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Stopping just a couple of feet before the door, Valerie turned. “You sound as if you know him.”
“We’ve been friends all our lives, even roommates in college. I’m actually the reason he’s here.”
“You are?”
“I’m not sure how much you know about his past, but since he mentioned having spent Christmas at your house, I guess I can be forgiven for telling you how glad I am to see the change that’s come over him these last few months.”
Valerie didn’t know what to say. And couldn’t walk the few steps it would take to get to the door. “Oh?”
“Kirk is one of the few men I consider a true friend.”
Steve McDonald seemed like such an ethical man. Yet, if he’d been friends with Kirk his whole life, he must’ve known him during the past fifteen years.
“He’s made some mistakes in his life,” McDonald continued. “The man was driven, but had no idea what was driving him.”
Driven to make money, maybe. To win the battle at all costs. Not driven to be a husband or father, though he’d promised to be both.
“After his daughter, Alicia, was killed, Kirk was as determined to kill himself for those mistakes as he’d been to make a success of Chandler Acquisitions to begin with. I offered him the job here to save the life of a friend I value very, very much.”
Valerie said nothing, just waited, needing to hear more even while she didn’t want to know as much as she already did.
“Kirk is an immensely determined man. I’ve always known that he’s got what it takes to make a real difference—on a human level, not just business. He’s finally figured that out, too, although it took a tragedy….”
Swallowing, Valerie knew she should leave. “He’s lucky to have a friend like you.”
“How much has he told you about Alicia’s death?” McDonald, arms folded across his chest, apparently wasn’t ready to let her go.
“Nothing.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.” The principal nodded. “She lived for a full week after she was hit….”
Feeling a little faint, Valerie reminded herself there was no way the man could know that Blake and Brian’s father had been behind the wheel of the car that had killed his friend’s daughter.
“I went to see her a couple of times, and each time was the same. Alicia in her glass bubble room, so many machines hooked up to her body, her head wrapped in gauze, until you couldn’t even recognize the little girl beneath. Surrounded by people, her mother and various other loved ones, by a constant parade of medical personnel.” He shook his head. “She was oblivious to the world she was leaving behind.”
Valerie couldn’t take this. Had already imagined this nightmare so many times.
“And always, in a small waiting room with one small window that had a view of the little girl’s bed, sat Kirk. All alone. Staring. I can only imagine the helplessness he must’ve felt, this powerful man, so filled with determination, finding out that in the end, he was powerless.”
Valerie didn’t, couldn’t, respond.
Steve looked away. “There was no question about the depth of his grief, though. Even an insensitive klutz like me could feel it.”
She couldn’t stop the tears that sprang to her eyes. Didn’t even care, at that point, that she couldn’t stop them. Steve McDonald was pretty close to tears himself.
“Did you know his ex-wife wouldn’t let him in the room to see Alicia?”
When Susan had told her that, Valerie hadn’t blamed her….
“The night Alicia died, Susan had finally been led away for a couple of hours’ rest. The child could’ve hung on another week, and Susan hadn’t slept at all.” McDonald paused, peering at Valerie, but she had a feeling he wasn’t really seeing her.
“So quietly people barely noticed at first, Kirk slipped inside that room and had an intent conversation with his daughter. I have no idea what he said, but he walked out of that room a changed man. A dying man—until he came to work here.”
KIRK WAS SURPRISED and delighted when there was a message from Valerie on his cell phone Thursday afternoon. She wanted to meet him for coffee at their usual time that night. He left her a message that he’d be there.
And he was, in time to get the private alcove in the back of the coffee shop, and have their drinks ordered and waiting for her. He hadn’t yet heard the final results about his son, but was eager to share the good news, anyway.
And to find out what had been bothering her the night before. Half afraid she’d heard that he’d been to see Abraham again, he had a full artillery planned to convince her to agree with him.
