Courting Trouble (8 page)

“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 all 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 attorney. 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?”

The brothers looked at each other and nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, men will be boys.” She topped off Wayne’s coffee. Rose’s eyes flitted from Wayne to Cade. “Hear Savannah McGrath found herself a new lawyer.” Rose settled one hand on her ample hip while her eyes studied Cade.

Cade nodded and reached for the menu. He supposed Rose wanted some sort of reaction that she might talk about with her customers throughout the day. His response, whether nonchalant or irritable, would be worthy of a few words from Rose and keep the gossip churning in Powder Springs.

“Miller’s Garage had to tow her rental in off Yampa Valley Road late yesterday,” Wayne said.

Cade continued to study the menu and silently thanked his brother for tossing Rose a tidbit of gossip about Tulsa.

“That right?” Rose asked. “Those darn rentals, seems there’s always something wrong with them.” She turned her gaze to Cade. “So, you want the usual?”

“Please,” Cade said and tucked the menu between the napkin dispenser and the ketchup.

Rose ambled back toward the counter and the kitchen.

“Thanks for that,” Cade said.

“No worries, brother. People are just interested. Not every day in a small town you get to see two star-crossed lovers square off in a courtroom over a custody dispute.”

Cade cleared his throat and reached for a sugar packet. “Well, when you put it like that. Guess my life is a helluva lot more entertaining than I woulda thought.” Cade turned and watched Rose pluck the order from her pad and tuck it into the order wheel in the kitchen window. “Every day for how many years?”

“Forty,” Wayne said. “Her brother cooks and she makes the pies.”

“They are some mighty fine pies,” Cade said. His spoon clinked against the diner mug as he stirred sugar into his coffee. Cade looked up at his brother. “I think Dad’s confused.”

“To you he’s Dad, to me he’s Hudd.” Wayne leaned back in his booth and draped his arm over the seatback. “And as far as confused? What’s new? The man’s been confused since 1972.”

“He doesn’t remember some pretty important things.” Cade clasped both his hands on top of the table. Hudd losing his mind wasn’t pleasant breakfast conversation but one they needed to have.

“Does he know who you are?” Wayne asked.

Cade nodded.

“And he knows who he is, right?”

Again Cade nodded.

“Then he’s fine,” Wayne said with the finality of a sheriff casting down an edict. Cade grimaced, both corners of his mouth pulled down. If only Hudd’s mental acuity was that simple. Wayne might want to think Hudd was fine, he might even want to believe Hudd was fine, he might even be able to convince himself that Hudd was fine, but after months of living with their father, Cade was quite certain that Hudd was
not
fine.

“Look,” Wayne said, shifting his body forward and placing both palms flat on the tabletop, “the doctors said he’d have good days and bad.” Wayne lifted his right hand, palm up. “You know how it goes. Sometimes he doesn’t appear very with it. Also fatigue. When he’s tired he’s not nearly as good. If you talk to him after eight pm you never know what you’ll get. He may think he’s Batman.” Wayne shrugged his right shoulder and resettled, leaning back against his booth. “Who knows?”

The right corner of Cade’s mouth jerked upward with the image of his stern-faced father standing in the center of the living room proclaiming he was a superhero and king of the night.

“He wasn’t
that
out of it,” Cade said.

Cade waited for Rose to place his two eggs over easy and Wayne’s Hungry Man Breakfast onto the table.

“What was it about?”

“Thank you, Rose.” Once she was out of earshot, Cade leaned forward as if sharing a dirty secret with his brother. “Connie McGrath.”

Wayne’s steak knife halted mid-cut. He slowly looked up at Cade and while his face was stern—non-expressive—his eyes held questions.

“And the remarks?” Cade continued, “Not appropriate.”

Wayne’s eyes slid to the right as if checking to see if there was anyone near enough to overhear their conversation. “Enough to get Hudd into any kind of trouble?”