Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) (19 page)

Rosie patted her cheek. “I know, but I just
can’t keep quiet. Especially when something’s so wrong.”

“Rosie,” the judge said in a warning
tone.

“Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it
right.”

“It does in my world.”

“Well, pardon me for saying so, but your
world is screwed up.”

“You need to watch your tone, or I’ll hold
you in contempt.”

“Contempt.” Rosie laughed. “Now, that would
be a first.”

Livy fought the urge to scream mindlessly or
bang her head against the table. She didn’t think Judge McFie would
appreciate either behavior from the defense attorney. Instead, she
watched as he turned a frightening shade of purple.

“That’s it!” For an old man, he could shout
loud enough to rattle a window. “Take her back where you got her.
Until she plays by my rules, she’ll be a guest of the city. I don’t
care how long it takes—you’ll learn that the law isn’t something to
laugh about.”

The judge banged his gavel and fled the room
as though afraid he’d throttle Rosie if he stayed another moment.
Livy could sympathize.

The bailiff took Rosie’s arm.

“Nice try, sugar.”

Livy had a headache and it wasn’t even 10:00
a.m. “I should let you rot.”

Rosie didn’t appear scared. She never did.
That was one of the problems with Rosie. Instead, she winked,
unabashed. “But you won’t.”

“I promised Max I’d bring you home.”

Rosie stiffened. “I guess you’ll have to do
something, then. Since you promised Max.” She left with the
bailiff.

Such docile behavior disturbed Livy. Rosie
might not act scared, but perhaps the seriousness of all this had
finally hit her. And as much as Rosie annoyed Livy, she didn’t want
her mother to go to jail scared.

Though she’d been planning to return to the
office and talk to Rosie later, Livy changed her plans. “I’ll be in
to talk to you as soon as I get things straightened out with Kim,”
she called.

Despite Livy’s words, Rosie kept walking
without saying anything more—at least until she walked past the
sisters.

“We won!” Miss Violet said.

Miss Viola just laughed as if she’d never
stop. Even the assistant DA smiled.

Livy wanted to walk over and knock their
heads together. She should have known Rosie didn’t need any
help.

“How do you figure that, since you’re still
short one goose?”

The dawn of realization on the sisters’ faces
was priceless. When they turned on the lawyer, the two sounded like
a gaggle of what they were so worried about.

Her mother left the courtroom, still too
subdued. After that parting shot, Rosie should be grinning. She
loved to cause trouble.

Livy’s partner appeared at her elbow. “Let me
guess. Reschedule everything that can be rescheduled. Start
researching obscure and bizarre livestock precedents. Cancel all
meetings after four o’clock. Anything else?”

“Find that goose.”

Kim drew her long black hair into a “get down
to business” ponytail. “I was afraid you were going to say
that.”

* * *

Rosie paced her empty jail cell. All her pals
had been bailed out before dawn. They punched a different time
clock than the rest of the world and needed to get their beauty
sleep come sunup. Kind of like the vampires Max was so interested
in.

For a change Max wasn’t the problem. Livy
was. To be truthful, she’d always been something of a problem. From
the moment she was born, Rosie had loved her, but she’d never known
how to say it or show it, because Livy had never needed her love,
never needed her. That kind of stuff preyed on a mother’s mind.
Even a mother as liberal as Rosie.

“I’m sick of it.” She kicked at the iron
bars.

“Sick of jail already?” Livy appeared on the
other side with a baby-faced officer who held the key.

“Hey, sweetcakes.” Rosie smiled at the
officer on duty with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. She
couldn’t recall his name, but all the young ones treated her like
the mother they’d always wanted. Why couldn’t her daughter want the
same?

The boy smiled back and opened the door to
let Livy inside.

“Tell me where the golden goose is, Mama, and
I can get you out of here in an hour.”

“Are you on my side or theirs?”

‘‘I just want you out of here.”

‘‘You didn’t answer the question. Sometimes,
Livy, you are such a—a—a lawyer.”

Livy narrowed her eyes. “Lucky for you, since
you need one so often.”

Rosie turned away, shocked to find tears
threatening. It had never bothered her before that she and Livy
didn’t see eye-to-eye. They were different.

Rosie and her mother had been different, too.
It was the way of families, the way of mothers and daughters, that
often they did not get along. Even more common was that they might
want to get along, yet had no idea how.

“Just once,” she managed, “I’d like my
daughter to stick up for me.”

“Once? I go to court with you every single
time.”

“You defend me, but with a wink and a nudge.
How do you think that looks? What does it make people think?”

“Since when have you given a rat’s behind
what something looks like or what anyone thinks, including me?”

“I care what you think. I always have.”

Rosie turned, and Livy frowned at the
evidence of her struggle against tears. Her daughter’s face, then
her voice, gentled. “You’re not acting like yourself. Are you
afraid I won’t get you out?”

“Of course not. I trust you.”

“You do?”

The surprise in her voice grated on Rosie’s
already raw nerves. “Why wouldn’t I trust you? You promised Max,
didn’t you? That makes it as good as done.”

Why it bugged Rosie so much that Livy wasn’t
getting her out because
she
wanted her out but because Max
did, Rosie didn’t know. But there it was.

“For some reason, everything you say today
sounds sarcastic.”

“Weird, huh?”

Livy sighed. So did Rosie. This wasn’t going
well. Typical of every conversation they’d ever had.

“Unfortunately, Mama, the judge is going to
see this as theft pure and simple.”

This is where they differed, or had since
Rosie had come back to Savannah and discovered the Livy she knew
buried beneath this stiff stranger.

“Nothing’s pure and simple. Cut-and-dried.
Black or white. Life is often a dirty mess. But sometimes it can be
full of colors and light and such beauty it makes you gasp. If you
only open your eyes, your mind and your heart.”

“Don’t start that stuff with me now. The
happy days of freedom are over. They fell out of the sky.”

Rosie flinched. “You have such a way with
words, sugar.”

“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” Livy
rubbed at her forehead.

The gesture always made Rosie want to hold
her close and kiss it better. How had her dancing little girl
become this sad-eyed woman who seemed to have a constant
headache?

Rosie never pressed, but maybe she should
have ferreted Livy’s problems into the open, the way her own mother
always tried. Rosie had resented what she considered nosiness. But
what
she
had resented might be just what Livy needed. Or, at
least, what she needed right now.

For the past several days Livy had been more
stressed than usual, and that was saying quite a bit. Something was
going on. Call it a mother’s intuition, which Rosie should have
made use of before now.

“You’ve been angry for so long.” Rosie took a
step closer. “I don’t think you know how not to be anymore. And
scared, too, about Max.” She put her hand on Livy’s shoulder and
rubbed. The muscles were as hard as stones yet vibrated with
tension. “I wish you’d trust me. Talk to me. Let me help you.” For
a minute Rosie caught a glimpse of hope in Livy’s eyes, before it
was smothered behind the cool blue once more.

She stepped away from Rosie’s comforting
touch. “You help me daily, and I’m grateful.”

Rosie curled her fingers together to keep
from reaching out again. “I’m your mother. I don’t want you to be
grateful.”

“What do you want?”

“I guess I always wanted you to need me. But
you never needed anyone except your father.”

Anger was an expression Rosie was used to
seeing in her daughter’s eyes. But that didn’t make it any easier
to face.

“That’s not true. I needed you once, but you
weren’t there.”

Rosie put a hand over her heart. “Bull’s-eye
again.”

“And I’m sorry again.” Rub, rub, rub on the
forehead. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t mean to. Do we have to
talk about the past? Dredge up everything that can’t be changed? I
don’t know how to talk to you. I never did.”

“And I’m sorry for that. I always dreamed of
a glorious relationship with my daughter, the relationship I wanted
with my mother and never had. But look at us.”

“Ever since Daddy died, you’ve tried to
change me. Telling me what I’m doing wrong—with my work, with Max,
with everything. Nothing is ever right enough for you.”

Was that true? Rosie hadn’t meant to become
her own mother all over again.

“I just want you to be happy. You
were
happy once.”

“Yeah, I was,” Livy whispered, almost to
herself.

“Find that happiness again.”

Livy shook her head. “It’s gone.”

“You’re sure?”

“Very.” But she didn’t appear so.

“Sometimes what we think is gone is just
waiting for us to come full circle. Like your father. He’s not
really gone. He’s only waiting.”

And for the first time in a very long time,
Livy didn’t argue with her mother.

* * *

Livy made it home by four. Barely. Another
case had gone sour on her. She was beginning to wonder if she was
cursed.

Once, she’d thought the law could give her
the security she needed to survive. If she upheld the law, stood
for those who could not stand for themselves, didn’t that make her
stronger, she who had always been so weak? Upholding the law gave
her control, or so Livy had thought. She was starting to understand
that control was an illusion. Especially when emotions were
involved.

Nothing’s pure and simple. Cut-and-dried.
Black or white. Life is often a dirty mess.

When had Rosie become Savannah’s
psychiatrist?

Livy put her briefcase on the table in the
hall, then kicked her heels against the wall. She’d felt bad all
day. Her mother had wanted to talk. Livy just hadn’t been able to.
She’d spent too many years keeping to herself, managing as best she
could. She didn’t talk about anything personal, mainly because she
didn’t have anything personal to talk about, and she liked it that
way.

But suddenly her entire life was one big soap
opera, every little thing a throbbing personal problem. She might
trust Kim with some of it, but she needed Kim focused on work. One
of them had to be.

Though Livy should have stayed late and
worked on an appeal, until Rosie was free, late was no longer an
option. It was going to be a hardship to keep up with work and
Rosie and Max. In all honesty, Livy didn’t think she’d be able to
manage it.

Mrs. Hammond didn’t mind helping in an
emergency, but she’d made it clear from the first she didn’t want
Max over every day after school and sometimes at night and on the
weekends, too. Livy couldn’t blame her. After the first trip to the
E.R., she was surprised Mrs. Hammond hadn’t moved out of the
neighborhood.

Livy wished she didn’t have to work all these
hours. The guilt ate at her every time she arrived home after Max
had fallen asleep. But the law waited on no one, and neither did
the bills she had to pay.

Feet pounded up the porch steps. Max tripped
in the door. His cast bashed against the wall.

“Hey, ba— I mean, Max. How’s that arm?”

He waved it about like a prizefighter.
Several dents marred the surface already. “Great. You know having
this means a lot less bruises on my arm.”

“I bet.”

“Where’s Rosie?”

Livy hesitated. Why was it so hard to tell
him she’d failed.

“Jail, huh? That’s okay. You did your best.
It’ll all work out.”

He trotted off to the kitchen in pursuit of
food, and that was that. Max didn’t mention Rosie for the rest of
the evening, except in the “God bless” portion of his prayers.
Because in Max’s mind his mom would take care of everything. He
trusted her. Just as Rosie trusted her.
Everybody
trusted
her. Livy Frasier stood for justice and truth.

Too bad she was a big fat liar.

Exhausted, Livy went to bed right after Max.
She hoped tonight, unlike last night, she’d be able to sleep.
Though with all the things she had to think about, all the areas of
her life that were unraveling, she had a feeling her hope would be
merely that. Livy punched her pillow a few times and settled
in.

Her exhaustion made her drift in a hazy place
between asleep and awake, a subconscious world where thoughts came
as fast and easy as memories of the past.

Rosie had said things come full circle. She’d
meant love and happiness. She could have as easily meant justice
and punishment. What goes around comes around, and Livy was pretty
certain something was coming for her.

As if an echo of her thoughts, a
thump
sounded on the servants’ stairs.

Just an old house.
Or too many
memories.

Garrett’s phone call last night had made her
think all day about things she’d believed forgotten. How he had
once snuck up those stairs to spend each twilight in her bed. It
had been easy. She’d given him the key.

A key he had never returned.

Livy sat up, suddenly wide-awake. At least
that particular memory kept her from screaming when he stepped into
the room and quietly closed, then locked, the door.