When I Need You (Need You #4)(37)

At the Lund Industries corporate headquarters, I parked in the underground garage reserved for family members. We even had a private elevator so the executives could arrive and leave undetected. Recently the elevator had been put on weekend lockdown in an attempt to curb the Lund workaholic tendencies-or so I'd heard; I hadn't been in this building on a weekend since my childhood. My weekends had been devoted to football since I'd joined my first peewee league at age ten.

Astrid, the prissy college intern who took her receptionist job very seriously, looked up at my approach. No smile from Astrid-no surprise. That might add an extra two seconds to her workload. "Mr. Lund. I wasn't aware Lund Industries had a board meeting."

I smiled at her. "As usual, Astrid, you're right. I'm here to see-"

"Jensen?" A familiar voice echoed behind me.

I turned and faced my mother. "Hey, Mom."

She hugged me, enveloping me in warmth, silk and the scent of Joy perfume. "You are solid, not wispy dream fragment." Stepping back, she flicked her gaze over me. "Was there press conference today?"

"No."

"You coming from funeral?"

"No."

Her eyes widened. "You dressed for a date! Yes, I approve of the suit." She squinted at my tie and tsk-tsked. "Come closer so I fix that ugly knot. Looks like noose, not a four-hundred-dollar tie."

"There is no date. Unless I can convince my beautiful mother to fika after my meeting with Aunt Priscilla."

"Honey-sweet words dripping from your lips just like your father," she scoffed with a smile . . . as she attempted to straighten my tie.

Astrid cleared her throat. "I don't see you on Priscilla's calendar today, Mr. Lund."

"I'm hoping my aunt could squeeze me in."

"Her schedule is full today. Perhaps-"

"Of course Cilla has time for her nephew," my mother said to Astrid sweetly. "We appreciate that you keep us on right trail but sometimes . . . we must freewheel."

"You mean track," I corrected Mom before Astrid did.

"Yah. Whatever." Mom grabbed hold of my arm as if I were a ten-year-old in trouble. Over her shoulder she said to Astrid, "Hold the phone, please."

I had the mental image of Astrid literally holding the phone until we finished the meeting.

Mom squeezed my arm. "When you were little boy, I could wrap whole hand around scrawny chicken arm. Now? My fingertips don't touch from you having athlete's arm."

"Athletes' foot is a thing-not a good thing-but there's no such thing as athlete's arm, Mom."



       
         
       
        

"I say it is so, it is so." She opened Aunt Priscilla's door and made the after-you gesture.

My aunt smiled at me. "Jensen. What a lovely surprise."

I chose the floral visitor's chair on the left across from the desk, leaving the chair on the right for my mom.

After we were settled, my aunt said, "We can skip the usual chitchat and get to the point, since I doubt this is a social visit?"

I appreciated Aunt Priscilla's directness. She'd always been the aunt who organized formal outings for the Lund kids, forcing us to wear matching T-shirts if we were going to a populated place. She defined organized, so it wasn't nepotism when her son, Ash, the COO of Lund Industries, named her head of Lund Cares Community Outreach. Both my mother and my other aunt, Edie, devoted time to LCCO, but it was Priscilla Lund's baby.

LCCO had expanded in recent years. Given the staggering amount of money at her disposal and her husband's status as a billionaire heir to the Lund family fortune, Aunt Priscilla could've been a snotty, snooty socialite. But she used her powers for good, not evil, and she always put family above everything else.

"Astrid indicated you were swamped today, so I'll give you a brief rundown. My neighbor is a single mother and she'd set her summer schedule around a dance camp that her son attended last year. My understanding is the program strives for economic and ethnic diversity. But the program either lost funding or lost their venue and it's displaced thirty kids whose parents had counted on this camp. So I thought I'd ask if LCCO could step in."

"This is late notice, Jensen."

"I know. It's late notice for the families since school gets out in three weeks."

My aunt's gaze turned shrewd. "Is everything else in place? The staffing, et cetera, and you're asking LCCO to provide the facility?"

I shook my head. "My neighbor suspects this organization knew at least a month ago they wouldn't be able to host the camp this year."