Suddenly One Summer (FBI/US Attorney #6)(53)

“It’s good, Dixon. Very good.” Marty looked up from his computer. “Why don’t you let the acting chief probation officer know that we’ll be running the story on Sunday’s front page. See if he’d like to be quoted in response.”

The Sunday front page—nice. It wouldn’t be the first time for Ford, but still. It never got old, seeing his name, and his words, on the front page of a newspaper with a Sunday circulation of nearly eight hundred thousand.

“I’ll do that,” he told his editor with an efficient nod.

Strutting through the newsroom back to his desk, he dialed up Brooke at her office.

A celebratory lunch definitely was in order.

* * *

THEY MET AT The Shore, their usual place, a restaurant owned by Brooke’s company that was located right on Oak Street Beach. They scored a prime table overlooking the water—one of the advantages of dining with the general counsel and part owner—and toasted over a couple of Dos Equis to his upcoming front-page feature.

Shortly after their food arrived, Brooke brought up a different subject. “Why are Charlie and Tucker sending me text messages asking if I know what ‘the real deal’ is between you and someone named Victoria the Divorce Lawyer? And more important, why don’t I know what the real deal is?”

Ford shook his head, not surprised to hear this. Charlie and Tuck had been all over him about Victoria ever since they’d met her—particularly Tucker, who kept asking for his “future wife’s” phone number so he could ask her out.

Clearly, in light of recent events, he was going have to tell Tuck that wasn’t happening.

Ever.

“I told you about her,” he said to Brooke. “She’s my new next-door neighbor.”

“Ah, right. The one who SUCKS.”

He chuckled, having forgotten about the text message he’d sent Brooke a few weeks ago. “Well . . . I may have been a little fired up when I said that.”

Brooke studied him closely, then set down her fork. “Oh my God, you’ve slept with her already?”

“A little louder, Brooke. I’m not sure the volleyball players on the other side of the beach could hear you.”

She lowered her voice, but still looked at him like he was crazy. “Your next-door neighbor? And here I thought you were an idiot for hooking up with that chick who made you talk dirty in a Scottish accent. How is this not going to be awkward when it ends?”

Ford dismissed this with a wave. “Don’t worry. It won’t be.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. “You are so thinking with your penis right now.”

That part of him definitely had been all in favor of sleeping with Victoria the other night, but his head also had zero regrets. “If you knew her, you’d understand. She’s different from . . . I don’t know, any other woman I’ve met, really.”

“How so?”

He took a bite of his French fries. “She’s this high-powered divorce lawyer. Runs her own firm. Smart, confident, and totally snarky. The first time we had dinner together she gave me this big speech about not wanting to get married, and how she’s ‘self-selected out of the happily-ever-after rat race.’ And it’s not just a speech—the woman is truly cynical when it comes to relationships. And snarky. Did I mention that?”

“Twice.”

Right. Ford ate another French fry. “Although I suppose when you get past all the sarcasm and the saucy comments, she’s actually kind of . . . funny. And it is pretty cute how she’s so determined to hide the fact that there’s this softer side to her.” He grinned slyly. “Fucking hot as hell in the bedroom. And on my dining table.”

Brooke gave him an amused look. “You do realize that’s the most you’ve ever told me about any woman you’ve hooked up with?”

He scoffed at that. “Get out of here. I always talk to you about the women I go out with.”

“That last woman you dated? Hailey? I don’t even know what she did for a living.”

Ford sipped his beer, remaining silent.

“Trying to remember?” Brooke asked.

“It’ll come to me.”

She smiled, her point made. “I’m just saying, it sounds like you like this Victoria the Divorce Lawyer.”

Christ, not this conversation. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you? You’re married now. And that means, like every other married person we know, you want all your single friends to get married, too, so that you can have couples’ dinner parties, or couples’ Scrabble nights, or go on little couples’ weekend trips to bed-and-breakfasts in Door County, or—”

“All right, I get the picture. And that’s not what this is about.” Brooke paused. “Although Cade and I were just talking about going up to Door County with Vaughn and Sidney and Huxley and Addison.”

“Of course you were.”

“But that doesn’t change the fact that I’d hate to see you pass up the chance to have something good because you’re too busy being a typical male bonehead about these things.”

“You know, if you were a guy, and I’d just told you that I’d had fantastic, no-strings-attached sex with a hot woman, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. You’d simply high-five me and ask if she has any single friends.”