“As much as I would like to grant custody to the grandparents, I feel the best interest of the child is to stay where he is. Case dismissed.”
The bang of the gavel rattled through me in a way that I had never felt when I was working as a criminal lawyer. This meant something. A child had been placed in the proper care, and my friends wouldn’t look so depressed anymore.
If they had lost custody of Wesley, I’m not sure what they would have done. Thankfully, I didn’t have to think about that now.
Michael turned to me, pulling me in for a hug that I didn’t really deserve. “Hey, this is all because of Marie. Thank her.”
He slapped my back, shaking his head as the enormity of the situation washed over him. “I can’t believe it. I really thought we were going to lose him.”
“But you didn’t. Go home and thank your lucky stars that the judge was on your side.”
I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm. “Hey, really, I can’t thank you enough for everything.”
“No problem.”
I nodded to Marie and headed for the door, thankful that was over. Normally, there was a sense of pride when a case was finished. A criminal had escaped penalty or prison, and it was because of me. But this time, there was just an overwhelming sense of relief. And whether that was because I knew the Parkers or because justice was served, I really didn’t know.
But I had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last case I dealt with in family law. For the first time in a long time, I had the overwhelming desire to tell someone all about my victory, even if it wasn’t technically mine.
And there was only one person I could think of. My smile quickly slipped as I realized that Ellie probably wouldn’t care at all if we won the case. Sure, she’d be glad Wes was safe where he was, but would she care at all for what I was feeling?
Most likely not.
Still, I slipped into my car and headed away from the courthouse toward the woman who didn’t want a thing to do with me. She was my friend, even if we did have a falling out, and this was the kind of news you shared with a friend.
I just wasn’t exactly sure how to tell her since she wanted nothing to do with me.
“Ellie, I have some great news…” Grinning to myself, I figured that was a pretty good opening, but then I remembered the way she yelled at me for following her into town the other day.
Okay, maybe a better opening line was needed.
“Don’t hit me.”
Yeah, start with reminding her that violence was never a good option. I rolled my eyes at the ridiculousness of what my legal brain was coming up with.
Tightening my grip on the steering wheel, I spouted off a half a dozen opening lines, each one worse than the last.
“I won my case!”
“Ellie, you’re never going to believe what I just did.”
“I just saved a kid from being sent off to his evil grandparents.”
“Hey, baby!”
“How would you like to spend the night in the arms of a legal genius?”
And my personal favorite…
“How you doin’?”
Even though I thought I did a great impersonation of Joey Tribbiani, I doubted she would find the humor in that after the last fight we had.
I stopped in front of her shop, staring in the front window as she rearranged a mannequin in her display. God, she was so beautiful. Everything about this woman, from the way her blonde curls fell in her face to the way she smiled when no one was around.
That was when she was most beautiful. She didn’t even realize she was driving me insane because she was just being her natural self.
“Fuck, Ryder,” I grumbled, scrubbing a hand over my face. “You sound like a fucking woman.”
