#1-3--The O’Connells

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  Marcus just took in his brother, who hadn’t really said anything to him since he’d told him that Reine had signed over temporary guardianship to him and Charlotte while she served her time. Karen had been furious that he’d talked with Reine behind her back, but she’d honored her wishes and agreed that Charlotte and Marcus would be a better solution to looking after Eva. She’d handled the agreement, getting it signed before a judge, and Marcus and Charlotte had picked her up before she had to spend one more night under a roof with a woman who wouldn’t let herself care too much.

  “So did you smooth things over with Karen yet?” Ryan asked. Suzanne made a face, and Owen added another dog to the barbecue and pretended not to listen.

  “I plan to tonight,” Marcus said, knowing that Karen wouldn’t make it easy, which was why he was out back and she was inside the kitchen. He could hear the laughter, and he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. “Well, can’t put it off. Wish me luck.” He took a swallow of beer and started to the house, feeling Ryan pat his shoulder as he passed.

  When he stepped into the kitchen, six pairs of eyes landed on him, and everyone went quiet.

  “So this is where the fun is,” he said. He took in Eva, who was still perched on a stool between Alison, who had appointed herself her official big sister, and Charlotte, who he knew had fallen in love with her the first night they’d brought her home.

  “Is Owen almost finished out there? The kids are getting hungry,” his mom said.

  Meanwhile, Karen gave everything to the glass of wine she was holding. Just that stubborn O’Connell streak. She was refusing to make this easy on him.

  “Shouldn’t be much longer,” he said.

  His mom started to the back door with an empty platter. She was in blue jeans and a floral peasant shirt, with tiny pearls in her ears, her hair short and stylish. She stopped beside him and set her hand on his arm, looking up at him with that motherly look she adopted when she had something on her mind. “You did a good thing, getting that girl. She’s now a part of our family. You know that, though. You and Charlotte are working tomorrow, so I’m taking both my granddaughters shopping—and I plan to spoil Eva, just so you know. You did all you could, so give yourself a break, and go make it right with your sister.”

  As his mom stepped outside, he took in how Charlotte and Jenny were leaned against the island, wine in hand, talking, both very aware of the showdown that was likely to happen.

  “Karen, can I have a word?” he said, and what did his sister do but drag her gaze over and then start into the living room? No one said anything. Both Charlotte and Jenny gave him a look of sympathy.

  He stepped around the island and rested his hand on Alison’s brown hair, which was still growing out, and then on Eva’s. Then he settled his hand on Eva’s shoulder when she smiled up at him. “Hot dogs are almost ready,” he said. “Your grandma’s getting some for you.”

  He knew it was the first time he’d said it, even though his mom had insisted from day one that Eva call her Grandma. Then he walked into the living room, where his brooding sister was lounging in the spot where his brother Luke always sat when he was home on leave.

  He forced himself to sit on the stool across from her, then really looked at the living room. It had changed some over the years, but it was still the same. “You going to continue giving me the silent treatment?” he finally said.

  Karen lifted those O’Connell blue eyes to him, and they really packed a punch. “Is that your way of apologizing, Marcus? Because if it is, it sucks big time.” She was direct and to the point.

  “If you want me to say I’m sorry for seeing your client without talking to you first, I’ll say I’m sorry—but I’m not, because maybe things wouldn’t have turned out this way otherwise. You know Charlotte had to hold Eva until she fell asleep the first two nights? She woke up twice, crying, nightmares.”

  For now, Eva was sleeping on a cot only five feet from Charlotte’s side of the bed in their one-room bachelor pad.

  Karen said nothing, but he didn’t miss the way she flinched. “I didn’t know,” she said. “Heard you’re looking for a bigger place.”

  Actually, he’d found one already, a small house, two bedrooms, a block from his mom’s house. He just hadn’t told everyone yet. He’d signed the lease papers with Charlotte that morning, and they were taking possession on the first of the coming month.

  “A bachelor pad doesn’t work with an instant family,” he said. “We’re crammed in like sardines, and Charlotte and I kind of need our own bedroom with a door. You know, can’t remember the last time I slept in pajamas. Never owned a pair, so there I was in the store, having to buy some.”

  His sister couldn’t help smiling. Then she turned serious. “I like Charlotte, always have. I think she’s good for you. Heard Jimmy signed the divorce papers.”

  He grunted. “She let him have the house. Left him with nothing else to argue about, so he had no reason to keep on fighting.”

  Karen swirled her wine and was staring across the table at him. He knew she had something else on her mind. “I heard back from Reine’s father,” she said. “I reached out to him for Reine. He’s going to see her. Sounds like he’s going to bring in his own lawyer and try to appeal. You should know he said he wants to see Eva.”

  The knot that had eased only a few days ago returned. He could lose her. He dragged his gaze back to the kitchen, seeing how Eva was tucked close to Charlotte and how much she loved her already.

  “But he’s not planning on seeking custody,” Karen said. “He’s remarried and travels. He said as long as Eva is happy and taken care of…”

  He pulled his gaze back to his sister. “So he won’t be stepping in and taking her?”

  She just shook her head. “No. He spoke with Reine and said he’d respect her wishes. Seems she said you and Charlotte taking Eva will make her time easier. She could see how much you cared and that Eva will be okay, that you’ll make sure of it. I told her we’re a big family, and we’ll all make sure she’s okay and looked after. Seemed to be what she needed to hear.”

  He just nodded and dangled his beer, feeling as if there was more.

  “Heard Bert stepped down, too,” Karen said. “Next week, you’re officially the new sheriff until the next election.”

  Then there was that.

  “Just came a little too late,” he said. “If only…”

  Karen pulled in a breath. “Well, Marcus, if anything good will come out of this, at least you’ll run things differently. The kindness you showed Reine… Marcus, you’ve always treated everyone with the same respect and dignity you would want to be treated with in the same circumstances. I remember you saying that once, but seeing it now, you really are going to make a difference here.”

  From the backyard, Owen called out, “Burgers are ready! Come and dish up.”

  Karen stood up and rested her hand on his shoulder as she went to walk past. “Heard too that you’ve been ordered by the city council to hire a woman for the new deputy position.”

  Right. There was that as well, the political side of things. He groaned as he thought of the resumes he’d been provided by the mayor. “Yeah,” was all he said.

  Karen smiled down on him. “Well, if anyone can handle the task, I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” she said.

  He followed her into the kitchen, seeing Alison helping Eva dress a dog with a bottle of mustard, and he took in the woman he loved as she strode over to him and slid her arm around his waist.

  “So, everything good?” she said.

  He knew what she was asking, and he looked over to Karen, who was laughing over something Suzanne had said. The only one missing was Luke. He just hoped that tomorrow, they’d hear when he’d finally be coming home.

  “Yeah, everything’s perfect,” he said, then leaned down and kissed Charlotte. He was no longer single but a man with an instant family. It really didn’t get any better than this.

  About this book

  Small-
town lawyer Karen O’Connell believes that all of her clients who have found themselves recklessly embroiled in scandal and trouble have done so foolishly because of love. She has heard far too many times that the heart wants what it wants.

  * * *

  But one night, Karen receives a call from Jack Curtis, her vengeful ex-husband, whom she’s never told anyone in her family about. He’s found himself in a world of trouble, arrested and in jail, charged with murder.

  * * *

  He says he’s innocent, and he needs her help.

  * * *

  Her first response is to say no, but Karen knows Jack isn’t the kind of guy to ask for help from anyone, especially not from the ex-wife he openly despises and hasn’t seen in years. She knows there must be more to the story—but what she doesn’t know is that the mysterious circumstances surrounding the murder could be the reason her hasty marriage ended so badly.

  Chapter One

  Although some couples bragged of Friday date nights filled with romance and dinner, followed by extremely hot sex, Karen O’Connell’s Friday nights unfortunately consisted of a quiet, darkened office, a shot of whiskey, and the locked drawer in her desk that only she ever went into.

  She stared at the names on the files that filled the drawer, names that were meaningless to the masses but left her reaching for the bottle of whiskey she kept tucked in the back, a single short lead-cut crystal highball glass, and a green velvet ring box. The drawer was a constant reminder, like an albatross around her neck, of everything wrong with her life.

  At the same time, she only ever opened it on Friday nights or whenever she needed to add yet another file from a case where she hadn’t gotten the win her client deserved. It was a drawer that, she supposed, if she had to put a label on it, symbolized sorrow, heartache, pain, grief, anger, every sickening emotion that seemed to encompass what the legal system was becoming more and more as of late.

  These were the kinds of defeat and sorrow she didn’t share with anyone. How could she? Right and wrong seemed so unfair, leaving her filled with such anger, a trait in her that others considered unreasonable. At times, people compared her to a pit bull, not understanding what really drove her. But considering the names on these files all came with faces that haunted Karen every night when she closed her eyes, this was a fight she couldn’t figure out how to win.

  Why did she do this to herself? If she were like every other lawyer out there, she’d have told herself she’d done the best she could, that this was just the nature of her job, and to move on. But to Karen, these lost cases were lives that had been destroyed—mothers, daughters, fathers, brothers, husbands. They were each someone’s child, and every one of them had been on the wrong side of the crapshoot called justice. Being on the other side left Karen feeling so damn helpless.

  She lifted the short glass and downed another swallow of the two fingers of whiskey, her secret indulgence, one no one in her family knew about. She kicked off her pumps, letting her bare toes dig into the carpet, and swiveled around and leaned back in her chair, taking in the two large windows that looked out at the darkened downtown.

  Just then, the phone started ringing, and she did what she always did on Friday night: ignored it and let voicemail pick it up.

  She waited until it stopped ringing before she settled into the vibration of the bass from the downstairs bar, welcoming the distraction. In that second of near silence, she lifted the glass and took a swallow, relishing the burn and then letting out a sigh. She turned back around, taking in the pile of files and seeing Reine Colbert’s on top, her most recent case. As she opened the file and took in everything, the angst of it had her wishing she could have done more for a woman she felt had been screwed by everyone. She lifted the bottle, seeing it was half full, and poured another two fingers just as her cell phone lit up.

  “Persistent, aren’t they?” she said to no one as she took in the caller ID. It was Owen, her brother, who’d been more of a father to her—to all of the siblings, even though he’d been just a kid himself—than their own dad, whom she’d loved more than anything but who had decided to fuck off one day without even a goodbye to any of them.

  Her hand hovered over the red decline, but at the same time, Owen was the one who never called. She answered. “Any chance that was you who called the office a second ago?”

  “So you are there,” he said. “Is that how you answer the phone?”

  She didn’t pick up her cell phone but left it on the desk, leaving the speaker on. Her brother’s voice seemed to hold an edge. “It is when someone’s phoning and bugging me when I just want to be left alone.” She swirled the amber liquid, welcoming the burn as she made herself close up Reine’s file. Under it was Lawrence Green’s, another sad case, one of her first where the defendant ended up doing time for a crime she knew, deep down, he hadn’t committed.

  “I guess that answers my question as to where you are. Was just at Marcus and Charlotte’s new place, setting up Eva’s bunk bed. We just picked it up. Everyone’s there except you. Suzanne said you’ve got some standing appointment on Fridays, and Ryan said he’d heard that too, but then, as everyone was talking about you, which you know we all do, things just didn’t jive. I know you stay at the office every Friday night, but doing what? That, I haven’t figured out yet.”

  She couldn’t help the amusement that tugged at her lips even though she felt like crap, considering Owen was a plumber, not a detective. “You spying on me?”

  He said nothing for a second, and she wasn’t sure what she heard in the background. “Don’t need to. Generally, I just know what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, where you are, and when something is off with you. The fact that your office light is still on…”

  She turned in her chair, feeling the hair on the back of her neck spike. “Uh…where are you?” She stood up, going to the window and looking out and down on the street, where her brother’s plumbing van was parked out front.

  Owen was standing there on the sidewalk, looking up and giving her a wave. “Let me in,” he said. “Your door’s locked.” Then he hung up.

  “Shit…” she said under her breath.

  There was something about him tonight. On the phone, Owen hadn’t sounded like himself. She wasn’t in the mood to talk, but she rested the glass on the desk with the files and hurried barefoot to her office door. After pulling it open, she took in the empty desk of the receptionist she still needed to hire and strode to the stairs, down the dirty wood steps, which needed a sweep and a wash.

  Her brother was looking at her through the commercial glass. She’d see what he wanted and send him on his way. Owen was dressed as he always was, blue jeans that had seen better days and a T-shirt, always appearing as if he’d just been at a jobsite. She, meanwhile, was still in her navy dress.

  She flicked the lock, and he pulled the door open and somehow maneuvered her back as he stepped in, flicking the deadbolt behind him. He was the same height and build as all her brothers, tall and broad shouldered, and he had the same O’Connell blue eyes as all of them, but at least he’d shaved.

  “Drinking alone?” Ah, so he could smell it.

  “And working…” she started as she crossed her arms, taking in the way he looked down at her before starting up the stairs ahead of her. “Where are you going?”

  “Upstairs, to your office,” he said, and she hurried after him, wanting to stuff the files back in the drawer along with the whiskey, which was sitting open on her desk.

  “Hey, Owen, just give me a second to clean up…” she said as she raced around him to her door, not having to turn around to know he was right behind her.

  “You have a new client or case coming up?”

  She reached for the bottle and screwed the cap back on, not missing his expression, the way he was taking in her desk, the files, the bottle, everything.

  “Wow, single malt, strong, bold. You can pour me a glass,” he said, not waiting for her answer.

  Her brain was still
trying to come up with a story that sounded reasonable as she watched her brother make himself comfortable in the chair across her desk, where every client who came to her for help sat. Owen, though, lifted his sneakered feet and rested them on her desk, crossing them. His gaze took in the files again, and she couldn’t help feeling as if he were seeing into her secret, private self, which she showed no one.

  She just held the bottle and took in the glass on her desk, then the washed empty mug that had held her coffee that morning. She poured a splash in the mug and took in his gesture for more.

  “Bad day?” he added as she handed him the mug before sitting down in her chair and lifting her own glass.

  She considered what to say, resting her hand on the files as Owen’s gaze locked on to hers. Of course, he could see the names. She had a thing for big bold print on file tabs.

  “Same as any other,” she finally replied and settled her glass back on the desk. She gathered the files and stuffed them back into the drawer along with the bottle of whiskey, then closed it and turned the key, which was still in the lock. She pulled it out and rested it on the desk, taking in the way her brother was watching her.

  “You know you did the best you could,” he said. “No one could have done more than you. Give yourself a break. So is this you punishing yourself? I don’t get it.”

  She didn’t say anything for a second, then took in the smile that really wasn’t a smile on her brother’s face as he lifted the mug and downed the rest of the liquor. The way he pulled in a breath, she knew he too relished the burn.

  She went to say something, then decided against it, lifting her glass and swirling around the amber liquid. “So what are you doing here?”

  Owen rested the mug on her old scratched desk and took his time looking around her office. “Truth? Checking on you, considering what happened to Reine Colbert. I knew you took it hard, and everyone was wondering about you and how you really are. This looks like a Friday night pity party.”