Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
MARSHALL
The way Jasper looks in my bed is absolute sin. I can’t get enough, either.
Having the green light to top him has my desire skyrocketing and puts this case somewhere to the far corner of my mind for the first time in days.
Jasper squirms, lean legs looking like art as they stretch across my white sheets and the shadows of the low light play across them.
I think I’m in love with him. I should know ; I loved Keith. I think I was expecting that if I ever found love again, it would feel the same. It doesn’t. This love is different than what I felt with my husband. My first husband. Because damn, I can see Jasper as my second.
It’s good between us, even if it is this whole other thing than what I had with Keith. It feels different. It’s my love for Jasper and love is a unique sort of thing.
But still just as good, just as valid, Keith’s voice says.
I blink back into the moment, not wanting to miss a second of this. Jasper, on his back, panting.
“Baby,” he says, causing a flood of emotions through me at the endearment. Keith and I didn’t really use them. Not the usual ones like “baby.” It hits like a punch in the gut.
Keith will always be a voice in my head, of that I’m sure, even if I’m in love with someone else, too. But my focus right now is on Jasper and only him. He might as well be the only thing to exist in the entire universe.
Looking into his eyes, I can see the love there, and I can’t help but wonder if he can give me the same love with his heart as well. Falling for him complicates things I don’t want to complicate.
He has his whole life ahead of him, and I can’t hold him back because I fell in love with him. I can’t ask him to ditch what is ahead of him for a small town in the Colorado mountains. He has to go at the end of the summer and I have to let him.
I have to not think about our conversation a few days ago that involved a job offer in Denver that would be one the best offers on the table. One he wants.
He wants. Not my call. So I tried not to tip my hand during that conversation and managed—somehow—not to beg him to take the job closest to me.
“Marsh,” Jasper growls, impatient for me to quit watching him and start touching. I feel my face stretch into a smile. No problems there.
“Stay close,” I tell Jasper. Closing arguments are over and the jury has the case. That means a whole lot of waiting as we are asked to remain in the courthouse, as is typical.
Jasper has seemed preoccupied since closing arguments. I can see the side-eye Jasper gets—has gotten the entire week of this trial. He’s been a great assistant, handing me case law, notes, exhibits. He’s even good with the witnesses—not everyone is early on.
But there is one bailiff in particular who raises my hackles when he stares too long at Jasper. In a small town it isn’t strange for a bailiff to also be a patrolman, and I wonder if he’s the one that followed Jasper. I wonder if that is what has Jasper looking panicked every now and then.
Only a few more hours until this jury does what the Constitution intended it to do, and we put this one in the closed case file.
I feel confident. Everything went as well as it could. There is always a hiccup or two in litigation. I never make predictions or try to feel a certain way, but in my gut, I always know the outcome, and I’ve never been wrong.
My gut tells me to call ahead and reserve some tables at Black Diamond tonight, but I don’t. Lawyers are as superstitious as athletes, and I never count a win before the jury foreman reads it.
But, still, when the jury comes in, I know. And sure enough, the Ashby family gets the justice they were long denied.
After we finish the formalities and clear out, I catch Jasper’s arm and he startles, like I’ve caught him unaware.
“I’ll meet you at Black Diamond,” I tell him, “if you want to ride back with Penny. I just need a few more minutes with the Ashbys and to give a statement to the press.”