.”

“Is she going to give you the divorce?” Nikki asked.

“Yeah, looks like,” Freddie answered.

“And the boutique? It belongs to you, right?” Nikki asked, the wheels turning in her brain.

“Yeah. And the bank has a policy against employees dating or marrying, so I’m giving Felicity the boutique to run,” he replied without a hint of emotion.

“Uh-huh, high and dry. Just what I thought.” Nikki turned and looked at Tony. “I want you to give Molly a job with the company. She’s going to need a way to make herself a living, and we can do that for her.”

“I still need an assistant,” Vic piped up. “She’s welcome in my office.”

“Good.” Nikki turned and smiled sweetly at Freddie.

“You mean you’re going to give my ex-wife a job with Walters Construction? How could you do that to me?” he wailed.

“Because, my brother, unlike you, most of the Walters men believe when they make a commitment to a woman, they should keep it. This is a way our family can at least keep the commitment you made to Molly. You’ll just have to live with that,” Tony smirked at him.

Freddie shut up, and so did everyone else. After a few minutes, Tony said, “So, since this day has been so lovely, does anybody else have
anything
they’d like to get off their chest before we take a deep breath and relax?” He looked at Bart, Mark, and Bennie; they all shook their heads. He glanced Nikki’s way. “Honey?”

“I got nothin’,” she smiled. “My life’s an open book.”

“Vic?”

“Well,” Vic started hesitantly, “no, nothing I should say out loud.” Nikki gave Tony a knowing look, and he shot back a sad smile.

“Clayton?”

“Aw, hell no. My lesbian sister’s wife is having my baby, my new four-year-old son is Black, and my wife is expecting an eight-year-old. Plus I just found out one of my uncles is just my half-uncle, I have a new half-uncle, and I had a cousin who was shot and killed by my mother. Unless some dead relative comes back to life or I’m a zombie and nobody’s told me, those damn soap operas got nothin’ on me. Nope, I think I’m good over here,” he said, looking kind of shell-shocked.

Tony leaned over and patted Clayton on the knee. “You okay, buddy?”

“Yeah, I’ll be okay. I just need a quiet corner to process all this in, that’s all,” Clayton told him, not looking at anyone.

“Anybody? Anything else?” Tony asked. Everyone looked around at each other, then at the floor. “Well, I’ve got one last thing.”

“Sweet lord, don’t tell us you’ve been abducted by aliens,” Clayton moaned. “I don’t think I could take it.”

Tony grinned. “No, son. Better than that.” He straightened, then turned to Nikki. “Honey, I’m sorry I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to you about this first. I was going to make the big announcement on New Year’s Eve, but this seems like the right time, so bear with me and don’t get mad, okay?”

“Shit, babe, what now?” Nikki asked, that horrified look coming back to her face.

“No, no! It’s good, I swear!” He looked around at everyone, then said, “As of January first, I’m retiring from Walters Construction; well, semi-retiring.”

“What?” “When did you decide this?” “You can’t do that!” Questions started coming at him from all angles. Nikki stared at him like he had an arm growing out of his forehead.

“Hey, guys, hey! Give me a minute! I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’ve had Steve working on the paperwork to see how we could work the whole thing out. And he’s come up with a workable plan. But it’s like this,” he said, turning back to Nikki. “I love Walters Construction; I really do. I’ve loved working with you over the last few months, sweetheart. And I love working with you guys,” he said, looking at Clayton and Vic, then turning back to Nikki. “But, baby, most couples get married, and they daydream about growing old together and when they’ll celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. I’m a realist; we’re never going to celebrate our fiftieth. We’ll be lucky if we’re still healthy enough to enjoy our twentieth. But I want us to be able to spend as much time together as we can while we’re healthy, active, and fit. I have some ideas for what I want to do. I’m not going to stop working altogether, but I want to do something that will let me spend all the time I can with you. Does that sound crazy?”

“No,” Nikki whispered, tears in her eyes. “That sounds wonderful!” She kissed him and hugged him tight. “I’m so happy!”

“But Dad . . .” Clayton started, sheer terror in his eyes.

“No buts. We’re going to work this out. It’s all going to be okay; I won’t leave you guys twisting in the breeze, I promise. I’m still planning to work two or three days a week. Can everyone at least support me in this, even if you don’t agree? It’s important to me.”

Tony went around the room, and everyone either agreed or nodded. When they were done, he looked at John Henry. “And I’d like you to come back to Walters Construction. Clayton and Vic will need help, and we’ll all be glad to show you the ropes.”

John Henry nodded. “I’d like that very much. And I kept working in the construction industry, so I have quite a bit of experience. I’d love a chance to make up for the damage I did all those years ago.”

“Good! It’s settled.” As far as Tony was concerned, they were done, really once-and-for-all done. “We’ll find you a spot, something we need filled and you’ll enjoy, and it’ll be settled.” He took a deep breath, let it out, and said, “And now, I’m finished, not to mention exhausted, by all of this. So if no one else has anything, I smell something delicious in my kitchen courtesy of my girls, and I think we need to eat.”

Everyone got up and started to the dining room; everyone except Nikki. Tony got all the way to his seat before he realized he’d left her behind. He went back to the great room and found her still sitting there, looking kind of dazed.

“Hey, baby,” he whispered, steeling himself to apologize.

“Hi,” she replied in a low voice.

“You okay? I forgot to bring you with me. I’m sorry. You hungry?”

“I’m not sure I can eat.” She seemed foggy. “I’m still kind of in shock.”

“The retirement thing?” he asked.

“Everything.” She was bone-weary. “I need a nap.”

He smiled and took her hand. “Eat first. Then I’ll nap with you.”

She smiled back. “Just make sure I don’t wind up face-down in my plate.”

“If you do and you drown, I’ll give you mouth-to-mouth,” he grinned.

“Oh, I feel so much better knowing that,” she responded sarcastically, getting up under her own steam. “Whatever would I do without you?”

With a sudden seriousness, he told her, “I hope you never have to find out.”

She looked at him with an equally serious expression. “I hope I never have to either.”

After they’d eaten, all of the brothers went back to their wives at their hotels in Louisville, and everyone got teary-eyed as they were leaving. Bennie promised he and Caroline would come and stay with Nikki and Tony soon so they could start over. Tony, Vic, and Clayton told John Henry they’d like to have lunch with him during the next couple of weeks to make some plans, and Tony invited him to come over and watch bowl games on New Year ’s Day; John Henry said he’d really enjoy that.

The women sat at the table in the cleaned-up kitchen, talking about Katie’s pregnancy and which room they’d use for the nursery. Tony played with Little T and Ella Jane, and Clayton and Vic watched a show on TV about mummies. Nikki was trying to get to the bedroom for the nap she needed, and she’d made it as far as the base of the stairs when the doorbell rang. She waited, but nobody made a move to answer it, so she decided she’d get it, hoping Tony wouldn’t get mad at her when he found out she was stirring around by herself. But with everything that was running through her head, she forgot to look through the peephole, and she opened the front door to a short, bald man pointing a snub-nosed five-shot revolver at her. “Close the door,” he snarled at her.

What the hell do I do now?,
she thought. Her Walther wasn’t in her waistband; she hadn’t been carrying it because she couldn’t maneuver well enough to even put the holster in her pants. She looked at the man, and then she recognized him: This was the man who’d killed Dottie. Everyone in the house was busy doing something. Would anyone even notice she hadn’t come back from the door? Had anyone else even
heard
the doorbell?

“What do you want?” she asked him. He seemed nervous, maybe strung out? His eyes were red-rimmed, and his nose was flushed. “I don’t have any money.”

“I don’t want your money, bitch. I want you. I’m gonna kill you. My Dottie is dead because of you,” he whispered menacingly.

If I can keep him talking, maybe somebody will find me,
she thought. “How is that my fault?” Nikki asked.

“Because!” He seemed confused, looking for what he wanted to say. Then he screamed, “Because everything was fine until you came along! Then she got all crazy and wanted me to go. She was okay as long as he was alone, but when he found somebody, well, she couldn’t stand it. It was pretty obvious she was still in love with him. So she was taken from me, and I’m going to take you from
him
!”

“But
you’re
the one who killed her!”

She instantly wished she hadn’t said that. He started to shake, then cocked the hammer on the gun and waved it around. By then Nikki was very sure he was high on something. “Get down on your knees with your back to me. I don’t want you watching me when I shoot you!”

“I’m not getting down on my knees,” Nikki said matter-of-factly. “I can’t. I have an arm in a sling, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Your damn arm isn’t going to make any difference!” he screamed. “You’ll be dead in a few minutes so it won’t matter!” At that point, he got exceptionally worked up. “Now I said get down on your knees!” he shrieked.

“What was that?” Clayton asked Vic, his head cocked, listening. “Wait – who was at the door? I heard the bell.”

“I don’t know, but I heard it too.” Vic got up and went to the kitchen; somebody was missing. He ran up the stairs calling Nikki’s name, then ran back into the great room. “Nikki’s not in the house.”