by Amy Vastine
“In here, Bon Bon,” he shouted from the kitchen.
Dirty dishes from the previous week were piled in the sink. Her dad wasn’t good about keeping up with the day-to-day chores. “What are you doing home already?”
He took a seat at the tiny café table in the breakfast nook. “What’s in the bag? Something I can eat?”
The fact that he was avoiding her question made her nervous. She glanced at the calendar hanging on the fridge. There was nothing noted on today. He hadn’t just come from the doctor or something. Her father was meticulous about writing all of his appointments on the kitchen calendar.
“Cookies for dessert, but I bought some extras, so maybe they can be an appetizer, too.” She joined him at the table and slid the bag of goodies his way. “I wanted to bring some milk, but that didn’t work out.”
“These babies don’t need milk,” he said before taking a bite. He pushed the bag back her way.
“Why are you home so early?”
Her dad took his time eating his cookie. He stared down at the table and up at the wall and everywhere but at Bonnie.
“Dad. What’s going on?”
“They let me go today.”
“They let you go home early?”
He shook his head. “They let me go. Permanently.”
Bonnie set her cookie down. The bite in her mouth tasted like sand. She managed to swallow it down. “They fired you?”
“Mr. Cole came by the job site and did it himself. Said they needed to trim some fat and figured I was close to retirement anyway.”
Bonnie’s dad wasn’t anywhere near retirement. He had spent much of his retirement money on her mother’s medical bills when she was sick. They’d had to refinance the mortgage on the house and dip into his 401(k). He’d been working for Cole Construction his entire adult life. He had helped make lots of money for Lauren’s father and had been underpaid for all that hard work. They weren’t trimming any fat. This was about Bonnie.
“I won’t let them do this, Dad.”
“There’s nothing you can do about it. I’ll figure something out.”
Bonnie stood up. There was something she could do about it. She was going to stand up for herself and her dad. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Even though she hated confrontation, Mr. Cole was about to get an earful.
* * *
“DAD, I DON’T want to work for Cole Industries.” Aaron stared hard at his reflection in the mirror. Had that been firm enough? He needed it to sound final, like there was no way to talk him out of this decision. He tried again. “Dad, I am not going to work for Cole Industries. I want to work with my hands, not sit behind a desk all day.”
He had to be careful about sounding like a willful child, which his father would probably accuse him of being regardless. Aaron straightened his tie and adjusted his suit coat. He had to put his foot down and state his case. His father wouldn’t like it, but that was the way it had to be.
He stepped out of the men’s restroom and made his way to his father’s corner office. Patricia, his father’s administrative assistant, smiled with sympathy as he walked by. She had no idea what he was about to say, but every conversation with his father lately led to Aaron storming out of his office in frustration.
He took a deep breath and knocked on his dad’s door, pushing it open at the same time. “Got a minute?” he asked when his father looked up.
“Half of one.” Walter Cole was always busy. Day or night. Workday or weekend. Regular day or holiday. The man was always working.
“I needed to talk to you about something,” Aaron said, entering the enormous office. “I’ll talk fast.” He sat down and mustered up the courage to repeat what he’d rehearsed in the bathroom. “Dad, I’m leaving Cole Industries. I want to work with my hands and not sit behind a desk all day. I appreciate the opportunities you’ve given me, but I think it’s time for me to try something on my own.”
“I want to build a rocket ship and be the man who colonizes the moon,” his father replied. Aaron stared blankly back at him. He hated when his father used sarcasm to belittle his feelings. “We all want things, Aaron. Sometimes we get them, and sometimes we do not. I paid for your Ivy League education and sent you to a very expensive and very prestigious business school so you could work for me. I suggest you get back to that work.”
Just like Aaron knew he would, his dad treated this as something he had final say over. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Dad.”
Dismissively, his father waved a hand at the door. “Good, now get back to work so I can get back to mine.”
Before Aaron could reply, Bonnie Windsor burst into the room. “Mr. Cole, I need a word with you.”
Patricia followed her in. “I am so sorry, Mr. Cole. She wouldn’t listen when I told her she needed an appointment. She just let herself in.”
His father sighed with frustration. “Call security, Patricia.”
“How dare you fire my father because of what happened at Lauren’s wedding? Don’t even think about telling me that’s not why you fired him. It’s one thing to let Lauren ban me from your market and your movie theater or to blacklist me so people won’t let me sell their houses, but to fire my father, who has dedicated his life to your construction company, is...” She seemed to struggle with finding a harsh enough word for his father’s actions. “...heartless.”
Aaron eyes were wide. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Mr. Windsor was a foreman at Cole Construction. He was an incredibly hardworking employee and an amazing craftsman.
“Well, some would say that it’s heartless to have an affair with their best friend’s fiancé, Miss Windsor.”
Aaron couldn’t stay silent. “Dad, she wasn’t having an affair with Mitch. I told you this.”
Bonnie had tears in her eyes. “I never had anything to do with Mitch. I have done nothing but be a loyal friend to Lauren since we met. You have known me since I was a little girl. How could you think I would do something like that to her?” Aaron’s father didn’t bother to reply. “Please don’t do this to my dad. Hate me. Ban me. Run me out of town. I don’t care, but don’t do the same to my father. Blue Springs is all he knows.”
“The Cole family has decided to cut all ties from the Windsors. You have wreaked havoc on my daughter’s life, and we choose to no longer associate with you or anyone related to you. That is our choice. And it’s nonnegotiable.”
Two brawny security officers entered the room. “We need you to come with us, miss,” one of them said.
The other one put his hand on her arm. Bonnie pulled away. Aaron got on his feet.
“Don’t touch her,” Aaron said, feeling protective. “I’ll see her out.” He got in between Bonnie and the security guard who dared to put his hands on her.
Bonnie didn’t fight about leaving. She stormed out the way she had stormed in. Aaron had to jog to keep up with her. “Bonnie, wait.” He caught her right when they got to the bank of elevators. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I am so sorry. I don’t know what’s going on, but I will do whatever it takes to make this right.”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do. Your sister always gets her way. She wants to destroy me, and she knows that the best way to get to me is through the only family I have left in this world. Your sister is the worst.”
“My sister is not at her best right now, but she’s hurting. I’ll talk to her. I thought she was coming around. She’s been less agitated lately.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure she’s been very pleased about successfully ruining my business and humiliating me in public in front of people we’ve known for years. I can’t wait to see what she has up her sleeve next.”
Lauren didn’t make it very easy to defend her. Still, Aaron was struck by a sense of family loyalty. “I don’t condone anything that’s happened, but let’s remember she was public
ly humiliated in a way neither one of us would wish on anyone.”
“I was mortified for her that day. What Mitch did was terrible, but Mitch did that to her, not me.” The elevator opened and Bonnie stepped inside. “Why am I the only one being punished?”
The doors began to close, and Aaron didn’t have a good reply. It was unfair, plain and simple. Lauren was taking out all of her anger on Bonnie because she was an easy target and Mitch was out of the country. Aaron loved his sister, but this was wrong. The Windsor family didn’t deserve to take any of the heat.
Aaron went back to his father’s office, where the elder Cole was busy signing his name to a stack of papers. “You can’t fire Mr. Windsor because Lauren has decided that Bonnie is the bad guy. Mitch told me himself that he hadn’t even shared his feelings with Bonnie, let alone had an affair with her.”
“If there are things I can do to ease your sister’s suffering, then I’m going to do them. When you have children, you’ll understand.”
Anger affected Aaron’s ability to see straight. “So Lauren’s feelings matter, but mine don’t? You’re going to ruin an innocent woman’s reputation and take away her father’s livelihood because of Lauren’s irrational feelings, but I tell you I want to do something different with my life for completely valid reasons and I’m told to be quiet and do as I am told? None of that makes any sense, Dad.”
His father set down his pen and glared at Aaron. “I can only deal with one child’s drama at a time, and your sister is draining every ounce of patience I have left. If you want to work with your hands, get a hobby. You need to take a vacation to go build houses for some charity, go ahead. But I need you to do your job for this company. You are a Cole, and you need to start acting like one.”
“If acting like a Cole means mistreating people because of Lauren’s childish whims, maybe I’ll change my name.”
Aaron left and walked down the hall to his office. He shut the door and sat at his desk. He hated everything about this job. The long hours, the business trips, crunching numbers, answering emails and spending a ridiculous number of hours on the phone. Aaron’s passion had always been building things. He’d had enough Lego kits as a kid to open his own store. He loved how it felt to take a bunch of pieces and make them whole. He enjoyed taking something old and worn down and cleaning it up and giving it a face-lift.
He had spent every summer during high school working for Cole Construction, and it had been the best time of his life. His father had thought doing manual labor would teach him to appreciate his opportunities to go to college and follow the path of being a white-collar worker instead. What he missed was that Aaron was in his element when he had a hammer in his hand.
If this was not the life Aaron wanted, he only had one option.
He opened his laptop and hit Print on the letter of resignation he had already written up. As much as he loved his family, he was embarrassed to admit that sometimes they acted like nothing more than entitled bullies. His father thought he could tell Aaron what to do. He wouldn’t like that Aaron was leaving, but he would have to get over it.
Right now, given how horrible his family was being to the Windsors, Aaron was fine with taking somewhat of a stand against his father. He was going to do some honest work that would at least make him feel proud of who he was and what he was doing.
CHAPTER THREE
“WE COULD HIRE an attorney. We’ll have to find one who has no connections to the Coles. I’m sure they’ve told everyone they know to not do business with me. I can’t believe I managed to buy cookies. What if Sweet and Savory started refusing me service?” Bonnie rambled as she washed her father’s dishes. Soap suds flew around the kitchen as she waved her hands in the air.
“Bon Bon, you need to take a breath,” her father said, putting his hand on her arm to stop her from flailing. “We’re not going to hire an attorney. There’s no way we can fight the Coles. Their attorneys would keep us in court until I ran out of money. It wouldn’t be worth it. I can find work. I’ll just have to find it somewhere other than Blue Springs.”
“That’s not fair! Why should you have to?”
Her dad ran his hand over his balding head. “Life isn’t fair. We learned that when we lost your mom. You gotta roll with the punches sometimes.”
It felt like she’d been punched a hundred times today. She couldn’t roll with all of them. She was ready to fight back. “Sometimes we have to stand up for ourselves.”
“I’m not hiring an attorney, Bonnie,” he replied gruffly, walking out of the room. “Drop it.”
She pulled her hands out of the dishwater and gripped the edge of the sink. She loved her father, but he had this belief that life happened to him and he didn’t have much control. Bonnie was guilty of feeling that way as well. When she was in Lauren’s good graces, bad things didn’t often happen to her, making it easier to not worry about who was in control. Now, things had changed, and bad things were happening much too often. Bonnie didn’t want to roll with the punches. She wanted to believe she had some control over what happened to her.
Talking to Mr. Cole hadn’t done her any good, however. Maybe it was time to go to Lauren and confront the beast.
Bonnie finished her dad’s dishes and practiced in her head how she would tell Lauren to stop her madness. The doorbell rang, and her dad shouted that he would get it. Bonnie dried her hands off and went to see who it was. She couldn’t take any more disappointment today.
Aaron Cole stood in the foyer with her father. He shook her dad’s hand, and it made Bonnie’s blood boil.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, suspicious of his intentions.
“I wanted to apologize for what happened today. First, to you, Mr. Windsor. You have been a valuable part of Cole Construction for as long as I can remember. You were an incredible mentor to me when I worked under you all those summers in high school.”
“I appreciate that, Aaron. And call me David. We’re all adults here.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” he replied with a grin.
“Are you here to offer him his job back?” Bonnie asked. She stood next to her dad, arms folded across her chest. There was nothing to smile about today.
“Seeing that I no longer work for Cole Industries, I wouldn’t be the one to talk to about that.”
Bonnie felt her eyes go wide. “What do you mean, you don’t work there anymore? Did your father fire you for defending me?” How far would the man go to do Lauren’s bidding?
Aaron shook his head. “No, I resigned. I left the company on my own.”
Bonnie almost fell over. How many bombs were going to get dropped today? “You quit your job? What did your dad say? Can you even do that?”
Aaron shrugged his broad shoulders. “I did, so I guess I can. My dad can’t force me to work for him.”
Bonnie’s dad placed a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “I hope you’ve thought this through, son. Your father has always wanted nothing but the best for you. He was thrilled when you came to work for him. I would hate to see this come between the two of you.”
Leave it to her dad to be worried about the father/son relationship of someone who’d just fired him for no good reason. The man didn’t have a mean bone in his body. She could understand why her dad sounded so surprised. For as long as Bonnie had known Aaron, it had been his destiny to take over Cole Industries. He had been groomed for it.
“I’ve done nothing but think about this for a long time. I’ve wanted to do my own thing for a while. I finally decided to take the plunge, but I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here to let you know that I don’t agree with what my sister is doing. I plan to talk to Lauren and convince her to back off.”
It was tempting to let someone else fight Bonnie’s battles for her, and for a minute, she considered letting him do it. She’d never been very good at getting Lauren to see different perspectives. She
usually let her best friend have her way, but Bonnie needed to handle Lauren on her own.
“I was going to talk to her myself. I don’t need you to intercede on my behalf.”
Aaron chuckled. His laughter at her expense raised her hackles. “I don’t think I have ever seen you stand up to my sister,” he said. “I can remember all the way back to when you two were little girls. Lauren always called the shots. Remember when you played house and she always had you be the maid?”
Bonnie straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. That might have been true back in the day, but things were different now. “We’re not little kids anymore.”
“No, you aren’t,” he agreed. “But how far did you have to drive to pick up those bridesmaids’ gifts? Is it normal for the maid of honor to pick up and wrap her own gift?”
“He’s got you there, Bon Bon,” her dad said.
Bonnie let out a frustrated huff. “They couldn’t ship them on time, and she had to be at the winery for that hospital fund-raising event. I had the time to do it and she didn’t.” That was a lie. Bonnie had told Lauren she had a showing and couldn’t go, but Lauren convinced her to call and reschedule so she could do her bidding. Bonnie tried to rationalize it. “It’s called being a good friend.”
Aaron nodded in agreement. “You’re absolutely right. You have always been a good friend to my sister, but she doesn’t always return the favor, and you never say a word. No offense, but being assertive is not your superpower. I, on the other hand, have been telling my sister what I think, good or bad, for her whole life. Let me talk to her.”
He made it difficult to argue with him. Bonnie couldn’t change Lauren’s mind. If she couldn’t stand up to Lauren when they were actually friends, how was she supposed to successfully defend herself now?
“If you think you can sway her, go for it.”
“I thought she was going to come around. It’s not like you and Mitch have been talking since the wedding.” He paused a second and bit down on his lower lip. “I mean, you haven’t, right?”