The Plan (The Hillers of Barratt County #4)

Chapter 4

4

His office was right across from the courthouse. George didn’t want to be there tonight. Hell, he didn’t want to be there at all any longer. Not now. Not since her.

He missed Veronica. So much he ached from it.

George would be lying to himself if he said anything different.

He hadn’t replaced her.

He could lie, and say it was because no one had been qualified, but the truth was…that was Veronica’s desk out there. And to see someone else sitting there, even temporarily, like his nineteen-year-old sister Giavonna, just felt wrong.

It was Veronica’s . She was the one who should be out there.

He wanted Veronica back. He dreamed of her at night, almost felt her in his arms when he woke. He looked for her and listened for her every day in the office, even though he knew that was almost insane. He bought the things she’d ordered him to buy for the office but he’d been too cheap to buy before. He finally painted the walls the colors she had wanted.

He hadn’t been able to look at the conference room without remembering…

He searched for her every time he was in town—at the grocery store and the post office and library. Only five blocks separated the home he had owned for two years, the largest one in downtown Value, from the little quadruplex she called home. He looked for her every time he drove past.

He was being haunted.

There was no other way to describe it.

Either that or Veronica Lake had somehow possessed him, or something. He’d believe it. She could possess a man’s very soul, that woman. George was living proof.

Every possible scheme to get her back in his office, at the minimum, and back in his arms, if he was beyond lucky, had run through his mind almost from the first day after The Great Mistake.

He was almost on the brink of just going to her and begging her to come back. In whatever way she wanted. Paralegal…love of his life—either way, he just wanted her back where she belonged.

He sank into his desk chair and buried his hands in his hair. He was so damned stupid for touching her. That damned whiskey—George didn’t drink.

But he’d lost the Tolben case. And he shouldn’t have. Good people had lost everything that mattered. He wouldn’t forget it anytime soon. They blamed him. Their two sons blamed him.

And George blamed himself. He had done everything by the book, but there had to be something he had missed. He hadn’t found it yet. But he was still looking.

He had to focus now. He had three more cases coming up on the docket over the next week.

He hadn’t seen Veronica in twelve weeks now. She had probably already found someone else. George had been her first—but he would not be her last. There would be other men who would see past the ultraconservative clothing and the reserved manner to the beautiful, fascinating woman beneath.

Maybe, in a few years, she’d marry. He’d pass her on the street, with two or three kids trailing after her, and she’d barely look at him.

He’d probably just stand there, and watch her, and think what a lucky asshole her husband was. George would probably be all washed up, then. No wife, no kids. But he’d have met his career goals. Be halfway to the statehouse, by then.

Alone. Was it worth it to do it, if he was just going to end up alone at the end?

George didn’t want to spend the rest of his life alone. He’d felt that deeply in the last twelve weeks. Missing her had damned near destroyed him. He hadn’t realized how often he looked for her during the day until she wasn’t there any longer. How his life had been wrapped up around her for so long.

She’d worked for him for twenty-two months, a quiet little shadow keeping his office running smoothly and doing all the paralegal research he needed quickly and efficiently, and acting as his secretary when needed. She had the makings of a damned fine attorney, but she’d never said that was her intention. She’d just kept him on the ball, every single day.

He had grown to need her. In more ways than one.

She did her job, then went home. He knew almost nothing about her personal life. Her background. Other than a few things he’d learned by accident. About her family. About her sister. It had explained why she didn’t seem so close to anyone.

She was afraid of getting hurt.

He could understand that—if something had happened to one of his sisters like it had hers, it would destroy him, and his family. It almost had—two former foster kids his parents had taken in had tried to take his youngest two sisters years ago. Greer had almost died.

No one in the Hiller family would ever forget.

It explained why he had been the first man to touch Veronica. Her first.

He had been her first.

And he had had to ruin it right after. He should have at least held her. Right there on the office couch. It was big enough. He could have carried her there and just held her. He’d slept there countless times before. He should have just wrapped her up in his arms…and held her.

He wished…

Someone knocked on his locked door.

He cursed. He’d closed his doors promptly at five, ten minutes after leaving that asshole Felner in the clerk’s office. He had to head out to the ranch where his parents lived. They had something they wanted to discuss with their children.

The knocker kept persisting.

They weren’t going away and they knew he was in here. The lights in his office were a dead give-away—and his truck was parked out front.

He wasn’t going to escape.

George had no choice.

When he entered the hallway and saw the woman standing at his office front door, his heart sped up. His palms slicked. His entire body tensed.

Veronica was back.

She’d come back.

George hurriedly unlocked the door.