The Manning Grooms

Page 47

“He won’t be back,” Summer said confidently. She knew Brett’s ego was fragile and he wouldn’t return after being humiliated.
“You’re right, he won’t,” James insisted darkly, “because you’re filing a restraining order first thing tomorrow morning.”
Summer nodded, wishing she’d thought of doing it earlier.
“This isn’t the first time he’s pestered you, is it?”
Summer lowered her gaze.
“He’s the reason you had your phone number changed, isn’t he?”
She gave a small nod.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What could you have done from Seattle?”
“You should have told me. I could at least have offered you some advice. For that matter, why didn’t you tell your father?”
James was furious and she suspected she was about to receive the lecture of her life. When nothing more came, she raised her eyes to her husband—and wanted to weep.
His face was a mess. His eye was completely swollen now. It might have been better if she could’ve convinced him to apply the ice pack. Anyone looking at him would know instantly that her husband the judge had been involved in an altercation—and all because of her.
The police left soon afterward.
“Can I get you anything?” Summer asked guiltily as they entered the apartment.
“I’m fine,” he said curtly.
But he wasn’t fine. His hands were swollen, his knuckles scraped and bleeding. All at once he started to blur, and the room spun. Everything seemed to be closing in on her. Panic-stricken, Summer groped for the kitchen counter and held on until the waves of dizziness passed.
“Summer? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I got a little light-headed, that’s all.” She didn’t mention how close she’d come to passing out. Even now, she felt the force of her will was the only thing keeping her conscious.
James came to her and placed his arm around her waist, gently guiding her into the living room. They sat on the sofa, and Summer rested her head against his shoulder, wondering what was wrong with her.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, fighting back tears.
“For what?”
“The fight.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“But, James, you have a terrible black eye. What will people say?” She hated to think about the speculation he’d face when he returned to Seattle, and it was all on account of her. Perhaps she should’ve told him that Brett was bothering her, but she hadn’t wanted to burden him with her troubles.
“Everyone will figure I was in a major fistfight,” James teased. “It’ll probably be the best thing to happen to my reputation in years. People will see me in an entirely new light.”
“Everyone will wonder….”
“Of course they will, and I’ll tell them they should see the other guy.”
Summer made an effort to laugh but found she couldn’t. She twisted her head a bit so she could look at him. The bruise on his jaw was a vivid purple. She raised tentative fingers to it and bit her lip when he winced.
“Oh, James.” Gently she pressed her lips to the underside of his jaw.
“That helps.” He laughed and groaned at the same time.
She kissed him again, easing her mouth toward his. He moaned and before long, they were exchanging deep, hungry kisses.
“I refuse,” James said, unbuttoning her blouse but having difficulty with his swollen hands, “to allow Brett to ruin our last few hours together.”
She smiled and slid her arms around his shoulders. “Want to have a shower?” she breathed.
“Yes, but do you have a large enough hot-water tank?”
Summer giggled, recalling their last experience in her compact shower stall and how the water had gone cold at precisely the wrong moment.
The sound of the key turning in the lock told Summer her roommate was home. She sat back abruptly and fastened her blouse.
“Hi, everyone.” Julie stepped into the living room and set her suitcase on the floor. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Her gaze narrowed. “James? What on earth happened to you?”
James didn’t expect his black eye to go unnoticed, but he wasn’t prepared for the amount of open curiosity it aroused.
“Morning, Judge Wilkens.” Louise Jamison, the assistant he shared with two other judges, greeted him when he entered the office Monday morning. Then she dropped her pencil. “Judge Wilkens!” she said. “My goodness, what happened?”
He mumbled something about meeting the wrong end of a fist and hurried into his office. It was clear he’d need to come up with an explanation that would satisfy the curious.
Brad Williams knocked on his door five minutes later. His fellow judge let himself into James’s office and stared. “So it’s true?”
“What’s true?”
“You tell me. Looks like you’ve been in a fight.”
“It was a minor scuffle, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.” James stood and reached for his robe, eager to escape a series of prying questions he didn’t want to answer. He had the distinct feeling the rest of the day was going to be like this.
And he was right.
By the time he pulled out of the parking garage that evening, he regretted that he hadn’t called in sick. He might’ve done it if a black eye would disappear in a couple of days, but that wasn’t likely, so there was no point in not going in. He checked his reflection in the rearview mirror. The eye looked worse than it had the previous day. He pressed his index finger against the swelling and was surprised by the pain it caused. Still, he could live with the discomfort; it was the unsightliness of the bruises and the questions and curious glances he could do without.
Irritated and not knowing exactly whom to blame, James drove to his father’s house. He hadn’t been to see Walter in a couple of weeks and wanted to discuss something with him.
His father was doing a New York Times crossword puzzle when James let himself into the house. He looked up from the folded newspaper and did a double take, but to his credit, Walter didn’t mention the black eye. “Hello, James.”
“Dad.”
James walked over to the snifter of Scotch Walter kept on hand and poured himself a liberal quantity. He wasn’t fond of hard liquor and rarely indulged, but he felt he needed something potent. And fast.
“It’s been one of those days, has it?”
James’s back was to his father. “You might say that.” He took his first sip and the Scotch burned its way down his throat. “This stuff could rot a man’s stomach.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Taking his glass, James sat in the leather chair next to his father. “I suppose you’re wondering about the eye.”
“I’ll admit to being curious.”
“You and everyone else I’ve seen today.”
“I can imagine you’ve been the object of more than one inquisitive stare.”
“I was in a fistfight.”
“You?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. You’re the one who told me there’d be times in a man’s life when he couldn’t walk away from a fight. This happened to be one of those.”
“Want to talk about it?” His father set aside the paper.
“Not particularly, but if you must know, it was over Summer.”
“Ah, yes, Summer. How is she? I’m telling you, son, I like her. Couldn’t have chosen a better mate for you if I’d gone looking myself.”
James smiled for the first time that day. “She’s doing well. I was with her this weekend.” James raised the Scotch to his lips and grimaced. “We had brunch with her parents.”
“Helen and Hank. Good people,” Walter commented.
“There’s a problem with the April wedding date—on their end and mine. Helen suggested we wait until September. I said November, because of the election.”
“Do you want that?” Walter asked.
“No. Neither does Summer.”
“Then the hell with it. Let her finish out her contract with Disneyland and join you after that. You’ve already had a wedding. I never could understand why you wanted two ceremonies, but then I’m an old man with little appreciation for fancy weddings. What I would appreciate is a couple of grandkids. I’m not getting any younger, you know, and neither are you.”
“Do away with the second ceremony?”
“That’s what I said,” Walter muttered.
James closed his eyes in relief. Of course. It made perfect sense. He’d suggested a second wedding because he thought that was what Summer wanted, but if he asked her, James suspected he’d learn otherwise. The wedding was for her parents’ sake.
“How’d you get so smart?” James asked his father.
“Don’t know, but I must be very wise,” Walter said, and chuckled. “I’ve got a superior court judge for a son.”
James laughed, feeling comfortable for the first time all day.
“Stay for dinner,” his father insisted. “It’s been a while since we spent any real time together. Afterward you can let me beat you in a game of chess, and I’ll go to bed a happy man.”
“All right.” It was an invitation too good to refuse.
When James got home after ten, the light on his phone was blinking. He was tempted to ignore his messages.
He felt tired but relaxed and not particularly interested in returning a long list of phone calls. Especially when he suspected most of his callers were trying to learn what they could about his mysterious black eye.
The only person he wanted to talk to was Summer. He reached for the phone, and she answered on the second ring.
“I just got in,” he explained. “Dad and I had dinner.”
“Did you give him my love?”
“I did better than that—I let him beat me at chess.”
She laughed, and James closed his eyes, savouring the melodic sound. It was like a balm after the day he’d endured.
“How’s the eye?” she asked next.
“Good.” So he lied. “How was the show today?”
“I didn’t go in. I seem to have come down with the flu, so my understudy played Belle. I felt crummy all day. When I woke up this morning, I just felt so nauseous. At first I thought it was nerves over what happened with Brett, but it didn’t go away, so I had to call in sick.”
“Have you been to a doctor?”
“No. Have you?”
She had him there. “No.”
“I’ll be fine. I just want to be sure I didn’t give you my flu bug while you were here.”
“There’s no sign of it,” he assured her.
They must have talked for another fifteen minutes, saying nothing outwardly significant yet sharing the most important details of their lives. Their conversation would have gone on a lot longer, had someone not rung his doorbell.
It was Ralph Southworth. His campaign manager took one look at James and threw his arms dramatically in the air. “What the hell happened to you?”