by Mia Carson
The question he’d considered most of last night out with his friends and while he attempted to sleep was why, out of all the other cases, he had picked up hers? Why? All it would bring him was more annoyance and stress he didn’t need. He was happy, content, yet…yet those brief six months with her nagged at his mind. She’d stayed in his mind even when he spent another six months trying to forget how it felt to kiss her or hold her close to him as they walked through the park late at night while snow fell around them.
Or her laugh, that deep husky sound he swore he heard even now.
The sunlight dappled the rug as he paced back and forth until he stopped himself before he made a rut in the fibers. He was Harold Jenson III, and no woman would get the better of him, especially not six months later. He was better than this, better than her. Hence the reason he was taking her case—to show her she had no lasting effect on him.
I hope you can keep up that act for the duration of this case, he told himself. You know how she always saw through your shit. Just admit it. You want her back and this is your way in.
As he sat behind his desk in the study, he ignored the mocking voice in his mind and opened his briefcase to remove the case folder of one Anna Crawley. Her picture showed off her dark, violet hair and grey eyes that hid no emotion, no matter what it was. That trait was one of the reasons his mother, Prentice, hated Anna. She scoffed at their view of the world. She had never fit into his world, and his mother made that quite clear several times to Harold. He was willing to try and show Anna how her life could be with him, but she had refused to listen. Then one day, she was gone and it was too late. He could have chased after her. He fiddled with the folder, staring out the window and into the distance, imagining a very different day when rain poured from the sky and he stood shivering on the sidewalk.
His cell dinged, pulling him from his wandering thoughts. Thanking his mother, for once, he read the message and texted her back that he would be over for Sunday night dinner as always. If he decided at the end of the day to take on Anna’s case, he wouldn’t be able to do anything until Monday when the judge set her bail.
Harold already knew most of the information in the case file and skipped ahead to what she was being charged with. “Breaking and entering along with assault. Damn, Anna, what did you get yourself into?”
She was a rough and tumble woman, but she rarely lost her temper, at least from what he had seen of her. His eyes widened as he read through the police report. She beat her landlord with a baseball bat. He sat back in his chair, unsure what to think. Anna didn’t have a record, not even a speeding ticket, but she was arrested for assault? He refused to make assumptions until he heard the story from her mouth and spoke with the detective on her case, but based the notes, she claimed she’d had nothing to do with it and that the landlord was harassing her. He rubbed his eyes and decided another cup of coffee was in order if he was going to make it through this case without getting sucked in emotionally.
The quiet of his empty mansion pressed in around him, and he paused in the foyer. The hair on the back of his neck stood as he sensed a touch at his neck that trailed down his back. His first night with Anna when they had nearly tumbled into his bed together was one he wouldn’t soon forget. She was a damn fine kisser, but he showed her up several times, leaving them both breathless and fighting for control of the moment. Her laughter used to echo around these walls. Harold blinked furiously as his cool, calm, collected mind crumbled at the edges. He missed her. How was he supposed to get through this and prove to her she’d made the wrong choice in leaving him if he missed her the most? What if she didn’t even care if he showed up to save the day?
He managed to get to the kitchen and was pouring his cup of coffee when his front door opened. “Harold? You home?”
“In the kitchen,” he called to his baby sister, Jenny. “Coffee?”
“Ugh, yes, please,” she groaned as she entered the kitchen dressed in ripped jeans, knee-high brown boots, and a fancy flowing top from some new designer or other. She plopped down at the kitchen table and shook out her head of black hair. “This morning was brutal.”
“Looks like it. Nice bags under your eyes.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Be nice. You think your job’s grueling, try mine.”
“I’ll keep my suits, thanks.” He carried his mug and one for Jenny to the table and sat down.
She gulped down half of it, cursing when it burned her tongue but not seeming to care. He had followed in his father’s steps to be a lawyer, but his baby sister was blessed with good looks and a smile that killed. Harold had fended off plenty of boys during their days in school. Now, she was a high-end fashion model with her face on the covers of numerous magazines, and was living it up. Most of the year, she was in New York, but during the winter months, she tried to come back to Concord to spend time with her family and to work with the magazine that gave her a start in the first place.
“What’s with the furrowing brow? Going for a new look?” she mused, resting her feet on another chair as she held the mug in her hands.
He ran his fingers over the rim, not meeting her gaze. “Just work.”
“Uh huh. You’re so full of shit.”
He rolled his eyes at her childish giggle. “It’s nothing, so let it go.”
“Oh no, it’s something. Hardly anything rattles the great Harold Jenson III. It must be about a woman,” Jenny pushed, her eyes narrowing on his face. “A woman I know?”
Harold declined to answer. His sister would see through a lie, anyway.
“I do know her. Hmm, well, it’s not Bailey, unless she’s pregnant or something.”
Harold choked on his coffee as she laughed. “We haven’t slept together in over a year, thanks for that.”
“I was only checking. One of these days, I think Mom would like grandchildren.”
“How about you let it go?” he asked, but she shook her head, twirling a strand of black hair around her finger.
“No, no, I’m going to figure out who it is.”
He sighed as she stood and danced around the kitchen, holding her coffee still and murmuring names under her breath. He willed her not to remember, prayed she would somehow forget the woman he was with for six months, the one Jenny had gotten along with so well. He ran his hand over the surface of the old kitchen table, making a mental note that it needed a new coat of stain this year.
“Holy shit, it’s Anna!” Jenny yelled.
Harold jumped and threw a glare over his shoulder at her. “How the hell did you figure that out?”
“Baby sister intuition,” she said excitedly and sat back down. “Did she call you or did you break down and call her? And details, please. I need the details.”
“There are no details because nothing has happened yet,” he grunted.
“Then why do you look like you’re ready to go fight in court? You have that stern face going on, but it’s different,” she pointed out, running her fingers over his forehead until he pushed her hand aside. “Harold, really, what’s going on with you? I thought you were over her after she, you know, left you.”
What else could he say except he clearly wasn’t over her? His heart was ready to pound out of his chest and he hadn’t even spoken to Anna yet. “Her case was passed to me for a pro bono.”
“Case? Wait, she’s been arrested? For what?” Jenny asked worriedly. “You’re going to help her, right? Anna couldn’t do anything wrong.”
“She apparently assaulted her landlord with a bat,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll talk to her Monday morning if I can convince myself this isn’t going to blow up in my face.”
Jenny smacked his arm and he winced. “You’re going to help her, Harold.”
“Why do you care so much?”
“Because despite the fact that she left you, I liked her. We were close to being friends,” Jenny told him. “And I’m pretty sure her leaving was half your fault, so do this for her and maybe you’ll get
some closure.”
“Who said anything about me needing closure?” he snapped.
“That face and that voice,” she said pointedly. “Thanks for the coffee, and I’ll check in with you on Monday.”
“Jenny,” he called as he walked out of the kitchen, “I’m not calling you!”
“Yes, you are, because you’re going to need my help!” she yelled over her shoulder. “Bye, Harold!”
He threw his head back, spewing curses as his front door opened and closed again. Sitting around all day avoiding his work wasn’t something he tended to consider, but the mix between loathing and fear of being rejected by Anna again tore at him so much he avoided his study until later that night when he told himself to suck it up and get on with his job. He was a professional lawyer. He could handle this case. His father would never balk at it and neither would he, no matter how many raw emotions her picture stirred up.
Chapter 3
Anna combed her fingers through her hair. She gave up and shook it out in frustration, flipping her head over and back up again. The weekend spent in a holding cell was bad enough. She had to sit by and watch as Johnny spoke with the detective about the incident. She only heard bits and pieces, but all of it was total bullshit. The bump on her head finally went down, but it did little to calm her rage. She paced the cell, waiting for them to tell her what the bail amount was set at so she knew how much she would be screwed over by this jackass setting her up.
“Anna Crawley?” an officer said as he reached her holding cell. “You’ve been bailed out by your lawyer. He’s here and has asked to speak with you.”
She frowned. “Lawyer? I don’t have a lawyer.”
“You do now. I’ll take you to one of our interview rooms if you want to grab your boots, ma’am.”
Anna wanted to ask him who this lawyer was, but if the person had bailed her out, she wouldn’t question her good luck. She snatched up her boots, slipped them on, and followed the officer through the other cells to an interview room.
“He’ll be along in a few minutes. He’s bringing the paperwork you need to sign.”
“Thanks, I think,” Anna said and was left alone in the room.
She picked one of the hard-back chairs and sat down. Her stomach growled and she was dying for a shot of tequila to make up for the shitty few days she had. Once she was out of here, she had to swing by the bar and see how bad it was. She wanted to call Missy and tell her this was all a misunderstanding, but the detective had made it quite clear he doubted her story of a third attacker, or that she went there to help Johnny. When she argued with him until she was blue in the face, he pulled out his tablet and slid it around so she could see the fight she and Johnny had gotten in a few days before.
“I overreacted there, I’ll admit it,” she had told him, “but you don’t understand. This guy has raised the rent on my place—both places, and twice now—because I don’t want to be with him! He told me flat out if I had sex with him, he’d forget the extra money!”
“Ma’am, all I have to go on right now is the evidence in front of me,” he had explained. “You were found with the weapon in your hand, the door was broken in, and the call for the police came from Mr. Tory’s phone.”
Anna ran through it in her mind, but all she could remember was the sounds of a struggle, walking into his dark apartment, and being whacked over the head. She never saw another person or heard another voice, which they liked to point out repeatedly when she tried to calmly explain to them the circumstances of her being in Johnny’s apartment. Since she had a lawyer now, she guessed she should keep her mouth shut and not say anything that might get her into even more trouble.
She rested her eyes, leaning back in the chair, and wondered who was crazy enough to represent her when a man cleared his throat. “Hello, Anna.”
Her eyes shot open and she jumped to her feet. The chair slid back so hard it hit the wall. “Harry? You’ve got to be shitting me,” she snapped when she saw the tall man with perfect black hair and a three-piece suit standing in the doorway.
His lips thinned and he adjusted his tie. “You could say thank you.”
“For what, exactly?” She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him intently.
“For bailing you out and agreeing to represent you in this case.”
She laughed bitterly, her lips curling into a leer. “Seriously? And why the hell would you do anything nice for me?”
He cleared his throat again, his neck getting redder the longer he stood there. “I’ve decided to do someone I know a favor. And this is my pro bono case for the year, so don’t worry, I won’t expect you to pay me.”
“Good, because I wasn’t going to anyway.”
They stared each other down, and Anna waited for him to decide to turn around and leave. However, he walked into the room, closed the door, and sat down at the table. “Mind?”
“No, of course not,” she muttered and flipped the chair around so she could lean on the back as she watched him meticulously pull out a pen, a notepad, and a file filled with papers.
His gaze remained down and his jaw clenched so tight she wondered how he hadn’t cracked his teeth yet. Over the long months since she’d seen Harold, he hadn’t changed at all. His mannerisms were exactly the same, and that stern face he wore when he was getting ready to work was the same as she remembered. She used to poke fun at it, telling him he needed to lighten up and learn to have fun in his life if he had to be so serious at his job. He scoffed at her countless times that she had too much fun in her life and being serious about something now and again would do her good. Yeah, some good it did her. She took her situation with Johnny very seriously, thinking she was saving his ass, and now hers was in a sling.
He spread out the papers in the file, and she spied the police report. “Now, I want you to start from the beginning of the incident and tell me everything that happened.”
“Sure, Harry, whatever you say.”
His fingers gripped his pen so hard she was amazed it didn’t break. “Harold, if you please.”
She grinned. “Well, Harold…wait, I’m sorry, are you really going to do this?”
“Do what? I need to know your side of the story so I can start building my case to defend you and keep you out of jail,” he explained as if he was speaking to another one of his clients.
But Anna was far from just a client. Her brow arched as she shifted her jaw in annoyance. “No ‘hi Anna, how have you been?’ No, ‘how’s the bar treating you?’ Nothing? You don’t even care, do you?” she accused sharply.
She clutched the top of the chair, holding back the raw emotions flaring to life at the sight of this man who she would have sworn for a few moments was the one she wanted to be with for the rest of her life. He had proved her wrong and she’d walked away, never expecting to see him again. A voice in the back of her mind wanted to fix her hair and cover up the crappy clothes she wore, but they were all she had. She didn’t even have her leather jacket to cover up the tattoos on her arms he looked at so disapprovingly. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand to look at him and glanced away, desperate to be out of this room and away from a man who had broken her heart and, as far as she could tell, didn’t even realize it. Or worse, didn’t care. He hadn’t responded to her words yet, and she held her breath, waiting for him to call her out for being a fool. The old pain welled up, and she swallowed it, forcing herself to give him nothing of her this time.
He folded his hands on his notepad and breathed out heavily through his nose. “If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be here, now would I?” he told her as if lecturing a child. “Now, can we please get through what happened that night?”
He lied. The tic in his jaw started up as it always had when he lied to her.
“Whatever you say, Harry.” She watched his shoulders stiffen. Good, you should be uncomfortable. You should hate being here with me right now and lying to my face. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me what happened that night,”
he said, holding his pen at the ready.
“That night or before that night?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this shit with Johnny started a few weeks ago—well, maybe further back than that,” she mused. Grinning, she picked at the peeling edge of the plastic table. “It probably started the night I slept with him.”
Harold cursed and the pen dropped from his hand. “You did what?”
“I had a rough night, had a bit to drink, and Johnny was there,” she said simply as if that explained fully what had run through her mind that night. Really, it didn’t even scratch the surface. She glanced up, expecting to see him looking disgustedly at her, but his eyes shone with jealousy and his nostrils flared in anger. That was not the reaction she expected to see, not after so long of being away from him. “Problem, Harry?”
“Of course not. It’s your life. You may do with it what you will,” he quipped, picking his pen back up and rolling his shoulders.
Anna’s hands curled around the edge of the table. She pictured reaching across and smacking him for saying that to her after all this time. She bit the inside of her cheek and glanced towards the door. Hitting her lawyer wouldn’t look good in the eyes of the detective outside this room. One by one, her fingers unclenched from the table, and she wrapped her arms around the back of the chair to stop herself from doing anything stupid.
“So after this…incident,” Harold said loudly, trying to continue the story, “what happened?”
“Johnny wanted a relationship and I turned him down.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Look, do we have to do this here? You paid my bail, right?”
“Well, yes,” he said, confused.
“Then why don’t we take this back to the bar? I haven’t had a chance to clean up or shower in days and I could use a drink.”
He scowled at her as if she was an insubordinate child. “I think a drink is the last thing you need, but,” he amended when she opened her mouth, “I understand your need to freshen up. I’ll drive you back to The Crawler and you can see to your needs.”