In His Own Defense

by Ann Jacobs

  “Tony. How can I help you?”

  Tony turned from watching a boat go under the Kennedy Avenue Bridge and held out his hand. “Good to see you. Sit down. Want a drink?”

  Except for his thinning light brown hair, Vern looked about the same as he had eight years ago. He shook his head. “Better not. I have to pick up my daughter from her ballet lesson on the way home. I can call my wife to do it, though, if you need me to stay.” He shrugged, as though resigned to doing his job but none too happy about the prospect of working late.

  “This shouldn’t take long.” Tony recalled attending Vern’s wedding soon after they had started work. Vern’s devotion to Deb and their family had probably contributed to his slow progression from law clerk to senior associate in the firm’s corporate division. “You’re from Tampa. What do you know about Kristine Granger?”

  “The Kristine Granger you nearly ran over with that sports car of yours?”

  Tony thought he saw a twinkle of amusement in Vern’s serious blue eyes. “That one. What happened to her family? I know she’s from Tampa, but I get the impression she’s very much alone.”

  Vern leaned back and closed his eyes, as if that would help him remember. “She’s Dale and Elaine Granger’s daughter. He was a stockbroker. Old Tampa family. He died the summer before we came to work here.”

  “How?”

  “Granger keeled over and died in the cemetery. Had a stroke or heart attack just as they were burying Kristine’s little sister Helen.”

  “Jesus Christ. Kristine had to have been just a kid.”

  “She’d graduated from high school that spring. Left here right after her father’s funeral, went up to Gainesville. Didn’t come back to Tampa, I don’t think, until she passed the bar last year and took the job with the state attorney.”

  “Where was her mother when all this happened?”

  “She’d died a couple of years earlier. Cancer, I think. Beautiful woman. Helen looked just like her.”

  Horrible. Losing her whole family in the space of a few years had to have torn Kristine apart. Still Tony couldn’t connect that tragedy with her obsession to put everybody who’d ever touched illegal drugs behind bars. She apparently made no bones about that goal, since at least a dozen people had mentioned it to him before and after Garcia’s trial. “Was Kristine involved with drugs?”

  Vern shook his head. “Not that I know of. Her sister was, though, big time. Died of an overdose. Gorgeous girl, but wild. Liked all-night raves, dated older guys. Some of my buddies took her out. Not me. I wasn’t into jailbait, no matter how pretty the package. Helen was just sixteen when she died.”

  Tony tried to maintain a poker face, but hearing what Kristine had gone through staggered him. No wonder she was obsessed about convicting everybody connected with illegal drugs, from street dealers to kingpins. He had no trouble deducing that her obsession to punish drug dealers also explained her apparent disdain toward criminal defense lawyers in general, him in particular.

  How had she survived, and how in hell could he get around the tragedy of her past so he could see if the incredible attraction he felt for her might lead to something more? Tony leaned back in his chair, tried to formulate a cogent argument to convince her he was just a man, not the devil incarnate.

  A man whose cock and balls had suddenly gotten incredibly particular about who sent them into overdrive.

  “Tony, are you all right?”

  He forced himself to meet Vern’s gaze. “Sure. Thanks for filling me in.”

  “No problem. Mind if I ask why you wanted to know?”

  Tony minded, but he shrugged and muttered, “No reason but curiosity about why she took me on in court.”

  “Because our fine state attorney thought an open trial would attract a lot of press attention, win or lose?” Vern suggested.

  That was a distinct possibility. But Tony was more interested in Kristine Granger than in Harper Wells’s political machinations.

  Ready to end the conversation, Tony stood, waited for Vern to get up, then started walking toward the door. Right now, he needed a few minutes of solitude.

  “Go on. You don’t want to be late to pick up your little girl.”

  He watched Vern hurry down the hall toward the bank of elevators. But all he could think about was Kristine, eighteen years old and totally vulnerable. Alone in a world where he was certain nothing could have made sense to her, the way he’d been after they’d hauled his father off to jail and dumped him, ten years old and scared shitless, into a crowded foster home.

  Tony pictured Kristine, focusing on the one thing she must have seen as alien in what had once been her perfect world. The poison that caused her sister’s death. No wonder she hated everyone connected with illegal drugs.

  Sinking onto the leather sofa by the bar, Tony buried his face in his hands and allowed his emotions free rein. At least he’d had his old man when he was eighteen, even though he’d had to take a long bus trip every time he wanted to visit Bob Landry in a prison visiting room. Kristine had apparently had no one at all.

  Had she gone to counseling? Had friends helped her cope? Vern had told him bare, stark facts, facts that posed more questions in Tony’s mind. To get answers, he would have to seek them from Kristine herself.

  And he wouldn’t get them by pretending to ignore the chemistry that had threatened to erupt between them that night at her house. He owed it to himself and her to see if that mutual attraction would fade or burst into flame.

  Tony punched in the phone number he’d memorized that day at Kristine’s house and waited for her to answer. When he heard the mechanical announcement on her voice mail instead, he left a message.

  “Kristine, this is Tony Landry. Your dolphin looks good here on my desk. Thanks. I just noticed the Bar Association’s summer cocktail dance at the yacht club is coming up on Saturday. Go with me. I’ll pick you up at five. Your house. Call if there’s a problem. 247-8823. ‘Bye.”

  Chapter Six

  She shouldn’t go to the party. Not with Tony. Probably she shouldn’t go at all, since he was going to be there. Kristine hit the replay button on her voice-mail program and replayed the message.

  Tony’s deep, resonant voice sent shivers down her spine, heated her cheeks, conjured up a mental picture of his sexy smile, his changeable eyes. His lean, hard body.

  A predator’s body and eyes. Kristine trembled. Tony could eat her alive, and not just in the courtroom.

  But she owed him, much more than she’d been able to repay with a thank-you note and a crystal paperweight. Kristine imagined how insignificant the little dolphin must look on his desk.

  Less significant than his pen set, for certain. She pictured an obscenely expensive desk in a huge, opulent corner office at Winston Roe, the desktop empty except for her dolphin and that pen set. Probably gold-plated, and mounted on a stand of polished marble or crystal. Of course he’d want to keep a pen handy, so his clients could conveniently make out large checks.

  She brushed away her uncharitable thoughts. If Tony wanted her to go with him to this party, she probably should. He’d saved her life. For one evening, she could try to ignore the fact that he reportedly made an indecent amount of money, defending the very people she wanted to see imprisoned, and that he did it far more successfully than most.

  Never mind that the idea of going out with him scared her as much as it turned her on—and that was a lot. She told herself she could ignore the butterflies that buzzed around in her stomach whenever he smiled her way. When she thought about the reporters he seemed to draw like flies, though, she shuddered.

  “Kristine?”

  Damn. She’d almost forgotten Andi had ridden home with her. “Coming,” she yelled.

  Tossing her purse on top of her briefcase, she hurried to the living room, met Andi’s curious gaze. “I’m sorry. I’ll go in the kitchen and see if I can find that sheet cake pan.”

  Andi followed, her spike heels clicking on the polished hardwood floor.
“I can’t believe my kid is going to be six years old next week,” she said, sitting down and giving Kristine’s kitchen a quick once-over. “Nice place.”

  “Thanks. Here’s the pan.” Why Kristine hadn’t tossed it out, she didn’t know. She certainly had no use for a cake pan this big, but then she doubted her late great-aunt had either. “Keep it. You’ll be making cakes all the time for your little boy.”

  Andi made a face, as if the thought of constant baking was more than she could stand. “Someday I’ll make enough money so that I can afford to buy Brett’s cakes at the bakery. It’s been tight this year, since I bought the house.”

  “I imagine.” Just keeping up with the maintenance and paying utility bills and taxes on this house stretched Kristine’s budget. And she owned her house free and clear, thanks to Great-aunt Clara.

  Kristine couldn’t imagine adding a hefty mortgage payment to her monthly expenses and still having enough money left over to eat, but she assumed Andi’s salary was significantly higher than her own.

  “You won’t know until you have another person to support. Don’t mind me. I just found out how much my new water heater’s going to cost.” Andi laughed, but the grimace on her face put a damper on the humor she’d attempted.

  Andi must be about the same age as Tony. She might even be a few years older, Kristine decided. Criminal. That’s what it was. Why should Andi have to juggle her budget to buy a water heater while Tony had money to burn on fast cars and custom-made suits?

  “Have you ever thought of going into private practice?” Kristine asked, her thoughts lingering on Tony and his toys.

  “Sure. In my dreams. I’ve imagined all the big firms lining up, outbidding each other to get my services. Seriously, there aren’t that many criminal defense lawyers who make it to the top. I’m good, but I don’t kid myself. I’m safer staying in the state attorney’s office. No way am I in the same league with guys like Tony Landry and—”

  “Tony Landry?” His deep, sexy voice was still ringing in Kristine’s ears.

  “Surely you remember him. The tall, dark, sexy hunk who tore you to shreds in court a few weeks ago and then nearly ran you over on the street.” Andi’s brown eyes twinkled, or Kristine wouldn’t have been certain she was joking.

  “It would be impossible to forget him.” Even if he hadn’t just left a message on her voice mail. “He asked me to go with him to the Bar Association party on Saturday,” she added, watching Andi for a reaction.

  “You’re going, aren’t you?”

  Kristine shrugged. “If I do, the reporters will have a field day. Remember all the fuss, the night after that disaster with me and his car?”

  “Hey, kid, the guy may have almost knocked you down, but almost only counts in horseshoes—and hand grenades.” Andi set down the pan and rested her hands on her hips. “Besides, Landry can’t be all bad. He did take you to get patched up, and he made sure you got home okay.”

  “But Andi, the man defends criminals.”

  As if she thought Kristine was crazy, Andi shook her head. “The guy wants to take you on a date, for God’s sake. He hasn’t proposed marriage. Play your cards right, though, and he might. If you snag him, you’ll never have to worry about a hot water heater or anything else money can buy.”

  “That’s mercenary. Besides, I don’t think he’s interested in me that way. He probably feels bad—”

  “Because he almost tattooed you with the fancy tires on that black Italian sports car? Trust me on this, because I can read men like a book. Tony Landry’s not the kind to nurse guilt. If guilt had been all he had on his mind, he’d have had his secretary send you some Godiva goodies and a couple of dozen roses. No, my naive little friend, if Tony’s asking you out, he’s seen something he likes.”

  “You think so?”

  Andi opened her purse and started to dig. “I know so. I know men—even if my own track record with them is less than sterling. And I know that gorgeous man could put his size twelves under my bed any time he took a notion. Go with him, and forget everything but having a good time.”

  She smiled and tossed Kristine a small square package wrapped in foil. “Put that in your purse. Better not to be without one when you’re with the gorgeous Mr. Landry.”

  The gold foil sparkled, almost as if its contents were winking at her. Embarrassed, Kristine closed her fist around the condom. “Thanks. I think.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Andi quipped, but Kristine noticed a wistful look in her eyes as she stood and gathered up her purse and the cake pan. “I’d better head home. Brett’s sitter likes to get home before seven.”

  Kristine watched her boss’s back as she hurried down the walk. Was Andi right? Could Tony be interested in her as a woman?

  Did she dare explore the unfamiliar emotions he unleashed every time she saw him? Heard his voice? She wanted…she wasn’t certain what it was that she longed for. Anyhow, thinking about him made her heart beat faster.

  When he had been here, the house hadn’t seemed empty. For that short while Kristine hadn’t felt isolated, anchored to humanity only by her own finite goal to exact revenge for her sister. Her dad. She’d felt…alive.

  She couldn’t let herself care too much for Tony Landry or anyone else. If she did, it would hurt too much when he left. And he would leave. Everybody she had ever loved had left her alone and adrift.

  Agitated, Kristine paced the length of her house, pausing in the doorway to the living room. She’d never look at that couch, never pick up the remote control to the TV, and not remember Tony and how he’d taken care of her that day. Or how the press had made a circus of her falling and him nearly running over her.

  She headed for her bedroom, her mind made up. She’d go with Tony. Follow her heart and not her head. For one night she’d set aside all the reasons he spelled disaster to her peace of mind. She’d shush the demons in her head that whispered he was the enemy and urged her to fight him and everyone like him.

  For one night they wouldn’t be two lawyers on opposing sides. They’d be a man and a woman exploring a mutual attraction—nothing more, nothing less. Friends? She hoped so. Lovers?

  Eyes closed, Kristine imagined his gentle touch, the heat of his gaze. As if he had left here moments, not weeks, ago, she felt his presence. Suddenly her doubts fell away, and she could hardly wait for Saturday.

  Turning on the light in her closet, she stood back and surveyed its contents. Nothing, not one dress special enough for a date with a dream lover. She’d go shopping tomorrow, find the sort of sexy, seductive dress she imagined Tony would like. Briefly she wondered if it would cost her more or less than Andi’s new hot water heater.

  Smiling at her friend’s all-too-accurate reading of what she wanted from Tony, Kristine dropped Andi’s foil-wrapped condom into her purse. Then she skimmed her hands lightly down her body, teasing her nipples into hard nubs and imagining…Tony would rip open that package, sheath himself, and fill the hot, wet, empty spot Kristine hadn’t thought much about before he’d come on the scene.

  * * * * *

  When they walked into the yacht club ballroom a few days later, Kristine had on a killer dress by Donna Karan, but it was Tony who commanded everyone’s attention—men as well as women, young and old, high-rollers and pretenders. She sneaked a glance at the man beside her as he tightened his grip on her bare elbow. A rush of warmth enveloped her, chasing away the chill in a ballroom packed with Tampa’s movers and shakers.

  She ought not to feel this way, but no one had ever made her hot and wet with just a smile. No other man had ever made her want to abandon her goals, ignore everything and everyone but him.

  Tony Landry, new kid on the block, was on the fast track to the top of the most visible and newsworthy specialty in the law. Light reflected off his dark hair and illuminated his smiling face. That dimple in his cheek, incongruously imperfect, drew Kristine’s attention to his twinkling eyes and sensual lips.

  “You okay?” he asked, glancing at t
he tables that ringed the dance floor where they stood, his hand resting possessively at the small of her back.

  “My ankle’s fine.” She wanted to feel his lips on hers, but it wasn’t to be. At least not here or now. Tony drew his colleagues the way honey attracted Winnie the Pooh.

  She smiled and murmured the right meaningless words to people who came to pay Tony homage. Sipping cheap champagne and nibbling cucumber canapés, she paused to greet yet another supplicant. She basked in Tony’s reflected glory and hoped her black silk dress attracted the right kind of attention. God help her if her lipstick had smeared, she thought as she smiled into the lens of yet another camera. Kristine tried hard not to let reality intrude and ruin the dream.

  A barrage of strobe lights nearly blinded her. The TV reporters apparently had arrived, and Tony seemed to be their primary target. Reminded again of the high-profile criminal defendants he represented, she tensed.

  “Come on, honey. Let’s get some air.” Tony sounded more resigned than irritated by the attention he drew.

  Conscience or no, she was ready for a break. For an hour or more she’d frozen her face in a vacuous smile, nodded and murmured when the moment demanded more. Now she inhaled the fresh salt air outside the yacht club and pretended this was more than a business date, more than a casual encounter.

  A full moon lit their way as they walked out onto the pier where visitors tied up their boats. Its light cast a golden glow on the rugged planes of Tony’s face.

  “I brought Miss Trial down here this afternoon. Feel like taking a ride?” he asked as he hopped on board a sparkling white cabin cruiser and held out his hand.

  * * * * *

  The rocking motion of gentle waves against the boat’s fiberglass hull helped Kristine relax in the cockpit on a cushioned captain’s chair. Now, with the sun slipping beyond the western horizon and a breeze blowing away the heat of the day, being outdoors was downright pleasant.

  She smiled at Tony, then glanced past him at phosphorescent patterns of red, green and white reflected on the water from the big boat’s running lights. “It’s been years since I’ve been out on a boat.”