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Once, she’d felt sympathy for Sienna because she’d never made it out of the trailer park they’d grown up in. Now she kind of envied her sister, because at least she had her own single-wide. Jayna was right back in her old room, in her old bed. On her old mattress that had already been uncomfortable when she was fifteen.
She bet Quaid Havery’s bed was comfortable. And probably full.
“Hey, I’m going to make the kids some mac and cheese for dinner. Momma’s got the late shift tonight. You want to join us?” Sienna asked, dumping the bag into the can.
Did Jayna want to eat boxed mac and cheese with a couple of grubby kids? “Sure.”
Her nieces weren’t awful. They were kind of cute. Kelly was a chaotic mess who made her laugh, and Ivy reminded her of herself at that age. She was quiet and liked to read.
Sienna glanced down at the beer in Jayna’s hand. “Is that a celebratory beer, or an ‘I got my ass kicked in court’ kind of beer?”
She sighed and sat back, hoping the chair had another couple of days in it. “It wasn’t an ass kicking. It was the weirdest trial I’ve ever been through. The judge played Hangman while we were waiting on Quaid Havery to finish negotiating a custody agreement for dolls. Or maybe it was cats. I’m not sure.”
“Oh, it was both,” Sienna said with a nod. “The Mallory twins came into the café and they were talking about those creepy dolls their momma collected and how now that she’s gone, they have to take care of them. And then they told me about all those cats and how there was something about them being jealous and seeking revenge for one of them getting better food than the others. I don’t know. I just wantedto take their order. I also heard that Britney Brewer chased her granddad all the way to the clinic.”
“Yeah, he wasn’t looking forward to his yearly physical.” It had been an odd, unsettling day. “I should have won that case. Instead my client gave up the whole thing for some curtains and a trip into Houma. And I spent weeks prepping and I’m probably being paid in gumbo.”
Sienna’s nose wrinkled. “Oh, you should have negotiated better. I’m afraid Geraldine isn’t such a great cook anymore. She gets her salt and sugar mixed up. You should have had her knit you a sweater or something.”
“I was hoping for some cash.” But it wasn’t like she’d pressed the old lady. “Well, and I was hoping to get the word out that there’s another lawyer in town. It seems like Quaid Havery plays fast and loose with everyone.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Sienna sat down on the top step. “He’s good to the people of this town.”
It wasn’t so surprising that Sienna would take an optimistic view. Jayna had another perspective. “He represents all the rich people, exactly like his dad did. When he negotiates with a person and that person doesn’t have legal counsel, he’s not watching out for them. He’s getting his client the best deal possible. It’s not ethical.”
“I don’t know about that. He’s a good guy. You know he went with our aunt to help cousin Pete when he got arrested for selling weed,” Sienna offered.
“For allegedly selling weed. He hasn’t been convicted yet,” Jayna pointed out. She hadn’t even known Pete had been in trouble until she’d come home.
“Well, everyone knows he was selling weed. He was growing it in the backyard.”
“Allegedly.”
“Aunt Opal tried to burn that alleged weed and she was high as a damn kite because she stood out there with a hosetrying to monitor the perimeter to make sure she didn’t start a forest fire, as she called it,” Sienna explained. “We had to take her to the nurse, but Lila said we should just feed her a bunch of French fries and tacos and she would be fine in the morning. My point is, Quaid went down to the jail with her and helped her get Pete out on bail, and he didn’t charge her a dime since she didn’t have one to give him. He’s not a bad man. He’s doing what all of us are.”
“And what’s that?”
“What he can,” Sienna said with a sigh, and then there was a sparkle in her eyes. “How did he take you showing up in court looking all fine and stuff?”
Jayna took another swig of the very cheap beer her mom kept around the house for guests. Her mom wasn’t much of a drinker, but she preferred sweet strawberry wine to beer. It hadn’t seemed like a strawberry wine kind of day to Jayna. “He didn’t know who I was.”
“Oh,” her sister said, eyes widening. “Well, you do look different. No one’s seen you in years, so they remember you as you were in high school. You changed pretty much everything about yourself since then.”
That was not true. “I dyed my hair. I didn’t get into aFace/Offmachine.”
“You dropped a lot of weight.”
“I exercised,” she countered. She’d dropped about thirty pounds in law school when she’d discovered how much she liked to jog and work out. It cleared her head and gave her time to think. “Again, no surgery for me. Not even Botox, even though my rat-fink ex suggested I start what he called ‘a regime.’ ”
“Todd wanted you to get plastic surgery?” Sienna asked with a gasp.
Jayna sighed. “Not exactly. He thought we should both start taking better care of ourselves, and one of hissuggestions was erasing my frown lines. Apparently I have a lot of them.”
“You do not. You are perfectly gorgeous,” Sienna said. “Our roles are reversed. I know I was kind of the pretty one when we were young. At least that’s what people said. I always thought you were prettier.”
Her sister was a freaking saint, and it made her feel guilty that she ever thought bad things about her. And that she’d stayed away for so many years. It wasn’t like Sienna hadn’t come to see her, but she’d forced her sister and her mom to make the long drive to New Orleans every year because she’d never allowed Todd to see where she’d grown up.
She moved to the top step to sit beside her sister. “Everyone adores you and you’re stunning. That’s what I hear when they realize I’m your sister.Sienna is a bright light in all the darkest nightand some shit.”
