The Proviso (93 page)

“What was his name?” Bryce asked.

“Juell Pope.”

They looked as shocked as she’d expected them
to.

“I didn’t know until I went to law school. He always
joked that he was just an old country lawyer with more time than
money.” She told them about him, about her mother, how much she
missed them both, only vaguely noticing that Bryce and Giselle had
stopped working completely to listen to her. She told them about
her father, her farm, and how much she
didn’t
miss that.

The sound of sniffles broke into her tale and she
saw Giselle with her head bowed, looking at the ground. Bryce
leaned on a spade, also not looking at Justice.

As the silence lengthened, Bryce murmured, “So you
made a name for yourself.”

“In print, anyway. The first piece I published in
the
UMKC Law Review
I wrote when I was seventeen. My
grandfather set me the topic and told me where to look for the
information.”

“Seventeen,” he breathed.

“He— He didn’t live to see it published,” she
whispered. “I hope he was proud of me. He said it was C work.”

Giselle lifted her head then and she saw the tears
streaking her face.
Giselle Cox cries!
Justice still
couldn’t credit it. “C work?” she demanded. “That was
not
C
work.”

“I know that now,” Justice said quietly, suddenly
proud of what she had accomplished—that she had done it on her own,
without ever once invoking her grandfather’s name. “He said that
because it gave me something to reach for. He was like that. I’d do
anything, reach farther than was possible if I thought he might
tell me I did B work. What do you have left to do if you do A work
all the time?

“He loved the Internet when it came along. He took
to it so easily. He loved Usenet and IRC and almost nobody knows
how to get there anymore . . . Blogging and IM before their time, I
suppose. I was posting before I left high school. I just wasn’t
doing it under my own name. I was afraid that— And then Knox, he—
He defended me. I sent in a piece to the
National Review
that weekend and . . . it was accepted.”

A long silence turned longer until Justice squirmed.
“You would never have submitted that article if he hadn’t said what
he did that day,” Bryce said, a question more than a statement.

“No.”

“And you started blogging and tagging your posts
with your name,” Giselle said.

“And I linked everything else I’d ever said online.
That first article for the law review got me a lot of credible
attention through my professors, which is why I just kind of . . .
overnight, it seemed. Both academically and online. Knox doesn’t
know; I’m not even sure he knows what an ISP is, much less wireless
broadband, much less follow any blogs. Everything’s on my CV. If he
read it, it didn’t seem to register.”

Giselle laughed through her tears, then dashed them
away with her fingers. “That’s ’cause he’s got shit for brains,”
she groused good-naturedly, her humor seeming to have been
restored.

Bryce threw a grin at his wife. “That hasn’t changed
in twenty years, either.”

Then they both laughed. Giselle approached Justice,
holding her hands out to pull her up, then drew her into her
personal space for a bear hug. “You’re not alone in the world
anymore, Justice. You have us now. Let’s go eat.”

* * * * *

85:
PERSONAL SPACE

Thursday afternoon, Justice’s email chimed.

*

Subject: Come to my house tomorrow night. Pack a
bag. nm

Reply-to: [email protected]

*

Justice snorted. Yes, indeed, she could be as
autocratic as Justice’s “shit-for-brains husband.”

“You must be my new sister-in-law,” an unfamiliar
female voice called to her Saturday morning from the area of the
couch, startling Justice just as she descended the last two steps
of the Kenards’ staircase. Suddenly, a gorgeous blonde sat up,
discarding the book she’d been reading and smiled at her. Justice
gasped.

“You look like Knox!”

“That would stand to reason,” she said and arose to
engulf Justice in her arms. “Considering we share a mother.”

Justice hesitantly wrapped her arms around this
blonde Amazon who was as soft and lush as Giselle was small and
firm. She smelled different from Giselle, too, more flowery and
delicate. It suited her, Justice thought, and then wondered what
the perfume she had chosen during Makeover Week said about her.
Really, she wondered how she fit in with these sophisticated ladies
who were so much older than she, who had to know so much more about
life, about men and sex.

“I didn’t know Knox had a sister,” Justice murmured
as she pulled away from her, embarrassed about that fact. It only
highlighted her sketchy knowledge of her husband versus her vast
ignorance.

“Well, don’t feel bad about that,” she returned.
“
Knox
didn’t know he had a sister until about a month
ago.”

Justice’s mouth dropped open as she stepped back,
noticing only then the scar down her face, her broken nose, and her
eyes—her eyes!—two different colors. “How can you not know you have
a sister for almost forty years?”

“When your mother’s a raging bitch and doesn’t tell
anyone she had you,” she said with genuine amusement. “Giselle and
I have been waiting for you to wake up so we can go to the
spa.”

The spa . . . Justice could certainly get used to
this life, Knox or not. Then something else occurred to her. “Does
this mean I have the mother-in-law from hell?”

“It most certainly does mean that,” came Bryce’s
deep voice from the back porch as he and Giselle came clattering in
the house.

“Trudy Hilliard,” said Knox’s sister—Justice’s
sister-in-law
—said. “Fen’s my father.”

Justice gasped and stepped back, her hand on her
mouth, thoroughly shocked and confused. Had she been delivered here
as some sort of sacrificial lamb? All three of them watched her
warily as she swiftly discarded all scenarios and all combinations
of scenarios that didn’t make sense. Then her hand fell and she
drew a deep breath as she drew her conclusions and said, “I think I
understand. At least in principle.”

“Trudy’s really the evil one,” Giselle offered. “I
don’t think Fen started out that way.”

“Just weak and easily seduced,” Bryce said, a wry
tone in his voice that made Giselle laugh. “That’s how it is with
us.”

Justice looked at him, confused. “Us?”

“Men. We’re all weak and easily seduced.” He almost
laughed, but Justice didn’t find that terribly funny or apropos
under the circumstances, considering Knox wasn’t around to be
seduced even if she were inclined to try. Apparently, her new
sister-in-law, whose name she
still
didn’t know, found it no
funnier than she did.

“Well, shit, I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh and
turned to go back outside. “I’ll just shut up now.”

Giselle could barely contain her amusement as she
watched him leave, and suddenly the woman beside her laughed.
“Justice, my name is Eilis Logan.”

“Eilis,” Justice repeated slowly, letting that roll
out on her tongue. “That’s beautiful. How do you spell it?”

She obliged, then said, “I am in dire need of
exfoliation. Let’s go.”

An hour later, Justice found herself soaking up to
her neck in a sunken tub filled with orange blossoms while some
strange concoction made of cocoa powder did something to her face.
Both Eilis and Giselle were arranged thusly, each in her own tub
after having chosen different combinations of scents and scrubs. A
sense of contentment stole over her as she relaxed and listened to
what she supposed constituted girl talk for forty-year-old women:
sex—

—about which Justice knew next to nothing firsthand
except what she’d always done to herself when fantasizing about
Knox, and what Knox had done to her out in the grass.

“Justice,” Giselle said, startling her out of her
musings. “Did you read that book?”

She didn’t have to ask what book. “Yes,” she said, a
little embarrassed, but amused and trying not to laugh.

“And?”

“And I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’ve
ever read next to
Atlas Shrugged
.”

Giselle burst out laughing.

“What book?” Eilis mumbled from under her cucumber
mask.

“
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
,” Justice
returned smartly.

It was Eilis’s turn to laugh. “Oh, now that didn’t
turn you on? Not even a little bit?”

“I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough to get
turned on,” she said airily, though it was the teensiest, eensiest
bit of a small fib.

“Suspension of disbelief isn’t a requirement for
reading erotica, Justice,” Giselle said dryly.

“Yes, I know, thanks.”

“Well, Giselle,” Eilis said, “you’re deviant, you
have to admit.”

Giselle sniffed. “Can’t help it.” Then her head came
up sharply as she gaped at Eilis. “How do you know I’m
deviant?”

“You
aren’t
quiet about it.”

“Boy, ain’t
that
the truth,” Justice muttered
under her breath and she started when both women burst out
laughing. She huffed and said the first thing that popped into her
head. “And you have a perpetual bite mark on the back of your neck.
It’s not even a hickey. It’s a bite. Do you two turn into cats at
sundown?”

Giselle and Eilis screamed with laughter, and for
the first time in years, Justice felt like she belonged somewhere,
truly belonged. Knox’s desertion of her had served a purpose she
didn’t know needed served and now she didn’t resent him for it so
much. She wondered if Knox had arranged this, to this end. It
wouldn’t surprise her if he had.

Justice had family now and they wanted her to be
comfortable, to fit in. She was soaking in a tub next to a woman
who, six weeks ago, had awed and intimidated her; she hadn’t even
known whether to trust her or not. Now, today, she had teased
Giselle about her sex life, which made Justice feel terribly
liberated all of a sudden. Wanted. Cherished.

“Eilis,” Justice said suddenly, “please tell me
about your mother.”

“Ask Giselle.”

“Trudy,” Giselle said before Justice could do so,
“is beautiful, like supermodel beautiful. None of her sisters are
like that, including my mother. She’s always used her beauty to get
her way and she’s never
not
gotten her way, except at home.
My mom says she was always rebellious and married Knox’s father
just to get out from under Grandpa Dunham’s thumb. All Trudy cares
about is her own comfort and satisfaction. Eilis and Knox
inconvenienced her and believe me, all hell breaks loose if Trudy’s
inconvenienced.”

Justice sneaked a peek at Eilis, but could tell
nothing of what she was thinking under all that goop. “Eilis?”

“Oh, I have nothing to add,” she said with alacrity.
“Giselle knows her better than I do.”

That stunned Justice so much that the silence
lengthened until Eilis began to speak, “just a few tidbits,” but
that was more than enough. Justice thought she might just die of
vicarious pain, but Eilis was curiously matter-of-fact. Justice
couldn’t help but remark upon that.

“Well, now it’s kind of like it happened to someone
else. Once I talked about it, shared it with someone who accepted
me in spite of it, it became almost irrelevant. My life is in the
here and now. What happened then got me here and I like where I
am.” She paused. “For the most part.”

Giselle reached a hand out and patted Eilis on the
arm. “Eilis, please,” she murmured. “He misspoke. If you’d just let
him explain—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Giselle,” Eilis
snapped, and though Justice wanted to know what all that was about,
she kept her mouth shut. Then Eilis took a deep breath and said,
“I’m ready for my massage.”

The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon in
relative silence, each with a masseuse, and Justice had no need to
talk during a massage and certainly no need to listen to anybody
else talk. She drove home Sunday evening with a promise from Eilis
to invite her and Knox over for dinner some time soon. “We’re still
getting to know each other on a basis other than
prosecutor-and-victim.”

Sebastian ambushed her as soon as she drove through
the gate, yanking her car door open before she got the key out of
the ignition.

“Did you see Eilis at all?” he demanded, seeming
nearly desperate, but Justice couldn’t quite believe that from
someone like him.

“Yes,” she intoned warily as she stood and led the
way to the front door. “Why?”

“Did she say anything about me?”

Justice stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded, her
mind clicking through what few faint details she could put together
to make some cohesive picture—

“Well?” he snapped. “Did she or not?”

The light bulb came on.

Justice opened the door and walked through the
living room to the kitchen, Sebastian following like a puppy dog.
“You know what, Sebastian? I’m not going to tell you. You don’t
scratch my back, I don’t scratch yours.”

His mouth tightened.

“There’s a lot more to being with a woman than roses
and chocolates and candlelight,” she said, just to rub it in, at
once annoyed with his sudden idiocy and delighted to know that the
great Sebastian Taight had the same problem she did. “But I’d have
thought a man sixteen years older than I am with, I’m assuming, a
little bit of experience with women, would know that better than I
would.”

“Point taken,” he snarled at her before he threw the
patio door open, then slid it closed again with an equally vicious
slam. After casting her a glare through the glass, he stalked
across the lawn, then disappeared around the corner into the
barn.