Mary Anne Wilson - Millionaire's Christmas Miracle

“Okay, okay. Since you aren’t going to come out here for Christmas and Grandma and Granddad are going to Florida for the holidays, I was going to head up to Tahoe for some skiing. I just wondered if you had Joe Kline’s number so I could see if we could use his condo? I can’t find it anywhere.”

Quint passed the cell phone to his other ear and looked past his reflection in the tinted window to the night streets of Houston glittering with Christmas decorations. “I don’t have it with me, but you can get it from his son, Dane. He’s listed.”

“Great, thanks.”

“Who’s the ‘we’ in ‘we could use his condo?”’

“A friend.”

“Okay, fair enough,” he murmured. “Just be careful, have fun and leave—”

“—it the way we found it,” Mike said, completing the sentence for him.

“You read my mind.”

“Now, that’s an easy job. Just think work and responsibility.” Before Quint could counter that, Mike asked, “So, are you going to be out at the ranch or what?”

“I’m staying at the Towers Hotel in the city. It’s just easier than being all the way out at the ranch.”

“How’d you convince Grandma that you weren’t staying with them now that you’re back in Houston?”

“Unlike you, your grandmother understands what work is and how important it is to be close to that work.”

“Obviously you haven’t talked to her since you landed.”

“I called and left a message. What’s going on?”

“I talked to Grandma yesterday and she’s worried about you. She thinks you should take advantage of being on your own again, that you should find some nice girl and settle down.”

Quint narrowed his hazel eyes at his own reflection in the tinted windows, a man with gray-streaked dark hair brushed back from a face that was all planes and angles, dominated by a full mustache. Hardly a “kid” a mother had to worry about. “She’s wasting her time on that line of thought.” He’d settled down once and lived to regret it. He’d never regret having Mike, and if he’d been able to have the same child without ever having had Gwen in their lives, he wouldn’t have hesitated for a minute. But it didn’t work that way. “I’m too old to buy into that scenario anymore.”

“Why don’t you rewrite the scenario and forget the ‘settling down’ part? Just find some sexy woman and go with the flow? Let it happen. Relax. Chill out.”

“God, you sound like some hedonistic hippy,” he said. “And any lady my age isn’t into the party scene. She’s sitting at home with her grandchildren.”

Mike laughed at that. “Dad, you’re not old. You’re only 49. Besides, who says you need someone your age? You know what they say—if you’re in this world at the same time, age doesn’t matter. So go with that.”

“If you say, ‘let it all hang out’ I’m hanging up on you,” Quint said.

Mike laughed again. “Okay, okay, I won’t, but can’t you ditch that reception and go party?”

“You go to Tahoe and have a great time, and I’m going to work at a job that’s going to be a killer.”

“I’ll bet you’re even thinking of working on Christmas.”

Without Mike around and with his parents away, Quint would be alone. “It’s just another day.”

“What about on your birthday?”

Quint seldom thought about birthdays, and this one was no exception. “It’s just another day,” he repeated.

“It’s New Year’s and it’s your birthday.”

“Why waste a perfectly good day?”

“I don’t think you remember how to have fun,” Mike said, then chuckled ruefully. “I guess, with it being Christmas and all, I was hoping for a miracle.”

“I don’t need a miracle. I’m fine.”

“I hope so,” Mike murmured, then said, “Merry Christmas, Dad.”

“Merry Christmas, son,” Quint said, then turned off the phone and slipped it into one of the inside pockets of his tuxedo.

Mike would learn soon enough that there were no miracles in this life. Quint had learned that the hard way.

Four hours later

Quint left the gold and silver shimmer of the huge room on the corporate level at LynTech behind him. He closed the doors on the Christmas music and chatter blending in a strange rhythm and went out into the broad corridor. If he hadn’t quit smoking years ago, he would have lit up and let the acrid smoke fill his lungs, perhaps dispersing the frustration and sense of wasted time that dogged him at these events. And with jet lag mixed in, he was ready to make his escape.

He’d needed to make contact, to get a sense of the place, a sense of the people, but it was time to leave. He nodded to a couple going in, got a blast of the noise as the doors opened, then there was just the quiet of conversation farther down the hallway as the doors closed. He looked in that direction and saw three or four people waiting by the elevators. Robert Lewis, the founder of LynTech, and a dapper man with white hair, was deep in conversation with his daughter, Brittany, a stunning woman with flame hair and exquisite green eyes. To her right stood Matt Terrel, one half of the CEO position at LynTech, a sandy-haired man the size of a linebacker. Wedged between Brittany and Terrel and hugging both of them, was the nine-year-old boy who had been hanging around all evening, Anthony, in a miniature tux.

The four people looked happy enough, very close, but he wasn’t about to get near them. He’d talked to Robert earlier that evening to discuss his original vision for LynTech, but had ended up hearing all about his problems with Brittany. Right then the elevator arrived and the doors slid open.

Anthony grabbed Brittany and Matt by their hands, tugging them into the elevator, followed by Robert who turned as the doors started to close. Quint caught the older man’s eye long enough to see Robert smile at him, then the barrier shut and Quint was alone in the corridor.

He headed down past the bank of elevators and went directly to the exit door for the stairs. He pushed it back, and his dress shoes tapped on the metal stairs as he headed down to the bottom floor. He was a bit amazed at the congeniality he’d just witnessed, considering the mood Robert had been in an hour ago. Back then, he’d been very upset over Brittany’s attitude and actions.

“My Brittany just can’t focus, she can’t seem to settle,” the man had said. “She runs here and there. She’s started so many university courses, so many majors that it’s ludicrous, then she just walks away. I’d hoped that getting her to come to work here would help, and I thought it had, but now…” He’d shaken his head as if he’d lost all hope. “I’ve tried, but I admit that I’m at a loss.”

Quint had never been the sort that people opened up to and confided in, partly because he wouldn’t have done that with someone else. He’d learned to keep his distance to make working with people easier, and he really had no answers for anyone’s personal life. With the exception of Mike, he’d made a mess out of his personal life.

His hand skimmed over the coldness of the metal handrail as he rounded the corner on the stairs. He’d told Robert to do what any parent did—his best. That was when the conversation had gone beyond what he wanted to discuss. “I’ve tried, but how I wish her mother was still alive.” Robert had exhaled, a sound that was more of a sigh tinged with a shadow of sorrow. “I think I missed having her mother there more than Brittany did.” Yes, sorrow. “I heard you’d raised your boy alone, so you understand.”

Quint kept going down, level by level. Robert’s comment had struck an unexpectedly still-raw nerve in Quint. Whatever mistakes he had made with Mike wouldn’t have been righted if Gwen had stuck around. But Robert had obviously loved his dead wife. Quint couldn’t relate to that and had been unnerved that the old bitterness about what had happened so many years ago had reared its ugly head.