Chapter 10
He looked around the courtroom and decided then and there that he’d had enough, too.
Laughing to himself, Knox decided that if he didn’t win this suit against the family, he was going to quit anyway.
There was enough evidence to win in their favor, and he thought that for as much work as he’d put into this case, he should be able to do what he wanted.
He called Elaine before he started and told her what he was planning on doing.
“ Thank goodness. I thought I was going to have to beat you into submission. Are you really going to retire too? I think that it would be great to have us both at home all the time. I miss the kids.” He said that he did as well and wanted to see things like his kids’ first games, too.
“ I have missed so many of them that I want to cry at night. I’ve decided to give my notice at the hospital today. What do you think?”
“ I think that’s a fan-tabulous idea.” She said she was going to do it then.
“ Good. I’m going to tell Locke in the morning.
We have a breakfast meeting to go over some contracts.
I’ll still do that for the family, but I’m not going to be researching everything to the point of spending weeks on a case that doesn’t require it.
And I’m finished with the courtroom. I thought that I’d like it, but I don’t care for it.
People are bastards, and I’m sick of dealing with them. ”
“ Good for you.” She laughed and said that she was going to do it as soon as she got off the phone with him.
“ I need to just make a clean break of it. And giving them two weeks’ notice will be about the same amount of time that I have left in vacation time.
It’ll be nice to be home for the summer months, too. ”
“ Yes, we’ll have to find us some places to go camping this summer.
I know that we both love it. And it’s about time to introduce the boys to it as well.
” She said that Kian was a bit small yet, but she thought that he’d enjoy going on a trip with mommy and daddy.
“ All we need to do is load up some food and clothing, and we can be out the door. I love that about having our camper ready to go all the time.”
They’d been taking quick trips since the snow melted off, just overnight places that they could get a jump on camping season.
So far this year alone, they’d had five trips, and they had enjoyed every one of them.
But they wanted something more than a couple of days; they wanted a month to go someplace and hang their hats.
When the courtroom was adjourned for lunch, he went across the street and got himself a hot chicken sandwich with fries and a shake.
Usually, he sat in the courtroom and went over his notes again and again just to make sure that he didn’t miss anything.
But today he made himself slow down and experience his food.
Even going so far as to just sit under the tree and feel the sun coming down on his face before going back to the courtroom.
When it was time, he walked to his seat and waited before getting his paperwork out.
This kind of thing wasn’t him at all, and he found himself taking pleasure in the break from scrambling around like he was late for everything.
After winning his case, he cleaned up his area and spent a few minutes with his clients.
They were just other lawyers from the foundation, but he rarely spent any time with anyone outside the family, and he loved that he could make the time.
He felt that he was missing a great deal by not spending time with others.
He’d worked with these men and women for years and didn’t know anything about them.
Thinking that was sad, he wondered at the other things that he’d missed working so hard.
Like his brothers, he’d been working all his life.
Not even becoming a billionaire had changed him in his working habits.
He got up every day with one thing in mind, and that was to work to the best of his ability and not stop until all the work was finished.
Even when he had his mini vacations with his family, he could be found with paperwork in hand and his nose buried deep in records so that he had all the information needed.
More information than he needed in reality.
Going home, he put his briefcase on the table with his keys and went into the living room.
No one was home yet, so he pulled the remote toward him and turned on the television.
Finding a movie that he’d not seen, he watched it until Mandy and the boys came home.
He even dozed off for a few minutes too.
It was the best two hours that he’d ever spent in a while, and he loved it.
“ What did you watch?” He told Mandy what the name of the movie was supposed to be. “ I don’t think that got very good reviews. Why did you watch the whole thing?”
“ Because I could. And I didn’t answer the phone once while I was doing it.
You know what? I’m going to do it again, too, when I have the chance.
I can’t remember the last time I watched an entire movie without having to leave it to answer a question or two.
It was quite entertaining.” He asked her how her afternoon went.
She told him that she’d given her notice.
“ That’s great. Did they try to talk you into staying?
I would have. You’re the best nurse they have there. ”
“ They asked me to give a month’s notice so that they could find a replacement.
I almost said yes, but I didn’t. I don’t want to spend another month working when you’re home.
How did your case go?” He told her about his lunch and how much fun he’d had at it.
“ It’s the little things, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve been missing out on the little things for some time now.
I’m excited about this next part of our lives. ”
After dinner, where the two of them had a pleasant meal, they went to the living room with the boys and played a game.
He’d like to say that he finished the game without interruptions, but the boys made it so that they had to take a break to get snacks.
It was the most pleasant evening he’d spent with his family in a long time.
And his kids noticed that he wasn’t in his office all the time, too. That was very telling for him.
Going up to bed after spending an hour in his office writing up his resignation, he felt better than he had in some time.
He’d heard from Zander twice about how his retirement was accepted and was hoping that he was doing the same.
All his brothers were thinking of spending more time with their families, and he thought that was the best way to go.
He’d see how he felt in a month. Things might go back to the way they were, he told Mandy.
“ I don’t think so. I’m going to keep you so busy that you’re not going to miss work at all.
I have a list of things that need to be done around the house, too, that we’ve been putting off.
” He asked her what sort of things. “ The rooms all need to be painted, and while I know we’re going to end up hiring someone to do that, the stuff will need to be taken off the walls to be ready for them.
I want to redo the kitchen too. It’s really out of date since we moved in.
Not a full renovation, mind you, but we do need to bring it up to this century. ”
They talked about what other things he was going to do.
Not that he was going to be doing manual labor, he just wasn’t built for that anymore, but there were lots of things around the yard that needed to be supervised as well.
Like they wanted to put up a nice swing set for the kids.
Trim back the trees that had gotten out of hand since the last snowstorm.
After turning in his resignation, he made his way up to bed.
He so loved this time of the evening when the house was quiet, and everyone was sleeping.
Going to the window that looked out over the back yard, he could see where things had gotten out of hand there, too; tree branches had fallen and hadn’t been picked up by the yard crew.
He wondered for a brief moment if he could get them gathered up and put into a large pile to burn.
Then he realized that he really wasn’t in that sort of shape anymore.
He still ran every morning with his brothers.
He and one or more of them would get together and run in the morning before having breakfast. It was like when they got to go to dinner on Thursday evening together.
Just a way to catch up on things and each other.
It was how they were notified that he was going to have a baby in the house soon.
That had been three years ago, and now they were trying for number three.
Watching the deer in his backyard, he wondered where all the time had gone and sat down on the window seat to think.
They’d won the lottery almost twenty years ago now and had turned that money into a working, successful business that they all still got more money from daily.
Without the help of Dusty and August, knowing the market as well as they did, he did wonder where they’d be without them.
Probably still wealthy, as they still pinched pennies everywhere they could when they could.
Going to bed, he was happy that he and Elaine still had a good relationship.
They didn’t argue at all, and when they did have a disagreement, it was usually over before bedtime.
He never wanted to go to bed angry with her, and she said the same about him.
They loved one another, and he couldn’t believe how lucky he’d been in finding her when he did.