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Jill glanced down, then shook her head. “You look great, but you’re not answering my question. ”
Bev stared at her in the mirror. “I would think you’re bright enough to grasp it all at once. Rudy invited me to dinner, I said yes and now we’re going out. ”
Jill heard the words, but she couldn’t believe them. “This is like a date?”
“Try not to sound so incredulous. I’m still on the front side of fifty. ”
“I know. You’re a beautiful, vital woman, but a date?” With Rudy? “What do you really know about him?” she asked, mindful of a very interested Emily sitting cross-legged on the bed.
“That he’s a charming man who knows how to make a woman feel like a goddess. ”
A goddess? Jill couldn’t remember ever feeling like that. She ignored the spurt of envy that cut through her.
“Aside from that,” she said. “I thought you didn’t date. Because of your gift. ”
As a relative nonbeliever, she knew it was low for her to throw that in her aunt’s face, but she didn’t have many other options.
“Dating is allowed,” Bev said primly. “Yes, this is the one. ”
“The one” turned out to be a black sleeveless dress that fell to Bev’s ankles. Huge red-orange roses swirled up the side of the dress and draped across her shoulders. With her flame-colored hair pinned loosely on her head, red-and-black dangling earrings nearly brushing her shoulders and her skin practically glowing with excitement, she looked sensual, beautiful and very much like a goddess.
“I hope I have a lot of your gene pool,” Jill said by way of surrender.
“You do,” Bev said with a smile. She twirled one more time, then paused in front of Emily. “Do you approve?”
“Uh-huh. You look as pretty as my mommy. ”
“Thank you. High praise, indeed. All right. I’m off. ” Bev grabbed a small black handbag and headed for the stairs.
Jill trailed after her. “He’s not picking you up?”
“I didn’t know if I would be able to get you at the office and ask you to come home early. I thought I might have to drop off Emily, and I didn’t think either you or Mac would want her in the car with Rudy. Ta-ta. ”
Jill heard her footsteps on the hardwood floor, then the sound of the back door closing.
“I thought life would be simpler here,” she said, and headed back for Bev’s bedroom.
“She abandoned us,” she told Emily, who giggled. “So what are our plans?”
“We have to eat dinner,” Emily informed her.
“Want to go out?”
Emily nodded vigorously. “Maybe to a diner?”
“Absolutely. The one I’m thinking of has yummy milk shakes. We can take the car and park it downtown, then walk home. ” Because a few days in the beach parking lot had done absolutely nothing to get Lyle’s car dented and she was really starting to get annoyed by the whole thing.
Jill changed out of her suit into shorts and a T-shirt. Then she and Emily left for a really greasy and fattening dinner.
“I heard Mr. Bass stopped by today,” she said as she drove to the center of town.
“Uh-huh. He’s a social worker and he said he takes care of kids. I told him I didn’t need anyone to take care of me. I have my mom and dad and you and Bev. ”
Jill liked being included in the list. “I’m glad you have a lot of people to take care of you. ”
“Me, too. ”
Jill was about to say something else when she spotted a familiar address. She recognized it from the paperwork she’d been filling out that afternoon, what with Mr. Harrison insisting on continuing the lawsuit.
“I need to stop here for a second,” she said as she pulled to the side of the road and parked.
Two nearly identical houses stood about sixty feet apart. Both were old Victorians with decorative trim and gables and fussy railings. Not Jill’s thing, but she knew they were popular. Big trees shaded large yards and, between the two houses, stood a massive stone fence. As the fence was perfectly centered between the buildings, she could see why it had been built there. Too bad no one checked the deeds first.
She saw a man moving a sprinkler to another part of the lawn of the house on the right. Impulsively she climbed out of the car and waited for Emily to join her.
“Who’s that man?” the girl asked.
“Juan Reyes,” Jill said.
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“Not exactly. ” Jill knew she was flirting with danger by speaking with Mr. Reyes, but she had to know about the people she might be suing on Mr. Harrison’s behalf.
“Good evening,” she called.
Juan waved. “Evening. ” He was of medium height and handsome, maybe thirty.
“You have a beautiful house,” Jill said. “One of a pair. ”
Juan laughed. “Thanks. My wife and I fell in love with it about five years ago. We could never have afforded it on our own. We bought it with my mother-in-law. ”
“Really? She lives with you?”
Juan grinned. “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, but she’s a really great lady. I like having her around. ”
Jill was impressed. She loved her father, but if they had to share a house, she would slowly go crazy. Or maybe not so slowly.
“I know your neighbor,” she said, pointing to Mr. Harrison’s house.
Juan’s smile disappeared. “He’s not happy having us living next door. ”
“Really?”
“Sure. He says the fence is too far on to his land. But it’s a stone fence that has been there for years. We can’t afford to move it. I offered to take out a second mort gage on our house and buy the land from him, but he refuses. ”
The front door opened and a pretty dark-haired woman called out. “Juan, invite the company inside. ”
“Oh, we’re not company,” Jill said quickly.
As she spoke, she inhaled the most delicious scent in the world. Emily tugged on her hand.
“Let’s eat here,” she said in a mock whisper.
“My mother-in-law is an amazing cook,” Juan said. “Would you like to come inside and have a sample?”
“No. We have dinner plans already. ” She looked at the other house. It was dark and closed, except for a single light at the back.
“Does he live here all alone?” she asked.
“Yes. He has no family. I think it’s sad that he only has energy to be angry about the fence. ”
“Have you asked him to dinner?”
Juan stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“If your mother-in-law’s cooking is as good as you say and Mr. Harrison is alone and lonely, a family meal might go a long way to helping with negotiations. ”
She could see Juan weighing her suggestion. She was sure his neighbor had made his life hell and that Juan didn’t want the crotchety old man in his house, but if it helped…
“I’ll talk to my wife,” Juan said. “Who are you?”
Jill winced. “Please don’t take this personally, but I’m Jill Strathern, Mr. Harrison’s attorney. ”
Juan took a step back as his expression hardened. “Are you trying to trick me?”
“Not at all. I just hate to see the two of you at odds over the fence. If you could be friends instead of enemies, neither of you would need me. ”
“She’s very nice,” Emily said loyally.
Juan smiled at her. “Thank you for telling me. Then it must be true. ” He looked at Jill. “I’ll talk to my wife,” he repeated, then hesitated. “If there’s no lawsuit, then there’s no money for you. ”
“In this case, I would be delighted to be fired. ”
“ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THIS?” Jill asked as Emily continued to roll curlers into her hair.
“Uh-huh. I saw it on TV. ”
“But I already have curly hair. I’m not sure curlers…”
Emily walked around in front of the chair and raised her eyebrows. “I’m in charge,” she said with a certainty that, under other circumstances, would have made Jill laugh.
“Yes, ma’am. ”
Emily returned to her task, first brushing out a strand of hair, then rolling it in the curler. Jill was grateful that the humidity was low and her hair had stayed straight. If it frizzed, she might have to cut the curlers out.
“I like your hair,” Emily said, her small hands tickling as she brushed against Jill’s neck. “It’s pretty and long. My mommy’s hair is short. ”
“Like yours?” Jill asked.
“Sort of. Hers is darker. ”
The curse of getting older, or so Gracie complained. Natural blond hair got darker. Jill’s had stayed pretty much the same brown color, which was probably the curse of being boring.
Emily tugged as she rolled up another strand and Jill tried not to wince. “We have pie to eat,” she said by way of a bribe.
“Can we eat it during the movie?”
“Sure,” Jill said in defeat, as they’d already arranged to watch the movie after playing beauty salon. She figured she might as well resign herself to a serious trim later in the week and relax.
“Dinner was good,” Emily said. “I liked my hamburger. ”
“Yeah, those folks down at Treats ’n Eats know how to make a good burger. ” She wondered about stating the obvious, then decided to go for it. “You didn’t seem to mind that your food didn’t match your clothes. Does that mean you’re not doing that anymore?”
Emily’s hands stilled. A curler fell to the floor.
Jill turned and saw the little girl staring at her with big eyes. “Emily?”
“Sometimes I still want my food to match. ”
Not hard to figure out when. “With your dad?” Emily nodded.
Jill sensed they were treading in dangerous territory. Should she let it go? But something inside of her told her it might help Emily to talk.
“Are you angry with your dad?” she asked quietly.
Emily sucked in a breath and tucked her hands behind her back. Then she slowly nodded.
Jill shifted in the chair so she could draw the child close and put her arms around her.
“It’s okay to be mad,” she said, hoping it was. But if adults couldn’t control their feelings, was it reasonable to expect an eight-year-old to? “Is this about something he’s doing now or before?”
“Before. ”
Jill drew Emily onto her lap and brushed her hair off her forehead. “Want to talk about what happened or not?”
Emily shrugged. “Daddy was a cop before. He kept good people safe from bad people. But after a while he was quiet. He would sit in the living room and he wouldn’t talk or play. Sometimes I’d go look at him be cause I was scared he’d disappear. You know, like a ghost. ”
“I can see how that would scare you,” Jill said. “But he didn’t become a ghost. ”
“I know. But Mommy got mad and she would yell and he would yell back and Elvis and I hid in the closet, but it was dark and we didn’t like that, either. ”
Jill ached for the little girl with nowhere to go. “Their fighting wasn’t about you,” she said. “You didn’t make them mad at each other. ”
Emily didn’t look convinced. “One day Mommy and me went away. I waited and waited for Daddy to come that night, but he didn’t. Mommy said he couldn’t for a while. I didn’t know if he was lost. I used to pray every night. And I wrote him letters. ”
Tears filled her blue eyes. Her lower lip quivered. “After a long time Mommy said he was coming to see me. That I got to spend the whole weekend with him and it would really be fun. But he didn’t come. ”