by Liz Peters
Katie had a point. Reid had to give her that. He hadn’t thought about the pressure she might be under at work, and then having to come home and take care of making sure he was having a good time too. He would have been happy just being curled up watching a movie and grabbing delivery food with her every damned night. They didn’t have to do anything, but he understand the way she felt like she needed to entertain him. He was her guest. Maybe tonight was his turn to entertain her.
“I think you’ve hit on something there, Katie. Maybe I have some planning to do for tonight.”
Reid leaned back on the stool, draining the rest of the cup of coffee he’d been nursing, then reached behind him to pull his wallet out of his back pocket as he looked up to Katie to ask how much he owed her. She waved her hand in between them shaking her head.
“Your money’s no good here, Cowboy. Just go take care of that girl of yours. I hope it all works out for you two.”
Reid tipped the brim of the hat he wasn’t wearing at Katie out of habit with a sly grin.
“I’ll let you know some other morning. See you later, Katie.” And with that, Reid slipped out of the door and back onto the street. He had some shopping to do and an evening to plan.
Chapter Seven
Sam was working steadily at the computer in front of her when the phone rang. She picked it up out of the cradle without missing a beat at typing with her free hand. Balancing the receiver on her shoulder, she returned to writing the contract that sat in front of her on the screen as she answered the line.
“Samantha Crawford. How can I help you?”
The voice on the other end of the line wasn’t what she’d been expecting. It had her stopping in her tracks to give her full attention to the phone call.
“Hello, Samantha. This is Jim Anderson.”
Jim Anderson, one of the senior partners on the firm, calling her on the phone could have meant a whole multitude of things, but she was pretty sure that all of them needed her full attention instead of the half of her brain she could spare while she was multitasking.
“Mr. Anderson, always a pleasure to hear from you. What can I do for you this morning?”
“Well, I was hoping you would stop by my office this morning. I have a bit of a proposition to discuss with you.”
A proposition… Sam wasn’t sure if that sounded good or not, but she’d just started this job less than a week ago. She wasn’t exactly in a position to tell her boss no. She was busy. Insanely busy. This whole thing had turned out to be a lot more work than she’d been bargaining for even with the fact that she had Debbie as an assistant to get everything done. Sam was a perfectionist. All of this had to be done up to her standards, and no one else was going to be able to get it done the way she could, not even Debbie as much as she trusted her. So Sam wound up doing it all on her own.
“Of course, Mr. Anderson. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
She hung up the phone and looked around her for a legal pad and a pen. She had no idea what all this was about, but the fact that Mr. Anderson had called her to come down to his office and not come down to hers meant something. If it was just something routine, she’d have gotten a memo or an email. If it was moderately serious, he’d have come down to her office. This was something else entirely. Just the thought of what it could be had her heart in her stomach.
A few minutes later, she waited by the secretary’s desk outside of Jim Anderson’s office, nervously clicking the pen that she held in her right hand while she waited for the young blonde by the front door to tell her she could go in. She’d gotten so lost in her thoughts that she almost jumped out of her skin when the silence was broken by the sound of the phone ringing near her was answered quickly by the secretary.
“You can go in now, Ms. Crawford.” The young woman barely looked up from her work when she sent Sam into the room.
The oak paneled door led into an almost identically paneled room, lined with shelves full of books. Sam had seen a lot of these books in the past. She’d used many of them at various points of her schooling or career, but for some reason they looked far more intimidating here.
Jim Anderson was sitting with his back turned to the entrance to his office. All Sam could see was the back of his chair. She had no way of reading his face to figure out what the hell was going on here. It just served to make her even more nervous.
“Mr. Anderson?” Her voice was a bit timid, but she tried to hide the trepidation in it as she swallowed hard, took a deep breath and walked forward towards the desk. The chair turned slowly and by the time she’d reached the smaller armchair that sat on her side, Jim was looking her in the face.
“Have a seat, Samantha.” He gestured towards the chair, and she sat down, resting the legal pad she’d brought with her in her lap. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I asked you to come down here. I’ll get right to the point.”
He threaded the fingers of both his hands together, elbows resting on the desk in front of him before he continued. Samantha clicked the pen one last time and brought the tip to the yellow sheet of paper in front of her. She didn’t intend to miss any of the details she might need to know.
“We received notice this morning that one of our clients, Martin and Masters Holdings, is being sued by a former employee for wrongful termination. Now, you’ll be responsible for representing them in the lawsuit. They’ve asked for one of our best attorneys, and you came to mind immediately. However, there are some details that it I would prefer did not leave this office.”
He passed her a file folder across the desk that Samantha opened immediately. It contained the normal documents that came along with any lawsuit, but under that were a stack of papers she’d not encountered before, along with a few photographs.
“Sir, I…”
Mr. Anderson didn’t wait for her continue. He interrupted before she could even ask the question that was sitting at the tip of her tongue.
“The complainant has a case. I have to admit that. It doesn’t look good for our client at all considering he has evidence that they’ve been involved in running some off shore financial activities that wouldn’t exactly hold up to scrutiny should all of this come out in the courtroom.”
Samantha could feel her chin ready to hit her chest. She actually couldn’t believe that Jim Anderson was sitting across from her telling her that he knew for a fact one of their clients was involved in something illegal and expecting her to defend them in court against an ex-employee who had evidence, but he wasn’t done talking yet. All Sam could do was sit there in shock and keep listening.
“He’s got some stolen paperwork from one of the offices that implicates the CEO, CFO and several of the VPs over at Martin and Masters along with proof that they’ve been hiding the financial dealings under the guise of one of the publishing houses they own. Now, you’re responsible for representing them in court, but I’ve got more than that to ask of you. Those papers are the one thing that’s going to make sure you lose this case, and this is not a case we can afford to lose. So if you’re a smart girl, you’re going to make sure that the complainant loses those papers for good. On top of that, he needs to look like the world’s least credible witness so a little sabotage in his personal life would really help. I’m sure we can manage to call in a few favors at the police department and get him picked up on a drug charge. I’ve included the contact information for a couple of members of the local police department who are friends of ours. I’m certain something could be arranged that makes the judge throw this lawsuit out without a court date if we play our cards correctly. No one wants to see this case go to court, least of all the client, and I’m certain it goes without saying that whatever is good for the client is good for you as well.”
Sam was speechless. She really had no idea what to tell the man sitting across the desk from her. She’d worked here for a few years, but this was the first time she’d been privy to the inner workings of any of the large cases that came through the firm. As a junior associate, the
job usually involved drawing up contracts and legal briefs for the partners to use in court. This was a whole new level of involvement and considering more than half of what he was asking her to do was illegal, never mind unethical, it left her a little dizzy.
Her first instinct was to say no and throw the file back in his face, but that was going to be the best way she knew to lose the job she’d just gotten, the thing she’d worked for all these years. She’d been working her ass off for years just to get herself thrown in the middle of a situation that could have her disbarred. But something in Mr. Anderson’s tone told her that saying no to this job wasn’t an option. He had her over a barrel here and judging from the expression on his face he knew it. He could fire her on the spot for insubordination, and there wouldn’t be much of anything she could do about it. If he had cops in his pocket, she could only assume judges weren’t too far behind. Suddenly some of the narrow victories the firm had won during the past few years were making more sense.
“Sir, I…” She hesitated, clutching the folder to her chest along with the still blank legal pad she’d been too shocked to take any notes on. “I don’t know if I can.”
“You can and you will, Ms. Crawford, or you’ll be looking for employment elsewhere. It’s as plain and simple as that.” His voice was calm and matter of fact. Sam knew he meant every word of what he was saying. She was stuck between a rock and hard place, and her only option for the moment was to nod and rise to walk out of the office.
“Good girl. Now this little conversation never happened. Are we clear?”
“Crystal clear, Mr. Anderson.” She kept her voice even and emotionless as she walked out of the room and back down the hall to her office. She didn’t even have it in her to respond to Debbie when she asked her what was wrong. She simply waved her friend off with a shake of the head and waited until she closed the office door behind her and sank into the desk chair to fall apart.
Sam’s head fell on the desk, the file and its contents fluttering to the floor unheeded as she broke into a sob she struggled to keep as quiet as possible. She had no idea what she was going to do or how to handle this, nor did she know who she could trust with any of it.
She wanted to call Reid. Actually, she wanted to go home and collapse in his arms and just sob into his shoulder for the rest of the night, but she had no idea how he was going to react to that. Things were new for both of them, and it could have pretty easily sent him packing back off to the ranch. She wanted to drag Debbie into the office and pour it all out to her, but she didn’t want to implicate her friend if things went wrong. She was absolutely trapped.
Chapter Eight
Reid was putting the finishing touches on dinner when Samantha walked through the door of the apartment and just dropped her bag in the entrance right by the door. He heard her come in and called her name before he looked up.
“Legs? That you?” She didn’t answer him right away, so he pulled the pan off the stove and moved out into the hallway to see where she was. The sight of her resting her head on the wall next to the door and just crying was not what he had been expecting.
His first instinct was to walk over and wrap her up in his arms. She let him willingly, and rested her face against his chest, not caring that her tears were soaking into his shirt. Reid had no idea what had brought this on, but he wasn’t about to ask her until she was ready. For right now, he was going to curl his arms around her and hold her to his chest until she found the breath to actually talk to him. He was just glad he’d taken the food off the stove before he walked out here, because it seemed like the last thing either of them needed right now was to set the apartment on fire.
“Shhh, I got you. Just cry it out.” Reid wasn’t sure that any woman had ever crashed into his arms and done nothing but sob. This was most definitely a first. He had no idea if he was helping or not, but he wasn’t going to move until she moved first. It was easy enough to envelop her in his arms and chest and just stand there, even if he was dying inside to know what had gone wrong. The sight of her crying had brought up a wicked protective instinct in him that had him itching to punch whoever had brought Samantha to tears until they needed enough dental work to put some orthodontist’s kid through college.
He had no idea how long the two of them had been standing there before she finally managed to speak. Her voice was shaky and hoarse from the tears that had left her eyes red and puffy.
“I’m sorry.” She looked up at him with just those two simple words, and he pulled her back in with a groan.
“You don’t have a damned thing to be sorry for.” Reid leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead before pulling back and shaking his own head. “Listen, I’ve got dinner ready. I was planning to surprise you, and I’m glad as hell I did. You look like you needed it. Come on. We can eat and you can tell me what happened.” He fought down the urge to push her to tell him what happened right on the spot. She clearly needed a minute to adjust to being home and away from whatever had happened.
Sam just nodded and followed him in to the kitchen with wide-eyes when she saw dinner splayed out around the small room. He grabbed a couple of plates, filling them with the only thing he’d ever learned to cook from his grandmother, breakfast. Pancakes and bacon and eggs sat in various pots and pans on the island.
“You cooked breakfast?” At least she was smiling. That was a whole damned sight better than she’d looked five minutes ago, and Reid just shrugged and returned the smile with one of his own.
“It’s the one thing I’m good at cooking, and I knew you were tired of making sure I was fed and entertained every night.”
Samantha moved to interrupt and disagree, but he put a finger over her lips.
“Don’t tell me you’re not tired of me. I didn’t mean it that way. Just thought you could use a break from being the hostess and all. So I decided to cook for you. Feel free to tell me it’s terrible. You won’t hurt my feelings at all. I just wanted to treat you for a change.”
The look on her face softened, and Sam looked like she was going to break into tears again.
“It was sweet, Reid. I’m not going to say anything except thank you. I have no idea how you knew I was going to need this tonight, but it was exactly what I needed.” Sam leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek before grabbing a plate and making her way over to the kitchen table with Reid close behind.
The two of them got comfortable at the table and settled into eating before Reid spoke again.
“Just so you know, I’ve got another surprise for you after dinner, but I’m keeping it a secret until then.” He just laughed at the confused look on her face and put his focus on eating the stack of pancakes he’d just drenched in syrup. “Don’t even ask what it is. But I promise you’ll like it. Now why don’t you tell me what in the hell happened today to get you so upset?”
He would have done just about anything to not see the look that washed over her face at his request, but he couldn’t undo the question now. He was just internally kicking himself for bringing it up again.
“It was just a crap day at work. I got a new case, and I don’t think I can do it, Reid.”
Maybe it was just a case of nerves. A big case that she wasn’t certain she was up to handling. He didn’t know much about being an attorney, but Reid knew for certain that Samantha was good at her job. She wouldn’t have gotten the promotion and she wouldn’t have been this worried about being good at her job if she wasn’t a good lawyer.
“Legs, I think you’re good at whatever the hell you set your mind to. I mean, hell, you got me to set foot in the city for the first time in my damned life with nothing more than the power of a few kisses. You’re going to be fine.”
He expected her to smile or laugh or call him an idiot or something, but the frown that dragged the lines of her face downward earlier just deepened.
“It’s not that.” Sam’s fork scraped across the plate as she halfheartedly played with the food there. She was reluctant to speak, but he could s
ee it was dying to come out. “I got the case. I think I could do it, but I really don’t want to. I’m going to have to do some stuff that’s questionable at best and probably illegal if I’m going to win this. Just so some corporation can cover up a pile of unethical business practices and bury the guy who’s blowing the whistle on them. It’s either take the case and do it the way that the firm wants it done or get fired. That’s it. I’ve run it through my head a million different ways, but in the end those are the only two options.” Sam stopped to take a breath after all of that came tumbling out of her like someone had broken the dam that held it all in.
Reid was raging inside, one of his hands clenched into a fist at his side. He’d like to have had a few words with Sam’s boss or maybe just fifteen minutes alone in a room with him that would make him think twice about doing something as stupid as making her choose between her job and her heart again.
“So wait a damned minute.” Reid dropped his fork beside the plate as he focused on Sam sitting across from him. “Those assholes want you to do something illegal just so they can win a stupid case for a stupid company that’s already breaking the law? Tell me you’re not going to say yes.”
She looked torn. He knew how hard she’d worked for this. It was one of the things they’d talked about before now. This job had been her life for years. And here it was stabbing her right in the back.
