Scott held up his left hand to display his wedding ring.

“Eleven years.”

“Too bad.” She blew on her nails again and said, “Go right back, Mr. Fenney. And call me if that changes…or even if it don’t.”

Grammar skills notwithstanding, she was a fine example of what Texas men wanted most-a gorgeous Texas girl. Texas myths were many, but one was no myth: the most gorgeous girls in the world were found in Texas. Dallas, Texas. Girls like her, they graduate from high school or maybe junior college, and from small towns all across Texas they head straight to Dallas like moths to light. They come for the jobs, they come for the nightlife, they come for the single men making lots of money, the kind of money that buys big homes and fancy cars and fashionable clothes and glittery jewelry guaranteed to bring a smile to any Texas girl’s face. Girl wants to marry a refinery worker and live in a double-wide, she moves to Houston; girl wants to marry money and live in a mansion, she moves to Dallas.

Scott walked through the reception area and down a gallery filled with more cowboy art and remembered to put on his glasses. He was slightly farsighted and needed the glasses only when reading in poor light, but he made it a practice to wear them in front of clients because clients like lawyers who look smart. He arrived at Tom’s office suite, which consisted of a secretarial area, a private bathroom, a study with a fake fireplace, and Tom’s inner sanctum.

Marlene, Tom’s middle-aged secretary, looked up from the McCall story, smiled, and waved him in. He found Tom on the far side of the vast space, his head buried in his hands, looking small behind the massive desk under the ten-foot-high ceiling. Scott walked toward his rich client, weaving his way around more leather furniture and a fancy silver-inlaid Mexican saddle on a stand and past photographs of Tom with governors and senators and presidents, and, on the coffee table, the hard hat with DIBRELL stenciled across the front, and the rolled-up blueprints he used as props at groundbreakings, even though Tom Dibrell had never held a construction job in his life.