The Bride Next Door

by Hope Ramsay

  Leslie and Alice looked like a couple of suburban grannies, not organizers. Courtney waved in greeting, and they waved back. “What evictions?” she asked.

  “The ones I predicted,” Sid said.

  Leslie cleared her throat from behind. “Yes, you did warn us all. But I had hoped that maybe Scott Anderson would finally get his act together.”

  “But he didn’t,” Sid said. “He sold out, and that bastard who bought the apartments from him had all the notices hand delivered on Saturday. Dogwood Estates is going to be torn down.”

  “It’s a dark day, I’ll agree to that,” Leslie said on a sigh. “But as the chair of the Dogwood Estates Tenants Association, it’s my duty to fight this thing. So I figured we could have a meeting in Sid’s living room, and that way we can plot and scheme and make sure he takes his medicine at the same time.”

  Courtney was a little alarmed. She wasn’t sure Sid needed all this excitement. Besides, Linda had a reputation for fighting lost causes. Sid didn’t need to get his hopes up, although clearly he didn’t sound very hopeful, which might be a good thing at the end of the day. Sometimes being a realist was called for. And wasn’t that why she’d left Matt’s bed this morning?

  She turned toward Sid. “I’m not sure protesting is going to change things. And I told you before, Sid, if you need a place to stay, you can have my spare room. I’ll take care of you.”

  Sid’s lips thinned, and the twinkle dimmed in his eye. “Girl, I truly appreciate the offer, and I know you’d do a good job looking after me, what with you being a nurse and all. But I’m not an old man, and I don’t need a nurse.” His gaze shifted toward Leslie, and his expression softened ever so slightly.

  Courtney knew when to stop arguing. She nodded and said, “Okay.” But a painful wave of loneliness washed through her. Sid was moving on with his life. And she was being left in the dust.

  “Sweetie pie,” Linda said, pulling Courtney out of her self-pity, “we can’t let Leslie get pushed around.”

  “Okay,” Courtney said, “but I don’t know if protesting is going to change anything. Maybe you should have another conversation with your lawyers or something.”

  Sid waved his hand in dismissal. “Those lawyers from LL&K are as useless as tits on a bull. You’re right, a protest won’t change one damn thing, but it might make some people in government sweat a little. It might stir things up. Not that I expect anyone working for LL&K to be happy about that.”

  “What are you trying to say, Sid?” Linda asked.

  He let go of a long breath. “Linda, I know your girl’s married to David Lyndon. But I don’t trust any of them.”

  Linda helped herself to several pieces of broccoli. “You’re entitled to your own point of view, but I can say, in all honesty, that my son-in-law has been a huge surprise to me. He’s a good man. I’m sure he cares about what’s happening here. It couldn’t hurt to get his advice.”

  “Go ahead. Waste your time. But none of them Lyndons has impressed me yet. That last one, Matthew? He was the biggest jerk of them all.”

  Matt jolted awake at the sound of his cell phone alarm. He raised his head, still unfamiliar with his new bedroom, and squinted at the bright morning sun streaming through the French doors. He hauled in a deep breath, filled with Courtney’s incredible scent—something wild and musky and deliciously sweet. His groin tightened as he propped himself on one elbow.

  There was no sign of her. No sounds coming from the bathroom or down the hall in the kitchen. And Ghul lay curled on the pillow where Courtney had slept beside him for part of the night. He ran his hands over the rumpled sheets. They were cool.

  So she’d left without a word. And judging by the single cat on the pillow, she’d absconded with Doom, who was not exactly her cat, but he could see why Doom might prefer living with Courtney. Did she know she’d taken the wrong cat? Maybe not. And maybe Doom would be happier with her. She’d probably change his name to Fluffy, or something stupid like that.

  Damn, he missed Courtney. It might have been nice to wake up beside her. He had no doubt that morning sex with Courtney would be as awesome as evening sex had been. In fact, in his expert opinion, sex with Courtney was utterly mind and body blowing. And for some strange reason, her absence made him feel hollow inside, which was odd because usually he appreciated it when a woman departed before the sun came up.

  He hauled his ass out of bed and stood in the shower for longer than was absolutely necessary, letting the warm water sluice over his body while he told himself not to be such a wuss over a woman. There were plenty of fish in the sea, and the one next door wasn’t interested in a purely physical relationship with him.

  Courtney Wallace had a romantic streak a mile wide. She was a wedding planner, and hadn’t she told him last fall, in a moment of weakness, that she’d been waiting for Mr. Right all her life?

  Of course she had.

  She had also come knocking at his door last night looking for something else, but she’d left and taken a cat with her. It was time to move on. He loved women, and he would love to have sex with Courtney again, but he was honest about himself. He was no good for Courtney. It would be better not to repeat what had happened last night.

  So he shaved and dressed in one of his gray suits and put on his conservative blue-and-white striped tie and headed off to the office. It was another humid June day, and even though the walk was short, he was sweating by the time he entered his cubbyhole and found a new stack of folders sitting on his chair.

  These papers had nothing to do with any of the pro bono cases he’d been working on as LL&K’s contribution to the Blue Ridge Legal Aid Society. They appeared to be background information pertaining to several of David’s clients who were scheduled to meet with him later in the day. The cases involved one custody dispute, two divorces, and a client who needed a living trust. Sticky notes had been attached to each file, in David’s handwriting, noting the time of each meeting.

  When he opened his e-mail, he found a message from David indicating that henceforward he would be relying on Matt to track progress on client work and to manage his client meeting schedule.

  On some level, Matt knew this was typical first-year associate work, but he felt as if he’d been demoted, which was odd because these cases involved real, billable hours, in marked contrast to the work he’d done for the Legal Aid Society in general and the Dogwood Estates Tenants Association in particular. He ought to view this as a vote of confidence, that his partners trusted him to do something with real, paying clients. But he just couldn’t see it that way.

  Matt couldn’t help but wonder if Dad had pulled him off the pro bono work because he’d gotten too deeply involved with the clients—a mistake Arwen had warned him about. And yet, as he parsed through the conversation on Sunday, Dad had seemed most upset by Arwen’s memo and Matt’s wild idea of suing the government.

  An idea that August Kopp had not ridiculed.

  Matt was trying to figure out if Mr. Kopp had been trying to encourage him when Arwen herself strolled into his office looking as if she hadn’t slept in days. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. Why?” Her response seemed tense, just like her shoulders.

  “Nothing.” Matt knew better than to tell a woman that she looked as if she’d rolled right out of bed. Arwen usually showed up every morning bright-eyed and buttoned-down. Today her hair looked slept on, and her eyes looked bloodshot. Maybe she’d tied one on at the Jaybird last night.

  She dropped into his side chair and leaned forward. “Have you heard the news?”

  “What news?” He braced for something bad.

  “GB Ventures has sent eviction notices to everyone living at Dogwood Estates. Leslie left a message on my cell Sunday afternoon. She’s pretty upset.”

  “I’m sure she is. But we saw this coming, and I was told pretty explicitly that we needed to cut our losses on this,” Matt said on a long sigh as he leaned back in his squeaky chair.

  Arwen gave
him the Frown of Disapproval. “I thought you cared about those people.”

  “I do. But the senior partner of this law firm, also known as my father, has made it clear that we’re all better off without Dogwood Estates because it’s an eyesore.”

  A big hollow place opened in his chest. He wanted his father’s respect, but he didn’t respect his father. Not on this issue. Dad had shown no compassion for the people who were losing their homes.

  Arwen’s frown disappeared, replaced by another look he couldn’t quite decipher. She leaned back in the chair and folded her arms. “I know it’s not wise for me to say this, but in my opinion, you should ignore your dad.”

  “Is that why you showed your memo to David?”

  She nodded. “I was worried that you might sit on it…because of your Dad.”

  “You know, if Dad knew how you felt, he’d probably fire you.”

  She nodded. “Probably. But here’s the thing. Something unethical is going on. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “I can too. But what can we do? We aren’t crusaders. And the unethical appearance of insider trading has nothing to do with Dogwood Estates. So we don’t actually have a client. And, you know, Dad is right about that. If we want to pursue this, we need to actually represent someone.”

  “Maybe that’s what we should do.”

  “What, go looking for a client so we can expose corruption in the county government? Somehow I don’t think Dad would be happy with me for doing something like that.”

  Arwen’s frown returned. “Okay.”

  She got up, and the hole in Matt’s chest grew so large it felt as if it might swallow him whole. “Wait,” he said.

  Arwen stopped and turned. “You’ve changed your mind?”

  He gestured toward the files on his desk. “Look, my chain has been yanked. David has me working on a bunch of divorces. And based on the e-mail he sent me this morning, I’ve been promoted. I’m now in charge of his schedule, which makes me a glorified appointment secretary. How on earth can I possibly find this mythological client?”

  “By just doing it.”

  “Okay. So how would we go about finding a client who’s been fined by the county?”

  She smiled, and some color returned to her face. “I have a friend in the building department. I’ll see if I can get him to give us some information. And by the way, first-year associates always manage their partner’s schedules. And they also work more than eight hours a day.” She turned and stalked from the office.

  Damn. Of course first-year associates put in long hours, and David seemed to be intent on keeping him busy if for no other reason than to keep him far away from the crap Arwen had discovered in her research.

  But he couldn’t stay away and maintain any kind of self-respect. Something rotten was happening in Jefferson County. And deep in his soul, Matt wanted to be more than just a charming guy with a last name everyone recognized. If he truly wanted to compete with his brother and cousins, sitting back and following Dad’s rules was probably not the way to do it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Courtney stayed at Sid’s house until the early afternoon. His collection of girlfriends, all of them widows, tried to ease his worries. And by the end of her visit, Courtney had concluded that Sid’s annoyance at LL&K, while possibly misplaced, might be doing him a world of good. At least he had started to care about something again.

  And he certainly wasn’t going to lack for attention and care. Courtney made sure that each of his girlfriends had her cell number and instructed them to call her right away if Sid needed anything or if they thought he was not taking care of himself.

  Still, his situation depressed her. He had exactly thirty days to move out of his apartment. Where was he or Leslie or any of the other tenants going to live?

  And it sure didn’t ease her mind to know that Leslie was thinking about moving all the way to Arizona, where she said a person on a fixed income could live in much better style than here in Virginia.

  She hated the idea of Sid moving halfway across the country. But she had a feeling he might do just that, following after Leslie. And then she’d be alone. The last of Dad’s friends would be gone.

  An aching loneliness settled over Courtney that afternoon. She called Melissa to see if she’d be interested in an evening at the Jaybird, but Melissa and Jeff were doing inventory at the store.

  She called Arwen and couldn’t get her on the phone, even though it was Monday. What the hell was up with that anyway? Her cell phone had also been off for most of the weekend.

  Finally, in the late afternoon, Arwen called back.

  “Where have you been? I was trying to reach you all day on Sunday,” Courtney accused.

  Silence greeted Courtney for a very long moment before Arwen said, “I got busy and let my cell phone die.”

  “Busy with what?”

  “I was finishing up that storage rack I started. You know the one out of reclaimed wood.”

  “Oh. How’d it come out?”

  Another long, suspicious pause. “Great,” Arwen said without much conviction.

  “So, you want to meet at the Jaybird tonight?”

  “No!” Arwen’s refusal was more than emphatic; it sounded almost panicked.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter. I just have work to do, okay?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Big case. I have to work late. And I really, really need to go. The senior partner just walked into my office.” Arwen ended the call without even saying goodbye.

  Courtney stifled her irritation. Arwen was a good friend—her last remaining single friend—and she couldn’t afford to lose that friendship.

  Oh well. It certainly looked like a Netflix and chill evening, in the original meaning of that phrase. Courtney decided to make the best of a lonely situation by spending some time in her kitchen. She headed off to the grocery store for the ingredients needed to make her mother’s lasagna.

  An hour later, as she hauled groceries up the stairs, she ran into Pam and Julia Lyndon, who were standing in the hallway outside Matt’s apartment looking as if they’d stepped right out of the pages of Town & Country magazine.

  Pam was dressed for a polo match in a powder-blue and white polka-dot dress with matching spectator pumps. Julia, on the other hand, would have fit right in at a fancy garden party in her vintage-look flowered sundress.

  The only times Courtney had ever come face-to-face with Pam or Julia was at work, where she always dressed in a conservative, usually black, suit, which was basically like the uniform she used to wear as a nurse. But today she had on a pair of old cutoffs, a tank top, and flip-flops. It was three million degrees outside, and it was her day off.

  Damn. If Matt’s family was going to drop by unannounced, she would have to improve her wardrobe. These women made her feel small and insignificant and…nerdy. The way she’d felt as a kid in high school, when, in addition to having braces and glasses, she’d worn a lot of hand-me-downs. Dad had been a wonderful man, but he hadn’t been a rich one, and he hadn’t had much of a fashion sense.

  “Oh. Courtney, is that you?” Pam asked as her gaze traveled down Courtney’s legs and back up to her face, which was a little sweaty right at the moment because of the heat. Pam clearly never sweated and probably didn’t even perspire much.

  “Hi,” she said. “I, um, live next door.” She continued up the stairway and edged around Pam and Julia.

  It seemed odd that Matt’s mother and aunt would be here in the late afternoon while Matt was at work. What were they up to?

  “Oh. That’s nice,” Pam said. Courtney interpreted her disinterested tone as a slap in the face. If these women knew what she and Matt had done last night…

  A blush crawled up her face. Thankfully they would never know. And she’d have to be careful. They were busybodies. She jammed her key into her door, trying to make a quick escape.

  “So, you won’t tell Matt that we were here, will you?” J
ulia asked.

  Courtney turned around. “We’re just neighbors,” she said. It came out sounding exactly like the line: We’re just friends. Damn.

  “Of course you are, darling,” Pam said. “Which is why we need you to keep the surprise.”

  “Surprise?”

  They nodded in unison. “We’re doing something about his apartment.”

  “Is there something wrong with it?”

  Pam chuckled. “He went off to IKEA and bought furniture. Can you imagine?”

  Yes, she could imagine. She had a couple of IKEA pieces at her place because Ethan Allen was out of her price range. She thought back to last night. But Ethan Allen wasn’t out of Matt’s price range, was it?

  Warmth spilled through her. Matt was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a snob.

  She gave Julia and Pam a smile. “No, I can’t even imagine,” she said, trying to keep a straight face.

  “So we’ve measured the place and we’re going to redo it for him. You won’t tell, will you?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she lied. “We hardly know each other. And my lips are sealed. You ladies have a nice afternoon.” She turned back toward her door and escaped as quickly as she could.

  Should she text him with this news? Or should she wait until she saw him again? She decided to wait and spent the rest of the afternoon making lasagna and weeping over The Notebook, a movie she’d seen at least twenty times.

  After the movie, she dined alfresco on the balcony as the June sun slipped low on the horizon. It was still humid and warm, but the balcony was shaded and had a ceiling fan that cooled and kept the mosquitoes at bay. She sipped some Chianti and started a John Grisham book she’d been meaning to read while Aramis pounced at her feet.

  She could do this. She thrived on being alone.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat as twilight settled in. Who was she kidding? She’d come out here on the balcony hoping to catch a glimpse of Matt when he returned from work. But here it was, almost 9:00 p.m., with no sight of him.