Two Wee Drams of Love, page 1
“Dunroamin Holiday” Copyright © 2015 by Grace Burrowes
“Kiss and Tell” Copyright 2014 by Grace Burrowes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations or excerpts for the purpose of critical reviews or articles—without permission in writing from Grace Burrowes, author and publisher of the work.
Cover Design by Wax Creative, Inc
ISBN: 978-1-941419-22-9
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Published by:
Grace Burrowes Publishing
21 Summit Avenue
Hagerstown, MD 21740
Graceburrowes.com
Printed and published in the United States.
Published in the two-novella compilation, Two Wee Drams of Love, by Grace Burrowes Publishing, 21 Summit Avenue, Hagerstown, MD 21740.
Table of Contents
Kiss and Tell Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Dunroamin Holiday Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Epilogue
Kiss and Tell
* * *
By Grace Burrowes
Chapter One
* * *
“Scheduled sex! This divorce is about scheduled sex, Mr. Cromarty. I did not bear that man two children, give up a promising teaching career, and move five hundred miles from my family so I could subsist on scheduled sex. Scheduled missionary sex.”
Scheduled sex sounded lovely to Dunstan Cromarty, attorney-at-law. A bit of anticipation, maybe flirtation over a good meal, some guaranteed peace and quiet, privacy. No bringing a lady home on a rare, lucky evening to find Wallace had just used the litter box and perfumed the entire downstairs.
“I told Calvin I’d put that in the legal complaint,” Mrs. Almquist went on. “About the scheduled sex. Twice a week, unless Cal was at some accountant’s conference. Then I got a rain check. I told Calvin what he could do with his rain checks.”
A moment of sympathy for poor Calvin threatened, though Dunstan allowed none of it to show on his face. Seventeen years of missionary sex might try any lady’s patience, after all.
Unless the alternative was no sex at all.
“If we settle your case,” Dunstan said, “we won’t need to bring up those particulars in the filings, and the great majority of family law cases do settle. How old are the children?”
On his trusty yellow legal pad, sitting at a conference table easily four times his age, Dunstan took down the usual information—family of four, one income, though it was a certified public accountant’s executive income, low-interest mortgage, tidy retirement assets incubating in a variety of accounts, and—in these trying times, with the marriage crumbling—the Almquists had no debt.
“Do you suspect your husband has any hidden assets, Mrs. Almquist?”
“Call me Dorie. Yes, he has hidden assets. Calvin’s sense of humor hasn’t been spotted in since the youngest was eight, and I’m pretty sure Cal still has a nice ass.”
A low, grinding ache started up at the base of Dunstan’s spine, for this was going to be one of those divorces. “What about financial assets he’s trying to keep from your notice?”
“No. Calvin is literally an Eagle Scout. Cheerful, loyal, thrifty, brave. Missionary.”
God help the Eagle Scout when his missus craved a three-doggie night.
“Transparency of finances can make a divorce proceeding much simpler,” Dunstan said. “Discovery will proceed more smoothly, and the division of assets won’t become a quagmire of motions and hearings.”
“What’s discovery?”
He explained about the documents that had to be exchanged—financial records, check registers, bank statements, tax filings, anything that might shed light on the couple’s financial situation, or their fitness to parent.
With the Almquists, that picture ought to emerge fairly easily.
He was delivering good news, in so far as any aspect of any divorce could be good news, but Mrs. Almquist was swinging her foot like she desperately needed the loo.
She was a ferociously well maintained female—tasteful highlights in honey-blond hair, a toned figure showing to good advantage in a teal and brown pantsuit, and nails lacquered to match her silk shell. Makeup subtly minimized the approach of her thirty-seventh birthday, and her shoes would probably have paid for two new tires on Dunstan’s truck.
“Do you date, Mr. Cromarty?”
She was also furious and broken-hearted.
“I’m too busy to date and I never date clients or former clients.” Or lawyers, or the good ladies who worked at the courthouse, which left…Wallace and the remote, most Saturday nights.
Sometimes he’d liven things up with poker night at Trent Knightley’s, but the camaraderie among the three Knightley brothers had a way of hollowing the bonhomie the gathering was intended to create. For Dunstan had brothers of his own, far, far, away.
“I wasn’t hitting on you,” Dorie said, though her expression suggested she’d consider him for escort service. “You’re good-looking, in a tall, dark, handsome, green-eyed way. I was wondering what it’s like out there, now. I haven’t dated anybody but Calvin for the past seventeen years, and things change.”
She’d changed, was what she meant, and some of those changes frightened her.
“You’re still married,” Dunstan said, kindly, because she didn’t feel married. She likely felt trapped, betrayed, and exhausted. “Unless you want to give Mr. Almquist the fault ground of adultery upon which to proceed, I suggest you let the dating wait.”
In Damson Valley, a close-knit rural community within commuting distance of both Washington and Baltimore, dating was best done openly or not at all.
“I will be damned if I’ll give that man anything other than what the law says he’s entitled to, and not one penny more.”
Oh, this case would be great fun. Drug dealers were a pleasure to represent compared to embittered spouses who had the means to torment each other in family court. Criminals understood the rules, paid cash, and referred all three dozen of their closest friends.
Wallace would be ashamed of his owner for such thoughts.
“Have you considered counseling, Mrs. Almquist?”
“Marriage counseling? Like when you have to tell some stranger all the intimate details of your failed relationship? No, thank you. I might hate Calvin, but I wouldn’t put him through that. Marriages are private.”
Of course, they were. While divorces…
Dunstan turned over a clean sheet on his tablet. “I was thinking more in terms of giving you emotional support to help you sort through your situation. Divorce can be daunting, and some therapists specialize in assisting couples through the divorce itself.”
Devastating was the honest term.
Her foot went abruptly still. “I’m not a whiner, Mr. Cromarty. Ask my spin class. Full speed ahead and get the hills behind me, that’s me.”
“Then my first job will be to contact Calvin’s attorney and ask if he or she will accept service of process on your behalf.”
The foot started up again. “He’s hiring some woman. Women attorneys make less than men, on average, according to Calvin, and he gets off on pinching pennies. I wish just once he’d pinch my behind.”
How plaintive she sounded. Heaven defend the good bachelors of Damson Valley when Dorie Almquist’s divorce became final. Might be a good time to nip back to Scotland and spend a few weeks fly-fishing, sipping whiskey, and dandling wee baby cousins.
“Do you happen to know the name of your husband’s attorney?”
“She had a dull name, like a third grade teacher.”
Which narrowed matters down not at all. “Hannah Stark is a new associate with Hartman and Whitney, though I doubt she’d be taking her own cases yet.”
“Not Hannah. Judy something, or Jane. Jane—that’s it. As in plain Jane.”
If the woman made another comment about missionary sex, Dunstan would hand her back her retainer check, though it would pain him to turn away business.
“Jane DeLuca?”
“That’s it. Plain Jane DeLuca. I’ll bet she wears sensible shoes, with a name like that.”
“Ms. DeLuca is a fine attorney, very professional. I’ll give her a call this afternoon.”
Mrs. Almquist left in a flurry of fruity perfume and indignation, while Dunstan took his notes back to his office and popped a couple of aspirin before his back started howling at him.
He’d never before taken a case against Ms. Jane DeLuca, but by reputation she was very professional—for a land-dwelling shark—and even in the courtroom, especially in the courtroom, she wore stilettos.
* * *
“What will this divorce cost me?”
The clients always asked, as if the model without the chrome hubcaps might be the better deal.
Jane DeLuca, Es-flipping-squire, always had an answer for them.
“The cost of your divorce depends on four variables, only one of wh ich you control.”
Oncologists and attorneys had a lot in common. Both learned to talk about awful truths, right down to the clinical details, without touching on the awful emotions. Too bad nobody ever made that plain to law school applicants until after the loans had come due.
Calvin Almquist adjusted a gold and onyx cuff link that looked like it might commemorate graduation from some Ivy League university.
“Those four variables are?”
Jane launched into the standard spiel, of which Calvin would retain about a third, if he was like most clients enduring the trauma of inchoate divorce.
“So you’re saying I can’t control the legal complexity of my case, I can’t control my spouse, and I can’t control whom she chooses to represent her, but I can control my own behavior.”
That would be a stretch, given that divorce made brokenhearted, angry fools of most mortals.
“You choose our litigation objective, Mr. Almquist. If you want sole custody, I’ll go after that, hammer and tongs. If you want this divorce wrapped up quickly, then you may see your children only every other weekend, but we won’t allow the case to get bogged down in litigation. If a cordial relationship with your ex is the highest priority,”—Calvin winced, tellingly—“then this might take forever, and you could still see your kids only every other weekend, but cordial it will be. You choose the objective.”
“I want to have enough to live on, but I need to be a father to my children, too.”
Which—surely a coincidence!—was exactly what a solid marriage often fostered.
“Both of those goals are sensible and important. You may need to choose between them.”
Rather than prattle on about the court calendar, the procedural details—yes, a divorce was a lawsuit—Jane gave Calvin a moment to absorb a bit more of his new normal.
Which had to be one of the most hated euphemisms in the language.
Divorce involved choices, usually between two or more bad alternatives. The first choice, however, after the decision to split, was which lawyers had the privilege of presiding over the internment of the marriage.
“So you can’t tell me what the divorce will cost?”
It will cost you your marriage, your remaining complement of innocence, and possibly your life savings—but what will that matter when your children are in rehab?
“I can give you estimates.” Jane moved away from her desk to touch the soft, prickly moss in her window dish garden. Calvin looked like what he was: a successful accountant—regular features, tidy dark hair, about five-foot-ten with an “I work out Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings” trimness. He would read accounting magazines on the stationary bike and have no balances on either of his two credit cards.
Jane used a porcelain Eeyore pitcher to water the dish garden, then topped up a bouquet of yellow and pink tulips Louise had sent at the beginning of the week.
“You’ll bill me monthly?”
“If you decide to give me your case, and if I decide to take it, I will bill you against a retainer.”
When she got around to doing the billing. Louise, the traitor, had always handled that aspect of the business.
Calvin stood, jingling the change in his left pocket. “But you can’t tell me what it will cost, how long it will go on, or what the outcome will be. I hate this, and none of it is my fault.”
No divorce was ever anybody’s fault, not until some time had passed, a good therapist or two had gone to work, and the judgments were all final.
Jane put Eeyore on the credenza, a reminder that he needed a refill.
“Think of this divorce as a disease, Mr. Almquist. You may have done nothing to deserve it, but if you don’t take the situation seriously, you will not like the outcome.”
Though Jane had never met the couple comprised of a blameless angel married to an irredeemable devil. Still, she sympathized with Calvin, who probably hadn’t done anything on purpose to sabotage his marriage. He’d be both bewildered and ashamed to find himself in a lawyer’s office for anything other than the drafting of a will.
“Is the retainer negotiable?”
Five years ago, Jane would have taken that bait. She would have returned to her desk and asked him how much he could manage, while she drove on bald tires and had no health insurance.
“I’m good at what I do, Mr. Almquist. If I represent you, you will get good value for your coin. Neither one of us wants you wondering if my zeal in the courtroom is affected by the outstanding balance you owe me. The retainer is not negotiable, and may I point out, that retainer would buy you a lot of marriage counseling.”
He left off jingling the coins. “Dorie won’t go for that. She has her pride, and she’s an excellent mother. She and I have managed seventeen mostly good years. We’ll manage this too.”
“Are you sure this isn’t just a rough patch, Mr. Almquist? Seventeen years is a notorious spike in the chart for divorces.”
“Dorie is sure. Frequently in error but seldom in doubt, like the British monarchy. I used to love that about her.”
Dorie had probably loved that Calvin was on top of every penny, all the time, rather than a lackadaisical spendthrift like, for example, her own father.
Calvin pushed thick glasses up a nose that would have been nice, if he weren’t making a not-nice-at-all face.
“Dorie won’t like you one bit. She’s insecure about her looks and her education, and you’re pretty and well educated.”
He made Jane’s red hair and blue eyes—tired blue eyes—sound like a walking affront to the decency police.
“If Mrs. Almquist attempts to antagonize me, that can work to your advantage.”
He resumed his seat, laid a steel briefcase across his lap, and snapped the locks. “How much did you say the retainer is?”
He had a checkbook out, a sign not of sound decision-making ability, but rather, of a man who found every moment of the discussion acutely painful, if not infuriating.
“We need to go over the retainer agreement first,” Jane said, gently, gently, because this guy had high maintenance written all over him, if she decided to represent him.
Which she would, because Louise had left the practice, while the rent bill still occupied a place on Jane’s payables ledger.
Calvin tolerated the next hour well, despite Jane’s misgivings, and thus she did, eventually, agree to represent him. His documents would be organized and timely produced, his check would not bounce, and he’d likely keep his pants on for the duration of the festivities.
A family law attorney learned not to expect much from her clients.
“When will we file?” Calvin asked.
We. Already, Jane had been promoted to we status, with Calvin her wingman in the halls of justice, though the last time he’d been to the county courthouse had probably been to buy his marriage license.
“I will meet with you on Friday and have a draft petition ready by Tuesday, though I warn you, couples do reconcile, Mr. Almquist. Seventeen years is a lot to walk away from, especially when you have children to consider. If you do get back together, the unused portion of the retainer will be returned to you.”
For an instant, sheer misery shone out of Calvin’s brown eyes. He wasn’t Jane’s type—she didn’t have a type—but once, long ago, dear Dorie had thought those eyes attractive. Intelligent, at least, which counted for a lot with some women.
“Until Friday, then.” He stuck out a hand, and Jane shook, because business civilities in the midst of domestic tragedy comforted some clients.
“Call me if you have any questions,” Jane said, seeing him to the door. They all had questions, and who could blame them?
Speaking of which. “Did you say who Dorie’s attorney is, Mr. Almquist?”
Calvin took his raincoat off the coat stand and fit a beret onto his head. “Dorie retained some guy named Dunstan Cromarty. I think he’s Scottish.”
“Mr. Cromarty is Scottish, also very professional. He’ll advocate for Doreen zealously within the bounds of the law.”
And from what Jane had heard, Cromarty would be a perfect, if entirely civil, pain in the ass about it, every step of the way.
