spent your money.”
“So?”
“So give me more.” The kid had the soul of a Beverly Hills trophy wife. She skipped over to him and climbed onto his lap.
“Don’t think this show of affection will win you any points,” he grumbled.
“What are you looking at?” Chloe said, settling back against him.
“Mr. Forbes is building a new skyscraper,” he said.
“I want to live in the penthouse.”
“You’re broke. And you have no earning potential, I might point out. You can’t even drive. Not very well, anyway.” This earned a giggle, and Lucas smiled into his niece’s hair.
“Is that a princess you have there?” came a voice.
“Hi, Frank!” Chloe scrambled off Lucas’s lap and charged into Frank Forbes’s legs. “Uncle Lucas showed me your new skyscraper, and I want to live in the penthouse!”
Frank picked up Chloe and laughed. “Well, you can stay overnight before we sell it, how’s that? You and your sisters?”
“Hooray!”
“Little girl, whatever your name is, go see Susan and tell her to let you answer the phones,” Lucas said. “You can be her boss until your mom comes to get you.” Steph, Lucas’s older sister, worked in Accounting seven floors down, and often sent her youngest up to bother him. Chloe was in the after-care program that Forbes offered its employees. Cara, Tiffany and Mercedes—Chloe’s sisters—had all been in the same program, though they were now extremely mature at ages fourteen for the twins, and sixteen for Mercedes.
Chloe stampeded for the reception area, the promise of power the best bribe possible.
“When can we hire her?” Frank asked, sitting down in the leather chair in front of Lucas’s desk.
Lucas smiled and waited. Frank only came by to talk about one thing these days—why Lucas should stay with Forbes Properties and not leave, as he planned to, once the Cambria skyscraper was finished. But Lucas was done here, as grateful as he was. Frank Forbes, his boss and former father-in-law (and yes, a relation to that Forbes) had been good to him.
“I wish you’d stay, son,” he said, almost on cue. “There’s no need for you to leave.”
“Thank you. But I think it’s time. More than time.”
Frank sighed. “Maybe. It won’t be the same without you, though.”
The truth was, it was still hard for Lucas to believe he worked here—him, a kid from the South Side, taking an elevator to the fifty-third floor every day. He’d first worked for Forbes Properties the summer of his freshman year of college, doing grunt-work construction, mostly cleaning up after the union carpenters and electricians, schlepping supplies, then working his way up being able to drive nails and cut wood.
Four years later, he’d been given a promotion, a health care package and a title.
That’s what happened when you knocked up the boss’s daughter.
And despite the fact that Frank had forgiven him for that transgression, had treated him far better than he deserved, had truly made him part of the family—and not just him, but Steph and her kids, too—Lucas couldn’t stay anymore. His debt to the Forbes family was paid as much as it would ever be.
“Have you seen my daughter lately?” Frank asked now.
“We had dinner the other night.”
There was a pause. “She looks good, don’t you think?”
“She does.”
Lucas’s intercom buzzed. “A call for you on line three,” came Chloe’s voice.
“Did you get a name?” Lucas asked.
“No,” she answered. “Get it yourself.”
Frank smiled. “I’ll see you later, son.”
“Thanks, Frank.” He waited until Frank left; the guy would stop to talk to Chloe, no doubt, who collected souls like a tiny Satan.
“Lucas Campbell,” he said into the phone.
“Lucas? It’s Joe.”
“Hey, Uncle Joe,” he said. “How you doing?”
There was a pause. “I’m not so good, pal.”
Something flared in Lucas’s chest. “Are you okay?”
“Well...the tumor’s getting bigger, and I think I’d like to...you know. Wind down.”
The words seemed to echo. Lucas looked out his window, automatically noting the Sears building, the Aon Center. “What can I do, Joe?” he asked, then cleared his throat.
“Can you come home for the duration? Bryce...he’ll take this hard. And there are some things I’ll need help with.”
“Of course.”
For the past eighteen months, Joe had been on dialysis; once a week at first, then twice, and now every other day. The kidney disease made him tired, but dialysis would keep him going almost indefinitely.
Unfortunately, a routine scan had discovered something more ominous—stage IV lung cancer, which would take him long before kidney failure, and Joe wanted to die on his own terms, as much as he could.
Joe was his only uncle, the older brother of Lucas’s late father. Joe’s wife, Didi, wasn’t the nurturing type. Bryce, their son, was an overgrown kid, sorely lacking in pragmatism. Not like Lucas, though they were almost exactly the same age.
“Is Bryce still at the vineyard?” he asked. His cousin had gotten a job at one of the many small vineyards in the Finger Lakes area, where Joe and Didi lived.
“No, he left there. It wasn’t for him,” Joe said.
Ah. Lucas tried to remember if Bryce had ever had a paying job for more than three months and came up empty.
“I’d like to see him settled before...before long,” Joe added. “You know. Employed. Happy. Stable.”
Adult, Lucas thought. He’d spoken to Bryce a couple of weeks ago, but it was mostly about the White Sox.
Lucas hadn’t been back to Manningsport in years. It wasn’t as if it had ever been home—just a place he’d lived for four months.
“I’ll make some arrangements, then,” Lucas said. “Call you tonight, Joe.”
Very gently, he hung up the phone.
So he’d be going back to Manningsport. Once more, he’d do his best to look out for Bryce. Once more, endure his aunt Didi, who’d only found him worthy of attention when he’d married Ellen Forbes, and still hadn’t forgiven him for divorcing
