He held her gaze for a long time, thinking of the kids he'd met Tuesday. The three boys and the girl, thin, raggedy, weary and solemn beyond their years. What had they already been through during their short lives? How much more would they, like their mother, have to endure?
"I know you don't like the idea," Beth said, touching her fingertips to the back of his hand where it rested on the desk. "No one likes to see children in court, especially in cases like this. But if that's what it takes to help their mother…"
Then that was what they would do, Zachary thought grimly. That was what any good attorney would do—provide the best defense possible for the client. Even if it meant putting three innocent, frightened, helpless kids on the witness stand. Even if it meant prolonging the nightmare their father had created for them.
He didn't want to think about it, not now. For the next hour or two, until their appointment with the psychologist, he didn't want to think about anything at all that even vaguely resembled work. Turning his hand over, he captured her fingers, then stood up and pulled her to her feet. "We're going to lunch," he said when she made a sound of protest. "And from the minute we walk out this door until the minute we come back through it, we're not going to discuss business."
She looked as if she were going to argue, to snatch her hand free and command him never to do such a thing again, and when she opened her mouth, he waited for her anger. But it didn't come. Instead, in a cool, subdued voice, she suggested a restaurant a few miles away, a place with good food and excellent service, with quiet surroundings and patient waiters.
Once they were seated in a small, quiet dining room and had placed their order with her usual waiter, Beth folded her hands together in her lap, looked across the table at Zachary and couldn't think of a thing to say. She felt entirely empty except for the warm feeling that simply being with him brought. It was a warning sign, she tried to remind herself. Hadn't she felt the same low-grade fever with Philip in the beginning? And wasn't he the first—and, thank God, the only—man she'd ever made a fool of herself over?
She didn't need this, particularly now. Of course, any time was a bad time for a man in her life. It was against the rules, rules that she had designed and implemented for her own safety. After seeing what her grandfather had done to her grandmother, after witnessing for years what her parents could do to each other, she had sworn she would never marry, would never have even a serious relationship with any man. Casual friendship, casual sex and casual satisfaction—that was all she'd wanted.
She had broken all the rules with Philip, and look how badly that had turned out. Her affair with him was proof that, contrary to old clichés, rules weren't meant to be broken. Broken rules had led to a broken heart, and she would never risk that again.
Not even if Zachary was probably the best-looking man in the galaxy. Not even if he did have the most charmingly sweet smile she had ever seen. Not even if he was absolutely nothing like Philip … or her father … or her grandfather … or any of the other men she had ever known.
He was still off limits. This was a professional relationship, even if she wasn't allowed to discuss work right now. There was nothing personal between them. Nothing.
No matter how badly some rebellious part of her might want it.
The silence extended for another minute, then another. He was as much at a loss for words as she was, Beth thought with a thin smile. That was just further proof of their total unsuitability. Take away their jobs and they had nothing in common, not even small talk.
Almost as if he'd read her mind, he grinned sheepishly and said, "All right. At least we both know Daniel and Sarah. Let's talk about them."
"What about them?"
"How did you get to be friends with Sarah? You two seem to be even more different than you and I are."
"We both went to Tennessee State. That was my first time in a public school. From kindergarten through high school I'd gone to a series of private, very snooty, all-girls schools. I was supposed to go to a private women's college, too, but I won that argument. Sarah and I were taking the same history class. Somehow our instructor made the connection between the Townsends and the Gibsons and me, and when we covered the portion of history that dealt with them, he made a big deal of it. Sarah was the only person in the class who wasn't impressed or resentful."
"So you became friends because she didn't mind being seen with one of those Gibsons," he gently teased. "Then you must have known her ex-husband."
"Unfortunately. Brent Lawson was a self-centered, smug, arrogant, mean little man. I was more than happy to handle the divorce for Sarah. I just wish we could have gotten her a better deal." She didn't go into detail. Zachary already knew how Sarah's ex-husband had left the state to avoid paying the court-ordered child support to his son, who died before his third birthday. She suspected he also knew how angry and frustrated and impotent she had felt because she couldn't do anything about it. If Sarah had been his client, he would have felt the same way. "Daniel's been good for Sarah."
"I had the distinct impression that you didn't approve of him."
"The first time I met him was when I approached him about taking custody of Katie. He scared me," she admitted.
That made Zachary scowl. He thought she had judged his friend on physical appearance alone and found him unacceptable, Beth realized, but that wasn't the case.
"So he isn't what you would call handsome," he started to protest.
"No, he isn't," she said before he could continue. "And he is absolutely the biggest man I have ever seen. And let's face it, Zachary, living up there in those mountains all those years by himself didn't do wonders for his personality. He was rude, unfriendly, unwelcoming and intimidating."
"Until he found out that he was a father and you could give him his daughter."
Beth nodded. "Even if I did have trouble understanding what had attracted Sarah to him, I had to admire him for the way he took Katie in. Every child should be so lucky as to have a father like him."
"We agree on that," Zachary said with one of his most charming smiles. "Daniel's a good man. He'll devote the rest of his life to Sarah and Katie and any children they have in the future."
Why hadn't Zachary devoted his life to some lucky woman? Beth wondered. Granted, Sweetwater wasn't exactly a singles' paradise, but there had to be at least a few unattached women there. Plus, he had clients in other towns, met other lawyers in court and made occasional trips such as this one into the city. Why hadn't he found someone to settle down and raise children with?
The question slipped out before she realized it, before she had a chance to call it back. She blushed faintly, but Zachary didn't seem to notice her discomfort. Instead, he was toying with the silverware neatly lined up beside his empty wineglass. When he finally looked up, there was a slight edge to his smile. "You sound like my mother and my grandmother. They're tired of waiting for Alicia and me to do something."
A slow chill crept over her, stiffening her spine and making her hands trembling cold in her lap. "Is Alicia your…?" What was the proper way of phrasing it these days? she wondered. Friend? Girlfriend? Lover?
"Yeah, she's my…" He mimicked the way she had let the question trail away, then chuckled. "She's my kid sister. You must have seen her at least once or twice when you came to my office. Blond hair, pretty, a little bit flaky?"
"That's a wonderful description," she said dryly, more relieved than she wanted to be. "And how does she describe you? Blond, pretty, a pain in the—"
He interrupted her with a wagging finger. "Ladies don't use such language."
"I'm a lawyer, not a lady."
"Of course you are. You can be more than one thing, Beth. You're a lawyer, a partner, a woman, a daughter, a friend. You must be a lady for somebody."
The images that conjured up, to be somebody's lady… She shook them away before they could take root in her dissatisfaction and grow out of control. "We were talking about you, not me," she coolly reminded him. "And why you're
not married and raising your own little baseball team."
"I would like to be in love with a woman before I ask her to marry me," he replied, sounding entirely too cheerful about a subject that she avoided as much as possible. "While I've met numerous women that I like and admire and even feel a great deal of fondness for, I haven't yet met one that I love. So I'm still waiting."
"Why don't you settle for 'a great deal of fondness' and get on with it?" she asked. "Maybe that's all you'll ever find."
Zachary simply looked at her for a long moment before scoffing, "Oh, please, Beth, don't tell me you're that cynical. You don't believe in love?"
"Carrie Lewis loved her husband, and he promised to love her, too. Look at what she endured from him … and what she did to him."
He repeated his earlier demand. "No talk of business, remember? Besides, Carrie and Del are hardly typical of most married couples."
"What is typical, Zachary?" she challenged. "Is there even such a thing? I can guarantee you that typical for you doesn't have anything in common with typical for me."
Accepting her challenge, he leaned forward, his arms resting on the tablecloth. "Are your parents still married?"
"Yes. They celebrated their thirty-eighth anniversary last month."
"Well?"
"They're still married to each other because no one else would have them. No one else would tolerate them. No other man would let my mother torment him the way she torments my father, and no other woman would let my father degrade her the way he degrades my mother. Oh, yes," she added sarcastically. "And they still love each other … or so they say."
Well, that helped explain why Beth was still single, Zachary thought silently. It also made yesterday's comment about becoming a lawyer to spite her father a bit easier to understand. It must have been hard on the little girl she'd been to live with parents who were constantly fighting, who couldn't stand to be together and couldn't stand to be apart.
"What about your grandparents?" he asked quietly.
"My father's parents died before I was born. My mother's father is dead now, too, but for fifty years he flaunted his mistresses and girlfriends and one-night stands in front of my grandmother and the whole city, all the while proclaiming himself a good family man who loved his wife dearly. And she put up with it because she loved him." She smiled elegantly, coolly, certain that she had proved her point, Zachary thought. But she hadn't.
"That's not love," he informed her. "That's pride. Obsession. Fear of being alone. Love is what Sarah and Daniel have, what my parents have. It's what my grandparents had. Anyone who would settle for less doesn't deserve it."
She shrugged carelessly, unconvinced. "So we don't agree on that. What other subjects do we see from different sides?"
What else could they talk about? he wondered. They hadn't gone to the same schools, didn't know any of the same people beyond the Ryans and didn't share any of the same interests as far as he could tell. "Have you always lived in Nashville?"
"That's really reaching."
She knew he was as stumped for conversational topics as she'd been when they first sat down, he realized. What she didn't know yet was that he was persistent. Given enough time, he would find common ground. If he didn't, he would create it. "That's called getting to know you," he said. "It's hard to know what we can talk about when I really don't know you very well."
"You really don't want to," she warned him conversationally.
He gave her a long look, from her sleek, red hair to her unfreckledlvory skin, from the eyes that were too green to be natural—but were—to the sensual bow of her mouth, from the long line of her throat to the soft curves underneath her navy jacket. Then he smiled and murmured, "Oh, I do, Beth. I really do."
She held his gaze, and for just a moment he knew that what he felt wasn't totally one-sided. There was a softening—nothing specific, nothing he could point to, but for just that moment she seemed warmer, more touchable, less tough—and the look in her eyes was tinged with awareness. With the slightest longing. With insubstantial, slipping-away-even-as-he-watched desire.
Then she broke the contact and reached for her water glass. After a sip, she folded her arms loosely—protectively, he thought—and answered the question he'd forgotten asking in a perfectly normal, perfectly businesslike voice. "Yes, I've always lived in Nashville, except for a brief time away at school. Next question?"
"Are you an only child?"
"Yes. God saw fit not to subject more than one of us to my parents."
He ignored the bitterness underlying those words. "You're thirty … what?"
"It's impolite to ask a lady her age, but since I'm not vain, I don't mind answering. I'm thirty-six."
He ignored her emphasis on lady, too. No matter how she might deny it, there was no doubt that she embodied all the qualities required of a lady in his book. She was bright and sensitive, inherently good and honest. She cared about people—about Sarah and Katie, about Carrie and all her other clients—even though she did have problems with the people in her personal life. She hated injustice. She was passionate about things that mattered to her. She used her talents and her strengths to help those who were weaker than she was.
Too bad she was too stubborn to help herself. In spite of the examples set by her parents and grandparents, in spite of working in a job that required her to deal with failed marriages on an all-too-regular basis, she was far too good a lawyer to condemn the entire institution of marriage. She had too much to offer never to share her life with someone else. She was too special to turn her back on the opportunity for that kind of happiness, satisfaction and joy.
"What do you do when you're not working?" he asked, anticipating her answer even as he spoke.
"I'm always working."
"No social life, huh?"
"I do occasionally date."
"But you make a point of not enjoying it, don't you?" he gently teased.
"I enjoy it a great deal," she disagreed. "I enjoy it for exactly what it is—a diversion. Nothing serious or permanent or passionate, but a nice break from work."
"And of course the men you date are simply looking for a diversion, too."
"That, or the somewhat questionable prestige of being seen in the right places with Walter Gibson's daughter."
He silently considered her frank admission. Yesterday she had told him that she'd grown up judging people's motives for wanting to befriend her, and he had called her cynical. He hadn't even considered the possibility that she had good reason to be cynical. Of course, he had a defense: it was incomprehensible to him that anyone could need a reason other than Beth herself for wanting her. That was enough for him. He didn't care about her family, her background or her money. He simply wanted her.
"Isn't there somebody whose motives you trust?"
She gave him one of her cool, not quite pleasant smiles. "I trust my partners. They're driven by greed, by profit and the need to succeed. That's the motivation behind everything they do. And I trust the men I date. They're very clear about what they want, and they don't expect anything else from me. To them I'm an ornament, something to impress others. For me, they're a few hours' pleasure with no entanglements."
That was cold, Zachary thought grimly, on the part of both the men and Beth. What kind of man could care more about appearances than about Beth? And how could a passionate, intelligent woman prefer that kind of cold-blooded arrangement over a normal, giving and taking, sweet and satisfying and occasionally painful, relationship?
Unless at some time there had been too much pain. Had she been in love before and lost her heart? Had she been hurt so deeply that she wasn't willing to risk it again? Was that the real reason behind her decision never to marry?
But he didn't ask her. If she'd loved some man, if she still loved him, he didn't want to know.
After a moment's silence, Beth quietly asked, "When are you returning to Sweetwater?"
"This evening. I'll be back next Tuesday."
"Do y
ou work on your house on weekends?"
"Usually." They were awkwardly not looking at each other, and Beth's voice had been subdued. Did she regret the answers she'd given him? Zachary wondered. Had his distaste for her social life been obvious to her? Whatever the cause, there was little easiness between them now.
"What made you decide to build the house yourself?"
At least she wasn't giving in to uncomfortable silence, he acknowledged with a humorless smile. "It's the only way I could afford it. I saved a long time for this. If I'd waited until I could pay a builder to put it up, I would have been dead before the foundation got laid."
"And now you're spending money that could be used on the house on this case."
He shrugged carelessly. "It's costing you more than me."
"It's a little different for me. I'll simply get less profit this year. It's an outright loss for you."
"You're twisting words, counselor. 'Less profit' and 'outright loss' mean the same things."
"If it gets to be a burden…"
She spoke hesitantly, reluctantly, and Zachary smiled, those few moments of discomfort gone. Was she going to offer her help? Fudge a bit on her own expense account to cover his? He didn't wait to find out. "Don't worry about it. If it reaches the point that I can't afford it anymore, I'll give you plenty of notice."
And hell would freeze over first, he thought privately. He wanted in on this case—for Carrie's sake, for the sake of his career, for himself and for Beth.
Most definitely for Beth.
* * *
Beth sat at her desk on Saturday morning, gazing moodily out the window. Although she was the only one in the office and she would be spending her time here alone, she was dressed in a dove gray suit, heels and makeup. It was habit that made her dress up and come into the office on Saturdays, she supposed—habit, and the fact that there was no one to keep her at home, no one to see her leave, no one to gently poke fun at her for dressing suitably for court when absolutely no one but the doorman would see her. Zachary could have done that.
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