Chapter Two #3
“Give Mews a scratch for me. I’ll text you later.
” Near the parking lot, Oakley separated from his father and walked back through the park toward Emerald Ridge Boulevard.
He wondered what Rachel would think about the man on the riverbank.
He also wondered if she was hungry. Because of his father’s abrupt exit from the table, Oakley hadn’t gotten a chance to eat his chicken sandwich and fries, and his stomach grumbled its displeasure.
He entered the lobby and pressed the elevator Up button.
Because he had a conference call in ten minutes, he’d ask Rachel to order him something, and he’d treat her out of the office budget if she wanted something for herself.
That was legal, and the least he could do since he was asking her to place the order.
He stepped off the elevator, walked down the hall, then reached for the door handle to his office and gave a pull.
His arm jerked as he found the place locked.
That was strange. He retrieved his key and unlocked the door.
The reception area looked as it always had.
A row of leather chairs along one wall. Along another, a leather love seat with a coffee table.
There was the water cooler and the side table with a few rodeo magazines.
Sun streamed through the window and a beam fell on his administrative assistant’s desk.
A desk that was empty. Her computer was dark-screened and silent—turned off and not simply asleep.
He checked his phone. Odd. Rachel hadn’t texted him.
He logged into an app on his phone and opened his email.
Nothing there either. Had she stepped out and forgotten to tell him?
Things had definitely taken a strange turn.
First, they’d found the man on the riverbank and now he was missing his admin.
He entered his personal office, sat down behind his desk and found his mail stacked neatly, exactly as it should be.
Letters he needed to deal with immediately were in one pile.
Bills in another and junk mail in a third.
To the right of those, a package from his sister was resting on top of the box she’d shipped it in.
He lifted the framed photo, the last one taken before their mother had gotten sick.
Underneath the frame he found a sticky note in Rachel’s handwriting.
I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I’m quitting effective immediately. Thanks, but no thanks. Sorry.
Her double “sorry” gutted him. What had made her decide to quit? He stared at the photo of everyone smiling. No. Please don’t let it be.
With a sick feeling churning in his gut, he roused his computer and did a quick internet search using two names: Rachel Evers and Clemons Frost. The results loaded immediately, most of them news articles with headlines reading something like “Man sues woman and her baby for mental distress after baby vomits on his back and shoulder.”
Most of the comments accompanying the article were filled with vitriol, calling his father all sorts of names.
Multiple witnesses said Rachel had attempted to pay Clemons’s dry-cleaning bill.
She’d apologized to him and to everyone in the shop.
But his father had still sued her for one hundred thousand dollars.
Oakley dropped his head in his hands as shame filled him.
Then he found himself angry on her behalf.
He’d hired her through an employment agency.
She must have assumed he’d always been a Fortune since that was his last name, but once she’d opened his mail and seen the family photo, she realized he was also Oakley Frost, and that his father, Clemons Frost, was the litigant.
Oakley scowled. His dad had just cost him one of the best administrative assistants he’d ever had, and given what Oakley had just discovered, he couldn’t blame her for leaving.
Irritation coursed through him as he picked up his phone and dialed.
When his father answered, Oakley forced himself to unclench his jaw.
“Did you find out anything?” his father asked.
“No,” he clipped out. “Instead, I was just reading about your lawsuit where you sued a woman because her baby accidentally threw up on you. What were you thinking?” And how had he missed that lawsuit?
Oakley knew about the too-hot coffee that had scalded his dad, the faulty siding that had buckled and warped and caused water damage, and the store that hadn’t wiped up spilled water, causing his dad to slip and sprain his ankle.
Yet somehow, this ridiculous litigation involving his admin had slipped completely under his radar.
“I was thinking her baby puked on my nice new linen suit. Even after dry cleaning, it wasn’t the same. And it was vomit. It caused emotional distress,” Clemons said.
Once again, Oakley wanted to put his head in his hands, this time to scream in frustration. But he refrained. The truth was plain to see—at times his dad was a menace, and like a leopard, he couldn’t change his spots.
Who sued a woman whose baby accidentally vomited?
His father did. The suit had dry-cleaned just fine, but his father had refused to wear it again and had donated the “offensive item.” If his dad didn’t change his ways, so much for a fresh start.
Apparently, Clemons’s actions had already followed them here.
“Dad, you have to stop this. Emerald Ridge is not Dallas. It’s a small town. You’re going to get a terrible reputation and ruin everything. You’ve already insulted the Leonetti family.”
Oakley held out his phone just as his father let loose in his ear. When he quieted, Oakley said simply, “You just cost me the best admin I’ve had in forever, and I can’t let this stand.”
“How did I do that?”
As his father wound up his justifications again, the video call Oakley was expecting from his sister rang, and Oakley hung up on his dad. He didn’t have the patience to listen any longer. His sister was already online when he joined.
“Sorry, I’m a bit early,” Cheyenne, the youngest sibling, said. “Did you hear about the man they found in the park? I was in the ER when it happened.”
“Actually, Dad and I were the ones to find him.” He told her what he’d seen until the rest of the siblings came online.
“And I thought I was early,” his sister Maisey quipped as she joined them.
Jagger, Evanston and Avery came online next. The siblings were close, and they chatted virtually at least once a week to touch base. Normally, the conversation revolved around their father, and this time was no different.
“I’m worried Dad’s reverting back to his ‘let’s sue everyone’ behavior,” Oakley grumbled.
“Please, no,” Maisey said. “None of us needs that. This was to be a clean slate for him.”
“Well, apparently he lost the memo.” Oakley sighed. “We’re almost to the anniversary of losing Mom. Could that be why he’s acting out more than usual? You should have seen how furious he got when I suggested maybe it was time to move on.”
His siblings made sympathetic noises. “I just want him happy,” he added. “It was rough, losing her, but he needs to heal.”
Their mother had been sick for a while, in and out of hospitals, but after the brain tumor manifested, she’d been gone in days.
“We all do,” Jagger said. He hadn’t made it back to their mom’s bedside in time, and Oakley knew his brother still blamed himself. “And we want him to find happiness again.”
“Exactly,” he agreed. “We can’t let Dad blow this chance for a do-over.
We have to do something to help him get through this.
He’s a Fortune now—we all are—and we can’t destroy our family’s reputation in this town.
Our new relations will never forgive us…
and I’d prefer they not shun us before we get fully settled. ”
As the siblings began to discuss ideas, Oakley picked up the sticky note Rachel had left. He turned it over and over in his fingertips. Resolve set in. He had to admit he was like his father in one aspect. When wronged, he took action.
He wasn’t going to let this injustice stand.