Free Emerald Fire (Christian Romance) (The Jewel Series) by Hallee Bridgeman Page B

home phone voice mails, his mother had called here twice. He needed to go ahead and call her and get that out of the way. As he picked up the receiver of his phone, he sorted the messages between personal and business. The business stack was very small compared to the personal stack.
    He quickly dialed his parents’ home and his mother answered on the first ring. “Hi, mom,” he said, sitting in his chair and swiveling it around to look out over the water.
    “Barry.” She made the word a whole sentence. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
    “I’m just fine, mom.”
    From her end, a deep breath punctuated a long pause. “As long as you are. Do you need anything?”
    Barry closed his eyes and felt an unfamiliar rush of emotion. He needed something. He needed to erase the last twenty years and hit restart. “I just want to get the next few days out of the way so that everyone and everything can go back to normal.”
    Another long pause. “Okay. Fair enough. Do you want to come to dinner Sunday?”
    “I would, but I’m going to the game. How about Saturday?”
    “Your sisters will be here.”
    With a short laugh, he thought of his three older sisters and shook his head. “Might as well get it all over with at one time.”
    He could hear the smile in her voice. “Saturday it is then. See you at six.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed as he hung up the phone. He scribbled a note on the message slip which would later go into his laptop calendar just to ensure he would not forget. He knew that absolutely no excuse, no matter how grand, would allow him to duck out of that dinner.
    Feeling a huge weight lifted by walking into his offices and then that simple phone call, he ignored the stack of personal calls and started making his way through the business calls. As he ended his third call, he pulled his laptop out of the briefcase and docked it, connecting it to its various plugs and ports, connecting the battery to power and the network card to hard wired connectivity. He didn’t yet trust wireless networks to keep his client’s information totally secure.
    While concluding typing in the notes from the last call, his office door flew open and Tony Viscolli marched in. At his heels, Elizabeth looked surprised and a little bit angry. Tony turned around and gave her a smile. “Don’t worry, Liz. He’ll be fine with the interruption.” He shut the door in her face and came all the way into the room.
    Tony always looked like the cover model of a men’s fashion magazine, whether he was going to a business meeting in some handmade Italian silk suit or sailing in the harbor in white Dockers and a cable knit sweater. This morning proved no exception. His gray suit, light blue shirt, and dark blue tie authoritatively announced confidence and business acumen. His dark hair and Sicilian features perfectly complemented the light fabric.
    Barry didn’t stand. Instead, he leaned back in his chair. “Good afternoon.”
    Tony sat in one of the chairs opposite Barry. “Is it?”
    Barry rubbed his face with his hands and sat forward. “Not particularly.”
    “Didn’t think so.”
    Tony rarely came to Barry’s office. Barry typically went to Tony, which was fair since Tony paid him. He pretty much only came when there was a third party meeting on a legal level that required a neutral environment. “Are you here on business?” Barry asked hopefully.
    “What gave you that idea?” Tony answered, leaning back in his chair.
    Barry grinned. Anyone else, even a client as important as Tony Viscolli, he would have dismissed at that point. Of course they shared business interests. He and Tony, though, had a relationship much more like brothers than close business partners. Around his ironic grin, he asked, “Why are you here, then?”
    Tony cocked an eyebrow and tilted his head as if to look at Barry from a different angle. “Because I love you.”
    Barry nodded. “So my not calling you back didn’t tell you that what I really need