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“But here? Today?” She failed to see the connection between that thirty-second sound bite of her on camera with the court case today. “Why stir the press to a frenzy at the trial when we need his testimony?”
Fleur looped an arm through hers as they all watched Gibson work the crowd like a celebrity at a premiere. He walked at a normal pace, nodding and acknowledging the sidling members of the media as he moved toward the courthouse.
“Gibson has also been vocal about supporting your efforts to retain your claim to Crooked Elm,” Fleur explained, withdrawing her phone and scrolling to a social media post with an image of Gibson engaged in one of his rare on-ice fights. Beneath it, the tagline read, “Hockey hero praises ex’s fight for family land.” Fleur flipped past it to the hundreds of comments following the post. “If you ask me, I think it’s really nice he’s spoken out publicly in favor of Gran’s will.”
Lark hadn’t known any of this. But of course, she’d been so proud of herself for blocking mentions of herself and Gibson wherever possible.
“Do you think that helps our cause?” She glanced between her sisters while Gibson drew within fifty yards of them, bringing the buzzing media circle with him. The sound of excited voices and shouted questions came with him, the volume increasing each moment.
“Absolutely,” Jessamyn answered definitively, her ring-bearing hand straying to her still flat belly. “Rallying public favor makes our fight sympathetic. It sure can’t hurt.”
And somehow, seeing Jessamyn’s fingers brush lovingly over the place where her future child rested chased every other thought from Lark’s mind save one—her own baby that might have been.
She’d thought of the miscarriage all the more since returning to Catamount and seeing Gibson so often. Yet it was a hurt she couldn’t have weighing on her heart through the probate trial.
“We’d better get inside ahead of the crowd,” she urged her sisters. Keeping Fleur’s arm looped through hers, she used it to tug Fleur toward the main doors with her. “Gibson might enjoy the media, but no matter how hard I try to flip the script, I’d still rather avoid them.”
The last thing Lark wanted was more attention from the press, especially now that she knew how expertly Gibson had wound them up regarding this case. Because all it took was one reporter asking the right questions about her past—about the time of her split from Gibson—to uncover the secret she could never bear to share.
Eight
Settling into the witness stand in the Routt County Courthouse almost six hours later, Gibson’s gaze went automatically to Lark seated between her sisters.
She wore a gray shirtdress cinched at the waist with a narrow belt, the knee-length hem and conservative cut of the outfit a far cry from the siren’s gown she’d worn the last time they’d met. Her hair was in its signature braid, her green gaze darting around the courtroom so that she looked anywhere but at him.
Because she was frustrated with the proceedings in the first day of the hearing? Or because she was unhappy with him for leveraging his media influence to garner public support for her and her sisters?
“State your full name for the record, please,” a court official intoned while a stenographer typed away silently nearby.
Gibson had already given a deposition prior to the hearing, but today was an opportunity for the attorneys to question one another’s witnesses and for the judge to ask questions about the information submitted. After sitting through hours of garbage testimony like Josiah Cranston’s insistence that Lark, Fleur and Jessamyn exerted “undue influence” over Antonia Barclay in the last year of her life, Gibson was eager to set the record straight for the court.
“Gibson Vaughn,” he replied into his microphone, mentally recalling the advice from Lark’s lawyer to be succinct and clear in his remarks.
And he would be. He planned to nail his part of this hearing so Lark would have the portion of her grandmother’s estate that was rightfully hers. He knew how much the land meant to her. He’d bought his ranch next door to Crooked Elm just to be sure they could both enjoy all the things she loved about the remote region.
Even though they weren’t together anymore, he still wanted her to have what made her happy.
So after a brief swearing in and a recap of his deposition by Lark’s attorney, Gibson was made available for questions from Mateo Barclay’s attorney, who was allowed to remain seated at his own table. The process seemed less formal than trials dramatized for the screen, with much of the day given to dry exchanges of information for the record.
Now, the plaintiff’s counsel, a tall, heavyset man with jutting brows and a weathered face leaned closer to his own microphone to speak.
“Mr. Vaughn, your statement to this court about Antonia Barclay’s personal confidences suggests you had a close relationship with the decedent in the final year of her life, but isn’t it true you were divorced from her granddaughter at that time?”
Lark’s eyes lifted to meet his.
And just like that, despite all the worry that he’d upset her today by stirring up the media, Gibson felt a bond with her that no divorce paper would ever erase. He could practically see her thoughts in her eyes—her silent caution to tread carefully. He hoped she could read him the same way, because he was mentally telling her he had no intention of letting her down.
“Yes, but Antonia remained my neighbor and friend.”
The attorney raised one protruding brow. “Even though your divorce from her granddaughter was acrimonious?”
Heat crept up at the insinuation. His hands clenched beneath the wooden stand as he spoke evenly, “My divorce was the worst loss of my life, and I can assure you I did everything in my power to ease any pain that I may have caused my ex-wife.”
Lark’s right eye twitched. It was the smallest hint of a reaction, but Gibson read that one, too. Despite her disappointment in him for the failed marriage, she still cared enough to be touched by his words.
Somehow that made anything else he faced today easy.
“The photos of you with another woman online preceding your split say otherwise,” the attorney continued, approaching the bench to flash a series of papers in front of Gibson before laying them in front of the presiding judge. “As does the receipt from the moving company that loaded your then-wife’s things into a truck the same weekend.”
