Serendipity Strikes

18

Emmaline

"I still think you should have brought a lawyer," Shawn muttered as we walked into the building that housed the law offices of Jenkins & Bishop.

"This is just a preliminary meeting with the probate attorney Mrs. Radley hired. Nothing major is happening today. In fact, it could take a year for Mike's estate to get settled."

"Yeah, well she's not exactly stable and Jordyn seems to think this could be problematic."

I sighed and stopped walking. "Maybe you shouldn't be here, then. You're a large part of her weird obsession."

"Fuck that. I told you, I'm staying by your side through all of this. She can't do anything to me, and I'd like to see her try to mess with you while I'm there."

I bit my lip and stared up at my gorgeous and fiercely protective boyfriend. "You're pretty sexy when you're in tough-guy mode."

A grin spread over his face. "Oh yeah? You like me like this?"

"I love you because you're sweet and loving and the most conscientious person ever 99% of the time, but I do like it when the lion inside you is provoked and you start to roar."

"RRRAWRARRARR," he vocalized before he leaned forward and gave me a kiss on my nose.

"I have no idea what that was but please stop it," Brian said as he and Jordyn turned the corner and joined us.

"I was roaring," Shawn said. "Like a lion."

Brian shook his head. "Nope. You're no lion. That was just sad."

"Am, too. Just ask Emmaline."

I nodded in agreement. "My man is such a lion. Look at that beautiful mane on his head."

Shawn had been growing his hair long and I was loving it. I got such satisfaction from running my fingers through the curls.

Brian rolled his eyes dramatically in response.

"You're here on moral support duty, too?" Shawn asked him.

"Yup. Let's hope this is fast and painless."

We continued down the hall until we came to the frosted double glass doors of the law firm. Shawn opened them and we entered.

A secretary directed us to take seats in the waiting area. Each of us sat in a gray upholstered chair, and I bounced Jax on my lap to keep him happy. He'd recently started crawling and hated being held for more than a few minutes at a time. I'd just passed him to Shawn to walk him around the elegant room when we were summoned to a conference room. There we found a large oval mahogany table. Mrs. Radley and two other people sat on one side, so the four of us (plus Jax) took the other.

One of the men stood and shook our hands as introductions were made. His name was Ted Bishop and he seemed nice enough. The other person was apparently there to take notes.

"We're here today to go over the initial steps to settle Michael Radley's estate. His mother, Olivia Radley, has petitioned to act as executor of the estate and has retained my firm as the probate lawyers."

I knew this much already from the letter I'd received asking me to attend this meeting. As much as I disliked Mike's mom, it was pretty standard for a surviving parent to act as executor if the deceased was not married, which I'd learned when I googled extensively so that I wouldn't show up today without any knowledge of how this worked.

Mr. Bishop continued. "Michael Radley did not have a will, which means the court will have to determine where his assets will go. He did, however, have a large life insurance policy valued at 1.3 million dollars issued through his hockey team, The Toronto Maple Leafs. He'd assigned a benefactor so that lump sum automatically goes to that individual, which is you Ms. Radley, he said nodding towards Jordyn."