Private Lives

Four

“Hot damn, I think you did it, Ryan!” Slapping his hand on the tabletop, Austin grinned with glee as he watched Ryan collect papers and notes, a couple of pens and a scattering of paper clips, then toss them into his briefcase. “I knew you’d cream Gina on the stand, but it was really inspiring the way you rattled that bitch she’s living with now.” He rubbed his hands together. “Hell, you made it look easy. We’ve got ’em, haven’t we?”

Ryan closed the lid of his briefcase and snapped the locks shut. He preferred spending the lunch recess alone. He stayed focused that way, but Austin was like a pesky pup, dogging his tracks and peppering him with questions. He’d done his best to prepare him for his testimony this afternoon, but he didn’t have a good feeling about it. “It’s a mistake to count your chickens before they hatch, Austin.”

Something about the grim set of his features finally signaled to Austin that his lawyer’s behavior was something less than joyful. His glee morphed into impatience.

“It’s not chickens we’re dealing with here,” he snapped. “It’s a couple of dykes with an agenda. Which is to take me to the cleaners. So I repeat, do you think we’ve destroyed their case? Am I going to come out of this without writing a check that’ll make me very unhappy or not?”

Ryan was silent. He’d been pretty brutal to Gina and her friend and he wasn’t feeling particularly proud of himself. Elizabeth’s testimony had been especially powerful and he’d had to use strong tactics to make his point. Hell, it was natural she’d want to stick up for Gina. That’s what character witnesses did. Their mission was to paint a glowing picture of the person they’d mounted the stand to defend. Elizabeth had done that all right, big time. As a result, he’d crossed a line professionally grilling them both the way he did. He knew in his gut the women weren’t lesbians. And Elizabeth’s explanation about the New Year’s Eve party had the ring of truth. Whether both were telling the truth about Austin’s abuse was more difficult to judge, and that was troublesome. There were no hospital records, Gina had never called the police, she’d made no formal complaints anytime, anywhere. With no paper trail, it was Gina’s word—and her friend Elizabeth Walker’s—against a man Ryan himself had known for several years. On the other hand, his acquaintance with Austin was not personal, but almost exclusively professional. And very casual. Still, word of that kind of behavior got around, didn’t it? And although he had never heard a word about it, the gossip mill at LJ and B was alive and well. On the other hand, anyone gossiping about Curtiss Leggett’s son would be severely chastised at the firm. That, in itself, would keep a lid on gossip. So, the question remained, were the allegations of the two women manufactured to put the squeeze on his client, as Austin claimed? If so, that kind of mean-spirited, grasping behavior deserved the full brunt of his expertise to rebut it.

He paused with a sheaf of papers in his hand. All this soul-searching and second-guessing of himself was a useless exercise. His treatment of Elizabeth Walker on the stand had nothing to do with her connection to the man who’d driven his father to suicide, and everything to do with his client. That would have been over the line, and he didn’t consider himself petty.

“Hello? Counselor…anybody home?”

“Hmm? Oh, sorry, Austin. I was just practicing my closing statement,” Ryan lied. He picked up his briefcase from the table and fell into step with his client, both headed for the doors. “Why don’t you go grab yourself some lunch and I’ll meet you here when we reconvene?” He shot back a cuff to look at his watch. “In about an hour and a half.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Austin said, ignoring the dismissal.

“I didn’t hear a question.”

“Is she going to be awarded big money?” he repeated in exasperation. “Jesus, Ryan, what else would I be asking about?”

“What about custody? Isn’t that what you’re most interested in?”

“Custody and the settlement amount go hand in hand,” Austin said, getting more agitated by the minute. On the steps of the courthouse now, he suddenly faced Ryan. “What’s going on here? Are you having doubts about the case? Are you starting to believe those two? Because if you are, I need to know about it. I can get another lawyer—”

Ryan stopped, fed up with the whole nasty situation. “Listen, Austin, if you don’t like the way I’m handling your case, there are thirty-five or forty other lawyers at LB and J who would jump to take my place. I didn’t ask for this job, I was put in a position by your father where it was flat-out suicide to refuse it. And now that I’m up to my ass in your life, I realize that Curtiss Leggett wasn’t particularly looking out for your welfare in ordering me to wrap the whole thing up neatly. What your father wants besides that is to shield the firm from any hint of scandal. Now, the question remains, Austin…why would he think there was a chance that the firm would be embarrassed?”

“I don’t know what he thinks.” Austin sounded like a surly teen.

“Maybe there’s some substance to those allegations Gina and Elizabeth Walker were making? Maybe your old man has picked up something from the office grapevine? Or maybe he has a more reliable source.”

“Meaning what?” Austin’s face was turned away, closed.

“Meaning he’s family, Austin. Your family. Families have secrets.”

“He doesn’t know my secrets,” Austin said sourly, his gaze on the lunch hour traffic. “There’s nothing for him to know. Gina’s lying. Liz is lying.”

“Everybody’s lying,” Ryan said evenly. “But not you.”

Austin turned and looked him squarely in the eye then. “No, not me.”

After a moment, Ryan began to walk again. “Then if you stick with that attitude on the stand this afternoon, you’ll be in good shape, depending on what you really want. If it’s to avoid writing a big check, maybe. Gina claims she doesn’t want much. But if it’s custody of your little girl, that’s more iffy.”

“You worry too much,” Austin said, his good humor restored by the prospect that he might not have to part with real money.

“Yeah, well, that’s my job,” Ryan said. Approaching his car, he opened the door and tossed his briefcase inside. What was really sticking in his craw was the custody issue. When it came to the little girl, Ryan had a bad feeling about handing her over to Austin. He’d felt these vague negative stirrings before in other cases…and it was always when he’d gone to the wire for a client who, when it was all over, turned out to be a liar.

Pity that little girl.

“Jesse, we’re home!” Gina tossed her purse on a chair, kicked off her shoes. “God, I feel like an ex-con getting out of prison. How do you stand being cooped up all day in front of that monitor, Liz? I’d go crazy. Louie! Jesse!” She pulled the comb from her hair and freed her thick, dark mane. Balancing on one leg, she reached for one of the staid, black pumps borrowed from Elizabeth for the hearing and took it off. She glanced into the den while massaging her cramped toes. “Where are they?”

Elizabeth tucked her purse into a drawer. “I’ll check my office.” Jesse had quickly learned to play simple computer games and she sometimes broke the rule not to open the machine when Elizabeth wasn’t there to supervise. “Not in here,” she told Gina. “They’re probably outside.”

“Probably.” Gina headed across the den to the patio doors. “If Louie would let her, Jesse would spend the whole day outside. She’s such a tomboy.” Gina sighed, savoring the cool wood floor on her bare feet. “My feet feel as if they’re out of prison, too,” she muttered, opening the French doors to a burst of enthusiastic barking in the area beyond the patio. “Louie! Jesse! Where are you?”

“Over here.” Louie’s voice came from the gazebo. He began to rise from an old-fashioned glider. There was no sign of Jesse. “How’d it go?”

“We’ll know tomorrow,” Elizabeth said. “The judge will give us his decision then.”

“Oh, shoot, I’ll ruin these panty hose if I go out there.” Stepping back, Gina lifted the hem of her skirt—also borrowed from Elizabeth—and wiggled out of the panty hose. Then, sighing with relief, she stepped barefoot onto the flagstone surface. “Where’s my honey?” she called, raising her voice in the singsong way that Jesse loved.

Jesse squealed, emerging from a pile of raked leaves that hadn’t been there when they’d left this morning. “Here I am, Mommy!” Laughing, she ran flat-out for her mother, arms open wide. The golden retriever raced by her side. Both outdistanced a tow-headed boy, who was just a fraction of an inch taller than Jesse. Gina laughed as thirty-five pounds of small female energy crashed into her legs and two short arms closed tight around her thighs. The dog leaped around them, grinning and barking ecstatically.

“Missed me, didn’t you, punkin?” Gina framed Jesse’s small face between her hands and gave her a kiss on the nose.

“You were gone a long time, Mommy.”

“It sure seemed like it to me, too, baby.” Gina plucked a few dead leaves from her daughter’s tangled mop. “But I came home as soon as I could. Hi, Cody,” she said to the little boy, who smiled shyly while hanging on to the dog’s collar.

“Was she a good girl, Louie?”

The aging man was dusting leaves and debris from his pants. “She’s always a good girl,” Louie Christian said, giving Jesse a wink.

“What is it with that wink?” Gina asked, pretending to frown.

“Don’t go in Papa Louie’s kitchen, Mommy,” Jesse warned. Beside her, Cody buried his face in the dog’s ruff.

“Why, what would I find in Papa Louie’s kitchen?” Gina asked.

“They wanted to make play dough,” Louie explained. “From scratch.”

“No, from flour and salt, Papa Louie,” Jesse said.

Louie gave Gina another wink. “My mistake.”

Gina’s hands went to her hips. “So you said absolutely not because a kitchen is no place for two five-year-olds, except for eating. And besides, fooling around with flour and salt and who-knows-what-all to make play dough is a project to be supervised by moms. That is what you said, isn’t it, Louie?”

Louie scratched his bearded cheek. “Well…”

Jesse was jumping up and down and Cody was grinning. “He let us do it because we knew how, Mommy! We learned at school, didn’t we, Cody?”

“Uh-huh.” Blond head bobbing.

“I’m afraid I didn’t realize exactly what was required to make play dough,” Louie said apologetically. “And then there seemed to be flour everywhere and Archie was going to track it back into the den, so I turned my back for a moment to put her outside, then Cody said he knew how much water it took, but apparently he overestimated a bit and then—” He was shaking his head. “Actually, it was the mixer that did most of the damage, I’m afraid.”

Gina reached up and flicked something white and sticky from Louie’s beard.

“Oops.” Jesse covered her mouth and her smile. “I thought we cleaned you all up, Papa Louie.”

“But did you clean up Papa Louie’s kitchen, young lady?” she asked sternly.

“Papa Louie said we’d better go outside while the gittin’ was good,” Jesse said. “So we did.”

“It was too overwhelming for them to clean up,” Louie said, looking pained. “And I couldn’t leave them outside without supervision. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t want that.” Gina rolled her eyes. “Look, Louie, you’re going to have to be more forceful with them, Jesse especially. She can talk the tail off a tiger if you let her. Now, next time—”

“Next time I won’t let them in the kitchen,” Louie said, looking relieved to get only a lecture.

“No, next time you won’t let them talk you into beginning a project that even an experienced childcare worker would hesitate over.” After a moment, she gave a resigned sigh. “Okay, the damage is done, but we have to go over to Papa Louie’s house now and clean up.” She took Jesse’s hand and motioned for Cody to follow. When Louie made to join them, she shook her head. “Uh-uh, Louie. They did the mess, they’ll clean it up. You go back to the glider and let Elizabeth tell you about the hearing.”

“Good idea.” Elizabeth, smiling faintly over the situation, nudged Louie toward the gazebo.

“Is it good news?” Louie asked, not ready to sit.

“Tell him, Liz.” And with that, she picked up her pace, tugging Jesse along with Cody, and headed toward Louie’s house just visible through a thick hedge of oleander.

“Want some more iced tea?” Elizabeth asked, noticing the glass on the table beside the glider.

“No, no, I’m nearly floating now.” Instead of relaxing, Louie sat up straight on the edge of a cushion as Elizabeth took a seat in a white wicker chair. “I’m surprised the hearing’s over. I thought it would go into a second day. Did Austin do the decent thing and withdraw his motion?”

“Austin and decency is an oxymoron,” Elizabeth said with a grimace. “Gina and I testified this morning, then he took the stand after lunch. Judge Hetherington—”

“Old Lock-’em-up Larry,” Louie muttered as he tossed what was left of his drink into the grass.

“You know him?” Elizabeth asked.

“I’ve watched him preside in a couple of high-profile cases,” Louie said, “but that was years ago. I hope he’s mellowed in his old age.”

It always amazed her how informed Louie was for a man who seldom left his house except to stroll over to hers. He had an opinion about politics, about social problems, about current faces in the news. It shouldn’t surprise her that he recognized the names of locals in the legal community. Judge Hetherington had been on the bench in Houston for over thirty years. Where Louie Christian had been for most of that time was a mystery. He was vague about his past, which was fine with her. She wasn’t one to pry into anyone’s past. It was the present that mattered where Louie was concerned. For one thing, he was the nearest thing to a grandparent that Jesse had, since Austin’s father was a cold fish and his mother lived with her second husband in Phoenix, Arizona, and had never expressed any interest in spending time with the little girl. Louie had an endless supply of anecdotes about his boyhood that enchanted Jesse. Elizabeth herself was charmed by his tales, so much so that she’d used a couple to illustrate themes in her books.

“Let’s pray that he has mellowed,” Elizabeth said now, plucking a spent bloom from a camellia. She’d have to think about getting her yard man to put in some petunias soon. And possibly some daylilies. The lantana would return on its own, flourishing in Houston’s heat. One of the perks of the climate was that her yard was alive with color year-round.

“Exactly what happened today, Liz?”

“Ryan Paxton was brutal to both of us on the stand. Then Austin lied outrageously when it was his turn. There’s no one to refute what goes on between two people in the privacy of their home, Louie, so he painted a picture of Gina that could have made even me wonder if she was an unfit mother. Maude did a good job trying to show that Austin was motivated by a self-serving need to give Gina nothing in the way of decent financial support, but what concerns me most is Austin’s claim that she is unstable.” She stared beyond the trees to the older man’s house, frowning. “She’ll be lucky to come out of this with equally shared custody, Louie. Even worse, it’ll be a miracle if she gets a pittance in the way of child support, too.”

“Hetherington will have to award her reasonable child support.”

“But what if he believes she’s unstable and primary custody goes to Austin?” she asked anxiously.

“Isn’t that what you think?”

She looked at him with surprise. “What?”

Louie was shaking his head. “You haven’t admitted it to yourself, have you? You’ve been Gina’s guardian angel since the two of you were prepubescent, Liz. You’ve watched her make crazy choices even as you begged her to be reasonable, you’ve stepped in to grease the way back when she’s been irresponsible, you’ve lectured and cajoled, you’ve sympathized and nagged. When are you going to insist that she grow up?”

Elizabeth was on her feet now, hugging her middle as if to arm herself against what he said. “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it? And somewhat judgmental.”

He muttered something she didn’t quite catch, then said, “But is it wrong?”

“Some people find it harder to overcome the hardships of childhood than others.”

“Yes, and she can thank the good Lord that you aren’t one of them. Pity poor Jesse-girl if both of you were as damaged as Gina. As it is, the child’s got you as a second mother figure and a stabilizing influence.” Louie gazed through the trees to the patio of his own house where the two children romped and squealed and Archie barked in joyful accompaniment. “The real fear here is that Austin might change his mind and renew their affair. She won’t be able to hold out if he does.”

The same thought was making Elizabeth’s nights long and sleepless. But it made her feel guilty and disloyal to discuss it. To be honest, it was Jesse’s welfare that concerned her more than Gina’s. After all, Gina was an adult, a fact she’d often reminded Elizabeth of when they got on the subject of her relationship with Austin.