Sweet Entanglement (Indigo Bay Sweet Romance Series Book 12)

by Jean C. Gordon

  “I … I thought … they wouldn’t.” She straightened in the chair. There was no conspiracy, only some kind of mix-up, or several mix-ups. “I’m not looking to place blame, and it’s not my law firm. I’m not a partner.”

  “But you want to be.”

  “That’s my plan.” Or it was. Since Jesse had arrived in Indigo Bay, her whole life had been upended. And she didn’t like it. It stretched the boundaries of her neat little comfort zone.

  “At any cost?”

  “Of course not.” She rolled her shoulders to counter the itch between her shoulder blades. “Do you want someone else to represent you?

  “I want a lot of things. Working with either of your partners isn’t one of them.”

  “There are other law firms in town.”

  “What are we doing here?” Jesse scraped his hand through his hair. “Isn’t it time we laid this disagreement to rest. Your career versus my career, or lack of one.”

  She dropped her chin to her chest. The uneasiness at work lately, the thoughts she’d had about her bosses. What career? Maybe she was the one with no career future.

  Jesse stepped over and squeezed her shoulder. The soft look on his face lifted some of the weight from her chest.

  “I’m not chasing fame anymore. Not with Shelley, Dad, the agreement with your mother about the property.”

  Despite looking a little forced, his grin shot straight to her heart.

  “You, me. We’re both chasing security. Wouldn’t we be more of a force working together?”

  The truth of his statement, her longing for an earlier time, to be one with Jesse, obliterated everything else in her mind. Lauren stood, wrapped her arms around Jesse’s waist, and placed her head against his chest. His heartbeat was rivaling hers for a new speed record. “Yes, a formidable force.”

  He lifted her chin. Let’s do it then. And when all this legal stuff is done …”

  He brushed her lips with a whisper of a kiss that left her longing for me. So much more.

  “We have something else to settle.”

  Lauren didn’t know whether to take that as a threat or a promise, so she lost herself in the strength of his arms so she didn’t have to think about it.

  C H A P T E R 9

  “Do you have a minute?” Ray caught Lauren on her way to relieve Brittany on the front desk so the legal assistant could take her lunch break.

  “Brittany’s going on her lunch break.” She bit her tongue. Ray would certainly think anything he had to say to her was more important than her coworker’s lunch. And in the great scheme of things, it probably was.

  “Brittany,” he shouted up the hall. “Lauren will be there in a couple minutes. Ray motioned her into his office. “No need to sit. As I told Brittany, this will only take a minute.”

  Lauren pasted what she hoped was an interested-looking smile on her face. She hadn’t abandoned all hope of becoming partner or wanting to become partner, despite her uneasy feelings about her bosses.

  “I saw that the DNA results came in on the Brewster case.”

  She shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Yes, indicating Mr. Brewster is the father.”

  “Good. That should simplify the guardianship review.” He rubbed his hands together.

  She couldn’t block the picture in her mind of some weaselly cartoon character doing the same with an evil grin on his face. Ray’s expression was neutral.

  “You’ve got the hearing on the docket?”

  “Yes, moved up to tomorrow morning. A scheduled case settled out of court. Judge Trexler’s assistant called me earlier today to see if we could be ready.” She’d automatically said “yes,” but hadn’t heard back from Jesse yet.

  “Even better. Get that and the planning commission hearing wrapped up.”

  Wrapping up the legal part of her relationship with Jesse wasn’t a problem. It was the personal, family loose ends that were whipping in the wind.

  “We need your time free to work with Ken on a new development project he’s launching.”

  “Ken Kostner?”

  “Who else?”

  Every muscle in her body locked in joint step. “Here in Indigo Bay?” One by one, her muscles relaxed after her question came out in a normal, casual tone, rather than the way the words had screamed through her head first.

  “It’s a new joint venture with another firm in Charleston.”

  That didn’t exactly answer her question. Maybe, she should ask why Ray was anxious to close Jesse’s case. No. That would get her the same disdain that her “Ken-who” question had.

  “And before I forget. You asked about the Morrison estate receiving notice of the property condemnation meeting. The notice was after the estate had been settled. The city clerk reminded me that the notice was published in the newspaper at the same time, and I checked the dates. We didn’t receive any notice. But your client should have. If he didn’t know, it was no fault of ours or the clerk’s office.”

  Ray had investigated her question? To what end? Cover the firm? From what? And whose fault had it been? She was veering dangerously close to the edge of conspiracy again. The reason why flashed in her mind. She didn’t want it to be Jesse’s fault. She wanted him to be the responsible person he said he was and was trying to be now. Her mother’s financial partner. A future business owner with his father if they opened the bike shop Jesse talked about.

  “Brewster will have his say at the planning meeting. Either he can meet the time frame the board wants or he can’t, and we can move on to other things.”

  But she wasn’t ready for some of the things she had to move on to. “We should be able to negotiate a reasonable completion date. And he and his father are talking about opening another business in Indigo Bay. More business for the firm,” she added to give some purpose to her words other than rooting for Jesse’s success. Which she was.

  “Good.” Ray’s voice was flat.

  Ray’s lack of any enthusiasm for the prospect of new business, considering the lack there of, except for Ken’s new venture, ticked off Lauren. If she was going to make partner, she had to expand her client base. But at the moment, she was about as enthused about that as Ray seemed to be.

  “Keep me updated on the guardianship, and when you can get to work with Ken.”

  “Will do, and the situation with the Morrison … Brewster property.”

  “Yeah, that too.”

  Ray shuffled the papers on his desk into a pile.

  “I’ll go relieve Brittany.”

  “Let her know that Gerry and I’ll be out for the afternoon.”

  She wasn’t aware that Gerry was in to be out. “Sure.” She forced herself to take regular measured steps, rather than bolting from the weirdness that had descended on the firm—or, at least on her place in it.

  “Here I am,” she said as she stepped into the reception area.

  “Great. I thought Ray was going to make me late for my nail appointment. They were able to squeeze me in.”

  Lauren took in the faint flush on her coworker’s face. “Hot date tonight?”

  “No. Sort of. My brother’s former college roommate is in town, and my brother invited me to make a foursome with his girlfriend for dinner.” Brittany grabbed her bag and grinned. “I’ve wanted to get to know this guy better forever, but he was engaged. And now he’s not.”

  “Shoo,” Lauren said. “Or you’re going to make yourself late.”

  Lauren went and got her lunch from the refrigerator in the employee room off reception. She opened the plastic salad container and Spider Solitaire on Brittany’s computer for a mindless diversion from the thoughts ping ponging in her head. Thoughts that all had their roots in Jesse and her feelings for him. The feelings that, no matter how much she tried to deny them, were as strong as they had ever been. Since she was alone in the office, she turned on the game’s sound as if that could drown everything out.

  “Hey.”

  Lauren jerked at Jesse’s voice. She hadn’t heard th
e door open or close. Guess the sound did drown out something. She licked her tongue across her teeth to make sure she didn’t have a piece of spinach or something stuck in them, and her hands automatically smoothed her hair.

  “Hey, yourself. What brings you here?”

  “You called.”

  “You could have called back.”

  “But I couldn’t have seen you then.”

  “You could have video called.”

  Jesse gave her a slow perusal that sent a tingle up her spine. “I couldn’t have seen you in person.”

  Laure fidgeted in her chair. She had to put a stop to this conversation before it incinerated her. “I thought you and your dad were busy working today.”

  “I’m never too busy for you.”

  Nor am I too busy for you, no matter how I try to be. “What I called about was that there’s an unexpected opening on the court docket tomorrow, and the judge will hear our guardianship petition.”

  “Yes!” Jesse shouted, striding over and pulling her to her feet.

  He gave her a quick smack on the lips that shouldn’t have set fireworks off in her. But did. His joy was for Shelley, not for her. As it should be.

  “Since you’re here, I had a couple things I wanted to go over with you for court.”

  He let go of her. “Sure.”

  “First, we’re scheduled for ten.”

  Jesse’s phone rang. “I’d better see who this is. It could be Emma, Shelley’s new babysitter, or something.”

  “Of course.” His daughter was his first priority. But Lauren couldn’t help remembering a time when she had held that place, ahead sometimes even of his racing. A wash of what could only be called guilt flowed over her. She’d professed to love him, yet let her self-promise to never allow a man to control her life as her father had controlled her mother’s push Jesse to second on her priority list, after her college and career ambitions.

  Pfft. Lauren glanced sidewise to see if Jesse had heard her. He was busy listening to his phone call. Career didn’t seem so all-important now. As Jesse had said, promised, after their legal business was settled …

  He ended the call. “I’ve got to go. Dad’s run into a problem.”

  “And he needs you.” She took measure of him, his broad shoulder, muscled forearms, the strength she knew he wielded inside and out.

  Didn’t they all?

  “All done. Cookie.” Shelley held up her empty dinner plate to Jesse.

  He couldn’t contain his goofy grin as Judge Trexler’s words from yesterday morning replayed in his head, “Under parental rights, Jesse Brewster’s guardianship and provisional custody of the minor child, Shelley Cavanaugh is confirmed.”

  One down. Although he had to “establish” them in their own household as part of the provisions that would get him permanently out from under the supervision of Child Protective Services. Something about Sonja’s duplex having insufficient bedrooms for three adults and a child. But he had a month to do that, and the engineer’s inspection had found that, unlike the main house, the cottage didn’t have any structural damage. It only needed a deep cleaning, cosmetic repairs, and child proofing to make an acceptable home.

  One to go. The planning board meeting tonight. He took the plate from Shelley, and she hopped down from the chair.

  “Free.” She held up all of her fingers.

  “Two. One for each hand,” he countered.

  She grabbed them. “Okay. Cure-us George.”

  “The Curious George DVD I picked up today,” Sonja said. “Emma brought one of her little sister’s the other day, and Shelley couldn’t stop talking about it.”

  Emma. The babysitter. Guilt tugged at him. He hadn’t seen her since he’d hired her. He and Dad had been leaving for the worksite early, before Sonja, and working as long as they had natural light. He would have worked longer, except the electricity wasn’t on in either structure and he wanted to limit use of the generator to their power tools to save money. Jesse was only home for supper today because of the planning board meeting. He glanced at Shelley gazing up at him expectantly.

  “Daddy-Jesse. Cure-us George?”

  Before he could answer, his father scooped her up and tickled her belly with his nose.

  “Remember, your daddy has his meeting tonight.”

  Dad had talked to Shelley about his meeting? He had a lot to learn about this parenting stuff.

  “Grandma and I’ll watch your movie with you,” Jesse’s dad said.

  “`Kay, Pa.”

  “Jesse, go ahead and get ready. We have this covered.”

  He did as his dad had said. He did need to clean up more and change out of his work clothes. There’d be more time later, after the renovations were done and their future was secured. He’d be there for Shelley more then, make it up to her. His pulse throbbed in his throat. Like he’d promised himself about Lauren when he’d been at the top of his racing career? Jesse rolled his shoulders. But he and Lauren had another chance now—a chance he’d also put off for the renovations.

  Jesse fastened the top button of his shirt, ran his finger around the inside of the collar, and looked at the tie on the bed. He hated anything tight around his neck. Anything except Lauren’s arms. But this evening was about business, not about them. He needed to look like the businessman he wanted to be.

  “Jesse,” Sonja called up the stairs. “Lauren is here.”

  He tied the tie and grabbed his sports jacket from the closet, folding it over his arm. It had to be 90 degrees outside. Maybe he didn’t need to wear a jacket. He’d ask Lauren. He bounded down the stairs to see Lauren all suited up. But her black suit had short sleeves. His gaze dropped. And it looked like she had one of those light almost nothing sleeveless shirts underneath. He swallowed. Her straight skirt molded her curves, ending at her knees. Business. Keep your mind on business.

  “Hey,” Jesse said as he pulled on the jacket. Lauren had him on the edge of an inferno. What would another few degrees matter?

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Yep.” But not necessarily for what she was asking. He picked up the leather case with a copy of the project plans that Sonja had lent him. The engineer would have a copy, too, but he figured if he was masquerading as a businessman, he might as well go all out.

  “Looking good,” she said when they stepped out onto the front porch.

  Jesse preened. So, he wasn’t the only one doing some checking out.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you this dressed up since …” Lauren stopped mid-step and cleared her throat. “Since the last team Christmas party we went to.” She strode ahead to her car.

  Was she thinking of the promise he’d given her that night, too? He opened the passenger side door and slid in, shifting in the seat as she drove toward the city hall in silence. “Mind if I put the radio on?” he asked a few blocks into the drive.

  “Go ahead.” The silence broken, she continued. “Have you changed your mind and contacted the police about what happened at the mansion the other day as I’d advised you to?”

  “No.”

  Her question irritated him, which it shouldn’t. She was only acting as his attorney, keeping their relationship professional. But he didn’t want to pack on more legal entanglements. He wanted their professional relationship to be wrapped up, end tonight with the planning board meeting, so they could pursue their personal relationship.

  “As I told you, it was nothing—a can of gas. Probably, some kid’s four-wheeler or bike ran out nearby. It was an easy refill, what with Dad leaving the can out next to the portable generator where it could be seen from the gate while he grabbed lunch on the boardwalk. I’m not proud of it, but I’ll admit it’s something I might have done as a teen.”

  What he wasn’t going to admit was that the gas can had reappeared today while he and Dad were at lunch. Full. Dad had thought it was the person returning the gas, but something had made Jesse check it before they used it. The gas had been cut with water and something gritty—a
mixture that could have killed the generator and cost them both money and time.

  “All right. I won’t press it.” Lauren took a sharp right. “To change topics, tonight should be straight forward. Cara will present her engineering report and your plans, and we’ll negotiate a rehabilitation agreement with the board.”

  “Yeah, I understand that.” He didn’t know why Lauren was telling him what they’d already discussed, except it was a neutral topic. Jesse studied her profile out of the corner of his eye. Her facial muscles were relaxed. His chest tightened. Maybe she was reassuring him. “And I want to hold fast to the six to eight months’ time frame for completion.”

  “Right, I can’t see that being a problem.” Lauren pulled into a parking place in front of the city hall.

  He looked around at the other empty parking spaces. “Doesn’t look like a large crowd.”

  “Shouldn’t be. We’re the only ones on the agenda, and I can’t see anyone opposing what you and Mom are doing. The Morrison mansion is a historical landmark around here. In fact, the city clerk told me she was pleased to hear you were going to fix it up, rather than tear it down and build.”

  “Sounds like someone good to have on our side.” He opened the car door. “Let’s go in and get this over with, so I can get down to work rebuilding.”

  A home and what we once had.

  “Hi, Lauren.” She and Jesse ran into Dallas Harper and one of the other planning board members, a crony of her bosses and Ken Kostner, in the city hall lobby on their way to the meeting room.

  “Hi, Dallas. I want to thank you for the help and advice you’ve given Mom about the positives and pitfalls of running rental properties in Indigo Bay. It’s really helped with her B&B project planning.”

  “No problem. It’s not like her short-term rentals will cut into my cottage occupation.” He laughed. “Besides, there are plenty of tourists for both of us, and then some.”

  Jesse nudged her with his elbow. “Where are my manners? Dallas Harper, this is Jesse Brewster, an old friend. Dallas owns and rents out those cute cottages along Seaside Boulevard. And this is…”