When Lightning Strikes Twice

by Barbara Boswell

  “Townie thought it was pretty.” Misty slid him a sly glance. “And you’re right. Those stuffy, stuck-up creeps went ape-shit when they saw it.” She ran her fingertips along the curve of Quint’s jawline.

  “Let me know what you decide, Misty.” He took her hand and held it between both of his. He hoped she would interpret it as a paternal gesture, not a repelling one. And definitely not a come-on.

  But Misty’s attention was focused elsewhere, not on him at all. “I don’t want to give them anything.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Why should I? They treated me like I was lower than garbage from day one. Can we really win this, Quint?” She lost some of her bravado. “What if they take us to court and we lose?”

  “We won’t,” Quint said firmly. “I guarantee that the will will stand up in court. I ought to know; I drew it up anticipating a court fight, remember?”

  “Of course, you’ll charge me a ton of money for going to court” Misty smiled, batting her thickly mascaraed lashes at him.

  “Absolutely. I have a child to support, remember? Not to mention—oh, never mind, I’ll spare you the tale of the convoluted Cormack family ties. So your final decision is not to settle?”

  “That’s it,” Misty said grandly.

  Quint nodded his approval. “Why settle when we hold the winning hand?”

  He saw no need to mention to Misty how much he relished the prospect of taking another swipe at Saxon Associates—and winning again! Just the thought of besting Rachel Saxon and her aunt Eve and cousin Wade warmed him.

  An image of Rachel Saxon flashed before his mind’s eye. He couldn’t seem to visualize Aunt Eve or Cousin Wade very well but Rachel appeared in clear detail.

  She was the epitome of class, illuminating intelligence and good taste and impeccable manners like an aura. She was also a bona fide knockout, though he doubted she would appreciate hearing herself described in such plebeian terms. Especially by a prole like him!

  He’d heard others proclaim her resemblance to “a young Jacqueline Onassis,” and Rachel’s high cheekbones, wide-set eyes, and full generous mouth did lend credence to the comparison. But Rachel’s uptight, icy demeanor and I’ll-strike-you-dead-if-you-come-near-me-stare made the late Jackie O seem like a warmly accessible, down-home country girl.

  Quint remembered some of his meetings with various Saxons during the twists and turns of the Pedersen case. Eve was always pleasant and professional, Wade possessed a disarming mellow charm, but Rachel …

  Quint actually smiled at the memory. Rachel didn’t waste a second being pleasant or charming; she treated him like the upstart marauder she considered him to be. Those hazel eyes of hers blazed with unconcealed fury as she glowered at him, and when he came within a foot of her, she stiffened and stepped back as if to avoid contamination.

  For some reason, her wholehearted scorn amused him. It was so pure, so elemental and intense, one had to admire her for it. Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that her looks progressed from beautiful to spectacular when angry, making it a pleasure just to watch her. He’d spent a good deal of time gazing at her during those meetings …

  “Got it, Quint?” Misty’s voice suddenly resounded in his ears. “No settlement. I’m keeping it all, just like Townie wanted me to.”

  “When I’m contacted by Saxon Associates on behalf of the Tildens, I’ll tell them we’ll see them in court,” Quint said, grinning in anticipation.

  “Daddy!” A blond toddler in baggy swim trunks printed with ducks came running around the side of the house toward Quint. He was followed by a petite red-haired girl in a bright blue bikini.

  “That’s Brady and his nanny,” Quint explained, stooping down to wait for Brady to run into his arms.

  “Must be convenient having a cute young nanny living with you,” Misty said cattily.

  “It’s convenient but not the way you mean. Sarah is one of the Sheelys. See that kid over there with the lawn mower?” He pointed to the bare-chested young man starting up the mower. “He’s Shawn, another Sheely. Does yard work for a lot of people in town. Sort of a one-man business.”

  “The Sheelys?” Misty’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Is that the family with the zillion kids? The one that always wins the prize for the biggest family in Lakeview at the Fourth of July Festival?”

  “The Sheelys have ten kids, a few short of a zillion, but they still have a virtual lock on winning that particular prize.” Quint glanced up at her. “Town Senior always underwrote the costs of Lakeview’s Fourth of July Festival. Do you think you’ll keep up the tradition, Misty?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe Town Junior and the rest of the Tildens can cough up the cash for it. I’ve never been much for festivals, especially in a place where people look at me like I’m as gross as a used cat box.” Misty’s eyes returned to Sarah Sheely and Brady, and her expression grew even more bitter. “So are you sleeping with your kid’s nanny, Quint?”

  “God, no!” He laughed out loud. “Sarah is twenty-one years old and engaged to a kid her own age. She would die of shock and horror if you were ever to insinuate that there is anything between her and an old guy like me. To her, being thirty-five is having one foot in the grave.”

  Misty snickered. “Imagine what she’d think of me and Townie!”

  “Daddy!” Brady arrived and Quint scooped him up.

  “Hey, sport. Were you swimming?”

  “Swim!” Brady repeated enthusiastically.

  “Hi!” Sarah Sheely joined them, her smile including Misty. “I put out Brady’s little pool in the backyard. He’s been going wild with the hose. Look at me, I’m drenched!”

  “Swim, Daddy!” Brady demanded.

  “I may as well. You’re getting me as wet as you are.” Quint set the soaked, wriggling child on his feet and turned back to Misty. “I’m sure the Tildens set a speed record racing to their lawyers when they got our message about Town Senior’s updated will. I expect to be hearing from Saxon Associates very shortly. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Okay.” Misty permitted the chauffeur to settle her into the luxurious backseat.

  “Wow! A purple limo!” exclaimed Sarah, and they watched it move slowly down the tree-lined street. “Is that hideous or what?”

  “I suppose you prefer the traditional black? You have no imagination, Sarah,” Quint drawled. Brady was already running toward the back of the house to his pool, and the two adults followed, picking up their pace to match his.

  “Matt and me want a white limo for our wedding,” Sarah said. “You can get a six- or eight- or ten-passenger one and we’ve been pricing them but we still haven’t decided on the size yet. I guess it’ll depend on the size of the wedding party and we haven’t decided on that yet either. If I have all my brothers and sisters in it, it’ll be huge enough, but Matt and I both want some of our best friends to be bridesmaids and groomsmen, too.”

  Quint’s eyes had a tendency to glaze over when Sarah started talking about her wedding plans, which was scheduled for next May, a year away. He knew he would be hearing a lot more about it and ought to work on perfecting a feigned expression of interest.

  “So that was ancient Mr. Tilden’s slutty wife, huh?” Sarah asked, dropping the wedding talk much sooner than he’d expected. “Yikes! What a vision!”

  “Sarah, please. Misty is a client,” he scolded with mock severity. “Her checks for legal services rendered pay a lot of bills, and included among them is your salary. Now repeat after me—she is the lovely and charming widow of the late Mr. Tilden Senior.”

  “Dana told me about some of the outfits the lovely and charming widow’s worn to your office,” Sarah chattered on, undaunted. “But this was my very first Misty sighting. A forty-six double-D cup for sure. Poured into a skintight black crushed velvet jumpsuit and the spikiest heels I’ve ever seen. Color me amazed. Just think, Brady and me are wearing bathing suits today and she’s running around in crushed velvet!”

  “Maybe she’s a stickler for fashion etiquette and d
oesn’t don her summer wardrobe till after Memorial Day,” Quint replied dryly. “That would give her another week.”

  “But it’s eighty degrees today! Of course, her jumpsuit was unbuttoned almost the whole way to her navel. I guess that’s one way to keep cool. Dana says all Misty’s clothes look like they’re right out of a Hookers ‘R’ Us catalog.”

  Quint arched his brows. “Tell your sister to stop gossiping about the clients or I’ll have a talk with her myself.”

  Twenty-six-year-old Dana Sheely was the paralegal he’d hired when he had arrived in Lakeview to take over the faltering—no, in truth it was almost moribund—law practice his father had begun ten years earlier. Quint couldn’t remember if he’d hired Dana first and she had recommended her sister Sarah as a nanny or if he had hired Sarah first and she’d suggested her sister Dana as a paralegal.

  Both sisters had offered their brother Shawn—whose place in the Sheely birth order fell somewhere between them—for whatever yard work needed to be done. Quint knew that another Sheely sister—the one Sarah referred to as “the family flake”—was currently working as a receptionist at Saxon Associates. Quint enjoyed a silent chuckle every time he thought of the Saxons hiring the lone Sheely airhead.

  Sarah climbed into the small pool and sat down beside Brady, handing him a plastic cup. He filled it with water, then poured the contents over Sarah’s head. She laughed good-naturedly and did the same to him. Brady squealed with delight.

  “Hair wash!” he exclaimed.

  “That’s right, Brady, it’s like when we wash your hair,” Sarah agreed. “Brady is cool,” she observed fondly. “He never screams during a shampoo like some kids.”

  Quint felt a bittersweet warmth stealing through him. Sarah was very good with Brady. From the moment she’d moved in she had become an invaluable member of their household, but next May she might be gone. She and her husband-to-be weren’t sure of their plans, but they hoped to move to Florida after their wedding. Quint desperately hoped they wouldn’t.

  Still, having Sarah around was a stopgap measure and he knew it. She was a terrific nanny, but she was very young and full of plans for her own life. He wanted his son to have a mother complete with powerful maternal instincts and drives, a woman willing to commit herself to the unending, day-in-and-day-out constancy of raising a child. Instead, poor little Brady had Sharolyn, who acted as a mother only when it suited her own agenda.

  Quint watched Brady line up his fleet of toy ducks, naming the color of each when Sarah asked him. He was a bright little boy, learning new things every day. And though he seemed to have made a good adjustment this past year, Quint wondered. Brady had spent the first year of his life with his mother, the second year with his father and Sarah. Moved from California to New Jersey.

  Sometimes the enormous changes still boggled Quint’s mind. What did little Brady make of it all?

  Brady deserved a mother like Quint’d had, a strong, loving, fiercely dedicated woman who willingly accepted the sacrifices and inconveniences of child rearing, who’d taken them on with humor and grace. Sharolyn certainly didn’t fit the bill; Sarah Sheely would fill that role for her own children.

  Of course, providing a permanent live-in mother for Brady would mean marriage, a fact that never failed to send a dark chill through him. The Cormack marital track record wasn’t very good; in fact, it was abysmal. His father had been married four times. Quint and Sharolyn’s unwanted quickie marriage of necessity had barely lasted till the end of her pregnancy. No, maintaining a successful marriage was not a talent that ran in his gene pool.

  “Duck, Daddy. Blue duck.” Brady held it up for Quint to see.

  “Blue duck,” he repeated. “Show me the red one, Brady.”

  Brady chose the correct duck, garnering much praise.

  “Y’know, the Saxons are going to freak out when they hear about an updated will,” Sarah said conversationally, as Brady began to throw the ducks out of the pool, one by one. “They’re real thick with the Tildens. Wade gets sick of it. He told Dana that sometimes he feels like a—”

  “Wade Saxon?” Quint’s ears perked. “He talks to Dana?”

  “Sure. They’re practically best friends.” Sarah grinned. “What a waste, huh? Wade’s so cool. And smart and rich, not to mention a definite hunk. But Dana’s dating some nerdy actuary and Wade is—well, I don’t know who his girlfriend is this month, but he’s sure to be dating somebody. He always is.”

  “Did Wade ever say anything to Dana about the Pedersen Car Shoppe case?” Quint cut in, not at all interested in either Wade or Dana’s personal lives. But the idea of having access to the inner workings of Saxon Associates made him feel like a bloodhound must when getting that first whiff of a scent on the trail.

  “Oh man, did he ever!” exclaimed Sarah. “Dana said the Saxons were obsessed with that case! They couldn’t believe they’d lost. And to you!”

  “Ouch, I think.”

  “I mean, the Saxons always win. Or they always used to. Your dad wasn’t exactly much competition,” Sarah said frankly. “Then you came and things changed. We’re sure the only reason they hired Katie to work at their snobby firm is because Dana works for you.”

  “They’re hoping some of the magic will rub off, huh?” Quint drawled. “Does Dana ever mention Rachel Saxon?”

  He sounded casually offhand. Well, why shouldn’t he? He was merely on a fishing expedition here, looking for some extraneous facts that might prove useful in future litigation. Because if the Tildens reacted as expected, it wouldn’t be long before he was again sparring with Saxon Associates. With Rachel Saxon. A distinctly pleasurable tingle of heat radiated through him.

  “Rachel is Wade’s cousin,” said Sarah. “She kinda drives him nuts.”

  “Ah.”

  “Wade is calm and laid-back and Rachel is—how does Dana put it?—wound really tight. Really, really tight. She, like, lives for her work—probably because there isn’t anything else in her life.”

  “Nothing else? She’s a very attractive woman, surely there is a man who—”

  “A man for the Freezer Queen?” Sarah giggled. “Wade told Dana that Rachel could end global warming all by herself, just send her out on a few dates.”

  “She’s cold, huh?”

  “The word is Lady Antarctica never melts.”

  “Though many have tried to defrost her?” Quint no longer sounded casual. He waited for more details with an eagerness he rarely felt for anything anymore. Not even Misty Tilden’s multimillion-dollar inheritance had fired his enthusiasm like imagining …

  What exactly was he imagining?

  Another one of those images of Rachel that he’d unwittingly stored in his mind played before him. Rachel standing rigidly in court wearing a custom-tailored, impeccably neat pale gray suit, her hair as dark, thick and rich as sable, cut in a precisely perfect bob that swung just below her chin without a strand ever out of order. He’d watched her, fascinated, during the entire Pedersen trial, waiting for her clothing to show a single wrinkle, or maybe for her hair to be rustled, even slightly, by the annoying air vents in the ceiling that blew everybody else’s hair, including his own.

  But it had never happened. Her clothing stayed impeccable, and her beautiful hair was impervious to the air vents. She remained as pristine and perfect as a porcelain doll secured behind a glass dome. Clearly, being wrinkled and mussed was not a condition achievable to Rachel Saxon.

  Intimidating fastidiousness. Iciness beyond the essence of the human condition. Sarah had called her Lady Antarctica. It was obvious, Rachel was a textbook case of untouchable frigidity. From the looks and the sounds of it, she could qualify as the poster girl for the Sexual Repression Foundation, should one exist.

  Quint felt his breathing quicken and his loins begin to grow heavy. He had no difficulty identifying his symptoms of sexual arousal, but the cause floored him. The idea of sexual repression was turning him on?

  He hadn’t expected it to come to this, but ma
ybe he shouldn’t be surprised. The last time he’d had sex had been during his short miserable marriage to Sharolyn and it had been duty sex, lousy for both Sharolyn and himself. Perhaps to punish himself—getting Sharolyn pregnant on their third date had been an epic blunder—he’d cut himself off. No sex, not even a single meaningless one-night stand.

  Maybe his body was now experiencing the consequences of acting against nature. Simply discussing a sexually repressed woman who hated his guts was arousing him. He was becoming unhinged, a victim of self-induced celibate lunacy.

  “Wade says no sane man is brave enough to take on Rachel, let alone get lucky with her,” Sarah prattled on cheerfully.

  Quint felt as if he were strangling. He cleared his throat. “Is—Is that so?”

  “You have a really weird look on your face, Quint.” Sarah was staring at him. Her eyes widened. “Omigod, you’re not thinking of trying to nail Rachel Saxon, are you?”

  He quickly attempted to rearrange his features into an impassive mask. “Of course not. I’m—uh—merely trying to plot strategy in the Tilden case.”

  “Cause Rachel is really pretty.” Sarah continued to study him curiously. “But you won’t get anywhere with her, Quint. Wade told Dana that more guys have struck out with Rachel than have been up to bat in the history of baseball.”

  “Definitely some hyperbole there, but I get the point. Thanks for your advice, Sarah,” Quint gritted through his teeth.

  Lectured by a twenty-one-year-old nanny. He was truly humbled.

  2

  Rachel’s hands trembled. Her insides felt as if they’d been twisted into knots. Her face was flushed, her breathing rapid and shallow.

  “Hey, cuz, are my eyes deceiving me?” Wade Saxon appeared in the doorway of her office and leaned against the frame. “You actually look ready to blow your cool. Seems we’re on the verge of an historic occasion here.”

  “Have you seen what arrived via messenger this morning?” Rachel asked tightly, ignoring his cousinly humor. Wade took nothing seriously. Unlike her.