by Alexa Davis
“I’ve never left a bruise on any woman. No matter how ‘rough’ it gets,” I admonished. “You know what I’m talking about. He scarred her pretty badly, and it wasn’t just the car accident. I just want you to watch your back. We may not be friends, but I don’t want to see anyone turned into a punching bag. Trust me, it’s not worth the money.”
“Spoken like a man who has never gone without. This conversation bores me, and for an engaged man, you certainly seem concerned with keeping me single.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Whatever, Sara. Just leave us alone. No more rumors, no more ‘concerned letters’ to faculty.” Her face showed genuine surprise. “Yes, I know all about your attempt to have Rachel expelled. You’re lucky I don’t hit women, because you deserve it for that.” I pushed my hat onto my head and stood.
“You’re damn lucky Edith Green is too intelligent for your childish pranks. Rachel is lucky to have an administrator who took the time to actually know what kind of person she is. Never again,” I growled leaning on the table. “Am I understood?” She swallowed and nodded and I pivoted on one boot toward the door. I looked back over my shoulder and she was still watching me, her eyes sad and shining wetly in the sunlight.
“I guess this is goodbye, Daniel,” she said, blinking away the tears.
“Just take care of yourself,” I replied, and tipped my hat in a goodbye. Jackson gave me a thumbs up from the table behind her and both boys escaped out the door behind them. When I met them at the truck, Caleb offered me his hand.
“I wanted to protect my sister, but I’m real glad you took the high ground. It wouldn’t have been right to do to her what she was doing.”
I nodded and let them in the truck. As far as I was concerned, the matter was closed. Now I just had to figure out what to do about Rachel’s ex, who was still in the hospital and out of reach of my fists.
Rachel wasn’t answering texts, which I assumed meant she was getting to go and enjoy a ride with the girls or my mother had cornered her about the wedding. I felt a stab of guilt that we hadn’t just eloped and avoided all the mess that had been dumped in our laps. But, she had agreed to marry my stupid ass, and I was going to see it through, no matter who tried to stop us.
Rachel was with my mother on the veranda when I pulled up, watching us as the gravel dust settled. The other two took off and left me to explain where we’d been and what we’d been up to, but before I could even begin to form an excuse, my mother stood, hugged me, and walked into the house, her face still blotchy from crying. I looked at the scared expression on Rachel’s face and feared the worst. She patted the empty cushion of the swing next to her and I sat sideways, my eyes never leaving her face.
“I have to tell you something that is not going to make you happy.” She was fidgeting with a manila folder in her lap and couldn’t look me in the face. I cleared my throat and leaned back out of her space as far as I could, waiting for the ax to fall.
“Okay, I’m listening, what do you have for me?” I hated the way she flinched at the tightness in my voice, but I kept still and waited for her to respond without reaching for her. She set the folder in my lap, but kept a hand over it so I couldn’t open it.
“I’m not going to lie or hide things from you. I need to tell you that when you went into town with the boys, I went to see Jason at the hospital.” I stiffened and blew out a hard breath.
“Okay. Is there a specific reason why you needed to?” I asked without adding the “without me” that rang out in my head.
“I needed to do this. For us.” She removed her hand from the folder and I opened it up. I felt dizzy and nauseated as I looked at the photos inside. I knew where each of the bruises photographed would have been on her body, just by the freckles and shades of her skin. They were all unique, as different as if they’d been paint strokes of yellow and purple, green and black, carelessly flung at a canvas. But the canvas was her flesh, and the fingerprints and knuckle-shaped bruises ruined the beauty of the canvas, they did not improve it.
“I took these to remind him that he hadn’t answered for some things he had done that were well within the statute of limitations, and at your father’s behest, made him aware that I could now match him in representation, since you would hire me the best lawyers and your brother works for the best firm in the state.”
She shut the folder with my hand still in it. I glanced over at her and the color had drained from her face and sweat beaded along her forehead.
“I’m sorry, Rachel. What can I do?” I asked, slipping my hand out of the pictures and taking hers instead. She sniffed back tears and smiled at me.
“I wasn’t going to let him try to sue you when he knew it was frivolous, just to waste your time and money, and maybe make it look like his driving drunk was your fault.” She traced on the back of my hand, following the veins and tendons.
“We’re family now, Rachel,” I reminded her. “We’ve been family since the day you kicked Cal Preston’s sorry ass.” She giggled and rubbed her knuckle at the memory.
“I think part of me hit him because I never hit Jason,” she admitted.
“No doubt, and no harm in it. You are much better at protecting others than you are at protecting yourself. Maybe we should work on that,” I teased her, bumping her shoulder with mine the way she did when she was feeling mischievous.
“No, I think I’ll just marry you, and let you protect me, while I protect you,” she replied, laying her head on my shoulder. “By the way, Edith called me today. She said that she had taken care of everything and I could finish school online. She gave me credits for all my remaining labs for being here this summer, with exception of my surgical hours, which I need to coordinate with Dr. Pallace.” She lifted her head and met my eyes. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me; I just couldn’t stand the thought of you leaving. I don’t suppose she mentioned the hefty donation she gouged the ranch for to make it happen?” Rachel shrugged and shook her head.
“Was it bad?” she whispered.
“It would’ve been highway robbery for anyone other than you.”
She laughed, and the sound broke the stillness of the afternoon like bells in a church steeple, ringing out and making my heart soar on the sound. I put my arms around her and kissed her forehead. This was how it was meant to be. No threats or lawsuits or undercover cameras. Just the two of us, protecting what was ours.
I whispered in her ear, and she gasped and her cheeks went pink as new apples. She let me take her hand and lead her back toward the cabin I planned on moving her into from then on, and I quietly closed the door to avoid the attention of the men coming in from all quarters for their supper.
She ran her hands under my shirt and I mirrored her movements, my fingers sliding from smooth skin to scarred and back again without her flinching or pulling away. Her breathing grew shallower as I squeezed her breast in my hand as I kissed her, tasting the moans on her tongue like honey. She let me undress her and I covered every inch of her body with kisses, leaving my own marks on her thighs and breasts until she was begging for all of me.
As I took her to the floor and wrapped her legs around me, she whispered in my ear, not talk of sex, but love, and every time she said it, I was pulled nearer to the edge of ecstasy. With her last “I love you,” her voice changed and I felt her squeeze tight around me as she screamed my name, her fingernails tearing into my back. The pain with the pleasure was enough to push me over the edge and I came with her as she clung to me, pulsing and throbbing inside her until I was spent.
She trembled in my arms, and I turned us over so that she rested on my body and I lay under her, still sheathed inside her. As she lay on me, I thanked the powers that be for the one woman in the world that could’ve completed my world showing up on my doorstep, broken and brave, to prove her worth.
“It’s impossible, you know,” I whispered to her. She tilted her head to question me with her eyes. “It’s impossible to prove your worth – every time someone
tries to make the test more difficult, you make them look like fools.” She smiled and lay her head back down on my chest. I hummed, then sang a favorite country song to myself, feeling her body rise and fall with each breath I took.
“I'd very much like to get married, maybe have kids and move away, 'cause there ain't nothing like your smile, your legs, and those eyes. I will beg and steal and borrow
to keep you safe your whole life,” she began to sing softly as I trailed off, her breath warm on my skin.
“And I don’t mind, if we take our time, cause I’m all yours, if you’re all mine.”
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THE HOT LAWYER
By Alexa Davis
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Alexa Davis
Chapter One
Tucker James Hargrave
The sunlight streamed in from my new view overlooking the park, and settled on her face. Libby, once the wife of my best friend and hero, was tear-stained and rumpled, and though it was a once-in-a-lifetime look for her, it was the second time that I’d seen her like that. The only other time had been almost exactly four months before, following her ex-husband’s funeral. Suddenly shut out of her own home and shunned by former friends who had stayed with the money in the divorce, she’d found me—and together, we’d told little Olivia stories about her dad, from his time in college as the senior who had shown me the ropes of college life, to the cactus pancakes he’d made Libby the morning he proposed.
Now, Libby sniffed and wiped her nose while I seethed in anger at Andrew’s selfish short-sightedness. I wanted to wrap her in my arms and tell her that I would fix everything, get Olivia’s inheritance back from Andrew’s gold-digging widow, and return my goddaughter to the only home she’d ever known. If only it would’ve been welcome.
“You know I wouldn’t have bothered you if it wasn’t for Olivia,” she sniffed again. I gripped my pen, bending it until I felt the casing crack, and dropped it on the desk before I could break it.
“Libby, I’m happy to help, in any way I can. I’ll go over the paperwork tonight, and we can meet in the morning at Jitters for coffee, and I’ll give you a preliminary prognosis.”
“No, I can meet you here...”
“Damn it, Libby! I’m not going to attack you or throw myself at you,” I snapped. “Stop acting like you’re in danger with me. I’m taking this off the books. Therefore, I need to meet with you outside of work hours, and I figured you’d be averse to dinner. So, Jitters, tomorrow before 8:00 a.m.” She nodded stiffly.
“I don’t think you’re going to attack me,” she argued.
“Good, because what happened between us was not wrong, or unhealthy, or disloyal. We both loved Andrew. But we were both single, mourning, and needed comfort. It kills me that you are so ashamed of that night.” I tugged at my hair, almost too long, and falling past my collar, now that I didn’t have to keep up appearances to please my senior partners. Libby stood, and I escorted her to the reception desk, nodding to Henry Wilmer, the son of the firm’s cofounder and my new boss. I saw the glint in Libby’s eyes but wasn’t fast enough to get her out the door before she introduced herself to him with a wry smile that almost looked sincere, even to me.
“Mr. Wilmer, you don’t know me, but my name is Elizabeth Peele; my husband was Andrew Peele. I have found myself floundering since he died, what with all the upheaval over at…” She jerked a thumb toward my old firm, knowing avoiding a non-compete suit depended on never referencing them. “Well, anyway, I need representation and I can’t think of a better firm than Snell and Wilmer.” Henry raised an eyebrow at me and I shrugged. To him, it was just one more client defecting to me in my split from my old firm.
“Well then, I’m sure Mr. Hargrave will take good care of you. I make sure all his old clients go straight to him. It keeps him too busy to think about leaving us and putting out his own shingle,” he teased, or rather, half-teased. But no matter how much he worried I’d leave, I had no interest in going solo. I’d been brought up a team player, raised as one of the oldest of five boys on the hardest working ranch in Texas. I knew the formula for success, and I was happy to work for a prestigious firm that had tenacity enough to cling to their morals.
“Of course, I wasn’t Mr. Hargrave’s client before,” Libby was saying as I turned my attention back to her, “I certainly don’t have to be now.”
“Nonsense. He’s arguably the best we have, and my dear, it seems like you could use the best.” He turned to me. “Keep me posted, I want to know if they’re going to be replacing my name on the stationary.” I shook my head and laughed as he grabbed my hand and clapped me on the back. He shook Libby’s hand as well, and I walked her to the parking garage.
“Libby. We’ll do everything we can for you. I don’t know what happened to Andrew, or between the two of you, but Olivia is my priority, just like she’s yours. I would’ve done this pro bono. I wish you had let me.”
“I already owe you so much. And you’re right, I feel ashamed and embarrassed about the way I… threw myself at you.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she cut me off. “I just need to know I can do this on my own. I was eighteen when I married Andrew. I worked and paid for him to go to school and didn’t even get to finish college myself. Then I stopped working, because ‘none of the other wives were working outside the home.’ It took years for us to get Olivia, and then, before she was old enough for kindergarten, he suddenly implodes our marriage, our family, and marries an actual stripper. A stripper!”
“I know, Libby. You couldn’t make this stuff up. He died so soon after, I just felt like he would’ve snapped out of it. I wish I’d gotten through to him.” Libby touched my wrist, sighed, and opened the door of her Cadillac.
“I know you did everything you could. That’s why I know you’ll do everything you can now. I’ll call your secretary and set up an appointment.” She shut the door, but I called out anyway for her to give Olivia my love. She nodded through the glass, and I backed away to let her out.
As I walked back into the building, Henry was waiting for me. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and nodded him into my office. I sat behind the desk he’d given me as a “welcome home” gift and watched him take his seat across the desk.
“The view was better twenty minutes ago,” I quipped, making him chuckle.
“I bet. Is she okay? I know Peele had gone through one doozy of a mid-life crisis before he died.”
“Yeah, you could say that. Right now, it’s a simple contest of the will. I don’t think we’ll get much, but the right judge will get some mementos for their daughter, Olivia, and a trust fund, which is all Libby wants anyway.”
“Doesn’t seem right, leaving that little girl with nothing,” he looked down at his hands. “She’d about the same age as my grandkids, isn’t she?” I nodded.
“I’ll make sure she’s taken care of.”
“I know you will, Tuck, that’s why you’re here. The influx of clientele was just a happy accident for us.” He stood to go, but looked back from the doorway. “She was awfully pretty for someone who’d been crying. She must be absolutely stunning when she’s smiling.”
“One of many reasons no one can understand what Andrew did.” I finished his thought. “Yes. I know.” He shook his head and closed the door behind him, leaving me to the silence I preferred. Once he was gone, I opened the file Libby had left me. It wasn’t Andrew’s work; I’d seen that, and it had been sloppy and disjointed before he died. One of the partners had done this for him, and it was solid. My gut clenched. The last thing I wanted to do was tell Libby that her dau
ghter’s future was hinging on a sympathetic judge. I gathered the folder and a few other cases I was working on and told Sandra, my assistant, that I’d be working from home for the rest of the day.
Kennedy, my best friend and canine housekeeper, bayed at me from her kennel as soon as I hit the foyer of my condo. I grabbed some bacon-smelling dog treats and let her out, whereupon she promptly sat like an angel and waited patiently for me to reward her, her spotted rump twitching with excitement. She caught her treat and munched happily while I changed from my suit to the sweatpants and Marvel t-shirt I favored. My briefcase went at one end of the table, and out came the folder from Libby. With a heavy sigh, I called Caroline, Andrew’s former secretary, and the one person back at Cripke, Cripke, and Stokes that wouldn’t hang up on me or threaten me with a lawsuit—though I didn’t have much hope anymore that she’d help me, either.
Chapter Two
Elizabeth Grace Peele
The preschool was in the middle of recess, Olivia’s favorite time of day. Her bubblegum pink dress swirled as she played ring around the roses with her best friends, Makayla and Britney, while the sun shone down on her hair, turning the auburn ringlets I’d meticulously tamed into a riot of golden fire as she swung around, laughing and singing.
Her hat had been dropped and forgotten the moment she stepped outside, as always, and I hoped the teacher had at least remembered sun screen for the little ones. D’Ante ran up to them with a fistful of flowers he’d picked off the bushes that grew against the chain link, and instantly, the girls chased him back to the bushes, where they started a new game, of restaurant, or house, depending on which of them was talking. The fragile orange blooms were pounded and pressed into plastic dishes used for playing in the dirt, and more flowers were scattered across them before they were served to other little girls in the class who were beginning to wander over, one and two at a time.