by Lori Wilde
“This morning, Blake … he …”
Jillian’s blood pumped faster. “Yes?”
“It’s terrible, unthinkable.”
“What?”
“Such a shame. He was only fifty-six.”
Jillian grit her teeth to keep from taking the woman by the shoulders and shaking her. “Just tell me. What’s happened?”
Francine hiccoughed, sniffled into a tissue, and then finally whispered,
“Blake dropped dead this morning in the middle of Starbucks while ordering a grande soy latte.”
THE NEXT FEW DAYS passed in a fog. Jillian went about her work and attended her cases, but it felt as if someone else was in her body performing the tasks while her mind shut down, disconnected from her emotions. She’d never experienced such hollow emptiness. But she could not cry. The tears stuffed up her head, made her temples throb, but no matter how much she wanted to sob, she simply could not.
Francine had learned from Blake’s doctor that he’d had an inoperable brain tumor he’d told no one about. That new knowledge cut Jillian to the quick. He hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her he was dying.
The morning of Blake’s memorial service dawned unseasonably cold for the end of September in Texas. Thick gray clouds matted the sky, threatening rain. The wind gusted out of the north at twenty-five miles an hour, blowing shivers up Jillian’s black wool skirt.
She still couldn’t believe Blake was gone. Speculation about who would be appointed to take his place swirled through the office, but, grief-stricken, Jillian didn’t give the issue much consideration. Blake was gone, and no one could ever replace him in her heart.
Learning of her mentor’s death compounded the feelings of edge-of-the-world desolation that had overcome her during Petry’s trial. She’d met Blake when he’d been a guest lecturer in her summer-school class on criminal law at the University of Houston. He’d found her questions insightful, and she’d thought he was one of the smartest men she’d ever met.
Their attraction was strictly mental. They admired each other’s brains. Plus, Jillian had lost a father, and Blake had let a daughter slip away. When Blake had been elected district attorney about the same time Jillian graduated from law school, his offer of a job in the DA’s office was automatic.
Jillian didn’t question if it was the right step for her. Blake was there. She went. Other than Delaney, Tish, and Rachael, Blake was the closest thing to family she could claim.
The memorial service was held in an empty courtroom at the Harris County Courthouse. Law was Blake’s religion. Saying farewell in a church didn’t seem fitting. Francine had made all the arrangements. The room was jam-packed with colleagues, opponents, allies, and adversaries. But there was no family present. Blake had been as alone in the world as Jillian.
A poster-sized photograph of Blake sat perched on the judge’s bench. Beside it was the urn that held his ashes. The smell of stargazer lilies and chrysanthemums permeated the courtroom. Jillian took a seat in the back row of the gallery. Her head hurt from all the tears she’d been unable to shed. Her throat was tight. Her heart scraped the ground.
Suddenly a memory flashed into her head. One night, four months earlier, she’d gone over to Blake’s house for dinner to celebrate putting a cop killer on death row. She’d expected Blake to be in a good mood. He was supposed to be cooking her favorite meal, spaghetti and meatballs. She’d brought a bottle of Chianti for the occasion. Instead, after he’d invited her in, he told her he’d ordered takeout Chinese and then he’d gone to sit in the bay window alcove overlooking the lake behind his property, a wistful expression on his face.
She sat beside him, waiting for him to tell her what had happened, but he did not. Finally, after several minutes of watching him watch the birds landing on the lake for the evening, she’d asked, “Blake? Is something wrong?”
He tilted his gray head at her. He looked so tired, and he gave her a slight smile. “You should get married,” he’d murmured.
“Huh?” She’d blinked.
“You shouldn’t be here hanging out with an old man. You should be dating, forming relationships, finding a good guy, getting married.”
She hadn’t expected the hit to her gut that his words inflicted. “You know I’m not a big believer in marriage.”
Blake had looked away from her then, his eyes back on the birds and the lake. “You deserve love, Jillian.”
She had no answer for that. “Marriage didn’t work out so well for you.”
“Because I screwed it up. God, if only I could go back in time …” He let his words trail off.
“Did something happen?”
He glanced at her again, and for just a second she saw the starkest regret in his eyes. Regret tinged with fear. The look vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and she convinced herself she must have imagined it.
“Nah.” He waved a hand. “Just an old man getting maudlin.”
The doorbell had rang then. The delivery driver with their kung pao chicken and steamed pork dumplings. The rest of the evening Blake had been his usual self, but now, looking back on the moment, Jillian couldn’t help wondering if that was the day he’d been diagnosed with the brain tumor.
She blinked back the memory. Her nose burned. Oh, Blake, why didn’t you tell me you were dying? He’d worked up until the last minute of his life and then died so tritely in Starbucks.
Jillian’s heart lurched. She felt inadequate, useless. And guilty that she hadn’t seen the signs. She remembered how his vision seemed to be getting worse. How lately he’d been making beginner mistakes when they played chess. She thought they were close friends, and yet he hadn’t told her about his illness. Hell, she might as well admit it. She felt a little excluded. He hadn’t trusted her with his darkest secret.
Just before the service began, the doors opened one last time and Mayor Newsom swept inside with Judge Alex Fredericks, followed by Alex’s beautiful young wife with a towheaded toddler on her hip. The minute Jillian spied Alex and his family, she felt the color drain from her face.
Nausea gripped her.
The last time she’d seen Mrs. Fredericks had been on Christmas Eve of the previous year. At the same time Randal Petry had been shooting Gladys Webelow at the Dash and Go, Jillian had been ringing Alex Frederick’s doorbell in the Woodlands, dressed only in a denim duster and knee-high cowboy boots. Learning for the first time that her new lover was married with a family.
Jillian sank down in her seat and prayed neither Alex nor his wife spied her. Newsom ushered them to the front of the room, where they sat side by side in three empty folding chairs. The service lasted over an hour as one person after another took the microphone to remember and honor Blake. Jillian had prepared a speech, but when the officiating minister asked for any final farewell words, she stayed seated. She couldn’t bear standing up there in front of Alex.
He had been the biggest mistake of her life.
Her friends urged Jillian to open herself up to a relationship. They’d made her start to hope that she could find love, that there was a man out there for her.
And hope was such a dangerous thing.
Alex was handsome and charming and at just thirty-six already a criminal court judge. They looked good together, both tall and athletic. Her friends were all falling giggly in love, and Jillian dared to think, Why not take a chance? For the first time in her twenty-nine years on the planet, she’d put her fears aside, opened herself up, and let a man into her heart.
And then she’d found out about Mrs. Fredericks.
Idiot.
She should have known better. No matter what anyone said, there was no such thing as magic. No happily-ever-after. Not for her anyway.
“If there’s anyone else who’d like to say something about Blake, please come forward now,” the minister said. “If not, Mayor Newsom has an announcement he would like to make, and then we’ll conclude the service with a closing prayer.”
The minister stepped away from the
microphone and the mayor took his place. Newsom shuffled his notes, cleared his throat, and then launched in.
“We’ve lost a great man in Blake Townsend. He’s irreplaceable. But life goes on, and Blake wouldn’t want us standing in the way of justice,” Newsom said as if he had a clue what Blake wanted. “Since all his friends and colleagues are gathered here in one place, it seems the best time to announce the appointment of our new DA before my formal press conference this afternoon.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
It was crass and inconsiderate, announcing Blake’s successor at his memorial service, but classic Mayor Newsom. The guy had the class of a garden trowel. Jillian caught her breath and bit her bottom lip. She sensed what was coming and dreaded hearing it.
“Judge Alex Fredericks will be the new Harris County district attorney.” Newsom turned to Fredericks. “Alex, would you like to say a few words?”
Anger grabbed her throat and shook hard. No, no! It could not be true.
Jillian would not sit still and listen to this. Bile rising in her throat, she charged for the door. Reality settled on her shoulders, even as she tried to outrun the inevitable. She hurried across the polished black marble floor of the courthouse, rushing out into the blowing drizzle, gulping in cold, damp air.
She didn’t see the Tom Thumb delivery truck. She just stepped off the curb and into its path.
A horn blared. Tires squealed.
Jillian froze.
The truck’s bumper stopped just inches short of her kneecaps.
She stared through the windshield at the driver, and he promptly flipped her the bird. She smiled at him. Smiled and laughed and then couldn’t stop.
The driver rolled down the window. “Get out of the road you crazy bitch.”
Great, terrific, you almost get run over and you’re laughing about it. The guy’s right. You are crazy.
She wandered the streets, not paying any attention to where she was going and ending up walking the path through the city park she and Blake had walked many times together, engaged in friendly legal debates. She wondered what he’d think of Alex as his replacement. Blake hadn’t known about her relationship with Alex. She’d been too ashamed to tell him.
Her mind kept going back to the memory of the night Blake had told her she should get married, and the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that had to have been the day he’d gotten his diagnosis. The death sentence he’d shared with no one.
The rain pelted her, and Jillian realized she’d been walking in a big circle for the last thirty minutes. Ducking her head against the quickening rain, she hurried to her office. The place was empty. Everyone else had probably gone to lunch after the services were over. She shrugged out of her coat, dropped down at her desk, and closed her eyes.
“Blake,” Jillian whispered out loud. “What am I going to do without you?”
All her girlfriends were married now, getting pregnant, having babies, living lives so very different from her own. She’d used Blake to fill the void. Every Thursday night, they’d played chess together. He’d make dinner, because Jillian didn’t cook, or they’d go out to eat, her treat. He was the one she called when she had trouble with a case, and she was the escort he took to political functions. Many assumed they were having an affair. But she’d never felt any of those kinds of feelings for Blake, nor he for her. He’d always been like the dad she’d never really had.
Except now he was gone.
“Ms. Samuels?”
She opened her eyes to see Alex Fredericks standing in the doorway.
His gaze was enigmatic, his stance intimidating.
Jillian thrust out her chin, refusing to let her distress show. “Yes?”
“I want to see you in my office.”
She stared. Was the bastard about to fire her? Ever since she’d ended their affair, whenever she appeared in Alex’s courtroom, their relationship had been adversarial. She’d lost more than one case she might have won if there’d been another judge on the bench.
“Don’t you mean Blake’s office?”
“I’m the new DA,” he said. “It’s my office now, and I want to see you in there immediately.”
Jillian wanted to tell him to go to hell, but she held her tongue and got up.
Other employees were filtering into the building. She followed Alex into Blake’s office. A fresh surge of anger pushed through her as he commandeered her mentor’s chair.
Alex was a very handsome man, with just enough flecks of gray in his black hair to make him looked distinguished. He possessed glacier-blue eyes and a dimpled chin. His shoulders were presidential, his waist lean. He nodded at a chair across from the desk. “Sit down.”
“I’d rather stand.”
“Suit yourself.”
She crossed her arms. His smirk irked the hell out of her. “What do you want?”
“Aren’t you going to congratulate me on my new position?”
“No.”
He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the desk, and pressed the tips of his fingers together. “You know, things don’t have to be this way between us.”
She glared.
This was the scumbag who’d bruised her ego and usurped her mentor’s place. It wasn’t so much that he’d lied to her about his wife. If she was honest with herself, she’d admit she wasn’t even that upset over losing him. What really hurt was his betrayal. Just when she’d decided to finally trust a man and put her heart on the line. She’d taken a chance and it had blown up in her face. Plus, he’d made her an unwitting partner in his adultery. She couldn’t forgive him for that.
The bastard.
Shame. That’s what she felt when she looked at Alex Fredericks. Shame and remorse and self-loathing.
“I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt, Jillian. We can start over fresh, you and I.” Alex raked his gaze over her, his eyes lingering on her breasts.
Her fingers twitched to reach across that desk and smack his smug face. “Give me the benefit of the doubt?”
“I’m merely saying there are ways we can repair our tattered relationship.” Alex got up and came around the corner of the desk toward her. Surely he was not suggesting what she feared he was suggesting. Was he hinting about resuming their affair?
Jillian held her ground. She was not about to let him make her back up, but she hated being this close to him. Hated the familiar smell of his cologne in her nostrils. Hated that she’d ever thought he was worthy of her caring.
He stood right in front of her, his eyes predatory.
“I’ve missed you, Jillian,” he said.
She snorted.
“It’s true.”
“Does your wife know how much you’ve missed me?”
Alex shifted his weight. “My wife and I … we have an understanding.”
“What? You screw around and she doesn’t understand?”
“I’ve especially missed that sarcastic wit.” He reached out and stroked the back of his hand across her cheek.
“Don’t.” Jillian grabbed his wrist and flung his hand away from her. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”
“I am your boss.”
“And this is sexual harassment. I can file charges.”
Alex’s expression was hooded, inscrutable. He was too good of a politician to acknowledge her accusation. He didn’t move.
Jillian sank her hands on her hips and stepped forward until their noses almost touched. She’d seen this man naked, done intimate things with him that she now sorely regretted. She couldn’t believe she’d slept with him and even stupidly imagined having a future with him. She felt like a complete idiot. She’d been right all along—love was for suckers and fools.
He blinked and she saw a flicker of contrition in his eyes, but the whisper of humanity was gone as quickly as it appeared. “Ms. Samuels,” he said coldly.
“Yes?”
“I wouldn’t recommend that course of action. It would be my word against yo
urs, and I could make your life here quite miserable, indeed.”
He was right and she knew it. Blake was gone, and even before that she’d been feeling a strong sense of unease. Now with Fredericks in charge, it was too much to bear.
She experienced that end-of-the-tunnel sensation again she’d been feeling ever since that day in court with Randal Petry. The same day Blake died.
“I don’t have to put up with this,” Jillian said, injecting her voice with steel as cold as his.
“What do you intend on doing about it?” He drew up his shoulders, puffed out his chest.
“You’re a real ass, and I can’t believe I slept with you.”
“As I recall, we didn’t do much sleeping. I miss you, Jillian. Your fire and your guts and your passion. Seriously, I’d really hate to demote you.”
That did it. She wasn’t going to put up with his threats. She’d had enough. “You know what, Alex? Shove this job up your ass. I quit.”
Chapter Two
Back in her own office, Jillian opened her desk drawers and chucked her belongings into a cardboard box. She thought about calling Delaney or Tish or maybe even Rachael, who was living in the isolated terrain of southwest Texas.
But Jillian did not pick up the phone. Her friends all had their own lives, loves, husbands, and children.
They would listen to her, of course. And sympathize. But they couldn’t really understand. They could never know what it was like to grow up the way she’d grown up. They’d try to get her to laugh and tell her everything was going to be all right. But she knew that wasn’t true. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.
Blake was really gone.
It hit her then. That she really didn’t have anyone. She was alone and it was her own fault. She’d wanted to stay unattached. Her job had been her excuse, but in truth, intimacy of any form scared the hell out of her.
Maybe in the back of her mind, she’d always known Alex was unobtainable. He was too good-looking and accomplished to be single, plus she’d never come right out and asked him if he was married. Why not?
You’ve got to stop this line of thinking. You can’t let yourself get dragged down.
