Random Acts Of Fashion

3

IT WAS NEARLY TIME to leave for court and Gillian was still struggling with the side zipper on the black sheath. It turned out that the cinnamon buns hadn’t been a bribe at all. Sabotage. That’s what they were. Sabotage to make her gain back those five pounds.

Of course, no one had made her eat all six of them.

“But Molly should have known I couldn’t resist!” she wailed at her bloated reflection. Following a half-dozen sweet buns from Sweet Buns, the dress had ceased being a sheath and had turned, overnight, into a sausage.

Gillian gave up on the zipper and started to rip the dress off.

“Ow!”

Drat her sprained arm. It made dressing, something Gillian ordinarily loved to do, nearly impossible and painful as the dentist.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t as bad as a root canal. But it was so frustrating to have to do everything not only one-handed but gingerly, as well. She couldn’t wait to face Lukas McCoy in court. If the judge didn’t throw the book at him, Gillian just might have to throw something at him herself.

One-handed, of course.

She yanked a sleeveless red shirtwaist with a retro full skirt out of the closet and struggled into it, managing to howl in pain only twice. It had a wide belt that was, thankfully, adjustable, and even though it was a little snug in the bodice the full skirt definitely hid any evidence of her carbo pig-out session the night before. She took a white cardigan sweater that she’d picked up in a vintage clothing shop in the Village out of Aunt Clemintine’s bureau. It had a darling little Peter Pan collar that was edged with tiny seed pearls. Perfect for throwing over her shoulders. She slipped red pumps on her bare feet—panty hose had proven impossible to maneuver with only one hand—transferred the necessary junk to a vintage red clutch purse, then checked herself in the mirror.

“Hmm, not bad,” she murmured. Maybe even better than the outfit she was going to wear in the first place. Feminine yet strong. Original, yet not too funky. The sling, however, nearly ruined the look. Gillian rummaged through a few hat boxes of accessories and came up with a long white scarf scattered with tiny red dots. Using her teeth and her good arm, she managed to tie it. She slipped it over her shoulder then ducked her head to get it around her neck.

“Better,” Gillian said to her reflection in the mirror. She was making some minor adjustments to the scarf when out on the street a horn honked. She ran to the window and looked out. An enormous old hulk of a car, the color of lemons, waited at the curb. Gillian smiled. Yes, Philo Hernshaw would own such a car.

She ran down the stairs, went out the front door and got into her lawyer’s car.

“You’re so sweet to pick me up,” she said. “It’s such a nuisance not being able to drive.”

“My pleasure, Miss Plane.”

“Um—that’s Caine, Mr. Hernshaw.”

“What? Oh, no. I don’t use a cane. Although I think they can sometimes add a touch of distinction to a gentleman.”

“No, Mr. Hernshaw. My name is—”

There was the blare of a horn and the squeal of tires as Philo Hernshaw edged the car into traffic and Gillian decided it was best not to bother him while he was driving.

Philo Hernshaw was a sweet man, very courtly, with crisp white hair, a short little beak of a nose and pale blue eyes. He dressed impeccably in suits that could have come from the kind of vintage clothing shops Gillian loved to rummage in—though, in Philo Hernshaw’s case, Gillian was fairly certain that the suits were strictly one-owner. In all the social graces, her lawyer was quite acceptable. But Gillian was a little dubious of his mental powers. Oh, he didn’t seem senile—exactly. He was just a bit vague. Most of the time he had a secret little smile on his faded lips—like he was experiencing a pleasant memory—but every once in a while he’d sort of get this look on his face like he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten where he was at that particular moment. Very unsettling.

There was another blare of car horns as Philo made a turn onto Ludington Avenue without using his blinker. His driving wasn’t exactly instilling any more confidence. Unfortunately, he was the only lawyer within one hundred miles of Timber Bay willing to take her case. Gillian suspected his appointment book wasn’t exactly jammed.

Tires squealed as Philo changed lanes and Gillian decided to spend the rest of the trip with her eyes closed. Luckily, the courthouse was only about a mile down Ludington Avenue—right across the street from the hospital Lukas had taken her to—and they managed to arrive alive and unscathed.

Ever the gentleman, Philo came around and opened the door for her, offered his arm, and escorted her up the long walk that led to the courthouse.

“Quite a day, isn’t it, Miss Spain?”

Gillian opened her mouth to correct him, but decided to merely agree. “Yes, Mr. Hernshaw. It’s a beautiful day.”

The morning was sunny with a gentle breeze that stirred the gold-and-red leaves on the trees that dotted the grounds of the lovely little redbrick courthouse. The building was done in the federalist style, complete with an American flag flying from the top of its petite white rotunda.

It was all so bucolic. So undisturbed looking. Gillian felt a twinge in her belly that had nothing to do with those half-dozen sweet buns and everything to do with the fact that she was about to disturb this bucolic scene—big-time.

Philo held the door for her and she walked into the cool, dim marble foyer. There was a small group of people at the other end. Despite the fact that her eyes hadn’t fully adjusted to the dimness, Gillian immediately recognized Lukas by height and breadth alone. He was grinning at a short middle-aged woman with a pretty face and neat dark hair who was reaching up and trying to push back those loose curls that fell over his forehead. His mother, no doubt. The man standing next to her, a graying, slightly shorter version of Lukas, had to be his father. Molly was there, too, smiling and teasing her brother about their mother’s ministrations.

Gillian felt an unexpected pang of loneliness at the sight of McCoy’s family gathered around him. They all looked so nice. They reminded her of her own family. Well, minus the four brothers she had and plus the sister she’d always wanted.

As they approached, something made Lukas look up and the smile on his face, the one that deepened his dimples enough for a girl to get lost in them, totally disappeared.

Gillian sighed. “You are now entering the no-smile zone,” she said under her breath.

“Did you say something, Miss Flame?” Philo asked.

Gillian winced. She was about to go up against one of the town’s favorite sons and she had a lawyer who couldn’t even get her name straight. Despite the fact that Gillian firmly believed she was right in what she was doing, she didn’t feel real terrific about it at the moment.

Luckily, just as Gillian’s heart was warming to the McCoys—just as she started to wonder if she should just call the whole thing off—she heard the muffled sound of fabric rending as the back seam on the fitted bodice of her dress gave. And that made her remember the sweet-bun sabotage. Which made her remember the ruined pants and the damaged boot and her sprained arm. So when Molly came forward and started to introduce her parents, Gillian held up her good arm and yelled, “Stop!”

“Stop?” Molly inquired with a puzzled frown on her face.

“Please—just don’t come any closer. Every encounter I’ve had with a McCoy since I came back to town has turned out badly. So please—just stay right where you are until I’m safely inside the courtro—”

Gillian didn’t get to finish. There was a commotion behind the courtroom doors and then they burst open and an elderly man in a black robe came running out.

“Bees!” he yelled.

“What?” squawked Gillian.

“Bees!” the court reporter, hot on the heels of the judge and gripping her little machine in her hands, yelled.

“Close the doors!” someone shouted, but it was too late. The foyer was already buzzing.

“Oh, my—I’m allergic,” Philo said quite calmly just as a huge bumblebee landed on his nose. “Oh, my,” he merely said again as he went cross-eyed looking at it. “I’m allergic, you know,” he repeated politely.

The bee sat there quivering slightly as if it was trying to choose a pore to plunge its stinger into and Philo just stood there looking cross-eyed, so Gillian did the only thing she could think of. She swatted at the bee on Philo’s nose.

As it turned out, swatted might have been too mild a term because Philo went down like a felled tree with the squished remains of the bee hanging off of his nose.

Lukas rushed over and crouched next to Philo’s inert form. “Did the bee get him?”

“I don’t know! I’m not sure!” Gillian cried, feeling perfectly awful as she peered at her lawyer over McCoy’s hulking shoulder.

Lukas shook him but Philo remained stubbornly inert.

“Do you think he’s in shock from bee venom?” Lukas’s mother asked.

“I think it’s more likely the princess punched his lights out,” Lukas answered. “But just in case, we better get him to the hospital.”

“Somebody call 911!” Gillian shouted, but Lukas was already picking the lawyer up off the floor.

“The hospital is right across the street. I’ll take him.”

“I’ll come along,” Molly said.

Gillian stood there with her mouth hanging open as Lukas carried her lawyer out the door, cradling him in his arms like he was no more than a child.

“Swell,” Gillian said. “There goes my lawyer and the defendant. Talk about odd couples.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the judge said. “No courtroom, anyway. There was a whole damn nest of bees under the bench.”

Gillian panicked. The hearing couldn’t be postponed! Because if it was, it would mean that she was going to fail in business once again.

She grabbed ahold of the judge’s robe. “But Judge, you don’t understand! We have to have this hearing today! I could lose my business if we don’t.”

The judge sized her up, his lined face scrunching and his eyes squinting. “You prepared to act as your own lawyer?”

“Lukas is acting as his own lawyer,” Mr. McCoy said. Mrs. McCoy nodded in agreement.

Gillian, who’d gotten hooked on the courtroom show that gave her the idea to sue McCoy in the first place, figured if Lukas McCoy could be his own lawyer, so could she. “Yes!” she answered, bobbing her head up and down enthusiastically.

“Then find me a courtroom, girlie, and we’re in business.”

Gillian was ecstatic and didn’t wonder until much later at the wisdom of wanting to go before a judge who called her girlie.

She was pacing, trying to come up with an idea for an alternative courtroom when the doors to the main entrance burst open and a group of women came bustling in, each of them carrying a weird-looking plant in their hands.

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