“I can.” She giggled. “If you didn’t have a job and life back in New York, I’d hire you to help me.” She laughed.
“I am not getting that goo all over me.” His expression showed a curled nose, and extreme distaste.
Wanda laughed. “No, not helping with the actual making of the inventory. I’m probably going to have to hire someone who can box up the items and ship them out. As it is, it takes definitely a day, sometimes two to do that all by myself.” She paused and sighed. “But I can think about that later. Right now, we have to get going.” She looked at her watch and then grabbed her purse. “Do I look okay?”
“You look sexy,” Christopher said, and gathered her to him and kissed her deeply. Happy for her. He released her and stepped back to study her with a critical eye. Her navy-blue dress that rode just above her knees, the sleeveless dress showed off her toned arms. Her hair was swept up, and she had on minimal makeup.
“You look sexy. If I didn’t know you and saw you walking down the street, I’d turn and get a second, third, maybe even fourth look at your sexiness.”
“Thank you.” She blushed, then hurried from her office. She had never had anyone compliment her like that before. Even though he was leaving in a couple of hours, she was happy she’d spent the last weekend with Christopher and was going to miss him when he left.
She watched him enter the kitchen with his suitcase, and he had his suit jacket over his arm. He had on a pair of dark blue dress pants, a pale blue shirt, and a medium blue tie. “Damn, you’re some hot stuff,” she said to him, and they both grinned at each other.
“I somehow feel that we shouldn’t arrive at the courthouse at the same time. After all, we’re going for a divorce. It’s bad enough we look like we planned to match by both wearing the color blue.”
“Oh crap. Should I go change?”
“No. We don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to tell anyone where I spent the weekend. It’s no one’s business but ours.”
“Agreed,” she said, and kissed him quickly, then reached up and wiped her lipstick from his lips. They went out, got in their own cars and Christopher followed her to the courthouse. They parked in the same lot, but Wanda waited for about five minutes after Christopher walked away before getting out and making her way to the courthouse. She saw Christopher and two men off to the side and then turned when someone called her name. It was her own lawyer, Tony Harris.
“Wanda. You look nice, how are you?”
“Good, Tony.” She shook his hand. “You have any idea why we’re here?”
“None. I hate to ask, but do you know if Christopher Evans made it in?”
“He’s standing over there. The man with the blue tie facing this way.” She nodded to the three men and watched as Tony turned to look at them.
“Good. At least whatever we’re here for won’t be postponed because of a no show. Let’s make our way in.” He put his hand on the small of her back and escorted her up the stairs. It took everything Wanda had not to turn and look at Christopher, but she felt his eyes on her.
“Do you know if Ms. Perkins is here?” Christopher’s New York lawyer, Paul Thomas asked. Because he couldn’t practice in Arizona, he’d contacted a friend of his who would be representingChristopher in this state. He looked at Paul and Gregg Anderson, the Arizona lawyer.
“That’s her walking up the steps.” Christopher nodded, and the other two men turned and watched.
“Damn, you sure you want to go through with this?” Gregg asked, then gave himself a mental shake. “Sorry. Like I said earlier, I have no clue as to why we’re here, but the only advice I can give is if you’re asked anything answer as honestly as you can.”
“Of course.” Christopher frowned at the man. He liked his own lawyer, but was unsure of Mr. Anderson. They made their way up the steps and after going through security, made their way to the courtroom. They were settled in and only had five minutes to wait before the judge arrived. Once they stood, the judge entered, and they sat back down, the judge didn’t waste any time.
“Thank you for coming. I’ll get right to the point. This case intrigues me. I have some questions. First, if Wanda Perkins and Christopher Evans could please stand.” She paused as the two perfect looking people stood.
“Okay, now please tell me how you two came to be married.” She nodded and sat back in her chair and watched the two people standing. They looked at each other, and she saw Mr. Evans bow to Ms. Perkins.
“I was sick,” Wanda started, then went on to tell her how she’d talked to her Pastor and said she’d wanted to get married before she died. At one point Tony stood.
“Your Honor, if I may?” He held up an envelope.
“What’s that?”
“Actual pictures of the wedding.” The judge leaned forward and held out her hand.
“Continue, Ms. Perkins.” She continued as the judge looked at the pictures and at one point she looked up and sucked in her breath. “You were really sick, weren’t you?”
“Yes. As you can see from the photos, the people walking up the aisle behind my father and I was a nurse and doctor they had the IV pole, but I was also in the middle of a chemo treatment.” The judge saw she reached up and rubbed her upper chest. “I had a pic line in.”
“Okay, so how did you get involved, Mr. Evans?”
“Our Pastor came to talk to my parents and told us just how sick Wanda was. We knew she was ill, hell, her brother, Douglas was my best friend at the time, whenever I asked him about Wanda, he’d say she wasn’t doing well. The Pastor sat down with my parents and explained everything. By the time he talked to us, Wanda had been given less than two weeks to live. After the Pastor left, Mom, Dad and I sat down and talked about it. I told them that I would marry Wanda if it would settle her mind. I took it as a Make a Wish Hail Mary.
