The Hot Lawyer (A Romance Love Story) (Hargrave Brothers - Book #4)

by Alexa Davis

  Thinking about Kristy and Carl, made me add him to my list of possible stalkers. He might have been a successful and wealthy man, but his appearance at the school was out of place, especially for someone in his fifties with a wife and a career to protect. Still, it seemed too “Twilight Zone” to think of Carl hauling his paunch around, trying to get up high enough to see in my windows, climbing my back fence. Despite my frayed nerves, or perhaps because of them, the image in my head made me laugh aloud as I sat behind the steering wheel, working to control my breathing and my shaking hands.

  Tucker was right about me. I’d been through tough things in my life, and come out on top. I had no right to think I was the only one affected by the ugly realities of the world, and I absolutely could handle the likes of Carl, or Sam, or my former mother-in-law, or Mrs. Dunham. My hands stopped shaking as I started the car. I was done with letting the world decide my life, always reacting.

  The drive home was one of the longest hours of my life. I’d had a lot of upheaval in my life since Andrew had abruptly decided he was done with family life. One thing I had to admit to myself, was that Andrew had controlled every aspect of our lives so tightly, I had lived years without anything resembling chaos. Now, I had to learn how to live with freedom, and the consequences of having choices.

  I regretted fighting for Olivia’s trust. If I could have gone back in time, I would have simply made the choice to let it all go. Tucker and I wouldn’t have conflict at the core of whatever phase of our relationship it was. Olivia wouldn’t have been anywhere near Carl, and Kristy wouldn’t have attempted suicide over being emotionally manipulated by the people she depended on. Or at least, I wouldn’t have known about it until it was whispered over mimosas and made the gossip circuit.

  For the first time in memory, I felt my resolve was strong, unwavering. Olivia’s health and happiness was my ultimate mission. My heart belonged to her, and to Tucker. We had spent our friendship ignoring the feelings we had for one another, and spent our relationship not talking about what either of us would want from the other. Now, Tucker had my grandmother’s ring, and if he chose to put it on my finger, I had to accept that I had a lot more choices to make with both him and Olivia in mind.

  The coward in me wanted to give Tucker reasons to just hand the ring back over to me, and wash his hands of our whole affair. But Olivia loved him, and he treated her like the little queen she was. I loved him, too. He was stronger than Andrew, and in watching him and his brothers, I’d learned what loyalty and service really meant. He’d been Andrew’s best friend, but he had helped me pack and move, when my husband had refused to pay for movers. He and Danny had filled the refrigerator with kid-friendly snacks and ready-to-cook meals to make things easier while we settled into our new life.

  Even the youngest Lancaster, Jackson, had pitched in for me, even though we’d never met. He had set up all my electronics, my computer, and brought a gift for Olivia: a child-safe tablet she could read or play games on. The Lancasters were the kind of people I hadn’t believed existed in the modern world, and even if they never knew it, I worked to be a better person because of their example. I didn’t just want to be a part of Tucker’s life, I wanted to be part of his family.

  He was still on my mind when I pulled up in front of Shaunte and Dale’s home, as busy as always, with not only their children, but it seemed, every kid on their street, playing and wrestling on their little square of a front lawn, the action spilling over into the driveway and garage.

  Shaunte was waiting for me, and opened the door before I reached it, ushering me inside and placing an iced tea in my hand before she offered me a seat. I tucked a leg under me and got comfortable while I waited for Shaunte to shoo more children out of her house. D’Ante was easily Olivia’s best friend and favorite kid-sized human, and as I watched him charm his mother on his way out the door, I was reminded of why. His dimples and huge, bright smile made him stand out, even among his peers.

  I winked at him as he passed the living room on his way out, and he waved and gave me a grin before his mother physically pushed him out the door, with a reminder not to go into the street. Shaunte finally rejoined me in her sitting room and settled into a recliner facing me. I sipped my tea, trying not to let my impatience get the better of me, while Shaunte seemed to gather her thoughts. Finally, I set my glass down and leaned forward, knees on my elbows, both feet planted on the floor.

  “Shaunte, I proposed to Tucker last night, and now I’m here, after rushing out so fast, I didn’t tell him I was leaving. So, please tell me we have a picture, or a description, or that you’re going to tell me something about who told you about the stranger at my house.”

  “You proposed?” She asked in reply.

  “Basically. I handed him my grandmother’s ring and told him to propose to me if he ever felt like it.”

  “You’re serious.” I nodded, and she moved on. “We will revisit that later.” She sighed and rubbed her palms over her eyes. “So, that cute neighbor of yours that Tucker tried to murder with his eyes the other day at the pool? He went to management and told them about an old guy, looking in your windows, circling your place.” She shrugged, and I sat back in my chair.

  “Did you get to see the photos?” I asked. She shook her head, and I explained that he and Tucker had fought, and Tucker had worried that Sam was a stalker. “Doesn’t it seem a little unlikely that I’m being stalked at all?”

  “I don’t know, Libby,” she admitted, “These days, it seems like being married is the only defense women have against the weird ones, and that isn’t even a hundred percent sure to protect them.” I nodded.

  “Want to walk with me to the management office and look at some pictures?” She shouted for her eldest, Aria, and left the teen in charge while she visited the office with me. Just thinking that someone could have been casing my home made me view the community in a different light. To get to my house, the person would have to either live here, or have used a gate code they were given to get in. The whole point of my choosing the community in the first place, was that it was a safer place to raise Olivia, and now I was thinking of upgrading my home security system to include a camera, or even moving, just to feel that sense of safety and comfort again.

  The pretty brunette who ran the office couldn’t stop singing my neighbor’s praises, pointing out how lucky I was that Sam was watching out for me, even while she was apologizing for how long it had taken security to show up.

  “Usually, when they’re out on patrol, they can get anywhere in less than two minutes, you know?” She’d asked, and I shook my head no. I’d never had a reason to call security, and certainly no reason to time them. “Well, they are. But we had a little domestic issue, and both Ray and Kevin were all the way across the community, calming things down, when the call went through.”

  She paused, and turned her computer screen so I could see the photo she had enlarged there for my consideration. My stomach wrenched, as I immediately recognized Carl’s puffy, pale face in the photo Sam had taken from his front window.

  “I have a restraining order against that man that was supposed to go to court in… wow, in a few days, now. Please hang onto that, so I can talk to my lawyer and the police. I think they should get a warrant, or subpoena the photos to use them in court, and if he’s dangerous, I’d hate to be the reason he went free.” She nodded in agreement.

  “We keep all footage of anything brought to our attention on the property. Corporate office has a copy, and we already gave one to the police.” She leaned over her desk towards Shaunte and me. “We certainly don’t want you to feel like Riverside isn’t a safe community.” I thanked her for her time and asked if I could give her card to the police. With said business card in hand, Shaunte and I walked back to her house, while she got more and more impatient with my uncharacteristic silence.

  “I’d like to go back to when the worst thing that happened to me in a week, was taking a joke too far and getting really wet and embarrassed.”
I told her as we reached her yard, where the kids were now seated in a large circle while Aria played her guitar for them. “Awww, music does tame the savage beast,” I joked as we passed by.

  “So, you going to tell me who the guy in the pictures is?” I sighed and scrubbed at my face.

  “It’s my husband’s old colleague, Kristy’s lawyer. His name is Carl Jameson, and aside from being weird and stalking Kristy because she told him ‘no,’ I think you could say he’s Tucker’s nemesis.”

  “Like a comic book villain?”

  “Yeah, something like that. Poor Kristy. I thought my world was going to get so much bigger after Andrew left, and I guess in ways, it has. But even as I meet more people, do different things, everyone seems connected.”

  “If I were you, I’d take comfort in the way we’re all connected. Reminds you that you’re not really alone, even when you feel that way.” I smiled at my friend, who had been one of those new acquaintances, had helped me get a job and let me lean on her until I felt steady on my feet. She was right. It was comforting, in a way, that everything in my life, and everyone, was linked somehow. Andrew had kept my world so tiny, I had been afraid of how lost I old be without him. Instead, I felt more a part of life, not adrift in it, but interwoven with the people around me. The most important of those people was out in the hills, out of cell phone range.

  I thanked Shaunte and left her to manage the throng of kids on her front lawn. With any luck. Sam was home this time of day, and I could get the pictures and talk to the police before I returned to the ranch to fill everyone in. A sense of pride bubbled up in me. I had come a long way from the woman who huddled in her bed, wondering how to function alone. Sam’s truck was in his driveway, and my heart thumped a little. Tucker wouldn’t be happy that I was talking to him alone. But with Tucker along, I might lose the only witness that could say Carl was acting suspiciously. I’d already lost out on a real restraining order against him for lack of evidence. I wasn’t about to let him make my home feel unsafe, and get away with it on a technicality.

  29. Tucker

  When Pete rode out to tell me that Libby had gone back into town because something had happened at her house, I feared the worst. Rachel had managed to talk me down from my high-level threat alert, and convinced me that I had time to shower and change before I took off to help her. I wanted to hunt Carl down and kick his ass finally, but first, I needed to find Libby. I wasn’t technically her lawyer right now, but I’d aid her with the police or in getting through to whoever had taken over as her attorney.

  I made the drive in record time. I was grateful for a lack of police on the old highway, for once. Even so, when I got to the gate, I had managed to sort what I knew into useful compartments, and reminded myself that I was here to listen to Libby, not rush in and possibly attack her neighbor again. Especially since I almost drove her right to him the last time I had. But it was too coincidental that he’d been watching her, and now she was dealing with an attempted break-in, the moment she left home for longer than usual.

  Her car was in the driveway when I pulled up, but she didn’t answer the door, making my pulse pick up and my throat go dry. I was about to start peeking in windows myself, when I heard my name called out behind me. I spun around, to see Libby and her amorous neighbor, waving to me from his front porch.

  “Come here, Tucker. You need to hear this!” She called out from across the street. I forced my hands out of fists and took a deep breath to calm down, and quick-stepped across to join her. “You remember Sam, right?” She said, in a cheerful voice. I glanced at her, and her look warned me to behave myself.

  “Yes, I do. Sorry about the last time we met, I thought you were, well… a bit of a stalker.” I said, trying to sound amiable.

  “Well, you’re gonna find me a lot more understanding of that, now,” he replied. There was no edge to his voice, and I saw genuine worry in his face. “It was poker night at my house, and we got a little rambunctious last night. So, I went to my front window, just to see if anybody was, you know, out on their front porches, or maybe if the security guys were headed our way. Instead, I see this chunky guy looking in windows across the street at Miss Libby’s house,” he explained, and handed me his phone. “Then he started trying to open them, and I called security.”

  I looked at the picture on the screen and my jaw dropped. I shot Libby a questioning look, and she nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Carl Jameson, in a track suit, acting like a third-rate burglar.

  “He’s gone off the deep end. What the hell was he trying to do?” I asked aloud.

  “I don’t know for sure, but he showed up at the school and at my house, within days of Kristy coming to stay with me. Tucker, I don’t think this is about me, or your feud with him, or court.” I groaned.

  “Did you know why Sara and I broke off our engagement, way back when?” She nodded.

  “Sara cheated on you.”

  “Yes, with Carl. Not only that, but she stayed with him for a long time. Until a literal near-death experience of someone she loved gave her the strength to break free.”

  “Oh. Oh, my God. Poor Kristy. How does a man who looks like that get women to feel so obligated to him?” I looked from her to Sam.

  “Hey man, I’m sorry about the way we met. Libby and I have known each other a long time, and been through a lot together. I shouldn’t have assumed you were a problem.” He chuckled and looked me in the eye until it felt like a challenge.

  “Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t have minded being a problem for you, but I sure don’t want people thinking I’m a weirdo. I was married, once. My wife got cancer, it was real sudden, and she was gone real, real quick. But we loved each other. I don’t tread on another man’s toes, if I know he belongs where he is.” I reached out and he shook my hand.

  “Our friend Kristy, who married Libby’s ex-husband? She was made a widow after a couple of months,” I told him.

  “We understand that kind of loss,” Libby added, holding my hand. “When did you lose your wife?”

  “Almost two years ago,” his voice trailed off and he cleared his throat. “She was twenty-five. Too young for us to think about things like cancer, you know?”

  “Andrew, my ex, he died almost a year ago, now. I’d appreciate it if you checked in on Kristy. She’s young, and very sweet, but I worry about her, and obviously, some things are hard for her to talk about with me.” Sam let out a low whistle.

  “I bet,” he replied, and shook his phone at Libby.

  “Oh, right.” She took hers out of her pocket, and he tapped it with his.

  “There, now you have all the pictures I took of that Carl guy. I showed Matt, next door, and Becky and her husband on your side, just so we all knew, for the kids and all. So, if he comes back, we’ll call the police.”

  “Thanks, Sam. I appreciate you looking out for us. Please, don’t be a stranger, and I really would love it if you came by and met Kristy too. She needs more friends, someone to talk to who doesn’t share the same bad memories from the other side of the fight.” He nodded and she gave him a hug. We shook hands again, and I walked her back to her front door.

  “Have you gone inside yet? Made sure he didn’t get in, or take anything?”

  “I was too scared. It was stupid, but part of me was afraid I’d find him in there, sitting on the couch, waiting for Kristy or me to show up.” She slid under my arm and put hers around my waist. “I was going to ask Sam to come back with me while I checked it out, but you saved me. I wasn’t much more comfortable with a near-stranger coming with me than I was doing it alone.”

  I kissed the top of her head and tightened my grip on her shoulder. My stomach churned, the image of Carl, half-crazy and mean, lying in wait for her lodged in my mind’s eye. Even Andrew had hated him, at least until he’d no one left to turn to for validation. He’d repeatedly said that our colleague was a waste of skin, and a predator. Whatever Andrew had been, he’d been fier
cely protective of Libby from what he thought were the dangers of the world, including men like Carl.

  “Maybe we should go to the police first, and then they can come check the house out,” Libby offered as she stood with the key an inch from the deadbolt.

  “I don’t think he’s in there, but I’m with you, no matter what. Let’s just check the place out, so we can have the relief of knowing for sure that everything’s okay here, and then I’ll go with you down to the shop and talk to the police. Have you called Snell and Wilmer?” She shook her head.

  “I hadn’t gotten there yet.”

  “No problem. I’ll just call it in to them, so they have a heads-up.” She agreed, and with a deep breath, she slid the key to. I stepped past her into the house, and after she locked the door behind us, we looked around. Every window was still locked and nothing seemed out of place, and I watched relief spread across Libby’s face as we searched every room for signs of someone having been there.

  “All clear?” I asked after she remade Olivia’s bed, smoothing down the covers and replacing the stuffed animals. She smiled and nodded.

  “Yes, all clear. Am I a coward, for feeling violated, even though he didn’t get in? Maybe he wasn’t even trying to.”

  “No,” I gasped. “He has absolutely violated your privacy. There is something wrong with him. You should be wary.” She threw her arms around my waist and put her head against my chest.

  “I’m sorry you had to stop helping your brother to come down, but I’m glad you’re here,” she said, her voice muffled by my shirt.