Asked & Answered, page 1
part #2 of Legally in Love Series
Asked & Answered
by Jennifer Griffith
Asked & Answered
© 2015 by Jennifer Griffith
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author.
First Edition, E-book
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are creations of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is purely coincidental.
Cover Art by Laura Lynn Tolman from a photo via Shutterstock.com
For A Really Good-Looking Lawyer
Thanks for Marrying Me
Other books available by
Jennifer Griffith
Attractive Nuisance (Lawyers in Love #1)
Pandora
The Lost Art
Immersed
Super Daisy
Big in Japan
Chocolate and Conversation
Short fiction by Jennifer Griffith also featured in the anthologies
STRANGE AND LOVELY
and
TIMELESS ROMANCE SERIES:UNDER THE MISTLETOE COLLECTION
CHAPTER ONE
“Pretrial Hearing”
A drip trickled down Becca Goldfinch’s neck, but Xanthe swiped at it quickly with a towel, relieving Becca from the creepy crawlies.
“I’m telling you, dear. You can’t be too careful.” Xanthe unfolded another square of aluminum foil and placed a section of Becca’s hair on it. “When there are red flags, you have to slow down.”
“What kinds of red flags?” The looming answer tugged and repelled her at once. It struck at the very heart of her worries, and sitting here listening to this woman, she realized just how alone she was in the world, without someone else close she could turn to right now. Grandma out of the country. Mom gone. Forever. So Becca was stuck—with only Xanthe. Still, she needed to know— yet dreaded what might follow. Because it might mean losing Carson.
“I don’t mean, like, is he warm or cool toned, introverted or extroverted.” Xanthe painted color paste onto the section of Becca’s hair. “More like are you truly compatible?”
Or does he resonate to certain types of crystals? Uh, no. By day, Becca sat in honors classes— Biology, Genetics, Botany— at the University of Arizona. She was going to be a serious botanist at the end of this college experience, so hokey new age stuff wasn’t part of her decision.
Even if she was a freshman.
“He’s a Virgo, and I’m a Scorpio.” Becca floated a trial balloon to test Xanthe’s credibility here. If something came out next about long walks on the beach, this conversation was over. And Becca would be left to her own indecision and anguish. Because when Carson started acting more serious about things last week, she’d begun a slow crescendo of panic.
Xanthe rolled her eyes and hummed. “Nnnno. I don’t go in for that horoscope stuff. I’m talking about real psychology here. Before I went to hair school I got a masters in Psychology at the University of Arizona.”
Right. Where was Grandma Goldfinch and her horse sense when Becca needed her?
Bermuda. That’s where. It was weird not meeting her for lunch or taking her to her doctor appointments, especially when Becca had so many amazing things going on. In fact, Grandma had only met Carson once. And now, here was Becca, contemplating a future with him.
Sort of. More like being terrified of one. And yet drawn to him so inexorably. He was the flame she couldn’t resist.
“How come you didn’t get a job in your field?” Chemical sulfur drifted up to Becca’s nose, making her stomach churn.
Xanthe’s arm dropped to her side. “Doing what? I can use my psych skills much easier and earn more money doing hair.” She set to work again on the hair coloring project. “I get to talk to people all day, genuine people, people who would never schedule a session with a counselor, and help them. I’m picking up the slack for the psychology industry. Doing the world a favor.” She folded a piece of aluminum around the final section of hair to highlight, then handed Becca a magazine and led her to a chair with a blow dryer helmet attached. “It’s a way to use my gifts and not have to sit behind a desk all day. All that sitting? It’ll kill ya dead— and young.”
Becca had read that study, too. It made her stew about how many hours a day she sat in a classroom and at her study carrel in the library’s basement while Carson finished his senior year classes. He was going to law school next year. He took the LSAT last fall, and he had a clear shot at getting into the U of A’s very good law school. He had career success written all over him.
Well, probably. That was one of the worries. Was he all talk and no action? There were guys like that, sweet talkers who told women what they wanted to hear. The big dreamers who never really followed through. Her dad left earlier than her mom, but both of them left Becca. Not a chance she’d put herself or her future children in a situation where even one parent turned into a missing anchor.
Grandma had raised her, been her anchor instead. If only she hadn’t left for that long trip! Then Becca wouldn’t be sitting here confiding in her hairdresser.
Carson was only twenty-one. He was older than Becca, almost done with his degree, but still hadn’t done much real stuff in life. How could Becca tell what Future Carson was like?
In the last few months, she’d spent most afternoons with him, heading to the running trails in the hills to the west of the city. She loved Tucson for how close the city was to the desert, just like her hometown of Bisbee, even though she had to face the occasional rattlesnake and a few tarantulas now and then. They were a small price to pay for the freedom of the great outdoors. And the chance they gave her to coast along the dirt trail to the foot-beats of Carson’s ever-entertaining conversation.
Carson Huxley. She sat under the dryer and closed her eyes to see his face. That grin of his affected everyone. Everybody loved Carson. The fun guy. The life of the party. The guy who never stopped talking about the latest funny political scandal or some classic muscle car. But Becca knew some other sides of him— like he really loved his family, would do anything to help them out, and that he cared deeply about justice and truth, protection of the innocent, which was what drove him to study the law.
It almost made her want to go law school, too. Just abandon her Botany degree and with it, her plans to become a Master Gardener and develop new breeds of tomatoes that grew better in the desert. His passion was that infectious.
It sounded cheesy at eighteen to tell herself he was the guy she’d always been looking for. But somehow her soul had echoed with this sense of eternal loneliness— until now. And Carson filled that void. Every day she spent with him made her life strawberry-covered bliss.
And he’d been no coy, casual dater when it came to expressing how he felt about her.
Becca, I’m falling for you. He’d said it aloud on their third date, Halloween. She’d worn a stupid costume, as studying gave her no time to prep for the party he’d invited her to, and she was embarrassed to the hilt when he came to pick her up in her disguise as the toilet paper mummy. Sixteen steps out the door, and the thing was falling to pieces, and she began tearing it off, leaving a trail to provide some poor homeless person a little needed Charmin comfort. They blew off the costume party and got Eegee’s slush and drank it atop the mountain with the U of A “A” on it.
And she’d kissed him.
“Your color should be done by now. Let’s just peel up this foil and check.” Xanthe tilted up the noisy helmet, and Becca popped her ears. “Yeppers. Now we have to rinse before you’re as striped as a skunk. I hate those sharp contrasts in the hair coloring, don’t you?”
Becca followed Xanthe to the sink, leaned her head back and let the water flow cool and refreshing over her scalp. Xanthe hummed a song while her fingertips worked the solution off Becca’s hair.
Instead of all this relationship drama, Becca ought to be worrying about tomorrow’s final in Botany 455, which was going to be a killer. She’d had to do some serious knee-scraping as she begged to be admitted to the upper-division class, and she should be spending every second proving she was worth the risk, not daydreaming about Carson Huxley.
Or worrying.
Honestly, Becca should be thrilled. Tonight Carson was taking her to Tono Chul, a park downtown known for its cactus blossoms, the night blooming cereus. Even thinking of the place made her tingle with excitement. I’ve always dreamed of having someone propose to me at Tono Chul. She’d told him this during one of their cool-down walks after a good run in the desert hills. She never thought he’d remember. At that point in their dating it never occurred to her that Carson might actually be listening, taking note of her little wishes. It’d been so new then.
But now he’d called, and tonight he was taking her to Tono Chul.
It was too early in the year for the blossoms, most likely, and no one ever had much more than twelve hours’ notice before they bloomed, but she loved the park any time, whether the elusive flowers that bloomed en masse only one night a year were on display or not.
“But back to what we were talking about earlier.” Xanthe towel-dried Becca’s hair. “You’ve got to be extra careful. Marriage— it’s something you should approach with your eyes wide open.”
“And then half shut your eyes once you’re in?”
“I’ve been married six times.” She sighed and selected a comb. “Should’ve opened my eyes a lot wider five of those times.”
Six! Becca didn’t think Xanthe looked older than thirty. “So you kept them three-fourths shut on the sixth?”
“No, I gouged them out for the sixth.” Xanthe had an engaging cackle. It bounced off the tile floor and ended with a staccato snort. “Still married after five years. Look, that’s why I sort of make it my mission to educate the uninitiated. I’ve prevented some disasters.”
“Disasters? How?”
Becca might only be eighteen, but she’d seen a few of her slightly older friends’ marriages go down in flames already, marriages that on paper looked ideal. That was what scared her. This fluttery, strawberry-smothered world she lived in dating Carson might be a façade. Love is blind, and Becca figured she didn’t even have the merest of low vision anymore about him. Another perspective from someone less swimming in fruit syrup might be wise. Especially before things escalated, as they might tonight.
“Yes, disasters. One woman I know almost married a guy without a job. Pah!”
Carson didn’t have a job. Unless you counted Poli Sci tutor. But nothing with an income.
“Another woman caught herself just in time before saying yes to her boyfriend’s proposal after only knowing him for nine months. Nine months! Can you imagine?”
Becca only met Carson in early October. May winds stirred up dust devils today. October through May. But only part of May. A little sick feeling crept up Becca’s bones.
“Maybe she felt like she’d known him forever?”
Xanthe rolled her eyes. “Everyone feels that way, at first. And then you get married and you think, ‘Who is this total stranger?’ Believe me. It happens. Every time.”
Becca wrung her hands together under the long black apron draped over her body. “How can you tell if it’s going to be a good match, then?”
Xanthe pounced right on this. “Oh, I have a set of three foolproof tests. They have to be administered together.”
Tests? Oh, great. It wasn’t one of those “Your Blood Type Determines Whether You’re a Match” kind of tests, was it? Because Becca already found out in one of those online quizzes that she was B-positive and Carson was AB-negative and they had a thirty-nine percent chance of ‘true love.’ Not that she believed in those things. It was the same as picking petals off a daisy. Harmless. Dreamy. Schoolgirl-ish.
“First, you find out what kind of a pet person he is.” Xanthe parted Becca’s hair and began rubbing product into the roots in a soothing scalp massage. The foamy pink liquid smelled like mandarin oranges and jasmine. “If he’s a cat person, and you’re a cat person, great. If he’s a dog person and you’re a dog person, also great. But if he’s a dog person and you’re a cat person, that gets put down as a neutral. On the other hand, if the girl is a dog person and he’s a cat person, it’s a negative.”
“How so?”
“Because you won’t get along. Believe me. It’s been proven time and again.”
“Right.” Becca submitted to the whirring whine of the hair dryer, as bits of hair hit her cheeks and forehead. The dryer didn’t stop Xanthe from explaining.
“The next thing is the political party test because studies prove that more than any other factor a matching political party determines compatibility.”
“More than religion or ethnicity or anything else?”
“Yeppers. More than same taste in Metallica and Def Leppard versus One Direction and Kenny G, even. Believe me, I can vouch for that.”
Becca didn’t want to go probing into that one. “The cat person versus dog person, plus the political party test?” Right. Whatever. People were complex, and there were no guarantees. No silver bullet tests. But, then again, sometimes life had simple answers. Besides, Carson didn’t have any pets. Did he? And for sure they had similar political views, no matter how he was officially registered in a party or not. “That’s it?”
“No, no. Those are just the preliminary tests. If those are both red flags, don’t bother with the third one. It’s a little… scientific.”
“I’m okay with science. So is Carson. He’s doing his undergrad in Political Science.” Ugh. Could she sound stupider? The hair salon fumes were dissolving her brain.
“There was a huge, years-long study done at Stanford. They called it the Marshmallow Test because researchers used marshmallows to determine whether a child, who later became an adult, could delay gratification and thereby become a successful person throughout life.”
A long-term test sounded trustworthy. Becca sat up and listened to this. “How could a marshmallow tell all that?”
“A child subject seated at a table was given a marshmallow. The subject was told they could eat the marshmallow at any time, but if they waited for fifteen minutes, they’d be given a second marshmallow.”
“Right.” Still, this didn’t tell Becca much. “What’d they do while they waited? Read a story? Play with a toy?”
“No, they just had to sit there.”
Wow. That would be really hard for a little kid. The ones who did that had to be pretty tough-minded, or really like marshmallows enough to sacrifice like that.
“The study then tracked long-term the children who ate the marshmallow immediately versus those who waited. Those who could delay gratification proved that over the years they could make better decisions in life, like saving money to buy a car and not just running up credit cards. Those who ate the marshmallow right away had no self-control in other matters, either, and made poor life decisions like never exercising or becoming addicts.” Xanthe sounded quite authoritative as she said all this, not hokey at all. And if those findings were accurate, they were kind of frightening—that so much could be concluded about a person’s deeper personality flaws by such a tiny item as a white cube of sugar.
Somehow this started making sense in Becca’s mind, marshmallows and all. “So I should give him a marshmallow and see what he does with it?”
“It works every time, without fail.”
Becca bit her lip. The hair color was looking perfect. She’d see Carson in a couple of hours. But would she have the nerve to shove a marshmallow at Carson? She would feel stupid. Utterly weird. Anxiety ratcheted up her heart rate, and she kept vacillating. To marshmallow or not to marshmallow.
But if it would answer some of her questions— like whether Carson was a good bet, whether he was a guy she could count on to be stable— maybe she didn’t have a choice. She was so young. This guy, he’d swept her away, and she didn’t have a lot of experience, couldn’t compare him to other guys. Sure, Becca knew how she felt when she was with him, but was that all just twitterpated fluff? Grandma had liked him when she met him; everyone liked Carson.
Becca paid Xanthe and went out into the windy March day. Tucson’s purple jagged mountains pointed skyward. She looked up and said a little prayer, and then she looked in her wallet.
Just enough to buy a bag of Jet-Puffed Marshmallows. Crazy as it may seem, she had no better way to gauge whether he was a safe choice.
She had to do it.
CHAPTER TWO
“Summary Judgment”
Carson Huxley had made up his mind. Despite the fact that he always swore he wouldn’t get bogged down during school with dating and trying to find a wife, that he’d make that kind of decision when it wouldn’t screw with his GPA, he couldn’t help it. The first time he laid eyes on Becca Goldfinch during fall semester he was a goner. Even though she was a freshman.
So, so fresh, that freshman.
And it only got worse when he asked her out. He’d thrown all his alpha male façade caution to the wind and told her he loved her on their third official date, the night she wore that mummy costume, even though it was lame and was almost like a mummy with leprosy, or a mummy stripper, the way it fell apart when she walked.
When she kissed him back, there, atop the “A,” he abandoned all doubts about whether she felt the same. It came vibrating off her in waves. Since then, things had only gotten more solid for him, with every afternoon he spent in her company. He had the dip in his grades to show it. The only cure was going to be getting her to say yes, if he could get her to take him as he was.
