Everybody Falls (5 page)

"A little something to enjoy later," her honeyed voice offered.

God, she was a goddess and he was stuck like a goddamn statue, unsure of what to do, what to say.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, feeling sweat begin to bead along his hairline.

"Oh, how nice, Lacey," his Grams exclaimed. "Thank you."

He wanted to say something, something clever, something that would capture her attention but his mind was a blank and his mouth so dry that he would've have been able to speak even if he'd tried.

Jay-sus.

What a fucking loser.

But that goddamn cake box was going into a fucking frame to be hung over his bed.

Chapter 4

I pushed opened the door of D. Howard Russell's glass entrance and heard the gentle trill of bells which heralded my presence in the tiny waiting room. This was a command performance with the attorney after notifying me of my inheritance and, due to an illness--his, not hers--had been postponed for more than three weeks.

I saw a very feminine hand, feminine due to the dragon length nails on the tiny hand, inch its way out of an inner-office door and hold up a 'wait a minute' finger.

I paused, holding myself frozen in position just inside the door until the finger moved. Then, and only then, did I feel comfortable enough to move to the visitor's chairs in the small reception area.

I'd worn one of my special dresses for this meeting. A girl had her everyday clothes, then she had her 'special' stuff and, in my case, they were dresses. For today's meeting, it was a navy blue sheathe in a nubby fabric with an empire waist that hit me only an inch off my knee.

It was that one freaking inch which gave me the confidence, the respectability to meet with Mr. Russell.

For a command performance like today, even an almost tomboy like me knew a dress was the only thing that would do. But, I'd had to scrounge the second-hand shops to find a pair of low heels to match.

The tiny hand appeared again and the finger crooked, waving in the 'come here' gesture, even though I couldn't see the body attached to the finger. I paused, waiting for the frosted door to open, to close, to do something besides showcase the gal's manicure.

I'd had never had a manicure in my life but why that was important at the moment, why it'd crossed my mind at this particular time, was anybody's guess.

"You comin' in or out?" the feminine voice asked.

"Uhm…I'm Lacey Emerson. I think I have an appointment?" I called and heard a shake in my voice. The only experience I'd had with lawyers was at my mother's latest trial which, almost goes without saying, had not been a pleasant experience.

I saw a head poke through the opening of the door. "An appointment?"

All I could see from my vantage point was a mass of dark blonde curls and frizz that was teased almost as high as the face was long.

"Yes, I have the notice right here," I proclaimed, pulling the envelope out of my purse and unfolding it. "It says I'm supposed to meet with a Mr. Russell at two o'clock?"

"Well, honey," and the long face tilted up as it spoke, revealing a pair of aquamarine eyes rimmed heavily in black pencil. "We don't have a Mr. Russell here. However,
Ms
. Russell will be right with you, okay?"

"Uhm, okay," I replied. In my mind, all attorneys were men which I knew was sexist. Then again, I'd never met a female lawyer. Which is probably why my mom had lost her cases. Some men you just can't flirt with and get what you want--something every red blooded female needed to learn sooner rather than later. Especially the dynamo types.

Which I wasn't, but my mom definitely was.

"Now, Miss Emerson," the woman said, easing herself out of the half-closed door at an angle. "How can we help you today?"

"I, ah, I received this notice and was told to meet with the, ah, attorney named D. Howard Russell at two o'clock," I answered, shaking the sheet of paper towards the woman with the outrageous hair and wearing a pantsuit more suited to a formal gala than an office. I didn't know a whole lot about clothes yet a satin tux was just a wee bit over the top for Auburn daytime wear, even if your boss was in the legal field. Or, should that be,
especially
if your boss was in the legal field.

The woman grasped the paper and tugged it out of my hand, her overly-caked, dark-red, lipsticked lips moving as she read.

"Oh, yes. I remember now," the woman sat, dropping into her chair and affixing a cigarette at the end of a long holder. I watched as she flipped one knee over the other, showing off one of her silver sandals, festooned with a garish rhinestone-buckle. "The will."

"I'm supposed to ascertain that you received the last will and testament of your grandmamma," the woman continued. She picked up a pair of glasses, perching them on her aristocratic nose before looking me over.

"You look nothing like her," she announced.

I didn't answer; actually, I
had
no answer since I'd never met any of my grandparents outside of Lilly. I didn't even know who my father was, for crap's sake. She was right. I definitely didn't look like Grandma Lil.

However, I didn't know the woman in front of me, at all.

"Er, excuse me? I don't know who you are," I said in the quiet of the office.

"Me? Why, I'm Diana Russell. Diana Howard Russell, your granddame's attorney. You, however, can call me 'Fairy Godmother' if you prefer," the woman exclaimed. "Because, I'm the one that gets to tell you the details of your inheritance!"

"You mean the bakery?" I asked.

Ms. Russell just blinked in response as if I'd dropped an eff-bomb in the middle of a church service.

"The bakery?" Diana's tone copied my flat-toned speech. "Oh, mon petite. You inherited so much more than simply…a bakery."

"I know there's some money…" I began.

"Yes, there's that. There's also the other six businesses in that too cute to be believed, mini-mall. There's an office building and some kind of gas station/restaurant things on the way to Reno, too," Ms. Russell explained.

"I don't understand," I began quietly, my mind whirling. "I've inherited what?"

Ms. Russell sighed. "Okay, here's how it breaks down. Do you want to take notes?"

I reached for my notebook that I carried everywhere in my scuffed leather tote.

"At the moment, you own five properties which includes the full line of buildings that your bar is in. The rents for them are on this piece of paper here. You own the office building which you are now sitting in, which includes the rents from the two different businesses that are operating out of this space," Ms. Russell raised her eyes to mine. "I just want to go on record as saying your rents are outrageously high."

I nodded as I notated, but felt my eyebrows lift clean up to my hairline at the attorney's side note.

"You own the Quickie Mart at Highway 20 and Interstate 80, also known as Blue Canyon, California plus the Quickie Mart just outside of Penryn, California located on Interstate 80 and six miles south of highway 193. You are collecting rents at the moment which total $8,910 per month with the option to sell or continue to lease any of said properties with a sixty-day notice of…"

"Wait, what?" I interrupted the attorney, holding up a hand as I tried to absorb what the woman was saying.

Ms. Russell had stopped speaking and waited, finally breaking the silence with her own question. "Can I continue now?"

"Uhm, sure," I said and I could feel my eyes were glazed; looking yet not really seeing the attorney or even the attorney's office at all. The voice was a background noise, a drone, as I tried, desperately scrambling on the inside, to make sense of her earlier words.

"There has been a motion contesting your Grandmere's will. It was made by a Belinda Emerson, who claims to be the sole and rightful heir."

"She's my mother," I confessed, wondering how my mother had gotten wind of my boon. "Did my grandmother mention her in the will at all?"

I watched Ms. Russell skim over the multi-page document before using a dragon nail to score across a couple of lines. She raised her head and simply replied, "Yes."

"And?" I asked realizing my tone was abrupt in my frustration at how closed-mouth Ms. Russell was now being.

"Let's just say that Mrs. Berenson, your grandmother, didn't care much for Ms. Emerson, your mother. She was quite eloquent in expressing her dislike," Ms. Russell said. "You've received a copy of the will. I'll provide a copy of the motion before you leave so you can read and understand exactly what is going down."

"As for the contest of the will, there should be no problem because your grandmother included an
in terrorem
clause, which basically means that anybody contesting the validity of the will forfeits their legacy. Since your mother was not left any assets in your Grandmere's estate, it kind of becomes a moot point, because I think Lilly wanted to doubly insure your mother got nothing. Tu me Comprends?" Ms. Russell seemed intent on helping me understand there really wasn't anything to worry about.

I knew my mother and if my mother had paid to have documents filed in a court? You better damn well worry. Belinda hated courts and judges almost as much as she hated the police.

But, not quite as much as she hated me.

*.*.*.*.*

"So I take it that you are finally getting your sex drive back," Boots said quietly as he and Jax stood next to the table that held the ever present coffee urn, a staple at the AA/NA meetings that were held nightly.

"Yeah," Jax said, taking in the whole of the room at a glance. There really wasn't anything to see. In his mind it was just the same people, night after night, giving their different stories when called on to offer hope and redemption with their words.

"That's a good thing, son," Boots offered. "Listen, and this is important, you can't get involved with anyone for a year after you become sober."

"Why's that?" Jax asked, trying to sound casual though he realized his heels were dug in on the issue of him seeing Lacey.

No one, but
no one
was going to tell him he couldn't pursue her.

"Damage control," the older man finally replied. "You wouldn't want to, shouldn't want to, bring your shit into some unsuspecting fool's life now, would you?"

Wait…what?

Have Lacey damaged by the shit he was going through, the shit he'd already gone through? Oh, fuck, no.

"You've been working your steps, right?" Boots had been there, done that and owned the rights to the t-shirt having been in a band in the eighties. A successful band that had fallen by the rock and roll wayside due to the members imploding in a way that wasn't pretty. "You've got to stick with the steps, son, or you ain't gonna make it."

"I've been working it," Jax confirmed. He was on step eight, 'Making amends'.

It was tough getting in touch with all the people he had on his list. Most of them he didn't know beyond whatever name they'd given themselves when they'd hitched along on the Wynter's Vicious roller coaster of fame ride. So finding them was hard.

"I
am
working it, Boots," he said again. "I'm doing everything I can, meeting every goal that you and the other scorekeepers have asked me to do."

"That's good," the older man shot back, still speaking low so other's couldn't overhear. "It takes time, Jax. You're still healing, both on the inside and the out. Give it time, son, the time all of us needed to take to get back to ourselves; to yourself."

Jax raised his eyebrows. What the fuck? They'd gone through this again and again.

His case was different.

He hadn't been down the same road that Boots had travelled.

There were no needles for one and no known substances had hooked themselves on to Jax Wynter's train. He had simply taken anything and everything the Roadies had offered to keep the fuzz, the blur, on the edge of his consciousness. Pills, weed or coke were his tokens of choice to hold the corners of real life at bay.

Okay so he'd been doing them since he was fifteen, but still.

Plus Wynter's Vicious had been fifty times more successful than Boots' little 'Ten Gallons of Tears' which was an opening act no matter which way you looked at it.

The goddamn codger still didn't get it and didn't seem to be able to work it out for himself.

Well, fuck him.

"I need to get going. Grams is expecting me," Jax finally said, trying to close the conversation.

Boots just eyed him, sipping the tar these meetings called coffee. "See you tomorrow, son."

"Yeah, tomorrow," Jax said before turning and making his way out of the church's basement.

As he drove, he thought of Boots' words which he knew were well meant, yet misdirected, nonetheless.

He was getting his life back. His body was coming back to life, if the numerous hard-ons today had been any example. His emotions were leveling and his body was in great shape, the latest road-rash notwithstanding.

But, the last bit with Lacey?

Just a small speed-bump.

He'd find his voice and be able to talk with her. He'd figure out a way to dazzle her as much as he'd done with the others before.