First Loves: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance

by Stone, Jean

  As she walked down the corridor of the jail, Meg thought about Zoe. Other than Danny, Zoe was the first real friend Meg felt she’d ever had. And it was Zoe—not this whining, spoiled woman—who deserved help now. Maybe she could help by doing more than simply putting Danny on the case. Maybe she could start over, begin a new life for herself. Maybe she could finally do what she’d really wanted—be useful to someone, someone she cared about. Maybe she could finally do something that mattered.

  She glanced at her watch. It was two-fifteen. There might still be time to catch Danny having lunch at Schneider’s.

  Outside, Meg hailed a cab for the ride across town.

  She looked out the dirty window at the nameless people scurrying along the sidewalks. For the first time in years Meg felt she had a purpose beyond the drama of the courtroom and the size of her salary. Helping Zoe could make her feel alive again; helping Zoe could take her mind off Steven, and off the fact that he still hadn’t called. She’d mustered the courage to read the paper one morning: Candace’s condition had been upgraded from critical to fair, and she was being charged on a variety of counts: driving under the influence, driving to endanger, one count of vehicular homicide. No one at the office had mentioned whether Larson, Bascomb had been contacted to represent her. Meg suspected that if they hadn’t been, it was because Steven deemed it inappropriate. God, she thought, as her eyes skimmed over a street vendor with his wares spread across a blanket on the sidewalk, wouldn’t George Bascomb be pissed if he knew that she was the reason they wouldn’t get the case?

  Zoe, she thought. I must think of Zoe. Meg tried to characterize her the way she would a potential client, in terms of individual traits and circumstances, rather than as a person, a human being with feelings, a friend. Zoe. Recently widowed, struggling mother of a fourteen-year-old boy, trying to rekindle a career. She focused on the boy. Scott. A boy who had just learned the man he thought was his father, wasn’t.

  As the cab careened across Fifth Avenue, Meg thought about the child she didn’t have. Steven’s child. Would it have been a boy? If there had been no abortion, he would have been a little older than Scott. At least Zoe hadn’t been a coward. She’d had her baby, even without his real father around. What had given her that strength? Had Zoe loved Eric more than Meg had loved Steven? Meg never would have thought that was possible. And yet Zoe went through with the pregnancy, Zoe kept her son, raised him. Why hadn’t Meg been capable of that? Why hadn’t she been able to make that choice?

  The cab squealed to a stop in front of Schneider’s. Meg spotted Danny emerging from the deli, heading in the opposite direction. She thrust a ten-dollar bill in the cabbie’s hand and leaped from the cab without waiting for her change.

  “Danny!”

  He turned. “Yo, counselor!” he said, strolling back to meet her. “If it’s a free lunch you want, you’re a little late.” He reached her and stopped. His eyes roamed over her. “Although it sure as hell looks like you could use some nourishment.”

  “I need your help.”

  “Christ, Meg, don’t you ever slow down? One of these days I’d just like to hear you say ‘screw it.’ ”

  “I need to talk to you, Danny. Now.”

  “Ah, straight to the point.” He took her elbow. “Walk with me, then. I’ve got a meeting with your boss.”

  Meg folded her arms across her waist and fell into stride beside Danny. She liked to walk next to him, his hand lightly, protectively, touching her, guiding her through the wavering crowd that seemed to forever fill the midtown streets. She checked her watch. “I haven’t much time.”

  “We’ll walk fast,” he said, picking up the pace.

  She kept her eyes fixed ahead, not looking, never looking, into the eyes of oncoming pedestrians. “I have a friend …,” she began slowly.

  Danny stopped. Two men behind him collided into his back, then grunted and quickly moved on. Danny shook his head. “You have a friend,” he groaned as he resumed walking. “Please. Not another one.”

  Meg laughed. “This one is different.”

  “So is Alissa Page. Different.”

  “That’s not what I mean. This one can’t pay you.”

  He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and smiled. “Something tells me I’m going to regret this walk.”

  “I doubt it,” Meg said. They stopped at the red light on Madison. “You don’t know her name yet.”

  “Oh. Someone with a name. A Larson, Bascomb hold-over?”

  Meg shook her head. “Remember that day at my place when I told you about the plan I agreed to with Alissa? There was another woman involved. A third woman.”

  “Yeah, I think you mentioned that.”

  “I need you to help that third woman, Danny.”

  “I’m not in the business of finding old lovers, Meg. In this case one was definitely enough.”

  A yellow cab squealed around the corner. The light turned green. Meg and Danny stepped off the curb.

  “It’s not her old lover who’s missing,” Meg shouted against the sound of the traffic. “It’s her fourteen-year-old son.”

  Danny’s eyebrows raised. “So why me? Why doesn’t your friend call Unsolved Mysteries?”

  “She can’t. She’s too well-known.” They finished crossing the street in silence.

  “Okay,” Danny said as they reached the next curb. “I give up. Who is this mystery friend of yours, and how many more do you have in your private little closet?”

  Meg tossed back her hair and tried not to reveal that he’d struck a nerve, that he’d reminded her about Steven. Steven. Push it away. Push it down. He’s gone. End of story.

  “She’s the last,” Meg said. “That’s a promise. And I think you’ll like her. She’s not like Alissa.…”

  “Praise be to God.”

  “… Her name is Zoe.”

  “Zoe who?”

  Meg smiled. “Just Zoe.”

  Danny stopped again, then so did Meg. A woman bumped her pocketbook into Meg’s side, then muttered something in what sounded like Yiddish. Danny rolled his eyes. “Holy shit, Meg. You don’t mean Zoe, as in the Zoe?”

  Meg smiled and started walking again.

  “Holy shit,” Danny repeated, trotting to catch up to her. “You said her name before. That day at your place. But, shit, I had no idea you meant Zoe.”

  “She’s only a person, Danny. A really nice person.” As they turned onto Park Avenue, Meg told him about Eric, about Scott. About the fact that Scott had run away to be with his father. “I need you to track them down,” Meg said.

  Danny nodded. “Give me a couple more days. The insider case is almost wrapped up.”

  “Good. That’ll be better for me, too.”

  “For you?”

  “Yeah,” Meg said. “I’m going with you.”

  “What about work?”

  Meg smiled and looked up at the entrance to the Larson, Bascomb building. “Screw it,” she said.

  The next morning Meg convinced the judge to lower her client’s bail to fifty thousand, not that it mattered, because the woman could have afforded much more. But it was all part of the game of “beat the government,” to show them you were the one in control. She’d be glad when the game was over. Winner take all.

  As she went from the courtroom to the office, Meg knew what she had to do. She had to meet with the partners; she was finally going to do something for someone other than herself. She wanted to, she needed to. She had to make something right for a friend, no matter the consequences to herself.

  God, having a friend felt good.

  They were seated around the conference table, formally reviewing the status of the cases in the house. It didn’t escape Meg that they hadn’t delayed the meeting until her arrival.

  She took a chair and waited until George acknowledged her. “How did the bail hearing go, Meg?”

  “Fine. Bail was reduced to fifty thousand.”

  George scribbled a note on his legal pad. “We’ll
need to work closely together on this one. Both our clients are innocent.”

  Ordinarily Meg would have protested his decision to combine the defenses. She would have argued that it wouldn’t be fair to her client. But things were different now.

  “I won’t be working on the case,” Meg announced.

  All heads turned toward Meg.

  George removed his glasses. “Excuse me?”

  “I said I won’t be working on the case. I’m requesting a leave of absence from the firm.”

  George flipped the bows of his glasses closed, open, closed. “This is highly irregular. We are overloaded with work.…”

  Meg sat up straight. “I know. But I’ve had a personal matter come up. I need some time off.”

  “How much time?”

  “Six months.” She said it without blinking. She’d decided that a six-month leave would do more than enable her to find Zoe’s son; it would give her time to reassess her life, to rebuild her emotional strength and find the way to start over again, this time the right way.

  “A six-month leave? Why not a year? Why not two?” George fired each question at a higher pitch.

  “Why not permanently?” came a snicker from the other side of the table.

  Meg ignored it.

  George returned his glasses to his round, scowling face. “Perhaps we could manage six months. After this case is completed.”

  “That’s not what I had in mind.”

  “It will go to trial in three or four months.”

  “I know that. But I plan to leave tomorrow.”

  The room was swallowed by silence.

  “We need you to finish this case, Meg.”

  She shifted on the imported Italian-leather chair. “I know. I also know you only gave it to me because everyone else was busy.”

  George sighed. “That’s not entirely true.”

  Meg stood up. “Nothing has been the same around here since Avery died. I know we all haven’t always gotten along, and I didn’t always agree with Avery. But I do my job, and I do it well. Right now, however, I’d like your indulgence. But if you aren’t willing to give me the six months’ leave, then I’ll have to request a permanent separation. Including my five percent share of the profits.”

  The partners stared at her.

  “I would appreciate your decision by the end of the day,” Meg continued. “Until then I’ll be in my office cleaning out my desk.” She left the room with a euphoric headiness, a catharsis of freedom she hadn’t known since the day she moved into her own apartment alone. But this time Meg wasn’t going to allow her independence to thrust her into a vortex, into a world that grew smaller and smaller until it was so small, so safe, that no one could enter, no one could escape. She walked toward her office with her chin held high. This time she was going to take the risk. This time, Meg was going to live.

  Once at her desk, the first thing Meg did was make two one-way reservations on an early-morning flight to Minneapolis. No sense in planning the return trip: there was a chance Eric and Scott weren’t there, and she and Danny would have to fly somewhere else from Minnesota.

  She was going through her desk, removing personal things, when she heard a knock on the door. That didn’t take long, Meg thought. The partners must be unusually efficient today.

  She took a deep breath, reassuring herself she had made the right decision. First she was going to help Zoe. Then she was going to make some much-needed decisions about her career, her life.

  “Come in.”

  The door opened. Meg glanced up from her work, trying to appear nonchalant. But in the doorway stood neither George Bascomb nor any of the partners. In the doorway stood Steven Riley.

  She wasn’t certain if her gasp was audible.

  He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

  Meg simply stared.

  “You’re busy,” he said. “I should have called.”

  Steven was standing in front of her. Steven. Her reason for wanting to die these last few weeks.

  He walked toward her desk slowly, almost as though he were anticipating she would hurl something at him. There was no chance of that: her entire body had gone numb, and Meg couldn’t have picked up a piece of paper, never mind anything of substance, anything big enough or heavy enough or sharp enough to hurt him the way he’d hurt her.

  “Meg. I’m so sorry.”

  Still, she couldn’t speak.

  He walked to the back of the desk and squatted beside her. He picked up her hands and held them. She was amazed they weren’t shaking. “Can you ever forgive me?” he asked.

  She looked into his eyes. So blue. So loving. She swayed from love to hate to love, from longing to mistrust, from want, from need to pain. Pain. She looked away, down to his tie. It was pale gray and blue and made of fine silk. She wondered if Candace had bought it for him.

  She pulled her hands from his and stood up, nearly knocking him to the floor.

  “Forgive you for what? For standing me up on an island in the middle of the Atlantic? Or for making me believe you still cared about me in the first place?” She went to the window and looked down to the street below. She didn’t dare face him again. She didn’t dare look into those eyes. She never would have believed she’d feel so confused about Steven, about her love for him.

  He came up behind her. “Meg, you do know what happened, don’t you?”

  She laughed. “The whole world knows, Steven. And if you’ve come to ask if we’ll handle your wife’s case, I think you’d better find yourself another firm. You see, there could be a small matter of conflict of interest.”

  “I didn’t come here for that.” He put his hands on her shoulders. Strong hands. Protective. Comforting. She shook them off and went to the bookcase.

  “Then why did you come here? To examine the remnants of what you did to me?” She wished he would leave, wished he’d never come there at all. Not now. Not now that she’d made a decision to change her life, to put the past behind her once and for all, to finally start living. She probably should thank him for that. She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t think she could stand any more pain.

  “Meg,” he said calmly. “Please try to understand. I didn’t want you to be involved. I didn’t want to risk your career.…”

  “Is that all that matters? Careers? Yours? Now mine? No, Steven, that’s not what matters. Life is what’s important. Living. I can’t believe it’s taken me all these years to figure that out.”

  She stared at the leather spines of the books, aware of his breathing, aware of the heaviness of his presence. Aware of the fact that she wanted nothing more than to run to him, throw her arms around him, and forgive him. To tell him she loved him.

  “Candace is going to be fine,” he said.

  Her spine stiffened.

  “Unlike the man she killed,” Meg blurted out, then wished she hadn’t. Sarcasm wasn’t her style. Inflicting misery was something she’d never been comfortable with. “Sorry,” she added quietly, “that was uncalled for.”

  “It was called for. Candace has a serious drinking problem. Perhaps she has finally learned her lesson.”

  “And the two of you can live happily ever after?”

  He crossed the room and stood beside her. This time Steven didn’t attempt to touch her. “As soon as she’s out of the hospital, I’m telling her I want a divorce.” There was a catch in his voice. Meg thought if she looked at him, she would see tears. She remembered the unhappiness Steven once told her he’d endured as a child, as the brilliant little boy whose father demanded perfection. There had been varsity football—Steven was the quarterback, of course—then Yale Law School, a political career that saw only victories, and marriage to the daughter of someone who “mattered.” Steven had said he’d never thought much about what he wanted: his father gave him no choices, no options. He’d said he’d never thought much about what he wanted, until he fell in love with her. She squeezed her eyes tightly again.

  “Divorce won’t bode
too well with the voters, Steven. A man deserting his wife in her hour of need.”

  Steven ignored her comment. “I should have done it years ago. I should have done it back in Boston, when I still had you. I should have just done it, then told you after.”

  Yes, Meg thought, you should have. You could have. You would have, if you had known about the baby. Our baby. Instead, I was the one who made the decision. The wrong decision. God, she had made so many wrong decisions.

  “I don’t know what you want to do, Meg.” His tone was quiet, somber. “Whether you come back to me or not is your decision. But no matter what, I’m divorcing Candace.”

  Meg heard the words and tried to let them sink in. But they seemed to hang somewhere in the space between the two of them and vanish before reaching her brain.

  Steven laughed. “The funny thing is that Candace has always felt as stuck with me as I did with her. If we had stayed together all these years for the sake of the kids, that would have been one thing. An understandable, even commendable thing in some opinions. But no. We stayed together for the sake of the party. The party her father runs so well. If we hadn’t stayed together, Candace probably wouldn’t have resorted to gin. Maybe that man would still be alive. In a sense, I’m as responsible for his death as she is.”

  “I’m sure there was more to your marriage than politics,” Meg said with dry, choking words.

  “There wasn’t. The night of her accident Candace wasn’t alone. She was with another man. It wasn’t the first time.”

  So. The media didn’t always find out everything, after all.

  Meg turned and faced him. “And what about you, Steven? Was the night we were together the first time you cheated on her?”

  He sifted his fingers through his hair. “You probably won’t believe this, but yes. It was. Besides, all these years I felt I was cheating just by being with Candace. I felt I was cheating on you.”