A Good Break

A Good Break

Chapter One

"Somehow, it just seems wrong..."

As devastated as she felt over the news that she had just been given, no one listening to her voice would know it. A lifetime of hiding her emotions from all but a select few people had bred an internal fortitude so resolute, that even the most torturous grief would not penetrate it. Lindsey Norris would maintain control.

"Not if you consider that attending both would honor her even more."

Janice Evers was trying to reason with Lindsey; explaining that her attending their twenty-year high school reunion the evening after she was scheduled to deliver the eulogy at Emily Bethel's planned memorial service would actually be a better tribute to their friend.

"As our senior class president, Emily had been responsible for organizing our class reunions. This would be the first one that you will have attended, so what better way to honor her than to finally show up at something that she had always worked so hard to get you to come to?"

Lindsey knew that Janice had a point. Emily had pressured her to attend the five, ten, and fifteen-year reunions, and while Emily had hidden her disappointment over Lindsey missing all of them, letting her old friend down had haunted Lindsey over the years.

Most people from their class were surprised that Lindsey Norris and Emily Bethel had remained friends. Although they had been inseparable since meeting in sixth grade, Emily's perceived betrayal of Lindsey in their senior year of high school was not something that many people would have forgiven had it happened to them.

Those people didn't know or trust Emily Bethel the way that Lindsey Norris had. It hadn't taken Lindsey long after learning of the incident in question to determine that Emily had been coerced, lied to, and deceived - not to mention tricked into drinking enough alcohol to render her incapable of making sagacious decisions.

The true betrayal had been by Lindsey's boyfriend at the time, Ricky Campos, frustrated with her continuing refusal to have sex with him. Emily had merely been the chosen victim in Ricky's scheme to punish Lindsey for denying him that which he felt entitled to.

All of which reminded Lindsey of something. She asked Janice, "Emily always said that Ricky Campos never attended any of the reunions. Do you know if he RSVP'd for this one?"

"I'm not on the reunion committee," Janice replied apologetically. "If you want, I can check with one of the committee members to see if I can find out who has committed to attend. Would Ricky not being there influence your decision?"

Lindsey bristled at the implication that her decision on whether or not to attend their twentieth high school reunion could be influenced by anything other than her own desire for privacy. She had purposely visited her home town of Spring Place, Georgia, relatively few times since leaving for college, and each of those times, the focus of her trip had been solely to visit with Emily, her daughters, and no one else.

She had come back for Emily's wedding in 2010 to Chet Bethel. She had come back for the birth of Emily's first child, Megan, in 2012. She had come back in 2015 to support a pregnant Emily during her divorce from her philandering husband. She had come back a few months later for the birth of Emily's second daughter, Annie.

There had been several other times as well, but Emily had always respected Lindsey's requests that her visits not be broadcast around the small town. Neither of them wanted their short periods of time together to be shared with outsiders. The two had always been selfish with their time together, and this had continued with few exceptions as they kept their long-distance friendship as a treasured part of just their lives.

This had been a major influence on why Lindsey had not attended any of the previous reunions. The two friends would have had to share the limited time that Lindsey would be in town with former classmates and others instead of being able to just be together alone.

No, whether Ricky Campos might be attending the reunion would not be a factor in Lindsey's decision to go to it after the memorial service. She told Janice Evers as much.

Lindsey wanted to get Janice back onto the reason that she had called her in the first place, instead of their class reunion. She prodded, "What can you tell me about the accident?"

So far, Lindsey had held her emotions in check. She had listened stoically to the news that her best friend had been killed yesterday in a single-car accident. She had accepted the proclamation from Janice Evers that Lindsey Norris had been named as Emily's personal representative, executor, and the guardian for her daughters in Emily's will. Lindsey would shoulder the responsibility for the time being and save her private grief for later.

"Not much," Janice admitted when answering Lindsey's question. "The investigation is still ongoing. The roads were clear, the sun was shining, and there is no apparent reason why Emily's car would have driven off the road in that location, such as swerving to avoid a deer."

"What about her girls?" Lindsey asked. "Megan and Annie. Who is watching them?"

Janice hesitated before answering, "They are staying with neighbors currently. You knew Emily's relatives as well as anyone, so you should know that none of them are suitable custodians for eleven-year-old and fourteen-year-old girls, even if Emily would have wanted them involved. I've reviewed the divorce decree from 2015. Emily was granted full custody of the girls in the settlement, but Chet never relinquished his parental rights to them. We're waiting to see if he decides to step up and tries to finally be a father to his daughters."

"Not as long as I am alive and kicking,"Lindsey thought as she checked the time. She would let hatred trump the grief for the time being."

"Listen, Janice, I need to run to a meeting and then look into travel arrangements. It's Monday, so I'll have to rearrange several existing plans for this week, but I hope to be there by late tomorrow morning."

Lindsey thought for a second before continuing, "Do me a favor, send me the contact information for the best family law attorney that you know of. Also, don't let anyone else know that I am coming to town, and especially not that I am named in Emily's will as her administrator and preferred guardian for the girls. If I need to fight Chet Bethel for them, I don't want to give him forewarning of my legal status. Can you do that?"

"I can," Janice replied. "But you need to know that ever since Chet Bethel took over the family carpet mill in Dalton, he has been using that wealth to influence quite a bit in Whitfield and Murray Counties. Fighting him on a computer programmer's wages might prove challenging for you."

Lindsey didn't bother to correct the limited information that Emily had shared about her with others. With the paperwork filed and the announcement days away, people who were interested would soon be able to see that the sale of R.A.N.T. would be making an already wealthy Lindsey Norris one of the youngest female multi-billionaires in history.

As the only child of a chemist father and a biologist mother, Lindsey had been supported in becoming autonomous from an early age. She wasn't shy or introverted, but she was very selective in her social choices, with Emily Cline, later Bethel, becoming her only true and consistent friend all through middle school, high school, and beyond.

When Lindsey had started her first semester at M.I.T., she learned quickly what a competitive environment academia truly was. After having credit for her school work claimed by other students on her team, and even by one of her professors, Lindsey became much more guarded where sharing her ideas and study assignments were concerned.

After graduation, when she had developed the ideas that would eventually lead to the creation of Robotics and Neural Technologies, or R.A.N.T., as it was known in the industry, she had been extremely diligent in structuring the company and personally applying for all patents under her name to ensure that she would be the only person in control of them.

Even with the pending leveraged management buyout that would turn operational control of her company over to the employees, Lindsey had insisted upon approving the private equity firm that would fund the purchase for the employees. She also had veto power over the makeup of the initial board members, would retain ownership of all patents under her name in perpetuity, and would retain ownership of the property in Methuen, Massachusetts, where R.A.N.T.'s vast campus stood.

At the ripe old age of 37, Lindsey would be effectively retired and able to freely pursue other interests. Her immediate interest would be protecting Megan and Annie from their father. How this new responsibility being thrust upon her would impact her other plans was the question she would have to answer for herself.

Lindsey Norris did everything herself.

~~~

~~~

There are certain images where a person just instinctively knows that the elements composing them simply don't fit.

The woman leaning against the fender of a car in the parking lot of this Dollar General store presented just such an image to the man exchanging five-gallon propane cylinders in front of the store.

He had been to Alaska. There was no way that the male populace of that state would have allowed any female who looked like her to simply drive away in a car. Hence, this car must be a rental that she had picked up somewhere other than where the license plates indicated it had originated from.

"Excuse me," The man smiled warmly as he spoke from across the bed of the truck. "Are you looking for someplace?"

The woman had been fidgeting on her cell phone with her lips pursed in frustration since the man had pulled the pickup truck into the parking space next to hers. He had finished his exchange and loaded the last cylinder into the bed of the truck, but felt that he should see if she needed any assistance before he headed on his way.

The fashionable sunglasses that she wore obscured her eyes, but he had to assume that when she raised her head at his question, she was looking at him. His own sunglasses would likewise hide his eyes from her, but he concentrated on keeping his visage friendly and cordial as his eyes seemed to be roaming everywhere but towards her eyes.

With two younger twin sisters that he had always protected, he consciously sought not to objectify women by their appearance, and he would do so with the woman before him. But there was no ignoring the fact that she was stunningly beautiful.

She studied him for a few seconds before returning her focus to her cell phone and replying dismissively, "Thanks, but I'm just trying to find the settings on my phone that will allow me to connect to the entertainment system in this car. I think I'm almost there..."

Still smiling, he stepped towards the cab of the truck, reached through the driver's window and brought out a cable. Holding it up for her to see, he walked around the front of the truck towards her car and offered, "Try this."

She had opened her car door and was prepared to quickly jump in to lock herself safely away from this stranger. He recognized her apprehension, stopped, and placed the cable onto the hood of her car before stepping back around to the other side of his truck.

Raising both hands into the air, he said, "You can trust me. I am simply offering you a solution to your problem. Use it. Don't use it. It won't affect me either way. Good luck."

Without waiting for a response, he got into the truck and backed out of the space. The woman remained poised to jump into her car as she watched him pull out and head for the street. Before he had turned onto the street, she quickly took two pictures of the truck with her cell phone camera. One captured the license plate clearly, and the other captured the company information printed on the doors, "Nelson Landscape Design".

As the truck disappeared, heading south on Highway 225, Lindsey Norris retrieved the cable from the hood of her car. It was a standard USB cable with the 'A'-type connector on one end and the same 'C'-type connector that her Android phone accepted on the other end. Did the guy think that simply charging her phone would solve her connectivity issues?

However, on that note, she did see that her battery charge indicator showed only thirty percent charge remaining. Her own USB cable and AC adapter were packed in her suitcase in the trunk of the car, so she might as well go ahead and use this cable to increase her battery charge while trying to locate the cabin that her assistant had reserved for her to stay in while attending the memorial service on Saturday morning, and possibly the reunion on Saturday evening. Lindsey still hadn't decided on that yet.

Starting the car so that she could once again attempt to establish a connection between her car and the entertainment system, Lindsey reflected on her behavior towards the man. Why had she acted so tentatively with him? She hadn't felt threatened by him, and if she dared to admit it, she had found what she had seen of him attractive.

"Rugged meets refined,"Lindsey thought."Where in the hell had that impression come from?"

Well, his physique had been one factor. He had been tall enough to easily see over the cab of the truck, and his broad shoulders and muscular chest had stretched the fabric of his denim shirt in a very enticing way. Lindsey hadn't seen much of him below the waist, but his shirt had been neatly tucked into his khaki pants, with no pooch visible anywhere.

The "refined" part could be attributed to his clean-shaven and neat appearance, coupled with his perfectly trimmed, short wavy hair with just a spattering of gray along the sides, and his dazzling white teeth, evident on the one time that he had briefly smiled reassuringly at her. No, Lindsey couldn't ignore his smile.

"Head northwest to Highway 225, then turn right."

Startled by the disembodied voice suddenly booming out of the car speakers, Lindsey quickly turned the volume down and tried to quell the rapid beating of her heart that the unexpected voice had caused. A quick glance at the display on the entertainment system showed the connected device being her cell phone. The directions that she had pulled up on the phone's Google Maps application earlier were now being communicated to her through the car, which is what she had been attempting to accomplish before the man had interrupted her.

Now that she knew that she could navigate to the rental cabin hands-free, Lindsey considered whether she wanted to go there directly or make a few stops first. It was too early for Megan and Annie to be out of school yet, so that was a stop that could wait. Grocery shopping could also wait until she had determined what her cooking options at the cabin would be.

That left only the matter of checking with the mortuary on the funeral arrangements, followed by her grabbing some lunch, so she decided to head towards the funeral home and take her chances on finding something to eat along the way.

Lindsey knew that she had used the launching of the entertainment system as an escape from her earlier thoughts on the man and her behavior towards him. Had he been offended by her actions? In retrospect, he didn't seem to have been. He responded to her as if he had recognized and then been sensitive to the fears of a woman alone encountering a strange man. Placing the cable on the hood of her car and backing off so quickly had demonstrated his understanding of the situation, hadn't it?

But Lindsey hadn't been fearful. Over ten years of martial arts experience had given her the confidence that would have quelled any concerns over encountering a strange man in a parking lot on a clear sunny day. She groaned to herself as the complete recall of her feelings over encountering the man came to the surface of her mind.

Lindsey Norris hadn't felt fear or trepidation from her encounter with the man. She had felt shy, timid. For God's sake, she had felt bashful. Why would barely speaking to a man that she didn't know and had never met make her feel lacking or ashamed? How was realizing that fact influencing her now being interested in finding the man, to thank him for his assistance, and to apologize? Maybe she should just forget the whole incident.

~~~

~~~

Paul Eddy was not a patient man by nature. There were few people who he would tolerate making him wait, and two of them still sat at the same table in the café where he had left them when he agreed to go and exchange the propane tanks for them.

He honked the horn in the Ford F-250 that he had used for the exchange to get the attention of his twin sisters, Karly and Marly, before jumping out of the cab and walking over to the truck parked next to it; his own Honda Ridgeline. He quickly opened the door to his truck and unplugged the USB cable that he used to connect his phone to while driving.

Hearing the approaching steps of his sisters, Paul turned and handed the USB cable to Karly, explaining, "I gave Matt's cable to a woman who seemed to need it. You can take mine to replace it."

Accepting the cable, Karly asked, "Then what will you use?"

Paul accepted the kiss on his cheek from his other sister, Marly, and held the passenger door of his brother-in-law's truck open for her to climb in. He addressed Karly, "My phone is fully charged, so I'll be fine until I get home and grab another cable for the truck."

Karly simply nodded and headed around to the driver's side of the truck. After Paul had opened her door for her, she leaned up to kiss his cheek and said, "Thanks for taking care of the tank swap for me. Will we see you at the cookout on Saturday?"

"I'll let you know," Paul muttered. He was certain that his sisters had already tried setting him up with every single female within a hundred miles. He now wondered if there were any recent divorcees that he might get introduced to if he came to the cookout. If it were going to be a family cookout, he would have readily confirmed his attendance regardless of the risk. This cookout was a celebration of life event that Karly was hosting for a former high school classmate who had recently died in a single-car accident on Highway 52.

Karly hugged her older brother and said, "Other than getting the brisket into the smoker on Saturday morning, there won't be anything needed until it's time to grill the chicken and other things in the afternoon. That's the benefit of the cookout being mostly potluck. Everyone who would typically want to bring a casserole or something to the family will just bring it on Saturday instead. You can skip the whole thing if you want to. It's not like you knew Emily or her kids."

Paul hadn't known the woman personally, but he thought that he had encountered her previously. He might look up her name when he got back to his office in Chatsworth. It would depend on what other priorities for his time awaited him.

His role as the Chief Judge for the Superior Court in the Conasauga Judicial Circuit was another area of his life where Paul's patience was frequently tested. His court served Murray and Whitfield Counties. The circuit was part of Georgia's Seventh Judicial District. Paul had three other judges reporting to him, all of whom had initially resented him for the same reason.

Ignoring football and baseball scholarship offers from most universities in the Southeastern Conference, Paul had chosen to attend Chapman University, a private four-year school in Orange County, California. His choice of university was made with the same strategic focus as most of Paul's decisions. While the policy at Chapman University required all students to live on campus, his uncle's law firm was only three blocks from the student housing.