It was a chance to save Carrie's life.
With a soft sigh, she looked from him to Beth. "So how are you going to convince them that I had no other choice? People are going to think, 'If he was so bad, why didn't she just leave him?'"
"We're going to use the battered woman syndrome as our defense," Beth explained. "In its simplest terms, it means that a woman who has been routinely and brutally beaten isn't truly responsible for her actions, that she's driven by events and forces beyond her control. What she thinks, what she feels and does, is governed by all the trauma, all the fear and stress, that she's lived with over the years. In that state of mind, killing Del seemed to be—to you—the rational solution. He was the source of the fear and the pain. He was the threat to your life and to your children's lives."
"But he was asleep when I killed him. People will think he wasn't much of a threat sound asleep."
Even with her lack of knowledge about the law, Beth thought with a faint smile, Carrie had zeroed in on her biggest concern. "We'll just have to convince them otherwise," she replied as the bailiff tapped on the door. She picked up her briefcase, then reached over and squeezed Carrie's hand. It wasn't an easy gesture for either of them. Carrie wasn't accustomed to receiving casual touches any more than Beth was to giving them. But it was the start of a lesson they both needed to learn. That physical contact didn't always result in pain. That touching could be gentle, tender, friendly, reassuring. That sometimes one person's touch could heal the pain another's had inflicted.
Zachary's touch that morning in his office had been gentle, tender and so many other things. It hadn't caused her pain. Maybe, with time and faith, it could bring healing. Maybe he could make her forget the pain of loving Philip.
But then who, she wondered bleakly, would make her forget Zachary?
* * *
Just as the arraignment had been no less than Beth had expected, her predictions about the previous day's preliminary hearing were also borne out. Carrie was held over for trial, the date set nearly a month away. Less than two weeks before Christmas. What a joyous holiday season this was going to be for the Lewis kids, Zachary thought.
He was sprawled on the couch in Beth's office, one heavy law book open on his lap and a half dozen others stacked around him. He'd been reading for the last three hours, and he was considering the benefits of a long nap on the short couch when Beth, across the room at her desk, spoke.
"Thanksgiving."
Marking his place in the book with his finger, he closed it and looked up at her. "What about it?"
She was fiddling with the appointment book in front of her. She looked startled when he spoke, as if she hadn't realized she'd said the word aloud. With a shrug, she closed the book and left her desk, coming to sit at the opposite end of the sofa. "Thanksgiving is next Thursday. Carrie's in jail facing the fight of her life, and her kids are struggling along without her or their father, and I'm moping because I have to spend Thanksgiving at my parents' house."
"At least you'll have something to be thankful for—when it's over." He wondered what the holiday would be like in the Gibson home. He was sure it wouldn't hold a candle to an Adams family celebration. Last year they'd crammed nearly fifty relatives and friends into his parents' house. There had been enough food to feed two hundred and fifty, and enough noise and boisterous play from the young and the young at heart to send any sensitive person running the other way.
"It really won't be quite so bad," she mused, slipping her shoes off and tucking her feet beneath her. "This year we're having company, and my parents are generally well behaved around guests. If I can manage to arrive after most of the guests and leave before them, it should be … all right."
"You ought to find yourself a new family. Thanksgivings aren't meant to be 'all right.' They're supposed to be celebrations, days you look forward to, happy times spent with people you love."
"How do you survive in the nineties with an outlook better suited to the fifties?" she asked dryly. "I've never met anyone as old-fashioned as you are."
His eyes narrowing, Zachary considered her remarks. They felt uncomfortably like an insult, but he took no offense. He was old-fashioned. And although he hadn't been born until the late fifties, he wouldn't have minded being an adult then. He preferred simpler times and simpler places. That was part of the reason he liked Sweetwater. It was an old-fashioned town, where everyone knew everyone else, where people looked out for one another and offered help to anyone who needed it.
The only place his life got complicated was right here: with Beth. With his taste for simple things, how in the world had he gotten involved with the most complex woman he'd ever met?
"There's something to be said for old-fashioned values," he said, opening the book again. "Look at the problems this country faces—crime, teen pregnancies, poverty, drugs. If people were a bit more old-fashioned, if they took an interest in their communities, if they helped those who need it, if they didn't wash their hands of responsibility even for their own actions, those problems could be brought under control."
"The Adams solution to the nation's ills," she said airily. "Don't you find that line of reasoning the slightest bit naive, counselor?"
This time he was insulted. He gave her a cool, unwavering stare. "I'd rather be naive than cynical. I'd rather believe in something as old-fashioned as family and as romantic as love than in nothing at all." He closed the book, dumped the whole stack on the table and retrieved his jacket. "If you have no objections, I'll take these books back to the motel with me and finish there."
Beth felt a panicky flutter in her chest. She truly hadn't meant to insult him. The words had just slipped out without thought. Swiftly she rose to her feet, reaching out but stopping without touching him. "Zachary, wait. I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have said that. I know you're not naive, and I really didn't mean to make fun of you."
He stopped in the act of picking up the books, then slowly straightened. "What's the problem here, Beth? Is this your natural superiority coming through? Do you think you're entitled to put me down because of the way you grew up? Because of who you are? Granted, I wasn't raised the way you were, but, hell, how many people in this city were?" Dragging his hand through his hair in frustration, he continued without giving her a chance to respond. "You don't like the way I think or dress. You don't like the things I believe in. You don't like the way I practice law. You don't want to be friends with me or have dinner with me or talk to me about anything except business. Why the hell did you even agree to work with me on this?"
"Do you want to have dinner tonight?" The offer was out before she could think better of it, before she could give herself a hundred and one arguments against it.
For a moment he just looked at her. She half expected him to say no, to refuse her invitation as quickly as she'd refused his in the past. She wouldn't blame him at all if he did. But when he finally spoke, he ignored her offer. "I want an answer," he said quietly, tiredly.
What could she say? That no matter what excuses she'd given herself at the time, she had agreed to his participation in this case partly because of her attraction to him? Not likely. She couldn't tell him the truth, but she couldn't lie to him, either.
So instead she hedged. "I told you last week that I'd forgotten how to relate to children." With a nervous little sigh, she continued. "I guess I've forgotten how to relate to people in general. I can handle clients, associates, partners and family … but I don't have any friends. Sarah is the only one, and I hardly ever see her. I'm not sure I know how to be friends with anyone."
He simply looked at her, not saying a word, but the hostility was fading from his eyes.
"I'm not even sure I want to be friends with anyone," she added quietly. "It seems safer not to. But it can be very lonely." That was part of her dissatisfaction. She talked to dozens of people, but she rarely had a simple conversation. She had plenty of companionship in the form of no-strings-attached dates, but that was lonely, too, becaus
e there was no connection. No affection. No meaning.
"Is that what life boils down to for you?" he asked quietly. "Being safe? Not taking risks?"
"It's easier that way."
"No, it's not. Having someone to care for, someone who cares about you, someone who shares your life and your problems and your worries and your successes—that's easier, Beth. Sharing your life with someone else doesn't weaken you. It makes you stronger." He shook his head in dismay. "How can you live such different lives? You take chances professionally. As a lawyer, particularly as a female lawyer practicing criminal law, you take chances every day. But in your personal life … hell, you don't even have a personal life, because it's safer that way. It's easier."
Beth tore her gaze from his and turned to slip into her shoes. It was such a simple action, but it made her feel more secure. Better prepared to defend herself.
Except that she had no defense. Everything he'd said was accurate. Rather than admit it to him, rather than offering a defense when the only defense was the truth, she smiled coolly and asked, "So … do you want to have dinner?"
After a brief perplexed look, Zachary slowly smiled. It wasn't charming or boyish or sweet, but a bit rueful and a lot resigned. "I'll pick you up at home at seven."
She opened her mouth to tell him that she never made it home before eight, then closed it again. Seven would be fine.
That settled, he picked up the books and started toward the door.
"Where are you going?"
"Back to the motel."
"But it's only three o'clock."
"Good. I can avoid the traffic and still get some work done." With a wave, he disappeared out the door.
Beth slowly returned to her desk and sat down. Picking up the appointment book, she tossed it into the middle drawer, then considered the work in front of her. Maybe she should follow Zachary's example. There was nothing here that couldn't be done at home—letters to dictate, an expense record to update, three medical journal articles on spouse abuse to read. Why not, for the first time in her eleven years with the firm, go home early and finish her work there?
Without giving it further thought, she put everything in her briefcase and told her secretary where she was going. Half an hour later she was home.
The office there was the only room she really liked. The walls were painted a deep, rich teal, and oak bookcases filled every inch of available space. Her desk was an antique, big and heavy and solid, and the chairs, one behind the desk and two in front of the marble fireplace, were designed for comfort.
The grate was already laid with firewood. She lit the gas jets and set the wood ablaze, then kicked off her shoes and settled into one of the nearby chairs. It was nice working in front of the fireplace on such a cold day, she decided. Maybe she ought to try it more often. And after she got used to it, she could graduate to truly playing hooky from work, taking time off for nothing more important than shopping or a movie or no reason at all.
For the first time in weeks she quit working at quitting time and went upstairs for a leisurely bath. Afterward she dressed in black slacks and a silk tunic that matched her eyes. She reapplied her makeup, put on her favorite diamond earrings and dabbed perfume on all her pulse points. She was standing in front of the coat closet downstairs, wondering where Zachary would take her, debating whether to wear her simple wool coat or the luxurious long fur jacket she'd splurged on for her last birthday, when the doorbell rang. The wool if he was wearing jeans, she decided, and the fur if he was, by chance, in a suit.
The wool won out. This was the country lawyer, in jeans, a pale blue shirt and a silvery-gray corduroy jacket. As much as she loved her fur, she didn't mind.
"I half expected you to change your mind," he said in place of a greeting.
"I probably should have," she acknowledged.
"It's just dinner," Zachary said, his gaze slowly moving from her hair, gleaming and smooth and swinging free, all the way down to her feet. "You know, food? Sustenance? It's not a commitment."
Not that he wouldn't willingly accept one from her, he thought regretfully. Even a short-term something—relationship, affair, friendship—would be better than nothing.
Short-term was all they could ever have. Beth would never leave her city, her profitable practice and her prestigious firm for a nowhere town like Sweetwater. She would never give up her career to be anyone's wife or mother, but Sweetwater and the surrounding communities could never support two lawyers.
And he couldn't leave home for the city, not on a permanent basis. He couldn't cope with the crowds and the traffic and the crime. He couldn't live with the anonymity inherent in a city the size of Nashville. He couldn't survive away from his family, his farm and his mountains.
Not even for love.
Turning away from that depressing thought, he asked, "Do I ever get a tour of this place, or are you always going to keep me standing in the hall?"
She had one arm in her coat. She paused, then slipped it off and laid it over the stair railing. "There's not much to see," she warned as she led the way into the living room.
But she was wrong, Zachary thought. There was something to see from practically every room. The condominium shared the top two floors of a high-rise building, and the outer walls were primarily glass. The lights of Nashville spread for miles in every direction. It would be an impressive sight during the day.
As for the apartment itself, though, she was right. There wasn't much to see—just elegantly decorated rooms that would look just right in some fancy interior design magazine, but not in somebody's home. There were no homey touches, no personal flavor, no commonplace clutter, in any of the rooms—nothing that said Beth Gibson lived here. Nothing that said anyone lived here. Even her room, which he caught only a glimpse of, more closely resembled some luxurious hotel suite than a bedroom.
"Don't feel obliged to comment," Beth said as they descended the stairs. "The decorator went a little overboard, but I'm not here enough to mind."
He wondered if that was true. If she really didn't mind, she wouldn't even have noticed the chilly, unlived-in feeling of the place. "If I were decorating this place for you," he remarked, "I would use wood. Nothing exotic—cherry and mahogany and walnut. And stone—not marble, but granite. And lots of colors, bright ones, bold ones. No white, no pastels, no gray or black—although," he added with a grin, "I would probably keep those black sheets on the bed."
There had been just a hint of them where the white down comforter had snagged. What an image that created—Beth's red hair and delicate ivory skin against night-black sheets. It was enough to make him clench his teeth to keep a soft groan from escaping.
"My mother's decorator is responsible for this," Beth commented, completely unaware of the direction his thoughts had taken. "Maybe when I redo it, I'll send her to talk to you. Anything would be an improvement over this."
Yes, indeed, Zachary thought as he followed her out. Anything at all would be an improvement over this—this way he was feeling. These thoughts he was thinking. These needs she was arousing. All with no hope of relief. No hope of satisfaction.
He stepped out of the elevator and into the frigid garage with a muted sigh. There was no chance for a cold shower, but this was the next best thing.
Then the image returned once more: Beth naked and beautiful on those wicked sheets, not alone, but with him. Not passive but passionate. Not just lovely but loving.
A short walk in thirty-degree temperatures wasn't the next best thing for what ailed him, he admitted grimly. In fact, it was a depressingly poor substitute for what he really wanted.
For what he really needed.
For what he had to have.
* * *
Beth was feeling guilty.
They had lingered for two hours over dinner, and not once had she thought about all the work waiting for her at home. Not once had she wished, as she always did on dates, that she was someplace alone—in her office working, in her bed asleep or anywhere exc
ept where she was. Not once had she regretted asking Zachary out.
And for those reasons, she should regret it. Nothing but sorrow could come from getting involved with him, and it would break every rule she'd ever set for herself. They were simple rules: don't get personal with people you work with. Don't get personal with people so vastly different from you. Don't get personal with anyone you might care for. Don't get personal at all. She'd followed them for ten years, only to come perilously close to suddenly forgetting them all now.
Zachary was, for the time being, her associate. He always had been and always would be vastly different. He was definitely someone she could care for. He was a threat she couldn't handle … and a temptation she couldn't resist.
"Do you want dessert?"
She looked at the tray of sweets and pastries the waiter held. They all looked sinfully rich and delicious, but with a regretful sigh, she shook her head. Even if she liked to exercise, which she didn't, her schedule left precious little time for it. Spending so many hours at her desk meant watching her weight by watching her diet. "Just coffee, please."
"No sweet tooth, huh?" Zachary asked after ordering coffee, too.
"I have one. I just control it."
"You like being in control, don't you? And you don't like emotional extremes—anger, exhilaration, passion."
She studied him coolly. "We all took one or two psychology courses in college, Zachary, but it doesn't qualify any of us to practice."
He waved that off. "All lawyers analyze to some extent—clients, opposing counsel, judges. Tell me you don't know the strengths and weaknesses of every attorney you've ever faced in court."
"That's part of the job."
"So—"
"This isn't." She knew that would quiet him. He would be surprised into silence at her pointed reminder that this was a date. Personal, not business.
And he was silent, for all of sixty seconds. Then he returned to the subject. "You also like to control the conversation. You did it this afternoon and again just now."
Somebody's Lady Page 11