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Jayna stood and walked to the door. Luna had already bounded up from her big fluffy bed to greet Sienna. “Ivy didn’t do her work? That doesn’t sound like her.”
“Well, she’d done it, but it wasn’t time to turn it in yet,” Sienna explained. “The rest of the class wasn’t done.”
Jayna knew that problem well. She’d gotten in trouble for stupid stuff, too. “So she gets punished for being smarter?”
Sienna’s expression reminded her so much of their mom’s. “The teacher doesn’t want the other students thinking they can read whenever they like.”
She’d heard that excuse, too. Luckily Ivy had an advocate, something Jayna herself never had. “Ivy wasn’t reading whenever she liked. She was reading when she finished with an assignment, an assignment she likely didn’t plow her way through without thought. What was her grade?”
Sienna frowned. “Well, it was a math test. She made a hundred.”
She’d like to get that teacher in a courtroom to explain herself. “Uh-huh. So what is she supposed to do? Sit there and stare at everyone else? Put her head down and take a nap? I bet she’d get yelled at for doing that, too. She is being punished for being smart. She should be able to quietly read while she waits.”
“I didn’t think about it like that. She was reading a book on the reading list, too. So it was like she was still working on an assignment.” Sienna put her purse down. “I’m going to talk to that teacher.”
“Good.” At least Sienna was growing. She was watching her sister bloom. She was more confident, more animated than she’d been in years. She was listening to the people around her and thinking about what they said.
“Did you talk to Quaid?”
She was also way more nosy. “I called him early this morning. I brought him up to date on everything I’ve worked on. We’ve got closing arguments on theOliver v. Abbotcase on Monday.”
Sienna wrinkled her nose. “You know everybody else calls it the Geraldine’s Boobs case.”
“Well, everyone else doesn’t take the law very seriously.” Geraldine’s Boobs weren’t going to win. She was absolutely certain the judge would see that she was right. She feared a Papillon in which Geraldine’s Boobs won and everyone started protesting other things by showing off body parts. She’d heard Herve and his brother were already planning a march to protest the twenty-five-cent price hike in chicken-fried steak at local restaurants. It would never end. First boobs, and then the men would bring out the big guns. Well, medium-sized and small-sized, too.
“I’ll warn the café,” Sienna said. “Your fans tend to go there after court adjourns to have pie and a lively debate about who won the day.”
Yep, something else she didn’t have in New Orleans. Fans. “Any chance they might not find out about the closing arguments?”
Sienna shook her head. “Not at all. Britney’s sister is Team Quaid all the way.”
She needed to make sure she knew exactly which one Britney’s sister was. A talk was warranted to make sure everyone knew they could look but better not touch.
She had to stop thinking that way. How could she be with Quaid if she couldn’t handle staying a night at his house?
The odd thing was that now that she and Mrs. Havery had their come-to-Jesus, they were actually getting along. She’d updated all the Haverys on Paul’s case the afternoon before while they’d had lunch. The matriarch of the family had been very pleased. She’d asked Jayna some intelligentquestions about her legal strategies and then moved the topic on to her upcoming plans for the tea she was still hosting.
Jayna was supposed to attend. In a suitable dress, of course.
How long would it be before her usefulness wore off and Mrs. Havery remembered how rough her upbringing had been? How long before Quaid’s friends got offended by her rough edges?
“Oh, no.” Sienna’s eyes had gone wide as she stared out the window.
“What’s wrong?” She moved in beside her sister as Luna started to bark.
“Is that who I think it is?” Sienna asked, pointing toward the square.
Jayna’s ex-husband was walking down the street wearing one of his designer suits, his hair slicked back, and designer sunglasses covering his eyes. He looked up and down the street as though searching for something.
The man had to be looking for her.
Sure enough, he shifted his course, coming toward the building markedQuaid Havery, Attorney at Law.
Luna bounced in front of the door.
Todd might have been a crappy husband, but he’d played ball with Luna and taken care of her when Jayna couldn’t.
He got a smile on his face when he saw her. He threw open the door and went down on one knee. “Hey, girl. Look at how big you are.”
