Playing By The Rules. Beverly Bird

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СКАЧАТЬ brings us back to Sam,” Grace said. She cut a look at Jenny. “We were talking about clawing his clothes off, at which point Mandy went off into this business about relationships at a certain age. Compatibility. Comfort. Conversation. Wait, what was the other thing you mentioned?” She glanced at me again and tapped a finger against her cheek exaggeratedly. “Ah. Now I remember. Lust.”

      “Lust is good,” Jenny contributed. “But I agree, the other things matter a whole lot, too.”

      “You and Sam are compatible,” Grace continued, still aiming her words at me. “You’re comfortable with each other. The conversation between you is great—just ask any of us who’ve ever tried to horn in on it. Therefore, according to everything you just told me, the progression is obvious. You two ought to be having sex.”

      I opened my mouth to argue and realized that I had just been boxed in by my own theory. Grace was going to make one hell of a lawyer when she finished clerking for the criminal court judge.

      Then she sat up a little straighter and looked over my shoulder. I turned in my chair and followed her gaze and my pulse hiccuped.

      Sam had just arrived. He was standing at the bar.

      Chapter Two

      “Who’s that with him?” Jenny asked, leaning forward at our table to check out the situation.

      My gaze hitched to Sam’s left. It was the woman he’d taken out Monday night. Surprise—she had a lot of hair and all of it was blond. “I think he said she works for Fox, Murray and Myers,” I said. “She’s a receptionist.”

      “She looks like a bimbo,” Grace observed.

      My gaze dropped to her not insignificant bosom. “I don’t think he wants her for her mind.”

      Then, as though my attention had drawn his, Sam looked around and saw us. He grinned at me and picked up his scotch-and-water from the bar. I knew it was scotch because that was pretty much all he ever drank—Glenlivet specifically. With his glass in one hand and the blonde’s elbow in his other, he began steering her toward our table.

      Jenny ogled them. “He’s bringing her here? He’s bringing his date to sit with Mandy?”

      “He probably wants my stamp of approval,” I murmured.

      “You two are strange,” Jenny said.

      “We’re friends. Just friends. Why is that so hard for you people to wrap your minds around?”

      Grace watched them approach as well. “His bimbo isn’t happy,” she decided.

      I agreed. The blonde’s jaw seemed a little too set, her eyes too narrow.

      Sam finished propelling her toward our table. He pulled out the last chair for her and snagged a seat from the next table for himself, then he placed it on the opposite side of the table from the bombshell.

      “This is Tammy,” he said. He deposited his glass on the table and shifted his chair to face mine. “I had a thought on our Woodsen stalemate. What we need to do is get them back together. They’re shaky parents individually, but as a team they might be almost solid. Especially if we can convince Larson to appoint some kind of supervisor to look in on them from time to time. I think Lyle has a sister who lives something like two doors down.”

      I opened my mouth, shut it, then tried again. On the second effort, I found words. “Where do you get these ideas? We’re divorce lawyers, Sam. We’re supposed to break people up. It’s what we get paid for.”

      “I’ll kick in my fee if you do.”

      “I can’t kick mine in. I have partners to report to.” I was being cranky. I was still stinging from what he’d sprung on me in court.

      “Just give it some thought,” he urged. “We should try to save them for the kids’ sake. Besides, I believe strongly in the sanctity of marriage.”

      I snorted. “Unless it’s your own.”

      I realized too late that his ex-marital status wasn’t common knowledge. The look Jenny gave him was amazed. I could only imagine that having traipsed down the aisle once in his life lent Sam a little more potential in her eyes.

      “You were married?” she asked quickly. “I never knew that.”

      Sam cast me a wounded look. “I left McAllen, Texas, after my divorce and came here. It was too painful to stay.”

      Jenny’s gaze went kind and misty. In a moment, I thought, she would begin stroking his hair and cooing things like poor baby.

      “Mandy decided that I was the one who ended the marriage, and I’ve never disabused her of the notion,” he went on.

      It stung a little because I had assumed that.

      “Why?” Jenny asked, looking between us. “Why wouldn’t you tell her the truth?”

      “Because there’s something emasculating about being tossed over for another man and—worse—being slow to recover from it.”

      “You told me that,” Tammy said suddenly. “You told me you were divorced.” The rest of us looked at her. I think we’d forgotten she was there.

      “Which just goes to show,” Grace murmured, “that Sam doesn’t mind appearing emasculated in your eyes.”

      Ouch, I thought. Like I said, Grace can be brutally honest.

      I pulled the subject back to what I figured was safe territory. “About the Woodsens,” I said quickly. “I don’t think Lisa has hooked up with anyone new yet.”

      “Lyle hasn’t, either,” Sam replied.

      I thought about his suggestion. “He’d be the hardest to convince. He was the one who filed for divorce in the first place.”

      “She’s a paranoid schizophrenic. She woke up one morning and decided he was an extraterrestrial. It was making his life hell.”

      “She didn’t mention that.” There was a lot Lisa hadn’t bothered to tell me. Then it hit me. “An extraterrestrial?”

      “From Pluto. No mundane Martians for our girl.”

      “Excuse me,” Tammy tried to interrupt.

      I laughed aloud. “She told me that when he got drunk he would chase her around the house. Maybe that was what tipped her over into planetary delusions.”

      Sam perked up. “Were they wearing clothes, do you think?”

      I had just sipped more wine and it backfired up my nasal passages. I coughed and he clapped me on the back.

      “If Lisa stays on her medication and Lyle forgoes a six-pack now and again, it could work,” he insisted.

      “Between the two of them, one might be sane and sober for the kids at any given time,” I agreed when I could finally talk again. “The supervisor idea has some merit, but we’d need to have random СКАЧАТЬ