Love in Deed: A Silver Fox Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 6)

by Smartypants Romance

  “Julius & Caesar is the name.”

  Naomi snorts, and I double-check I have a house key, cell phone, and wallet. I’m not a purse person, so I tuck these items into the various pockets of an old barn coat, which is two sizes too big for me.

  “You realize there’s irony in a name like that for an attorney’s office.”

  I stare back at my sister. I don’t have time for her library humor today. Though, on second thought, I’ll need it once we return.

  “Can you drive me or not?” I ask, falling into the familiar rhythm of snapping out interrogatives. I take a deep breath and mutter an apology under my breath. Naomi blinks, her head flicking back as if I’ve startled her.

  “You okay, Bev?”

  “No. I want a divorce,” I admit, and Naomi blinks again. Slowly, her face cracks. The grin grows at the corner until finally, a full-wattage, wide-mouthed smile graces her face.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she says, and tears threaten my eyes. I won’t cry, I tell myself. No more tears for Howard.

  “I just want to be free.” Let love in. The thought whispers through me, and I recall telling my sister the same words. I want to be free to love again. To love Jedd. I want to say yes if he ever decides to ask me to marry him in earnest, not while flirting up against a wall. But I can’t worry about that yet. First, I need this step.

  I’m nervous being at the law offices of Julius & Caesar. Naomi wasn’t wrong in suggesting there’s an irony to their name, but the irony isn’t in their title. With a limited number of attorney offices in Green Valley, I found Janice Julius’s name in a pile of papers left behind by Ewell. Her office is in Merryville, and I thought I’d feel more comfortable speaking to a woman about my situation until I see who the woman is.

  A beautiful brunette with raven black hair, despite her over forty appearance, and brilliant blue eyes greets us as we sit in the cramped lobby to their offices.

  “Hello, I’m Janice Julius.” I stare at her, not accepting her offered hand as déjà vu arrests me in my seat. Janice looks at my sister, whose eyes are boring into the side of my face, but I can’t look away from the woman.

  “You need an injury law attorney?” The thick Hispanic accent of a man in his mid-thirties interrupts my stare down.

  “What?” I choke on the question. He points with a dragging finger up and down my leg.

  “You need. An injury. Attorney?”

  My brows pinch, and Janice turns to the man. “She isn’t hard of hearing. She’s here for a divorce.”

  The demeanor of the man shifts as he brushes a hand down his tie. He clears his throat, placing a fist over his lips, and then reaches forward to introduce himself with a handshake.

  “Ramirez Caesar, at your service. Number one divorce attorney in Merryville.” His voice is miraculously clear of his accent.

  “I’m pretty certain you’re the only divorce attorney in Merryville.” Janice shakes her head at her partner, and I realize I haven’t shaken either hand offered to me. I slowly stand, not liking my position of being lower than either of them as I greet them.

  “I’m Beverly Townsen.” My eyes narrow in on Janice, but she evidently does not remember me. However, I’ll never forget the shocked hurt of her pretty face as she looked out a screen door—now on my porch—and questioned Howard.

  You promised it would never happen again.

  Howard one-upped that promise. He impregnated the girl.

  The reality of who I am was slow to dawn on her professionally polished face. Horn-rimmed glasses that would look nerdish on some looked stylish on her. Bright red lips. A crisp navy-blue suit. She was everything I was not, and Howard gave her up for me.

  He didn’t have a choice.

  “I think I’ve made a mistake,” I say, placing a hand on my belly, willing myself not to vomit in the tight confines of this room.

  “You don’t want a divorce?” Ramirez Caesar asks.

  “She wants a divorce,” Naomi speaks up for me.

  “I don’t think you should represent me,” I blurt, looking at the beautiful woman before me. I hate how threatened I feel by her presence even though she did nothing wrong to me. I wronged her, and she’s standing here as if nothing ever happened. I repeat my name with emphasis. “I’m Beverly Townsen.”

  “I know who you are,” she says patiently although her brows pinch for a fraction of a second.

  “Oh, you know one another. This is good. Good, good,” Mr. Caesar states. “But I’m still the divorce attorney in this office.” He turns a pinched smile on his partner and turns back to me. “If you’d like to follow me.” He waves a hand and steps back for me to lead the way to his office.

  Naomi follows me down the short, narrow hall, and Ramirez calls out, “First door.”

  We enter another small room with an oversized desk with piles of folders on the floor. Mr. Caesar steps over them and collapses into his seat. He swipes a hand through his jet black hair and smiles at me as he folds his hands on the desk, equally cluttered with pens, papers, and more file folders.

  “So whose ass do we want to dump?” he begins, and Naomi snorts.

  On the return drive to my home, I mentally review all I’ve learned after I filled in Naomi on the particulars of my history with Janice Julius. The woman engaged to Howard. Eventually, Ewell’s attorney. I don’t know the story of how the two connect, but it doesn’t matter.

  My divorce is considered a fault-based divorce in the state of Tennessee, which is proven by Howard’s voluntary desertion of Hannah and myself.

  “We need to give public notice in the local paper. The Valley Chronicle will suffice, and maybe another notice in Knoxville. In general, it states your claim to divorce,” Ram explained, telling me that twenty years of absent Howard should be enough evidence to prove abandonment, but the legality of a formal announcement shows due diligence on my part to officially divorce. I bite my tongue at having to show good faith toward Howard for anything. However, I want everything legal and binding to officially remove Howard from my life. The whole process could take months, but hopefully less if Howard doesn’t respond within the court-appointed posting schedule.

  The question of property and assets was mentioned but quickly dismissed to be discussed later. I’m assuming Howard and I would split the sale of the land unless I wish to buy him out, which I can’t afford. Jedd comes to mind. Maybe I should sell it to him. He’s already built a stable and gone to Nashville to purchase horses. The land is more his in spirit in less than two months than it has been mine in decades. I’d be sad to part with my home, but it’s time. It’s time to move forward, as Naomi reminds me.

  “Speaking of time,” I begin, swallowing back the next big decision. “I was wondering if you could teach me how to search for something on the computer.”

  Naomi’s head swivels as she drives, but she quickly returns her attention to the road. However, I don’t miss the look of shock on her face.

  “What do you need help with?”

  “I’d like to learn how to make soap.”

  “Soap?” Naomi questions.

  “Yes, soap.”

  “Soap,” she repeats.

  “Soap,” I state, finding this conversation strangely reminiscent of the one with Jedd when I first mentioned the interest. I have no idea if it really will interest me, but I don’t want to dismiss his efforts to help me find something other than Hannah’s assigned hobbies.

  “Jedd. He…uh…he thought I’d like to learn to make soap, and he bought me the ingredients. He also ordered some essential oils to fragrance the bars, and I’d like to try…” My voice fades. It sounds silly, right? But Naomi smiles, her hands gripping the wheel at a perfect ten and two while she drives.

  “Bev, I can teach you how to make soap. I do it all the time.”

  “You do?” I ask, never having recalled this about my sister. It makes sense that my tree-hugging, book-loving, sews-her-own-clothes sister could also make soap, but as snarky as I sound about my sist
er’s interest, I give her credit for knowing who she is and living by it. I swallow back the difficulty in asking the next question.

  “Naomi, could you teach me how to make soap?”

  My sister’s lip trembles, and she rolls them inward, fighting off some emotion.

  “Beverly, there’s nothing I’d like more than to teach you how to make soap.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  [Jedd]

  It’s late when I return to the farm. I should tell Beverly I’ve returned. Maybe warn is a better word. I was able to get out of my head for a few days, reveling in the thrill of horse purchasing and traveling back to Green Valley with a sense of pride. I owned these horses, my heart pinching only once or twice in memory of the one I last rode.

  Damn activists. You want to stand up for a cause, be educated about it.

  I dismiss the thoughts of my final buck ride as I drive the horse trailer over the bumpy gravel leading to the new stable. With the help of others, the new building holds stalls from recycled materials. I’d been over to Hasting’s on a couple of occasions, never finding Boone present or any evidence he’d been back until my most recent visit. Something struck me as off. I couldn’t place my finger on it, but my mind kept drifting back to the kitchen. What was different? What stood out of place?

  My mind wondered as I groomed the horses after getting them out of the trailer. Chattering softly to them, I ask them if they liked their new home. The soothing strokes of brushing their flanks, fetching fresh water, feeding them oats and hay, and a final check for the first night gave me untold satisfaction.

  Still, something niggled at my brain when I finally rolled myself onto the cot in the darkness after midnight. I’d taken a quick soap-and-rinse shower, which was shockingly frigid in the cold air of the barn. Mid-November was turning down the thermostat, and I didn’t know how much longer I could handle sleeping in the drafty, antiquated structure. I’d built up my room good and solid, but I’d need a little wood stove or something to stay warm, and the thought of adding the necessary chimney stack and flue was just one more thing on my growing list of things to be done.

  My mind skittered all over when I first hit the pillow, but my body was tired from another day of hard work. It seemed like a dream to go out on my own. Find land. Purchase horses. Raise them right. But there was a moment on the ride home and more than once while I was struggling to get the darn Quarter Horses out of the trailer when I wished I’d had another set of hands. I’d come to terms with the hands I have, and I manage just fine, but I’d been thinking in a more metaphorical sense, like a partner in my pursuit of happiness, and not just the financial sort.

  I’d decided this was the reason I’d asked Beverly to marry me—a rash and hasty, spur-of-the-moment suggestion which turned into THE question—and she’d turned me down, with good reason.

  She was still in love with her husband. Her missing, deserting, disloyal husband.

  I don’t understand that kind of love. That selfless, never-ending kind Beverly must hold for a man who clearly did her wrong. My momma was like that with Hasting. Whether I like the idea or not, I’d have to get over myself. Going after a woman whose heart belonged to another, especially one whose heart remained with an absent husband, was not my kind of quest. She rejected the notion of marrying me, plain and simple, and it stung.

  However, my dreams were filled of Beverly—so much for the pep talk to let her go—and when a gentle tickle traveled up my arm and my name was whispered, I thought my brain was playing a trick on me.

  “Bee?” I hissed, when my eyes flipped open startled at her presence leaning over the cot. “What’s wrong?” Like a jack-in-the-box springing upward, I sit up, which startles her, and she stumbles backward. On reflex, I reach for the back of her neck, which almost topples her onto me. Scanning her body for harm, I find her dressed in an extra-large Irish-knit cardigan and what looks like a long slip plus cowboy boots.

  “I…I…” She seems to swallow, words escaping her as she stands in the darkness of the cold barn, and it is dark. Too dark. I can only make out the outline of her body, and I want to see more.

  “You shouldn’t be wandering around outside this late.” I have no doubt Beverly can take care of herself, and she’s never suggested she was afraid of being out here in the middle of so many acres without a neighbor. Still, that niggling feeling about the old house raises my hackles when I think of Beverly traipsing around on her property after midnight.

  “I wanted to make sure you were back okay. Wanted to know if you needed anything.”

  Needed anything? In the middle of the night? My brows pinch, but she can’t see me in the pitch black. My hand slips from her neck to stroke up and down her sweater covered arm.

  “I’m okay, Beverly.” The words hang in the air, lingering with more but left unsaid.

  Are you okay? Are you really still in love with him?

  “Okay, well, then…” She pulls back, but I lean forward, following her retreat.

  “Whatcha need, honey?” I ask, my voice dropping. Her face lowers toward the bed. Without an answer, I flip open the sleeping bag, which isn’t zipped. I’m only dressed in my skivvies and a T-shirt, preferring to sleep with the blanket she made me against my skin, which prickles with the possibility of Beverly climbing on this cot. It’s going to be a tight fit, and that’s just what I want.

  She doesn’t speak as she spins herself, removes her arms from the cuffs of her crutches, and lowers toward the taunt mattress. She sits a second, and I’m thinking she’ll change her mind. I lower myself to my side and rub my hand up her back, again feeling the intricate pattern of the wool sweater over her. She shifts to straighten her spine. If she’s rejecting me, what’s she doing out here? But I remain patient, silent.

  Beverly slips her shoulders from the sweater and tugs the material forward. Underneath, she wears something silky that exposes her shoulders and is fitted to her breasts. Then she shifts to her hip and lowers to her side, settling herself in the narrowness between the piping-edge of the cot and my front.

  “Is this okay?” she states, not looking at me but facing out at the black shadows of my room. Her voice is low but loud enough, as she knows I can’t hear her if she whispers.

  “It’s all good,” I murmur, slipping my arm around her waist. My nose rubs at the edge of her short hair. The satiny material is cool under my palm, but her skin is warm at my nose.

  “The other day…” she begins. “I want to explain.”

  “No need to say anything.” It was my fault. I took it too far.

  “I’m sorry about Howard,” she continues.

  “Me too, honey.”

  “I don’t love him,” she says, and I freeze, my position a permanent hold on her. “It isn’t that I don’t want to remarry.”

  I notice she doesn’t say you—she just doesn’t want to marry period—and I’m ready to retort that I wasn’t really asking, slip of the tongue and all that, but her hand moves, and she swipes at her cheek. I press my nose deeper into her nape.

  Don’t cry over him. “What did he do to you, Beverly?”

  “He wasn’t nice,” she says, her voice meek mixed with a silent sob. I tighten my arm around her. With a heavy, choking sound, she adds. “And I filed for divorce.”

  “Bee, don’t do anything you don’t want to do.” What are you doing? my heart screams, and my dick echoes with growing enthusiasm as the thinness of Beverly’s nightgown isn’t much of a match for the cotton of my boxer briefs. “I’m not mad that you’re still married or that you didn’t tell me. I just don’t understand if you still love him.”

  “I don’t love him,” she repeats. “And the divorce is long overdue.” Her fingers hesitantly rub the hairs of my forearm. The tender, light touch feels nice and reminds me of when I was young. My mother would tickle over my arm when I was a restless boy refusing to take a nap, and I’d be asleep in no time. My lids fall heavy with the weight of the past few days, but I don’t want to sleep yet.
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  “Howard was my first. I was raised thinking he’d be the only one, and I settled for that notion. I thought this was how it was supposed to be. He never struck me, but he was so mean. I know it could have been worse, but some days…it was so hard. Nothing I did pleased him. He ignored everything I said. And then in the bedroom…” Her words drift.

  “He was a fool.” My nose rubs back and forth at the fine hairs on her neck.

  “I felt so dirty. He was with so many others.” Her voice chokes, and I tug her tighter.

  “Shhh, honey. It doesn’t matter now. He’s gone. Long gone.” And good riddance.

  “I never thought I’d be in a position where it mattered.”

  “Where what mattered?” I inhale the hope in my chest.

  “Where it mattered that I was married. Where I’d find someone else and being married would be in the way.”

  “Beverly, what are you saying? Are you thinking I might be that someone?”

  “Now, don’t be getting a big head, Jedd,” she admonishes, no bite in her wet voice as she struggles between tears and a laugh.

  “If I had a big head, it wouldn’t fit in this bed,” I tease. Although there is another head attached, and it is getting bigger.

  “This is hardly a bed,” she retorts. She isn’t wrong. It’s stiff and tight, and I’d sleep on it every night if it meant she’d rest this close to me. We remain silent a minute, and my lids lower, breathing her in. Sunshine and honey. She’s also heat, and I grow sleepy and comfortable.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” she says, and I’m surprised I’ve heard her with her voice so quiet. Snuggling her into my chest, I tell her the truth.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Bee.”

  I wake with a jolt, dreaming once again of Beverly. This time she’s riding a horse, racing off for the woods, and somehow, I know it’s dangerous. Despite the danger, she looks beautiful. She’s dressed in something silky and body clinging, and her sweater slips off her shoulder as it often does. Her head turns so she sees me over her shoulder, and her short hair whips in the wind. She smiles back, laughter ready to escape, and then bam! I’m awake and can’t quite pinpoint what happens to her in my dream, but I tug her closer to me, thankful she’s still on the cot.