Courting Trouble

by Maggie Marr

  Tulsa tucked her arms under her head and turned to her niece. Ash still stared at the ceiling and a trickle of a tear fell from Ash’s eye.

  “I just wish things were like before when Dad didn’t care where I was and Mom took him staying out of our lives for granted. You know? When I didn’t have to think about it. I didn’t have to worry.”

  “Well, I know you will worry, because you’re a McGrath and worrying is what we do. We’re champion worriers.”

  Ash’s eyes slid toward Tulsa.

  “How ‘bout we make a deal. You promise to concentrate on school,” Tulsa said.

  “And?”

  “And I promise to tell you when it’s time to get worked up.”

  “You promise?” Ash rubbed her fingertips beneath each of her eyes, scraping away her tears.

  “I promise,” Tulsa said.

  “I can do that,” Ash said and turned her gaze back to the stars.

  Chapter Eight

  Early morning sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the kitchen. Tulsa hoped that the bright light combined with strong coffee would chase the fog from her brain. Last night she’d slept, but not well. Shivering with cold, Tulsa woke at two in the morning to find Ash still sprawled beside her. A bed hog, Ash took up more than her fair share of the queen-sized bed and stole all the blankets. Being too kind of an aunt to rouse Ash, Tulsa had pattered down the long upstairs hallway to the fourth bedroom, which was reserved for Christmas ornaments, dusty school projects, and other familial detritus that no one was quite willing to throw out. She carved out a tiny bit of space on the bed and pulled a giant quilt over her.

  Now, hours later, Tulsa was showered and ready for her day, but a haze of fatigue still clung to the edges of her mind. She sipped her coffee, willing the strong brew to take its eye-opening effect. In prep for the firm’s morning meeting, her laptop was open on the table before her. Her fingertips chased a lingering drop of coffee off her lips and a memory of Cade—his lips soft and warm, his body hard and hot—danced through her mind. Heat pulsed through her legs and up her spine. She shut her eyes to the morning light and let her mind linger on the kiss—Cade’s kiss. His hands racing up her back and entwining in her hair. Heat coiled deep within Tulsa and a tingle spread through her fingers.

  She wanted him. She was weak when it came to Cade. Her fingers moved up from her lips and over her eyes. Cade made her think things… do things… believe things… things that she knew in this world weren’t true. Like the idea that ‘love conquered all’. Love didn’t. Couldn’t. She rubbed her fingertips across her forehead, trying to smooth out the tight furrows. She didn’t have the time or the energy for a man like Cade Montgomery.

  Her computer beeped and she snapped back to the present. The conference room of McGrath, Phillips, and Lopez popped onto her screen. Fresh like a morning glory open to the sun, Emma, wearing a short-sleeved periwinkle-blue blouse with a pixie collar, perched beside the conference room table. Soft curls of shoulder-length white-blond hair framed her face.

  “Morning, Tulsa! How is that twenty-degree weather in the Rockies?”

  “I’ve got coffee and a fire,” Tulsa said. She tucked her curls behind her ears. “Plus pancakes at the Wooden Nickel once we’re finished, so I’m good.”

  All business, Jo’s long, brisk strides ate up the conference-room floor. Her black hair was pulled straight back off her face into a tight bun. She wore a structured black suit cut close at the waist to accentuate her trim figure. Jo sat at the conference room table across from Emma.

  “It’s two minutes after,” Jo said. “Let’s start.”

  “Where’s Sylvia?”

  Jo’s lips tightened and as if her entire body tugged upward with Tulsa’s inquiry, she sat straighter in her chair.

  Tulsa tipped her head to the side and eyed her computer screen. “Is everything okay?” Their lead paralegal sat in the staff meeting each morning. Tulsa also wanted the name of the family-law attorney that she was going to hire for Savannah.

  Emma stared at her meeting agenda and then looked through her eyelashes at Jo.

  Anxiousness fluttered against the sides of Tulsa’s belly. Something was wrong—something was off—Sylvia was missing and the looks between Emma and Jo indicated there was some fact they didn’t want to disclose.

  Jo faced the camera. “Sylvia will be in soon.” She cleared her throat and picked up the iPad that lay on the conference room table in front of her. “Let’s start.”

  Tulsa pursed her lips into a tight knot but chose to remain silent. She was being handled by her partners. She’d give them until the end of the meeting to share whatever factoid they currently withheld. Tulsa glanced at the meeting agenda on her iPad. She forced her mind to focus on Emma and Jo’s reports. She listened to their updates on the active cases and gave her opinions. Finally they reached the last bullet point.

  “Any luck on the associate front?” Tulsa asked. McGrath, Phillips, & Lopez was a busy firm and they needed another associate.

  “We thought we found someone,” Emma said. “She’s ready to leave her big firm for a smaller one. Solid credentials. People love her—”

  “But she went and got pregnant.” Jo’s tone was cool, dismissive of the idea that a woman would choose motherhood over career.

  “It’s just the best news for her,” Emma gushed. “Once she has the baby she wants to stay home and do some contract work for a couple of years. But there is no way she’s switching firms before she goes on maternity leave.”

  “So, we still need a full-time associate,” Tulsa said.

  “Now,” Jo added. “The work isn’t going away. It’s like unhappy couples grow at an exponential rate.”

  “Bad for them, good for business,” Tulsa said. She didn’t wish a divorce on anyone. She’d quite happily do adoptions and prenups for the rest of her career if suddenly all married couples were blissfully in love. But that wouldn’t happen. The statistics didn’t lie: Fifty percent of all marriages ended in divorce. And truly, most days, Tulsa thought it was more.

  “You know…” Emma twirled a lock of her hair in her fingertips and her eyes searched the ceiling. “There is one attorney we went to law school with… Georgia Parker. Do you remember her?”

  “Brown hair?” Tulsa asked.

  “Short,” Jo said.

  Emma nodded. “That’s her. Maybe I’ll give her a call.”

  “Do it,” Jo said.

  “What else?” Tulsa asked.

  Emma whipped her head toward the screen as though she’d waited the entire meeting for this moment. A giant Cheshire grin ate up her face. “Ooooo, Tulsa, honey, do we have something to tell you.” Emma drew out her words like a tattletale just barely able to contain a story. “That Albie Hecht is a piece of work.”

  Tulsa’s heartbeat kicked up a notch. “What happened?”

  Jo ignored Emma’s salacious tone and picked at an invisible piece of lint on her lapel. “The divorce is back on.”

  “Already?”

  Emma leaned forward. “The details of just how and why. Well, they are absolutely delish. I’m guessing you haven’t seen TMZ today?”

  TMZ? Not the place a divorce attorney wanted her famous client to show up while she was two thousand miles away from LA. “Specifics, please.”

  Emma licked her lips. Sweet adoption attorney that she was, Emma shared the nation’s prurient interest in celebrity private lives. “Albie walked in on Sonia.”

  A similar scene had caused the original petition for dissolution of marriage to be filed months before—only then it had been Sonia walking in on Albie.

  “With? The gardener? Daniel Craig?” With this celebrity couple it could be either or both.

  Jo cleared her throat. “Emma, you are having way too much fun with this.” The private lives of clients, although fundamental to their practice, still made Jo uncomfortable. Especially sexual details.

  “Right! Like you don’t love it when some guy gets his ass kicked a
ll the way across the courtroom after he cheats on his wife?”

  Jo shook her head slightly. “Not the same.”

  “Not this time,” Emma said. She wiggled her eyebrows.

  Tulsa sighed. Enough with the buildup, she wanted to know—needed to know—details. “Who was it, Emma?”

  “Carly Langdon,” Emma said and covered her mouth like she’d just said the most shocking of things. She lifted her fingertips from her lips. “Can you believe it? Albie walked in on Sonia and Carly Langdon. In his bed.”

  “Albie took Carly to the Academy Awards,” Tulsa said.

  “Exactly! And then he finds his wife in bed with his mistress!”

  Tulsa pursed her lips and rolled her eyes up toward the exposed beams of the ceiling. “I’m a little surprised that… well—”

  “That Albie didn’t hop in the sack with them?” Emma asked, her voice riddled with excitement.

  “Well, yes.” Tulsa nodded and settled her gaze back on her computer screen.

  “That’s why the divorce is back on! Seems Albie tried. He stripped down to absolutely nothing but his woody. According to what I hear, instead of letting him in the sack Carly and Sonia… Well, they…” Emma pursed her lips tight as if she were trying to contain a giant laugh from exploding out of her mouth. “They started to giggle.”

  “Giggle?” Tulsa bit down on her lower lip in an attempt to fight the smile growing in the center of her lips and threatening to take over her face. Most male celebrities she knew couldn’t take an ego hit like that. Albie’s wife and mistress rejected him in bed, at the same time, while he was naked. No wonder the divorce was back on.

  “Albie stormed out of the house without a stitch on. Got stopped by the Malibu police, doing a hundred and five on PCH. That’s how the story hit TMZ.”

  “But no arrest?” Tulsa asked. A naked celebrity client getting arrested, surely she would have gotten a call.

  Jo shook her head no. “Just a ticket for speeding and—”

  “Indecent exposure!” Emma burst out laughing.

  “Did anyone speak with his publicist?” Tulsa asked.

  “Done,” Jo said. “She’s issuing a statement later today. I called David Strotmeyer to see if we could resurrect the deal you reached earlier this week.”

  “And Sprinkles?” Tulsa asked. The dog was the only thing standing between Albie and Sonia and their divorce before their thirty-six-hour reconciliation.

  “Was in the bedroom too!” Emma said, unable to contain her laughter.

  Jo’s look was stern, her jaw set and her lips in a tight line. “Okay, Em, we’re not sixteen,” Jo chastised.

  Emma clamped her mouth closed and tried to contain the micro-blasts of giggles that escaped from her lips. But you had to laugh, didn’t you? If not she might cry. The absolutely insane things people did when it came to love? Or, in this case, the death of it.

  Sylvia popped onto Tulsa’s computer screen as she sat down at the head of the conference-room table between Emma and Jo. Emma’s smile slid from her face and Jo looked even more serious. Something was up. Something most definitely not good. Something worse than her biggest celebrity client finding his wife in bed with his girlfriend and getting caught naked in Malibu.

  Finally Sylvia looked directly into the camera. “It seems I have some bad news.”

  “Worse than Albie landing naked on TMZ?”

  “Different,” Sylvia offered. Her gaze glanced from Jo to Emma. “I found the best family-law attorney in Colorado,” Sylvia said. “He won’t take the case.”

  Tulsa pulled her head back as if she’d been smacked. “You’re kidding?”

  “I’m not,” Sylvia said.

  “Did you tell him who it’s for? How much I’ll pay? What I do?” With each question her voice rose in tone and jabbed with increased intensity.

  “I tried every trick,” Sylvia said. “Even offered him double his hourly rate.”

  Tulsa swallowed and took a deep breath. Double this guy’s hourly rate would be a ton of dough, but it didn’t matter. She’d pay any amount to save Ash.

  “And he said no?”

  Sylvia nodded.

  “Any reason why?”

  Sylvia took a deep breath, tilted her head to the side, and then glanced at her hands. “His case load is full.”

  She was covering. Sylvia was leaving something out. There wasn’t any attorney that would refuse double their hourly rate simply because their case load was crammed.

  “What’s the real reason?” Tulsa asked.

  Sylvia glanced at the computer screen. “The real reason?”

  Tulsa nodded. Two thousand miles away in the conference room of McGrath, Phillips, & Lopez, all three of her colleagues exchanged a look. A look that seemed to say we know, but damn, we sure don’t want to have to tell you. Sylvia squinted her eyes and rubbed her hand across the iPad in front of her. Finally, after what seemed like a forever pause, she said, “He doesn’t want to work for you.”

  Tulsa clasped her hands together and tilted her head. “What? Why? Because I’m a woman? That’s a little sexist, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think—” Emma started.

  “It’s not because you’re a woman,” Sylvia said, finishing Emma’s thought. “The other partner at his firm is a woman. He just—”

  “Then what is it?” Tulsa interrupted. Frustration tightened her belly into a knot. “What could it possibly be that would prevent an attorney from taking double his rate on a case tha—”

  “Tulsa, your reputation precedes you,” Sylvia interrupted quickly, her words like bullets, each one landing a hit in Tulsa’s chest.

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  “It means,” said Jo, leaning toward the computer in LA, “he knows you’re a ballbuster.”

  Ballbuster? Tulsa crossed her arms over her chest and looked toward the ceiling. What an ugly word. “I am not a ballbuster.” How could anyone associate such a hideous word with her? She refocused her gaze at the computer screen and all three women stared at her, slack-jawed.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Jo asked.

  “Oh sweetie,” Emma said, her brows furrowed and her eyes channeling a puppy-like look. “You didn’t know?”

  “Come on! Because I have expectations? Because I believe opposing counsel needs to be as dedicated as I—”

  “You mean obsessive,” Sylvia said.

  “Myopic,” Emma chimed in.

  “Anal retentive,” Jo added.

  “And don’t forget inflexible.” Emma finished off the adjectives.

  All three of her colleagues nodded in agreement with each other as if they’d discussed this list of Tulsa’s attributes before this morning meeting. She was stunned. Absolutely, irrevocably stunned.

  “So that’s what I am? An obsessive, anal-retentive, myopic, inflexible ballbuster?”

  “Oh we don’t think so, sweetie,” Emma said with the gentlest of smiles on her lips, a smile reserved for jilted lovers or ugly friends. “But that’s what everyone else says.”

  “All the way to Colorado? These… these… assessments about me have made their way all the way to Denver?”

  “He has a national practice,” Sylvia said.

  “Plus he’s repped a couple of celebs out of Aspen,” Jo added.

  “Do I know him?” Tulsa asked. She could, on occasion, be particularly demanding with opposing counsel. But that was her job. She was meant to get the very best deal for her clients.

  “No,” Sylvia said.

  “But he knows you,” Emma said.

  “One of his current clients was on the opposite side of your—”

  “Inflexible ballbusting-ness?” Tulsa asked.

  Sylvia nodded. “In a previous divorce.”

  “Got it,” Tulsa said. “Did we win?”

  “Why do you think he’s afraid to take the case?” Sylvia sighed.

  “Kicked the guy’s ass all the way to Aspen,” Jo said.

  “So he knows I’m a good a
ttorney. That I have expectations.” Tulsa settled her elbow on the table and her chin in her hands. “Is he the only one?”

  Sylvia nodded, “If you want the best, which I know you do. Then, yeah, he’s the best.”

  “Okay, where is he?”

  Again the three women in LA looked at one another.

  “I don’t think—” Sylvia started.

  “Sweetie, that might not be the best idea,” Emma said.

  “You’re going to ambush this guy?” Jo asked.

  “No,” Tulsa said. She cocked her head to the side and jutted her chin forward. “After my pancakes, I am going to use my amazing persuasive powers for good.”

  All three women stared at her, unconvinced.

  “And if he refuses to say yes, then I’m going to bust his balls until he does.”

  Chapter Nine

  Weekday regulars wearing cowboy hats and feed caps filled the tables and booths in the Wooden Nickel. Cade pushed open the door and the entrance bell jingled. He shook off the morning cold. The scent of fresh biscuits baking, hot coffee brewing, and bacon frying awakened the hunger in his belly. He strolled through the dining room and nodded a greeting to folks he’d known his entire life. Wayne sat at the booth in the front window, already drinking his coffee and waiting on his breakfast of steak, eggs, biscuits, and gravy. Cade slid into the booth across from Wayne.

  “That’s a good-lookin’ bruise you got there.” Wayne swallowed his coffee. “Almost makes you look like a man.”

  “Thanks.” Cade ran his hand over the edge of his chin. He’d examined the souvenir from Wayne earlier that morning when he shaved. The bruise was a beauty; bright purple with hints of yellow and green.

  Coffeepot in hand, Rose Beasly hustled to their table. “Whatcha got there?” she asked as she poured the sturdy stuff into Cade’s cup.

  “Little love tap,” Wayne said. A wicked smile curlicued its way over Wayne’s face.

  “You two still beatin’ the snot out of each other at the gym two times a week?”