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      1

       For a woman who prided herself on being cool and competent, who relied on her wits to win a case, Helen Decatur walked away from the Serenity courthouse with a strong desire to pummel some sense and decency into a few of South Carolina’s good old boys.

      Not that she could have proved—weekly golf outings aside—that the judge, the opposing attorney and her client’s soon-to-be ex-husband were in cahoots to deprive her client of what she deserved after the nearly thirty years she’d devoted to her husband, his career and their children. Nonetheless it was clear that the ongoing delays and postponements were designed to wear down Caroline Holliday until she settled for a pittance of what her husband owed her.

      One of these days Caroline would fold, too. Helen had seen the defeat in her eyes today when the judge had allowed Brad Holliday’s attorney yet another postponement. Jimmy Bob West claimed they hadn’t seen papers Helen had filed with the court weeks ago. Helen’s production of a signed courier receipt for the delivery of those papers on the same date they’d been filed with the court had done nothing to dissuade Judge Lester Rockingham from granting her opponent’s request.

      “Now, Helen, there’s no reason to be in a rush,” the judge had said, his tone condescending. “We’re all after the same thing here.”

      “Not exactly,” Helen had muttered under her breath, but she’d resigned herself to accepting the decision. Maybe she could use the extra time to do a little more digging into Brad’s finances. She had a hunch that would wipe that smug smile off his face. Men who provided such extensive records as quickly as Brad had often buried financial secrets under the avalanche, hoping they’d remain buried.

      If Brad’s smug expression annoyed her, at least she could take some pleasure in Jimmy Bob’s careful avoidance of her gaze. He’d known her long enough to be leery of her temper once she snapped. On his own, he would only push her so far. Spurred on by a client, he was sometimes tempted to take risks—as he was now.

      Jimmy Bob, with his slicked-back hair, ruddy complexion and ribald sense of humor, had tangled with Helen on so many occasions that she pretty much knew what to expect from him. He was a born-and-bred South Carolinian who’d been talking his way out of jams since high school. While he’d never crossed an ethical line to Helen’s knowledge, he danced right on the precipice so often it was a wonder he hadn’t lost his balance and fallen into some legal quagmire by now.

      “I’m sorry,” Helen told Caroline as she gathered up her files. “They’re not going to get away with this forever.”

      “Sure they will,” her client replied wearily. “Brad’s in no hurry. He’s too busy popping Viagra and sleeping with any female who crosses his path to be worried about when the divorce actually goes through. In fact, this is giving him the perfect excuse to avoid making a commitment to another woman. He’s in hog heaven right now, free to do whatever he wants without any consequences. He figures that any woman hooking up with him does so at her own, fully informed peril.”

      “What did you ever see in a man like that?” Helen asked.

      It was a question Helen found herself asking her clients a lot lately. How did smart, attractive women wind up with men who were so unworthy of them? To her mind, marriage was something to be avoided. Her friends told her she was simply jaded from handling too many nasty divorces, and while she couldn’t deny that, she could list on the fingers of one hand the number of successful marriages she’d seen. Her friend and business partner, Maddie Maddox, had one—though only after recovering from a lousy first marriage—and her other friend and partner, Dana Sue Sullivan, had recently reunited with her ex, and even to Helen’s cynical eye it looked as if this time things would last for her and Ronnie.

      “Brad wasn’t always that way,” Caroline told her, a faintly nostalgic expression in her eyes. “When we met, he was thoughtful and considerate. He was a great dad, a terrific provider and until a few months ago I’d have said we had a solid marriage.”

      Helen had heard the rest before, or some version of it. Brad had had a brush with prostate cancer that had threatened his virility. After that, he’d lost his grip on reality. All he could think about was proving he was still a man, and he did that by sleeping with a succession of younger women, never mind that a real man would’ve stuck by the family who’d stayed by his side during his treatment and recovery.

      By the time Helen left the courthouse, she felt even more cynical than usual. She would have given anything to head to The Corner Spa, the business she’d started with Maddie and Dana Sue, and spend an hour working out, but she knew she had a full schedule back at the office. Normally a jam-packed calendar would have reassured her, but lately she’d begun to wonder what she was working so hard to accomplish.

      She had professional success, she had money in the bank—quite a lot of it, in fact—and she had a lovely home in Serenity she rarely had time to enjoy. She had good friends, but the family she’d once envisioned for herself had never materialized. Instead she played doting surrogate aunt to Maddie’s children—Tyler, Kyle, Katie and Jessica Lynn—and to Dana Sue’s daughter, Annie.

      It was her own fault, she knew. She’d always been too driven, too dedicated to the clients depending on her to take the time for the kind of serious dating that might actually lead to a relationship and marriage. And as the divorces had piled up in her caseload, she’d grown less and less enchanted with the idea of risking her own heart, especially on something that came with no guarantees.

      When she reached her office, a small cottage on a side street near downtown Serenity, her secretary handed her a thick stack of message slips and nodded toward her office.

      Barb Dixon was almost sixty and unapologetically gray-haired, and she’d come to work for Helen the day she’d opened the office. A widow who’d raised three sons on her own and gotten all of them through college, Barb was endlessly patient and compassionate with the clients and fiercely loyal to Helen. She also felt it was her right and duty to take Helen to task from time to time, which made her one of the few people on earth who dared.