What was that tangy accent she’d used? It didn’t sound British. There wasn’t much of it, only a hint. But it had been enough to hold him spellbound. Geez, what was wrong with him today? He never went this obsessive over a girl he’d barely talked to. Maybe the food from the restaurant had done a number on him.
No, she’d dazzled him.
Except there was a major downside: she probably thought he was a class-A jerk for dumping one girl and immediately hitting on another—all while acting like Mr. Holier-Than-Thou over Kinsey’s table manners. As if he had any manners himself, yelling in a restaurant, making up a fake grandma for a cover story, leaving a tip the size of a car payment just to counteract his embarrassment.
Not that Grandma Vada was fake. She was as real as her leather jacket. It was just that his Grandma Vada didn’t give lectures on manners; she owned a motorcycle repair shop and tended bar. And had a tattoo on her neck that read Darth Vada. In fact, chances were, when she was in high spirits she probably didn’t treat wait staff very well either. Of course, she also wouldn’t mind him using her name in vain for a fibbed excuse for a breakup.
He shook his head at his own moral slide, most likely due to his being a lawyer. It was bound to happen sooner or later, this truth-twisting to fit the situation.
At least he’d gotten rid of Kinsey.
Then he stopped dead in his tracks. The other girl. The pretty one.
He didn’t get her number. Or even her name.
Now he took his two fists and jammed them up both sides of his head. Stupid, especially after that electricity crackling between them. He’d fantasized about kissing her right then, tasting the cherry of her lips. Or maybe they were raspberry.
What was with all the food analogies today? Again, maybe it was a side-effect of the exquisite food he hadn’t gotten enough of. He wasn’t himself.
He pushed his way through the old iron revolving door.
“Hi, Dante.”
Dante nodded, his face serious. Just like everyone else employed at every level at the very tweedy Crockett, Bowie, and Houston, Dante knew which tone to strike: gravity. After all, there was no other law firm in all of San Antonio with as much tradition and strength—or prestige, which was why Zach knew how lucky he’d been to get hired here six years ago.
Felt like sixteen.
Sixteen years’ worth of hours he’d put in, for sure: nights, weekends, early breakfast meetings. A lot of days he had run solely on caffeine and adrenaline. A few weeks ago, one of the last two major partners over age seventy had announced his retirement. Someone would be named to replace him, and the name Zachary Travis hovered near the top of all the lists—or it should, anyway. He had put in the time, brought in the clients, closed the deals, and enriched the already bursting coffers of Crockett, Bowie, and Houston. No one deserved it more. Zach had seen the numbers, thanks to his pal Eisenhower who had an in somewhere. No other associate even came close to Zach’s statistics.
It made no sense that he’d been passed over for partner when Marshall and Carlisle bowed out of CBH earlier this year. Zach’s interviews had been stellar, and he knew the upper echelons liked him. They’d said so.
Instead, they’d promoted people irrationally: guys with similar years of experience to his own, but with way less rainmaking prowess.
Partner. He could almost taste it. This time, it was his—for sure.
He climbed into the 1910s-era cage elevator to head for the tenth floor where the main offices were. It’d be faster to take the stairs, but he needed to collect himself to think and refocus on work, like the Karlovy v. Taylor case.
But his brain had other plans.
So what if she has a boyfriend? She was a dream in baby blue, and her interest in him had been coming off her in palpable waves. She wasn’t wearing a ring, and in Zach’s book, that meant fair game.
The elevator shimmied and groaned.
Those eyes. I could get so lost in them, he thought, then shook himself awake. Geez. Snap out of it. Focus on the work, man.
Not possible. At least until he’d seen her and those incredible eyes again.
Even if it meant going back to that Du Jour place for lunch every single day for the rest of the year on the off chance she’d be back.
There. Problem solved. Yes, it made him one variation of a stalker, but he could live with that for now.
The elevator lurched to a halt and Zach pressed the accordion cage door open. He stepped out onto the rich burgundy carpets and into the wall-sconce lighting of the main floor of Crockett, Bowie, and Houston—and hopefully Travis.
Yeah. The energy from meeting that girl gave him every good vibe, like this promotion wasn’t just possible, it was inevitable.
“Mr. Travis?” Cora the dour receptionist called to him as he floated past her. “Mr. Crockett would like to see you in the conference room.”
Yes! Perfect timing. He did an about-face and stepped toward his grand destiny as partner in San Antonio’s finest law firm.
∞∞∞
“Hello, young Travis. Heh-heh.” Mr. Crockett wobbled to his feet and extended a hand for Zach to shake. “Very glad to have you in here this afternoon. Good credentials you’ve built up with the firm. Yes, indeed. Heh-heh.” The chuckling had a voiceless echo that followed it from Crockett’s throat, just above his plaid bow tie.
“I give my best. I really believe in Crockett, Bowie, and Houston. It’s a San Antonio institution. A Texas institution.”
Was this too much obsequiousness? Apparently not. Crockett’s grin widened and he began to nod with his eyes closed, a look of full satisfaction.
The two of them sat down across from one another at the broad walnut table. This slab of wood had hosted thousands of negotiations. Zach’s was no less important than any of those that went before his. It determined his own fate, as well as the direction the firm would go in its next fifty years.
“My father, Wilberforce Crockett, was a direct descendant of Davy Crockett, you know. We’ve claimed that lineage proudly.”
Zach had heard. A lot of times. He suppressed the urge to tap his foot, but the nerves came out in a shaky hand. Blast it. He made a fist. This was the biggest moment of his career so far. In the previous two rounds of partner selection, he’d made it to the step below this, but never to the Interview With Crockett level. He set his jaw.
“Now, Mr. Travis. We have reviewed your performance at CBH. It’s impressive. Very impressive. Among the partners we are impressed.”
Okay. And? Zach’s throat tightened.
“However—”
And that was all he really needed to hear. The rest of the interview took a nose-diving spiral, and Zach could almost hear the squeal of a missile’s descent, followed by his hope’s deafening crash on impact.
“Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Travis.” Crockett extended a grizzled hand, and Zach exerted all his force to not give him the dead fish handshake that reflected his soul. “Please, try again next round.”
Next round! But three of the aging partners had already retired this year, making nearly the whole slate of open partnerships full of young bucks. Only one hanger on from the old guard remained, but it was Crockett himself.
Crockett. Whose catchphrase was Never let them see you smile. Whose seventy-year-old constitution looked like he had an atomic pacemaker. Grandson of the original partner, Crockett often proclaimed it was his duty to steer the ship until he died—a heroic death like all those Alamo martyrs of Texas’s storied past.
Yeah, there might never be a next round, and even if by some miracle there was, clearly Zach was doing something that missed the mark.
Chapter Three
Piper stood in her bathroom applying mascara, but her ears were pricked up, her soul floating in the living room, even if she was stuck doing makeup.
Any second now, the little tink of the flap on the mail slot would sound, and then the floop of an envelope hitting the wood floor of Piper’s apartment, and it would be here at
last—the actual autographed vinyl record she’d ordered six weeks ago: Neil Diamond’s All Time Greatest Hits.
The tracking predicted its arrival yesterday—just in time for Birdie’s birthday today. Of course tracking would have also predicted Chad’s arrival at lunch at Du Jour yesterday, too. Hrmph. Wrong on both counts.
He hadn’t even called.
When the album got here, Birdie was going to be so surprised. Piper’s stomach got all fluttery when she thought about what the look would be on her neighbor’s face when she opened it and saw that rugged face that she adored. They were the same flutters that had done battle inside her when that Zach guy’s eyes laser-pierced her yesterday. Too bad his date had had such a bad experience, or he might come back into her restaurant again.
That tiny sigh escaped her again, and then she had to refocus on getting her mascara on and the big curlers out of her hair.
Plink.
The mail!
Piper dashed across the wood floor in her bare feet toward the front door, mascara wand still in her hand and makeup on only one eye, wearing just her Neil Diamond concert t-shirt in Birdie’s honor today, but not caring about the breeze on her bare legs.
Her phone started ringing, but she ignored it as she scooped up the pile of envelopes.
“Not this, not you, not you.” She tossed the wrong letters and bills and cable TV offers aside, all in the wrong size of packages and envelopes.
A-ha!
At last something looked promising—a large, padded envelope with official-looking stampage on it. Without even reading the return address label, Piper tore at the flap and dropped the item into her hand. This had to be it!
No.
All that anticipation over a plain old pile of paperwork. Sure, it was official looking, but not fan-club official. Bummer. Nary a black vinyl disc signed by Neil Diamond in sight.
She let the paper drop to the table and went back to her mascara application—until, three swipes in, her brain caught up with her, and she realized she’d seen something important on that return address. Back into the kitchen she sailed for a closer look.
United States Government. Department of Immigration and Naturalization.
Weird. Why were they contacting Piper? Maybe it had something to do with her parents’ visas for when they were returning to San Antonio from New Zealand, whenever that might be. They never really said much before they’d taken off last year.
That, or maybe this letter was mistakenly delivered and should belong to another person in her building. With a quick flip of the envelope, she checked the address. No, it had her name on it, as did the address beneath the letterhead.
Dear Ms. Quinn:
You are hereby notified that the U.S. Government has identified you as a non-citizen living illegally in the United States without requisite paperwork or visa allowances. Unless you can prove otherwise within thirty days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will initiate deportation proceedings against you.
She fell into a dining room chair. There was more, and a name at the bottom, but Piper’s mind blanked after the neon-flashing word deportation.
Deportation! This had to be a mistake. Sure, her parents came from New Zealand originally, but they’d naturalized as U.S. citizens shortly before Piper was born, she always thought. All her life she’d lived here with them, until they moved back to the Pacific islands last year—for reasons Piper disagreed with, but those didn’t matter right now.
She was an American. Sure, her parents’ influence had left obvious traces of a New Zealander accent in her voice, but otherwise, Piper had nothing but Texas sunshine and barbecue sauce running through her veins.
She was a Texan. Born right here in Bexar County.
She picked up the letter again. Her eyes landed on thirty days. Her stomach lurched. She had to prove she was a citizen within thirty days or else get deported.
However, that timeframe had already been on Piper’s radar—blinking bright and terrifying. Thirty days from now Du Jour hit its one-year anniversary, and the epically huge Texas Foodie magazine was scheduled to announce whether or not Du Jour would receive its coveted Texas Star award. To be eligible for the Texas Star, a restaurant had to be open for a year, and Du Jour was within days now.
If Piper got deported on the anniversary, Mitzi wouldn’t have a chef. Their hopes for the Texas Star might as well be Texas toast. All of Mitzi’s investment cash that she’d scratched and dug and begged for would circle the drain.
And so would Piper. If she couldn’t be a chef in her own restaurant, she’d croak.
Her stomach felt like she’d just swilled a quart of vinegar.
Piper scanned the letter again. It was a prank, right? Somebody’s idea of a hilarious trick. Or even a clerical error. There had to be a lot of women named Piper Meredith Quinn in the state of Texas. Right? Case of mistaken identity. She stared at the wording again and chewed her bottom lip.
Her parents had never spoken well of ICE. The letters themselves on the paper gave Piper an icy slice through her veins.
Even if it was a mistake, how could she prove it?
The Department of Homeland Security oversees deportation proceedings. As if she, Piper Quinn, posed some kind of security threat to her homeland here. She pressed her head back against the kitchen wall.
No, seriously, this was a ridiculous mistake, a clerical error, since Piper knew there was nothing wrong with her citizenship. Maybe when Mom and Dad uprooted and went to New Zealand, their records got tweaked, and hers got thrown in with theirs. They did say they got hugely hassled when they tried to get through TSA security at the airport, and that if they never came back it would be too soon.
What she needed to do was to look through her files, find the relevant documentation, including her birth certificate, and walk them down to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. Once she flashed them the proof, bingo. Problem solved. It was going to be fine.
Fine.
Fine.
∞∞∞
The morning after the interview, Zach sat in a caffeine hangover at his desk, staring blankly at Karlovy v. Taylor files. Yesterday he’d been irked, but today he was more mystified by the conversation with Crockett. It left him wondering, where was he lacking?
It wasn’t billable hours. His were top in the firm—the stats-keeping clerk had told him so last week when Zach pumped him for information.
It wasn’t monetary contribution to the company coffers. The trials he’d won lately were some of the biggest cash infusions into CBH’s coffers of the past three years. He was definitely pulling his weight, money-wise.
Maybe if he’d offended any of the partners’ wives he could make that excuse, but he’d never even met them. Partners didn’t socialize with associates. In fact, Zach wasn’t sure partners at CBH socialized at all.
It had to be something else, something more nebulous.
No way could Zach concentrate on Karlovy or Taylor or their warehouse property dispute with this plaguing him. Much as he hated to do anything that could be considered spying, he was going to have to go to the mattresses, and mattresses meant asking Eisenhower.
Guh.
Eisenhower, who always seemed to have the insider scoop on CBH, would know.
Now, whether he’d tell Zach was another matter entirely.
Zach raised his hand and gave two short knocks on Eisenhower’s office door.
∞∞∞
First, Piper ransacked her purse for her Social Security card, but no dice. She had the number memorized, but did she have a physical card? Had she ever?
If so, maybe it was in the filing cabinet. She dug through files and files, but nope. What was more distressing, she could locate no birth certificate, either.
Mom and Dad must have put all that stuff in a secret stash of files before they left the country. Oh, no. Or worse, had they hauled it with them back to the hills outside Hamilton, New Zealand?
No documents equaled no proof, and ICE require
d proof.
Her blood pressure spiked. This was not good. Really, really not good.
Quick. What was her worst case scenario? Deportation, a.k.a. exile for what? Ninety days while she got the truth sorted out? It couldn’t possibly take longer than that, but ninety-days sounded dire. During its chef’s three-month absence, what would happen to Du Jour?
Mitzi could run the business side, probably with her eyes put out with barbecue tools, but Piper was the brains and the heart. She did all the menu planning, all the shopping and all the cooking. People came to Du Jour because of Piper’s food, which was good enough to win her a Best of San Antonio award for best new chef earlier this year.
Piper was Du Jour.
It wouldn’t survive a full week without Piper.
Then again, Piper had no idea the magnitude of the possible consequences. Maybe ninety days was lowballing it. The truth was, she could be kicked out of the U.S. for good if she didn’t figure this out legally, and fast.
Her nose stung, and she swiped at her eyes.
Her phone rang, and with a searching effort, she found it tucked between couch cushions.
“Chad? Is that you?” When he hadn’t called immediately after standing her up, she’s decided to wait and see how he handled it. While this had to be his apology call, suddenly she didn’t have time for that. Instead, she just launched into explaining the terror of her current situation. “I’m so glad you called. Something bad has happened.”
“Babe!” Loud music pumped in the background of wherever Chad was, probably the gym. He’d been spending a lot of time at Maxx Impact lately. “You and I meeting up for lunch today or what? I’m totally up for some Chaldean sea bass.”
Chilean.
Seriously? He must have mixed up dates on their lunch. Well, that made sense. It’d been an innocent mistake. Today, she was all about forgiving innocent mistakes.
“Sure. There’s some stuff I really need to tell you.” Lunch would give them a chance to talk. If he was coming, she could find one last bass filet from yesterday just for him, even though she should already be down at Du Jour this morning, prepping the kitchen for crêpes with sautéed mushrooms. “I’m completely floored by this letter I just got. It’s freaking me out.”
Illegally Wedded Page 2