Courting Trouble (5 page)

“Come on, Tulsa, you know how this game is played. Ask for the stars and the moon and hope you get something that is close to a win.”

“Maybe some perspective or a sense of justice—”

“Perspective and justice are prerequisites for the petitions you file?”

“We’re not talking about me.”

“Oh, but we are.” Cade walked toward Tulsa and with each step an ounce of her bravado deflated. “We’re talking about
your
family and
your
sister and
your
niece and
your
case.”

Cade stopped inches from her and held on to the silence as long as he could without getting trapped by her eyes. “I’m not surprised you came back to help Savannah and Ash, but I am surprised you’re foolish enough to represent your own family.”

Tulsa’s head jerked up as if a realization popped into her brain. Her eyes widened and the tightness in her jaw loosened—replaced with an uncertain softness. Cade’s comment was a bucket of cold water that doused her fire.

“Would you have bum-rushed me if you weren’t related to your client? Stormed into my office, blown past my assistant, waved legal pleadings, and spouted expletives?”

“There were no expletives spouted.”

“The rest of my facts are accurate. I thought you were smarter than this. Representing Savannah? You really think you’re doing your sister and Ash a favor? You can’t even read the pleadings without getting your panties in a wad. How will you cross-examine Bobby Hopkins?”

“How I cross-examine Bobby Hopkins and my… my… panties are none of your concern!” Tulsa sputtered.

He really shouldn’t say one word more about Tulsa’s panties. Cade didn’t want to get sucked back into the whirlpool of drama that surrounded Tulsa. He met her gaze and her fierceness had resurfaced. Tulsa took a step closer to him.

Cade’s heartbeat kicked up and a low, hard knot pulled tight in the base of his spine. A heat deep in his belly began to swirl—a desire that never died.

“Get ready, Cade,” Tulsa said, her voice like honey. He felt her breath on his cheek and anger rolled off her like heat from black pavement under the mid-July sun. “I’ve been up against bigger and better than you.”

His body tensed like a wire spring.

Cade knew Tulsa.

He knew if you kissed the tiny little scar on the back of her thigh under the moonlight she quivered. He knew how afraid she was to be soft and her inability to stop running as fast as she could toward an ever-moving and unattainable goal. He knew that she’d spent a lifetime trying to clean away the McGrath past with all the money she made in Los Angeles. But what Cade didn’t know was the one thing that he wanted to know most of all: What would Tulsa McGrath do if he kissed her? Kissed her like she deserved to be kissed and the way Cade wanted to kiss her right now.

“You know,” Cade said, his voice rough-edged and throaty, “we’re not discussing Savannah and Bobby’s case anymore.” She was close enough now that heat vibrated between them.

“Really? Then what are we discussing?”

“I think we’re discussing this.”

Before he could think, before she could speak, before either could run, Cade wrapped his arm around Tulsa and pulled her body against his. Their lips connected, sweet and soft, hot and fierce.

Fire pulsed upward through Cade, from a banked heat into a furious flame. Her lips parted and Cade slid his tongue into her mouth. His heartbeat quickened and blood thundered through his head. He lifted his other hand and wrapped it into her curls. He pressed forward and desire coiled in the base of his spine—a hard, thick want, a want that never died, never dimmed, never deteriorated with time, a want for Tulsa McGrath.

Tulsa pulled back.

“We… I can’t do this,” Tulsa said, breathless. “It’s not, I can’t—”

He clamped his mouth over hers. He didn’t want to think of the “no’s” and the “shouldn’ts;” he wanted only the pleasure of her lips on his.

Heat spiraled through him, whipping upward. He pulled her to him and pressed her entire body into his. Her breasts against his chest and her hips against his.

Tulsa pushed hard on his chest. She yanked them both away from the heat. She backed toward his office door and her hands dropped to her sides. Her eyes wide, she shook her head and her gaze flitted about his office as though to remind herself where she was.

He stood still and watched her. Cade Montgomery knew a lot about Tulsa McGrath and one thing he knew for certain was when to let her go.

*

Alone on the sidewalk in front of Cade’s office, Tulsa gulped in air. The pounding in her head receded to a dull thud. She looked across the street to the courthouse, a reminder of why she was in Powder Springs.

“You can’t have him,” Tulsa whispered.

Once inside Savannah’s Jeep, Tulsa rested her forehead against the cool driver’s window. With Cade’s embrace Tulsa had felt all her shattered bits slip back into place as if her scars suddenly disappeared and she was whole. But she wasn’t whole and her broken marks still showed. She would never be whole and Cade Montgomery certainly couldn’t make her feel complete.

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and her fingers still trembled. She wished it was the cold night air that caused her hands to shake, but it wasn’t; it was Cade. Her chest still burned and her lips tingled from his kiss.

Cade was right, she was a fool. Bigger than a fool. She thought she could handle this case. She felt nearly certain she could represent Savannah and Ash against Bobby Hopkins, but in less than one day in Powder Springs she knew… She couldn’t represent Savannah. She couldn’t stand across a courtroom from Cade.

Tulsa pressed one on her phone and instead of Sylvia immediately answering, the line rang and rang and rang.

“Come on, pick up,” Tulsa whispered. She needed to speak to Sylvia. The time was still early in LA.

“McGrath, Phillips, & Lopez.”

“Emma?”

“Tulsa? Sweetie, is that you?”

Tears burned the back of Tulsa’s eyes. Tears of frustration, tears of longing, and tears of confusion. Her chest burned and humiliation pulsed through her. She wanted to be in her office high above LA. She wanted to be far from the emotional tumult, Powder Springs, and Cade Montgomery.

“Tulsa? You okay?” Emma’s soft and soothing voice nearly broke the constraints Tulsa used to keep the thick sob buried deep in her chest.

“I’m fine,” Tulsa said. She’d been in Powder Springs less than a day and already she’d dissolved into a blubbering mess. She scraped her fingers under her eyes, pushing away her tears. “Where’s Sylvia?”

“She took a document to a client. Left about a half hour ago. Do you need her?”

“Can I come home?”

“Oh, honey.” Warmth emanated from Emma’s voice. “Did you win?”

“Not yet,” Tulsa said.

“Then no. You can’t come back.”

Tulsa laughed through her tears. At McGrath, Phillips, & Lopez, winning was nearly everything. Friendship was first and the winning of cases a close second.

“It’s pretty quiet around here except Richard Maple and his soon-to-be ex-wife are fighting over the original Van Gogh they had hanging in their bedroom. They went to Sotheby’s to have it appraised.”

“The world will be lucky if those two don’t get angry and saw it in half,” Tulsa said.

Emma gasped. “Could you imagine?”

“From those two? Yes. Some couples aren’t meant to be couples. They’ve got nothing but spite to live for. You know she slept with his father.”

“Ewww,” Emma said and Tulsa imagined Emma with her eyebrows pulled tight and her nose wrinkled. “That feels almost like incest even though it’s not. Makes me all queasy inside.”

“So he slept with her sister.”

“Oh, Tulsa, no! Why do these people hurt each other so?”

The answer to that question, why soon-to-be exes clawed and slashed and tore at each other, was for far wiser minds than hers. Sour memories, leftover love turned to hate, or just a feeling of emptiness that wouldn’t ever again be filled by the person they’d let themselves love.

Tulsa glanced toward the front window of Cade’s office. The night grew blacker and through the front window Tulsa watched Cade cross the front office and lock the door.

Love hurt.

“And people wonder why I don’t get married,” Tulsa said.

“Oh honey, I don’t wonder,” Emma said. “So how can I help? There must be some reason you’re calling Sylvia.”

“Can’t I just call to say hi?” She tried to mask the sadness in her voice but knew better than to think her friend and partner couldn’t hear it.

“You could, but you don’t. You call to check on the office and to ask for things.”

In his office, Cade flipped the switch and the interior went dark, his face disappearing in the shadows. Tulsa pulled her eyes away from the window. “I need the name of the best family-law attorney specializing in child custody in Colorado.”

“And then what?” Emma asked.

“And then I need to know how much their hourly rate is so I can put them on retainer.”

“Good girl. We wondered when you’d come to your senses. Jo put twenty on the first court date. She said you’d wise up after the judge raked you over the coals for representing your own family and Sylvia… well, she wasn’t sure you’d ever get off the case.”

Tulsa’s heart twisted in her chest. “Bets? You three were betting on when I’d find another attorney for Savannah?”

“Well Tulsa, honey, we all
know
there’s a whole lot of history between you and Mr. Cade Montgomery. You may not talk about it, but we know.”

How could she be so blind to her own feelings when her feelings were so obvious to her friends?

“We knew you couldn’t handle this case. The thing that surprised all of us was that you thought you could.”

From anyone else that comment might feel like a slap, but from sweet Emma it was merely a gentle nudge.

“If you and Jo and Sylvia didn’t think I could represent Savannah then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Have you ever tried to tell you something?”

“That question is a little too esoteric for me, like asking what one hand clapping sounds like.”

“Tulsa, you are a great friend and a talented attorney, but you do not take kindly to unsolicited advice. And where family is concerned? That topic is pretty much off limits.”

“So, who won the bet?” Tulsa asked, again turning the conversation away from her family.

“I put twenty on tomorrow, so I guess that makes me the winner. I am pleasantly surprised to hear it was sooner than any one of us guessed. What turned it around for you? Met the judge? Read the pleadings?”

“No, it was more than that.”
I kissed opposing counsel
wasn’t something she wanted to tell Emma.

“No worries, girl, we’ll get started and find you the best family-law attorney in Colorado, ‘kay?” Emma chirped.

“I’m gonna have to pay through the nose for whoever it is.”

“Yes, you are,” Emma said. “Good thing our practice is busy.”

They said good-bye and Tulsa pressed the disconnect button. A deep, ragged breath rattled through her. She had returned to Powder Springs to accomplish a goal, not to rekindle a long-dead romance. She checked herself in the rearview mirror. She was an adult. A professional. She could handle finding an attorney for Savannah as well as all her simmering emotions. She was here to save her family. A Montgomery man managed to take away her mother; she sure as hell wasn’t going to let another man from the same family take away her niece, too.

Chapter Six

Focus. Self-discipline. And cold showers. Lots and lots of cold showers. Sweat trickled down Cade’s forehead from under his head-guard. He danced along the edge of the boxing ring, keeping his left arm up and his right arm ready. Tulsa McGrath was a woman, like any other woman, no matter that she had drifted through his mind each day for eighteen years or that Cade’s ex-wife, Marcia, claimed he’d never stopped loving the girl that broke his heart.

“You look dazed and confused, my brother,” Wayne said around his mouthpiece, the “s” sounding thick.

Cade wanted to make Wayne feel dazed and confused. Three traffic tickets and Tulsa McGrath all in one day? He danced forward, staying high on the balls of his feet. Three quick jabs at Wayne.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Each landed and satisfaction barreled through Cade. Wayne shook his head and tossed off the blows. A slow smile crawled across his face.

“That’s how it’s gonna be tonight?” Wayne asked.

Cade nodded. Frustration oozed through him. Even anger. He needed to beat the hell out of someone or have someone beat the hell out of him.

Jab and move. Jab and move. Jab and move.
Like an annoying mosquito buzzing around Wayne’s head, Cade moved in and out with quick bursts of speed and power and then rounded back out before Wayne could lay in a full swing.

Sweat poured off Wayne. He circled slowly, patiently. Wayne outweighed Cade by close to seventy-five pounds and Wayne’s reach was four inches longer than Cade’s. But what Wayne had in size and even punch power, he lacked in speed. When Wayne boxed, he looked like a grizzly bear trying to dance. But they both knew that if Wayne landed one heavy blow, it could be a knockout.

“You got yourself worked up in a frenzy,” Wayne said.

“You gonna box or you gonna gossip?” Cade spit out around his mouth guard.

“If you get your head in the ring, we’re gonna box.” Wayne threw a stiff uppercut.

A brick of pain pounded Cade’s jaw and his head snapped back. Sparks jolted up his spine and stars spiraled before his eyes. Damn, that stung. A half inch higher and Cade would be spread out on the floor.

Wayne wiggled his eyebrows as if to say “next one.” They were brothers. They knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

“You saw her,” Wayne said.

Cade didn’t answer. Wayne would make quick work of him if he could climb into Cade’s head.

“I got a call about a shotgun blast over on Mayweather today,” Wayne continued. “You know anything about that?”

Cade dropped his shoulders and shook his head, ready to answer Wayne just as a right hook landed on Cade’s jaw.