“We’re flying through that one,” Rachel said. “I don’t have your size in the store, but we should be getting in more next week. Want me to put one aside for you?”
“Have I ever mentioned how much I love having a best friend who owns a clothing store?” Victoria checked her watch. “Shoot. I have to get going. I have this . . . thing this afternoon.” She was deliberately vague, not wanting to get into the whole Dr. Metzel, Girl-You-Have-a-Panic-Disorder saga.
Not that she was embarrassed to tell Rachel and Audrey about the teeny, tiny issues she’d been having ever since the break-in.
Okay, she was a little embarrassed.
Rachel raised an eyebrow, her tone sly. “A go-home-and-pretend-not-to-ogle-your-hot-neighbor thing?”
Ha, ha. “Not happening. Trust me, my press-and-crane days are over as far as that man is concerned.”
Forty minutes later, Victoria sat in Dr. Metzel’s office, in the same leather chair as last week.
“I couldn’t help but notice last time that you seemed hesitant when we talked about including psychotherapy as part of our sessions,” Dr. Metzel led in, after the obligatory chitchat part of the appointment was over.
And so it begins.
Now he would want to know why she didn’t like psychotherapy, and whether she had any experience with it, which would naturally lead into a discussion about her parents’ divorce and the aftermath.
“It’s not a process that comes naturally to me,” she acknowledged. “Putting all my feelings out there to be dissected and analyzed.” Ever since she was ten, she’d been pretty guarded with her emotions. Even when something was wrong, she’d sucked it up and kept her feelings to herself. Frankly, she hadn’t had much choice.
“Well, here’s the thing, Victoria,” Dr. Metzel said. “I want you to be as comfortable as possible during these sessions. So if having your feelings ‘dissected’—as you put it—isn’t something you’re ready for, why don’t we table that for now? Today, let’s focus instead on some breathing techniques and relaxation exercises that can help the next time you feel a potential panic attack coming on.” He smiled. “Sound okay?”
She hadn’t expected him to say that. The last time she’d done therapy, at her mother’s insistence, she’d felt pressured to talk even though the whole time she’d wanted nothing more than to move on.
She smiled slightly, exhaling in relief. “Okay.”
“Good.” Dr. Metzel folded his hands in his lap. “To start, we’re going to entirely change the way you’ve been breathing your whole life.”
All right. Now that she could handle.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, as Victoria sat on her bedroom floor, putting on her shoes to go for a jog, she heard a faint beeping sound.
She cocked her head, trying to place the noise. There it was again—coming from the direction of the wall she shared with Ford. She got up and climbed onto her bed, listening.
Beep.
Had the man left his alarm clock on? The beep didn’t sound quite that loud, although it would nonetheless be annoying if she had to listen to it all day.
The room fell momentarily quiet, so she pressed her ear up against the wall.
Huh. Nothing.
Suddenly, there was the loud whir of an electric drill right at her ear. With a yelp, she leapt off the bed and checked—no holes in her head, always a plus—and then glared at the wall.
Twenty seconds later, she knocked on the door of one Mr. F. Dixon.
After a brief pause, he threw open the door. Wearing a white T-shirt that stretched across his broad chest, jeans, and a tool belt slung low around his lean hips, he looked her over. “Ms. Slade. What a pleasant surprise.”
In response to his dry tone, she gave him an ultra-sweet smile. “I was hoping we could have a conversation about your home improvement projects. As in, how long you expect them to last.”
“Sure, we can have a conversation about that.” He lifted the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe sweat off his brow, revealing—hello—a six-pack of perfectly sculpted abs. “As long as we can also have a conversation about your hair-drying routine.”
She put a hand on her hip. “What’s wrong with my hair-drying routine?”
“You mean, other than the fact that it wakes me up at the crack of dawn every weekday morning and goes on forever?”
Please. “Six thirty A.M. is not that early on a weekday.” She considered this, looking him over. “You do have some sort of actual job, I take it?”
He grinned lazily, drawling, “Nah, no time, Ms. Slade. Not with the cavalcade to entertain.”
All right, so somebody had his boxer-briefs in a bunch over the “cavalcade” comment. “Look, maybe I was wrong in my assumptions about the blonde. But the brunette? I ran into her in the hallway that morning after she left your place. It seemed pretty obvious that she liked you.”
Something flickered in Ford’s eyes—guilt, perhaps? Then it was gone, and he cocked his head. “How long did you say you’ll be in Owen’s place?”
“All summer.”
“Funny. That’s exactly how long my home improvement projects are going to last.” He returned her fake smile.
And then shut the door firmly in her face.
Eight
MONDAY MORNING, VICTORIA sat in Judge Bogg’s chambers as her opposing counsel argued on about what a neglectful father Victoria’s client was.
At issue in today’s pretrial conference was the emergency Motion for Visitation that Victoria had filed on behalf of her client, Nate Ferrara. He and his wife, Heather, had jointly filed for divorce last December and had agreed to alternate the weeks that their two children, ages seven and ten, lived with each of them. Last Sunday night, however, Mrs. Ferrara had called her soon-to-be ex-husband and told him “not to bother” picking up the kids for his visitation week, and also said she wanted to amend their agreement so that he saw them only on alternating weekends.
“Mr. Ferrara isn’t around enough, Your Honor,” argued Greg Jaffe, Victoria’s opposing counsel. “Ever since he was promoted at his company, he travels one or two nights every week, and, even when he is in town, he barely makes it home before the kids’ bedtime. The real person taking care of these kids when they stay with their father is the nanny he hired to watch over them. And while she sounds like a capable enough person, there’s no reason for the children to be in her care when they have a mother who they can be with instead.”