Mr. Hall Takes a Bride Read online

  Chapter Eleven

  Eric laughed louder. “Now there’s a word you don’t often hear applied to you.” He smiled at Sarajane. “You obviously need more experience with crusaders, Sarajane.” His eyes shifted to his friend. “See you around, Jordy. Stay out of trouble.”

  And with that, Eric left the two of them in the parking lot.

  Sarajane’s complexion had turned that intriguing shade of pink again. “Don’t mind him. I liked being called a crusader.”

  She was sure he did. Damn, why couldn’t the earth open up and swallow her? Then she wouldn’t have to stand here, desperately trying to regain lost ground. “I tend to say the first thing that comes to mind when I’m caught off guard.”

  Reaching his vehicle, he opened the passenger door for her. “What caught you off guard?”

  “You,” she answered honestly, getting in. “I didn’t expect you to go the extra mile for someone who can’t pay that exorbitant fee of yours.”

  He got in on his side and started up his car. It was nice to be out of that metal enclosure. He suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of sympathy for Joe Juarez. “Why is it even when you give me a compliment, it sounds like a criticism?”

  She shrugged, sitting back in her seat, looking straight ahead. Avoiding his face. It was easier that way. “Maybe it’s because you’re too good-looking.”

  “What?” That made absolutely no sense to him.

  She spared him a quick glance. “Good-looking men tend to be shallow.”

  This again. He’d always hated generalities, those broad, sweeping statements that mindlessly wiped out an entire population with their thoughtless rhetoric. But this was Sarajane and she had gotten him out, so he was willing to be tolerant. And maybe even a little amused because she looked so serious.

  “And I take it you’ve conducted an intensive study on this?”

  He saw her stiffen in her seat, as if under physical attack. “I’ve had experience.”

  What, one boyfriend who turned out to be a rat? Two? He doubted if there’d been more men in her life than that. For one thing, she was too young, for another, she seemed to be entirely caught up in her work. First one there, last one gone. As far as he could see, that left her very little time for socializing.

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” he said gamely. “How much experience have you had?”

  She avoided looking at him. “Enough.”

  That’s what he thought. Jordan eased his foot off the gas onto the brake as the light up ahead turned red. “You’re how old?”

  Sarajane bristled. “What does my age have to do with it?”

  As a lawyer, he knew evasion when he heard it. “I’d take your declaration a little more seriously if you were approaching fifty. At less than half that, you haven’t been around enough men to form even a preliminary opinion.”

  Typical male thinking. Sarajane raised her chin defensively. “I have been around enough.”

  He wasn’t about to leave that unexplored, even if he didn’t find himself becoming progressively more interested in her, which he was. By the second. He even felt a smattering of jealousy stirring.

  “How many were ‘enough’?” He watched her press her lips together. From out of nowhere he felt a longing to have those same lips repeat the action against his. “C’mon, Sarajane, if I’m to give your theory any credence at all, I need an answer.”

  Her eyes narrowed stubbornly, as she braced herself for ridicule. “Two.”

  “Two,” he echoed incredulously.

  The light had turned to green. Since he wasn’t moving, she gestured him on. “Two.”

  “Two,” he repeated for a second time, shaking his head. Foot on the gas, he began driving again. “You do realize, don’t you, that two’s the lowest number, besides one, you could come up with.” When she made no response, he added, “I thought you were supposed to be so open-minded.”

  She scowled at him. How did this become about her? She’d just rescued his sorry hide out of jail, he was supposed to be grateful, not combative.

  “Shouldn’t you be preparing for tomorrow?” she asked him in an icy tone.

  The laugh was short and dismissive. With no clues, no leads and, troublingly, a suddenly uncooperative accused, the matter was temporarily out of his hands. “At this point, if Rusty doesn’t come up with something, the only way I can prepare for this case is to find the nearest church and start lighting candles. Joe Juarez did a one-eighty on us. He now wants me to back off and let him get sent away for the crime.”

  When had this happened? The last she’d heard, Joe was claiming to be innocent. Jordan had to have gotten it wrong. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I went to see him three times this weekend to try to build some kind of a case for him.” Juarez was a completely different man from the one he’d first interviewed when he accepted the case on Friday. “The first two times, he was all gung-ho. The last visit, I got the impression that he was giving up. Not because he was hopeless, but just because. Something, or someone, changed his mind.”

  Sarajane refused to believe him. “You’re imagining things.”

  “I wish I were.” Having nothing but circumstantial evidence was difficult enough, but without the accused cooperating, they might as well call it a day and wait for the judge’s sentence.

  Sarajane looked at him, mystified. “Why would a man willingly go to prison?”

  Jordan had been asking himself that same question since Saturday. “My best guess is either he’s guilty and is suffering from one hell of a bout of remorse—”

  She waited for him to follow it up. When he didn’t, she prodded, “Or?”

  This alternative, to him, seemed to be the more likely of the two scenarios. During the last visit with Joe on the weekend, he’d seemed distracted, as if he were worried about something. “Or he’s protecting someone and this case is bigger than it looks.”

  As far as she knew, from what Alicia had told her, Joe wasn’t seeing anyone. His whole world was work and his kids. “Who would he be protecting?”

  Again, Jordan laughed dryly under his breath. “If I had the answer to that, tomorrow would be a slam dunk for our side.”

  It wasn’t.

  As it turned out, with Judge Rhinehardt all but visibly hostile toward the defense and Joe Juarez unable or unwilling to come up with anything that would cause at least some members of the jury to be inclined to have doubts about his guilt, by the day’s end, Jordan saw his perfect, spotless record for winning cases go down in flames.

  The jury returned to the courtroom after spending barely twenty minutes deliberating. The verdict was guilty.

  In the sum total of things, the loss was hardly noticeable.

  But he noticed. For him, it stood out in ten-foot-high, glaring letters.

  You lost.

  There was nothing Jordan hated more than losing. Especially when he felt he was in the right. Closed mouth or not, there was something about his client that bespoke innocence.

  He’d tried one last time this morning to make Joe come around just before the judge made his entrance into the courtroom.

  Leaning to his left, he’d kept his voice low. “C’mon, Joe, there’s got to be something you can give me, something I can work with in order to keep you out of prison.”

  But Joe was stoic. From his expression, he appeared to have made his peace with what was to be. “You’re wasting your time, counselor. Thanks for the effort, but just leave this alone. You’ve done your best.”

  He hadn’t done anything at all, yet, Jordan thought, except get frustrated. He lowered his voice even more, whispering the words into Joe’s ear. “If you feel guilty for some reason, think of your kids. They need a father around.”

  Joe drew his head back enough to look Jordan in the eye. He looked determined. “I am thinking of the kids. I’m doing this for them.”

  Jordan felt a sliver of temper surge. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Joe shook his head, folding his hands
before him as if he were in school. Just like Alicia, Jordan couldn’t help thinking. “I can’t say anything further.” Those were his last words on the subject.

  “I’m your lawyer, you can tell me anything and it won’t go any further until you give me permission.” He needed to know what was going on.

  But Joe looked determined to keep his own counsel and then the judge entered the courtroom. A hush fell over the crowd just before they all rose.

  It was downhill after that.

  “We’ll appeal,” Jordan promised Joe with feeling as he saw the bailiff approaching.

  “It’s okay.” Joe’s expression belonged to a man resigned to his fate. “Don’t bother. I got what I deserved.”

  Gene Russo, the older of the two owners of the racing team pushed through the crowd and reached the defense table before anyone could stop him. Broad and over six feet tall, he looked particularly menacing when angry. And he was angry.

  “Where’s the hell’s the damn engine, you miserable bastard?” he demanded. Two more bailiffs came running over to intervene before the scene could get out of hand, each grabbing Russo by the arm.

  Joe looked at his former boss, oddly calm in the face of this abrupt threat. “I’m sorry,” he said just before cuffs were snapped on his wrists.

  Russo was dragged away in the opposite direction, his path marked by a barrage of curses.

  “He looked relieved to be found guilty,” Sarajane said, stunned, as she came around to join Jordan.

  Jordan was packing up his briefcase, strictly on automatic pilot. He didn’t like what had happened here today. None of it. “Looked that way, didn’t it?”

  Sarajane craned her neck, watching as the bailiff took Joe out of the courtroom. A distraught Alicia had left moments after the verdict, hurrying out to the niece and nephew she was caring for.

  It didn’t make sense to her, Sarajane thought, looking toward Jordan for enlightenment. “Why?”

  Beat the hell out of him, Jordan thought. He snapped the locks shut. “That is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

  Sarajane thought that an odd sum of money to cite. “What?”

  It was in reference to one of the first classic game shows in the fifties. “Way before your time,” he commented. He picked up his briefcase and began to head toward the exit. “Before mine, too,” he added with an ironic smile. He held the door open for her. “Juarez is my first loss.”

  She was acutely aware of that. In an odd way, she felt responsible, because if she hadn’t egged Jordan on, maybe he would have handed the case off to one of the other attorneys. But she had wanted Joe to have the best. And the best had lost. In a circular way, that made breaking his record her fault.

  “C’mon,” she coaxed once they were outside in the parking lot, “I’ll buy you dinner.” It was precious small consolation, but it was the best she could do.

  Jordan tossed his briefcase into the backseat of his car. “Don’t feel much like eating tonight. I need a drink.”

  “Okay,” she agreed gamely. “I’ll buy you that instead.” Jordan looked at her in mild bemusement. “Don’t look so surprised. I drink,” she informed him. “On occasion.”

  He got in behind the wheel and turned on the ignition. “Well, if ever there was an occasion to drink, this is it.”

  They got the last spot in the parking lot. Mother’s Bar and Grill was located several blocks away from the courthouse. It was more bar than grill and Mother was actually “Dutchman” Van Damme, a former hockey-player-slash-reborn-biker with jet-black hair on his knuckles, three missing teeth and a physique that stopped anyone short of King Kong from giving him any flack.

  Despite appearances, Dutchman had a pleasant enough manner and the drinks he placed before Jordan and Sarajane were not watered down. Their problem however, was that they went down much too smoothly.

  After the fourth round, Sarajane lost count. The ache in her chest, however, was much harder to lose. The more she consumed, the worse she felt for Alicia, for Joe. And for Jordan.

  She shifted on her barstool, finding it more and more difficult to maintain her perch.

  “This really shouldn’t count, you know. As a loss,” she added when Jordan looked at her quizzically. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around her glass and as she spoke, she was inclined to gesture. A tiny wave of alcohol punctuated her last statement, splashing down onto the bar after dribbling along her knuckles.

  Maybe it was the alcohol, but he didn’t follow her reasoning. “Why shouldn’t it count?”

  She took a deep breath and looked at him patiently, as if he was being simple-minded. “Because you didn’t have any time to get into the case. It was sprung on you, I mean, it was spranged—” Sarajane stopped, listening to the word she’d just said echo in her head. “Is that a word?”

  He smiled. From where she sat, his lips blended in with the glass. The blue neon light from behind the bar was casting eerie beams along his face. “I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

  “Oh.” She cocked her head, thinking. Replaying the word again. “Sounds like a word,” she decided. “If it wasn’t a word, could I say it?”

  He laughed. The lady, he thought, was quite drunk. And rather adorable at that. “Good question.”

  She nodded. “Yup, it is.” She paused to take another sip of her quickly evaporating drink. “I’m full of good questions. Want to hear another one?”

  Amused, he turned the stool to face her better. “Shoot.”

  Sarajane opened her mouth, then closed it again, a puzzled expression on her face. She was going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow, he thought. The one waiting for him wasn’t going to be small potatoes, either. He’d gone past a buzz forty-five minutes ago, but apparently he had a better capacity for holding his liquor than she did.

  “Okay, ask.”

  “Oh, right.” Sarajane closed her eyes for a second. Ordinarily, it helped her focus. Right now, it just caused the darkened room to start spinning. As it began to pick up speed at an alarming rate, creating havoc in her stomach, her eyes flew open. She found herself looking right up at him. “Why do I want to make love with you when you’re bad for me?”

  The question, uttered without any warning, sobered him a good deal. And then he smiled at her. He sincerely doubted she’d remember any of this in the morning. For her sake, he hoped she wouldn’t. Otherwise, she would turn a permanent shade of red. “The same reason a moth flies into a flame, I’d imagine.”

  As she pondered the meaning of that, she saw the bartender approaching. Her focus shifted immediately. So much so that she almost slid off the stool. Jordan managed to anchor her down at the last moment. She never even noticed.

  “Oh good, you’re here. One more, please.” She pushed her empty glass toward the Dutchman.

  He made no move to take it or to fill it. Instead, he shook his head the way an indulgent parent might at a favorite child. “You’ve had enough tonight, honey. I’m cutting you off.”

  She drew herself up indignantly. “You can’t do that,” she informed him, then looked at Jordan a tad sheepishly. “Can he do that?”

  “He can do that,” Jordan assured her.

  “Oh.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Then I guess we’d better go somewhere else to get our liquid libation,” she slurred.

  The bartender looked at both of them skeptically. “You want me to call you a cab?” he asked Jordan.

  Sarajane giggled, then covered her mouth to stop the sound. “He’s not a cab, he’s Jordan. A first-rate lawyer. Except that he lost today. His first time.” She shook her head and look genuinely downcast as she added, “My fault. All my fault.”

  Jordan saw the bartender reach under the bar and place a portable phone on the counter. He began to dial. Jordan shook his head, momentarily stopping him.

  “I’ll take her home,” he assured the burly man in his best courtroom argument voice.

  The phone remained where it was and the bartender began dialing again. “You�
�re not driving from my place,” he informed Jordan. There was no arguing with his no-nonsense tone. “I’ve been through that once. Let a guy go who was three sheets to the wind. Got my butt sued off.” It was clear he’d been about to use a different word to describe the part that had suffered, then had decided to clean it up because of the mixed company. “Ain’t looking to have that happen again.”

  Cocking her head again, Sarajane leaned over the counter, holding on to steady herself as she took a look at the bartender’s hind quarters. “It grew back,” she announced in case he didn’t know.

  “We’ll walk it off,” he promised the bartender. “Her place isn’t too far from here.”

  It was obvious that the bartender was skeptical about the outcome. “A block is a long way to go when you’re in her condition.”

  Jordan was already slipping Sarajane’s coat up her arms, onto her shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her.”

  The bartender looked somewhat uncertain as he regarded Sarajane. “You all right with that? His taking you home?”

  Terrific, Jordan thought. She’s got a knight in dented armor looking out for her.

  “I’m great with that,” she answered the man. “Jordan’s as honorable as they come.”

  Jordan was struggling to get the coat back on Sarajane, who kept shrugging it off the moment he had it on her shoulders. “C’mon, Sarajane,” he coaxed.

  “I’m hot,” Sarajane declared, trying to shrug off the coat again.

  This time, he held it in place with his palms against her upper arms. “Yes you are, but that’s beside the point. I need to get you home.”

  His words evoked a response from her he wasn’t prepared for, but then, things seemed to be going that route with her lately.

  “You feel it, too?” she asked, wide-eyed as she turned around to face him. The brush of her body against his sent off a chain reaction in his.

  “Feel what?” he asked evasively. He began to guide her toward the front door.

  She half stumbled along, clinging to him for support and yet somehow blissfully unaware that she needed it. “That heat pulsing all through you.”