Abby Gaines - The Groom Came Back

Callie patted his knee. “Sweetie, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

A muffled sound came from Sam.

Okay, Jack was going to throttle her. Not here in the lawyer’s house; that would be stupid. He’d do it after they left, somewhere near the airport, where he could jump on the next plane before they found her body. The prospect of such utter abandonment of his Hippocratic oath cheered him.

“You know,” Callie reflected, “I’m thinking ‘willful or malicious desertion or absence without a reasonable cause’ might be more appropriate.”

He looked down his nose at her. “I don’t think any judge will consider my commitment to saving children’s lives unreasonable.”

“Touché,” she said sadly, and read on. “‘Cruel and inhuman treatment,’” she murmured with interest. “Oh, wait, I guess they mean toward me, not your parents.”

Jack snatched the list from her and began reading. “Here we go,” he said, triumphant. “All I have to do is make an attempt on your life, ‘by poison or any other means—’ and we have guaranteed grounds for divorce.”

She put a hand to her throat, as if she’d sensed the modus operandi of her imminent demise. “Go ahead. Your parents will see more of you when you’re in jail than they do now.”

She was driving him nuts. Jack turned away, so he wouldn’t be tempted to respond. “Do we need to decide the grounds now?” he asked Sam. “What’s the time line on this thing? I know we have to wait until I’ve been here thirty days before we can file.”

Oh, heck. Callie dragged air into her suddenly constricted lungs. She’d known her lie would come out, but she’d rather it wasn’t right after she’d been goading Jack. Was there any chance Sam wouldn’t expose her?

The lawyer’s shaggy eyebrows shot up. She was dead in the water.

“That’s not right,” Sam said. “As long as you have grounds, which it seems you do on several counts, and as long as one of you has been resident in Marquette County the past six months—” he looked at Callie, who reluctantly nodded “—and you’ve lived apart for a continuous period of two or more years without cohabiting as man and wife during that period…” He took a breath as he finished the spiel, then sealed Callie’s fate. “You can file the papers tomorrow.” He spread his hands. “Your divorce will be through in sixty days.”

“You mean,” Jack said slowly. “I have to stay for sixty days from when we file?”

Sam shook his head. “You don’t need to stay—in fact, you don’t have to be here at all. Callie can file for the divorce.”

Callie sucked in her cheeks and tried to appear surprised.

But Dr. Megabrain, who more often than not talked to her as if she had a whole bunch of screws missing, didn’t consider for one second that she might have misunderstood the Tennessee Code.

He twisted on the couch. Anger darkened his eyes to gunmetal, and he aimed an accusing finger at her jugular. “You lied to me.”

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