Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) (18 page)

Even though he’d lived next door back then,
he’d still ended every night by calling Livy. She’d said she wanted
his voice to be the last thing she heard so it would follow her
into the dark of the night. Livy hadn’t known that her voice would
follow him through the empty darkness of many years to follow.

Her phone rang, a shrill happy sound in
contrast to the muted pulse of loneliness in his heart. But when
she picked up, her voice a breathless “Hello?” Garrett’s heart
thudded faster. Suddenly he had no idea what to say.

“Hello?” she said again, impatient now.

“Hello.” Silence filled the line. He could
see her standing next to her bed, holding the phone to her ear,
frowning so hard her pretty face wrinkled. There was no question
she knew his voice. That was what the silence was all about as she
tried to decide if she should slam the phone down now or later.

“Don’t hang up. Please. I only wanted to make
sure everything was all right.’’

“We’re fine.” Though her voice was wary, not
friendly, it wasn’t unfriendly, either.

“Your mother?”

“In jail. She stole a goose and she won’t
give it back.”

Garrett couldn’t help it. He laughed.
Amazingly, Livy laughed, too. He was so startled he stopped
laughing so he could listen to her.

She laughed exactly as she always had, with
abandon and joy. The sound was a bit rusty, and she stopped too
soon, when she realized she was alone in her laughter, but the joy
was still in her. Suddenly Garrett was determined to dig through
the present all the way back to that past.

“I always loved to hear you laugh.”

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t tell him to
shut up, either. He was making incredible progress.

Something had changed, he could feel it, but
he wasn’t sure what. She should still be furious at him for the
scare he’d given her, albeit unintentionally. Instead, she was
letting him talk, joke, even bring up the past she’d forbidden him
to mention.

“I haven’t had much to laugh about in a long
time,” she admitted.

“Your mother sounds pretty funny.”

“She’s a joke a minute,” Livy said. “But you
don’t have to live with her.”

Livy had a problem with her mother. Easy for
him to understand, since he had problems of his own with his
father. Garrett decided not to press a new issue when there were so
many old ones to chose from.

“Max is a wonder,” he began. “Some of the
things he says are so original, so bright and brilliant … I don’t
know how you can’t smile, if not laugh all the time.”

An impatient exhale was followed by silence.
He’d said something wrong. Garrett waited for the
click
of
the disconnect. Instead, he heard “Thank you,” in a grudging though
sincere tone.

“For what?”

“You gave Max a way to conquer his fears.
Though I can’t say your method makes the least bit of sense to me,
I’m happy he’s happy. I’ve never been of any use when he talks to
me about things that go bump in the night.”

“It was my pleasure.” Garrett hesitated,
unsure if he had the right to any request, least of all the one he
was compelled to make. “I hope you didn’t punish him for visiting
me.”

“He scared me to death!”

“I know. But he was scared, too. I don’t want
to tell you how to raise him. I don’t want to horn in where I don’t
belong, but—”

“I didn’t punish him,” she interrupted. She
sounded as surprised about it as he was. “I should ground him until
he’s twenty-five, but that doesn’t seem to work very well with
Max.”

“Why?” Grounding had never worked with
Garrett, either, because he always for—

“He forgets.”

Garrett’s lips curved in the cool, quiet
darkness of the Savannah night.

“He doesn’t mean to disobey me. For a day,
maybe two, Max is exactly where he belongs. Then something
wonderful comes by—on the wind, in the grass, across his brain like
a breeze, and he’s gone. When I find him, he blinks at me like
Mister Magoo. He has no idea what it is he’s done that’s made me
insane.”

“I was that way, too.”

“How can something so capricious be carried
in the genes?”

“My father would say it certainly didn’t come
from him.”

The sentence dropped between them. Another
long silence ensued. Garrett wished he hadn’t brought up his
father. The memories always put a damper on any happiness he might
have found.

“You never mentioned your father. You never
mentioned your past at all.”

“Because it was past.” He heard the ice in
his voice.

Livy heard something more. “You don’t like
him.”

“I don’t
have
to like him. He’s my
father.”

“Sounds like a line directly out of your
father’s mouth.”

For an imagination-deficient attorney, Livy
was mighty perceptive.

Garrett grunted and Livy chuckled. Not a full
blown laugh, but he liked the sound almost as well. Maybe if he
could laugh about James, Sr. he might feel better all around. But
he wasn’t that emotionally healthy.

“Max wrote a great story about his closet
monster.”

Well, at least someone is writing
something great
.

“Sometimes I have no idea what to do with
him.” The laughter had gone out of Livy’s voice. “I don’t
understand him. But you knew right off what he needed.”

“Because I needed it once, too. Still
do.”

“You’re afraid of closet monsters?”

“My fears are adult fears now, but none the
less invisible and full of teeth.”

“What are you afraid of, Garrett?”

The night wind ruffled his hair, the past
whispered along his neck, memories sprang to life unbidden and he
shivered at the knowledge of all that he feared.

“I’m afraid I’ll never be the writer everyone
expects me to be. That I’ll never find a woman as wonderful as the
girl I left behind. That I’ll never be the father my son deserves.
But you know what I’m afraid of the most?”

“What?” Livy’s voice was hoarse, perhaps with
unspoken fears of her own.

“That I’ll never even get the chance to
try.”

The
click
he’d been expecting all
along shocked him. Garrett listened until he heard the dial tone.
Then he got up and drove to the place called “Good Fortune,”
wondering if he’d ever find any of his own.

“We’ve got trouble,” Kim whispered.

Livy didn’t look up; she was too busy trying
to find some precedent, any precedent, on goose stealing. She
needed this case thrown out, not sent to trial, because at trial
they’d lose. Unfortunately, there weren’t any goose-stealing
precedents to be had.

Kim’s whisper became urgent. “Judge McFie
trouble.”

“What?”

Kim nodded toward the bench. They were in
trouble, all right.

Judge Lamont McFie was presiding. The last
time Rosie had gone in front of him, her fine had doubled and he’d
promised on the next occurrence to make an example of her for all
the other troublemakers to consider.

“Double damn,” Livy muttered.

She was not up for any dips and turns this
morning. She’d spent another nearly sleepless night, this time
thinking about Garrett’s call and the sincerity in his voice when
he’d spoken of Max. Parental insecurity was something she could
identify with, and Garrett’s had made him far too appealing.

Once she’d fallen asleep she’d dreamed just
the way she always used to after J.J. called. As a result she’d
overslept, awakening aroused from those dreams and annoyed that
she’d had them at all.

Too little sex. That’s all it was. She could
not still be attracted to the man who had crushed her heart. She
would
not be.

To top everything off, when she’d delivered
Max to school, he’d put his nose to hers and stared into her eyes.
“Bring Rosie home for me. I know you can do it. You’re the
best.”

Livy took a deep breath and laid her hand
over her chest, where it hurt. Max didn’t ask for much, so why had
he asked for something she wasn’t sure she’d be able to give him?
Livy didn’t want to see his face when she told him she’d failed and
his beloved Rosie was in jail for goosenapping.

“Calm down.” Kim patted her arm. “There’s no
proof your mother did this. No one saw her. She didn’t confess.”
Livy just raised her eyebrows, an expression Kim ignored. “Even
Judge McFie can’t lock her up on the basis of circumstantial
evidence and a crazy reputation.”

“I hope you’re right. But I wouldn’t bet the
farm on it.”

“Me, neither.”

Not only was Judge McFie fed up with Rosie,
but he was fed up with a lot of people—and the system as it stood
today. Having worn the robes of his trade for nigh onto forty
years, he dispensed his own brand of justice, believing the bench
was a place for the men who were closest to God. Of course, the
joke around the courthouse was that McFie was closer to God than
anyone by virtue of age alone.

Just then the side entrance of the court
opened and Rosie waltzed out.

Once again her mother had not dressed in the
simple pale pink sheath Livy had bought for court appearances.
Instead she looked as if she’d borrowed clothes from her slumber
party pals. The neon-orange halter top was made only minimally less
risqué by the addition of a bright-red blouse for a jacket. Her
combat boots looked perfect with her black leather skirt. She’d
released her hair from the usual braid, so the kinky tresses
swirled about her shoulders like a black-and-white flag.

“At least she didn’t wear the T-shirt that
says
Ninety-nine Percent Of Lawyers Give The Rest A Bad
Name,”
Kim pointed out. “I don’t think the judge would find it
as funny as I did.”

“This is going to be a very long
morning.”

A commotion at the back of the court drew
everyone’s attention. The assistant district attorney had arrived,
and he had friends. Livy resisted the urge to put her head down on
the table and hide.

Viola and Violet were dressed for the
occasion in morning frocks of blue and gray. No hats for the
courtroom, or gloves at this time of day, but their matching pumps
clipped on the hardwood floor as they approached.

“This is a hearing,” Livy stated to no one in
particular.
“They
don’t have to be here.”

“Did you really think they’d miss this?” Kim
asked.

“Mama, why did you have to steal their
goose?”

“Didn’t,” Rosie said out of the side of her
mouth like an actor in a bad Mafia movie, before she took a seat at
Livy’s side.

The assistant district attorney, a young man
who was probably the son of the son of someone the sisters had
dated, tried to usher “the people” to the area reserved for
spectators when court was in session. But the two women were having
none of it. Instead, they marched to the defense table.

“Rosie Cannaught, you’re gonna get yours
now,” Miss Violet said.

“What am I getting?” Rosie asked.

“A trip to jail.”

“Had one. No, make that ten.” She snickered
and Kim joined in.

“Stop it,” Livy ordered through her
teeth.

“You know, they probably hid the goose just
to get me in trouble.”

“She keeps saying that.” Miss Violet leaned
down and shouted, “Where’s my goose, hippie?” in Rosie’s face.

Rosie went for the throat, but Livy grabbed
her around the waist and hauled her back into the chair. “Not
now.”

“Later?”

“Maybe,” Livy promised. The sisters were
starting to get on her nerves, and Rosie had had to put up with
them for a lot longer than she had. Whatever happened to the
“ladies don’t shout” rule? Obviously, that rule only applied to
other ladies.

“Did you see that?” Miss Viola asked the
judge. “She tried to kill Sister. A menace, that’s what she is and
always has been. She should be locked away from decent people.”

“That remains to be decided,” the judge said,
though he appeared exasperated. “Let’s get started.”

The assistant DA tried again to send the
sisters to the gallery. They ignored him, sitting at the
prosecution’s table as if they belonged there. From the expression
on the baby lawyer’s face, he didn’t have the gumption to make them
move. Livy really couldn’t fault him.

“What’s the charge?” McFie asked.

“The people charge the defendant under the
Criminal Code of Georgia, section 16-8-20. Livestock theft, Your
Honor.”

“Haven’t heard that one in a while. Felony or
misdemeanor?”

“Felony.”

Kim cursed and Livy glanced her way. Kim had
a mind that retained legal statutes the way a tape recorder
retained sound. She’d clearly read section 16-8-20, and it wasn’t
good.

“What?” Livy whispered.

“Felony livestock theft is punishable by one
to ten, and a fine of ten thousand dollars.”

Now Livy cursed.

“But to be classified as a felony, the fair
market value of the animal has to be over one hundred dollars.”

“I object,” Livy said.

Judge McFie looked down his nose at Rosie,
then turned his piercing eyes toward Livy. “About what?”

“Fair market value has to be over one hundred
dollars for a felony livestock theft.”

The judge glanced at the assistant DA for an
explanation.

“It cost that much to train this goose, Your
Honor.”

“What do you have to say now, Counselor?”

“No one saw her take it. She says she didn’t
take it” Livy shrugged. “No proof but hearsay, Your Honor. I
request my client be released immediately. This entire matter is a
joke.”

“With her, it usually is.” McFie turned his
attention back to Rosie. “Give up the goose, Rosie, and this will
all go away.”

“Your Honor!” He had no right to treat Rosie
as if she were guilty. It was completely against the rules.

Rosie stood. “I take the Fifth.”

Livy pulled her back down. “If you want me to
help you, you need to keep quiet unless I ask you to talk. We’ve
been over this.”