Ever After (Nantucket Brides 3)
Grinning, he followed her to the gym.
Chapter Seven
“Are you going to take the case?” Mrs. Westbrook asked her son, Braden. Her tone was impatient, annoyed even. But then her ambitious, hardworking son looked like he was auditioning for the role of a hobo in a 1930s movie. He was stretched out on the couch, eating potato chips and watching endless reruns of Charmed. He hadn’t shaved in days. Actually, he hadn’t even taken a shower in the week he’d been home.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I hate family law. All those tears and hurt feelings.”
She made herself count to ten. “It’s for Hallie. She needs help. Her stepsister did yet another lowdown rotten thing to her, but this time she doesn’t just need a shoulder to cry on. She needs legal help.”
“Hallie would never go to court, so some first-year student can draw up the papers. She doesn’t need someone who’s almost a partner to do it.” He gave a little snort. “Or Hallie could grow a pair and tell Shelly to get out.”
Mrs. Westbrook didn’t know when in her entire life such anger had run through her. She went to stand before him, looking down as she snatched the bag of chips out of his hands. “You may talk like that in the big city but not here and not to me. Do I make myself clear?”
Braden sat up straight on the couch and turned off the TV. “Sorry, Mom. Really, I am. I know I’ve been a burden to you this last week, but—”
She held up her hand to stop him. “I under
stand why you’re wallowing in self-pity. Your girlfriend dumped you.”
“Zara was more than a girlfriend. She was—”
“The girl who wouldn’t commit to you.” Mrs. Westbrook threw up her hands. “Braden, you are the smartest person I’ve ever met, but sometimes I wonder if you have any sense at all.”
“Mom!” he said, sounding hurt.
She sat down on the edge of the sofa. “My dear son, Zara is a two-faced lying snake. The one and only time you ever brought her home I saw her flirting with the Wilsons’ oldest boy.”
“Tommy? I hardly think Zara would go for someone like him.”
“If you ever bothered to look past her shapeless, skinny body, you’d have seen that young Tommy has grown into a real stud.”
“Mom!” He was genuinely shocked.
She lowered her voice. “Braden, my dear child, if you want actual love, why don’t you look around you? Maybe somewhere closer to home?”
He let his head fall back against the couch cushion. “Not Hallie. Please tell me you aren’t going to start that again! Hallie is a nice girl. A hard worker. She has a high pain tolerance to stand that family of hers. I’m sure she’s going to make some man a wonderful wife and produce a bunch of kids who will walk all over her.”
“Better that than a wife who will walk all over you!” his mother said and started to get up, but he caught her arm.
“Mom, I’m sorry. I apologize for this.” He motioned to the mess of empty bags around him. But he also meant his inability to make himself return to the office where he’d have to see the woman he loved with one of the partners. He’d heard that she was now wearing a five-carat engagement ring.
“I know you love Hallie,” he said. “She’s been the daughter you never had, and maybe that’s the problem. She’s like a sister to me.”
His mother narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that so? Yesterday when Shelly was outside wearing less fabric than it takes to make a handkerchief, that was the only time you got off the couch in a week. Is she also your sister?”
“Mom, please be reasonable. Shelly is so hot she stops traffic.”
“Hallie is a very pretty girl, but more than that, she has a heart. She cares about people.”
“Yes, she does.” He gave a little smile. “I just wish I could put Hallie’s heart in Shelly’s body.”
His mother did not return his smile. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do—and I’m not asking for this. You are going to get up, shower and shave, then you’re going to negotiate, mediate, take it to the courtroom, whatever you have to do, to solve this for Hallie.”
Braden opened his mouth to protest, but his mother kept talking.
“And furthermore, you’re not going to charge her a penny for any of it.”
He was looking at his mother’s face. It was the one she wore after she had repeatedly told him to pick up his toys and he still hadn’t done it. He didn’t know what would happen if he defied that look because he’d never dared to do it. “Yes” was all he managed to say.