Her arms were full of files which she immediately transferred into his.
The woman didn’t bother with an introduction.
“Call Mr. Abernathy about tomorrow’s hearing. You have a ten o’clock appointment with Joan Reynolds. Mr. Wyatt wants to know why no one has returned his calls. He’s on line two and he’s not getting off until he talks to a lawyer.” About to take off again, she skidded to a halt in order to add, “Oh, and the temp called in sick again and Harry is stuck in traffic and says he’ll get here when he gets here.”
Only quick reflexes had Jordan saving himself from an unscheduled close-to-scalding cappuccino bath. He managed to switch hands just before this Energizer Bunny on steroids with the rapid-fire mouth dumped the files on him.
Still shell-shocked, he stared at her now. “Harry?” he repeated. His voice sounded hoarse to his ears.
The woman was frowning. And her eyes were passing over him as if she was judging him—and finding him wanting. “Harry Reed. The other lawyer who works here.”
Finished, she turned on her heel, giving every indication that she was about to disappear into the abyss from whence she had emerged.
“Hold it!” Jordan called after her.
Ordinarily, when he took that tone with the law clerks who were interning at Morrison and Treherne, they froze. If they looked up at him at all, it was with meek expressions on their faces. Whoever this whirling dervish was, she only paused in her flight, glancing at him over her shoulder. There was a look of barely suppressed annoyance on her face.
“Yes?”
“Just who the hell are you?” he demanded sternly. He wasn’t accustomed to being ordered around, fluffed off or ignored and she had done all three in the space of less than a minute.
“I’m Sarajane.” She said the name as if that was supposed to mean something to him. When he made no response, she added her last name impatiently. “Sarajane Gerrity.”
The frown on what seemed like an otherwise pretty face deepened. Exasperated, Sarajane turned completely around and crossed back to him. “You are Jenny Logan’s brother, aren’t you? Jordan Hall?”
That was a new one on him. He couldn’t remember himself ever having been referred to that way. If anything, Jenny was regarded as “Jordan Hall’s sister.” He was the one who had garnered fame and attention in the family, not Jenny. To have it stripped away so cavalierly was a completely new experience for him. Apparently, in this small corner of the universe, his sister had come into her own.
Way to go, Jen.
“Yes, I am,” he answered.
Sarajane nodded, as if she approved and he had given the right answer to her question. But the slight frown remained. “She said you’d be coming in today to try to help out.”
He noticed that she’d said try. As if she didn’t expect him to accomplish anything. Obviously the woman didn’t get out much. Or maybe she just didn’t read the local section of the newspaper. The cases he handled appeared in print with a fair amount of regularity. There was talk of making him a partner at the firm the next time around.
“She didn’t tell me about you,” Jordan countered. Jenny had called him again late last night, to tell him about the office manager or office secretary. He hadn’t paid that much attention really. She might have even said the woman’s name, he wasn’t sure. Besides, office managers weren’t people he ordinarily interacted with unless they forgot to order something he needed.
A buzzer sounded behind him. Jordan turned around just as the front door opened. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the woman with the disapproving expression suddenly transform, as if a magic wand had been waved over her. The frown vanished, replaced by a warm, welcoming smile. She looked positively sympathetic.
And positively beautiful, he realized.
Devoid of her frown, Sarajane Gerrity’s features softened. She looked almost radiant. Despite his best efforts not to, he found that his attention was immediately engaged.
Sarajane sailed by him as if he was nothing more than one of the desks or chairs in the place. Her attention seemed to be completely focused on the couple who had just walked in. He looked at the couple now. They appeared to be in their later fifties, possibly early sixties and life had not been kind to either of them.
He caught himself wondering what had brought them here and what had put that close-to-panic look on the woman’s face.
“Please, have a seat,” Sarajane was saying. She gestured toward two chairs in front of the desk closest to the front door. The desk had an incredible amount of papers piled on it. As she coaxed the couple to sit, Sarajane scooped away one of the piles of paper, depositing it onto the adjacent desk. “I was just about to make some coffee. Can I get either of you a cup?” Sarajane asked.
“No, no coffee.” The woman had an accent he couldn’t readily place. He watched her open her purse and take out a much-creased packet of papers. “Just help,” the woman entreated simply. “We got this in the mail—” she began, holding up the papers.
But Sarajane stayed the woman’s hand before she could launch into her tale. She nodded her head toward Jordan. “Mr. Hall over there will be right with you.” Retracing her steps back to him, Sarajane took possession of the files again, digging them out of his arms. “These will be waiting for you on the table,” she promised. She placed them next to the pile she’d just shifted from the first desk.
It was clear that the walk-ins took precedence over all the other instructions she’d fired at him.
“What about Mr. Wyatt?” he wanted to know. The light on the phone on what she indicated was his desk was blinking almost hypnotically.
Even as he posed the question, another line lit up and began to ring. Followed immediately by another. He had the feeling that this was business as usual in this place.
He looked at Sarajane expectantly and barely heard the sigh that escaped her lips. She tossed her head ever so slightly as her eyes met his. “I’ll take care of him for now.”
He couldn’t remember ever hearing more confidence infused into a sentence.
More lines began to ring until every light in the single row was lit. The buzzer went off again as two more people came in.
The man nodded in Jordan’s direction and made himself at home on one of the chairs along one wall. The woman, apparently less familiar with her surroundings than the man, took a seat as well, perching awkwardly on the edge of the folding chair, looking as if she intended to take flight at the slightest provocation. Upon closer scrutiny, Jordan saw that she looked as if she’d been crying.
In the background, Jordan could discern what sounded like the arthritic rumblings of a battle-worn coffeemaker going through its paces, the water grumbling as it was being heated.
This was a far cry from the plush corporate offices where he usually spoke to clients, Jordan thought as he took a seat at the desk opposite the couple that had come in first.
The second he put his full weight on it, the chair began to wobble beneath him. Caught off guard, Jordan grabbed either side of the desk to steady himself and keep from ignobly sinking to the black-and-white-checkered floor.
“Oh, and your chair has a loose wheel,” Sarajane called out without even turning in his direction. She was busy taking down the names of the two people who had just entered. “I’d be careful how I sat down on it if I were you.”
Maybe the woman was better suited to the fortune-teller’s shop next door, Jordan thought as he nodded at the distraught couple.
He put on his most confident smile, the one he wore for the paying clients. He’d been told it put them at their ease. “How