to kill Judy, and you’d probably have those grandchildren you keep talking about.”
She leaned across to put her arms around him for a moment. He held himself stiffly away from her. She released him. “Get an emotional life.”
“I’m trying, Mom. Within limits.”
“Not much chance with the women you date.” Elizabeth picked up the lace, adjusted her pince-nez and began to check it for tiny rips. “Everything between you and your girlfriends is so cool and rational. What kind of a marriage would that make?”
“The perfect kind. A partnership that will get me elected to my first full term as district attorney.”
“With two point five perfect children to round out the picture?”
“I’m not certain I’ll ever have children. I wouldn’t want to be an absentee father.”
“Your father wasn’t exactly an absentee.”
“He never attended a PTA meeting or soccer game. He never saw me pitch or Steve catch. He got home in time for maybe two family dinners a month if we were lucky, plus Thanksgiving and Christmas, unless one of his clients popped Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and had to be bailed out Christmas morning.”
“His clients needed him.”
“So did we. Then he bailed out on us. On you.”
“I’ve long since forgiven him for that. In fact, he did me a favor. If he hadn’t left, I’d never have started Elizabeth Lace and become a successful business woman.”
Ben slid off the sofa, shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his chinos and strode over to stare out the front window of the big parlor. He knew his mother worried about him, but the still-attractive, slim woman with soft brown hair was busy with her own business, her friends, her suitor—who just happened to be Ben’s boss. She was there when Ben needed her, but she seldom intruded as she was doing today.
He watched for Brittany’s car. She was invariably early. In his mother’s big front yard a dozen different hues of azalea rioted around the aged oak trees while the early April breeze tousled the shaggy heads of Dutch iris.
Ben only felt truly at home in this house where he had spent his childhood. The Garden District, with its aging Georgian houses, was his favorite place in Memphis, particularly now, before summer heat drove everyone inside to air conditioning.
“Sorry, Mom,” he said. “I can’t forgive Dad for turning the law into a parlor game he played without regard for right or wrong.”
“And for Judy’s death.”
“How many other people died because of Dad and his courtroom antics?”
“He always said if the prosecution did its job properly, they won. His job was to defend his clients as best he could.”
Ben leaned back. “Too bad he was so good at it.”
“He did get off some people who might have been wrongly convicted, ever think of that?”
“If he did, it was sheer dumb luck that they were innocent. He didn’t care about that either. Just the way he didn’t care about us.”
Elizabeth laid the fragile piece of lace gently on the coffee table again and smoothed it as though it were skin. “We had some wonderful times, Ben. In the early years when we were struggling, your father and I had passion even when we fought. You aren’t passionate about anything except getting the felons off the streets.”
“I see nothing wrong with that. Besides, I do have passion.”
“I’m not only talking about making love.” Elizabeth looked him square in the eye. “I’m talking about fighting and demanding and making wild love and driving one another nuts. Your ice princesses don’t incite that kind of passion, do they?”
“God, I hope not!” Ben laughed. “If my ice princess and I both know the score going in, we’ll never drive each other crazy.”
“Boring!”
“I know it’s not the life you want for me, Mother, but it’s all I’m capable of. Something broke inside me when Judy was killed. So now I intend to marry a woman who fits into my life-style, has the same goals, the same ambitions, the same views of life. Someone who doesn’t need the part of me that isn’t there any longer. In short, a partner and a friend.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “Job description—one suitable wife. Must be tall, thin, blond, rich, socially adept and completely self-sufficient. Applicants must apply in person.”
“If you like.”
“I don’t like, darling, but it’s your life.” She waved an elegantly manicured hand toward the front door at the end of the marble entry hall. “Are you making a job offer to the one I’m about to meet?”
“Maybe. She fits your description. Plus Brittany is Phi Beta Kappa, has a career she enjoys and is very good at, and would make an excellent public servant’s wife.”
“She sounds like a gorgon.”
“She’s a wonderful girl.”
“So why haven’t I met her before now?”
“Because I didn’t want to put pressure on either one of you. That’s why she’s coming over this afternoon. She really does need a dress for the Steamboat Ball, and she loves your antique lace.”
“Does she know how much one of my dresses costs? Particularly one designed to look like an 1880 riverboat costume. And I assume she wants it to look modern enough for her to wear after the costume ball.”
“Money’s no problem. Although I did hope you’d cut her a deal because your poor starving son is only a lowly assistant district attorney.”
“Of course Mommy will be nice to the gorgon, darling. After all, I don’t have to live with her. Nor with you, thank God.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’d hit you over the head with an ice hammer to try to break through to the fallible human being.”
“I will probably be the next D.A. when Phil’s judgeship comes through next month. I have to be above reproach if I’m going to win the election on my own at the end of this term.”
“So your wife must be above reproach too. Have you sicced a private detective on her to see whether there are any skeletons in her closet?”
“Of course not.”
The bell on the front door bonged. Elizabeth stood and smoothed both her skirt and her face and pasted on her professional smile. As Ben followed her to the door, she said quietly, “You’re tempting fate, darling. One of these days, love is going to jump up and bite you. You can’t hide away forever.” She opened the door. “Brittany, how nice to meet you,” She held out her hand. “I’m Elizabeth Jackson. Ben has told me so much about you.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Ben wandered around
