CASSIDY'S COURTSHIP

by Sharon Mignerey

  At once, dozens of things flitted through her mind. Her brother's casual way of talking aloud to himself when they went shopping—muttering that she paid close attention to so she could identify a baking powder can from a cocoa can. When they were kids, the way he had teased her about important phone numbers—numbers she learned to remember after hearing them once.

  At the bar that evening, she waited on customers, responding to the banter out of habit and without conscious thought. Had anyone asked her a few days ago, she would have told them she'd gotten used to her unraveled life. She had been wrong. She wanted to be in control again, but she didn't have a clue where to even begin, not to mention she no longer trusted her own judgment.

  "Has everything been okay, Brenna?" Theo asked toward the end of the evening. "You seem a little down tonight."

  "Everything's fine." Except that it wasn't.

  She made countless trips through the bar, doing her job, but unable to push away the feeling that a great void had opened beneath her feet. Two months ago she thought she could handle knowing it would be years before she'd be free of the debt from the lawsuit. Those years loomed before her now in an endless stretch where little more than survival would be possible. By then, she'd be closer to forty than thirty.

  Somehow, she thought, I've got to figure out a way.

  You know the way, came the ever-taunting voice from inside.

  Leave me alone. I don't want to deal with you right now.

  Closing time arrived, and Brenna went into the rest room to change out of her uniform. She emerged and paused in the doorway studying the street. If I could read, I'd have a driver's license and I wouldn't have to worry about catching a bus in the middle of the night.

  Like last night, Colfax Avenue was nearly deserted. The homeless man was back tonight, asleep on the bus-stop bench. Two couples left another bar at the end of block and disappeared behind the building at the corner. The only car parked on the street was a black Jeep in front of Score. A tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a huge white sombrero leaned against the vehicle, his arms folded across his chest.

  Brenna studied him from the shadows of the entry, knowing immediately that Cole Cassidy was, for whatever reasons, waiting for her. The hat, which looked like something he had picked up as a booby prize at a carnival, made her smile. She couldn't think of a single reason he'd be wearing a monstrous white sombrero edged in red and green braid. No reason—except, perhaps, to make her laugh.

  Such a simple thing. She couldn't believe he was here. Not after the way she'd practically run away from him this morning.

  She couldn't deny the pull he had for her. He's the kind of man I'd choose if…

  If what?

  She swallowed.

  If you could read, prodded her little voice, gently this time. If you could read, even this would be possible.

  Brenna ignored the quake of fear that thought filled her with and pushed open the door.

  Cole looked up, levered himself away from vehicle, and moved toward her. The hat fell over one eye. His sheepish grin dissolved what remained of her apprehension. Deliberately, she pushed her promise that she'd send the man packing to the back of her mind. Tonight, she would enjoy what he offered and face the consequences later.

  "Hi, Brenna." Two ordinary words that primed her awareness of him.

  "Hi, yourself." She tipped her head, studying the hat. "I see you've added something to your wardrobe since this morning."

  "Good guys wear white hats." He hooked his thumbs in the belt loops at the front of his slacks and sauntered forward.

  "They do, huh?" She remembered him telling her that he had wanted to be one of the good guys in a white hat. Not only that, he looked great. Long tapered legs. Flat stomach. His eyes met hers. She felt the jolt of awareness to her toes.

  "They do," he confirmed, nodding. The ridiculous hat slipped further over his eye. He pushed it back into place. "I wanted to make sure you'd recognize me."

  "I knew you were one of the good guys." She had spent a lot of time thinking about that. Too much. "Why are you here?"

  Even to herself her voice sounded husky.

  "Thought you might need a lift home."

  "A lift is what you'll get if you drive with that thing on."

  He grinned. "Like it?"

  "I've honestly never seen anything quite like it," she said, unable to keep from smirking.

  "Me, neither." He slid the bright red bead down the chin strap and took it off. He held out his hand. "I'd love a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. Join me?"

  She moved out of the doorway. More than anything she wanted to be able simply to say yes. In spite of her resolve to live tonight as though it existed without connection to all her days before, nothing was as simple as she wanted.

  "Why are you here? Really?"

  He placed his hand at the small of her back and guided her toward the Jeep. "Because I wanted to be. Really."

  "And this morning?"

  "I wanted to see you."

  "Why?"

  "Does it matter?"

  Brenna nodded.

  Cole smoothed the frown lines between his eyebrows with his thumb. "I was curious about you." He met her gaze. "I'm attracted to you. And … when I saw you last night … I hoped I'd … we'd have another chance."

  "We're an unlikely combination."

  "Plaintiff's attorney and defendant?"

  "Cocktail waitress and attorney." Among other things, she silently added.

  "We can work through that."

  He tempted her to believe him. Her gaze moved over his face, his expression as open as his declaration had been. He kept pushing at the limits she had imposed on herself. She wanted to stretch them, wanted to believe in the possibilities he offered. She wasn't frightened of him. But she was scared to death she wouldn't live up to her own expectations of herself.

  He clapped the sombrero over his heart, his expression imploring. "I'm inviting you for pie. Not proposing marriage."

  His leap from pie to marriage struck Brenna's sense of the absurd, and she laughed. It surprised her as much as it did him. He stared at her, the lines around his mouth relaxing as he at last smiled.

  "You're not?" Brenna teased, taking the hat from his hand and tossing it into the back seat of the Jeep. She understood that Cole had worn the hat to put her at ease, to soften her image of him, to replace the stern lawyer with someone full of boyish appeal. That he'd gone to such lengths for her made keeping him at a distance impossible.

  "No," he said. "I mean, yes. And I take it all back. You're beautiful when you laugh. I love the way it sounds. Will you marry me?"

  Another jolt of awareness sizzled through Brenna's stomach. She climbed into the Jeep and kept her voice deliberately light. "Maybe. Let me think about it while we have pie."

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  "What a nice surprise to see you, Cole. Come in," came Jane's voice through the open window as Cole came up the walk toward Brenna's apartment. Opening the door, he stepped inside.

  He admitted to himself that knowing he'd receive a warm welcome from Brenna's family was one of the inducements to stopping by unannounced. He had met them all a couple of days ago, and he liked them. There was no doubt Michael and Brenna were brother and sister, sharing the same dark hair and athletic build.

  Michael was the sort of man Cole liked, not as bookish or as serious as his Ph.D. degree suggested—at least, not on the surface. Michael had invited him for a game of handball. Thus far, neither of their schedules had allowed it.

  Jane was equally warm, including Cole for no other reason than the fact that he liked Brenna. It was the sort of acceptance his grandmother gave people.

  Meeting Brenna's brother and his wife did little to shed any light on how or why Brenna had landed herself in so much trouble. They had professions in academia, and Brenna's life, both with her defunct business and her working now as a barmaid, was at the other end of the spectrum. No closer
now than he ever was to understanding her choices, Cole knew only one thing. He wanted to know Brenna better—much better.

  His plans to pursue her had been frustrated at every turn. He'd taken on two new cases this week: one, a woman being stalked by her ex-husband; the other, a man who wanted sole custody of his son. Both had added hours to his already heavy workload.

  Brenna's schedule was just as hectic, and Cole suspected she was as determined to keep him at arm's length as he was to get closer. Whether because of his part in Harvey Bates's case against her or something more, Cole wasn't sure. Spend enough time with her, he reasoned, and sooner or later she'd believe him when he told her he hadn't been happy with his part in it.

  "We're just fixing root beer floats," Jane said as Cole came into the spotless kitchen. "If you'll get another glass off the top shelf of the cupboard, you can have one, too." She opened the door and pointed to the glasses.

  "Root beer floats, huh?" Cole said, smiling easily. He hadn't had one of those in years and was reminded of Fourth of July celebrations as a kid. He set the glass on the counter next to the others. Jane handed him an ice-cream scoop and a carton of ice cream, and he grinned. Another aspect of her personality that reminded him of his grandmother—no one was guest.

  "Brenna," Jane called down the hallway. "Cole is here." Stepping back into the kitchen, she said, "She forgot to mention you have a date tonight."

  "No date," Cole said. Brenna had been okay with his dropping by the bar or the apartment. As for a date, a real bona fide date—she wouldn't have anything to do with one. He smiled at Jane and dropped his voice. "I keep hoping, though."

  She smiled back. "Nothing good ever comes to the faint-hearted."

  Brenna's wariness had made Cole reevaluate his approach to dating, a routine that, on reflection, made him cringe. Dinner at a nice restaurant, and if that went well, a play or concert. Then dinner at one of his favorite restaurants, followed the next day by flowers. Often as not, the lady would invite him over, then an invitation to spend the night. Then the chase would be over, the allure gone. And, he realized, he had never given enough of himself for any of those relationships to have a chance to blossom.

  Seconds later Teddy skipped into the room followed by Brenna. "Ymm. Floats," he said. "My favorite."

  "Hi," Brenna said from the doorway. "I see you've been put to work."

  "When you mentioned you had the night off," he responded, looking up at her, "I thought you might like to go to a movie or something." She was dressed in a pair of running shorts and a T-shirt, her dark hair pulled away from her face in a loose ponytail.

  Her glance skipped away from his, and she reached for a glass in the cupboard, which she filled with water. He watched her drink and knew she was going to turn him down again.

  "Or we can just hang out," he said, retreating. He picked up the ice-cream scoop and put some ice cream into the first of the glasses lined up on the counter. "It's been a hectic day, and I'd probably fall asleep in the middle of the movie.

  "That's what happens to me," Teddy said, solemnly. "I think it's 'cause it's dark."

  Cole chuckled. "Could be." He glanced back at Brenna. "Okay if I stay?"

  "Of course it's okay," Jane interjected.

  Cole appreciated her vote of confidence, but he watched Brenna, who nodded as if she didn't trust her voice.

  Brenna's brother, Michael, came into the kitchen from the back of the house and grinned when he caught sight of Cole.

  "Look who keeps turning up, like an old penny," Michael said. "Third or fourth time this week, isn't it, Brenna?"

  "Yeah," she countered, "but who's counting?"

  He laughed, then pointed toward Cole's tie. "You're a little over-dressed for hanging-out-and-root-beer-float kind of night."

  Cole glanced down at the silk tie, remembering that he had intended to take it off when he took off his jacket.

  "We wouldn't want you getting ice cream all over it, would we?" Brenna asked.

  To his surprise, she stepped close, expertly loosened the knot and pulled it from under his collar. Cole stood perfectly still, the carton of ice cream cold against his hand, acutely aware this was as close as he had been to her since that first night when he kissed her.

  The clean fragrance of her hair assailed him as she unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, the featherlight brush of her fingers against his Adam's apple made him swallow. She looked up at him and smiled. The rim at the edge of her gray irises was dark, something he hadn't noticed before. As he watched her, her eyes became smoky, and he would have bet all he had to know whether she was as bothered as he was. Lord, but he hoped so.

  He fought the urge to lower his head and kiss the freckle at the corner of her eye.

  "Better?" she asked.

  "Yeah." He swallowed the dry lump that lodged in his throat. "Thanks."

  "No problem." Stepping away from him, she folded up the tie and set it on the end of the counter near the door.

  He returned his attention to filling the rest of the glasses with ice cream, all the while completely aware of Brenna. He wanted to believe he'd destroyed her concentration as much as she'd destroyed his. When his attention wasn't directly focused on a case, he thought about her. All the time.

  Sleeping was a damn nuisance, interspersed with languid, hot dreams of her wrapped in his arms. He ached to share the intimacy of sleep with her, which surprised him. He liked having a woman in bed with him, but going to sleep with one wasn't anything he'd wanted, not even with his former fiancée. He wanted Brenna in his bed, wanted to fall asleep with her, wanted to awaken with her in his arms.

  Teddy pulled a chair across the kitchen floor to the counter and clambered up on it. "That's too much ice cream," he said with authority. "You've gotta leave room for the root beer."

  With more instructions from Teddy and Jane, the floats were finally all made, and they settled around the kitchen table. It was strewn with snapshots, an assortment of papers, and a couple of bank passbooks.

  "What's all this?" Cole asked, picking up an old photograph, recognizing Brenna as the child in the photo.

  "All these things, their father sent," Jane replied. "He's moving again, and he doesn't want them. Can you imagine such a thing? You'd think he'd want the memories of their childhood."

  Cole studied the picture of Brenna in a stiff pose with her brother and a man in military dress whites.

  "This is my daddy and Auntie Brennie when they were little," Teddy said, pointing to a picture of a pair of toddlers playing in the sand on a beach.

  Michael provided additional explanation for the other photographs, which, Cole gathered, had arrived in the mail today. He learned they had lived in England, Germany, Japan, and more places in the United States than either of them could remember. Michael's history of the family stopped about the time he went away to boarding school, and Brenna had little to add.

  All the photographs were of people, except one of an old frame house. It was badly in need of paint, protected by huge trees, nestled at the base of a gentle hill and surrounded by fields that had been misted with a recent rain.

  "Our grandparents' farm," Michael explained when he met Cole's glance. Michael picked up the picture and studied critically. "I could never figure out what you liked so much about it, Brenna."

  She took the photograph from her brother. "I don't remember it like this." Her voice was soft, laced with memories. "It couldn't have been this shabby."

  Between the pages of one of the passbooks peeked one last picture. Cole pulled the photo from between the pages and gazed down at another picture of Brenna, this time in her early teens standing with a woman. They were smiling at each other. "Your mother?" he asked.

  The last of any smile left Brenna's face, and she slowly took the photograph and passbook from him. "Yes." After a moment, she passed them both to her brother.

  "I don't think I've ever seen this one," he said.

  Cole watched as Brenna stood up, carried a couple of the glas
ses to the sink and methodically rinsed them.

  "Brenna?" Michael prompted.

  Shutting off the water, she glanced at her brother, then looked back through the window above the sink. "That was taken on her birthday." She cleared her throat. "Her last birthday."

  Brenna hadn't enjoyed going through the pictures the way her brother had. In a way Cole could not have explained if he'd been asked, she made him ache for her. He had watched her disappear behind a wall of reserve again, and he was positive she hurt. Regretting that he had asked anything that brought her painful memories, he stood up.

  "Let's go for a walk." He set his glass in the sink, then guided her toward the door, giving her no chance to refuse.

  "See you later," Michael said as they stepped outside where the setting sun had painted the sky in brilliant crimson.

  Cole bet not many of Brenna's memories as a child were good ones. The little girl in the photographs looked desperately unhappy. He'd pegged Brenna to be fourteen or fifteen in that last one. The worst year of her life, she had said. What she'd been through since had been no picnic, either.

  He wanted to know why she had shadows in her eyes, why she had looked so panicked when he first arrived at the library the other morning. Most of all, he wanted to know why she worked at menial jobs when she was so bright. How had she ended up in this position when her brother was working as a post-doc researcher at the University Medical Center?

  The direct approach wouldn't give him the answers he wanted, he thought, gazing down at the top of her head. Her own gaze seemed focused on the concrete beneath her feet. He lifted his head and looked around, hearing the chirp of birds in the trees above them, inhaling the aroma of someone's freshly cut lawn.

  "I like this," he murmured, hoping to draw Brenna from her private, painful melancholy. "Sharing a sunset with you." He clasped her hand and pulled her close, matching his stride to her shorter one. Subtly, slowly, she began to relax.

  "At home," he said, "Mom and Dad and Grandmom are probably all sitting on the porch."

  "Where is home?"

  He grinned, pleased that she allowed herself to be led away from her thoughts. "A ranch in western Nebraska."