Ugh! First woman, now girl? It was so patronizing, and yet, her insides squeezed hard.
He scooped up her makeshift notepad—her scrap of cardboard with notes scribbled in no particular order, and she could see his brow pull harder and harder together trying to make heads or tails of her scribbling. He tipped the cardboard around, reading a note that she’d squeezed around the edge, pivoting the cardboard around like a turntable, then held it out to her, mouthing, What the hell is that?
She grinned at his irritation and shrugged. “You do spreadsheets, I do that.”
He laughed silently, shoulders jolting as he shook his head, then strode to a built-in cabinet meant for china, revealing an office supply closet. He pulled down a fresh legal pad from a nice neat stack, next to nice neat stacks of pens, reams of printer paper, labels, highlighters, all in their own little bins.
“Repeat that…please?” he added like a conscious afterthought.
Tyler scrapped her piece of cardboard into his wastebasket.
“You got a copy of your contract, Tie-Dye?” he asked, drawing the phone away from his mouth.
She dashed from the room and returned a moment later with her new laptop, opened her email, and conducted a search, pulling up the contract from four years earlier when she’d first bought Buford. He wedged the phone in his ear, the legal pad under his arm, and took the computer in one hand, finger scrolling on the mousepad with the other, scanning the document.
He skimmed the legal jargon, so focused, she could almost see the pertinent info and Chet’s words falling into place like Tetris blocks in his eyes.
“She couldn’t take pictures,” he replied to something, a brisk walk peeling him away from her to his desk where he set the computer and took up his pen, writing a Roman numeral and began a note on the legal pad. “Phone was dead. Middle of a tornado that almost killed her inside that vehicle that flipped. My understanding was she took shelter in a nearby culvert where she was protected?”
He flashed her a knowing look. Protection indeed. By Hercules himself after a night out and a reckless encounter with him. He’d wanted to sink into her in the culvert. She’d felt it. She bit her lip. His eyes honed in on it as if wanting to bite it for her. He cleared his throat and leaned over his desk, jotting notes, simultaneously waking up his computer and punching in his password.
“Naw, what I’m understanding, sir—” Could sir sound any more patronizing? “—is that your claims adjuster looked at her mangled truck on the side of the road in Nacogdoches County on Monday morning, scratched his head”—Lordy, the twang was really emerging—“and said there was no way a cell of tornados the day before well within the comprehensive coverage reporting time limit for the state of Texas, could have totaled it all to shit, despite the hail damage and broken axle, bent frame, smashed windows staring him in the face; it ‘might have been a quick hit and run, too, so there’s no way to verify what really caused the damage because she didn’t get photos before she flipped it.’ Does that about sum it up?”
Oh man, he’d taken off the proverbial gloves and was rolling up the sleeves. Bet he’d been ruthless in a suit and tie when he’d practiced law full time. He clicked open a document template on his massive desktop screen. She leaned around him and caught sight.
Complaint. Civil Action…a law suit?
She grabbed his arm and yanked on him until he glanced at her. “Is this necessary?” she whispered.
His hard chocolatey eyes held hers, direct and unrelenting, and he put his finger over his lip, pen between his pointer and middle finger like a smoke, then grabbed a sticky notepad off his organized desk nestled within his floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with leather-bound volumes. Jotted something, jammed the note in her hand, turned back to his computer and enlarged the form.
“Y’all wanna do this?” he said.
She glanced down at the note: Won’t come to that. Watch and learn.
Smug. And in the crispest handwriting. Like the boy who’d drawn a ruler line to write his name in his Scout book. He eyed her again, a sly smile pulling up his lips at one corner, making that crease in his cheek dent. She’d seen it dimple on that magazine cover, seen it buried in his crease when he’d spun donuts. Wished she could have kissed it. Wished she’d known him in the past so they’d have history together now, which would justify this deeper feeling that had solidified within her when she’d heard him whisper her name in her ear last night, for the first time, blurring that line of attachment until it had been smudged away. Had it meant he was falling for her?
“Uh-huh… Oh you looked me up?” Tyler smirked. “Sure does say I practice family law. But got a specialty in contracts and civil suits, too. That record is well-verified, and speaking of well-documented records…” Tyler was clicking around on a legal website now, scrolling down a page. “Morgan v. Tarrant Allegiance for client manipulation in 2014…” Tyler kept scrolling, “Bristovich v. Tarrant Allegiance for client manipulation—oh, also just last year, huh… Well, if you boys are anything, it’s at least consistent. All right then. Been a pleasure, Chet. Expect me to file a complaint for client manipulation first thing tomorrow.”
He clicked off the phone.
“Tyler!” Heart smacked his arm, for real this time, now that the phone was dead. “You are a wolf.”
“I prefer ‘expert debater.’”
His grin notched up higher, unaffected by her little smack. The look of pride was boyish, almost sweet.
“Why are you so cute when you’re smug?”
Her remark only seemed to stoke him, and he dropped a kiss to her mouth, twisting a smile from her lips despite her irritation. “When it comes to fossils and land surveys, I’ll take your word for it, even if my gut still says I oughta reinforce that slump. But when it comes to contracts and spinning donuts? Just remember which one of us passed the bar and was bred on a ranch.”
She chuckled. “They’re so gonna drop me as a client.”
“Ye have little faith. In three…” He held up the phone, his thumb on the answer button. “Two…one…”
A few moments later, the phone rang. Caller I.D. showed her insurance’s name.
“Check it out. They’re workin’ after hours, just for you. What nine-to-five desk jockey does except for ones who realized they screwed up and need to hurry to fix it? Truth is, pictures or no pictures, they can’t deny your claim.”