Perfect Match. Dara Girard
queen of horror?”
Hannah laughed at her friend’s description. “She’s not that bad.”
“No, she’s worse. In a horror film she’d be the monster.”
“Well, right now she’s preparing to be homeless.”
“And it’s all your fault,” Bonnie said, mimicking Abigail’s tone.
Hannah nodded, her spirit dimming. “Yes.”
“Does she have a reason to really worry this time?”
Hannah sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. It’s really looking bad, but I have another option I’m going to try. The guy I met in the park gave me the phone number for another contractor to try. Maybe he can give us a lower estimate.”
“It’s a start. I hope you get to see him again,” Bonnie said, returning to what she was doing.
“Me, too,” Hannah said in a soft tone.
* * *
“Where have you been?” Hector Ramirez demanded when Amal stepped into his office. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
Amal walked past him. “I was busy.”
Hector followed him and then paused and studied him with a knowing look. “You met a woman, didn’t you?”
Amal shook his head and sat. “It wasn’t like that.” Hector was a man of thirty-seven with dark eyes and prematurely gray hair that gave him a distinguished look despite his boyish features. Amal liked him, trusted him and rarely kept anything from him. But this time was different.
“I knew it would be a woman.”
Amal didn’t care what he thought. He wasn’t in the mood to discuss it with him. Hector was his trusted friend, but somehow the meeting in the park was something Amal wanted to keep to himself. There was something special about it. He just wasn’t sure what yet.
“What line did you use with her?” Hector asked with a smug grin. “How pretty is she? Wait, don’t answer—with you they’re always gorgeous. Was she a model? An actress? A nurse?”
“No.”
“Did you just get her name and phone number, or did you get her address, too?”
“What did you want to tell me?”
Hector paused, flabbergasted that his questions had been ignored. That wasn’t typical of Amal. “What? You’re not going to tell me about your latest conquest?”
Amal sat back in his chair, keeping his expression neutral. “I told you it wasn’t like that.” He held up his hand before Hector could speak. “What’s the news?”
Hector sighed. “You’re serious? You’re not going to tell me anything about this woman?”
Amal slowly blinked and waited.
Hector loosened his tie. Amal was a fun and easygoing guy when he wanted to be, but he could also be a hard SOB when the mood struck him—such as at this moment. He sat and bounced his leg up and down, trying to control his pent-up anxiety and gather the courage to tell him what he knew Amal didn’t want to hear. “It’s bad.”
Amal blinked again, his gaze narrowing slightly.
Hector cleared his throat. His tie was loose, but it still felt as though it threatened to strangle him. “The thing is I—”
“Just tell it to me straight,” Amal said, his tone too quiet to be natural.
“The Brenton Law Firm said no.”
“I see.”
Hector stared at him for a long moment. “That’s it? ‘I see’? What’s wrong with you? It’s not like you to be this calm. Are you still thinking about that woman? At least tell me her name in case she calls.”
“She’s not going to call. Who else is there we can hire?”
“No one.”
Amal began to tap a beat on his desk, holding on to his temper. “What do you mean ‘no one’?” He wasn’t going to let them win. He couldn’t. The Walkers wanted to take away everything he’d built with Jade Walker, his former girlfriend. Their business, The Eye of Jade, an art import/export business, had been a success, but unfortunately their relationship had not. He hadn’t realized how unstable she was in the beginning. He’d taken her mood swings as part of her vibrant personality and quick mind, although soon her addiction to painkillers following a series of surgeries for a back injury she’d suffered while skiing got out of control. He’d stood by her as she tried rehab after rehab, but nothing helped.
Finally, he had to break free, but it had been hard to leave her. Amal remembered the day they met. He had attended a local fund-raiser for the Raleigh Philharmonic Orchestra’s mentoring program that provided musical scholarships to underserved youth in North Carolina. As part of his philanthropic work, Amal donated to several causes and was used to attending these types of functions. On this particular afternoon, he was struck by the striking woman who caught his eye. Now she was dead from an overdose, sixteen months after their breakup. He’d read about it in the papers. It was ruled a suicide, and the Walkers blamed him and wanted him to pay for their loss. But he wasn’t going to let them steal away their business. They claimed that the collection of art found in Jade’s private storage unit was hers and did not belong to the business. Unfortunately, the last shipment of art she had purchased abroad had been sent to her private storage instead of the company’s warehouse, where they usually stored items. This arrangement had been an exception to their normal protocol because Jade had wanted to have pictures taken of the items prior to having them shipped off to the gallery where they were to be displayed.
Unfortunately for Amal, nothing had been put in writing to explain this arrangement, and the Walkers had taken legal action banning him from taking what he believed was his. The gallery owner in New Mexico, where the show was to be held, and the artist, an up-and-coming sculptor, were both threatening to sue. He needed to go to court to refute the Walkers’ claim if he didn’t want to lose everything.
Hector shifted, uneasy with Amal’s silence. “We’ve gone through twenty law firms and no one will take your case.”
Amal started tapping two fingers. “Someone will. Keep digging.”
“You want someone ethical, right?”
Amal tapped faster. “I want someone who will win.”
Hector swallowed. “All the lawyers in this city know it’s career suicide to go up against the Walkers.”
“Did you tell them how much I’d pay?”
“They’re not interested.”
Amal flattened his palm on the desk, his voice low. “Find someone who is.”
Chapter 3
At home, Hannah turned on the TV and then glanced at the bouquet of flowers from Jacob sitting on the dining table. When she pulled out her wallet and a crushed flower floated to the floor, she smiled and picked it up. It was the buttercup that the stranger had given her. Its yellow blossom seemed more beautiful than all the flowers in Jacob’s bouquet. It made her feel as if she wasn’t alone. She took the flower and gently placed it in a page in her journal that she kept nearby. She’d always remember him.
That night Hannah dreamed. She didn’t dream about winning the lottery and saving her parents’ house or finally convincing Jacob that he was better off without her, or finding a way to get along with her sister. No, she dreamed about him. The Stranger. She’d tried to come up with a name for him, but nothing seemed to suit him. Paul seemed too pedantic. Armando too exotic. So to her he was just The Stranger. The Handsome Stranger, that aspect of him she couldn’t refute—those captivating brown eyes and beautifully etched features.
She imagined walking