Coming Home to Greenleigh

Chapter 10

*****Thank you for all the reads and votes! I meant to upload this a few days earlier but I had to do some major surgery on this chapter in order to introduce a rival! Stay tuned for another interesting rival in the next couple of chapters--trying to turn up the heat a little bit! I try to upload every Monday, but if possible I will also upload something on Thursdays or Fridays! Also, I am trying to thank everyone who has been reading, voting, and following me, as well as visiting your work to repay your generosity--I just need some time to get to everyone! Again, thank you for your support!*****

The prediction Friday was for snow, an early blizzard. Shawn was eyeing the heavy gray skies skeptically as he maneuvered his car into a parking space on Church Street, wondering whether it would be nearly as bad as forecasted. His father had gone to Boston that week on business and was spending the weekend with some Waterstone cousins before he was due back on Sunday.

Bob Stewart had called him first thing in the morning, confirming their appointment at Elisabeth's home on Church Street.

"Elisabeth Burnham called me to ask if we could push the meeting back to noon."

"Wh-what?" he'd stammered, taken aback. He thought that after his conversation with Beth there would be no need for there to be a meeting at all. Didn't she say that she would withdraw as Angela Stewart's attorney?

"It was scheduled for ten, but she said she had an urgent situation come up. I said it was okay—I hope it was okay?" Bob sounded too cheerful, too eager, too energetic. He was nervous.

"It's fine, but—"

"Oh, good. This is better for me. I've still got some snow prep to do at a couple of my work sites."

What the hell? And why hadn't Beth called him to make the change? Why had she called Bob directly?

He'd had to think long and hard before he'd decided to talk to Beth about the Stewart case. He knew that it was too tricky to navigate the ethics of that one—he didn't want people around town to notice that both of the Stewart attorneys were associated with the same firm—and he knew that if anything were called into question, it would be Beth's name dragged through the mud. On the other hand, he knew that without her private clients, she was more dependent than ever on Lawson & Lawson.

Was that so bad? Maybe for her dignity, but two Lawson & Lawson attorneys could not possibly mastermind a divorce between them. Especially he and Beth. It was messed up beyond what could even be explained.

He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was a quarter of twelve. He wondered if Bob Stewart had arrived yet.

Only one way to find out, he decided. He swung his tall frame out of the car, noting with disgust that he didn't have jumper cables or a windshield scraper in the car. He'd somehow gotten out of the habit of carrying them around, since in New York he had rarely relied on his own car for transportation about the city. Stupid, he thought. He needed to swing by a hardware store before the day was out.

He saw that someone had raked the leaves around the Burnham property, a change from his visit several days ago, when the lawn had had a thick covering. The storm windows had also been put up. How on earth does she keep all of that straight, he wondered. Between himself and his dad the two of them barely kept on top of the seasonal needs of the house, not to mention repairs and maintenance, and they didn't have the added pressure of having to worry about where the funds to pay for it all would come from.

He walked up the stone pathway and onto the veranda, taking care to make enough noise so that his arrival would not be a surprise to Elisabeth. He rang the doorbell, and the door swung open immediately.