The Complete Novels of the Lear Sisters Trilogy (Lear Family Trilogy #1-3)
Julia London
Material Girl (Book One)
Prologue
NEW YORK
The news that he was going to die arrived like a distant rumble of thunder, a disturbing sound so far on the reaches of his consciousness that he lifted his head and wondered what he had heard. Aaron Lear looked to the windows of his office on the forty-third floor in lower Manhattan and noticed that the afternoon light was beginning to fade. Was it that late already?
He was still sitting where the call had left him—on his haunches, against the polished oak wall down which he had slid as his mind tried to grasp the words cancer and aggressive. His office was suddenly sweltering; the light was fading rapidly now, gray and black shadows draped his office. Aaron tried to breathe—he was not prepared for this, had not considered the possibility of his mortality. Even when he had first begun to have trouble—a strange bit of discomfort was all, really—he never thought it was something so . . . so foul. So goddamned final.
We don’t know much of anything yet. Just hold on to that for now, his doctor had advised. How could he hold on to something so vague? Aaron pulled himself to his feet, but his limbs felt as if weights had been tied to them and he leaned heavily against the desk. The room was now almost dark; he wondered how much time had really passed since he’d picked up the phone. A lifetime.
Of course he had suspected something was terribly wrong for weeks now, from the moment he had felt the hostile invasion of his body, had sensed the vague but undeniable state of war being waged within him when he had, by some internal monitor, felt the cancerous cells advancing like an army of ants through his stomach, into the winding turns of his colon, throwing their incendiary bombs down the chute.
He was only fifty-five!
It was impossible to even contemplate that he might be brought down. There was so much left to do, to see, to be! What about the dynasty he had built and still operated from his position as president and CEO? This vast shipping empire was all his doing, his creation, one he had started after he escaped West Texas and the life of a cotton farmer when he was nineteen. He had built this company truck by truck, plane by plane. He had begun by driving line-haul between Dallas and San Antonio, scrimping and saving until he could buy his own truck. Then there were two. Then four, then a fleet, expanding and growing under his guardianship until he was shipping freight around the world. Lear Transport Industries, better known as LTI, was like another child to him, the proud mark of a man and his life and accomplishments.
He was not ready to let go!
Bonnie. He had to talk to Bonnie, still his wife in spite of their fifteen-year estrangement, still his one and only true love. Bonnie Lou Stanton, his high school sweetheart, the homecoming queen with the laughing blue eyes, the only one to believe in him when the relationship with his father had soured. It was Bonnie who had come with him to Dallas when he had left the family cotton farm behind, Bonnie who had stuck by him those lean years when everything looked bleak and had encouraged him when he thought he was failing. And later, with a baby on her hip, smiling cheerfully as she made one can of ranch-style beans last two days. They had been closest then, drawing on one another’s strengths. Exactly when they had begun to drift apart, Aaron couldn’t really remember anymore, but he knew that he still loved her, would always love her.
His gaze fell to the picture of his daughters on his desk, and he felt the smile spread across his lips. They were the best thing he had ever done. There was Robin, his oldest, her curly black hair indicative of her spunk, her blue eyes steely with determination. And Rebecca, sitting gracefully in the middle, as pretty now as she had been the day she was crowned Miss Houston. Then Rachel, the baby, laughing when she should have been smiling, her blue eyes sparkling with the gaiety that was always with her. Three beautiful women who he had a hand in producing. Biologically perhaps, but he couldn’t claim much credit beyond that, could he?
He had been an absent father for the most part—one of the more egregious things about him, according to Bonnie. God, how many times had they argued about it? He insisting that his work was what enabled them to live a life of privilege, Bonnie arguing just as strongly that wealth and privilege were not as valuable as a father to the girls.