Courting Trouble (12 page)

Tulsa shrugged. “A solid attorney.”

“Which means an asshole to the other side,” Jo said.

“He can keep the case or lose his law license,” Tulsa said. “He’s been compelled by the judge.”

Jo let out a low whistle. “Not an easy spot, considering your families’ history.”

Tulsa’s heart pulsed an extra beat and she lifted her head from where it rested on her hand. Her forehead crinkled as she considered Jo’s statement.

The Montgomery’s and the McGrath’s history?

Tulsa had never shared the details of her mother’s death with Emma or Jo. Jo closed her eyes with the knowledge that she’d let slip a piece of information.

They knew.

Tulsa slid her eyes to the right and let her gaze drift across the kitchen and family room to Savannah’s work table and out the window to the mountains. Her chest tightened and her throat felt thick. Of course they knew. They’d been digging. She couldn’t be angry with either of them, she would have done the exact same thing if either Jo or Emma seemed as consumed over something as Tulsa did over Cade representing the opposing side. Jo and Emma weren’t just her colleagues, they were her Los Angeles family.

“We were worried,” Emma offered up, her tone gentle but filled with repentant guilt. “We weren’t trying to pry or be intrusive, we just—”

“—Thought maybe we could help,” Jo added.

Tulsa nodded. Of course. A tiny bit of her deflated. She felt vulnerable. Laid bare. Maybe even embarrassed by her chaotic past. A past she’d tried to build a normal life around—she didn’t want to ignore where and who she came from, but she didn’t want to follow her mother’s life path.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said. Her eyes were wide and filled with concern. “For your loss. For everything. I…” Emma looked at Jo. “We never knew.”

A scarred wound flayed open with the looks on Emma’s and Jo’s face. A feeling of exposure threatened to overwhelm Tulsa. Those very looks of sadness, concern, sympathy, were the reason Tulsa had never told them about Connie. Down-turned mouths, sympathetic frowns, and eyes that pleaded: we feel so
sorry
for you, that poor little McGrath girl with the troubled family who lost her mother.

Those same looks had followed Tulsa the final weeks of high school. Looks worn by friends, teachers, and parents. Looks she’d desperately needed to escape. Looks that she had never wanted to see again. She didn’t want people to feel sorry for her. She wanted them to know she was strong and capable and could handle this tragedy and any other obstacle that life threw her way.

Tulsa set her jaw. Deepened her breathing. Softened her eyes. She reburied the vulnerability now lodged in her chest, using the skills she’d learned both inside and outside the courtroom.

Finally she looked at the computer screen. She willed the emotion from her voice. “It was a long time ago.”

“The case never went to trial,” Jo said thoughtfully. “There are some gaping holes in the police department’s investigation. A witness they never interviewed. A suspect they didn’t pursue. The whole thing borders on prosecutorial misconduct.”

A rolling sensation as if Tulsa suddenly tilted on her side pulsed through her. She squeezed her hand over her eyes.
Uninterviewed witness. Gaping holes. Prosecutorial misconduct.

As a teenager she’d heard the rumors and realized her mother’s death was tied to one of Powder Springs’s important families. A family with which, at the time, her own future seemed irrevocably interwoven.

But now…

Here was Jo, a former Los Angeles County ADA and a sharp attorney, telling Tulsa that in this case there was evidence that hadn’t been pursued and needed to be found.

“Surely you want your mother’s case reopened,” Jo said.

Tulsa’s heart ached and a deep pain, thick and hard, pulsed with each beat.

Reopened?

Her palms grew damp. Her breath came in short sharp jabs and her cheeks felt tight with her attempt to keep breath entering and leaving her lungs. She’d never considered the possibility of her mother’s case being reopened. The tightness in her chest spread to her throat, upward to her face, until it seemed the only outlet for this tension—this emotion—this pain—were the tears flooding her eyes. This reaction, so fast, so strong. Tulsa fought to contain her features, to smooth out her face, to force these hot beads of tears to dry.

Did she want her mother’s case reopened? What would that mean to her, to Ash, to Savannah? And yes, even to Cade?

Tulsa swallowed. She breathed. She settled her mind and then she spoke. “I’m not sure,” she finally whispered. “I’m not sure what kind of justice that would serve.”

*

Iron-black lampposts with rectangular glass lamps that held flickering gas flames shot up every few feet around the downtown square of Powder Springs. In the west the sun had long since set and the sky deepened from light blue to black. The air, sharp with cold, smelled of wood burning in stoves and fireplaces.

Tulsa wished she was cuddled in front of a fireplace with a chenille throw, a glass of wine, and a good book. She pulled her arms tighter across her chest. She had traded her black leather jacket for one of Savannah’s heavy down coats—a pink-and-purple plaid with a fleece-lined interior—but still the cold bit through to Tulsa’s arms and shoulders. Six feet ahead of her, Ash walked beside Bobby. He stopped, leaned toward Ash, and said something. Ash listened, nodded, and smiled.

“They seem to be getting along pretty well.”

Tulsa pressed her lips together into a tight pout. Not the words she wanted to hear from her constant companion over the last hour.

“Pretty easy to get along with someone you just met.” Tulsa squinted through the darkness. “Let’s wait and see once the newness wears off.”

“Such an optimist,” Cade said.

Tulsa tilted her head to the left and gave Cade a slow, long look. Her eyes were flat and her cheeks sucked in. She hated how good-looking he was, especially since right now he annoyed her. She fought an internal battle to either step forward and kiss Cade in the darkness of the Powder Springs street or sling words at him for his client, the cold, and this night. She’d suffered through enough of his upbeat attitude.

“You have to know this isn’t easy.” Tulsa jerked her head toward where Ash and Bobby stood in front of Rocky Mountain Books. “It’s not easy on me.” Tulsa tapped her chest with her gloved hand. “It’s not easy on Savannah; it’s definitely not easy on Ash.” Tulsa pointed toward her niece. Ash let loose with a laugh. Okay maybe it wasn’t so tough on Ash…

His voice tentative as if the remark were a test balloon sent into a storm, Cade said, “Bobby’s not a bad guy.”

Tulsa planted her hands on her hips.
Not a bad guy?
She took one step forward and closed the distance between her and Cade. Even though she was angry and even though he had pissed her off, heat still crackled between them. A fire that she wanted to squelch but couldn’t contain. She turned that fire inside and she used it to propel her thoughts, her words, her energy in reply to Cade’s flawed belief that Bobby Hopkins was
not a bad guy
.

“He hasn’t seen his daughter in nearly fourteen years,” Tulsa hissed out in a voice just louder than a whisper. “He hasn’t sent a dime of child support.” Tulsa ticked off each wrong on her fingertips. “Hasn’t called, hasn’t even
tried
to be a part of Ash’s life, and you tell me he’s not a bad guy?”

“According to Bobby, those facts aren’t exactly true,” Cade offered.

Tulsa pulled her head back. She cocked her hip and tilted her head. “What do you mean, those facts aren’t exactly true?”

“I mean according to Bobby, he did call. He did go by when he was in Powder Springs and he did send checks—at least a few times—early on.”

“Right.” Tulsa squinted. “And you believe him?”

Cade shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Right.” Tulsa rolled her eyes upward and gazed at the stars. “Why wouldn’t you?”

A pain pulled at her heart. Tulsa turned away from Cade and for a split second she closed her eyes. She bit into the side of her cheek. She couldn’t afford these feelings of loss and betrayal and even anger. They weren’t just about Ash and Bobby and Savannah. She was smart enough to know that her and Cade’s shared past caused a part of the tumult rolling through her body. She turned and stared blankly into the window of Curios & Cameos. The reflection of the street light flame flickered against the window glass and Tulsa’s eyes caught the shiny copper outline of an angel, her arms reached toward the sky.

Once again, Cade believed another person instead of a McGrath. She didn’t turn to Cade, but she caught her temper, her tone, and held it tight.

“How about because Savannah would never intentionally keep Ash from her father if he’d shown a bit of interest in raising her?”

Tulsa wanted him to believe her—to understand—to see the goodness in the McGraths, to see past Hudd, past Bobby, past all of it, and to be loyal to Tulsa and what she believed.

But they were talking about two different things. Cade about Bobby and Tulsa about her mother. While the logic in Tulsa’s brain screamed that she was being impossibly unfair, her heart expected Cade’s unconditional loyalty—even after all these years. She wanted—no needed—him to irrevocably and unequivocally believe in her and what she thought. It wasn’t rational and it wasn’t fair, but her thoughts were honest.

She’d never say these words to Cade. She’d never tell him all that rushed through her mind standing on a cold street between an angel and her lost love. Instead, she turned away from the angel that reached to the heavens, away from her truth, and locked eyes with Cade. “What could Savannah possibly gain?”

Cade stared into Tulsa’s eyes. “Maybe less than she had to lose.”

Chapter Thirteen

The next week was a flurry of Skype meetings, conference calls, and legal research. Tulsa spent the majority of the week in the Powder Springs Legal Library in the basement of the courthouse. The custody case was on hold until the settlement conference. While Grandma Margaret’s house was quiet during the day with Ash at school and Savannah out back in her workshop, Tulsa took comfort in the shelves of legal books. The muffled sounds of the law library, the scent of paper and glue—all of it calmed her, focused her. She could work for hours. Friday, when she finally packed up her laptop and drove to the house, her eyes were blurry from hours on the computer.

She opened the door to Grandma Margaret’s house, wanting a hot bath, a glass of wine, and the comfort of family. Instead, when she climbed the stairs to the second floor, she entered a mother-daughter war zone. Both Savannah and Ash wore the same expression: strong shoulders, foreheads creased, lips puckered with their jaws jutted forward. Neither of them aware that they were mirror images of the other, plus or minus eighteen years. The red-and-blue hall runner worked as a no-man’s-land and divided angry adolescent from mother.

“It’s not fair!” Ash planted her fists on her hips. “I’m fourteen! Everyone goes to football games. Even
you
went to the PSHS football games—”

“That was different.” Savannah raised her hand in a dismissive wave that served only as a red flag to Ash, who was so determined to wrench away her independence.

“Different? How is it different?”

Tulsa remained still and hoped to avoid the crossfire. With Savannah retreating to her room it seemed that Tulsa might have escaped being caught in this argument until Ash turned to her. Her jaw hitched forward with attitude and her eyes pleaded with her aunt for help.

“Tell her what you told me.” Ash’s words shot out fast and her tone held a hint of desperation.

Tulsa’s fingertips tingled. A sense of self-preservation forced her silence. She took one step back. Savannah, now just inside her bedroom door, stopped with Ash’s words and turned to Tulsa. Her head tilted and her gaze pierced Tulsa like an arrow through the eye. The corner of Savannah’s mouth drew down into an unpleasant look. The lock of Savannah’s jaw combined with her exasperated breath emphasized her displeasure.

“What…” Savannah took one step toward Tulsa, her eyes in a threatening squint. “…
did
you tell her?”

“I’m not sure.” Tulsa bit her bottom lip and raised her eyebrow. “What exactly did I say?”

“You said that Grandma Margaret let you have more fun than should have been allowed, that she let you—”

“You
told
her that?” Savannah snipped off Ash’s words. Her angry gaze was now directed at Tulsa. “You think I should raise Ash the same way Grandma Margaret raised us?”

The back of Tulsa’s neck tingled. She couldn’t remember what she said and doubted any answer would please both Savannah and Ash. “Uh.” Tulsa looked from her sister to her niece, her head swiveling between the two. “I don’t remember—”

“So you agree with her then?” Crimson filled Ash’s cheeks and red patches dotted her neck. Her bottom lip trembled with betrayal.

“I didn’t say that either.”

“Then what
do
you think?” Savannah asked, her voice almost a dare.

Tulsa couldn’t win. No matter what words she spoke, the answer was beyond Tulsa. She remembered facing off with Grandma Margaret when she was a teenager, the need to be independent and with her friends so all-encompassing to her teenage self. But she wasn’t a mother. Ash seemed so young, so pure, so untouched by all that went wrong in life, and Tulsa understood Savannah’s desperate need to protect Ash. Indecision was not a territory Tulsa inhabited with ease. Indecision wasn’t a luxury Tulsa had in her career, and yet indecision strangled Tulsa’s words as she stood in the hall between Savannah and Ash.

Tulsa raised both her shoulders in an unfamiliar expression of uncertainty. “I don’t know?”

“Aaaaah!” Ash raised her hands toward the sky and spun on her heels. Savannah followed suit. Two doors slammed.

Tulsa stood alone in the hall. Well that hadn’t worked.

She counted to ten and let the sparks of fury dissolve. She guessed that by virtue of Savannah’s age, she’d cool down the fastest. A few moments later, Tulsa slowly opened her sister’s bedroom door.