ever going to practice; once he’d taken and passed the bar, that was the end of it for him. She damn well should be better.
And he knew he’d been an idiot to represent himself, law degree or no. Robbie had wanted to take over, had all but bounced in the air, shouting, “Let me, let me!” And his brother wouldn’t have let anything get in the way of getting the best deal for his client. Melinda might have been his sister-in-law and Jamie his best friend, but he would have trampled them both into the dirt to win.
Russ’s marriage had been the most important thing in his life. Facing a divorce had been bad enough. Finding out about Melinda’s affairs, her scorn for him and her lies had been damn near unbearable. Add to that, Jamie, once his own friend, allowing—encouraging?—Melinda’s deceit…He’d gone from love for one and friendship with the other to despising them both.
He was over the divorce. He’d gotten on with his life. But he wasn’t the forgive-and-forget type. His motto was: live and learn, and never give ’em a chance to screw you twice.
“Did you call for a reason?” he asked testily. “Because I’ve got about four more hours of work before I get out of here, and shooting the breeze with you isn’t getting it done.”
“Man, you need to get laid. You’re getting pissier every day. I did call for a reason. Mom’s been trying to get hold of you, but she keeps getting your voice mail. Rick and Amanda are coming over Saturday, and she wants you there for dinner. Seven o’clock, no grubby work clothes, and if you want to bring a date, she wouldn’t object.”
“Yeah, Saturday at seven. I’ll be there.” Before Robbie could say anything else, Russ hung up.
If he wanted to bring a date…He hadn’t been out on a date in more than six years, since he’d married Melinda, and hadn’t had sex in about three years, since she’d thrown him out. His brothers could understand his not dating—they’d all gotten screwed over at some point—but no sex…Hell, even his mother would wonder about that.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested. It was the intimacy he didn’t want, and he’d forgotten how to separate the two. He’d once known—in high school, in college and law school. He’d always had a girlfriend or two, and while the sex had been fun, it had never really meant anything.
Finding out that sex meant nothing to the wife he’d loved had somehow made it mean too much to him. Was that twisted or what?
Frustrated, he walked to one of the arched windows that faced west in what had been the third-floor ballroom of River’s Edge, a classic Greek Revival plantation home. It had once reigned over eight thousand acres until a long-gone Calloway had decided it was the perfect place to build his legacy. He’d bought the property, torn down everything except the house itself and made it his home while building the town around it. He’d decreed that no building between the house and the river could be higher than two stories to preserve the view from the third floor. Russ could see the Gullah River, a hundred yards wide at this point, as well as a dozen or more of his projects, old and new.
He’d always wanted to go into construction, even though Calloway men were lawyers whether they practiced or not. Rick had been the first to break tradition, getting his degree in criminal justice instead. Russ hadn’t followed his lead, but had gone to the University of Georgia School of Law like a good Calloway son. It would make the family happy, he’d figured, and with his entire life ahead of him, a few years in law school couldn’t hurt, right?
Yeah, right. He’d met Jamie there, which had led to meeting Melinda. The bloodsucker and the bitch.
Speak of the devil, or, at least, one of them…Jamie came out of her office across the street. Her hair was pulled back and clipped up in kind of a mess on the back of her head. She wore a red-and-white print dress that didn’t reach her knees, with a sweater that was more for looks than warmth, and she carried a briefcase and a bottle of water. Huge dark glasses covered her eyes, but he could tell she never looked toward the house before she slid behind the wheel of her characterfree black convertible.
He watched her back out from the space in front of her office, then drive off to the south. If he had any luck, she would keep driving south until she wound up somewhere deep in the Gulf of Mexico. But at the end of the block, she turned, jogged over to River Road, then headed north.
“Staring out the window doesn’t get the work done.”
He turned to find J. D. Stinson standing at the top of what had once been elegant stairs. They’d been chopped up along with the rest of the house sometime in the fifties, turning the place into cheap apartment rentals.
J.D. was a relative, too; his mother was Russ’s father’s youngest sister. He was an assistant vice president at Fidelity and oversaw all of Russ’s construction loans. Nothing like keeping it in the family.
“I always finish ahead of schedule and under budget,” Russ said mildly.
“And you usually have bonuses for doing so written into your contract.”
Russ shrugged. He had a reputation for doing good work at a fair price. If people were willing to pay him extra for doing it quickly, as well, why not? “What are you doing out of the office and on the site on a warm day like today?”
It was a family joke that J.D. had gone into banking not because his father was president and it was expected of him, but because it meant an air-conditioned job wearing nice clothes. Casual for him was khakis and a polo shirt. He owned more suits than all the undertakers in the county combined, and the only thing he thought worth sweating over was his girlfriend of the month.
“I had some business to take care of across the street.”
Russ resisted the urge to shift his gaze to the whitewashedbrick building that housed Jamie’s office.
“What business do you have with Satan?”
J.D. scowled. “You know, if I was half as ticked off with Jamie as you are—”
“I’m not ticked off at Jamie. I don’t like her. Under the circumstances, you shouldn’t be dealing with her, either.” Russ wasn’t talking about his divorce, though family loyalty, with the exception of Robbie, should count for something. No, having won a damn fine settlement against one Calloway, Jamie was after another, representing J.D.’s wife, Laurie, in their split.
“I’m not dealing with her. That’s why I waited until I knew she would be gone to come over this way.”
Russ did look down at the building then. There were two good-sized windows, one in reception and one in the office. And through the first, he could see Lys Paxton sitting at her desk, using the computer. Her black hair concealed the buds that were usually plugged into her ears, but her head was bobbing, her entire body moving to music only she could hear.
He looked back at his cousin. “Lys Paxton? Give me a break.”
His cousin bristled. “Lys and I used to date. There’s nothing wrong with her.”
“Yeah, right.” She was young, more than a little freaky and didn’t like Calloways. Plus she worked for Jamie and she’d once dated J.D. That was five strikes Russ could come up with in ten seconds.
“Besides, I haven’t even talked to her today. Jamie hadn’t left yet, so I came up here.”
“Yeah, well, she’s gone now.”
