“By just doing it.”
“Okay. So how would we go about finding a client who’s been fined by the county?”
She smiled, and some color returned to her face. “I have a friend in the building department. I’ll see if I can get him to give us some information. And by the way, first-year associates always manage their partner’s schedules. And they also work more than eight hours a day.” She turned and stalked from the office.
Damn. Of course first-year associates put in long hours, and David seemed to be intent on keeping him busy if for no other reason than to keep him far away from the crap Arwen had discovered in her research.
But he couldn’t stay away and maintain any kind of self-respect. Something rotten was happening in Jefferson County. And deep in his soul, Matt wanted to be more than just a charming guy with a last name everyone recognized. If he truly wanted to compete with his brother and cousins, sitting back and following Dad’s rules was probably not the way to do it.
Chapter Twelve
Courtney stayed at Sid’s house until the early afternoon. His collection of girlfriends, all of them widows, tried to ease his worries. And by the end of her visit, Courtney had concluded that Sid’s annoyance at LL&K, while possibly misplaced, might be doing him a world of good. At least he had started to care about something again.
And he certainly wasn’t going to lack for attention and care. Courtney made sure that each of his girlfriends had her cell number and instructed them to call her right away if Sid needed anything or if they thought he was not taking care of himself.
Still, his situation depressed her. He had exactly thirty days to move out of his apartment. Where was he or Leslie or any of the other tenants going to live?
And it sure didn’t ease her mind to know that Leslie was thinking about moving all the way to Arizona, where she said a person on a fixed income could live in much better style than here in Virginia.
She hated the idea of Sid moving halfway across the country. But she had a feeling he might do just that, following after Leslie. And then she’d be alone. The last of Dad’s friends would be gone.
An aching loneliness settled over Courtney that afternoon. She called Melissa to see if she’d be interested in an evening at the Jaybird, but Melissa and Jeff were doing inventory at the store.
She called Arwen and couldn’t get her on the phone, even though it was Monday. What the hell was up with that anyway? Her cell phone had also been off for most of the weekend.
Finally, in the late afternoon, Arwen called back.
“Where have you been? I was trying to reach you all day on Sunday,” Courtney accused.
Silence greeted Courtney for a very long moment before Arwen said, “I got busy and let my cell phone die.”
“Busy with what?”
“I was finishing up that storage rack I started. You know the one out of reclaimed wood.”
“Oh. How’d it come out?”
Another long, suspicious pause. “Great,” Arwen said without much conviction.
“So, you want to meet at the Jaybird tonight?”
“No!” Arwen’s refusal was more than emphatic; it sounded almost panicked.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter. I just have work to do, okay?”
“Tonight?”
“Big case. I have to work late. And I really, really need to go. The senior partner just walked into my office.” Arwen ended the call without even saying goodbye.
Courtney stifled her irritation. Arwen was a good friend—her last remaining single friend—and she couldn’t afford to lose that friendship.
Oh well. It certainly looked like a Netflix and chill evening, in the original meaning of that phrase. Courtney decided to make the best of a lonely situation by spending some time in her kitchen. She headed off to the grocery store for the ingredients needed to make her mother’s lasagna.
An hour later, as she hauled groceries up the stairs, she ran into Pam and Julia Lyndon, who were standing in the hallway outside Matt’s apartment looking as if they’d stepped right out of the pages of Town & Country magazine.
Pam was dressed for a polo match in a powder-blue and white polka-dot dress with matching spectator pumps. Julia, on the other hand, would have fit right in at a fancy garden party in her vintage-look flowered sundress.
The only times Courtney had ever come face-to-face with Pam or Julia was at work, where she always dressed in a conservative, usually black, suit, which was basically like the uniform she used to wear as a nurse. But today she had on a pair of old cutoffs, a tank top, and flip-flops. It was three million degrees outside, and it was her day off.
Damn. If Matt’s family was going to drop by unannounced, she would have to improve her wardrobe. These women made her feel small and insignificant and…nerdy. The way she’d felt as a kid in high school, when, in addition to having braces and glasses, she’d worn a lot of hand-me-downs. Dad had been a wonderful man, but he hadn’t been a rich one, and he hadn’t had much of a fashion sense.
“Oh. Courtney, is that you?” Pam asked as her gaze traveled down Courtney’s legs and back up to her face, which was a little sweaty right at the moment because of the heat. Pam clearly never sweated and probably didn’t even perspire much.
“Hi,” she said. “I, um, live next door.” She continued up the stairway and edged around Pam and Julia.
It seemed odd that Matt’s mother and aunt would be here in the late afternoon while Matt was at work. What were they up to?
“Oh. That’s nice,” Pam said. Courtney interpreted her disinterested tone as a slap in the face. If these women knew what she and Matt had done last night…
A blush crawled up her face. Thankfully they would never know. And she’d have to be careful. They were busybodies. She jammed her key into her door, trying to make
