The Groom Came Back. Abby Gaines

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СКАЧАТЬ of Vogue cluttered the solid wooden coffee table. Somehow, it worked.

      Sam, who had eyebrows bushy enough to house a small colony of beetles, and punctuated his telephone conversation with a startling smoker’s cough, acknowledged them with a wave.

      A moment later, he hung up. “Thanks for looking after my guests, darling.” He took Eloise’s hand for a moment, then reluctantly relinquished it. The way he looked at her, and the way she looked right back, suggested this couple would never need a divorce lawyer.

      Callie put a few more inches between her and Jack. Sam shook hands with them, directed them to one of the two leather couches, and sat down opposite. Eloise left the room with a promise to bring coffee.

      “Why don’t you two tell me your situation?” Sam unscrewed the cap of his pen. “Then we can work out how best to proceed.”

      Jack relaxed into the couch. He liked the look of Sam, and his calm logic. Even better, Callie had gone unexpectedly quiet. For the first time since he’d landed back in the U.S.A., he felt as if he was making progress toward the purpose of this trip.

      He outlined to Sam how and why they’d got married. Even keeping it to the bare bones, the story didn’t get any better with the telling. He had a sudden inkling why Diana, his ex-girlfriend, had been so shocked to learn the truth, and why the gossip had spread so mercilessly among his colleagues.

      “And now you want a divorce,” Sam said mildly, as if the end to this charade wasn’t long overdue. He tapped his pen against his legal pad. “Normally I’d recommend a husband and wife seek separate representation.”

      “It’s not a proper marriage,” Jack said. “We both want to end it, as soon as possible.” He glanced at Callie for corroboration, but she was staring down at her hands, her cheeks sucked in as if she might start carping on about his parents again if she opened her mouth the tiniest bit.

      It was probably best she didn’t talk.

      Sam flipped his pen between his fingers. “My first duty as your lawyer is to recommend that you attempt to resolve your differences through mediation.”

      “We barely know each other. We don’t have differences. ” Jack discounted the disagreement they’d had in the car, which had been pretty tame. Beside him, Callie’s fingers twitched.

      Sam nodded. “Okay, you’re waiving mediation. Next, you need to consider that under Tennessee law, the default position is an equitable division of the matrimonial property.”

      Callie perked up. “Do neurosurgeons earn more than florists?” she asked brightly. “I mean, I know they’re a lot more important.”

      Jack shot her a look, one that worked well to crush know-it-all medical residents. She was entirely uncrushed. Her blue eyes sparked the way they had the day he’d arrived in town. Ignore her.

      “We’ve agreed we’ll each take out of the marriage what we brought into it,” he told the lawyer.

      Sam raised his eyebrows at Callie, who sighed theatrically, then nodded. The lawyer pursed his lips, and Jack was pretty sure the man was stifling a smile.

      So much for their truce. Jack gritted his teeth. He’d gone easy on Callie in the car when she’d hassled him about his parents. Big mistake. Now she thought she could mess him around. He shouldn’t have given in to that unexpected sense of guilt that he might have exploited her desperate situation all those years ago.

      “I’ll prepare the paperwork you’ll both need to sign in order to waive your share of your spouse’s assets,” Sam said. “Now, have a look at this.” He held out a sheet of paper, which Callie took before Jack could. “It’s a list of the permissible grounds for divorce in Tennessee. You’ll need to choose one.”

      Jack refused to crane his neck to see over Callie’s shoulder. He could wait.

      She made a show of tapping her chin with a finger, apparently deep in contemplation, then pointed to an item high on the list. “I like this first one. ‘Either party is naturally impotent and incapable of procreation.’” She jerked her head in Jack’s direction and gave Sam a significant look.

      Jack clenched his teeth, but by superhuman effort refrained from declaring to Sam that he was not impotent. Because on that subject, there was such a thing as protesting too much. Still, he couldn’t hold back a growl.

      Callie patted his knee. “Sweetie, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

      A muffled sound came from Sam.

      Okay, Jack was going to throttle her. Not here in the lawyer’s house; that would be stupid. He’d do it after they left, somewhere near the airport, where he could jump on the next plane before they found her body. The prospect of such utter abandonment of his Hippocratic oath cheered him.

      “You know,” Callie reflected, “I’m thinking ‘willful or malicious desertion or absence without a reasonable cause’ might be more appropriate.”

      He looked down his nose at her. “I don’t think any judge will consider my commitment to saving children’s lives unreasonable.”

      “Touché,” she said sadly, and read on. “‘Cruel and inhuman treatment,’” she murmured with interest. “Oh, wait, I guess they mean toward me, not your parents.”

      Jack snatched the list from her and began reading. “Here we go,” he said, triumphant. “All I have to do is make an attempt on your life, ‘by poison or any other means—’ and we have guaranteed grounds for divorce.”

      She put a hand to her throat, as if she’d sensed the modus operandi of her imminent demise. “Go ahead. Your parents will see more of you when you’re in jail than they do now.”

      She was driving him nuts. Jack turned away, so he wouldn’t be tempted to respond. “Do we need to decide the grounds now?” he asked Sam. “What’s the time line on this thing? I know we have to wait until I’ve been here thirty days before we can file.”

      Oh, heck. Callie dragged air into her suddenly constricted lungs. She’d known her lie would come out, but she’d rather it wasn’t right after she’d been goading Jack. Was there any chance Sam wouldn’t expose her?

      The lawyer’s shaggy eyebrows shot up. She was dead in the water.

      “That’s not right,” Sam said. “As long as you have grounds, which it seems you do on several counts, and as long as one of you has been resident in Marquette County the past six months—” he looked at Callie, who reluctantly nodded “—and you’ve lived apart for a continuous period of two or more years without cohabiting as man and wife during that period…” He took a breath as he finished the spiel, then sealed Callie’s fate. “You can file the papers tomorrow.” He spread his hands. “Your divorce will be through in sixty days.”

      “You mean,” Jack said slowly. “I have to stay for sixty days from when we file?”

      Sam shook his head. “You don’t need to stay—in fact, you don’t have to be here at all. Callie can file for the divorce.”

      Callie sucked in her cheeks and tried to appear surprised.

      But Dr. Megabrain, who more often СКАЧАТЬ