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He probably should be more concerned about the pastor coming though. The idea of marriage counseling scared him to death. The pastor was probably going to give him a bunch of assignments that he would have no idea how to do. And he’d be asking questions that he had no idea of how to answer.
He needed to pull himself together. He’d faced plenty of difficult circumstances, with board members staring down a long table at him and all the pressure on him to perform.
Or at business lunches where he had been trying to close the deal, with his dad insisting that he needed to make profit.
Somehow, despite the fact that the pressure should have been harder for the business, he felt more nervous now.
He had his hand on the doorknob when his phone buzzed in his pocket.
Pulling it out, he swiped to answer.
“Hello?”
“James. The transition isn’t going as smoothly as what I had hoped. After you left, we met with some resistance from a few people we have in key positions, and I think we’re going to need you back here. I’m not sure for how long.”
It was his second-in-command and trusted business partner, Richard.
His words made James’s stomach hurt.
“I can’t come today. I can’t actually come for a week. I did something to my foot, and the doctor recommended complete and total rest.”
“Bed rest for a foot injury?” Richard sounded incredulous.
He supposed he could find crutches if he needed them. “No. I have to stay off my foot.”
“Then just use your crutches.”
“Yeah. I’ll do that if I have to, but I’d rather not. I want this to heal correctly. And the doc is concerned about infection.”
“All right. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. I highly recommend you come back as soon as you can. Tonight preferably, tomorrow if you have to delay that long.”
“All right. I’ll see what I can do, but just do your best to hold things together until I can get there.”
He had planned on using the money from his business to support them for the rest of his life. He had also planned on handing it over to other people to manage so that he wouldn’t have to spend every waking hour, night, day, and weekend to keep things going. He had done that for years, and after his dad had retired and moved to the Florida Keys with his fourth wife, James had figured he’d done his duty and was free to hand things over. Maybe pursue some of those things that he might have been interested in once upon a time but hadn’t been given the freedom to do.
Farming being one of them. He could remember when he was quite small wanting to drive a tractor. But that was probably something every little boy had a hankering to do at some point.
Still, the grown-up version of himself did not have an aversion to doing that. Not if he had a wife like Mabel beside him.
Twisting the handle, he opened the door, shocked to see Mabel standing on the other side.
“Sorry. I had a call.”
“I could hear, a little bit anyway. Is everything okay?”
“It was my business partner, Richard. He wants me to go back to Chicago. I...don’t want to.”
“It is necessary, I understand. We can talk about that, but we probably ought to get a few things together before the pastor gets here. I feel bad that I suggested that he come, but I thought we were in agreement on moving forward.”
“We are,” he said immediately, not wanting her to get the idea that he wanted to delay anything. He did not.
“All right. I feel like I’m pushing you though.”
“You’re not. Should we go into the kitchen and help Aunt Carol, or should we go out to the porch swing?”
“I talked to her for just a few minutes while you were in the restroom, and she said she has everything in hand. I think she wants us to get this hashed out. She wants to be able to tell her friends, but right now all she can say is that we’re engaged, but she has no idea about any details. She wants the details.” Mabel laughed as she helped him hobble to the front door.
“All right. Let’s get some details hashed out for Aunt Carol.”
