If the Shoe Fits (13 page)

“Do they serve coffee at this shindig?” he asked, ignoring the car comment.

“Every kind you can imagine.”

“I’ll get some while I mull over what kind of car I want to buy. You talk to Ms. Bartlett. She and her law partner have just opened a new firm. Didn’t you mention that you’re in the market for new legal counsel? Maybe Ms. Bartlett can offer you some sort of direction on that.”

“A new firm, did you say?” she asked, her smile brightening as Judge Hillman walked away and she honed in on Julianne. “Do you have any experience with corporate law?”

“Actually, it’s been my partner’s specialty,” she replied, catching the judge’s unmistakable—albeit unusual—grin as he wandered away from them.

So this was why he pushed her into driving him across town. It turned out the judge had a tender side after all.

Color me astounded
, she thought.

“Do you have a business card? Maybe I can come in and have a powwow with you next week.”

“Caswell Consulting,”
Will repeated as he straightened his apron and handed Julianne an empty platter. He shook his head. “Hold this for me.”

“Can you believe that old codger? He railroads me into driving him all the way over there,” she said as he loaded the platter with chicken from the large gas grill on the back deck of his father’s house. “The whole way I’m thinking what a fool he is, and then he goes and does this. What a lesson.”

“This could be huge for us, Jules.”

“It’s a sign, Will. We just prayed and asked God to help our business thrive, and He sent Judge Hillman and Veronica Caswell. It’s a sign!”

“You see signs on every hill,” Will told her as he set the tongs atop the chicken and took the plate from Julianne. “They’re doing millions of business every quarter. If we can just get a small slice of that pie, we’ll be sitting pretty.”

They filed through the back door and entered the kitchen where Amanda buzzed around him, transferring serving dishes from the counter to the table in front of Davis. Mashed potatoes, steamed asparagus spears, and a bowl of wilted leaves of some kind topped with what looked—and smelled—like crumbled bleu cheese.

“What’s that?” Julianne asked, her tiny nose bunched up as she leaned over the bowl.

“It’s kale chiffonade,” Amanda replied, and Julianne turned away immediately. “It’s good for you, young lady.”

“Chiffonade,” Will repeated in an uppity English accent, and Julianne giggled.

“I read that kale is a superfood,” Amanda explained. “It’s full of antioxidants, high in fiber, and it will help Davis’s eyes to ward off cataracts.”

“Well, Davis, heap some of that stuff on your plate, why dontcha,” Julianne teased. “You don’t want to go getting cataracts.”

“Sit down and be quiet, young lady,” Davis snapped, and then he winked at her.

“It’s flavored with turkey bacon,” Amanda told them as she circled the table, placing napkins at each plate. “Try some. It might surprise you.”

“If she tries some, it might surprise
you
,” Davis interjected.

“I’ll just have an extra piece of Will’s barbecued chicken and call it a day.”

The foursome passed side dishes back and forth as Amanda served up chicken for each plate: a breast for Davis, two thighs for Will, a drumstick for Julianne; another barbecued breast landed on her own plate. In that way that the mother of every family intimately knows the preferences of each of her children, Amanda had taken the maternal spot in this mismatched brood that gathered around the table once or twice each week.

“Julianne unearthed a really good possibility for some business for the firm today,” Will announced, and Amanda raised a serious eyebrow that stopped him from expounding.

“You children work all the time. How about we leave business at the door for our community dinners, hmm?”

“Sorry.”

“Tell us instead about something extracurricular that has no roots steeped in your law practice.”

“Will’s dating someone new,” Julianne announced.

Davis’s eyes lifted instantly and rested heavily on his son while Amanda froze, her own gray eyes wide and round. With that look on her face, Will instantly recognized the Bartlett family resemblance that had faded over the years.

“Alison Something,” Julianne continued. “She teaches the fourth grade.”

“Third,” Will corrected just above a whisper.

“Really,” Amanda remarked.

“Where did you and Alison meet, Son?” Davis chimed in.

“They were set up.”

“Not by you,” Amanda asked Julianne in the form of a statement.

“No. Beth Rudd. Her husband is on the deacon board at church with Will. Alison is Beth’s younger sister.”

The silence that followed felt thicker than the kale in that yellow bowl in front of him, and Will concentrated on his barbecued chicken thighs.

“What about you, young lady?” Davis asked, cutting through the awkward hush. “Don’t I remember that you had met someone as well?”

Julianne sighed, and a grin spread out her lips like butter warmed by the sun. “Paul. He’s a carpenter.”

“Like
Jesus
,” Will interjected.

“Not
unlike
Jesus,” Julianne admonished him. “But certainly I wasn’t comparing him to the Savior of the world, Will.”

With one eyebrow raised and his lips drawn in a smirk, Will stared into her clear blue eyes.

“Anyway,” she continued, “we had our first date Friday night, and it was … nice. We listened to some Spanish guitar music in Mt. Adams and went for a long walk afterward in Eden Park, and then we went and grabbed a bite to eat.”

“You walked in Eden Park after dark?” Davis clarified. “Doesn’t say much for your new young man’s good sense.”

“I was perfectly safe.”

“The guy is a lumberjack,” Will cut in, and Julianne chuckled.

“He’s six-foot-four, and very muscular,” she told them. “But he’s also very kind. The first day I saw him, he was rescuing a dog that had been hit on a downtown street.”

A quick flash of nausea hit Will, but it lifted as quickly as it dropped on him.

“A dog that he dumped at a clinic and never checked on again,” he snapped.

“How did you know that?”

“I was there when Phoebe called the clinic and asked about him,” he said. Turning to Davis, Will expounded. “The dog has a broken leg, and the vet had to absorb the bill himself. And now they’re turning the dog over to a local shelter. Who’s going to adopt a dog when he’s just recovering from surgery?”

“You don’t know that,” Julianne objected. “And besides, you can’t expect Paul to take on the medical bills of a dog he doesn’t even own.”

“No? Who would have paid for it if
you
were the one dumping an injured dog at a clinic, huh?”

“Are you going to see him again?” Amanda asked, and she shot a glance toward Will.

“I am,” she answered. “We’re going to the kite festival out at Winton Lake this weekend.”

“A kite festival.” Her mother nodded. “I didn’t know you had any interest in kites.”

“She doesn’t,” Will said.

“I don’t
not
like them. We entered this same festival, you and I, once upon a time, Will. I just … you know …”

“Like them much better with a six-foot-four-inch lumberjack at your side,” he surmised.

Julianne scrunched up her face and glared at him. “What is
wrong with you
?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me.”

The look exchanged between his dad and Amanda hadn’t escaped his notice, but Will decided not to comment.

On the grounds that it may incriminate me
.

“Amanda, I think I’ll try some of that kale after all,” Davis said. “Can’t be too cautious about cataracts.”

When Julianne’s phone sounded off, Amanda’s entire face bunched. And Julianne made the same expression when she looked at the screen of her phone.

“Ahh, maaaaan,” she cried before answering. Then with the push of the button, she turned monotone. “Hi, Lacey … Yeah, I know. I was about to call you about that.”

Amusement tickled the back of Will’s throat and he chuckled as Julianne got up from the table and took her conversation into the living room. Hillman had steered a substantial new client their way and polished off the good deed with a big old goose egg: A forced encounter between Julianne and the person she liked least in the whole Queen City area.

The pig lover, Emily Alden, sat confidently erect in her chair at the conference room table across from that porcine murderer, Rand. Her parents flanked either side of her, and Julianne thought it only mildly amusing that she and Will bookended Rand in that same parental way.

“Emily,” she said softly, “I just want you to know how sorry I am about your loss. When I was your age, my dog was hit by a neighbor’s car, and I remember how heartbreaking it was. I didn’t get over it for a really long time and, even though I knew he hadn’t meant to do it, I was just furious that the neighbor hadn’t watched where he was going.”

Emily didn’t miss a beat. “I’ll bet he didn’t slam down on the gas just so he could hit your dog,” she replied, and Julianne’s stomach lurched slightly, realizing she’d gone up against easier opponents inside the courtroom.

“Well, no, of course not. But Mr. Winters didn’t know it was your Wilbur when he fired his gun.”

“No. He thought it was a
dog
,” Emily replied. “Maybe like that one your neighbor killed. What was its name?”

Julianne looked into the eyes of the girl’s father, who simply shrugged slightly and glanced away. The mother didn’t show signs of weakness either, although she did reach over and touch her daughter’s hand.

“Kellogg,” Julianne replied in defeat. “I named him after my favorite cereal.”

“Emily.” Will took the wheel, and she stifled a sigh of relief. “Despite what you might think, Mr. Winters does regret what happened. And he understands that you’re upset and angry. We all do. But what is it you’re looking for here?” The girl stared Will down without reply. “I mean, you’ve made the flyers and you’ve told everyone who will listen what he’s done, and you’ve effectively scarred his reputation in his community. What do you see happening now?”

“I thought I might sue him,” she answered without flinching. “My dad says I can.”

Julianne pressed her arm against Rand’s in hopes of quelling his response.

“Well, that’s true. You can do that. But to what end?” Will asked her directly. “You want him to pay you money? Or replace your pig? Or both? See, what I’m trying to get to here is whether you have specific restitution in mind or if you’re just blindly doing and saying anything at all, anything you can in order to irreparably damage Mr. Winters’s reputation. Because if it’s the latter, you’re actually giving him the upper hand.”

Emily’s eyes darted to her father’s for a moment before she turned back to Will and asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean that Mr. Winters has done everything he possibly can to resolve the situation, and any judge is sure to see that. We know how horrible you feel about the loss of your pet … your friend, but it’s in your best interest to work with us before we go into court.”

Emily blinked, and Julianne spotted the standing pool of tears in her eyes.

“So to avoid more unpleasantness, why don’t you just tell us what you’re looking for here. What would help you, beyond Mr. Winters’s heartfelt apology?”

Rand opened his mouth, ready to speak something Julianne felt absolutely certain was going to increase the flow of hot water into his life, and she pinched the side of his knee under the table.

“Rand, why don’t you tell Emily how sorry you are,” Julianne suggested with an additional pinch for good measure.

He inhaled sharply, and he let it out slowly before speaking. “Look, kid, it was stupid. I thought it was the Blanchettes’ ridiculous dog in my trash again. You know that dog?”

“Yeah,” Emily answered him, and she looked at Julianne. “His name is Dugger. One time, he got into Mrs. Castro’s garbage and spread her used … um … under-things all over the neighborhood.”

“I only meant to shoot a warning shot,” Rand continued, “to scare him away. But when I saw that it wasn’t a dog—and I didn’t quite know what it was, only that it wasn’t some dog or cat from the neighborhood—I guess I panicked.”