“No, I need papers to tell me I am…what do you call it?” She jutted a gnarled fingertip at Sadie. “Free agent.”
“I can type you a letter, if you’d like? Legally, though, you don’t need to do anything with the court or the state.”
“Letter vill be good. Address to me. Bring to dinner tonight. I vill cook draniki and priozhki. Roman vill be there. You two can catch up.”
Ahh. There it was. Roman knew his grandmother wouldn’t let him down. This is what it all led up to.
“What is draniki?” Sadie asked, clearly not learning her lesson about asking too many questions when it came to his grandmother.
“Potatoes.” Babushka shoved the image of Dedushka back in her purse.
With the amount of vodka she put in the mashed potatoes used to make the potato pancakes, this Babushka event might just be fantastic.
Babushka clicked her purse shut. “I vill die soon. Ve should prepare the paperwork.”
Sadie paled but otherwise kept her composure. “Are you ill?”
“She’s fine,” Roman assured.
Not that he would be truly unaffected if his grandmother actually met her demise. He just knew that her threats of death were hollow.
Sadie didn’t look so sure.
“And she has a will,” Roman added. He’d heard over and over again how he would be cut out of her will if he didn’t behave.
“What kind of an agreement are you looking to have drawn up?” Sadie asked.
Yeah, that was Roman’s question, too. He crossed his arms, willing himself not to snatch his cell and call in the family for reinforcements.
“I vish to update my vill. My money goes to my family ven I die. Unless they are big jerks. Then they get nothing. I vish to update papers for this.”
Sadie shifted in her seat. “So you want a will that says your money goes to your family, unless they are ‘big jerks.’”
“Yes.”
“And if they’re big jerks?”
“Give it to charity,” Babushka said offhandedly.
“Which charity?” Sadie asked.
“Vhichever.”
“Don’t draw up those papers,” he said to Sadie. “Babushka, you’re taking things a little far. Dial it back.”
“Papers are important,” Babushka replied.
“Rome, it’s her money,” Sadie said softly. “Just tell your family not to be—”
“Big jerks,” Babushka finished for her.
“Your family adores you, even when you think we’re being jerks.” Which he was sorry to say could be often, given that they were Dvornakovs.
“Roman.” Babushka laid her hand on his. “This is between attorney and me.”
Also him, since he was sitting right there, and no one had shushed him for a solid thirty seconds.
“Roman, she’s right. This is between my client and me.” Sadie was all attorney now. There was none of the sweet auntie he’d enjoyed babysitting and spending time with at Eli’s place.
“You are not dying.” All her doctors said the same thing. His grandmother was the picture of health. No, she couldn’t see for shit. No, she couldn’t hear too well. Yes, she had the occasional heart blip that required an emergency room trip. But all in all, she was totally fine.
“We’re all dying, Roman,” Sadie said seriously, totally taking his grandmother’s side. “It’s a fact.”
Wasn’t that a depressing thought?
“Can we debate that later? After we loop in the family on charity selection?” Right, so his blood pressure was, in fact, rising. He did his best to keep it at reasonable levels. They trained him for this kind of shit in the military. The whole things-aren’t-going-well, just keep-your-blood-pressure-normal thing? Yeah, that thing.
“Roman,” Sadie said in that way of hers that he suspected meant she was gearing up for a fight.
“No.” He stood, turning to his grandmother. He made his eyes as big as he could, hoping to transmit that things were good. She’d invited Sadie to dinner and sufficiently scared the snot out of her. She’d done her busybody work for the day.
“Roman,” Sadie said again. “I have this.” Her words were lawyer firm with a dash of annoyed. “I think you need to go now.”
All right, if he was excused, he’d just be excused then.
Pointedly, he stood. Turned. And marched out. Right past the empty reception desk. Down the hall. Straight to his studio where things made sense most of the time.
Chapter Thirteen
Sadie should have handled the whole situation with Roman better. In hindsight, she understood anyone with an ounce of pride wouldn’t appreciate being excused the way she’d done it.
She’d fix it. Talk to him.
As soon as she finished with Babushka, she’d go straight to him, apology in hand.
“I’ll look into some additional estate law.” Sadie led Babushka out of her office and back into the open area where she still had no receptionist. “Let me draw that up for you.”
“Vhatever you think is best.” Babushka shuffled along beside Sadie.
Then, inexplicably, Babushka stopped at the reception desk and stuck her purse in the drawer.
“What are you doing?” Sadie asked, opening the drawer to pull the bag back out.
“You need help,” Babushka replied, repeating the purse–drawer routine and settling on the chair. She used the levers under the seat to lower it like it was totally normal for her to be adjusting Sadie’s furniture.
“I’m not following,” Sadie said.
“You have no one to answer your phone. I am available. I have no fear of vhat happens after death.”
Yes, yes, Sadie did need help. The kind that came from calling an agency or placing an employment ad, accepting resumes, and then conducting interviews.
The phone rang. Sadie moved to grab it, but Babushka reached it first.
“Hello,” Babushka said into the receiver.
No, no, that wasn’t right at all.
Sadie hurried to the other side of the desk to grab the phone from the woman. Babushka wasn’t letting it go—her grip on the receiver was impressive.
A long pause went by as Babushka scowled.
“You have to tell them they’ve reached Sadie Howard’s law office,” Sadie whispered.
Babushka nodded. “Good idea,” she said straight into the receiver. “This is Sadie’s office.”
Gah. No. Not like that.
“Give me the phone,” Sadie demanded, holding out her hand.
Babushka pinched her lips into the equivalent of an eighty-year-old duck face and gave a quick shake of her head.
“Yes, she does divorce. Are you single?” Babushka clicked the ballpoint pen and licked the tip. “I see. Yes. Married, but not for long. Ve call that soon-to-be single in the business.”
No, that’s not what it was called. Not at all.
Sadie couldn’t move. This was a disaster, but without tackling the old woman to the ground, she was pretty sure there was no way she’d be getting that phone back.
“She’s single, too.” Babushka gave Sadie a thumbs-up. “Very pretty. Very nice brown hair. She has good hips. Good teeth. Vill make good babies.”
Sadie froze. “Oh my God.”
“I think my grandson has crush on her,” Babushka continued. “But you never know how love vorks. Tell me about your vife.”
Sadie waited in stunned silence as Babushka listened to whatever was being said on the other end of the line.
The door opened and Tonya stepped inside. “Sadie?”
In that moment, Sadie realized that what this day was seriously lacking was a dose of fish drama.
“Tonya, hi. Take a seat. Can you hang on one moment?” Sadie asked, making a swirl motion with her outstretched palm over the desk Babushka had commandeered. “I need to handle this.”
“I should ask, is your vife dead?” Babushka abruptly asked into the phone. “Sadie is okay attorney if she is alive. Not so much if she is dead.”
Oh shit.
“Give me the phone,” Sadie demanded.
Tonya’s eyes had gotten huge. “A moment is fine. I’ll just…you know.” She sat down and lifted one of the Denver’s Best magazines that had been lying on the side table.
“Are you sure you cannot make things better in the love?” Babushka asked and then continued to listen intently. “No, I agree. That is not nice. I can see vhy you vould not vish to vork out. Do you have children?”
“Stop talking.” Sadie lunged for the phone.
Babushka was quicker than Sadie had imagined. She dodged the lunge without skipping a beat. “You need good attorney. Let me ask Sadie who she recommends.”
Sadie lunged for the receiver again, but Babushka moved it out of her grasp, clearly not done with the conversation.
She licked the tip of a ballpoint pen and, in careful script, jotted a name.
Barrett.
Sadie watched with odd fascination as Babushka’s perfect cursive relayed the name.
“Give me the phone.” Sadie grabbed for the phone yet again.
Babushka waved her away. “Yes, she vill call back. Very busy, this attorney. Very popular.”
Sadie felt her cheeks lose all color—actually felt it. How did one feel that?
“Yes.” Babushka paused. “As I say, she vill return your call. You vill vait your turn.”
Babushka placed the phone back in the cradle and folded her hands.
“What the heck was that?” Sadie asked.
“You have new client.” Babushka clicked the pen closed and set it beside the notepad that simply read Barrett. “Good news. Vife is alive. No children. No problem.”
“I…I have a problem,” Sadie said with high-pitched punctuation. “You just hung up on a potential client.”
“I made it clear you’re a very busy voman.” Babushka acted like Sadie was a misbehaving grandchild. “You vill call back tomorrow and, as they say, seal the deal.”
Sadie tapped on the desk. “No. I’ll call him now.”
“Sadie?” Tonya set her magazine back on the table where she’d found it. “Should I come back at a better time?”
Sadie shook her head and held up her hands. “No, just give me one moment—”
“She is very busy.” Babushka scrawled more details from the phone call next to the name. Wife is not dead. “I vill make you an appointment. Let me find the schedule. It’s here somewhere.” She began to dig through the drawers.
“I can talk to her now,” Sadie assured. “Let’s go to my office.” She waved for Tonya to follow her.
Tonya stood.
“You said you vill call this man back. Now you vill meet vith her? Make your mind up. I am not mind reader.” Babushka licked at an envelope that had nothing in it and sealed it shut.
“I’d call him back, but you didn’t get his phone number.” Sadie pointed out.
“Oh dear.” Babushka set the envelope aside. Then she clicked through the buttons on the phone and came to something that made her go, “Ah-ha.” She jotted down a telephone number beside Barrett’s name.
Sadie reached for the note. “I’m going to talk to Tonya here, and then I’ll go call him. Please don’t answer my phone again. You should go home now.”
That all sounded very resolute if she did say so herself.
“No. That vill not vork. Do not call right away, you vill look desperate.” Babushka was apparently still ignoring Sadie’s request that she leave.
“She might be right,” Tonya said, diving right into the fray. “You don’t want to look desperate. Maybe let him sweat for a day before you call him. Then he’ll be even more excited to hire you.”
“I like her. It is like vith you and my Roman,” Babushka said. “You play hard to catch. Then he vants you more.”
“Who is Roman?” Tonya asked like she was really part of this conversation. Which, apparently, now she was.
“That is not what’s going on with Roman,” Sadie said to Babushka. She turned back to Tonya. “He’s no one.”
“He’s my grandson,” Babushka said, pride evident. “He is kind, lots of muscles.” She pinched her biceps in illustration. “Are you single?”
Oh dear goodness. Sadie rubbed her temples.
“He’s dense though, my Rome,” Babushka continued. “But ve all have our challenges and his babies vill be beautiful.”
“I’m in the middle of a divorce.” Tonya tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m not dating. It confuses the kids.”
Fish. She meant fish.
“You have children?” Babushka’s fluffy eyebrows fell. “You should not get divorced unless he is very bad man. The children will suffer.”
The edges of Tonya’s lips tipped down. “He’s not bad. Not like that. He’s just distracted. A lot.”
Babushka tapped a lime-green painted fingernail against her lips. “You have your meeting vith Sadie, then you come talk to Babushka. Ve vill solve this problem.”
Actually, no. That was not what was going to happen.
Sadie took a moment to determine how she was going to get Tonya out of the room and, for the love of all things holy, convince Babushka to stop talking to her clients.
What she needed to do was stop. Triage the moment.
Evict Babuska. Then see to Tonya.
“Babushka, you should go.” Sadie used her no-nonsense tone.
“I vill stay.” Babushka used the exact same tone.
Sadie sighed, unsure how she would bodily remove the woman from the office, especially considering that she was one of the owners of the building.
“Please don’t answer the phone.” She did her absolute best not to sound desperate.
Babushka, who clearly heard what Sadie had said, pretended not to hear what Sadie had said.
Well, that eviction hadn’t gone well. Or at all.
“Let’s take a moment in my office?” Sadie suggested to Tonya, grabbing a file folder from the side of the reception desk. It contained the custody demands from Rex. His list was long, and it was just as ridiculous as Tonya’s original list.
Then she began walking, hoping Tonya would follow and they’d both escape the gravitational pull of Babushka’s interference.
Thank goodness, Tonya followed.
“This will only take a moment. Rex sent over his counter-requests to your list.” Sadie flipped open the file folder.
Tonya paled. “What does he want?”
“He’s asking for full fifty-fifty instead of every other weekend like we talked about.”
“That’s ridiculous. He’s always at work. Who is going to stay with them while he’s working?”
They were fish, so they’d probably be fine on their—
“If he’s going to be unreasonable, can we take it to court? Let the judge decide? That’s what my friend did when her ex was being unreasonable. The judge gave her full custody.”
“Was it a case involving fish as well?”
“Their kids. But it’s the same thing.”
Not at all, actually.
“I’m not certain the courts will take your side on this one. His other suggestion was to divide the fish evenly between the two of you.”
Tonya gasped. “He wants to break them up? No. Absolutely not.”
“In my experience, things work out better for all involved if we don’t have to go to the judge. It could swing the other way, so compromising is the best method at this point.”
“How can the judge require me to compromise on the care of my kids?” Tonya asked.
Fish. They were fish.
“Before you make a decision, you should go over all of Rex’s requests. Then we can counter.”
Sadie handed over the document containing the aforementioned requests.
Tonya stared at it but didn’t seem to actually read the words on the paper. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Sadie walked Tonya to the door.
Babushka still held court at the desk. “Vhat do you say, you come over for dinner toni
ght. See Roman. Don’t make commitment to him or put out too early. Just lead him on. Then we start phase two.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Especially with Roman. Especially with a plan that came in phases. “I have a date with a Green Giant microwave dinner tonight.”
“Now you have better plans.”
The phone rang and Babushka reached for the receiver.
Roman sat at his desk as he sifted through the images from a recent wedding he’d photographed, ignoring his brother and Brek.
He’d done his studio up in neutral colors—mostly white because it worked best for his studio sessions. Along the walls, he’d hung some of his favorite images. The ones that weren’t classified.
There was the photo of his best Army pal—Tyler—who had taken a bullet during the firefight that inspired Roman to get his Louise tattoo.
The portrait of his whole family that he’d taken when he came home on leave a couple years back.
A sunrise over Mosul.
A sunset over Sri Lanka.
An old photo of his babushka and dedushka shortly after they’d first come to the country. He hadn’t taken it, but it meant the world to him.
All of the images were precious moments locked in time on paper.
“You look like a man who has found a woman.” Jase stretched back in one of the oversized chairs near the corner of Roman’s studio that he used as a prop for in-studio sessions. “Don’t worry, that terrified look goes away eventually.”
Brek chuckled.
Brek had followed Jase in, but instead of using one of the multiple chairs throughout the studio, he’d taken up residence sitting on the side of Roman’s desk.
Yes, Roman had found a woman. He’d found Sadie.
Right now, he was questioning every decision he’d ever made that led him to his current situation.
“Sadie, huh?” Brek asked with what could only be described as an Elvis-inspired lip-curl smirk.
That’s what Roman wished, but he didn’t need the whole world blabbing when he was floundering. “I see Jase has wasted no time in flapping his trap.”
“Ah, but you forget that Brek was at the wedding where Babushka announced your engagement. My trap did not need to flap. Brek figured it out all by his own self.”
Do Me a Favor: A second chance, hilarious rom com! (Mile High Matched Book 4) Page 14