“No, thank you, Augustus. We have to be going. It was nice to see you again.”
“Yes, it was. Nice to see you too. I’m glad you stopped by. I’ll take you down to the lobby.”
“What are all those movie stars really like?” Ham asked.
“Just like you and me. Underneath all the glitz and glamour, they’re real people. The glitz and glamour is what they do to earn a living. When they go home at night, they’re just like you and Miss Peggy.”
Peggy snorted to show what she thought of that statement.
The ride down to the lobby was made in silence. Gus stepped aside to allow the couple to walk out first. “Have a safe trip home. It was nice seeing you. Have a nice holiday.” He extended his hand to Ham who ignored it. Gus shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. His gut was still churning.
“Just how rich are you, Augustus?” Peggy asked.
Stunned, Gus thought about the question and how his mother would respond. She’d say if a person had the guts to ask such a personal question, they deserved whatever answer you wanted to give. “Filthy rich!” he said cheerfully.
Peggy snorted again. Ham held the door open for his wife before he scurried through. Neither one looked back. Gus wondered how all this was going to play out back home when the Bledsoes returned.
Gus took the stairs to the fifth floor, his head buzzing. When he reached the fifth-floor landing, he sat down on the top step and dropped his head into his hands. For one wild moment he thought he could smell pine resin on his hands. He fought with his breathing to calm down. When his heartbeat returned to normal he let his thoughts drift. He thought about his dog Buster, his faithful companion during his childhood. He thought about Bixby, his buddy all through high school and college. He wondered where Bix was these days. He made a mental note to go on the Net to look him up.
Gus felt his eyes fill with moisture. The Bledsoes were right—his father was a hard man. A cranky curmudgeon pretty well nailed it. Because he’d been big for his age, six foot three at the age of twelve, his father thought him capable of a man’s work—to his mother’s chagrin. No amount of interference on her behalf could change his father’s mind. He’d worked him from sunup until sundown. He’d get sick late at night and his mother would always be there promising his life would get better. And it did when he went off to college.
Gus’s head jerked upright as he wondered if he hated his father or if he just didn’t like him. More likely the latter, since he didn’t hate anyone. He simply wasn’t capable of hating anyone.
An hour later, Gus untangled himself and opened the door that led to his office. He felt like he was stepping onto foreign territory since his thoughts were back at Moss Farms. Nothing had changed in his absence. The tray with the coffee service and the leftover sticky buns was still in the middle of the conference table. The pine branch was still hanging over his drafting table. How strange that the Bledsoes hadn’t asked what it was or why a dried pine branch was hanging on his wall. Everyone who entered the office asked sooner or later.
He decided right then and there that he didn’t like the Bledsoes any more than he liked his father.
The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up and made small talk with a client who wanted to take him to dinner. “How about a rain check, Karl? I have to go out of town for a while. Let’s pencil in the first week of the New Year. Okay, glad it works for you. I’ll be in touch.”
Gus whipped his day planner out of his backpack. He flipped through the pages to see what pressing matters had to be taken care of. Nothing that couldn’t wait, he decided.
Five minutes later he made an announcement over the intercom. “Look alive, people, this is your boss. I’d like to see all of you in my office, STAT.”
They came on the run the way they always did. When the boss called a special meeting it was of paramount importance. Gus Moss never sweated the small stuff.
Gus wasted no time. “Look, guys, I need to go out of town for a couple of months. Actually, I have to go home. My father needs me.” He wondered if it was a lie or wishful thinking on his part. “Can you guys handle things?”
“Surely you jest,” Derek Williams quipped. “It will be a vacation for all of us with you gone. We’ll party up a storm and drink a toast to you every night.”
Gus grinned. They wouldn’t do any such thing and they all knew it.
“Hey, man, you said you were going to watch Cyrus for me while I go to Costa Rica next month.” It was Max Whitfield who was Gus’s right hand.
“Damn! Okay, okay, I’ll take him with me if that’s okay. He can run the farm all day. You okay with that, Max?”
“Oh no, my dog does not fly in the cargo hold. Dogs die on airplanes.”
“Then I’ll drive. Works for me if you’re okay with it. I promise to coddle him just the way you do. I’ll give him an apple and a carrot every day. I’ll make sure to give him his vitamins and will give him only bottled water, just the way you do. What I won’t do is dress him up in those designer duds you deck him out in.”
Max, a string bean of a man, eyeballed his boss and then nodded. “When are you leaving?”
“In the morning. Bring the dog to the office and I’ll take off from here. You guys sure you can handle things?”
“Yes, Dad,” the little group said in unison.
“Swear you won’t call us a hundred times a day,” Derek said.
“I don’t think you have to worry about that. Okay, it’s all set then. Hillary, cancel the rest of my appointments. Reschedule.”
Gus looked around at his loyal staff. A lump formed in his throat. They were the best of the best. He made a mental note to double their Christmas bonuses. He could do that tonight at home and hand them out in the morning. Loyalty was one thing he never skimped on. A long time ago his mother had told him a person was only as good as the people who worked for them. At the time he hadn’t understood what that meant. He knew now, though.
Time to go cross-country.
Back to his childhood memories.
Back to his father’s house.
He hoped he was up to the challenge.
Chapter Two
A week later and three thousand miles away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, thirty-four-year-old career woman Amy Baran was on an emotional high as she packed her already overstuffed briefcase. She looked around her cluttered office and sighed. One of these days she really had to give some thought to organizing things. She knew it wasn’t going to happen because she loved living in clutter, loved that she could instantly lay her hands on anything she needed.
Amy Baran owned a small public relations firm in the heart of the Main Line District. It employed two full-time staff members; two part-time moms whose schedules she worked around; a receptionist-slash-secretary; and a battle-scarred, bushy-haired orange tabby cat named Cornelia she had found half-starved in the basement of the building she rented. If anyone reigned supreme at the Baran Agency, it was Cornelia who greeted clients by purring and strutting her stuff.
Cornelia knew how to turn on the computer, flush the john, and even open the box of