I frowned. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”
“Because he used to be a really great lawyer that practiced in Kilgore, but retired a few years ago after nearly twenty-nine years in practice,” she explained.
Now that she mentioned who he was, I pictured a much younger version of the man standing in front of me. He’d been the one to deal with my mother’s will. I remember being at the office when she’d had to go and sign some papers.
I nodded my head. “You think he might be able to find someone to help me?”
She shrugged. “Something like that.”
With that, she headed up the walkway and left me standing there to watch her go.
When she got to the top of the steps, she threw her arms around the large older man and hugged him like she hadn’t seen him in a long time.
When I got up to the bottom of the steps, it was to hear her say, “This is Ace. My…”
“Man,” I supplied helpfully.
Codie grinned. “My man.” She snickered. “Boyfriend sounds kind of juvenile.”
The man on the front porch grinned, too. “You know, when I first met you, I wouldn’t have expected you to land a Valentine. I would’ve expected you to land a man that wrote you letters from prison.”
Codie’s face scrunched up in affront. “Hey, I resent that!”
“Honey.” He gestured for us to follow him. “You had a chip on your shoulder the size of which I’d never seen before. You reminded me of those little anime girls that always have a vendetta against the world. Like they’re tiny little terrors that wreak havoc amongst the general population.”
“You watch anime, Todd?” she teased.
Todd shrugged. “There’s only so much a retired man can do. And since my wife started to work with her son when we retired, helping him with paperwork and whatever else he needs help with, I’ve been left alone to fend for myself.” He gestured for us to stop at the door and then proceeded to take his shoes off. “If I don’t do this, and make my guests do this, I get my ass handed to me.”Chapter 16A book a day keeps reality away.
-Coffee Cup
Codie
So, that was what we both did.
Ace with his size fourteen boots that were covered in Lord knew what, and my tiny little Converse sneakers that had Wonder Woman on them, side by side, making me smile.
“You look like you have children’s shoes,” he teased as he looked at where my gaze was aimed.
I bit my lip, wondering if I should tell him that they were children’s shoes.
But his eyes took in my expression and he started to laugh.
“I always wondered if you could fit into kid clothes, but I didn’t want to be an asshole and ask,” he joked. “Now I know.”
I shrugged. “I can fit into youth extra-large, too. I’ve gotten more than my share of clothes at Justice. In fact, I got a sparkly mermaid skirt there a couple of days ago off of their semi-annual online sale.”
“I don’t know what that is,” he said. “But I can’t wait to see the skirt.”
“It’s a pre-teen clothing store,” Todd said as he made his way to the kitchen where a large bar separated the living room from the kitchen. When we arrived, there were tons and tons of papers spread over the large countertop. “Welcome to my office.”
Ace’s eyes went everywhere as he took in the papers strewn about, then the large kitchen that was nearly overwhelming with the country feel.
“My wife likes chickens,” Todd drawled, sounding exhausted all of a sudden. “Swear to God. I had to limit her to the kitchen, and she turned it into this.”
Ace’s lips twitched. “I just purchased about fifty chickens myself, but I’m not sure that I’m going to display their eggs like this.”
There were about five dozen eggs on the counters, displayed in various contraptions that were meant to show them off.
The coolest one looked like a spiral and stood about a foot high. Eggs of all shapes and colors were rounding the contraption.
It really was cool.
Then something he said struck me as awesome. “You bought chickens?”
Ace’s head turned toward me.
“Yes,” he said. “Forty of them already laying, and ten that are what they call juveniles because they’re not laying yet.”
My eyes lit with excitement. “I’ve always loved having chickens.”
“I’ll pay you in eggs if you come take care of them.” He paused. “Darby made me get them because a lady he knows needed to get rid of them all. She was moving. Her husband’s in the military. They can’t take them with them because they’re now stationed in Germany for two years.”
I nearly jumped up and down with excitement. “I’ll do it!”
I absolutely loved chickens!
Almost as much as I loved longhorns.
And now Ace had both?
I was fairly sure I was going to marry the man based on those two facts alone.