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One
Normally, Los Angeles-based child psychologist Lark Barclay wouldn’t have wasted a Thursday afternoon daydreaming about her next adult beverage.
Today wasn’t any ordinary Thursday.
And not just because she’d flown halfway across the country to be seated in a Routt County, Colorado, courtroom between the sisters she’d barely spoken to in the past decade. No, this afternoon was also different because she’d rescheduled all of her client appointments for a two-week stretch to be present at this all-important probate hearing. She hated rescheduling, taking great care to accommodate vulnerable patients who relied on her help. Yet she’d shuffled her schedule anyhow to show solidarity with her estranged siblings and to finally—finally—achieve a long overdue victory in an ongoing battle with her self-centered prick of a father.
Except her father hadn’t shown up to today’s hearing. Even thoughhe’dbeen the one to contest his mother’s will to prevent his daughters from inheriting Crooked Elm Ranch. The judge had informed Lark, Jessamyn and Fleur Barclay that their dad’s attorney had requested a continuance because they needed more time to build their case, and the judge had granted it.
Cue the need for day drinking.
“The bastard,” Jessamyn muttered under her breath after the judge refused to delay the trial for the requested three weeks but did grant a one-week delay. Younger than Lark by four years, Jessamyn was the middle child who’d never acted like one. The peacekeeping role in the Barclay clan belonged to their baby sister, Fleur, while Jessamyn was more apt to kick ass and take names. “He couldn’t have given us a heads-up that he was trying to delay the hearing?”
The judge moved on to the next case on her docket, freeing the Barclay sisters to leave the courtroom.
Lark, leading the way between the benches toward the exit, bit her tongue to prevent herself from responding to her sister’s gripe. Jessamyn had been their father’s protégé in his real estate development business, only recently coming around to recognizing what an underhanded tool Mateo Barclay could be. It galled Lark a little that Jessamyn had netted huge financial gains by closing her eyes to the truth of their father’s character for most of their lives.
But Lark had promised Fleur that she would give Jessamyn a chance to prove she’d changed, a promise Lark took all the more seriously since Jessamyn had learned she was pregnant. How could she hassle an expectant mom? So Lark held in the damning words she would have preferred to speak, all the while hoping she’d spot a bar across the street once they left this godforsaken courthouse. Preferably one with a two-for-one happy hour special.
“It’s fine that he postponed,” Lark told Jessamyn, willing the words to be true. “The extra week gives us more time to prepare, too.”
Even as the added days away from her practice could do harm to her patients. She made a mental note to increase her hours allotted for telehealth visits this week to cover the gap. At least the judge had listened to their attorney’s objection that the sisters—namely Lark—could not remain in Catamount indefinitely. She had a life in Los Angeles to get back to once she settled her family affairs.
Then, shoving open the door to exit probate court, she entered the long, echoing corridor connecting that room to many more in the historic Routt County building. Marble floors stretched in either direction, while the ornate molding around every door gleamed. A few people milled outside other courts in session, including the men who waited for her sisters: Drake Alexander, a Catamount, Colorado, native and former bull rider who’d fallen hard for Lark’s sister Fleur, and Ryder Wakefield, a search and rescue volunteer who had recently renewed a relationship with Jessamyn.
Well, more thanrenewed, since Ryder was the father of the child Jessamyn carried.
Since they were being called as witnesses, they hadn’t come into the court. But clearly both Drake and Ryder were good, upstanding men. Wealthy, too. Exceedingly so. Too bad it was still tough for Lark to witness the electric emotions of new lovers as the pairs greeted one another. Her own failure in that department stung. Glancing away from the sappy reunions, Lark turned her gaze farther down the high-ceilinged corridor to where a mother entertained a toddler with a storybook. Next to her, a weather-beaten older man slumped on a wooden bench, absorbed in a racing form.
And, closer to Lark, a young couple dressed in matching suits with contrasting boutonnieres stared into one another’s eyes, clearly on the verge of speaking marriage vows.
The sight of the pair, practically glowing with dreams for their future, provided one final gut-punch on a day already filled with cheap shots. Because Lark had been part of a couple like that once, standing beside a man she’d loved, ready to take on the world armed with nothing but foolish hope and romantic fantasies.
The memory of her short and ill-fated marriage to hockey star Gibson Vaughn sent a bitter pain through her breast even though they’d been divorced for just over two years. Twenty-six months and two days, if she was counting. Which, okay, maybe she was. But only because she didn’t take it for granted that she’d been liberated from the sports media limelight ever since their split.
Free of stupid headlines about hockey’s most eligible bachelor marrying a no-nonsense therapist. Free of insinuations that her superstar ex had tied himself to a hockey club with no playoff hopes to appease a bride who refused to relocate her therapy practice. Free of toxic social media comments about Gibson’s dating life before he’d married her.
None of which would have bothered her if Gibson had spent even a quarter of the year with her. But the prolonged absences from home necessitated by his desire to prove himself the face of his team chipped away the foundations of their relationship. He hadn’t been there when she’d needed him most.
“Lark?” Fleur’s gentle voice broke through Lark’s unhappy trip down memory lane. Her copper-haired sister turned gray eyes on her, still as lovely as when she’d won rodeo queen titles all over the West. “Did you want to go for a late lunch with us?”
Dragging her gaze from the husbands-to-be down the hall, Lark swallowed the regrets about her own marriage, determined to follow through on her solo plans for the afternoon. She hadn’t hit a bar alone in years and this day had her feeling all kinds of edgy. Right now, she considered a tequila shot and beer chaser to be critical self-care.
“No, thank you.” Lark flipped her heavy braid of dark hair behind one shoulder as she took in the sight of her sisters in love. Drake and Fleur had their arms around one another’s waists, while Jessamyn’s fingers laced securely through Ryder’s. “I need to—” she hesitated, unwilling to share the sad truth that she couldn’t abide being around the overload of love and hormones that oozed from every one of the four people in front of her “—check in with a client. I’ll see you at Crooked Elm tonight.”
Making a show of digging in her bag for her phone, Lark gave a half-hearted wave to her sisters as they departed with their respective men.
Once they were gone, Lark used her search browser to find the closest dive bar and found a likely candidate within walking distance. If she couldn’t enjoy a courtroom victory over her lying cheat of a father today, she would use her rare time out of the office to indulge in something else that would bring her satisfaction.
Or maybe she needed to drink away the memories that being in a courtroom inevitably reawakened.
Like the day she’d stood in front of a judge and uttered the words, “irreconcilable differences.” The death knell of her marriage to Gibson, and all the hopes and dreams that had gone with it.
Fueled with purpose, she jammed the device in her utilitarian cross-body bag. Was her purse a designer original? Not on a therapist’s salary. Not with all her student loans. Was it even remotely feminine or delicate? Not for a woman who prized functionality above appearances.
Marching toward the exit with extra stomp in her step, she gave a polite nod to the security guards who worked the metal detector. Then, pushing her way out into the warm summer sunshine, she blinked at the small throng of people standing at the base of the courthouse steps.
Why did they look vaguely familiar?
