Read Online Been In Love Before: A Novel by Bryan Mooney - Free Book Online

live the business twenty-four-seven.”
    Words were on her daughter’s lips, a sharp response, but instead she thought better of it and said, “Well? Are we leaving?”
    “Let me just finish this last . . .” She was interrupted by the sound of a ringing phone and reached to answer it. “Coleen Callahan. Can I help you?” Her face lit up with a smile. “Hi, Perry. No, no, of course not. I didn’t forget. I just stopped by the office to pick up some performance reports for our meeting tomorrow. As a matter of fact, I was just getting ready to leave and change clothes.” She covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “He is so nice and pleasant all the time. So polite. How does he succeed in sales?”
    “In spite of himself,” her daughter whispered in return while making a face. Diane picked up her purse and her mother’s briefcase, dangling it in front of her, motioning that it was time to leave.
    Perry Winston had been the young owner of a smaller but very successful agency that Coleen had bought two years earlier. Part of the sales agreement was that after the merger, he would be not only in charge of operations but also part owner of the combined larger company—as a partner.
    Coleen nodded. “Okay, then, I’ll see you for lunch.” Then she paused to listen to what he was saying before she responded, “I don’t know if Diane will be there for lunch, but I am sure she’ll come to cheer us on to victory. See you soon. Bye.”
    Coleen turned off her computer and said, “Come on, let’s go. It’s too nice a day to be stuck inside.”
    Her daughter smiled.
    “Join me for lunch?” Her mother asked with her trademark grin.
    “Mother. You’re incorrigible.”

Chapter Eight
    “Miss Macgregor, I really want to thank you for coming in on a Sunday to meet with me.”
    Mary Kate smiled and nodded for the woman to proceed. Even though she was new to the firm, she had been involved with pro bono abuse and divorce cases before and knew how these cases turned out—badly.
    The woman swallowed. “Well, I’m not sure where to begin. And I’m a little nervous; I’ve never been to a lawyer before.”
    “I promise, I don’t bite.” She smiled, trying to make the nervous woman a little more comfortable. “Start wherever you want, or try starting at the beginning. And please call me Mary Kate.”
    The woman smiled and set her coffee cup on the glass cocktail table. “Of course. My name is Calley Terrell. I’ve known Phil, my husband, my whole life. We dated through high school and college, and when all of my other friends got married, we just followed along with them. Things were going great until they closed the office location where he worked and he lost his job. He tried, but couldn’t find a new job, even though he looked everywhere.” Mary Kate offered her a tissue.
    “He tried the Internet, family connections, old bosses, and the newspapers, and even called all of his old friends.” She dabbed her eyes with the tissue.
    “Take your time. Would you like some more coffee?”
    “No, thank you.”
    “What does Phil do?” she asked, looking over the information sheet her new client had completed and handed her.
    “He was a salesman, working over the road for a glass company, and he was real good at it. After they closed the office here, the company wanted us to move back to the New Jersey home office, but we just love it here in Florida and hated the winters back home. My mom begged me to come back to Parsippany and move in with them. Just until we got settled, but Phil had too much pride to do that, said he wasn’t going to take any handouts from anybody. Well, then I got pregnant, and he took a job with a builder to pay the bills and a night job with a car dealer. He had a misunderstanding with his boss and got fired . . . he started drinking and then taking drugs. He was a different man, not the man I married.” She paused to stifle a tear and hold back her emotions.
    “At first he just