I hope you enjoy this story. Please provide me feedback. This story includes contact between parent and an adult child that may be offensive to some. While not incest, if any contact offends you, please don't read.
Edited by DRGRIFFIN, with my thanks!
Background to my story
My name is Lance Padmore, probably the luckiest man ever. When you hear my story I am sure you will agree. I am forty-six as this story begins. I am an architect. I married a fantastic woman, Terry, as I graduated from Cincinnati School of Architecture when I was twenty-two. She was a wonderful wife and mother to our son. I went to work for a large architectural design firm in Cincinnati before starting my own firm. We grew it to four principal architects and achieved a nationwide reputation for our creative designs.
One of my first clients when I started my firm was Max Rayburn, owner of Max Construction. I met him while working with my original employer. Over the years we became not just business acquaintances but friends. He and his wife, Eva, were friends to both Terry and me. We belonged to the same country club. I thought we knew all about them. But they had one big secret.
Max and I were very similar physically. Both average build, five ten or eleven and one hundred and seventy or eighty pounds. Both with light brown hair. Both stayed fit but nothing exceptional. I think people would say I was more handsome but Max had the more likeable face.
Max bought a six-acre parcel of land early on, planning to build his dream home when they had enough money. When he got ready to build he offered me a deal. If I would design his house, he would sell me half of the land for his original purchase price. We got lucky and Cincinnati grew with high end houses in the area. The land was worth many times what he paid. So, I naturally made the deal. We lived next door to each other for about five years before this story starts. Both houses were large and positioned on the lots to have small front yards and large wooded areas in back. Terry and I had a pool while their back yard was more of a wooded garden.
When the four of us went out for the evening, Eva was always the quiet one. She revealed very little about herself. She was never out of control or over the top with anything including liquor. We knew she was very smart with a master's degree in mathematics with University of Cincinnati and had almost finished a PhD program when she became pregnant with her first child and only child Emma. Eva wanted to be home with Emma for the first few years as all the research showed that was the best thing for the child. She told Terry and I that she intended to go back to get her PhD and teach. But what she did instead was to get interested in the stock market. She was so good with numbers it didn't take long for both Max and Eva to realize she could make money growing the money from Max Construction. According to Max, Eva took a nest egg they had managed to save and grew it into a large amount within the first five years. She did get a CFP license but became a small hedge fund manager for a few wealthy people. As the story started I didn't know how successful she had been.
Eva's madden name was Baumann. Baumann in German means farmer. She looked like one of the large boned women that would have worked on a German farm. Blondish hair, wide set light blue eyes, large mouth and lips, high cheek bones and pale complexion. She was large all over. Not fat mind you just large being about five feet nine inches tall and sturdy. Before this story starts that is about all I could say. I had never seen her dressed in anything that showed her figure. It was hard to hide the broad hips and large breasts but that is all I could tell. Emma as she was growing up was becoming the spitting image of Eva. Both had beautiful faces.
Eva's parents had immigrated from Germany and by Eva's telling her father Peter was very stern. He came to America to teach Mathematics and was very hard on Eva growing up. She told Terry and I one night that he was very disappointed with her marrying and leaving University before achieving a PhD in Mathematics. Eva only lacked her dissertation from the University of Cincinnati. Eva was almost the opposite of Max. Max was very outgoing and liked by everyone which was one of the reasons for his success in construction. Eva was very reserved, shy and awkward socially. I could easily see her as a Math Professor. She was a geek. I always thought Terry was the only person she really confided in. Terry had told me one time that she thought Eva was very complex and what we saw was a mirage.
My son John and Emma were buddies while they were growing up. Even though John was older, Emma was somewhat of a tomboy and tried to keep up with a very macho boy. Emma came over and shared the pool a lot. She was very awkward during her teen years. She had spurts of growth that made her look ungainly until after John left for the Marines. The last thing John saw of Emma; she was in braces and only beginning to develop a voluptuous figure. Emma changed a lot from fifteen to eighteen.
Two years before my story starts, the four of us were friends, John already a Marine and Emma close to graduating from high school. Both our firms were doing well. Then came a period where we weren't so lucky. It started when I lost Terry. She died of a Congenital Heart Disease. She was at the gym at the club in an aerobics class and just dropped dead with no warning. I was devastated. Unfortunately, John was about to deploy to Iraq and couldn't stay after the funeral. I didn't cope well. I couldn't work for a period of time, so I sold my portion of the firm I started to the other partners. Luckily we had chosen a generic name, Creative Design Partners. I basically wondered around directionless for a year. Then I got myself together and started taking projects but decided to just work out of my home and contract to my old firm.
After Terry's death, Max was particularly attentive to me but Eva not so much. It seemed to me I reminded her that she had lost her one true friend, Terry. With Max being busy with his construction business and me on hiatus, we had less and less to do with each other. I did start to date a little but nothing serious. It was very hard for me to like anyone as I compared them to Terry. I thought it wasn't possible for me to find anyone like her.
The second shoe fell about six months before the start of my story. Max was on a job site inspecting the work and talking to the guys that really did the work. Max always trusted the guys doing the work, the ones pouring concrete, driving nails, working steel and so on to achieve a feel for how a job was going. He was riding in a temporary elevator when it fell. It killed him instantly. I went to the funeral and tried to talk to Eva but she didn't respond at all. It was like we had never been friends. Emma however spent a lot of time talking to me and I found myself really liking her.
Emma was in college at the time. Yes, in Mathematics. She had Eva's looks and brains but didn't seem to be quite as socially awkward. I offered to look in on Eva and provide any help needed. Emma thanked me. She was confident that Eva would be fine. She thought Eva would get more involved in her hedge fund work. Emma told me that Eva was smarter than almost anyone and well respected. If she wanted to she could build a significant portfolio of business. With that I decided I would wait to be asked for help.
Emma went back to school after the funeral. I noticed that I hadn't seen Eva working in her garden and it was obviously in need of love and attention. Before Max's death, she seemed to work her garden almost every morning during the growing session. I was so conflicted. I wanted to find out how Eva was doing but she was so cold at the funeral I couldn't bring myself to bother her. But my sense was that something wasn't right.
Max's company had changed from a sole proprietorship into a LLP about five years before his death. He had one partner, Sam, a person that had been with him since the beginning. Max still owned 70% of the business and was the general partner. The partnership agreement called for a buyout option in the event one died. Eva inherited Max's share but the will called for me to become the trustee of his share of the partnership. The lawyer explained the duties to me and the fact that a buyout option existed but couldn't be exercised for six months and that the terms had to be agreed to by Eva. Eva wouldn't even discuss this with me. I arranged with Sam to help with the business for a while until Eva was better able to deal with it. Sam was happy with this arrangement as I helped bring in business because of my contacts. I also got a small stipend for my work with Max Construction.
My story starts. Emma and Eva make me a proposition
Emma had come home from school to stay for the summer. I had seen her a couple of time but all we did was to pass fake pleasantries. Then I got this call.
I said into the phone, "Hello, this is Lance Padmore."
"Mister Padmore this is Emma."
"Hi, Emma so glad to hear from you. I have been worried about your mother. Is everything alright?"
"Well, that is why I am calling. You offered at the funeral to help if you could. I think there is a way to help us out."
"Emma, you know I would do anything for Max's family. Name it."
"It isn't so easy to describe. Would you mind having dinner with us. Mom wants to fix us dinner so we can discuss the issue I think you can help with."
