She’d talk to Rick anyway. It was how partnerships worked—how their marriage had always worked and one of the reasons that, after sixteen years, theirs was as strong as ever.
She was set to leave her office when she grabbed the file folder that contained her thoughts on staff cuts. As long as she was going to have Rick’s undivided attention, she might as well get as much business accomplished as possible.
The door to Rick’s office wasn’t closed, but Libby rapped it with her knuckles anyway. She’d already stepped inside when she saw that he was on the phone, so while he finished she toed the threshold.
She didn’t mind waiting. It gave her the perfect excuse to step back and look at her husband.
At forty, Rick still made her heart skip a beat, and watching him, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. As always, he was impeccably dressed in a charcoal suit that was a perfect complement for his slim runner’s body. His dark hair was touched with gray, and she suspected that over the next years he’d turn into a carbon copy of his handsome, silver-haired father. Rick’s eyes were blue, and as he talked, the little dimple in his left cheek made a showing. She remembered that when they’d met in law school, that dimple was the first thing she’d noticed about him. That and the fact that she’d instantly fallen head over heels in love with him.
All these years later, nothing had changed. Oh, they’d had their rough patches—didn’t all couples?—but they’d come through stronger and happier. Life was good even if it wasn’t perfect.
Even if Rick insisted she sell Barb’s Knits without once taking a look at it and maybe getting some insight into the mystery that was her mother’s life.
The thought hit Libby out of the blue, and with a shake of her shoulders she got rid of it.
Logic, she reminded herself, was more important than emotion. Besides, any emotion she might have felt for Barb had evaporated years before.
Rick motioned to Libby that he’d be right with her.
“You’re sure?” he said into the phone. “Yeah. Of course. You know that’s true. I just didn’t think—” He spun his chair toward the window. “I’ll take care of it,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’ll just need to move on this faster and hey, that’s not such a bad thing, is it?”
As soon as he hung up, Libby stepped into the office. “Problems?”
Rick turned his chair around. “Nothing I can’t handle.” He looked her over, and for the second time in as many minutes, Libby felt her heart skip a beat. She swore she could feel a little lick of fire every time Rick looked at her.
This time, though, his gaze stopped at the file folder she carried.
“You want to talk business.”
Libby dropped into the guest chair across from where Rick sat. “Is that so unusual?”
“No, it’s just that…” He cleared his throat. “I’ve got some things to talk to you about, too.”
“Oh, no, buster. Me first. You’re not stealing my thunder.” For reasons she’d already examined and dismissed as unfounded, she wasn’t as excited about selling the knit shop as she knew Rick would be. But she didn’t mind pretending. After all the stress caused by the business slump the law firm was experiencing, he deserved a little pampering. “Good news. I got an offer on the property in Cleveland.”
“Take it.”
“Just like that? You don’t want to know how much they offered?”
He shrugged. “I don’t much care.”
“I thought you did. I thought—”
“You’re always putting words in my mouth.” Rick got up and crossed the room to close his office door. He stood with his back to her. “You know I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m just thinking about you, Lib. You need to have that Palmer woman out of your life.”
“That Palmer woman…” Libby gave the words the same inflection Rick had. As if they tasted bad. “She was my mother.”
“And a lousy one at that.”
“There’s no denying it. But that doesn’t mean—”
“What? That you should go on some kind of Indiana Jones quest?” Rick spun around. “You’re thinking about going to Cleveland again, aren’t you? Let’s face it, you’re not going to find something there that explains why Barb treated you the way she did. Or why, after all these years, she left you her business. What are you looking for, a letter? ‘Dear Libby, here are all the reasons I abandoned you, now you can live happily ever after’?”
“Of course not!” Though she denied it, Libby had to admit—at least to herself—that the thought had occurred to her. It was preposterous, sure. That didn’t make it any less appealing. And Rick should have known that.
She pulled in a breath to steady her racing heart. “I didn’t come in here to argue,” she said. “We’ve talked about it all before.”
“Ad nauseam.”
“Really?” Tears stung Libby’s eyes. She sniffed and stood. “And here I thought we were discussing an important part of my life because you cared about me.”
In an instant Rick’s anger dissolved. He stepped toward her but stopped short of folding her into a hug. “Of course I care,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been so preoccupied. You know that, Lib. You know I’ve got other things on my mind. That’s why when you said you had an offer, I figured we’d put an end to this whole thing.”
If he wasn’t going to make the first move, Libby would. She reached for Rick’s hand and folded her fingers over his. “It’s just that now that it’s come down to crunch time—”
“Nobody’s better in a crisis than you are.” He flashed a smile that disappeared quickly. “You know this is the right thing to do, Lib. It’s time to put that part of your life to rest.”
“I know. I have, but—”
“We could really use the money.”
“Yeah.” Libby pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. “You’re right.”
Rick untangled himself from her grasp and retreated to the other side of his desk. “One more thing off our to-do list.”
“But there are other things we need to discuss.” She waved the file folder. “I’ve been going over the list of people we could let go.”
“You know we have to do it.”
“I know. But I’ve been thinking…we could keep three clerical people. If we cut somebody with a higher salary.”
Rick dropped into his chair. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Libby was relieved. She flipped open the folder, took out the paperwork on Belinda Acton, the firm’s newest attorney, and handed it to Rick. “She’s been here only a few months,” she said.
