Chapter 20
They flew home late the next day. Brad rented a car at the airport for the ride home. They both had a case of jet lag and fell into bed exhausted.
He got up at his normal time. Amy was still asleep and he quietly went down to the kitchen and fixed a pot of coffee. He called Carl at home and let him know that he and Amy had gotten home the night before. Carl told him that all of the papers were ready for her signature. He said that he would be in court all day but that he could stop by in the evening if they would be home. Brad assured him that would be fine and hung up the phone.
The car rental company came by and picked up the car. He sipped his coffee and tried to figure out how to tell Amy his plans. She had turned his life around. He wanted to get back to his business again and knew that she could be a great partner. She was much more mature than her years. She was very intelligent and was good with people. He knew from experience that she could be hard-nosed when she had to be.
He got up to get another cup of coffee. Amy walked into the kitchen, half asleep, and walked into his arms. She held him with her head in his chest and was silent. For a minute he thought she had fallen asleep in his arms. She raised her head and looked at him.
"You didn't make love to me last night. Don't you love me any more?"
He laughed, "If I remember correctly, you fell asleep before I did. Now, who doesn't love who?"
She took the coffee away from him and sat down. She took a couple of sips before she tried to talk.
"I loved the trip, especially Ireland, considering what we did there. I'm glad to be home though. I'm anxious to start being your wife."
He smiled and got up from the table, "How about some breakfast?"
She glared at him, "If you don't want your leg broken, you'd better sit down. I'm the wife here and I fix breakfast for my husband."
He jumped away from the refrigerator, "OK, how about fixing me some bacon and eggs, wife?'
She fixed bacon and eggs for the two of them and they ate and talked. He helped her clean up and stacked the dishes in the dishwasher.
"We're going to have to get some healthy food in here. You had a month's worth of cholesterol there this morning."
He gave an exaggerated shrug, "Already she's trying to take my food away. I can see that I'm going to be eating cases of lettuce."
She leered at him, "I think I'll go get a shower. After all of the help you've give me this week, I don't know if I remember how to shower alone. Would you like to help me?"
He leered back at her, "Sure, it will help conserve water."
She ran upstairs with him chasing her. They got in the shower and washed each other for a while until the passion overtook them and they made love in the shower.
After they dressed and came back down stairs, Brad took her hand and led her into his office. She followed with a quizzical look on her face. He sat her down next to him at the desk.
"Amy, you know I'm not exactly a pauper. Carl is going to come over this evening with a lot of papers for you to sign. If anything would happen to me today you'd be in big trouble. You're not in my will yet, so the state would wind up with a healthy chunk of everything we own. I meant to make you the beneficiary on my will a long time ago but I just let it slide."
She put her hand on his, "We have time to do this later. I want you to think about what you want to do before you jump into anything."
He pulled his hand from her's and put it on top of her hand, "No this has to be done now. You don't even have any idea what I own. First off is this house. The lot on each side of this house is mine. I bought them so that I would have a little breathing room. All together it amounts to a little under two acres. You have probably noticed that the gardener that takes care of our place cuts the grass on those two lots."
He looked to see if she understood. "What I don't think you know is that I also have a development company. It was a natural fit with the construction company. The development company has two large office complexes, a shopping mall, an industrial park, an apartment complex and that factory that I told you we built in Ireland. I built that on spec and they have along term lease on it. The next time we go to Ireland it will be classed as a business trip and the company will pay for it. I have a lot of stocks that my father bought and left to me.
He leaned back in his chair, "I must admit, since Vera died that I haven't had the will to put the time into the properties that I should have and their going to need some TLC. They're not run down by any means but they need attention that I haven't had the motivation to put in. That's really way I'm telling you this. There's a lot of equity in the properties, but I keep a mortgage on them so that I can leverage my investment. I think that you could take over management of the properties and that would free me up to acquire more land and build on our investment. I've got a couple of properties that I would like to develop."
Amy started to get a fearful look in her eyes, "I don't know anything about managing properties. You'll wind up losing everything."
He leaned over and took her hands in his, "Look, if I thought you couldn't handle it, I wouldn't even suggest it. I'm not going to just throw you into it and watch you sink in over your head. I'll train you. Once you get into it, you'll find out it's all common sense. In a couple of months you'll be able to manage the properties on your own and I'll start developing other properties. I just told you that I haven't had the motivation to put the time into them that I should have and I'm not broke yet. We have some good people working for us and I've relied on them for a lot the past few years."
He turned to the computer, "Don't forget that I still get five percent of the profits from my old construction company for another nine years.
He showed her where to find his financial information on the computer and told her the password to access the computer. He told her that he would have her made the beneficiary on his insurance policies sometime in the next few days.
"Brad this is too much. You've got my head spinning. All I want out of life is to be your wife and for you to love me. I wouldn't care if you gave everything away and worked in a factory and came home greasy and dirty each night. I think that you're placing too much trust in me. I don't think I have the education to do this."
Brad got up from his desk and walked over to her. She saw that he wanted to say something and she knew that he was trying to find the right words. He walked back to the desk and sat down and let out a sigh.
"I'm going to tell you something that I'm not very proud of and I want you to promise that you'll never tell anyone. I guess people think of me as someone who has it all together and knows how to solve all of the world's problems. I think I like having that reputation even though it's far from the truth. What I am trying to say is, the night I saw you in the parking lot of Joseph's, I was there to have my final dinner with old friends. It just didn't seem worth it to go on living anymore. I tried but couldn't seem to find a reason for living. Without a real purpose there is no sense really just taking up space on this great earth. The night that I met you, I was going to have dinner with Joseph and his brother and I was going to take my life when I got home. So you see, you've saved my life. If it hadn't been for you, a bunch of lawyers would be fighting, right now, over who would get my money. I told you when we got married, I don't want a subservient wife, I look on you as an equal partner."
Amy looked at him for a long while before answering, "Ok, I'll try to become the manager of your properties. But I want you to promise that if I feel that I'm in over my head, you'll step in and rescue me. I want you to promise that you won't hold it against me if it's too much over my head."
He walked around the desk and pulled her to him. She walked into his arms and put her arms around him.
"Amy, the only thing I want to hold against you is my body. I know that you can do this. I watched you. When you set your mind to something, everybody better get out of the way. I promise that I'll show you how to do it. I'm sure that together we'll make a great team."
Her emotions started to overwhelm her and she pulled away and walked out on the patio to keep him from seeing the tears in her eyes. No one had ever had this much trust in her or even cared. This man was willing to entrust his entire life's work to her.
Brad walked out on the patio and stepped behind her and put his arms around her. They looked out over the property and neither of them felt the need to say anything. They were communicating as well as any couple had ever communicated.
She felt him tense and she turned. He was staring at the rose bush. The bush had so many red blooms that it was hard to see any of the green leaves. In the center of the massive display of red was a single white bloom double the size of the red blooms. She pulled out of his arms and went to the white rose and gently tugged on it to see if it was really a part of the bush. The rose was growing from the bush.
She walked back to him and kissed him, "I guess Vera's telling us that she approves."
The rest of the afternoon, Brad pulled up the records for each of his properties and went of, in detail, what each property was, the equity each property had and the payment history of the tenants. He went over the improvements that he had been considering and told her that the decision on any improvements would have to be her decision.
She wanted to cook dinner, but he convinced her to settle for a take
out meal from a Chinese carryout. He told her that since Carl was
bringing over the paper work for her to sign, they should get the
dinner out of the way early.