Page 63 of A Dead End Wedding

SPOILER

SPOILER

STILL HERE?

ARE YOU READY?

OKAY:

IMPORTANT NOTE: NO FICTIONAL DOGS DIE IN THIS BOOK. IT'S A PLOY. TURN THE PAGE WHEN YOU THINK THE ALLIGATOR GOT HER

Copyright Alesia Holliday

No real names, dates, people, or entities appear in these pages. Although Alesia practiced law, it was nothing like this. This is entirely and utterly a work of fiction (except she once owned a pug named Daisy).

1

Nobody ever tried to stab me when I did corporate work.

"Hey! All I did was suggest that your neighbor have his property surveyed." I shoved my desk chair between me and a hundred and ten pounds of angry senior citizen. "I never told him to bulldoze your lawn shed if it crossed over the property line. You need to calm down, Mr. Ellison, or I'm going to have my assistant call the police."

I eyed the distance between my desk and the door. Surely I could outrun this guy, even in my heels. He had to be ninety years old.

"Don't even think about it, girlie. I've got pepper spray, and I ain't afraid to use it. Those self-defense classes down at the senior's center were good for something." The little white-haired troll brandished a menacing-looking can in the air with one hand, while still pointing the knife at me with the other. If I hadn't been in imminent danger of being filleted, I would have laughed.

My name is December Vaughn, and I'm a lawyer. That means that I'm usually the most annoying person in any room, even when I don't have PMS. Notthismorning, though.

I tried reason. "Look, you have a claim against him for the shed. He has to pay to replace it, OK? The shed and any tools he may have destroyed. Now, put that knife down before somebody gets hurt."

Ellison lowered the knife, but it was still pointing at me. This was not how I liked to start my Mondays, being chased by somebody's rabid, weapon-toting great-grandfather. Especially not before coffee.

"He ain't been the same since that testicle problem. Man's got half his left nut missing, and it drove him insane." He squinted his eyes at me behind his bifocals. "Can I garnish the rat turd's Social Security?"

"I can't really advise you on your actions, since you are an adverse party to the rat turd, er, my client, sir. However, I'd be glad to recommend somebody–″

"HA! I knew you'd say that. You lawyers are all the same. Cause problems and then weasel out of trying to fix 'em. I don't want another lawyer. You started this; you can figure it out." He shuffled around the edge of the desk and sat down, looking a lot like a prune, or somebody who needed to eat one.

Maybelotsof prunes.

I could hear my teeth grinding together and forced myself to relax. "OK, Mr. Ellison, what exactly is it you want? I really, really need some coffee before my life is threatened any more this morning. Would you like some coffee?"

"Wouldn't mind some coffee. None of that fancy flavored crap, though. Just straight up normal coffee with some cream. Make it fresh cream, too, not that powder." He watched me closely as I walked out of my office door to the tiny adjacent kitchen. Weasel lawyers couldn't be trusted to make good coffee, I guess.

My new assistant and best friend since high school rushed in behind me. Max "never,evercall me Maxine" EmmanuelHutton was five feet, four inches of beauty pageant alumni, from the tips of her silky brown hair to the toes of her rounded-in-all-the-right-places body. Luckily for the state of my office management, she was also unbelievably efficient when she wasn't dating one of the losers who always found her.

"What's going on with the geezer?" she asked, voice low. "I just got here and heard the end. Do you want me to call the police?"

I turned to face her, holding two mugs, which I promptly almost dropped. "Whatare you wearing?"

"Oh, this old thing?" She did a slow turn, treating me to a 360-degree view of the most bizarre outfit I'd seen outside of a bullfighting ring. She had tight black silk pants tucked into knee-high black leather boots and a flowing, ruffled white shirt, with a red embroidered vest topping it all. All she needed was a cape and a sword, and I'd start yellingToro, toro.Since she normally wore your standard office-worker clothes, this new look was a teensy bit unexpected.

"Where's the bull? Or is this Be Kind to Matadors Week? I forgot to check my calendar."

"Hilarious, especially coming from the queen of bargain-basement shopping. I'll have you know, this is the very latest knockoff of a Mistraldi original last seen on the Milan runway not three months ago. It's not likeyouhave any fashion sense anymore, December." She sniffed as she took in my sensible navy suit, white blouse, and (okay, boring) navy heels. "You moved to Ohio and morphed into Midwestern-lawyer drone, somehow. I'll bet you don't even own any tube tops any more. At least you didn't cut your hair off."

I cringed, remembering Orange Grove High fashion. "Hey, one of us has to look like somebody who works in a lawyer's office, don't you think? I figure it may as well be me, since you'velost your mind." I touched the clip holding my shoulder-length blonde hair off my face, wondering again if I should cut it.

"Oh, ho, Miss Big Stuff. Three entire weeks of owning your own practice, and already you're acting like the big boss. What's next? Unpaid overtime?"

---