He didn’t want to hear her say the words he was afraid she was going to say. “You want to win it because that’s what you do, Gwyn. Your take-no-prisoners attitude is what helped you climb the corporate ladder so fast.”
She acknowledged his allegation with a nod. “True, but I also believe that you and I have a chance together. I’m not a sweep-me-off-my-feet, fall-in-love kind of woman. You need me, and I want you. That is an equation that works for me.”
You need me. He found the statement jarring but before he could ask her to explain her reasoning, she added, “But your time is running out, Nathan. Once I prove myself with this case, I want a yes or no from you. It’s me or Casey. I’m my own mistress, nobody else’s.”
Nathan started to say that he would choose Casey no matter what happened, but she stopped him. “Don’t say anything now. You’re loyal to the nth degree. I get that. I respect it, but you’re savvy enough to know when that loyalty is misplaced. Casey’s got another life going, Nathan. One you don’t fit into. Can you actually picture yourself in Hicksville settling property disputes between men in overalls? Please.”
She uncrossed her shapely legs and stood up. “I have to get back to work. By the way, it wasn’t me, but you should know that the home office is aware of your wife’s involvement in the turkey matter.”
“Of course, they are. I told them myself.” But her comment implied someone had tried to sell him out. His ship was rife with spies, but who? Maybe he could find out from Eric when they were on his boat.
His phone rang. He snatched it up.
“Nathan? It’s me.”
Kirby.
“Hello, little brother. Mom said you were in town. Do you want to meet for a drink?”
A pause followed—long enough to make Nathan wonder if they’d been cut off, then Kirby said, “My meetings may run late. How ’bout I drop by your place?”
“Sure. Great.” He gave him the address and some quick directions. “Are you driving? Parking can be a bear, but if you try around the corner on—”
Kirby cut him off. “No. I took BART over. I’ll take the bus and walk.”
“I’d pick you up, but Casey has our car. Damn, I should have had you drive my Mustang over from Mom’s.”
Kirby’s choking sound told Nathan his brother hadn’t been expecting that suggestion. “Are you nuts? Mom would never let anyone but you get behind the wheel. Believe me, I’ve tried. The royal chariot is not for use by the common folk.”
“I never told her not to let you use it.”
“Never?”
Nathan felt his cheeks heat up. “Well…when you were in high school, but what do you expect? The thing is hell on wheels and you were a kid. You’re a grown-up now. You have my permission to take it out any time you’re in the neighborhood.”
As an afterthought, he added, “Although you better make it soon. I might be moving the car to Casey’s dad’s place if Mom sells her house.”
“Why store it anywhere when you could be driving it?”
“I don’t think the salty air would be good for it over here, and from what I hear, garage space in San Francisco is at a premium.”
Kirby didn’t comment, but Nathan knew what he was thinking. Both of his siblings thought Nathan was overly frugal. “So what time tonight? Should I pick up takeout?”
“No. They’re feeding us here. I wouldn’t mind a beer, but I can get by if you don’t have any.”
“Beer it is. See you later, then.”
He made a mental note. Workout. Dinner. Beer. Another action-packed night in the life of a married single guy.
He looked up. He’d forgotten about Gwyneth. She was looking at him as if waiting for an invitation. He cleared his throat. “Sorry about that. My brother’s in town for a meeting.”
“I didn’t even know you had a brother. Is he cute?”
Nathan frowned. He needed to clear things up between them. Now, not later. “Gwyneth, you’re an amazing lawyer. I consider you a friend, but my life is with Casey. And that isn’t going to change.” Not if I can help it.
She shrugged. “If you say so, but you might want to check with your wife to see if her agenda has changed. According to my guy on the scene today, Casey seemed pretty chummy with the locals. He overheard her asking somebody about a moving company.” She left a few seconds later with a satisfied smile that made him uneasy.
Did Gwyneth know something about his wife that he didn’t?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you said that.”
“He was in the wrong, not me.”
“But you reprimanded an elected member of the planning commission. In public. On the record.”
Casey looked at Sarah in the passenger seat. They’d left the meeting a few minutes earlier—after Casey’s apparent faux pas—and were now headed to a restaurant. Casey was starved. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so empty inside. “Was it on record? Good. Maybe this will make them all take note and pay more attention in the future.”
“Or maybe, they’ll take note that you’re the kook with the turkey opposition, and they’ll do everything in their power to help the growers.”
Casey frowned. She’d lost her temper. She’d reluctantly approached the podium after no one else in their group would get up. All she’d intended to do was make the board aware of the community opposition to the project. She’d spoken at hundreds of similar forums. She was comfortable in front of a microphone and she believed firmly in her right to be heard. The members of this elected board were paid by her taxes—or in this case her father’s taxes—which meant they had an obligation to listen to her provided she followed their rules.
They gave her ten minutes.
She stated her name and the fact that she was representing her father, who had a doctor’s appointment today. She gave the ranch as her address. Then she started to explain about NOTT. “Neighbors Opposed To Turkeys is a grassroots movement that quite honestly isn’t opposed to turkeys, but firmly believes that good agriculture comes from conscientious placement of agribusiness concerns that create public health issues, such as water pollution, noxious odors and traffic congestion, in areas that are not presently serving a good-sized population.”
Five of the six members of the board appeared to be following her calm, thoughtful delivery quite intently. The sixth—a man in a gray wool, western-cut suit—was slouched so low Casey could barely see him, but what she could see led her to believe that he was either text messaging someone or working a crossword puzzle.
She knew she could have handled what happened next differently, but for a moment, she’d felt as though she was channeling her Aunt Meg, who would never have stood for that kind of rude behavior from anyone.
“At least there weren’t many people in the audience,” she said, pulling into Farnesi’s—a venerable truck stop on Highway 99. “And no press.”
She shuddered to think what Nathan would have thought if he’d been there to see her lose her cool.
“But you can be sure Red will hear about it.”
Casey didn’t want to think about that. “Can we not talk about what happened? I’m starved.”
Sarah gave her a shrewd look.
“What?”
“Nothing. Are you headed back to the city after you drop me off?”
“I’d planned to, but Red rather sneakily managed to make an appointment for me to take my puppy in to get fixed.”
“Isn’t she too little?”
Casey held the door open for Sarah and followed her in. The smell of truck-stop food was curiously repelling and mouthwatering. The hostess led them to a booth by the window.
“I don’t know. Red just said he and Jimmy wouldn’t be back in time and since it was my goddamn dog I could take her in.”
Sarah snickered. “You do that well. Mimic Red. He’s a sweetheart and I love him to pieces, but I’ve really never envied you your relationship with him. He’s too…big. When I was a kid, I thought he’d have made a great
Oz—only the real thing, not a little man pretending to be great and powerful.”
Casey and Sarah had probably watched that movie twenty times together. Casey now had it on DVD. Somewhere. She really had to finish unpacking. Was there some deep psychological reason she still had several dozen boxes sitting around her apartment? She didn’t want to think about it.
They were nearly done eating—Casey had devoured her oversized plate of chicken-fried steak while Sarah toyed with her Chinese chicken salad, when Sarah suddenly let out a little peep and pointed over Casey’s shoulder.
Casey turned to look. Red and Jimmy walked in and headed straight to their table.
Red sat down beside Sarah and put his arm around her shoulders to give her a one-armed hug. “Hello, little miss mother-to-be. Don’t you just glow. Look at her, Jim, she might be the prettiest pregnant lady in the whole county.”
Sarah’s “glowing” cheeks went up in wattage.
Jimmy was left with no choice but to sit beside Casey—something she was sure he’d prefer only to sitting in a dentist’s chair.
“How’d your appointment go?” she asked, scooting over as close to the window as possible.
“Same ol’, same ol’. Took some blood. Filled out papers. Got weighed. Made me feel like a lamb going to slaughter.”
The image quelled Casey’s appetite and she pushed her mostly empty plate away. “Are you ordering? I have to take the pup to her appointment in half an hour. Hey, wait. You’re here. You could do it.”
Red looked at Jimmy. “Told you she’d say that.”
“The doctor gave your dad some pills to take. He’s supposed to start as soon as he gets home. He’s not supposed to drive or drink alcohol.”
“Might as well shoot me now and get it over with,” Red muttered.
Casey looked at Jimmy. “Which means he needs supervision. I get it. Well, I don’t think Nathan was expecting me, anyway.”
She pulled her purse to her lap and pawed through it until she found her phone. There were two missed calls and one message. From Nathan.
“How’d the meeting go?” Jimmy asked his wife after ordering a burger and milkshake. Red settled on a bowl of soup.
Casey looked at Sarah as she pressed the button to retrieve her message.
“It was interesting.”
“Did the turkey people show up?”
She shook her head.
“Anybody from our side talk?” Red asked. He was looking at Casey when he spoke and she felt a sinking sensation pass through her body. He knew. Of course, he knew. This was the age of instant communication.
Casey listened to her husband’s voice. “Casey, it’s me. Call me when you get this….”
Did he know, too? Something in his tone said, yes.
She snapped the phone shut and sat forward. “Okay. Here’s what happened. The commissioner was a jerk and I very politely pointed out his rude behavior. Maybe in hindsight that wasn’t the most politically correct thing to do, but—”
To her immense surprise, Red laughed. “Oh, Casey T., you’re finally back. Does my heart good. I never liked that guy, either. Don’t know how he got elected. He cornered me at some fund-raiser. The man’s got halitosis like you wouldn’t believe. Made me think a gopher crawled down his throat and died.”
“Ew,” Casey and Sarah exclaimed in unison.
“Excuse me while I go throw up.”
“That is so gross, Dad.”
Not Red. Dad. She’d been slipping up and using that word more and more often.
Red stood up to let Sarah out, but not before Casey spotted a tear in his eye. Her heart, already bruised from being pulled in two directions, suffered another blow. Her father’s tears. Just not something she could handle.
NATHAN STARED at the mostly empty shelves of his refrigerator and shook his head. With Casey gone, he’d been eating out or grabbing power shakes at the Jamba Juice around the corner. Instead of healthy food, three different brands of beer—amber microbrew, dark imported and a popular pilsner—took up a majority of the space. His shoulder still ached from lugging the six-packs home.
He wasn’t sure what Kirby drank, and Nathan didn’t like what that said about him. “I don’t know my brother,” he muttered, pulling a chilled green bottle from the collection. “Why should I feel guilty about that? Kirby was just a goofy little kid when I left home.”
He opened the beer and took a drink. In truth, Kirby had never been easy to know. Quiet, bookish, obsessed with bugs and dinosaurs. At family gatherings, Kirby would often disappear after a few minutes. Usually, Nathan would stumble across him later, outside digging in the dirt or hidden in some corner with his nose in a book.
He swallowed a second gulp, savoring the complicated blend of yeast and hops. The clerk at the store had recommended the brand, although Nathan had never heard of it before. The bitter effervescence tasted better than he’d expected. He changed his mind about digging through a box to find a proper stein and walked into the living room.
The numerous boxes sitting around made getting from point A to point B a bit like walking a labyrinth. He kept telling himself he was going to get home early and tackle a couple of boxes, but Casey had promised to do the chore. Since she was kinda picky about what went where, he told himself she’d just redo anything he accomplished, so why bother?
He sank into the comforting softness of their loveseat. The matching couch was in storage, but when they’d lived in Boston, his and Casey’s nightly routine had included at least an hour together on this cocoa-colored double recliner. Shoulder-to-shoulder, they’d watch a little television, read or just plain talk. Had that happened even once since they moved? He didn’t think so.
A buzzer sounded. “’Bout time, little brother,” he murmured, hurrying to hit the button that would open the exterior door. “Come on up. Beer’s cold,” he said into the old-fashioned intercom system.
He opened the apartment door and rested his shoulder against the jamb, his attention focused on the elevator. Behind him, the click, click, click of footfalls on the stairs made him shift to the other foot and look toward the stairwell. His brother was a lab geek who lived in Birkenstock sandals. Who had he let in?
“Gwyneth,” he exclaimed a moment later. “What’s going on?”
“I heard there was cold beer,” she said, not the least bit breathless.
Hot. That was the only way to describe her outfit. The stretchy black skirt was barely wider than the angled belt with shiny brass grommets that canted downward from her left hip. Dark patterned hose and shiny patent leather boots with four-inch heels made her almost Nathan’s height. Her hands were stuffed in the pockets of a distressed leather jacket and her purse, dangling on a skimpy strap, hung beside her knees.
“My date dumped me. He said I intimidated him. We were at a restaurant a few blocks from here and I was too pissed off to go home. I overheard you talking to your brother and I thought I’d take a chance you hadn’t drunk all the beer yet. Got another one of those?” she asked, pointing to his beer.
She walked past him without waiting for an answer. A second later, the elevator opened to release his brother.
“Hey, Nathan. The outside door was open so I just came up. Everything cool?”
Nathan blew out a sigh. “One of the attorneys from the firm just showed up unexpectedly. She’s helping herself to a beer. Date problems. Come on in.”
Kirby, who was dressed awfully casually to have been in business meetings all day, smiled agreeably. “I know all about dating disasters. Is she hot?”
“She’s thirtysomething.”
“Great. I’m really into older women.”
Nathan couldn’t tell if Kirby was teasing or not, but the thought of Gwyneth and Kirby together was enough to make the beer in his belly curdle. Gwyneth would chew Kirby up and spit out the bones. Just like…well, a barracuda.
He closed the door and hurried after his brother, who dropped his canvas satchel on top of a box marked Nathan’s junk, and
turned left into the kitchen with a, “Hi, there, I’m Kirby. Nathan’s brother. I bet he’s told you all about me, so you already know I’m the brain in the family.”
Nathan missed Gwyneth’s reply but he reached them in time to witness a hug. Gwyneth hugging a complete stranger? He was almost too shocked to speak.
“Nathan, shame on you. You didn’t tell me you had a little brother. What a cutie.”
The conversation pretty much spiraled downhill from there, in Nathan’s opinion. Gwyn was on some kind of antimen campaign, but she was far too skilled at political double-talk to come right out and tell them that she hated their sex. No matter how often Nathan tried to steer the topic to another direction, she would return with one more example of how annoying men could be.
“I met Jack in the coffee shop a block from the office. I told him what I did for a living. He asked me to dinner, not the other way around,” she stressed. “Then halfway through the meal, he tells me that historically the number of lawyers in society correlates to that society’s imminent decline. X number of lawyers, Rome crumbles.”
“What does he do?” Kirby asked.
He’d joined her on the loveseat, leaving Nathan the recliner a few feet away. Both were tossing back bottles of Guinness at a rate that made Nathan nervous.
She took another chug. “Stockbroker. Like that qualifies him for sainthood.”
Nathan and Kirby exchanged a look. Nathan was a little surprised by the wise humor he read in his brother’s eyes. Although Kirby was giving Gwyn his full attention, he clearly hadn’t been swept off his feet. If anything, he felt sorry for her.
That tiny insight rattled him. Gwyneth was gorgeous, successful, driven. She and Nathan shared a lot of similar likes and dislikes, including a passion for law, but, he was beginning to see quite clearly, they loved it for different reasons.
As if tuning into his thoughts, Kirby asked, “Why’d you become a lawyer, Gwyneth?”
A Baby on the Way Page 15
