Family Law, Gin Phillips [top novels of all time .txt] 📗

focus than actual obedience, dropped to her feet. Lucia pushed open the door, the smell of garlic and rosemary washing over her as she slipped inside. She let her briefcase drop, kicked off her heels, and stripped off her hose, all with Moxie jabbing a dirty snout against her thighs.

“All right,” Lucia said, hanging her hose on the coatrack next to yesterday’s pair. She knelt, scratching behind the dog’s sharply folded ears. Moxie thumped in ecstasy.

Lucia swiped at the soil caking the dog’s beard.

“The ficus again?” she said.

Moxie darted forward, scoring a solid lick—hints of potting soil—inside Lucia’s mouth. She rested the furry cylinder of her head on Lucia’s shoulder, her tail vibrating them both. She was without a doubt the most loving dog Lucia had ever owned. And the stupidest. She literally ate dirt.

Giving the dog one more rub, Lucia walked to the kitchen, where she lifted the lid off the crockpot and stirred the pork and white beans. The green chilies eddied, and she was blowing on a spoonful when the phone rang.

Her best guess was Evan—he should have been home by now.

“Hello?” she said, settling the crockpot lid with her free hand.

“How is everything, sweetheart?” asked her mother.

There was a wiliness to the greeting. It implied that her mother knew of some event and was asking about the aftermath. Occasionally, something actually had happened—her car, for instance—and for just long enough to give herself away, Lucia would be fooled into believing that her mother already knew about it.

“Everything’s fine, Mother,” Lucia said. Moxie rammed her head softly against her thigh.

“No more trouble with your car?”

Lucia liked that phrasing. And, in truth, although she had let slip a mention of her car, she had not been flustered enough to give details. Her mother only knew that her windshield had been cracked.

“No,” she said. “Only a fluke, I think.”

“Do you think”—her mother lowered her voice—“that someone might have done it on purpose?”

Lucia propped her dripping spoon on the edge of the stove. Nudge, went Moxie. Nudge nudge.

“Why would anyone do that?” Lucia asked. She was genuinely interested in what her mother’s answer might be. Her mother did not like bad things to take form.

“Well, you know, of course,” her mother said. “There are all kinds of people out there.”

In a skittering of claws and spray of drool, Moxie bolted across the kitchen tile and flung herself against the door. Eventually, Evan forced his way inside, shirt sleeves rolled up.

“Down,” he snapped, simultaneously locking the door behind him, rubbing the dog’s neck, and shooting Lucia a roll-eyed look that expressed both a hello and an acknowledgment of the difficulties of this particular dog. She watched him register the phone in her hand and the tone of her voice; he realized she was talking to her mother. His face shifted into a question.

She shrugged, letting him know everything was fine.

“I imagine it was teenagers,” she told her mother. “I mean, the office is downtown.”

This was speaking her mother’s language. In Caroline Roberts’s world, downtown Montgomery was Saigon. Beirut. Times Square.

Evan looped an arm around her waist, a hand across her belly. She could smell the Juicy Fruit on his breath, and she leaned against him as her mother explained how something had gnawed clean through a package of Ritz Crackers.

“What do you mean ‘something’?” Lucia asked. “What could it be other than a mouse?”

“There’s no telling,” said her mother.

“No telling? Do you think you have a turtle infestation, Mother? Possums, maybe?”

Her mother laughed. She had a saloon girl’s laugh, low and never ending. It was almost worth these phone calls. In another few minutes, Lucia was off the phone, just as Evan set a gin and tonic in front of her.

“Moxie’s been in the ficus again,” she said. “I haven’t checked to see if she ate the Saran wrap.”

Evan dropped the needle into the groove on Elmore James singing about dusting a broom, then he bent to examine the planter by the sliding-glass doors. The shelves blocked her view.

“I don’t think she ate any,” he said. “Just tore it off. We could duct tape it.”

“Maybe tin foil would work better.”

“Chicken wire,” he said, just as the slide guitar kicked in.

“How would we attach it?”

He didn’t have an answer for that. He crossed the room again, stepping over Moxie, who had sprawled across the kitchen tiles. He leaned into Lucia’s space, reaching for her drink. He always tried her drink, even if he’d made it. Even if they had the same thing.

“Nothing happened today?” he asked.

He had been waiting to ask. She had felt him waiting all this time. The music and the drink and the chatter—all diversions.

“Just work,” she said.

“Someone walked you to your car?”

He had asked only two things of her: carry the mace he’d given her and don’t go to the car alone. Both were reasonable, and she agreed entirely with his logic. She considered lying.

“Don’t you think it’s silly?” she said. “To still be worried about it?”

“No,” Evan said. “I do not. And neither do you.”

“I can’t have someone walk me to my car forever.”

“We’re not talking about forever. We’re talking about tomorrow. Have Marissa or a client walk with you to the car tomorrow. Then we can have a whole separate argument about the day after tomorrow.”

A laugh slipped out of her. Evan stood there, dark hair falling over his forehead. Hazel eyes serious behind his glasses. Waiting.

“I’m leaving the office early tomorrow anyway,” she said. “I have the talk at the Prattville Homemakers Association, remember?”

“You think you should do it?”

“I obviously do,” she said. “Do you think a Prattville Homemaker is going to attack me with her chicken casserole?”

“Lucia,” he said.

“They’ll ask me about some friend who wants to leave her husband,” she said. “Or if I can fix a traffic ticket. I won’t be saying anything that controversial.”

He wandered back to the stereo, pulling out an album. Hoodoo Man Blues.

“No?” he said, sliding the record back into its slot. “You’ve said plenty already. Some people