“Of course you can leave the baby with me,” Rita said, frowning at Connor. “Why would you think that you even have to ask me such a question?”
“Because I don’t want to impose,” Amy said, speaking up and answering the housekeeper’s question before Connor could.
“There is that word again,” Rita noted, shaking her head reprovingly. “Impose. Little ones do not impose,” Rita informed the two adults standing before her. “Adults impose. Little ones are just there to bring joy into our lives.”
“But an adult is asking you to watch him,” Connor pointed out tactfully. There was no way he or any of his siblings wanted to run the risk of taking anything for granted when it came to the housekeeper. She was far too important to them and no one wanted to ruffle the woman’s feathers.
Narrowing her eyes, Rita gave him an exasperated look.
“The adult would only be imposing if he was asking me to watch him,” Rita informed him. “Now go, do whatever it is that you have to do. The baby and I will be waiting for you when you get back—and he will be changed and fed,” the housekeeper added in case there were any lingering doubts about the baby’s welfare.
Amy appreciated having Rita take care of Jamie until they got back, but at the same time, she knew that the woman’s job description did not include watching over and taking care of a baby.
“But I don’t want him interfering in your day,” Amy said, still feeling somewhat uncomfortable about asking the woman to watch Jamie.
Rita’s hands were on her hips, a sure sign that she was struggling to curtail her temper.
“Standing here and arguing with you is interfering with my day,” the housekeeper informed them. “Not taking care of the little one. Now go. Shoo!” Rita ordered, waving them both on their way.
“You heard the lady,” Connor said, taking hold of Amy’s arm and ushering her toward the front door. “She wants us gone.”
“I still don’t feel right about this,” Amy protested. “We could take Jamie with us,” she said as Connor all but hurried her into her jacket. Once she had it on, he handed her her purse, which was hanging on a hook close to the front door.
“This’ll go a lot faster if you don’t have to worry about Jamie every other minute,” he said, ushering her out of the house. “And if you feel bad about not bringing him into town, there’ll be plenty of opportunities, I promise. For one thing—” he opened the passenger door for her and waited for Amy to get into his truck “—Miss Joan isn’t going to give me any peace until I bring you and Jamie into the diner to see her.”
Buckling up in the cab of the truck, Amy paused to look out the side window toward the house. “Maybe I should—”
“No,” Connor said firmly, vetoing whatever stalling tactic she might have come up with. “Next time. You’ve been back in Forever for over two weeks and you haven’t left the ranch once. It’s time you got out a little. We’ll stop at the law firm to talk to Cash and then we’ll swing around to the center of town. Miss Joan had her minions bring down the annual Christmas tree from the forest yesterday and I hear there’re still some branches left on it that need decorating.”
Talking about the town’s Christmas tree brought back a flood of memories to Amy. She turned in her seat to look at him. “Does Miss Joan really still pick the crew that has to go to pick out the tree?”
Connor laughed as he started the truck. That was the tradition that went back as far as he could remember. “Does the sun set in the west?”
“Nice to know that some things don’t change,” Amy told him with a nostalgic smile.
“Lots of things haven’t changed,” he assured Amy, slanting a glance in her direction.
She was smiling more these days, Connor observed, and he found that very heartening. It meant that Amy was slowly coming around, becoming her old self. Once her divorce was finalized and she shed one hundred seventy-five pounds or so of unwanted weight, he knew that she would breathe a lot easier—and then he’d see where they went from there.
For now he wasn’t about to get ahead of himself—no matter how much he really wanted to.
* * *
IT FELT AS if it took no time at all to reach Forever. All she did was blink and it seemed like they were there.
Her hands, Amy discovered when she looked down at them, were clenched and felt icy despite the gloves she’d thought to put on. That, she assumed, had more to do with her nervous state of mind than it did with any temperature drop.
She held the folder with all the papers she’d already filled out against her chest—a shield against all the things that had initially caused her to contemplate filing for divorce in the first place.
“Tell me again why we’re going to Cash instead of Olivia,” she said to Connor. “Wouldn’t a woman be more sympathetic to my, um, situation?” Amy asked.
“Possibly,” Connor allowed, a smile curving the corners of his mouth as he stated his reasoning. “But Cash is Miss Joan’s stepgrandson and she is not about to allow him to leave any possible loopholes open that your former husband, that scum of the earth, might be able to use to keep you from getting that divorce.”
She hadn’t realized that Connor disliked Clay this much. “Aren’t you being a little hard on him?” Amy asked him.
Connor laughed drily. “I was just thinking that I was being way too easy and charitable on him.” He spared her a glance. If he looked at her any longer, she’d see just how much he wanted to protect her, to take care of her. “Face it, Clay isn’t in his right mind, Amy.”
“What makes you say that?” she asked. Had Connor somehow heard something about Clay that she was unaware of?
“Easy,” Connor answered her. “Because Clay cheated on you. No one in his right mind grabs hamburger just because it’s there when he has filet mignon waiting for him at home.”
She laughed at the image, as well as being referred to as filet mignon, as she stepped out of his truck. “You’re just prejudiced,” she told him, shrugging off Connor’s flattery.
“I also have twenty-twenty vision,” he said. “You’re a beautiful woman, Amy. You don’t need that poor excuse for a man hanging around, making you feel bad about yourself, undermining your self-esteem. The sooner you’re legally rid of him, the better off you’ll be.”
She took a deep breath before responding. He was essentially preaching to the choir. “You’re right, Connor.”
“Of course I’m right.” He opened the front door for her. “When it comes to this,” he added, not wanting her to think he had some sort of inflated ego. That was Patton’s territory. “Now let’s go in.”
The smile she offered him was definitely a nervous one and appeared to be a little frozen in place, but she managed to place one foot in front of the other and walked into the law firm of Santiago & Taylor.
The first person she saw was Cassidy, who was behind the reception desk. Cassidy’s smile was warm and welcoming, and she found it comforting.
Cassidy rose to her feet. “About time you got around to coming here,” she told Amy.
Amy looked over her shoulder at Connor, a silent question in her eyes.
“I never said a word to her. If I know Cassidy, she just put two and two together once I called to make the appointment for you.”
“Oh.” Amy nodded, accepting his explanation. She should have known better than to think Connor would have said anything that could be even remotely construed as gossip.
“Cash is waiting to see you,” Cassidy told her. Coming around to the front of her desk, she said in her most official voice, “Right this way, please,” and led them to Cash Taylor’s office.
The latter faced Olivia’s office. Both were of equal size even though Olivia had opened the law firm first. Cash hadn’t officially transferred to Forever until he’d married Alma Rodriguez, the sheriff’s former deput
y.
Cash rose from his desk and crossed over to the couple, shaking Amy’s hand first, then Connor’s.
“Sit, please,” he urged, gesturing to the two chairs that were facing his across the desk. “Make yourselves comfortable.” He gave them a minute to do that before observing, “You didn’t bring your baby.”
“I thought it might go faster without him,” Connor told the other man. “You know how distracting babies can be.”
Cash smiled, obviously thinking of his own brood at home. “You do have a point,” Cash agreed. “But Miss Joan’s going to be really disappointed.”
“Oh, Miss Joan doesn’t even know I’m in town,” she said. “And even if she did, I can’t believe that she’d even notice that I don’t have Jamie with me.”
Cash exchanged looks with Connor. “Oh, she’ll notice, trust me,” Cash assured her. “Miss Joan notices everything and she’s very partial to babies.”
“Next time,” Amy said, realizing that maybe Connor and she had made a mistake leaving Jamie at home.
Cash nodded. “Just a little free advice,” he confided. “If I were you, I’d make sure that ‘next time’ is very, very soon.”
Amy inclined her head. “I’ll remember that.”
Laying the folder she’d brought on the desk in front of her and turning it around so that its contents were more readily accessible to Cash, she rested her hands in her lap and waited.
“Give me a moment,” Cash requested. Taking out the papers she’d brought, he reviewed them quickly, paying special attention to the last page. “I see you signed the papers.”
“Yes,” Amy said, adding, “but Clay didn’t.”
Cash raised his eyes to hers. “Because...?”
“He didn’t want to,” she said bluntly. “He once told me that no matter how much I fought it, I was his property and I’d better get used to the idea.” She looked at the lawyer, embarrassed that she had to confess something so degrading to him. “I guess that my question is, is there any way that I can divorce Clay if he refuses to ever sign the divorce papers? I just want to get him out of my life.”
“Is there anything that can be done legally?” Connor asked the lawyer.
Amy was surprised by his serious tone of voice. Connor was usually so easygoing.
Cash nodded. “Absolutely. I can get you what’s known as a contested divorce.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what that is,” Amy admitted.
She was trying not to allow herself to become too hopeful in case this all just wound up falling apart in the end.
“That’s why you’ve come to me,” Cash told her reassuringly. “When one spouse refuses to sign divorce papers, the proceedings can still move forward. A hearing is called to establish the reasons why Clay contests the divorce.”
She couldn’t see Clay willingly coming to court to have a judge hear him out and possibly rule against him. It was just something else his pride would prevent him from doing.
“What if Clay refuses to come to the hearing?” Amy asked. Following the law wasn’t exactly Clay’s style.
It was obvious that Cash was more than familiar with that sort of a situation. “Clay will be served with papers to make him aware of the hearing. If he still refuses to come to the hearing, then what you have is a divorce by default.”
It was impossible to mistake the hope that sprang into Amy’s eyes. “Does that mean—”
“Yes,” Cash said. “It means you get the divorce and he gets to walk.”
Amy felt like throwing her arms around the lawyer and hugging him hard with relief. She came very close to doing just that. “Really?”
Connor refrained from laughing at her eagerness.
“Really,” Cash said.
“And this is legal?” Connor asked Miss Joan’s stepgrandson.
“Absolutely,” he assured the couple as solemnly as he could manage.
Her smile could have lit up the entire office—and then some. She slid forward to the edge of her seat. “Then let’s get started,” she said eagerly.
“All right. I’m going to need a little more information from you.” Cash glanced in Connor’s direction. “Would you rather do this in private?” he asked Amy. “You have that right, you know.”
“There’s nothing I have to tell you that Connor can’t hear,” she told Cash. Smiling at Connor, she said, “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here.”
Cash nodded. “Fair enough. Then let’s get started,” he said, moving his keyboard closer so that it was more accessible.
* * *
“WELL, THAT DIDN’T take long,” Connor commented as, less than an hour later, he and Amy left the small, squat building that housed the law firm.
Amy felt as if she was walking about five inches off the ground.
“Do you think Cash can really do what he said he could?” she asked Connor. She sounded a little breathless as she allowed herself to entertain the hope that she would finally be rid of Clay Patton in the very near future.
“I know there are some lawyers that will tell you anything you want to hear so they get you to sign on the dotted line just to get their hands on your money. But I also know,” he went on quickly, “that Cash isn’t one of those lawyers. And even if he were even mildly tempted to get you to sign on for some ulterior motive, Miss Joan is your temporary guardian angel and he is not about to go up against Miss Joan. No one in his or her right mind would knowingly consider doing that.”
Amy bit her lower lip, thinking over what he’d just said. “I hope you’re right.”
He knew he was, but he didn’t want to oversell it. Amy just needed to trust that things would work out for her.
“Speaking of Miss Joan,” Connor said, steering her not toward his truck but toward the center of town, “there’s only a limited amount of time for you to add a decoration to this year’s annual Christmas tree.”
But Amy dug in and held back. “I don’t want to take that privilege away from someone from town.”
“News flash, honey,” the gravelly, whiskey-sounding voice coming from behind her said. “You are someone from town.”
Startled, Amy swung around and found herself face-to-face with Miss Joan. Her heart felt as if it flipped over. Twice.
“Miss Joan, I didn’t know you were behind me,” she cried.
“Obviously,” Miss Joan cracked. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have been thinking of sneaking away from here like this.”
“I wasn’t sneaking,” Amy assured the older woman. “I was just—”
“Sneaking,” Miss Joan repeated. She pursed her thin lips as she looked around on both sides of Amy. “And where’s that baby of yours?”
“Home—Connor’s home,” Amy quickly corrected herself. “He’s sleeping.”
“Uh-huh,” Miss Joan murmured, still looking at Amy intently, as if the woman knew that it was just a matter of time before she would crack. “Well, since you are here and since there’s only a limited amount of spaces left on the tree, go get yourself a decoration and hang it up. As a matter of fact, hang two, one for you and one for that baby of yours—also a citizen of Forever,” Miss Joan said with conviction. She pointed toward the ground on the far side of the thirty-foot tree. “Decorations are over there. So’s a ladder. Connor, I trust you can do the honors and hold that for her.” Miss Joan turned on her heel and walked back to the diner, a queen returning to her castle.
Chapter Eight
Amy laughed quietly to herself. “Five years and that woman hasn’t changed a bit,” she marveled as she watched Miss Joan return to the diner. Turning toward Connor, she asked, “How did she even know that I was out here by the tree? Or even in town, for that matter?”
“Like you said, Miss Joan hasn’t changed a bit,” Connor told her. “She’s always ha
d this innate ability to ‘know’ things. Either that, or the woman has radar,” he said with a laugh. “Of course, there’s a third choice. Cash could have called her and said that you’d been in to see him.”
“What about lawyer-client confidentiality?” Amy asked.
“He didn’t have to say why you came to see him, just that you did,” Connor pointed out. “Actually, my money’s on that woman just ‘intuiting’ your presence. C’mon,” he urged, changing the subject. “Let’s get you that decoration to hang up. I mean two decorations.”
Amy appreciated that he was including Jamie, but that was overkill.
“Jamie’s just a baby,” she said, dismissing the need to hang up an extra decoration.
“That’s why Miss Joan told you to hang up the decoration for him. Next year, if that boy’s anything like the rest of the kids in town, Jamie’ll probably want to hang up his own,” Connor said.
Taking her elbow, he led Amy over to the remaining boxes of decorations that still had ornaments in them waiting to be hung up.
“We might not be here next year,” Amy said quietly before she could think better of it.
Her words caught Connor off guard. He hadn’t even thought about Amy wanting to stay anywhere else than in Forever. He stopped walking and looked at her quizzically.
“Why?” he asked. “Where will you be?”
She hadn’t said it to upset him. She’d only been thinking out loud.
At one point, she would have said she was going to be with Clay for the rest of her life. But things hadn’t gone according to plans—or dreams. So why should she think that anything else would.
But she didn’t want to get into all that, so she just shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”
He could hear the note of indecision resonating in her voice. He’d backed off when he came to other questions—but not this time. “Don’t you want to be here?”
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