Off the Beaten Path (10 page)

Jack just smiled at Ben and said, “No time like the present.”

Ben walked over to Jack and put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and suggested that go in and have some lunch before they get started.

“Besides Mary will never forgive me if I put you to work before we feed you.”

As they walked through the front door Mary dished out the hugs and the lunch as if they hadn’t seen each other in a month.

The three of them made small talk during lunch and Mary spent most of her time waiting them hand and foot. Ben had given up years ago trying to get Mary to sit still and visit for more than a few minutes. She always had to be doing something and if she wasn’t doing something she was thinking about doing something. The only time she stopped was to rest her hands on either Ben’s or Jack’s shoulders give them a little squeeze and dart off to her next chore. After lunch Ben and Jack excused themselves and headed out to the barn to patch the hole in the roof. The last thing the two of them heard as they went out the front door was Mary barking,

“Benjamin James Miller, don’t let me catch you up on that ladder.”

“Yes dear,” Was his only reply.

Jack did most of the work while Ben held the ladder and sent him up tools and materials by way of a bucket attached to a rope. Sam was the unofficial supervisor but all of them knew that they were being watched very carefully from the kitchen window. Once in a while Ben would take a couple of steps up the ladder toward Jack just to give Mary something to grouse at him later about. When the hole was patched and all the tools were put away Jack and Ben headed for the front porch where Mary and Sam were waiting for them holding a couple of cold beers. They sat and talked for a while about nothing in particular when Mary reached over and put her hand on top of Jack’s hand and said,

“Jack, how long are you going to wait before you go after that lovely girl?”

After a long pause Jack volunteered,

“I was thinking about leaving on Thursday.”

“Think you can wait that long.” Ben added with a gentle smirk.

“Thursday will be soon enough, it will take me that long to take care of my business before I leave.”

Ben asked, “Are you going to ask the Clark boys to watch your place?”

“Yes, I think so, they have done it before and they could use the extra money.”

Mary reminded Jack,

“I remember years ago a young man who Ben and I couldn’t get rid of so we had to allow him to marry our daughter and drag her off to Houston.”

“That was before I had two hundred head of buffalo and a ranch to find someone to look after.”

“Horse hockey, the young man I remember wouldn’t have let that beautiful creature leave in the first place.” Mary scolded.

“Mary, take it easy on the boy or he won’t let us stop by on Sunday for some of his bad coffee anymore.” Ben chided.

Jack had heard all he needed to hear, the two people in his life that he respected and loved most had given him their blessing. They had given him permission to move on with his life. They talked for another fifteen or twenty minutes before Jack thanked them for lunch and excused himself to finish seeing the people he needed to talk to before he took off on Thursday. They walked him to his truck and Ben wrapped his big old arms around Jack like he would never let him go. When Ben leaned away from Jack still holding onto his forearms he was visibly emotional, he looked Jack dead in the eyes and said with his voice cracking,

“Three years is long enough to grieve son.” Jack held his glance for as long as he could. When the tears started to well up in his eyes he said simply, “Yes Pop,” He had not called Ben Pop since before Angela had died. Mary stood by patiently waiting her turn holding onto Jack’s arm for support, Jack’s and hers. When Ben finally let go of him Mary gave Jack her strong embrace followed by a gentle kiss on the cheek. She did not say a word she didn’t need too, partially because she couldn’t get the words out but mostly because Ben had said enough for the both of them. Sam broke the tension with a howl that they all recognized as needing some attention herself.

“I am so sorry Samantha, we love you to.” Mary said as she dropped down and gave Sam some love.

As Jack and Sam climbed into the pickup he promised that he would stop by on Thursday on his way out of town. They waved goodbye as he pulled out of the drive and drove off down the road to talk to the Clark brothers about looking after his place while he was gone.

The daily meeting was held every morning at exactly nine thirty in the conference room. All of the client reps and their personal assistants were required to attend. Only one of Kristin’s assistants needed to be there and they took turns. Jake and Dean also took turns so that at least one of them was aware of any special requirements or problems they needed to be involved in during the day. If Kristin was late for some reason the meeting was supposed to start without her, she would catch up. If she needed to leave during the meeting everyone knew that the meeting would continue without any hesitation, her assistant would fill her in later. The purpose of the daily meeting was twofold, first, to clear up any unresolved issues and second to focus on upcoming projects that needed more attention. They did not get bogged down in details and no one was allowed to criticize any idea or suggestion. There was a thirty minute limit on how long the meeting would last and most of the time they were finished before the thirty minutes was up. The thing that made the daily meetings as well as the entire organization so productive was a rule Kristin had established when they first started The Palmer Agency. She had read somewhere that Henry Ford had a hard and fast rule

“Don’t come to me with a problem, unless you also have a solution.”

If it was good enough for Henry it was good enough for her. The second thing that made everything run like clockwork was Rebecca or just Becca as most everyone called her. Becca had been Kristin’s friend
long before she was her business manager. When Kristin asked Becca to be her business manager her first response was a resounding “No.” It took most of a month, four bottles of wine and a lot of convincing to persuade Rebecca to take the job. Her greatest fear was not failure of the business she had a master’s degree in business management and a minor in accounting. Her greatest fear is what being in business together would do to their friendship. Rebecca took the job on one condition, that if she for one minute thought that their friendship was in jeopardy she could walk away, no questions asked. Kristin had agreed to her terms and so far the partnership had not only worked but had flourished into one of the most successful and respected Modeling agencies on the west coast. Becca always sat in the same chair in the morning meeting, Kristin always sat in whatever chair was available. It was Becca’s job to provide a sense of consistency to the meeting and it was Kristin’s belief that it was her responsibility to set the tone of the meeting.

Becca arrived about fifteen minutes before the meeting and seeing Kristin’s car in the parking lot flew into the building and up the stair’s like the place was on fire. She burst into Kristin’s office and asked in the tone of a drill sergeant,

“Just where in the hell have you been?” and don’t give me that. I was secluded in my apartment B.S. I have a very reliable source that assures me that you haven’t been home all weekend.”

Kristin didn’t even look up from her spreadsheet, she asked,

“How much did you give Jimmy?”

“Fifty bucks,” Becca said.

Kristin raised her eyes without looking up. She raised an eyebrow at her friend.

“Okay, a hundred bucks, money well spent.” Becca admitted.

They both laughed and Becca pulled up a chair.

“Seriously, you finished up in L.A. on Wednesday morning; I thought you were going to be back in town by Thursday afternoon then spending the weekend recuperating.

“I took the long way home.” She said.

The two women starred at each for a long moment until a smile slowly grew in the corners of Kristin’s eyes Becca leaned across the desk and said,

“Liar, are you going to tell me where you were?”

“Maybe later.” She said. Dismissing her best friend's assertion.

“Listen Kris, where you were and what you were doing is your business, but all of us around here remember the last few months. We remember the crying in your office when you thought no one was watching. We remember you walking around in a depressing fog with a blank look on your face. We all remember the, I don’t give a crap about anything or anybody including yourself attitude. Hell, there was a time when the standing rule around here was not to let you go to the second Floor without an escort for fear you would jump off the balcony. There were nights that Dean and Jake took turns following you home. You lived through what that no good Son of a Bitch did to you and came out stronger for it. I just don’t want to see you jump too fast into something that you’re not ready for.”

“I appreciate the concern, I really do.” Kristin said with all sincerity.

“But I don’t think you need to worry about me anymore.”

Becca studied her face for long moment there was defiantly something different about her friend. As Becca got up to go get ready for the morning meeting she said,

“Okay, but remember, everyone around here is still worried about you.”

When she reached the door Kristin called after her, Becca.

“I knew when Dean and Jake were following me home, they would make terrible undercover cops.”

All she got from Becca as she went out the door was a good natured, Humph.

The morning meeting began right on schedule and pretty much as usual except for one exception, this morning Kristin choose to remain standing during the entire meeting. She moved around the conference room effortlessly as the conversation moved from person to person. It wasn’t a nervous kind of energy her actions more resembled a college professor prowling around her classroom trying to encourage her students to think in new and different ways. She only volunteered her input when one of her staff was having trouble articulating a thought, then her gentle coaxing was no more than a word or two. They seemed to be more encouraged than constricted by her roving presence during the meeting. The meeting went right up against the scheduled thirty minute time limit but it seemed to everyone in the room that it was one of the shortest and most productive meetings they had ever had. Everyone left the meeting that morning with two impressions, first, they were personally energized for what they needed to do that day and second Kristin was back in charge of the business and her personal life.

Thursday morning Melissa was sorting the mail when a postcard dropped out of the stack into her lap. She picked up the card and looked at the picture on the front. It was an endless field of Bitterroot flowers with a range of jagged mountain peaks in the background. The caption read The Majestic Mission Mountain. Melissa turned the card over to see who it was addressed to at the agency. As she read Kristin’s name in the address box she couldn’t help read the lines that Jack had written on the back of the card.

Trade you a dropped earring for a stolen towel,

Jack and Sam

Melissa put the postcard on top of Kristin’s stack of mail and headed for her bosses office. Becca was coming out of the break-room as
Melissa reached the bottom of the staircase. The postcard casually fell from the stack of mail at Becca’s feet. Becca picked up the postcard read the writing on the back of the card and handed it back to Melissa with a wink.

Jack was feeding the horses and checking the heard to see if he could see any potential problems to tell the Clark brothers about. He walked around the house and the property to see if he had forgotten anything. He threw their gear into the pickup and pulled out the front gate. Jack thought they could get most of the way there today. They could find a motel tonight and then drive the rest of the way in tomorrow. He stopped at the Clark brother’s place to give them some last minute instructions. He swung by Ben and Mary’s to check on them before he headed west. Mary had packed both him and Sam a lunch that could have fed a small army. Ben and Mary wished him well and assured him that he didn’t need to worry about anything while he was gone, they would look in on his place and make sure the Clark boys were doing a good job. They were not aware that Jack had asked some of the neighbor’s to check on them while he was gone. When Jack reached the main road he stopped and waited for a minivan with Illinois plates to pass in front of him. Just before he turned out onto the two lane highway Jack’s attention was caught by the reflection off of something very shiny lying just inside the weeds on the side of the gravel road. For a split second it looked to him to be a ring. He thought to himself, No, probably just a piece of fool’s gold as he turned the truck onto the highway and headed down the canyon.

Jack removed his cowboy hat as the two of them walked through the front door of the Palmer Agency. Melissa started to tell Jack that dogs were not allowed in the building when they heard a scream of sheer
delight from the landing above them “Sam” was all they heard, it was Kristin that had yelled Sam’s name out. Everyone in the building turned as Sam bolted across the floor and up the stairs toward Kristin. She had squatted down to greet Sam as the overly excited yellow lab reached the landing they collided with such force that she knocked Kristin on her butt. Kristin held on tight around Sam’s neck and laughed with delight. Melissa looked at Jack and then at Sam then back to Jack, he could see a question being answered by the look on her face. She pointed at Jack after she made the connection and simply said,

“Jack I presume?”

Jack tipped his head slightly in her direction and stuck out his hand,

“Nice to meet you Melissa.”

When Kristin finally managed to break away from Sam and get to her feet she starred down and Jack and said without any reservation or concern for who heard it,