Page 4
I have no ideas, not even bad ones. The court doesn’t start hearing cases until ten, but I was too anxious at home, staring into Scout’s bedroom like a zombie after taking him to school and worrying that my days of making his pancakes in the morning could be numbered.
A lump forms in my throat. Hell, I guess it can’t hurt to walk around the block. Maybe it’ll clear some of the gloom from my head. The sun plasters me with its insistent glare, reminding me that most people are going about their days, popping coffee pods into machines, making lunches for their kids, and walking their horses out of the paddocks. None of them have any idea that my day could turn upside down in an instant.
I’m not so self-centered as to think any one of those people should care about me. It’s just the sameness of our days when the sun rises, and then all the different directions we go. Some of us straight off a cliff.
When I shut my eyes and lean against the closed front door of the courthouse, my only hint that someone is standing in front of me is the faint cast of a shadow. And the annoyed throat-clearing.
“Um, excuse me.”
My eyes pop open to reveal a woman half a foot shorter than me, blond hair surrounding her face in a halo backlit by the sun. The glare prevents me from seeing her features clearly, other than her chin, which juts out, and the apples of her cheeks, which are so round they’re impossible to hide.
I don’t move. She cocks her head to the side and points. “Are you the doorman?”
“What? No.” I take a step to the side, and she reaches around me to tug on the door to the courthouse, which is locked. “The court hears cases at ten,” I explain. Like I am the doorman.
“That makes no sense,” she says, moving back between me and the sun, again preventing me from getting a good glimpse at her face.
“What makes no sense?”
“Ten is late. Clearly, you and I were able to get here, so the court people should be able to too. I’ve been on the road for more than two hours already.”
I’m not sure what our being here has to do with the court’s hours of operation, but she doesn’t seem overly encumbered by logic. Whatever. I don’t have time to worry about it.
She tips her face up and peers at my face as though I’m an interesting foreign species. “Are you okay? You look a little…aggro.”
It’s then that I notice something I didn’t see with the sun glaring behind her and my stubborn refusal to look her in the eye.
Her entire upper lip is rimmed with blue.
It’s not a faint hint of pale blue from a little sip of punch or something. She has a bright turquoise mustache framing what are otherwise very pink, plump lips.
I’m not sure if it’s some sort of makeup mishap or if she intends to look like she spent a half hour making out with a Smurf, so I choose to ignore it. Stepping to the side, I make my way around her and start down the courthouse steps, intent on taking the walk around the block that has little chance of clearing my head.
“Where are you going?” she calls after me.
Without turning, I stop, willing her to disappear. The last thing I need right now when I’m girding myself against seeing my now-ex-wife is a petite, opinionated woman to remind me that I am, indeed, aggro.
“I’m walking around the block,” I grumble.
“Oh, I could use a walk. Stretch my legs after the car ride. Is there coffee on the way?”
She trots down the stairs behind me, so I continue walking, not caring if she’s catching up. Hoping that she isn’t. She resumes chattering the second we reach the sidewalk and continues the entire way around the block.
“My sisters and I inherited a ranch not too far from here. Loveland Ranch. Have you heard of it?”
“No,” I grunt.
“I guess that’s like asking someone from LA if they know someone in the entertainment business.” When I don’t answer, she clarifies. “Lotta ranches around here. You probably don’t know them all. Are you a cowboy? Do you have a lot of horses?”
She reminds me of Scout with her verbal diarrhea and complete inability to read the room. Do I really seem like someone who wants to have a conversation with a stranger about the number of horses I do or don’t have? But Scout is four, so he’s allowed to ask all the questions he wants. This one…? Hard no.
“Do you always ask this many questions?”
She laughs. The sound cuts through the morning air like a wind chime, giving me a surprising measure of calm. Figures it would come from this woman tagging along behind me like a stray puppy. A minty, floral scent hits my nose when she flips her hair out of her face, which she does repeatedly as the breeze continually messes it up.
I see all of this out of the corner of my eye because I refuse to look at her. Like facing her will give her license to invade even more, and as it is, this walk has yet to give me time to collect myself before seeing my ex in less than an hour.
The thought of seeing her, all smug because of the legal power money can buy, rankles my nerves. She never gave a rat’s dick about Scout when she left us to sail around the globe with Charles, the contractor who remodeled our house.
