He caught Devin's look, that quiet, knowing look, and jerked his shoulders restlessly. "I just have to get used to it."
Devin dashed some salt on his eggs. "The trouble with lawyers is, they like to gather up all the little facts, every little piece. Then they can argue either side. You were always good at that, Jare. Dad used to say you could twist something simple around from right to wrong and back again. Maybe this is one of those times you should just take it as it is."
Jared wanted to. And he hoped he could.
He didn't move in with her, technically. But he spent most of his nights there, and some of his clothes found their way into her closet, his books onto her shelves.
He got into the habit of swinging by after work to pick up Bryan on practice nights. More often than not, they lingered on the field, tossing the ball.
If a case kept him late at the office, he phoned her. Sometimes he phoned her just to hear her voice.
With casual regularity, he brought her flowers, and baseball cards or some other treasure for Bryan. They were a trio on outings, and they gave the town a great deal to buzz about.
Bryan accepted him without question—a fact that both pleased and distressed Jared. He wanted to believe it was because the boy cared for him, considered them a kind of family. But he wondered if Bryan was simply accustomed to having a man stake a claim.
When that nasty toad of a thought jumped into his head, Jared did what he could to bat it away. It was, after all, the now the mattered. The way she looked at him. The way she laughed when she watched him and Bryan tussle on the lawn. The way, he thought, she arched her back after she'd been bending over the flowers she tended, or how complete her concentration was when she worked in her studio.
It was the way she smelled that mattered, when she walked out of a steaming bath. It was the way she strained against him night after night in bed, as if she could never get enough. And the way she would reach for his hand when they sat together on the porch swing in the evening.
Court had kept him late, and the strain of the day refused to be shaken off. He'd brought work home, and he knew that the headache that was drumming behind his eyes would be violent before it was over.
He stopped off in town to pick up aspirin, searching the shelves in the general store for something that promised to kick big holes in the drums in his head.
"Hi there, Jared." Mrs. Metz, armed with a loaf of bread and a box of Ring Dings, cornered him. She was an expert at the ebb and flow of gossip.
"Mrs. Metz." The rhythm of small towns was too ingrained for him to hurry on, and he liked her, had fond memories of her feeding him homemade cookies. And chasing him off with a broom. "How's it going?"
"Fair to middling. Need some rain, that's for sure. Spring's been too dry."
"Shane's a little worried about it."
"We're going to get some tonight," she predicted. "A storm's brewing. Heard that Morningstar boy played a good game Saturday."
"Three RBIs, initiated two double plays."
She gave a cackling laugh that sent her trio of chins waggling. "You sound like a proud daddy." Before he could comment, she hurried on. "Seen you and the boy and his mama here and there. She's what my boy Pete would call a stunner."
"Yes, she is." Jared chose a painkiller at random.
"Hard, though," Mrs. Metz continued, shifting her ample weight to block his retreat. "Raising a boy on her own, I mean. Not that lots of women don't find themselves in that kind of fix today. She's from out west, isn't she? I guess the boy's father's still out there."
"I couldn't say." Because it was the literal truth, the pounding in his head increased.
"You'd think the man would want to see his son now and again, wouldn't you? They've been here close on four months now. You'd think he'd want to come around and visit a fine-looking boy like that."
"You'd think," Jared said, careful now.
"'Course, some men just don't give two hoots, much less a holler, about their children. Like Joe Dolin." Her cheerfully homely face puckered up on the name. "I'm happy as I can be you're handling Cas-sie's divorce and making it smooth for her. Mostly they're not smooth—I know when my sister's second boy got his, the feathers flew. I'd wager Savannah Morningstar's divorce was a rough go."
Oh, no, you don't, he thought. He wasn't going to give her any fuel by saying there'd never been a divorce, since there'd never been a marriage. "She hasn't mentioned it."
"You used to be more curious, Jared." Before he could snarl at her, she beamed a smile at him. "And just look at you now, a lawyer carrying a briefcase. I've come up to watch you in court a time or two."
His anger with her deflated. "Yes, I know." He'd seen her there, in her large flowered dress and sensible shoes. Like his own personal cheering section.
"Better'n watching Perry Mason, that's what I told Mr. Metz. That Jared MacKade's better'n Perry Mason. Your folks would be right proud of you. And here we thought the lot of you would never be on the right side of the law." She found that so funny, she almost doubled over with laughter. "Lord, you were bad, boy. Don't think I don't know who blackened my Pete's eye after the spring dance in high school."
The memory was very sweet. "He tried to muscle in on my girl."