Teresa Hill - Matchmaking by Moonlight

“Good,” Lilah agreed. “I think someone needs to be watching out for them.”

Okay, she was either sincere or she was playing him.

He really couldn’t tell, despite what he’d always considered to be really good instincts and people-reading skills.

The waitress arrived. Ashe knew what he wanted and asked if Lilah did as well, telling her they should really go ahead and order, because he didn’t have that long before he had to be back in court. She glanced at the menu for all of fifteen seconds and settled on the soup and sandwich special of the day.

The woman got points for being able to make up her mind quickly. So many couldn’t, he had found. And she got points for being … not so outrageous today. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as much of a chore as he feared.

Then the waitress came back and said, “I almost forgot, ma’am. I asked the manager. He said it’s fine to put one of your posters in the window.”

She pulled a small poster from her stack of menus and handed it back to Lilah, who smiled and said, “Thank you so much.”

Ashe caught a glimpse of the floaty, see-through veil her naked model had been wearing and couldn’t believe it. The naked lady on a poster? One that Lilah wanted displayed at the restaurant? Surely the manager hadn’t actually taken the time to look at it before agreeing to that.

“You can’t put that up here,” Ashe told her.

Lilah gave him an odd look. “You heard the waitress. She just said I can.”

“A photograph of a naked woman on a poster is not going to work in this town. In fact, I’m sure we have some sort of ordinance against it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with this photograph,” Lilah insisted. “Why don’t we let people judge for themselves?” She started to pull a small poster from the envelope she had with her.

“Don’t do that,” Ashe said, reaching for her. “Not now. Not here.”

“Just because you have a problem with a little nudity, Judge, doesn’t mean everyone else here does,” she claimed just a little too loudly.

Somehow in their minor tussle, the envelope tore, they both lost their hold on it, and her posters ended up all over the floor, a dozen or so of them, face-up, of course, for everyone to see.

Ashe winced and looked away.

Conversation around them stopped.

People turned and stared, started whispering. There were a few chuckles.

“Does anyone have a problem with this image being displayed here in town?” Lilah asked, holding one up for her audience to see.

Ashe heard mostly male voices, amused and offering no opposition. That was odd. When he turned back to Lilah, she looked quite pleased with herself. She leaned over to pick up her posters, but a number of men nearby had already jumped on that particular task for her, including one of the young waiters, who blushed as he handed them to her.

“Is that you in the picture?” he said, the poor kid’s voice cracking and moving up an octave or so.

“No, it’s not her,” Ashe said, loudly enough for the whole restaurant to hear, because he really didn’t need everyone thinking he was having lunch with the naked lady.

Murmurs of disappointment followed from the men in the room. A few speculated about the truth of what Ashe had said, and more than one man said something about wanting to be introduced to the woman who actually was in the photograph.

Lilah thanked her young admirer, then grinned mischievously at Ashe as she set her stack of posters on the table in front of him for him to see. “She might have been naked when I took her photo, but she doesn’t look it in the photograph. I’m not an idiot. I do know what I’m doing.”

Still skeptical, Ashe looked down at the poster, an advertisement for her Divorce Recovery Classes, and there was the naked woman. Except, well … not quite so naked.

There was the woman Ashe had seen, but shot through the gauzy haze of the wedding veil. Everything was a little fuzzy, so that she looked like a woman running away in a big, billowing wedding veil, but her body was no more than a shadowy impression.

Beautiful, provocative, but still tasteful, he conceded, and certainly that was the intent—to be just provocative enough to catch one’s attention and hold it. It was advertising, after all.

Ashe had misjudged Lilah badly, something a man in his profession should definitely not do. Although, honestly, he’d bet she took some devious bit of pleasure in trying to lead him to misjudge her in just this way. The flash of fire in her eyes when he finally looked up at her, that teasing, satisfied smile, told him just that.

“Are you like this with everyone you meet?” he asked. “Or is it just me?”

“I’ve recently made a vow to enjoy life to the fullest. I didn’t for too long,” she said. “Besides, most people are much too serious, don’t you think?”

“It’s a serious world. Serious issues, serious problems. Mine is, at least,” Ashe told her.

“Maybe a little too serious.”

“Divorce is a serious topic,” he argued. “It’s really hard for people.”

“I know. I want to help them. Truly, I do,” she claimed. “If you believe nothing else about me, please believe that. I take helping people very seriously.”

“So, tell me what it is you do at these classes of yours,” Ashe said, deciding she deserved a chance to be heard. Plus, he’d promised Wyatt to find out if she was up to something with Wyatt’s wacky relatives.

“Eleanor said you’re in family law. Or that you were, and now you hear cases in family court,” she began.

“Yes.”

“Divorces?”

He nodded. “Plus custody issues both between parents and social services, some probate stuff, guardianship issues for people who are older or incapacitated in some way, that sort of thing.”

“Have you seen how some people, while they might have been divorced for a while or just separated for a long time, are still emotionally so entangled in their marriages?”

“Yes.”

“To the point of it being highly detrimental to their lives? Clouding their judgment? Keeping them locked into place, unable to move on emotionally or just let go?”

“Yes,” he agreed.

He could tell stories that he thought would keep anyone, even the most hopeless, foolish, absolutely blind romantics and optimists, from ever getting married. In fact, he thought if he could videotape some divorce and custody proceedings in his courtroom, he could splice real-life scenes together into a documentary that had the power to end marriage, once and for all, in America, possibly even globally.

“I want to fix that,” Lilah said, as she eased back in her seat to make room for the plates of food their waitress was placing in front of them. “Divorced people who can’t let go and move on.”

“That’s all?” He dug into his lunch, deciding she was either supremely confident or hopelessly naive. He thought about telling her his idea for simply ending marriage altogether, which would end the need for helping anyone get over divorce, emotionally or otherwise.

“It’s important work,” she insisted.

“Yes, it is. I’m just not sure if it’s at all possible.”

“Well, I intend to try.”

She was naive, Ashe feared, perhaps idealistic and completely unrealistic. He felt sorry for her and experienced some small need to try to save her from herself.

“I don’t think that’s a job for one person, all by herself.”

“Then help me.”

“I don’t think it’s a job for two people, either. Way too big for that.”

She sighed, sounding disappointed. “Gandhi said, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’”

Ashe blinked at her. She’d quoted Gandhi to him? “I wonder if he was ever married.”