They looked, to Zane’s eye, like a really upscale toothpaste com mercial. Both of them blond, blue-eyed, and seriously attractive, Nathan stood gym fit next to Ashley’s blooming pregnancy.

As soon as Nathan settled Ashley in the chair facing the desk, he stuck out his hand. “It’s really nice to meet you. I’m going to say I’m also really glad things didn’t work out between you and Ashley.”

“Nathan Grandy!” came Ashley’s laughing protest.

“Can’t blame him.”

“I heard you were in our place a couple nights back. Sorry I missed you. I think I must’ve headed home right before you came in. Ashley’s getting close, so I try to get home in time to help put Fiona to bed.”

“I like your place. Really like the loaded nachos.”

“Can’t go wrong with them. So, how do we do this?” Nathan asked. “It’s the first time either of us made up a will.”

“Why don’t we talk about what you want?” As he spoke, Zane took out a fresh legal pad, started his notes.

“Simple, I guess. Right?” Ashley looked at Nathan. “We have the house, the cars, the business. It’s all jointly owned. So if—you know—that would just go to the other.”

“A good place to start. Let me get the information on all of that.”

He asked questions, standard and simple, got their rhythm and a picture of their life, their holdings. Joint bank accounts, some investments. He gave answers and options, felt them both relax into it.

“Okay, now, if both of you went down in a zombie apocalypse, how would you want your assets handled?”

“Everything should go to the kids.” By the way Nathan answered, Zane knew they’d talked about just this. “But our daughter’s just a baby, and this one’s still cooking.”

“We can do a trust, then you decide who you want in charge of it, how you want it paid out. For their needs, their education, at what ages you’d want it turned over to them. Or if you’d want that spread out.”

“Can their guardians be in charge?”

“Up to you,” Zane told Nathan.

They exchanged another look that told Zane they’d already worked it out. Ashley took Nathan’s hand, gave it a squeeze.

“We’ve decided we want to name my parents as guardians. We want our kids raised here, and Fi loves my parents, knows them, trusts them. They’d take good care of our babies.”

“Let’s get that information. Full names, address.”

As she answered, Ashley winced and pressed a hand to the side of her mound. “You know, Nathan, I think this one’s fully cooked.”

“Braxton-Hicks, Ash.” He patted her arm with the casualness of experience. “You’ve got ten more days.”

“He doesn’t think so. He thinks today.”

“What?” Zane dropped his pen. “Today, like, today? Let me get Maureen.”

“No, no.” Ashley waved him back down. “They’re light, and that’s only the third one. They’re about twelve minutes apart. We’ve got time.”

Still, Nathan rose, pulled out his phone. “I’m just going to call the midwife, let her know where we are. Give me a second.”

“You have a midwife?” Zane asked as Nathan stepped out.

“Yeah, right here in the clinic in town.” Placid as a spring morning, Ashley just smiled, rubbed her belly. “She’s great. I’m fine, Zane. My mom already has Fiona, and we can be at the clinic in five minutes. I’ve done this before. So, what else do we need?”

“My mind’s a little muddled.”

She just grinned at him. “You said about education. My parents opened a college fund for Fi, and want to do the same for the new baby. I trust them to look after the kids, the assets, the everything. We just want this all put together, the best way, so we can forget about it.”

“Yeah, that’s the … You’re really calm.”

She sent him a sparkling look out of those pretty blue eyes. “About a possible zombie apocalypse?”

“No, about…” He gestured. “Happy birthday.”

“I won’t be in a couple hours, might as well be now.” She glanced back as Nathan came in.

“Sandy’s on alert. I called your mom. She’ll call your dad and the rest, and they’ll bring Fiona to the birthing room when we give them the go.” He sat beside her, leaned over to rub her belly. “I let the restaurant know I’m going to be busy, and they’re on it.”

Now Nathan grinned at Zane as if a baby wasn’t maybe going to pop out of his wife at any second. “So, what’s next?”

It took another half hour—and three more contractions that made the spit dry up in Zane’s mouth.

Maureen gave them both a hug, wished them good luck when Zane walked them to the door.

“I have to sit down,” Zane decided, and dropped into a chair in reception. “She—my first real girlfriend—was in labor, in my office.”

“Early labor.”

“Labor,” he repeated. “She’s walking to the clinic to have a baby. Walking.”

“Well, it stopped raining, and walking’s good during early labor. You know what else would be good? For her friend and lawyer to pick her up some flowers on his lunch break, and take them by the birthing center before he goes home today.”

“I can do that. It’s just weird. She was the first girl I ever—” He broke off when Maureen narrowed her eyes at him. “Not that. We never—no. I meant … We’ll leave it at weird.”

He laid the legal pad on her desk. “What they want is pretty straightforward. You can draft it up, shoot it to me. If you can’t read any of my notes, just let me know.”

“You have very legible handwriting for a lawyer. You have Mona Carlson in about twenty minutes. The divorce—which she may actually mean this time. Then Grant Feister at eleven-thirty, DUI. Only two appointments this afternoon, but that’s a good day, Zane, for your first full week up and running.”

The phone on her desk rang. “And that may be one more. Good morning,” she said into the receiver. “Zane Walker, Attorney-at-Law.”

* * *

He got flowers, dropped them off about three in the afternoon. The cheerful woman who greeted him said she would take the flowers in, or she could ask Ashley if he could go in himself.

He told her to just take them. Please.

Since the rest of the day was clear, he headed over to Emily’s with some paperwork she’d asked him to deal with.

He found her standing in front of the house, hands clutched together in her nervous pose as she watched Darby digging a trench with her little machine. Roy and Hallie planted some kind of tree on the other side of the front yard, now bisected with a flagstone path that ran to the front porch, where Gabe and Brody worked together to hang a porch swing the color of chili peppers.

He parked, and since Emily looked as if she might be sick, or run screaming, went straight to her.

Eyes a little wild, she grabbed his arms. “What have I done?”

“I don’t know. What’s happening?”

“She’s digging a ditch. In the yard. It’s for sprinklers or drip something, or—God. It’s irrigation for a shrubbery.”

“Like Monty Python?”

“Oh Jesus, oh God, it’s like Monty Python. She says it’ll have color from spring through fall, and texture all year, and balance the yard, and low-maintenance, and there’s no such thing as a black thumb.”

“If you don’t want it—”

“You don’t understand.” She gave him a desperate little shake. “She starts talking and you just start nodding and thinking, That sounds beautiful, that sounds great. Why didn’t I think of it in the first place? Then she starts doing it, and you’re, What have I done? Look, look at the color of that porch swing.”

“I did. It’s what, red-hot chili pepper?”

“Oh sweet baby Jesus, it is! I picked it. I picked it myself—or did I?” Still gripping him, Emily turned her head toward Darby, narrowed her eyes. “Did I really pick it? I think she has some sort of mind control. I’m not kidding.”

“Take a breath, Em.” To help her out, he gave her a hug. “I can say one thing for certain. The stonework looks awesome.”

She looked down at the walk. “It really does. She’s a genius. I mean, I see it in every bungalow she’s finished, but—”

“Keep breathing. You know what else? I like the swing.”

Emily breathed. “Damn it, so do I. Somehow she always ends up being right. Distract me from my madness. How’s it going with you?”

“Good. I’ve got a handful of clients. Maureen is pretty damn perfect, and I’ve got a line on a summer intern. If I pick the one I’m leaning toward, I’ll be outnumbered by women. Oh, women,” he remembered. “Ashley’s having her baby.”

“Now?”

“Now. She started having it in my office. It was beyond weird.”

Emily tipped her head toward his shoulder. “We’re having a day, aren’t we?”

“You could call it that.”

Her phone signaled, and after a glance at the readout, Emily kissed Zane’s cheek. “I have to run down to the office.”

“I have to get home anyway. Get some stuff done. But here’s that paperwork you asked for.”

“Oh, thanks. Come for dinner tomorrow night, when I’m less crazed.”

“It’s a date.”

He started to walk up, say hi and bye to his cousins, when Darby stopped the machine, hopped off. So he crossed to her instead, studied the trenching.

“So. A shrubbery?”

“It’s always best to appease the Knights Who Say Ni.”

He had to grin. “So I’ve heard.”