He nodded. “Maybe.”
His mother frowned and tousled his hair. “Well, charmer, are you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“Mom, this is Grace Wade.”
She clutched her chest. “Oh, it’s such a pleasure. Rory has been singing your praises all over this town since you decided to move here. And she spent hours and hours shopping to get the perfect furniture for your office.”
“She is quite the decorator.” I couldn’t help but agree. The place looked amazing.
“Maybe you could give me the tour.” Blane’s gaze caressed my face as he dropped his voice low enough I doubted his mother heard.
A warm feeling in the tiny space below my belly said he wanted more than a tour of the office. I twisted my hands together in my lap, a move normally accompanied by a mu-wah-ha-ha kind of laugh. “Anytime.”
“I guess you’re anxious to get to work?” His mother had a tinkling quality to her tone that brought an image of a bell to mind.
Blane raised an eyebrow. “I heard you had a busy afternoon.”
“I did. My first client.” Small town America. Some things never changed, no matter how far away from home I traveled. “The Quinns.”
He tilted his head to one side, his eyes half lidded. “You’re taking that case?”
Maybe because of Rory’s reaction, or maybe because of the crime Quinn’s wife was accused of, my stomach clenched and my voice escaped in a bare whisper. “Yes.”
He nodded, but a new chill in the air sent a shiver across my arms. I rubbed my hands up and down the prickled skin. “And I can’t talk you out of it?”
“Probably not.” I lifted my chin a fraction higher and met his gaze.
“She’s guilty, you know.” His tone, and the sudden hostility dripping from it, rippled across my skin.
Blane’s mother toyed with a cross hanging from a delicate silver chain as frown lines etched her forehead. “She killed her baby.”
Oh, boy.
“Do you all have some inside information I don’t know about? A hidden video, or maybe a witness hiding in the closet that’s going to pop up in the eleventh hour?” I had virtually no details of the case, but I had a gut feeling about the broken woman I’d spoken to. More than my skills, and more than my education or knowledge of the law, I trusted my instincts.
Blane’s mother turned without another word and the bell above the door jingled as she left. To calm my fury, I followed her with my gaze as she stalked past the window.
“Grace, what if she did it? Can you live with it if she goes free?”
“I’ve never had a problem sleeping at night before, and I can’t see this case bringing on a rush of insomnia either.” My peaceful sleep had nothing to do with the three or so glasses of wine I drank before bed. Probably.
The weight of a dozen angry gazes settled on me. People in booths who’d barely taken interest in my arrival now glared at me. I couldn’t get a good read on Blane or his brother since neither would look at me.
Blowing out a breath, I lifted my head and drummed my fingers on the table. “If she did it, I have faith the system will handle it.”
“And you won’t interfere with that?”
What kind of question was that? Of course, I would. My job demanded I interfere using every resource in my arsenal. “You mean, will I hold back if I believe she’s guilty?”
Without a word, he lifted his gaze to mine.
“That’s not how the system works. I’m honor-bound to do my job completely or the whole idea of jurisprudence means nothing.” I could have gone on forever about my beliefs in a system that had never let me down, but he dropped his mouth open as though my words offended him.
“Even if you know for a fact she did it? You’ll stand up there and ask the jury to find her innocent of murdering a three-year-old?” He flopped back against the booth, crossed his arms, and shook his head.
“I’ll never know for a fact she did it. I wasn’t there and neither were any of you.” I glanced from Blane to his brother, then around the room. Had it suddenly shrunk? All of these random diner customers seemed to be much closer than when we walked in. Damn. “Blane, thank you for offering to buy me dinner, but I think I’m going to take my chances with a frozen pizza and a bottle of cheap grocery store wine.” At least in the safety of my apartment, I wouldn’t be scowled to death.
“Grace.”
I held up a hand. “No. It’s okay. I’ve been in this spot before.” Not that I’d enjoyed it. I slid out of the booth and stood, then stepped past his brother who’d come to stand at the edge of the table between us. His mouth gaped open as I leaned down. “See you around, Tex.”
I stomped back to the grocery store, picked up the pile of stuff he’d set on the shelf and strode to the checkout counter. When the cashier picked up the box of condoms, I stared hard at the swirling silver font. “Never mind. I don’t need those.”
“Round here, we usually let the man take care of this kind of thing.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How very nineteen eighties of you.”
She shoved the box to the side, took my money, and bagged my purchases without another word.
Chapter 4
The ringing of my phone, along with the sunrise, woke me from a sound, dreamless sleep. I’d barely unpacked my pajamas before falling into bed. Why was the phone ringing at six a.m.? I glared with one open eye at the name on the screen. Rory. Perfect.
I slid the answer bar across and said, “Hello,” waiting for the ding of round two’s bell announcement.
“Grace, don’t hang up on me. I’m sorry. I had no right to act that way.”
No, she didn’t, but my dad always said a little graciousness never hurt. I didn’t always agree, but this time, in the interest of our working relationship and the renewal of our friendship, his words rang true. “It’s okay, Rory. I should have consulted you before I took the case.”
“That’s not how this works, Grace. Five years ago, I would have hiked up my britches and jumped right on it myself.” Her accent lacked the sexy slur in Blane’s, but still softened every consonant. “I know this case isn’t about me or my past.”
If her past belonged to me, I would have been shredded. She’d come home to find her son dead. Maybe because she’d already lost too much, or maybe, because, in her grief, she believed every foul lie out of her ex-husband’s mouth, successfully defended, then divorced the murderer when the truth came out.
A few years later, thinking she’d finally out-lived the pain of her past, she took a job with a big Dallas firm and was on her way to partnership. Her boss, whose judgment had been clouded by the promise of a judicial seat in exchange for her help with the case, set Rory up to relive her personal tragedy in defense of a guilty client. Risking her career, Rory exposed the truth to the prosecutor. Legal tabloid shows put her life on the screen every night for weeks. They dissected her behavior for a long time even after the case ended. Somehow, she survived, but I didn’t have a clue how.
“I never thought about how this would affect you.”
“And you shouldn’t have to. You were right.”
She had courage I could only dream of. “So you’re okay with it? Me taking her case and defending her?”
Her