Trouble

by Ann Christopher

  “Half a million? With these kinds of medicals? Are you kidding me?”

  Long silence.

  “I may be able to get my client to move a little, but I’m not going to negotiate against myself,” Randy said. “You need to name a figure—something less than four mil.”

  Mike snorted. The whole world had gone insane. Dara thought he didn’t care about her, and this clown actually thought Mike would settle this case for half a million dollars, never mind the fact that Sullivan, a thirty-something father of three, was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of what was sure to be his shortened life, unable to breathe unaided.

  Well, Mike didn’t have time for this shit. He had work to do, and if and when he ever got done with that, he had sulking to do.

  “You want a lower figure? How about this: $3,999,999.00. I gotta go.” He hung up before Jackson tried to argue with him.

  Jamal’s jaw hit the floor. “What are you doing? You’ve been saying all along this case needs to settle. Why don’t you negotiate with the man?”

  “Because I don’t have time for this, Jamal!” he shouted. “And I don’t have time for this discussion.”

  “Mike—”

  Mike looked back down at his paperwork. After a few seconds it dawned on him that Jamal hadn’t moved. He glanced up to see Jamal staring at him, openmouthed, as if he’d never seen him before and didn’t like what he was seeing now.

  “You need to get her back, man,” Jamal told him. “You can be pissed at me all you want to, but I’m your friend and I’m telling you. You can’t deal without her. Get her back.”

  The next morning, Mike was deep in conversation with another lawyer when Dara arrived at the office. Mike pointed the man to the conference room and turned his frigid eyes on her.

  “Hi,” she said, trying to keep her voice and expression upbeat. “What’s going on?”

  Mike’s mouth tightened. He looked, if possible, even worse than he’d looked yesterday. The circles under his eyes had deepened and, unbelievably, he had a five o’clock shadow when she’d never known him to be the least bit unkempt at the office. For one second, she thought maybe he’d slept there last night, but that was ridiculous. Why would he?

  “That’s the lawyer for the trucking company. He wants to settle.”

  “Oh! Would you mind if I sat in?”

  “Why bother asking?” he asked, his smile crooked and humorless. “We both know you don’t give a damn about what I want.”

  Dara let her reproachful silence do the talking for her, determined to remain civil no matter how he behaved. It worked. His hostile gaze wavered and fell. He walked toward the steps, speaking over his shoulder.

  “Do what you want. You always do.”

  Undaunted, Dara took her jacket off and hurried into the conference room, where she introduced herself to Randall Jackson. Mike reappeared a few moments later and sat at the head of the conference table, opening his folder. He stretched out his long legs, crossed them at the ankles, then folded his hands across his lap.

  He turned his head to Jackson, looking like a haughty, bored king deigning to listen to a peasant. “So, what’ve you got?”

  Jackson took a deep breath. “I can offer one million.”

  Dara kept her eyes lowered, but her heart leapt at the figure. A million dollars was real money and it would make a big difference in the lives of the Sullivan family.

  “I thought you were serious,” Mike said impatiently, shutting his folder. “Why did you even bother coming over here?”

  Jackson shifted uncomfortably. “You need to work with me, Mike.”

  Mike snorted. “You’ve read the files and the medical records. You were at all the depositions. My client is in his thirties and he’ll never walk again. He can’t use his hands. He’s tethered to his chair. He’ll never be able to work as a physical therapist again and he can’t support his family. He can’t touch his kids or make love to his wife.”

  “Mike—”

  “Your client was driving an eighteen-wheeler and had been driving in the middle of the night for eight hours without a stop. We all know he probably fell asleep at the wheel. This was his second accident on the job in six months. He was cited. The company knew about his poor driving record and put him back out on the road.”

  “Mike—” Jackson’s voice rose.

  Mike shrugged. “If you think you can convince the judge your client isn’t liable on that set of facts, you’re a much better lawyer than I am.”

  He slumped back in his chair, tapping his pen on the table and looking annoyed.

  Jackson rose from his chair. “Let me give my client a call.”

  He slunk out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

  Dara stared at Mike, awestruck. He was such a great lawyer. If only she could be as good as he was one day. If only she could make a difference in her clients’ lives, the way he did.

  “That was wonderful,” she told him. “I really think—”

  His hand came up to silence her. “Don’t bother.”

  Wounded, Dara looked away. They sat in awkward silence for a few moments, until Jackson reappeared, sat back down and smiled at them.

  “Let’s sharpen our pencils and see what we can do.”

  Under cover of having “forgotten” her contracts book, Dara hustled back to the office the second class was over, later that afternoon, anxious to hear whether Mike had settled the case.

  When she stepped into the foyer, she saw Jamal and the rest of the staff standing in a circle, talking in hushed, worried tones and looking like someone had died.

  “What’s going on?” Dara asked warily.

  Jamal regarded her with a tragic look. “Mike settled the case.”

  “That’s wonderful! So why are you all so grim?”

  “We’re going to kill Mike soon if he doesn’t stop biting our heads off every time we look at him,” Laura said darkly.

  “Oh.” Dara nervously rubbed the back of her neck, wondering who besides Jamal knew she was the cause of Mike’s black mood. “Where is he?”

  Jamal scowled and jerked his thumb in the direction of Mike’s office. “Up there. And if you’re not back in five minutes, don’t think any of us are gonna come and rescue you. You’re on your own.”

  “Great,” Dara muttered, heading up.

  Mike was pouring himself a snifter of something honey-colored from his antique drink cart when she poked her head in his office.

  “Dara.” He slammed the crystal decanter back on the cart. “You’re just in time.”

  “You settled the case,” she said brightly despite her concern. She’d never known Mike to drink much at all, and certainly never at work.

  “Celebratory drink?”

  “No.”

  He strode back to his desk, put his drink down and picked up a check, which he flapped in her direction. “See this? It’s the settlement check they just delivered.”

  Wary, Dara took the check. He looked so dangerous she was half afraid to come within striking distance, although there was no alcohol on his breath, which was a good sign. She held his glittering gaze over the top of the check, then glanced at it and gasped.

  Mike’s one-quarter portion of the settlement for his contingency fee was 1.1 million dollars and some change.

  Here, in her hand, was the answer to all his financial woes. After taxes, he could pay cash for the roof and pay off the mortgage on the brownstone! He could build up reserves for times when work was slow, although, after this, she didn’t think work would ever be slow.

  “Mike! Oh, my God! This is wonderful! I’m so proud of you! You must be so thrilled!”

  He stared at her.

  For one second she thought she saw some warmth, some soft emotion deep in his eyes underneath the anger and sarcasm, but then his mouth twisted down.

  “Why wouldn’t I be thrilled?” He took the check back and flicked it onto his desk as if it were a worthless receipt. Toasting her, he drained his snifter in a single gul
p, making her wince. “I have my health and my house and my career,” he continued, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll be thirty-five next week and I’m financially independent. Hell, I could take off for Tahiti tomorrow and live there for a year. I have everything I always thought I wanted.”

  There was no warning other than the velvety menace of his voice before he slammed the snifter down on the desk, breaking the stem with a sharp snap and spilling liquor on his blotter.

  Crying out, afraid he’d cut himself, she reached for him.

  “I can’t think of a single reason why this shouldn’t be the happiest day in my life, Dara,” he roared, jerking his hand out of her reach. “Can you?”

  “Please don’t do this, Mike.”

  He stopped. Turned back around and watched her with those flat eyes. “You’re right. You’re not worth it. Here.”

  He swept aside some papers on his desk, located a sealed envelope and handed it to her.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s my evaluation on your internship. For Professor Stallworth. Read it if you want to.”

  That seemed like a pretty bad idea, but she opened it anyway and skimmed it. A few words popped out at her before her eyes blurred with tears: consummate professional; keen analytical mind; hard worker; bright future.

  It was absolutely humbling, like reading her own obituary.

  “Thank you,” she told him helplessly. “I ...thank you.”

  “You earned it.”

  For one poignant, excruciating second, they stared at each other across the canyon of his desk and their mutual harsh feelings. Dara desperately wondered how they’d gotten to this point after the unspeakable tenderness of the other night, and if they’d ever be on the same side of anything again.

  “Mike—”

  One blink and his expression hardened again, turning him back into someone she didn’t know or like. “Clean out your desk. I don’t want to see your face again.”

  It took several beats for all that hostility to sink in. Dara flinched when it finally did.

  “How long are you going to be this cruel to me?” she asked quietly, repressed emotion making her voice crack.

  “I don’t think you want to debate which one of us is the cruelest, Dara.”

  16

  The week after the abrupt end to her internship, Dara went home to Chicago for Thanksgiving with her parents. Then she returned to Cincinnati for reading week, which was a hellish seven days of intensive prep for finals with Monica. And Sean, on the couple of occasions when he bothered to show up in the library and study with them.

  All the hard work paid off for Dara and Monica, who sailed through their finals.

  Sean didn’t.

  During the first two, on Monday and Tuesday, he sat near Dara, close enough for her to see his entire body clench as he read the questions. He finished way early both times, leaving the classroom when all the other students were still working furiously.

  During the third final, torts, Dara noticed him working thoughtfully for the entire time period. In the hall afterward, he radiated triumphant excitement.

  “Well?” Monica asked eagerly. “How’d it go?”

  “I really nailed that second negligence question about duty,” Sean crowed.

  Dara and Monica exchanged chagrined looks.

  “What?” he demanded, his smile disappearing.

  “Sean,” Monica said gently, “that question wasn’t about duty. It was about standard of care and damages.”

  Sean’s mouth hit the floor. He turned to Dara, his face stricken. “Dara?”

  Dara hated to do it, but she told him the truth. “Monica’s right, Sean.”

  A pause—long and painful—followed.

  “You two don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said, sneering.

  With that, he wheeled around and stalked off.

  Monica sadly shook her head. “We did everything we could to help him.”

  “I know. But he’s ruining his life. I know he’s going to flunk out of school. Why didn’t he quit when he had the chance? What’s going to happen to him?”

  Monica just shrugged.

  At the end of the week, when Dara stepped, exhausted and crabby, out of her last final and into the crowded hallway filled with her relieved comrades, Jamal was there. To her astonishment, he stood by a pillar in the corner, craning his neck as he searched for her.

  A wide grin split his face when he finally saw her, and he sauntered through the crowd, arms open wide. “Come here, girl!”

  Dara gave him a delighted bear hug. “I’m so glad to see you! What’re you doing here?”

  They broke apart and settled on a sofa in the atrium as the crowd cleared.

  “How are you?” he asked. “You look terrible.”

  She smacked him on the arm. “Of course, I look terrible. I just finished up with finals.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You looked terrible before that. So how’d it go? You get all As?”

  “Let’s hope.”

  Nodding thoughtfully, he held her gaze. “You’ve been gone three weeks. I got lots of stuff to tell you.”

  The perpetual knot in her stomach tightened, but she managed a smile.

  “So what’s new?”

  “Well, I got my GED,” he said, grinning.

  She shrieked, wrapping her arms around him again. “That’s wonderful! I’m so proud of you!”

  “And Mike gave all of us a bonus. A whole year’s salary.”

  “What?”

  Wry nod from Jamal.

  “He said we needed to share the settlement because we’d all helped him get it. Can you believe it?”

  Dara’s heart constricted painfully. “Yeah. I can believe it.”

  “So I think I’m gonna use that money and maybe see about getting into college. You know, maybe I could get a little two-year degree or—”

  “Oh no! As smart as you are, you need to sign up right away for a bachelor’s program. And in four years, you could be right here in this building, getting your JD. If that’s what you want, I mean.”

  He stared at her. “That’s the same thing Mike said.”

  She picked at lint on her jeans, wondering if she should tell Jamal to stop mentioning that name because it felt like a pitchfork to her heart every time she heard it.

  “You wanna know how he’s doing?”

  “No,” she said quickly.

  “Terrible!” Jamal grabbed her chin, jerking her face up to meet his eyes. “He looks awful! I think he’s lost, I dunno, ten pounds or something. And he’s sleeping at the freaking office—on his sofa! He thinks no one notices, but everyone knows!”

  “I’m really sorry to hear that.”

  “Sorry?’’ He gaped at her with dinner-plate eyes. “Is that all you got to—”

  “He doesn’t love me.”

  Jamal faltered, his mouth hanging open. “Say what?”

  She looked around quickly, making sure no one was within earshot. “I overheard him telling his mother he doesn’t love me. Doesn’t want to ever get married”—she grabbed his arm, squeezing hard—”and I will kill you if you repeat any of this to anyone, especially him!”

  “Dara,” he said soothingly, “I don’t know what you think you heard, but Mike is crazy in love with you. He misses you so much he’s gonna make himself sick pretty soon.”

  Hope did not flare in her heart.

  “I heard what I heard. Why would he lie? And why didn’t he deny it when I confronted him? He kept saying he cared about me.” Ugly laugh. “Cares about me! That’s like saying he cares about world peace! What does it mean? Nothing!”

  Jamal caught both of her hands in his, then hunched down until his piercing eyes were all she could see.

  “Read my lips, Dara. I am telling you, Mike loves you. You gotta believe—”

  Agitated now, she jerked free. “Why would he lie to his mother?”

  “Maybe he’s only lying to himself.”

&
nbsp; “Why would I want to be with a man who can’t—or won’t—recognize he loves me?”

  “That’s easy,” he said, smiling faintly. “Because it’s Mike. The greatest guy we know. And he’s worth a little extra trouble, Dara.”

  That struck a nerve. Dara looked away, overcome with sudden emotion.

  Jamal got up. “His mother’s having a late birthday party for him. She called today and asked for your phone number.”

  Jolted at the thought of seeing Mike again, she shook her head in a blind panic.

  “I can’t! There’s no way I could—”

  Leaning down, he kissed her on the cheek. “Think about it.”

  Dara’s phone rang half an hour later, when she walked into her apartment. Slamming the door, she dumped the backpack in an unceremonious heap on the foyer floor and grabbed the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Dara?” said a warm, crisp, vaguely familiar female voice. “It’s Serena Baldwin, Sean and Mike’s mother. How are you?”

  Dara stiffened. “I—I’m good. How are you feeling?”

  “Pretty good,” Mrs. Baldwin said airily. “That’s why I’m calling. You know Michael just settled that big case the other week—”

  “Right.”

  “And he just had his thirty-fifth birthday. I have a little time off this week between my chemotherapy treatments, so I thought I’d throw him a little get-together. Nothing big. Just a few friends and family and everyone from the office, of course.”

  “Wow. That sounds really wonderful, and I’d love to come. But I, uh”—she swallowed hard— “am going home to Chicago for the holidays, and I can’t make it.”

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Baldwin said worriedly. “Are you leaving tonight?”

  Dara’s essentially honest nature did her in. “Well ...no, but—”

  “Good! Then we’ll see you at eight.”

  Dara gave up trying to be diplomatic. The woman was trying to be polite, but she obviously had no idea what kind of hornet’s nest she was poking with her stick.

  “Mrs. Baldwin, I really appreciate what you’re doing, but Mike doesn’t want me there. Trust me.”

  “You leave Michael to me.”

  Dara collapsed on the sofa and smacked her hand to her forehead. Well, now she knew where Mike’s tenacity came from. She looked heavenward for help, but none was forthcoming.