The Merger (26 page)

“Who is this?” Julie asked holding
onto
one of the little girls hands.

“Little Emily. She’s named after Grandma Emily. She’s Ed and Darcy’s daughter,” Madeline beamed with pride.

Quickly in her head, Julie did the trail down Spencer’s family tree. So little Emily would be Spencer’s niece, his mother’s granddaughter, and his aunt’s granddaughter. The thought alone brought a smile to her face that she could feel in her heart.

“Madeline, will you help me a sec?” The man who had been introduced to Julie as Carlos waved to Madeline by the backdoor.

Madeline gave him a nod. “Here, would you mind holding her for a few minutes?” she asked, but proceeded to hand
Julie
the little girl. As she
did,
Madeline leaned in closer. “He thinks
he’s being
sneaky. He’s going to ask for help with the cooler, but he’s going to drag me out to the garage to make out.”

The humored gasp from Julie had her slapping a hand over her mouth.

Madeline laughed. “Men are always the same. Only their hair gets thinner and grayer.” She winked at Julie and kissed little Emily on the top of the head as she scooted away from the table and toward her husband who Julie witnessed give her a slap to the rear.

How silly was it that it made her want to laugh and cry all at the same time.

Little Emily laid her head on Julie’s shoulder and for the first time ever she thought her heart might actually melt. She batted away tears that stung her eyes. It was foolish to be so overwhelmed with such emotion. These were just people having dinner.

Julie looked up toward the doorway as if she could feel Spencer’s eyes on her. There was a look that came from him and now those tears were going to spill.

He was in love with her.

He didn’t have to say the words and she’d never seen anyone look at her like that before, but she recognized it.

His father had looked at his mother like that. His uncle looked at his aunt the same. Even Grandma Emily had looked like that when she talked about Grandpa Alan, who was in the other room.

The pace of her heart ramped up as
the little
girl on her shoulder began to breath heavier and she’d realized she’d fallen asleep in her arms among the noise of family.

Family.

Julie batted the tears away and wiped the one that had fallen as Spencer moved to her.

“Do you want me to go lay her down?”

Julie stiffly shook her head. “No. I really want to keep her right here if it’s okay.”

He took the seat his aunt had vacated and put an arm around her. He kissed the top of Emily’s head so gently that it made Julie’s rapidly beating heart stop for a moment.

When those dark eyes shifted to her the
words
she was feeling simply fell from her lips. “I love you, Spencer.”

She’d expected him to blink hard or pull away.
Instead,
he leaned over Emily and pressed a kiss to her lips.

“C’mon, c’mon,” Courtney said standing next to the table. “Dinner’s ready. No making out at the table.”

Spencer laughed. “I’m telling you, she says she’s blind, but the woman sees everything.”

Courtney laughed. “It’s soul vision, Spence. Don’t think I can’t see into it.”

Spencer laughed again as Courtney walked away and he helped Julie up as she held on to Emily.

Darcy waddled into the kitchen, both hands on her stomach, and looked toward Julie. “Oh, I can put her down. She gets so much grandma love on Sundays it puts her to sleep.”

She reached out her hands toward Julie, but Julie held the baby against her. “Would it be okay if I held her through dinner? I’ve never held a sleeping baby and it seems to be doing a lot for my soul right now.”

Spencer rubbed her back and Darcy simply smiled. “It’s like medicine isn’t it?”

Julie nodded. “I don’t have brothers or sisters or cousins. This is so overwhelming and comforting all at the same time.”

“I remember the feeling,” Darcy said as she escorted them to the dining room, which had a table that extended into the living room to seat them all.

Dinner took hours. Laughter and abundant love encircled the Kellers and the Bensons—and Julie.

They talked to her as if she mattered.

They included her as if she belonged.

They loved her and that resonated through her.

Perhaps Spencer hadn’t hated her as she thought he had.

When he slipped his hand under the table and folded his fingers around
hers,
she knew that what she’d told him in the kitchen was
absolute
truth. She loved this man with all her heart. She loved his family. What she wouldn’t give to be a part of all of it forever.

Sitting behind his desk on Monday morning, Spencer felt a sense of renewed spirit. Julie hadn’t stopped talking about his family all night. She’d held Emily through dinner and fed her when she’d awakened. Clara had let her feel her baby kick and promised to let her hold him the moment he was born.

His mother sat and talked to her for nearly an hour in the corner of the living room. She didn’t say what they’d talked about, but what he saw between them only made him surer that the path they were headed down was the right one.

They still had a lot of obstacles in their way.

After
dinner,
they’d gone over the papers Steven had brought her and she’d need to go back to Oregon and move her belongings to Nashville, if that’s what she wanted to do. There was also the time it was going to take to get the house sold.

A little bit of him worried that when she got back home, unattached from Steven, she’d want to stay. But he’d deal with that if the time arose.

Now, as the timer on his cell phone rang, he was headed to his father’s office with the accounting report. They still needed to find the leak in PLL before it got any bigger.

~*~

Julie finalized the plans on the corporate house and she was genuinely pleased with how it was going to look. She arranged everything for the three houses Tiffany had sold on Saturday and brewed a new pot of coffee for Chuck when he walked back in after dealing with inspectors.

Everything was brighter today. Everything made her happier today. For the first time in her
life,
she felt part of something. How could meeting someone’s family do that? She didn’t know, but it had happened to her. She now understood them—all of them.

When the door opened to the trailer, Julie looked up expecting that Tiffany had sold another house. She cleared the files from her desk and smiled up. But the smile fell away when she saw Libby Grayson standing before her.

The room went absolutely cold.

Libby looked around. “So this is what it looks like when you fall from grace?”

Julie wanted to stand. She wanted to look
the woman
in the eye, but her body was frozen in place.

Libby looked down at her. “I guess sleeping with your new boss doesn’t get you a cushy job. It’s dusty and messy in here.”

“Why are you here?” Those were the only words that would come out.

“I came for what’s mine. I think it’s time to hand it over.”

Julie felt the blood rush from her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Libby’s red painted lips turned up at the corners. “I don’t believe you. Your husband came to you. He thinks
he’s being
sneaky, but I know his moves. Now, you need to give it to me.”

Fear and anger balled up in her stomach and gave her the strength to push to her feet. “I’ll tell you again. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have anything that belongs to you.”

Libby set her hands down on Julie’s desk. “You’d better find that husband of yours…”

“Ex-husband.”

Libby pursed her lips. “Find him. Get what is mine or that precious project you’re working on will be a pile of ash once it’s framed. Do I make myself clear?”

Julie swallowed hard. “What do I have?”

Libby stood and the smile grew. “I’m not going to tell you. I think it will be much better if your lover finds it first.”

She spun, walked out of the trailer, climbed into the taxi that waited out front, and drove away.

Julie fell back into her chair and looked at her hands. They shook. She needed to find out what Libby was talking about before Spencer did. She tried to gather her thoughts. Julie didn’t have anything that belonged to Libby. What could she possibly have?

Her stomach clenched and she thought she might vomit. Sweat beaded on her brow.

The door opened again and she snapped her head up as Tiffany walked in. Her eyes grew wide. “Are you feeling okay?”

“No. No, I’m not. I think I should go home.”

Tiffany nodded in agreement. “I can get a ride for you. Maybe you shouldn’t be driving.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said as anger pumped through her.

“I’ll call Spencer and…”

“Don’t,” she bit the words out harshly. “Don’t call him. Don’t tell him anything. I’ll be back in the morning. Just put my work on my desk.”

She pulled her purse and bag out of the drawer in her desk and walked past Tiffany.

“Hey,” Tiffany called after her. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? Are you and Spencer okay?”

She didn’t even know how to answer that. At that very
moment,
she didn’t know anything—let alone what Spencer might think if he found out first—whatever it was.

~*~

Spencer watched his father flip back and forth through the pages of the report he’d brought him.

“What do you think?”

“I think sixty-thousand dollars is a lot of money.”

Spencer stood from his seat and paced in front of the large bank of windows in his father’s office. “What do we do? This impacted our business but happened before we took ownership.”

His father leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in thought.

“Someone must have been very desperate to do something like this.”

Leave it to his father to consider that someone was in some kind of trouble and not just vindictive.

“Fine, but our trucks aren’t on the roads when they’re supposed to be because someone was desperate.” Spencer shoved his hands in his pockets. “If this person is still employed by us then we need to plug that leak.”

His father nodded. “So we need to go through the personnel records and find out who worked in areas they could get to
information
like this. And then find out who has been let go in the last six months. Chances are it isn’t someone who’s been fired or the leak would have stopped.”

Spencer loosened his tie. “I was hoping not to fly back this soon.”

His father smiled. “You’re a man with his hands in many things. This new venture is one of them.”

“Do you think I could pass off the high-rise builds to Ed? They’re fairly established.”

His father gave him a long slow nod. “I don’t see a problem with that.”

“I think the farmer will decide to sell this week too.”

“One more thing on your plate.”

Spencer raked his hands through his hair. “What did I get myself into?”

Now his father laughed. “You’re a Benson and you’re ambitious. You might think of slowing down, but you won’t.”

Spencer let out a long breath. “Right.”

“But I learned from my father’s death that you can be ambitious and you can enjoy what’s there. Don’t forget to live a little too.”

“When is there time?”

“Make time.” His father’s eyes locked with his. “If she’s important to you then don’t lose her to work.”

Well,
he could cut right to the chase couldn’t he, even when Spencer hadn’t brought her up.

Spencer bit down on his lip, diverted his eyes away, and then back to his father. “She’s recently divorced.”

His father stood from his chair and walked to him. “And your mother was running from a man who tried to kill her. She kept her secrets.”

“It doesn’t bother you then?”

“Is Julie the person you think she is?”

“Yes.”

“You care for her?”

Now Spencer nodded. “I do.”

“Do you think you love her?”

He’d expected to have this conversation with his mother, not his father, but he knew the answer. “I do. I haven’t told her, but I do.”

His father rested his hands on Spencer’s shoulders. “Let her know how you feel. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that relationships are built on trust, not time. You’ve known her long enough to know her character. You thought enough of her to bring her to your family. And they all seemed to take to her.”

“Mom?”

“Loved her,” he clarified. “Take her to Oregon with you this time. Not only can you
bond
away from all of this, but maybe she knows things that will help.”