by Francis Ray
The woman’s large eyes darted around the room, looking anywhere but at Brianna. “He said no one would believe me. I—I need my job. It helps me pay my tuition.”
“He probably knows that and is counting on you feeling scared with nowhere to turn.”
The fresh-faced young woman finally looked at Brianna. “Your father came to speak to our paralegal class at the university. He talked about a sexual harassment case and said if we ever needed help he was there. I don’t have much money—”
“We’ll talk about money later.” Brianna had never been prouder of her father. “What you have to decide is if you want to continue with this. I did a preliminary search on your boss. He’s a twenty-year employee. He isn’t going to roll over and admit guilt. He’ll fight. It might get dirty.”
The young woman’s head fell. “I have a two-year-old daughter. I’m not married.”
“Congratulations, and that has no bearing on this.”
Her head lifted sharply, her brow furrowed. “He said—”
Brianna held up her hand. “If you decide to pursue this, the first thing I want you to do is promise to listen to me and not the scum who is harassing you. You have to put your complete trust in me. Period.”
“You’re not like your father.”
Where had she heard that before? “I am where it counts. I’m a good lawyer. Am I going to be your lawyer?”
The woman didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Patrick entered Brianna’s father’s law office and saw one elderly man looking through papers in an attache case on his lap. Good. Patrick went to the slender gray-haired woman typing at the computer behind the L-shaped desk. She wore a black suit and a white blouse with an onyx brooch pinned at the neck. “Good morning, I’d like to see Brianna Ireland.”
“Good morning. Your name, please,” she asked, swinging away from the computer.
“Patrick Dunlap.”
She spoke without looking up. “Ms. Ireland has next Thursday at two open if that’s acceptable?”
He guessed all the appointments for today must be returnees, but how did she know the schedule so well?
She smiled and tapped the pen to her hair in a neat bun. “I worked before we had the computer.”
“I was hoping I could see her today. It’s important.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Can you explain a bit more?”
“I—”
Before Patrick could finish, Brianna emerged from an open doorway. A young woman was with her. Brianna paused the instant she saw him, her mouth tightening. True to form, she ignored him and walked the young woman to the door, then returned. “Why are you here?”
“I was trying to get an appointment to see you.”
Brianna looked at the receptionist for confirmation. “He’s telling the truth about that,” Matilda said.
“I don’t think I’m the lawyer to represent you.”
“I’d probably disagree if that was what I came for, but I’m here for another reason. Keep your top up at night.”
Her hands went to her breasts. She gasped and stepped back.
“The car top,” he quickly clarified, feeling his face heat for some crazy reason. Probably because the elderly secretary and the older man were listening to every word. “It makes you too vulnerable to car jackers.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Have you been watching me?”
“That would be an invasion of privacy, wouldn’t it?”
She opened her mouth to blast him.
“Brianna, your next appointment, Mr. Shaw, is waiting,” the receptionist interrupted.
“Good-bye, Patrick.” Dismissing him, she went to the elderly man, who was still shuffling through his briefcase. “Mr. Shaw, Brianna Ireland. My father briefed me on your case.”
He attempted to rise and then sank back down. When he attempted again, Brianna assisted him by taking his arm. “The sofa is too low to make getting up easy. I’m sorry.”
“These old bones don’t help. Your father said you were sharp and a good girl.”
“He’s supposed to because he’s my father, but I wouldn’t like to make him out to be wrong. Please come into my office, and let’s see how I can help you.”
Patrick watched until they disappeared. “She’s good with everyone except me.”
“I wonder why?”
Patrick was a man who took advantage of opportunities. “Me too. I met her parents when she moved into my complex. Her father seemed to like me.”
“You met Charles?”
“He introduced himself when he and his wife were helping Brianna move in. We shook hands.”
Matilda studied him with sharp black eyes for a long time. “Charles is a good judge of character.” She stood. “Care to join me for a cup of coffee?”
“There’s nothing I’d like better.”
Brianna came out of her office forty minutes later. Thankfully, Patrick was gone. Her body reacted too unpredictably around him. After showing Mr. Shaw out, she approached Matilda. “If he changes his mind about wanting an appointment, you’re not to give him one.”
“Seems like a nice young man.” Matilda kept typing.
Brianna wrinkled her nose. “Looks can be deceiving. He’s pushy.”
“He didn’t seem that way when we had coffee. He liked my snickerdoodles.”
Brianna blinked, then placed her hands palm down on the desk. She couldn’t believe her ears. “You fed him?”
Matilda saved the document, then swirled in her chair and met Brianna’s gaze without flinching. “Like your father, I liked him.”
“He met Daddy one time.” She shoved her fingers through her hair. “He keeps feeding people that same line. Daddy probably doesn’t even remember him.”
“We both know that isn’t true. We also know your father is a keen judge of character. He might speak, but a handshake is different.” Her eyebrow lifted. “Take that Jackson Hewitt person.”
Brianna snapped to attention. “What about Jackson?” she asked, but had a good idea what the answer would be.
Matilda’s penciled brow shot upward. “You aren’t dumb, Brianna, so why act that way?” she asked, then continued. “You know as well as I that neither your mother nor father liked him when they were in Dallas visiting you. Their opinion didn’t change when he came down after Charles had his heart attack. Good riddance, I’d say.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Folding her arms over her flat chest, Matilda leaned back in her chair. “You haven’t mentioned him since you’ve been back. Neither has he called.” Unfolding her arms, she began typing again. “I’d say you finally saw through all those caps and polished manner.”
Brianna rounded the desk and twisted the receptionist’s chair around. “If he was so bad, why didn’t anyone let me in on it?”
“Because you’re as stubborn as a Missouri mule. No one tells you what to do or how to do it.” Matilda’s voice softened. “Besides, when you learn a lesson yourself you never forget it. He caught you at a vulnerable time when you were worried about your father. Everyone is allowed one mistake.”
Brianna hated being wrong, hated worse when someone pointed it out to her before she realized it. But she also never made excuses. “That’s why I don’t plan to make another one with Patrick.”
“With all those muscles and that boyish smile, that is one mistake a lot of women wouldn’t mind making.” Matilda pointed toward the appointment book on the edge of the desk. “Your next appointment is due here in five minutes. Go grab a cup of coffee and a snickerdoodle.”
Imagining Patrick drinking the unpalatable coffee and eating gooey sweet treats almost made Brianna smile. “You really fed him?”
Matilda smiled, showing the full set of the teeth she was born with. “He ate four and took some with him.”
Her smile growing, Brianna went to the kitchen. As always she checked to ensure that Matilda was busy at her desk before pouring the cup of coffee down the sink. Not for anything would she hurt the o
lder woman’s feelings.
Picking up a snickerdoodle, she wrapped it in a napkin, then hid it behind a box of cereal until she could slip it out in her briefcase. There were only four left. There had been at least a dozen this morning. Brianna shuddered. She didn’t see how Patrick had been able to eat the sugary treats. Matilda always used way too much sugar in her recipes. Her brownies were so sweet they made Brianna’s teeth ache.
Pouring a cup of coffee to take back to her office and later dump in the bathroom sink, Brianna imagined Patrick’s shocked face on his first sip. But it wasn’t shock on his face when the image materialized, but hot desire, the same desire heating her blood.
“Damn!”
“You burn yourself?” Matilda called from the other room.
“No.” And she didn’t plan to.
“Why are sensible women attracted to the men who are bad for them?” Brianna asked the question, her feet tucked beneath her jean-clad hips as she lounged on Justine’s sofa and sipped iced tea later than evening.
“For me, it was because Dalton was so sexy he made me shiver. He was a little wicked and don’t forget he was reported to be the best kisser in school,” Justine said as she studied Brianna’s pensive expression.
She’d invited Brianna over for dinner and picked up carryout from one of their favorite seafood restaurants on the way home. Just thinking about cooking a full meal made her tired. “I take it Patrick isn’t as easy to get rid of physically or emotionally.”
“He’s a pest.” The glass hit the leather coaster on the oval-shaped coffee table with a thud. “I can’t believe he came to the office, then had the nerve to try and spout law to me.”
Justine sipped her tea before answering. “I say that showed initiative, determination, and intelligence.”
Brianna’s eyes narrowed. “He just better not come back.”
“He scared you that much?” If there was one thing Brianna could handle, it was men.
Brianna picked up her glass and drained it before speaking. “Yes.”
“Join the club.”
“Dalton,” Brianna said.
“One minute I want him to come back, the next I pray he won’t.” Setting her glass on the table, Justine leaned her head back on the tufted sofa and closed her eyes. “I feel as guilty as hell, then excited, then ashamed.”
“Don’t. You didn’t break your vows, Andrew did.”
“But if Dalton had come back before I discovered Andrew at the cabin, would I have been tempted?” she asked, adding yet another question to the growing list she’d never have an answer to. This newest one weighed even more heavily on her mind than the others. “I’ve always considered myself beyond temptation. It’s rather disconcerting to discover I’m not.”
“Let’s look at this logically.” Brianna waited until Justine opened her eyes and looked at her. “You’ve read Dalton’s books. Seen his photo on the jacket, which I think is hot and sexy as hell. What did you feel? Don’t analyze, just answer.”
“That he was even better looking and sexier than in high school, but that I had a man who was just as handsome and sexy and how lucky I was,” she answered, her voice growing quieter.
“I rest my case. You wouldn’t have strayed.” Brianna picked up her glass and shook it until a couple of ice cubes slid into her mouth.
“But why did Andrew?” Justine asked. “Why wasn’t I enough?”
Brianna crunched and swallowed before answering. ‘There’s probably not one single answer. Don’t torture yourself trying to find out why,” Brianna advised and picked up Justine’s glass. “I think we need to change this tea to wine.”
“Having trouble sleeping, too?”
“I’m late every day to work. Patrick is like a bad rhyme that won’t get out of my head.” Brianna came to her feet.
Justine stood as well. “Dalton is in my head and in my bed. At least in my dreams.”
Brianna laughed. “Hot damn! This definitely calls for wine.”
“We’re pitiful,” Justine said, but she found herself smiling.
“We’re survivors.”
“Survivors. Let’s go find that wine.”
Thirteen
Determined to be on time, Brianna had taken the drastic measure of asking Matilda to call her. It worked. Almost. There was a traffic jam and she’d left without her coffee again. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could go without her caffeine. Usually she drank two to three cups of the stuff in the morning. She might have to break down and beg Matilda to let her make the coffee herself.
Parking, she grabbed her briefcase and sprinted in three-inch heels to the back door. She’d had to cancel the movie date with Justine until she had made more of a dent in her father’s caseload. She’d worked on Saturdays before and it wasn’t a hardship. Going without her coffee was.
She smelled coffee the instant she opened the door. Her gaze zeroed in on the automatic pot in its usual place, but the aroma had never been this wonderful.
She sniffed again, then cautiously walked closer as if expecting the delicious aroma to disappear. It smelled divine.
Yesterday when she’d gone to her parents’ house to check on her father, Brianna had mentioned Matilda’s un-drinkable coffee to her mother. Knowing how much she enjoyed coffee, her mother must have come over that morning.
“Thank God for loving mothers,” Brianna murmured.
Grabbing a cup, Brianna filled it to the brim, inhaled again, then drank. She moaned. Heaven.
“Wait until you taste the cranberry-walnut coffee cake.”
Brianna lowered the cup to see Matilda at the door. She was pointing to a round covered red tin near the coffeepot.
Not waiting for Brianna to lift the lid, Matilda opened it herself. “I might make myself sick on these if you don’t take this into your office,” Matilda said.
Having missed breakfast . . . again . . . Brianna grabbed a wedge of already sliced coffee cake crammed full of fruit and nuts and drizzled with cream cheese icing, and took a huge, unladylike bite. Her taste buds sighed with pleasure.
“Thought you might like it. Please hide it from me. I’ve got a deposition to type.”
Her mouth full, Brianna nodded as Matilda left the small kitchen. Even before she finished, she wanted another slice. She was as bad as Matilda. With supreme willpower, she closed the lid, settled for a second cup of coffee, and headed to her office.
Brianna stopped in front of Matilda’s desk. “Sorry. Good morning.”
“Good morning.” Matilda glanced up briefly and continued to type. “Believe me, I understand.”
Brianna sipped leisurely and enjoyed her coffee. Once she sat behind her desk she’d get lost in work and not remember the coffee until it was cold. “I wish Mom would have stayed until I got here.”
Matilda glanced up. “Your mother wasn’t here.”
Lines of confusion puckered Brianna’s brow. “Then who dropped the coffee and coffee cake off for her?”
The front door opened and an old client who needed to add his latest grandchild to his will entered before Matilda could answer. “Good morning, Mr. Otis. Ms. Ireland will be with you as soon as she gets settled.”
“Good morning, Mr. Otis.” Brianna held up her almost empty cup. “If you’d like you can come back with me or have a cup of coffee and some coffee cake.”
The man patted his stomach, which was a slight bulge beneath his white shirt and herringbone jacket. “As you can see, I never pass up good food.”
All three of them laughed. “I’ll show you the way, then we can get down to business.”
It was almost lunch before Brianna had a break in clients so she could call her mother. She leaned back in her father’s chair and looked at their degrees and accolades, which took up three-quarters of the wall. They’d both achieved a great deal.
The phone rang for the second time. Brianna finished off her second slice of coffee cake, which Matilda had left on her desk earlier. “Self-preservation,” she’d said.
> “Hello.”
Brianna quickly cleaned her fingers and braced her elbows on the desk. “Hi, Mama. How are you and Daddy?”
“Fine. He’s anxious to try out the golf cart you bought us. We’re going today.”
“You make sure he lets you drive,” Brianna advised.
Her mother chuckled softly. “That’ll be the day. He’s so proud of it, but we’re both prouder of you. We know you gave—”
“Not a hundredth of all the things you and Daddy gave me. I love you both.” She didn’t miss the hectic pace of the firm as much as she’d imagined.
“We love you, too. I see your father beckoning to me through the window. Do you need to talk to him before we go?”
“No, you two go on. I just wanted to thank you for the coffee and coffee cake. I don’t know when I’ve tasted better. You saved my life.”
“What coffee and coffee cake?”
Brianna frowned. “The coffee and coffee cake that were here when I arrived this morning.”
“I didn’t bring them.”
Brianna’s brow puckered. “Then if you didn’t, who did? I thought you had someone drop them off after Matilda said you hadn’t been here.”
“I don’t know. Sorry I can’t help. Your father keeps looking at his watch. I better go or he might go off and leave me. I can’t wait to show off my new golf outfit. Thanks, Brianna.”
“You’ll be the jazziest couple there,” she said absently, thinking of the coffee and coffee cake. “I’ll talk to you later. Tell Daddy to shoot a sixty-eight.”
“I will. ’Bye, honey.”
Brianna hung up the phone, the lines between her brows deepening. If her mother hadn’t sent the coffee and coffee cake, who had? Getting up from the desk, Brianna went to find Matilda. “So, who did it?”
The older woman stopped filing folders in the bottom drawer of her desk. “You’re not going to like the answer.”
“Why wouldn’t I—” Brianna’s eyes narrowed, her hands clenched. “You can’t be about to say what I think you are.”
