Bench Trial in the Backwoods

by Maggie Wells

  “I see.” His face softened.

  Alicia shrugged his sympathy off. There was no sense fretting over it. Her childhood was long over. She had her own life and her own career to worry about. Her relationship with her parents was fine, if somewhat distant. Frankly, it suited her as well as it suited them. And there was no sense dwelling on the past when she had a future to plan.

  “So, I did go to the doctor, and the pregnancy is confirmed.” He sat back, and his face went blank. She didn’t know if his sudden reserve was due to the subject matter or the abrupt shift in conversation topics, but if they were going to work out any sort of relationship, she believed they needed to have all their cards out on the table. “I didn’t count right, though. I’m actually almost eight weeks along, but everything seems to be right on target.”

  Her brisk summation earned her a slight change in expression, but for the most part, he was still unreadable. This was the problem with dealing with lawyers—their poker faces were too damn good.

  “I thought you should know,” she said, opening her hands in a gesture she hoped he’d read as simple frankness.

  As if snapped from a trance, Harry ran his hand over his face, a gesture she was coming to recognize as his way of grounding himself before speaking. “Okay. Well, wow.” He chuckled. “I guess it shouldn’t come as such a shock to hear again, but it does.” He cocked his head and gave her a crooked smile. “You’re pregnant.”

  She nodded solemnly, a responsive smile quirked at her lips. “I am indeed.”

  “Have you thought any about how you’re going to handle it work-wise?” he asked.

  “I have,” she replied thoughtfully. “I’m not going to lie. It’s going to be complicated.”

  “To say the least,” he said with a laugh. As if the situation were only dawning on him, his whole face brightened. “Wow. I can’t believe this is happening.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Going by your facial expression, I’m guessing this isn’t an entirely unwelcome turn of events in your life?”

  He shook his head. “No. It isn’t. Unexpected, yes. But I’ve had time to digest...and not unwelcome.”

  She took a moment to absorb his assurance. “Does this mean you do want to be involved in some way?”

  He answered without hesitation. “Yes.”

  She almost jumped out of her skin when he reached across and took her free hand in his.

  “Alicia, I know the situation isn’t ideal, and was unplanned, but I thought about it a lot over the past couple of days, and one thing I am not is unhappy. As a matter of fact, given everything going on around here, this may be the best news I’ve had in weeks.”

  His sincerity unleashed a flood of warmth she hadn’t realized she was repressing. Flipping her hand over, she gave his fingers a gentle squeeze. “I’m glad you’re happy. Like I told you before, this might’ve been an accident, but it’s a happy accident, in my book. I’m glad it’s one for you too.”

  He let out a nervous laugh as she released his hand and drew back. She watched as he laced his long, graceful fingers together and let them dangle between them. “Okay, so you’re here. You’re here working. You’re pregnant, and you intend to live in my house while you’re here working.” He shot her a sidelong glance. “Have I got everything right?”

  “Right on the nose, Counselor.”

  He nodded. “Well, in terms of logistics, it’s no problem, but I think we haven’t discussed how we’re going to present this to the world at large.”

  She reared back. “Present what?”

  “You living in my house, to start,” he said without hesitation.

  She frowned. “Do you need to clear it with someone? I’m sorry—I didn’t even ask. I’m assuming you’re still single, but maybe you’re not?”

  He shook his head hard. “Yes, still single. But this isn’t Atlanta, Alicia. Around here, people will notice if I have a woman living in my house. People will notice, and people will talk.”

  “Is gossip a problem for you?” she asked, trying to keep the note of challenge from her tone, but failing.

  “Not a problem, per se, but it’s not going to go unnoticed.” He smiled at her wanly. “You forget how it is in small towns. Everybody’s business is everybody’s business. So, for the sake of saving ourselves a whole lot of explaining and for providing you with cover for being here, I suggest we let people think we’re a couple.”

  This time, Alicia pulled back. “A couple?”

  “Together.”

  “Together?”

  He sighed. “Alicia, I’m not saying it has to be the reality, but I think we should...”

  “Put on an act?”

  “...let people believe what they want to believe,” he finished. “Trust me—it would be so much easier to deal with the Nosy Nellies if we let them think we’re romantically involved.”

  “Won’t we be inviting even more questions?”

  He shook his head. “Relationships they understand. We might get some blowback about living together after so little time together, but only from a few of the holier of the holy rollers. Trust me—you don’t want to try to explain a one-night stand while celebrating the arrest and arraignment of the county’s most infamous criminal, then us going our separate ways only to discover you’re pregnant. Add in the bit about how I’ve got somebody trying to scare me away from even sitting in on this case, and it’s a whole lot of talking on our part.” He shrugged. “I say let them draw their conclusions and do their talking on their own.”

  “Well, when you put it in those terms...”

  He inclined his head to her. “Exactly. Much easier to say we met when you were here and started dating long-distance. You’ve got time off and have come down to stay with me. That’s all there is to it.”

  She sat back and eyed him closely. “For a guy who spent his life trying to ferret out the truth, you’re awfully good at the subterfuge.”

  He chuckled. “The company I keep,” he answered brusquely. “Now, I know this may be an unwelcome question, but are you hungry?”

  “Starving, but I don’t think I could manage much more than toast,” she said with a tired smile.

  “Toast I can handle.” He jerked his head toward the kitchen and rose from the couch. “Come on—let’s get something in your stomach and we can talk some more about what’s really brought you here.”

  Alicia laughed, scrambling up from the sofa as he led the way to the kitchen. “There’s no subterfuge with me, Counselor. I’ll tell you straight up everything I know.”

  He stopped in the kitchen and surveyed his surroundings. Running a hand over the top of his head down the back of his neck, he snuck a peek at her before glancing at the fridge. “I can handle the toast, but will it bother you if I make myself something to eat?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “This is your house, Harry. You don’t need my permission to make yourself a meal. If I can’t handle it, I’ll leave the room.”

  He gestured toward her stomach. “I don’t want to do anything to set off any kind of adverse reaction.”

  “Okay, well, can you survive on sandwiches for a while?” she asked. “It’s mainly cooking smells getting to me right now. I can stomach the scent of toast, but any kind of meat cooking is a no go... It sort of hits me wrong.”

  “I love a good sandwich.” He nodded toward the kitchen table, where they’d sat a few nights before. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  Alicia watched as he moved from the refrigerator to the counter, reaching easily into drawers and cabinets for whatever he needed to construct what looked to be a sandwich straight out of a cartoon. “Wow, you don’t mess around.”

  He slid a plate with two slices of dry wheat toast in front of her. “Butter? Jam?”

  “No, thank you. Dry is best right now.”

  He brought two more bottles of water over to th
e table, then carried his thick sandwich over to join her. He sat across from her as if poised to spring up if necessary. “Is this okay?”

  She smiled. “Harry, you don’t need to walk on eggshells. I’ll get through this, and so will you.”

  He smiled back at her, then picked up half of the monster sandwich he’d built. She watched his teeth flash white before they sank into the bread. But the moment he started to chew, the quiet of the kitchen was obliterated by the smash of glass and the soft whoosh of a fire igniting.

  Harry and Alicia both leaped from the table and ran toward the living room. A cool breeze blew through a broken window. A glass Mason jar lay on its side, spilling liquid onto the hardwood floor, and about a foot away, a scrap of flaming cloth blazed too close to the curtains for comfort.

  Chapter Eight

  Harry’s first instinct was to act, not to think. He ran into the living room, carefully jumped over the puddle spreading across his floor and stomped on the flaming rag as the fire licked at the bottom of the sheer curtains his sister had insisted he needed.

  “Harry, stop,” Alicia shouted, but he couldn’t.

  Cold air poured in through the broken window, but his blood ran hot. Thankfully, he hadn’t yet taken off his shoes. The soles heated and the leather flexed as he stomped on the rag.

  “Are you crazy?” Alicia demanded. “You’re going to catch your pants on fire. Get out of there.”

  Harry kept his gaze fixed on the charred bit of rag he’d stomped to pieces, then yanked the curtains up to make sure they hadn’t caught a spark.

  “I think I got it out,” he called back to her.

  “There’s a river of gasoline flowing toward you, and if you don’t get away from the window, I’m gonna tackle you,” she warned him.

  He looked up and saw her poised inside the living room, her arms spread as she crouched, ready to launch herself at him.

  “No need for tackling,” he assured her.

  “Be careful—it’s spreading,” she ordered.

  He eyed the liquid spilling from the heavy jar. The pool was indeed spreading, but the flow ran straight in his direction. Damn this old house for not having level floors, he thought as he dragged the rag away from the encroaching liquid with his foot. Not taking his eyes off the gasoline, he asked, “Am I missing anything? Is it out?”

  “Yes, you idiot. It’s out.”

  He barked a laugh. “Tell me how you really feel about me,” he joked as he stepped off the wad of incinerated fabric and moved back toward her.

  “Someone threw a Molotov cocktail through your front window and you want to make jokes?”

  Her sharp tone caught his attention. He stopped in front of her and placed both hands on her upper arms, drawing her up to her full height. “Sorry. Defense mechanism,” he admitted gruffly. “My mother always said I tend to get flippant when I’m freaking out.”

  She stared back at him. He liked her height. Loved looking her straight in the eye and knowing she could meet him head-on in every way.

  “Are you freaking out?”

  “Someone threw a really bad Molotov cocktail through my front window.” He gave her a wry half smile. “Safe to assume I’m freaking out.”

  “But you charged right in there and put it out,” she countered. “With your feet.”

  “I’m wearing shoes.”

  She sighed, and he felt her entire body sag. “Well, I guess we should be okay as long as we don’t light any matches.”

  He nodded, still holding her gaze. “Right. We’re okay.”

  Alicia pulled back enough to peer around him at the mess. “We can go on believing we’re not dealing with professionals.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Someone who knew what they were doing would have made it impossible for the wicking to come out. We got lucky.”

  He opted not to point out her choice of pronoun and simply nodded. “We did. Thank God for ineptitude.” He gave her arms a gentle rub, then steered her back to the hall. “Would you call Ben for me?”

  Giving him the side-eye, she asked, “What are you going to do?”

  He nodded toward the kitchen. “Neither of us need to be standing by those fumes, broken window or not.” He moved past her and went to the door to the garage. “I’m going to see what I have to soak up some of the kerosene, then find something to cover the window, otherwise it’s going to get pretty chilly in here pretty fast.”

  “We need the ventilation,” she said.

  He stepped down into the garage he’d converted into a home gym. “Then we’ll get it cleaned up.”

  “I don’t suppose you have a cat,” she said from too close behind him.

  He whirled to find her standing in the open doorway. “A cat?” He shook his head. “No.”

  “Too bad, because I think you need kitty litter to tackle this spill.” She held up her cell phone. “I’ll ask Ben to pick some up on his way over.”

  He hesitated, then spoke his greatest worry aloud. “Staying here isn’t the best idea for you.”

  Her spine stiffened. “Don’t try to shield me. I’m no delicate flower for you to protect. I can take you out about nine different ways before I even have to reach for my gun.”

  “I believe you, but circumstances being what they are—”

  “I don’t run from danger—I run to it,” she continued.

  “I don’t want you endangered on my account,” he insisted.

  “Tough.”

  The simple, somewhat adolescent response would have made him laugh if he weren’t so damn frustrated and worried. Still, he kept his cool. Like he would a hostile witness, he needed to lead her to the conclusion he wanted her to make. “Again, circumstances, Alicia.”

  “I make my own decisions.”

  “Yes, but you’re making them for two now,” he pointed out.

  “You can do whatever you want to do,” she snapped back.

  Her knee-jerk reaction and momentary oblivion startled a sharp laugh out of him. He walked back toward her, holding her belligerent stare every inch of the way. “I wasn’t talking about you and me. I meant you and the baby.”

  Hectic color rose in her cheeks, and she shook her head hard as if she could dismiss his concerns with simple negation. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere,” she said, thrusting her chin up as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  He studied her for a moment, but rather than argue about it, he gave in. “All right. Then call Ben for me, will you? Tell him we need another damn hazmat cleanup.”

  * * *

  DEPUTY MIKE SCHAEFFER caught the call. A tall, borderline-gangly guy with an easy smile and good old-fashioned Southern manners, he’d shown up with the requested hazmat kit and an enormous bag of cat litter.

  “It really is the best thing, but you have to get the kind with clay in it,” he explained as he dumped the litter directly onto the kerosene. “The problem is, takes forever to get the smell out. Of the kerosene, I mean.” He shook his head, a rueful smile on his lips. “My cousin knocked over a heater at our hunting cabin, and I swear we had to air the place out for weeks.”

  Harry made an unintelligible grunt in response. Which wasn’t fair. He liked Mike. The guy was a good cop, down-to-earth and thorough. Qualities Harry usually appreciated. But his front window was broken and the cool December air was gushing in. Harry was damn tired of people taking out their petty complaints about his job on his house.

  They wanted him to quit the case. What they failed to realize was, with or without him, Samuel Coulter’s day in court was coming. He’d spoken to Marcus Zeller, the federal prosecutor who’d serve as first chair on the case, the day before and filled him in on what was happening. Zeller assured him he was needed on the case, and if he wasn’t put off by what he termed pregame theatrics, he still wanted Harry on the litigation.


  Rather than making him want to give up his second-chair position, these assaults made him want to get Coulter to court even faster. He longed to be there to help US Attorney Zeller nail the smuggler to a wall. He needed to show these thugs he wasn’t afraid of them.

  Then, when everything was said and done, he could go back to prosecuting domestic disturbances, property damage issues, and small-time drug peddlers spread through the backwoods of Georgia as thick on the ground as kudzu. He’d prosecute people who keyed cars and slashed tires for criminal mischief. But this stuff—the shots taken at his house and now this homemade hand grenade—it elevated things to terroristic threatening levels.

  A Molotov cocktail, he thought, incredulous. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he searched for something to say to the young deputy who was working so hard to help with the mess in the living room. “Not the best time of year for airing things out,” he managed at last.

  “No, sir,” Mike responded affably. “It’s a chilly one tonight.”

  The deputy rocked back and pursed his lips as he surveyed the mess they’d spread upon mess. Rubbing the back of his neck, Mike shrugged one shoulder. “I guess you can try some lemon. My mama always said it was best for neutralizing odors. But you might wanna check the internet first. I’m not exactly sure what the best solution might be. Citrus can be awful acidic, you know.”

  Harry was almost overtaken by the urge to smile at the remark, but he held back. He appreciated the young man’s need to be helpful. Instead, he clapped the deputy on the shoulder as they took in the clumps of granulated litter now covering his living-room floor. “Thanks, Mike. You went above and beyond, and I appreciate it.”

  “It was no big deal,” Mike said with a shrug. “A quick run into the Stop & Shop on my way over. Sheriff should be here shortly.”

  “Okay. Yeah, I guess I shouldn’t have called him into this. You have it well in hand,” he said to the deputy.

  Mike only chuckled. “I know the sheriff, and I can tell you he wants to be in on this.”