Page 7 of The B!tch List

“Antonia said you’d gone to see the kindergarten teacher. How’d it go? Is she going to go to bat for us?”

“No, sorry. She’s adamant that she thinks she got it all wrong.” I shrugged. “She’s not changing her mind.”

“Shit.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’ve got a good case, but the teacher would’ve helped.”

“The teacher’s aide is willing to though.” I grinned, feeling pretty pleased with myself, especially when Tate’s eyes went wide.

“She will? What did she say?”

I nodded. “That it’s her duty.” I chose not to tell him that she also said that I was an asshole.

“Fantastic. Well done, Shaw. .”

To be fair it hadn’t been difficult to get her to agree, but if Tate wanted to think I’d earned my stripes, then so be it. I liked working for him and wanted to keep working for him, especially when I’d finished law school. A lot of the people I was at college with wanted to go to New York, Boston, Chicago, or any of the big cities for that matter, but I was happy to work for a guy like Tate in a small town like Dayton Valley. It wasn’t that I didn’t have ambition, I did, but I also didn’t want to work from a cubicle with a dozen other lawyers for some big company who had no clue who you were. Helping people to avoid taxes or helping to push through underpriced takeovers was not what I was going to law school for. I loved what Tate was doing. His reputation in Frisco was already big, so the fact he now worked in a small town in Texas hadn’t really hurt his business. Only a month before he’d fought a case for a woman in Maine whose boss had fired her because she wouldn’t sleep with him. He’d claimed she was bad at her job in advertising sales, but Tate had proved she had the best numbers of all the team, and he got another woman to come forward who’d suffered the same experience. The lady from Maine was now richer to the tune of almost three million dollars.

“You think you could take her statement?” Tate asked. “Maybe prep her in case she’s called to the stand. Antonia is pretty busy right now and I trust you to do it.”

“You’re definitely going to?” I asked. “Call her to the stand, I mean?”

“Might not be necessary if we get enough witness statements to prove most of the parenting was done by mom. I’ve got some other stuff I can present.”

“You going for full custody?”

“Sure am,” Tate said, with a grin. “He thought he could push her around. Use his family money to be the big man and show her who’s boss. Treat her like shit for asking for a divorce in the first place. Well, he has another thing coming. Mrs. Ranger is a nice lady who just wanted a peaceful, nicer life for her kids.”

And that was why I wanted to work for Tate; he cared about people.

“Well, anything I can do you just let me know.”

He smiled. “You know I will.”

“Okay, I’m going to get back to my list of prospective partners. Catch up with you later.”

Tate clamped a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks, Shaw and thanks for doing a great job.”

As he walked back to his office, I couldn’t help but grin. He was all suited up but had a pair of sneakers on his feet. That was another reason I liked Tate; he didn’t conform just for the sake of it.

* * *

Sitting at my desk, I got the list I was working from up on my screen. For all that Tate was doing was a good thing, I hadn’t had much luck in getting anyone to partner with us—it seemed they didn’t want to take a chance on a small-town lawyer. Word must have been getting around though, because a couple of women’s groups had reached out to us. Problem was they were politically inclined. Tate had his own political viewpoint but didn’t want to tie his cause to one, so he’d got me to politely decline. The one group I was hoping would interested was the South-Central Women’s Foundation based out of Dallas. They were making big noises in women’s rights and advocacy, particularly around equal pay in the workplace and were exactly who we would want to be partnered with. I was about to dial their number from my office phone when my cell started ringing. I looked down and groaned when I saw it was Carter my brother-in-law.

“Carter, I told you no,” I said on answering.

“You have no idea what I’m going to ask you,” he protested.

“So, youaregoingaskme something?” I sighed heavily and sat back in my chair. “If it’s about your stupid show then the answer is still no.”

“Shaw, man, come on.” He groaned.

“I’m right then, that is why you called.”

“It’s for a good cause, Shaw, you know it is.”

Carter was trying to raise money to help pay toward building an animal shelter and had decided that holding a singing contest was the way to do it. Ergo Dayton Valley Idol was going to run over three nights over the weekend.

“Maybe, but I don’t know if I can spare the time or the effort,” I said. “How about I give you a donation instead?”

Carter ignored me and continued trying to sell the show to me “The first round is on Friday night,” he said. “With the judges voting off two of the nine acts each night you’re bound to end up in the final. Imagine how great you’d look to everyone.”

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