Her Favorite Holiday Gift

by Lynda Sandoval

  Moira Delaney stopped short, clapping her hand over her heart. “Lord, you scared me.”

  “Sorry,” Colleen croaked, before clearing her throat.

  “Sweet pea, what on earth are you doing up at this hour?”

  “I’m working, Mom,” Colleen said, her voice hoarse from exhaustion. Tension. “What else?”

  “But it’s nearly four!” her mom exclaimed, glancing at the wall clock. She pulled a tumbler out of the cabinet and filled it with filtered water from the fridge door. “You need your sleep.”

  Colleen wanted to disagree, but her eyes felt scrubbed with steel wool, and her limbs ached deep into the bone. She simply hadn’t been able to tear herself away from the mother lode of information she’d dug up on Drake Thatcher. Eric had been correct about one thing—Thatcher was dirty, and he had a history of trying to take the Hansons down. The question remained, was her client mixed up in any of it?

  If so, she’d be screwed. Utterly screwed.

  She needed to talk to Ned, get to the bottom of this fiasco before it blew up in her face, and she was intent on gathering as much background data before she dragged his sorry ass into her office tomorrow morning.

  Robby Axelrod came off as squeaky clean.

  As did Eric, naturally.

  She sat back and rubbed her palms over her face, then slapped her cheeks, hoping for a jolt of alertness so she could draw out a game plan. It didn’t come.

  Her mom poured a second tumbler of water and set it on the table next to Colleen’s computer, then brushed her daughter’s hair back with a gentle hand. It had to be exhaustion, because the sweet, motherly touch nearly brought Colleen to tears, and she wasn’t usually susceptible to sentiment. Especially not from her mother. Thanks to seeing Eric again, thanks to his typical altruistic gesture of bringing Thatcher to her attention, her deeply buried emotions had risen to the top of her skin like raw sores. Usually, her mother’s innuendos that she worked too hard—even something as innocuous as bringing her water or brushing her hair back—would irritate her, perhaps provoke an argument. Right now, she felt too vulnerable to react in her usual mode.

  She smiled weakly. “Thanks.”

  “I know you’re working an important case, okay? But go to bed. Whatever it is you think you have to finish will wait a few hours. And you’ll be better able to handle it if you’re rested.”

  Colleen nodded, bit her bottom lip. As she powered down her laptop, she asked, “Why are you up?”

  “Oh, the knee.” Mom tightened her robe around her waifish middle. “Just a little ache.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yes.” Moira smiled. “You can go to bed. I’ll be fine in about half an hour. I’m just going to watch television until the painkiller kicks in.”

  The mood felt so intimate, so neutral, so unlike their norm, Colleen ventured further into the emotional minefield she usually avoided. “You need to get out more now that your knee’s almost healed, Mom. Enjoy the city. Visit a museum.”

  “Oh, well…”

  Colleen closed the top of her computer. “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

  “I thought I’d tidy up. Read some.” She avoided her daughter’s gaze.

  “Are you depressed?” Colleen asked, in a soft tone. “The doctors said that can happen after a surgery like the one you had.”

  Moira Delaney sighed, raked her fingers through her hair, crossed her arms. “Do you want me to move out? Is that it?”

  Colleen stood and held her hands up, palms forward. “No. No, Mom. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. I just want you to…I don’t know, enjoy life.”

  Those cornflower-blue eyes so much like her own pierced Colleen. “Do you enjoy life?”

  Wow. Hadn’t seen that blow coming. It landed right in the sweet spot and made her see stars. “Yes. Of…of course. My work is—”

  “Not work,” Moira said, flicking her words aside. “You should work to live, not live to work. I’m asking you to tell me the last time you had fun. Frivolous, carefree fun.”

  The walls of Colleen’s penthouse loft swayed inward, sucking away the oxygen in the room. She took a step back, stared down at the travertine floor. She couldn’t get defensive; she’d initiated this mother-daughter bonding chat at her own peril. But the most pathetic part was, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d experienced true joy. The carefree, laughing, splashing-in-the-surf kind.

  She’d splurged on some bronze Jimmy Choo boots a couple weeks earlier—that had been hedonistically enjoyable. But, if she were completely honest with herself, she’d only indulged in the retail-therapy session because McTierney had totally pissed her off that day at work.

  That didn’t exactly count as carefree fun.

  More like emotional eating, but without the food.

  She sighed, glancing across the room at the woman who looked like an older version of herself, but with whom she shared no discernible personality traits. She wished she knew who her father was, what he was like. What made him tick and if she was the same. Her mom was still waiting for an answer, though, and Colleen didn’t think she could evade the question. “I can’t think. I’m sure I’ve done something fun. But I’m just too tired.”

  For some odd reason, Eric Nelson popped into her head. His perpetually disheveled dark blond hair, steady gaze. His broad shoulders. As much as she’d tried to maintain her annoyance during their shared lunch, she had enjoyed being in his company. Being near him had always simultaneously settled and excited her. Her stomach fluttered; she pushed the images away. Maybe she was more like her mother than she wanted to admit. “But I’ll make you a deal.”

  Moira cocked her head. “What’s that?”

  “I’ll do something fun this month if you promise me you’ll get out of the house.”

  “Maybe we can do something fun together out of the house,” Moira suggested, her voice tentative.

  Colleen pursed her lips, nodded slowly. “Maybe. I’m really busy, but I’ll think about it.” She didn’t miss the slight fall of her mother’s hopeful expression. That was problemo number one. Her mother didn’t have a life outside this apartment, outside the daughter who resented her, outside a lifelong disappointing search for that ever-elusive man who would take care of her. And even man-hunting had fallen by the wayside of late.

  The whole thing was too much for Colleen to think about with her already bleary brain. She couldn’t be her mother’s everything. “I’m hitting the sack. I can’t keep my eyes open a moment longer.”

  “Good girl. I’ll keep the television low.”

  “Thanks. I don’t think it’ll matter.”

  Just before she’d exited the shadowed kitchen, her mother called out to her softly.

  “Colleen?”

  “Yeah, Mom?”

  “I love you, pea. Thank you for…taking me in.”

  A resentful silence stretched when it shouldn’t have, and Colleen chastised herself inside. Why was it so damned difficult for her to open up to the woman who’d brought her into this world? A daughter shouldn’t struggle to say three simple words to her own mother. She swallowed past a suddenly tight throat and the overwhelming need to escape. “Love you, too,” Colleen said in a half-whisper. “Good night.”

  In the clearer light of day, Colleen decided it would be smarter to confront Ned Jones away from the office. If the partners sniffed out the potential firestorm on the horizon, they’d find a way to cast her as the scapegoat. On top of everything else going haywire in her world at the moment, she didn’t need that. She wanted as much of this case as possible under control before she broke the news to anyone at her firm, and she wanted answers.

  Unannounced, she drove to Ned’s apartment, an unkempt building in one of the city’s “emerging neighborhoods,” a real-estate euphemism for “seedy.” Icy air burned her nostrils as she picked her way over the snow-crusted, cracked pavement, pushed through the propped-open front door, and climbed four flights of creaky stairs
to apartment 4B.

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  She crossed her arms and waited. He had to be home. From what she’d come to learn about the guy, he didn’t do much these days except wait for his payoff from the lawsuit.

  “Who is it?” came his muffled voice through the door.

  “It’s Colleen Delaney, Ned. I need to talk to you.”

  She waited through a series of dead bolts being thrown before the door squeaked open about four inches, hindered by the safety chain. Ned peered out through the crack.

  “It is you,” he said, sounding surprised.

  As if she’d lie? Or someone else would pretend to be her? She spread her arms wide in lieu of answering.

  Ned shut the door, disengaged the chain, then opened it fully. He ran a hand through his messy hair and glanced back at his even messier apartment. “If I’d known you were coming—”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “May I come in?”

  “Sure, sure.” He moved aside.

  Colleen stepped over the threshold and gave the place a cursory once-over. If ever a man had fallen from grace, Ned Jones was that guy. From working as an accountant on a major international hotel construction site to living in a sad little box of an apartment piled with junk. How quickly a life could change in this world.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  He seemed nervous. She decided to test him. “Drake Thatcher?”

  Blood drained from his face like a watercolor left in the rain. “W-what about him?” He gestured her toward the kitchen, scurrying off ahead of her.

  His reaction? Red flag. Thatcher was dirty and Ned knew about it, obviously. But she wanted the whole scheme spoken aloud, right here, right now. Once in the kitchen, Ned sat. She loomed above him. Anger reared and bucked inside her, but she fought to tame it. Ripping into the guy might be satisfying, but it wouldn’t get her anywhere productive. Instead, she laid out what she’d discovered in her research, and simply asked him to come clean with her. He wouldn’t.

  She cajoled.

  He avoided.

  She rationalized.

  He hedged.

  She begged.

  He clammed up.

  Finally, out of options and fed up, she unleashed that wild anger. “Listen to me. You don’t have a choice here. This whole thing could very well blow up in our faces. I could be disbarred, you could land in jail. Tell me what the hell is going on, Ned. The truth.”

  Ned’s eyes darted to the chipped linoleum floor, not meeting her gaze. “I’m just not sure I should say anything,” he said, in that beat-down, nasally tone that made her want to wrap her hands around his neck. “I have a lot at stake.”

  “Damn it!” Colleen slammed both palms onto his messy kitchen table, rattling the assortment of dirty dishes piled at the edges like raggedy squatters against a high-rise building. She leaned forward into his face. “We have a lot at stake. We. I’m your attorney, so I’m irrevocably involved. What part of that do you not understand?”

  “I know, but—”

  She stopped him, holding up her palm. “Let me put it to you in simple terms. If you continue to lie to me, we’re done. If you’ve worked some stupid deal to make money, we’re done. If you blow this case for us because you cannot comprehend the simple concept of attorney-client privilege, we’re done. No case, no win, no money for you. How much clearer can I be?”

  Ned wrung his fingers together, elbows braced on the table, and bonked the knot of his white-knuckled hands against his forehead, which had begun to perspire.

  Colleen’s exasperation blew like a mushroom cloud after a bombing. He wasn’t just holding out on her, he was toying with her career. She couldn’t believe she’d fought for his case, and now it could destroy her. Talk about irony. “I’m trying to help you here, but I can’t help you if you’re less than honest. Cut the crap and tell me everything. From the beginning, start to finish.”

  Standoff.

  Weak, wintery light struggled in through the small, dirty window, highlighting the crud buildup on the cluttered countertops. Ned Jones not only needed a brain, he needed a housekeeper. And a swift kick in the rear, which she’d gladly provide.

  Thin and slump-shouldered, Ned sighed, stared out to the building next door. “What’s this going to do to the case?” he asked, in a defeated monotone that told Colleen he was finally ready to spill it all.

  “I don’t know until you come clean with me,” she said, with a sigh, before easing down into the rickety chair and threading her fingers into the front of her hair. “I’ll do everything I can to win it. That’s my job. But you cannot send me into that courtroom blind. I need to know what I’m up against so I can devise a plan of attack. And I need to know it now.”

  Time dragged on, marked only by the ticking of the kitchen clock, a cheap plastic number festooned with a ring of garishly painted fruit.

  After an eternity, Ned said, “Okay.”

  Okay? Colleen peered up at her client, half afraid to hear what he might say. Half afraid he’d change his mind. Her stomach knotted. “So?”

  He blew out a breath, then swore. “I’m going to need a drink for this, though. Care to join me?”

  Never. “No. Thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” He pushed to his feet then scuffed to his liquor cabinet, extracting a bottle of whiskey and a cloudy, obviously well-used jelly jar.

  Colleen watched him pour one, two, three fingers of hooch, and her insides imploded. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  God help her.

  Eric’s preposterous theory had been right. She could feel it. Did he know yet? Did she have an obligation to go to him as he’d done with her? If she did, it was game over. No case, no win, no partnership.

  This wasn’t going to be good. Not good at all.

  Realization hit her like a sledgehammer. She’d made her share of mistakes in life, but this one trumped the entire lot. Every single goal she’d struggled to achieve hung on the bony shoulders of this weak, deceptive, money-grubbing man living in a sad, filthy apartment, drinking whiskey out of a jar at nine in the morning.

  Chapter Five

  Eric had a full day of work, including meeting Robby Axelrod, fresh off the plane from Tokyo. He was en route to meet with hotel manager Greg Sherman before Greg left for Kyoto; Chicago was merely a pit stop at Taka-Hanson headquarters. But when ninety-year-old Esther Wellington showed up with the glow of hope in her eyes and a recommendation from her grandson—a former client of Eric’s—he simply couldn’t turn her away.

  “We don’t know where else to turn, Mr. Nelson.” The diminutive woman looked like a fragile fabric doll sitting across from his desk. She wore a fitted wool suit in baby blue with a string of pearls, and the well-earned lines in her crepe-thin face seemed somehow deepened by worry, though he’d only just met her. “I’ve consulted one law firm who couldn’t help us pro bono, and the money—” she shook her head “—it’s gone. Time’s short, too. My grandson speaks so highly of you, but I know you’re busy with clients who can pay.”

  “Not a problem. I take on pro bono work regularly to feed my soul, not my bank account.” He tried to brush his hair away from his face, but most likely it went off in its own direction like normal. He’d never had cooperative hair, not that he cared. “I need to make sure we have a solid case here, that’s all.”

  “If you’re unable to represent us, I just don’t know…”

  Eric smiled at Esther. “Try not to worry. Let me just go over these papers one more time.” He buzzed his secretary. Moments later, Jennifer entered his corner office. “Did you need something?”

  “Yes. Could you take Mrs. Wellington to get a cup of coffee?” He glanced at the older woman. “Unless you’d prefer tea, of course?”

  “At this point, I’d love a gin and tonic,” she said.

  Eric and Jennifer laughed in surprise, which brought a small, prim smile to Esther’s lips.

  “However, in lieu of a tipple, tea sounds lovely.” She stood and smoothed her s
kirt. “Thank you very much.”

  “Come with me, Mrs. Wellington,” Jennifer said. “We’ll get you all set up in the lounge.”

  “I’ll have Jennifer bring you back just as soon as I’ve read through everything,” Eric added.

  After the women left, Eric dug in.

  The case seemed straightforward; it happened too often. A small group of elderly folks scraped up enough funds to rehab an old home into a neighborhood senior center. The contractor they hired quoted them one price, did the work, then presented a bill for triple the quote, claiming unexpected costs. None of which he’d brought to their attention during the construction process, of course, which, according to Esther, had seemed to progress without a problem. The group didn’t have the funds to pay the exorbitant fees, so he sued. He probably had the whole scheme planned out from the moment he put in his bid.

  Folks like Esther didn’t need this kind of stress.

  Eric’s grip tightened on the papers. If you asked him, people who took advantage of the elderly earned themselves a one-way ticket to a special circle of hell. Eric felt like he had a handle on this suit, and he’d go after this guy with guns blazing. But none of that would matter if the case had a fatal flaw. He needed to know why the other law firm declined it. Lucky for him, Esther kept copious notes.

  He leafed through until he found her log, written in fine blue willow-branch script. He traced his finger down the page, and a slow smile spread his face.

  Well, well, well.

  McTierney, Wenzel, Scott and Framus.

  Perfect. Everyone knew how that coldhearted, money-driven firm operated. Odds were they hadn’t rebuffed Esther due to intrinsic problems with the case. He’d bet his yearly income they’d turned her down because taking on this cause wouldn’t pad their already fat wallets.

  Scum. Why on earth did Colleen want to work there?

  Someday, he’d get her to answer that question.

  Representing Esther and the others was the right thing for Eric to do, and busy as he was with the Taka-Hanson situation and the rest of his caseload, he wouldn’t hesitate to help the bilked elderly group. Plus…okay, he never claimed to be a saint. He’d admit to a secondary, albeit minor, motive.