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“He’s right, Dad.” Atlas spins his whisky on the table in front of him. “This is very sudden. Just take some time.”
“I’m just glad you aren’t dying,” Bella says. “Do what you want, Dad.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Ward says, and then shoots me a dark look.
Fine.
Make me the bad guy, but he knows I’m right.
Which doesn’t mean a thing. While my father has guided us kids to be strong and independent people who speak our minds, one thing we never question is who the boss is.
At work.
And at home.
No one manipulates Ward Montgomery.
“When I was a young man, I remember my father deciding to sell our house,” Ward says.
Atlas rolls his eyes and gives me an amused glance.
I smirk.
“Story time, Dad. Really?” Atlas says.
Ward gives him a friendly clip around the ear, and we all laugh.
“Your uncles, Brandon, and Rex, and I were so angry. We loved our home. But Mom was suffering from arthritis, and he was working two jobs.”
“That’s sad,” Jacob says.
“They had to make the decisions that were right for them,” Ward says. “Children don’t see their parents as people. They’re just parents who we think exist only to love and protect us. Which we do, but we’re also people with needs and wants of our own.”
I lift my drink and ruminate on that.
Is that true? Do I not see my father as a human being? As just a parent, who should serve me?
Bella and Blake glance down at Jaime who tosses a bread roll across the table, and they immediately leap into action.
Oh, shit.
“I’ve always let you kids make your own choices in life while guiding you. Well, my job is done. You are all grown up. It’s time you saw me with new eyes.”
Bella sniffs.
“I am a man. A man who does not want to waste the rest of my years behind a desk or in the boardroom,” Ward says.
What’s happened to make him want to completely walk away from the company he built from scratch?
Is this about Mom?
“What does that even mean?” Levis frowns.
“It means, son, when you lost your mom, I lost a wife and my best friend. It means when I recently heard that a close childhood friend dropped dead from a heart attack, I spent a week walking around in a daze, questioning my priorities in life.”
“Shit, Dad,” I curse. “Why didn’t you tell us? Was it John?”
I know he’s kept in touch with the man over the years. I only met him a handful of times, but the two men would go on fishing weekends and every year share birthday and Christmas cards.
