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He wore dark brown slacks with a pale yellow dress shirt. It stayed buttoned to the throat all the time, and his navy blue tie stayed snugly done up around his neck. “It’s a beautiful day for fishing,” he said.
Mike moved to stand beside him, once again feeling like the ugly duckling in a room full of swans. Hunter was so…good at what he did, and such a good man and a good father. Mike looked up to him in a lot of ways, that was for sure.
“Who do you take fishing?” he asked.
“Ryder,” Hunt said with a smile. “Sometimes Lisa, but she doesn’t like baiting her own hook, and I won’t do it for her anymore.” He chuckled but sobered just as quickly. “I love taking her, though. It’s a treasure to spend time with the kids, away from the house, their homework, the chores, their mother, all of it.”
Mike’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Their mother?”
“Oh, kids are different for their mothers,” Hunt said knowingly. “Molly likes the break too.”
“Do you ever take her?”
“Molly?” Hunter grinned and shook his head. “No. Fishing is for fathers and their kids, at least in my family.”
Mike nodded and looked out over the greater Denver area. “It’s a beautiful view.”
“How about you and Gerty?” Hunter asked almost on top of Mike’s statement.
Mike shrugged like he wasn’t sure. Truth be told, he wasn’t. “We had a little argument this morning. Nothing too bad. I just—don’t—know…. I don’t know.”
“You like her, right?”
“Oh, I like her. I like her too much.”
“What does that mean?” Hunt abandoned the view now.
“She’s…She just ended a relationship—a serious relationship—with someone else.”
“Ah.” Hunter nodded like he’d heard this tale before. The phone on his desk chirped, and he stepped over to it and pressed the button. Mike could at least do that now. “Yeah, Rach?”
“There’s an older gentleman here to see you, sir,” she said. “He doesn’t have an appointment.”
Hunter looked at Mike, who stared back, blinking. His mind flashed, and then he said, “It’s my daddy,” at the same time the voice through the speaker phone said, “I used to be CEO of this company. Trust me, I can go back.”
“Your daddy’s comin’?” Hunter asked, but Mike was already moving toward his door. He opened it to find his father striding down the hallway.
Emotion clogged Mike’s throat. “You came.”
“I said I would.” He practically bulldozed Mike to the ground, but he managed to keep his footing.
“I told you you didn’t need to,” Mike said against his chest.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been recognizing your lies for thirty years,” Daddy whispered in his ear. He held him tightly for several long moments, and then he released Mike and stepped into Hunter. They laughed together, and Wes looked around the office.
“Wow, Hunt, this place is amazing.”
Mike suddenly wanted to know what the office had been like while his daddy was here. “What did it look like when you were CEO?” he asked.
“I didn’t have family pictures, for one.” Wes picked up one of Hunter’s pictures and smiled fondly at it. “Or artwork from my kids on the back wall. Or a blanket on the couch that looks like my wife might use it.”
“She does sit there when she comes to work with me,” Hunter admitted. “She likes to read and look out the windows, but it’s right under the air conditioning duct.”
They all looked up to the ceiling, and sure enough, the couch sat right beneath the duct.
Daddy faced the desk, Hunter, and Mike. “It was very dull, indeed.”
“You’re really giving me something to look forward to,” Mike said dryly.
