Unanticipated Reunion Read online

  UNANTICIPATED REUNION

  Sweet Reunion Romance Collection, Book Three

  Barbara McMahon

  www.barbaramcmahon.com

  Unanticipated Reunion

  Copyright © 2022 Barbara McMahon

  All Rights Reserved

  Smashwords Edition

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

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  Chapter One

  Late July

  Noelle Simpson let herself into her home slowly. It no longer felt like home, only a building where she had once had happiness. It was mid-afternoon, but the silence hung heavy as midnight.

  “Trevor?” she called from habit, then stopped, remembering. Trevor would never answer again. The clutch of pain gripped her heart. Her husband of five years was dead. He’d never hold her, laugh with her, or share quiet evenings with her again.

  Noelle headed for their bedroom. A shower and fresh change of clothes were in order. She’d put in another full day at the office, working to close it down. It wasn’t a labor of love, but one to be mourned as she mourned her husband’s passing.

  The bedroom was dim, the drapes pulled against the afternoon sun. Antique furnishings and carpets were to be protected. Trevor had loved this room. She hesitated in the doorway, looking immediately at the bed almost imagining Trevor lying on top of the duvet, waiting for her.

  “Trevor?” she said softly.

  Of all the rooms in the house, she felt his presence most in this one.

  Shrugging out of her clothes, she took a quick shower. Wrapped in a light robe, she went to crawl into bed. She wished she could pull the covers over her head and stay there forever. Taking a deep breath, she could still smell the lingering scent of him. Tears began again. She felt as if she’d cried herself out long ago, but still they came.

  Rolling over, she gathered his pillow against her, burying her face in it. It wasn’t fair he was gone and the pillow remained—a reminder of the man she’d loved who’d been taken too soon.

  The last few months had been a blur. Coming home one day, she’d found him in bed with another killer headache. That afternoon she’d learned the truth. The headaches weren’t migraines, but symptoms of a tumor that was too invasive to eradicate. Her husband was going to die within months.

  She’d tried to hold on to every moment since Trevor had told her. But the immediate past was still a blur. She remembered railing against fate, urging him to consult other doctors, to find a surgeon willing to operate. To do something to stay alive.

  He’d been kind, but firm. He’d already tried everything. He’d come to terms with the indictment. Noelle had not. She’d done all she could to stave off the inevitable.

  When she’d finally accepted the fact, she’d stopped going to work, determined to spend every moment with him. Trevor hadn’t objected.

  Nor had his partner, Linc.

  Closing her eyes, she could see Trevor in this bed, trying to overcome the pain, the lines etched in his face from the intensity. Only death had released the pain.

  “I want you to promise me when the inevitable happens to me you’ll go to Linc. He’ll take care of you,” Trevor had said one afternoon.

  Trevor had been in his mid-fifties. He should have had decades of life ahead of him. Granted he’d been almost thirty years older than she, and she’d known in her mind that one day he’d probably die before her, but not so soon. He’d known he was dying for eight months. He’d done his best to protect her against the knowledge until there was no hiding it.

  “The prognosis wasn’t good from the beginning. No surgery. I could have tried radiation and chemo, but my oncologist didn’t hold out any hope, so I elected not to subject myself and you to the horrors in hopes of gaining a few weeks at most. Quality counts with me, you know that,” he’d told her that awful day.

  “You can’t die,” she had repeated, shocked by his revelation.

  “Noelle, you need to listen to me. This is important. I’ve been thinking of your future since I received the prognosis. You know most of our income is from my grandfather’s trust. Even the house we live in belongs to the trust. All that ends with my death. And I don’t see Paul continuing any allowance for you.”

  “I don’t care about money!” she said hotly. He was talking about money at a time like this? “I care about you. I love you. I can’t go on if you’re not here.”

  Noelle knew his older brother Paul had never liked her. But that was the least of her concerns at this moment. She couldn’t accept that Trevor was dying!

  “Of course you will. You’re young, healthy and have years of happiness ahead of you. You need to listen to me now. I have it figured out. I’ve done my best to put aside some money for you over the last few months, without alerting Paul by drawing down extraordinary amounts. But it’s not enough. Linc and I began that expansion last year, unfortunately just before I received the diagnosis. So much of my personal income and assets went to that expansion and are now tied up in the company. I can’t ask Linc to buy you out yet. It’s a crucial junction for the firm. I know the expansion is going to pay off. You’ve seen the reports. I need you to promise me you’ll let everything stay the way it is for a year. Just a year. That gives Linc time to establish the business we both know is there, to start reaping the benefits. He can buy you out after that if you like. Or you can stay in the firm. You get my shares. You’ll be a full partner.”

  “Oh, Trevor,” she sobbed against the pillow. “You did your best. But I need you. I miss you so much.”

  Her stay in the house was ending. Paul had given her two months to vacate and the deadline was only days away.

  Conscious of her promise to Trevor, of all the implications, she wished she’d not given it. Trevor’s partner rubbed her the wrong way. Not initially. When she’d first gone to work at Simpson and Mathias as a secretary six years ago, she’d enjoyed working with both partners.

  Linc had been only a few years older than she, with tons of terrific ideas, and a determined drive that assured his success.

  Trevor was the older, more cautious partner, and the one who had handled most of the financing.

  It was only after she fell in love with Trevor, and then married him, that her relationship with Linc had subtly changed.

  He and Trevor’s brother, Paul Simpson, had been convinced she married Trevor for his money. As if. It didn’t matter a bit to her that he’d been almost thirty years her senior. She loved him and she knew he loved her.

  She’d continued to work after their marriage, progressing to office manager. She knew almost as much about the firm as Trevor did. He often discussed things with her and even implemented her ideas from time to time. Maybe she should have left and found a job with a different firm. Then he wouldn’t have put any restrictions on her or urged her to depend on Linc.

  Shortly after their marriage, Linc had relocated to San Francisco, opening a branch of their security firm on the West Coast. The firm had recently ex
panded into some of the Pacific Rim countries. Trevor had continued with the operation in Washington, D.C.

  Fortunately for peace in the partnership, she and Linc had rarely seen each other over the last few years. Designing and installing state of the art security measures was a growing business as the threat of terrorism grew. Their specialty was training businessmen in how to be safe in foreign settings, to minimize danger when away from home, and protect themselves in daily life.

  It wasn’t enough she was losing her home. Trevor had extracted another promise.

  “I want your promise you’ll work with Linc for a year. Put your efforts into helping him make the company the success I know it can be. Consolidate to reduce expenses. Close the D.C. office. Move to San Francisco. Work with Linc.”

  She’d argued against it, knowing she’d work better with Linc if there was a continent between them. In the end, she’d given in. She’d have done anything to make his last days happy. He was dying. She hadn’t wanted to talk about business.

  At least she’d talked Trevor out of the harebrained notion he’d voiced one time.

  “One way to protect the assets of the company and to make sure you two are pulling together as a team would be to marry,” Trevor had said pensively.

  She stared at Trevor. “You’re crazy. That tumor has affected your mind. I’m not going to marry Linc Mathias.”

  “He’ll succeed, you know he will. And if you two were married, you wouldn’t have to dissolve the partnership later or fragment the business. I don’t want Paul making any trouble. I don’t want you floundering when I’m gone. I want to know you’ll be taken care of. Give me that one promise, Noelle. Please.”

  It had been the one promise she couldn’t make.

  She cried herself to sleep, Trevor’s voice echoing around her.

  Linc Mathias hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. It was after seven on a Thursday night and he was still at the office. He got more done when the place was empty and the phones quiet. Still, if the phone rang, he’d answered it as he had a few moments ago.

  Robert Wiley had called to report in on Noelle. Robert was an operative in the D.C. office. Linc had asked him to keep an eye on Noelle while she worked through closing the office and the home she and Trevor had shared.

  He’d called to report the last of the details had been seen to. As of Monday, the office would be vacated, a sub-lessee already lined up.

  Linc rose and strode to the window to gaze out, not seeing the outline of the Bay Bridge spanning the San Francisco Bay, nor the high rise office buildings of the financial district. Instead he saw his friend the last time they’d been together in March. Trevor had exacted Linc’s promise to take care of Noelle. Sick with worry and regrets, Linc had agreed. Now the reality of that promise was coming home to roost.

  Noelle.

  She’d be moving to San Francisco soon. He’d see her every day. Would she fit in or constantly be a thorn in his side?

  Trevor’s idea sucked. If Linc hadn’t known Trevor was ill, that stupid scheme would have convinced him. Take care of Noelle, give her a role in keeping the business intact? Treat her like a full partner? Not likely. He’d find a way to buy her out. He wasn’t going to get tangled up with her. If Trevor wasn’t going to be involved, he wanted to run the business all by himself.

  Trevor had been the more cautious partner, really delving into things before agreeing to major changes. Did he really expect Noelle to assume his role? She was only twenty-eight; she didn’t begin to have the business experience Trevor had brought to the firm.

  When their young secretary had married the boss five years ago, Linc had been convinced she’d done so to latch onto the Simpson millions. After five years of marriage, however, Linc wasn’t so sure.

  Noelle worked hard at the D.C. office.

  As far as he knew she’d always been faithful to Trevor and seemed to hold her much older husband in high regard. She hadn’t blown money on expensive clothes or jewels or trips to Europe.

  Maybe he’d misjudged her five years ago.

  Still, a twenty-eight-year-old woman with a fifty-five-year-old man wasn’t a likely match made in heaven.

  She was probably wishing now that she could have found a way to get some of the family trust money before Trevor was gone. Paul would see to it she didn’t get a cent. Trevor had complained often about how Paul disliked Noelle. Linc knew Trevor’s brother had already given her notice to vacate the family home, although it had been expected. One of Trevor’s regrets at the end was that he hadn’t provided better for Noelle and he was depending on Linc to do so.

  Linc didn’t have a problem keeping an eye out for her. He just didn’t want her involved with Simpson and Mathias.

  Though he’d promised his friend he’d see to that exact thing. He’d promised, but could he deliver? Especially with Trevor’s idea of keeping her on as a partner until the company was doing well enough for Linc to buy out her half without jeopardizing what they’d built?

  “There are ways to safeguard your wife’s interests without making her a part of the firm,” Linc muttered.

  Linc had put all he had, and all he could borrow, into expanding the company. The early returns showed great potential. Facing facts realistically, he knew they couldn’t absorb the expenses Trevor’s trust normally took care of. Which meant no money to provide a place for Noelle to live. No second office in D.C. No way for her to stay with the company unless she moved to California.

  He didn’t want Noelle within three thousand miles of him.

  And not only because of his discomfort every time he thought about her marrying his partner, but because of the pure sexual attraction he’d felt when she was around. Linc had done his best to ignore it. Avoid her whenever he could. He and Trevor were partners, not he and Noelle.

  Trevor had asked the impossible.

  And Linc had promised to deliver.

  Chapter Two

  August

  Noelle gazed out the airplane window. They were cruising at something like six miles up. She’d heard the announcement, but it hadn’t really registered. From here, however, the heartland of America looked like some pattern in green and brown. Leaning back in her seat, she gazed at the sparse clouds dotting the horizon. In only a little longer she’d be landing in San Francisco.

  She wondered whether the years had softened Linc’s belief that she’d married Trevor for his money.

  Nothing had softened Paul’s.

  He’d told her on the day after the funeral to vacate the family home immediately. When Linc, standing nearby, had heard, he’d argued on her behalf. Paul had grudgingly given her two months to move out. Only, she was sure, because of the pressure Linc had brought to bear.

  She’d packed her few things and left the house immaculate.

  The nest egg that Trevor had built for her was safely in the bank. She hoped she wouldn’t need to use it any time soon, but it was there. A last gift from her husband.

  Leaving the house had been hard, but only because of the happy memories she retained from her marriage.

  The Virginia side of the Simpson family had inherited wealth from generations of men who seemingly had the Midas touch. Trevor’s grandfather, in order to safeguard that wealth, had tied up the family money in a trust to be doled out to each generation. She and Trevor had had no children, so there was no more Simpson money once he died.

  As if she cared. She’d loved her husband and deeply grieved his passing. No matter what Paul thought, she’d made Trevor happy for the five years of their marriage.

  Yet a slow anger smoldered inside her that Trevor had extracted that promise from her to work with Linc for a year. She didn’t want to be tied up with Lincoln Mathias for twelve months. Didn’t want to have to endure his scorn and dislike for a single day.

  She could renege—Trevor was gone, he’d never know.

  But that didn’t feel right. She’d made the promise in order to ease his last days. She wouldn’t back out now—sh
e’d know she’d broken her word and she couldn’t live with that.

  Somehow she and Linc had to make this work. She’d talk to him when she landed and hopefully come to some kind of compromise. Once she arrived in San Francisco, she’d have lots to do. She needed to find a small apartment. Arrange for her few pieces of furniture to be delivered. Find a niche for herself within the firm.

  While she’d continued working for the company after she had married Trevor, it had been as an employee. Now she had her husband’s shares. On paper she was an equal partner with Linc Mathias. That would certainly change the dynamics. She almost looked forward to butting heads with the man. That would take her mind off losing Trevor.

  The thought filled her with a quiet satisfaction. If Linc thought he could browbeat her into going along with all his ideas, wouldn’t he be in for a surprise? The anger that flared was cathartic. It had been her job to close the Washington office and she had accomplished the task expediently and efficiently. She had learned a lot from Trevor. Linc would find she could pull her own weight.

  Noelle had spoken to Linc a couple of times on the phone since the funeral. She wondered what was going on in the San Francisco office that she should know about. It’d take her a little while to come up to speed. She’d visited that office a couple of times over the years. Usually Trevor had left her in charge of the Washington office while he went west to confer with Linc. Only twice in the years they were married had Linc come to D.C.

  Linc had told Noelle to take her time moving to California. But she needed something to fill her days and make her tired enough to sleep at night. The sooner she started work, the sooner the year would be up.

  To Noelle’s surprise, Linc was waiting in the baggage claim area in the airport when she came off the concourse. He stepped up and took her carry-on bag.