The Lawyer & the Christmas Tree Farmer (The Rockaways, Colorado #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

LAURA

“M

s.Bennett? It’s nearly ten,” the paralegal said, and Laura looked up from her screen, where she’d been checking the Excel spreadsheet yet again. Outside, the sky was a sort of glowing darkness that she’d gotten used to since moving to the city.

“I see that,” Laura replied. “But Mrs.Stevens’ estate doesn’t really care about that.”

“I know that, ma’am,” the paralegal, a pretty redhead who was a little younger than Laura herself, said. “It’s just that… never mind.”

She left, and for a moment Laura was tempted to call her back in. Clearly, she had something on her mind. But the demands of the case soon took over her attention, and she went back to poring through the pages and pages of items in the binder. So obsessed was she with trying to get through her work that she didn’t notice when the next visitor came to her office, and only looked up when there was a knock.

Laura looked up, seeing Irene Valenzuela, a junior partner at the firm, and her de facto mentor. “What’s up, Irene?” she asked. “I’ll have the analysis of the estate done?—”

“Go home, Laura,” Irene replied, coming in and closing the door behind her. “I already sent everyone else home, and you’re the last hanger-on.”

“I’d love to Irene, but you know how the probate courts are,” Laura said. “I’ve got to get every item squared away or else Judge Edwards is going to be on our butts.”

“I already talked with all of the parties involved, and filed a motion for continuance with Judge Edwards.” Irene sat down. “Good Heavens, do you really think that anyone involved in this case wants to try and push hard on this through the holidays after we discovered another full warehouse of stuff? It’s par for the course when you’ve got a client like Ophelia Stevens.”

Laura sighed, and set down the highlighter in her hand. “Irene, the work needs to get done.”

“Of course it does,” Irene replied. “But the work always needs to get done. But this sort of grind stuff is for first years and paralegals. And there’s always more work, especially when you’re a senior associate who’s looking to get her invitation to become a junior partner. Do you know when’s the next partner meeting?”

“January,” Laura said automatically, and Irene nodded. Leaning back in her chair, she tapped her finger on her desk as Irene’s comments sank in. “I’m messing up, aren’t I?”

“You could say that,” Irene said. “Look, Laura. I get it. You came out of law school with a fire in your belly to do some good legal work, maybe change the world. But more importantly, you came out with your feet to the fire, looking at that massive pile of student debt you picked up getting your degree. Am I right?”

“I was,” Laura said proudly. “I just paid my student loan off.”

“Really?” Irene asked, surprised. “How?”

“I got some really good scholarships during undergrad, so I was almost debt-free going into law school,” Laura said. “And since then I’ve used every spare cent the firm’s paid me towards paying things down in advance.”

“Which means you’ve barely got two nickels to rub together, and really, really want that junior partnership,” Irene observed. “But how are you going to pay for your buy-in?”

“I don’t know,” Laura admitted, thinking of the investment that the firm required for a share of the partnership. Sure, partners would make that investment back in less than two years. But it still required a big chunk of cash. “With my good credit, I’ll figure something out.”

“Yeah well, figure this out,” Irene said a little harshly. “Right now, you’re in line for not getting an invitation for partnership. Do you even know what the senior partners are looking for in a junior partner?”

“Apparently not,” Laura replied. She thought that she did, that she’d done her best to read the layers of every interaction she had with any of the senior partners. “Want to fill me in?”

“Sure,” Irene replied. “They’re not looking for a grinder, they’re looking for a leader. Look, when you’re a new associate, the partners want you to prove yourself. They want to see that you’re all-in. Since you don’t have any money or experience, you prove it by working your backside off. Long hours, billing every minute you can. When I was a first year, I averaged seventy-four billable hours a week.”

“Seventy-two,” Laura said, shaking her head. “Guess I was lazy.”

“Bull, and that’s not the point.” Irene rolled her eyes, and leveled Laura with a look. “You know, you surprise me with this. You’re usually insightful as they come, but you’re blind as a bat here. As associates progress, they’re given jobs that aren’t billable, right? Mentoring the new first-years, overseeing the internships, stuff like that. Those are all opportunities to show that you have leadership , Laura. And a leader doesn’t have their foot on the gas, doing grind work on a case like what you’re handling when we’re going into the holidays.”

“Why not?”

“Because, like I said, nobody cares if this probate gets wrapped up by the end of this week or not!” Irene exploded. “You think that the Stevens kids care? She was worth four billion dollars, Laura. The blind trust her husband put each of her kids on years ago when he died is already taking care of them. They’re all livin’ the high life, and have been their entire lives. The charities don’t care, they know the check will come in the mail eventually. So what if we have to take an extra month because a woman who was, shall we say, eccentric?”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Laura admitted. “After her husband died, by all accounts, she got to be nuttier than a squirrel.”

“My point exactly,” Irene said. “I mean, we just found that warehouse what, two weeks ago? An entire warehouse full of stuff. Sure, most of it is junk unless you’re a collector of old school baby food jars and half-built wood birdhouses, but I’ve seen a few of the basics. There’s millions of dollars’ worth of actually sellable things in there that even we didn’t know about. And she’s been the firm’s client since before you were born. And yet, you’re acting like if we don’t get this case settled out with the probate court by the end of the week, that children are going to be starving in the streets.”

“There are children starving in the streets,” Laura snapped back.

“Not because we need to take an extra few weeks getting this case settled properly. The fact you’re not recognizing it is the bad leadership I’m talking about. Working paralegals until ten PM at this time of year? There’s a time and place for asking extra of our staff, Laura. This isn’t it.”

“What would be?”

“Murders, arson, getting caught on surveillance video in certain delicate situations, political campaigns, and political campaigns murdering people,” Irene tossed back. “Stuff with a deadline. You’ve got to learn leadership, Laura. Or else you end up like Howard.”

Laura shuddered. Howard Draper was a sad legend around the office. Fifty-four years old, he’d been a senior associate for twenty-seven years, since Laura had been in diapers. Never promoted, always passed over when partnership opportunities were offered, he was a broken, bitter man who put in his hours, cashed his paychecks, and waited for the day he could retire.

Why he’d never just gone out on his own and opened his own firm was beyond Laura.

“You think I’m Howard?”

“Not quite, I think you’ve got the guts to actually tell this place to take a walk at some point and hang up your own shingle,” Irene said. “And you could. Go to a smaller town, or even stay here in the city, starting or staying as a small operation. But until you learn to be a leader, Laura? The partners aren’t going to extend an offer to you.”

Laura inhaled sharply, counting to ten in her head, and then again. A thousand questions were running around in her head, and she knew that none of them would be answered at the moment.

“I see. Foot off the gas.”

“On this case,” Irene reminded her. “Look, what’s going to happen in January is what’s going to happen. You should now focus on getting your act right for the July partnership meetings, or, given your financial situation, aim for next January’s meeting.”

Irene left. Laura shut down her computer, and locked away the Stevens case files. Walking out, nobody said goodbye. Mostly because nobody was there except for the security guard in the lobby of the building, who was more interested in watching something on his phone than being civil. Not that she knew the man, but still, it would have helped her dark mood as she left the midtown high rise and headed for the subway.

As she walked, she kept thinking. Was Irene correct? Had her hard-working nature turned into a liability? She thought back to her younger days, growing up in Colorado. The area had been known as the Rockaways, an unincorporated community northeast of Pueblo on the way towards Colorado Springs. You couldn’t even see it from the Interstate, it was an offshoot of the state highway. She’d been poor, although she didn’t know it until high school started and Paw-Paw couldn’t drive her to school. She took the bus nearly an hour each way to go to Colorado Springs. There, she’d heard the taunts, and learned the shame that came with having worn out jeans that you could never quite wash all the dust out of the seams no matter how hard you tried, or wearing shoes and boots that used military parachute cord as laces every day, sun, rain, or snow.

She vowed to get out, and she had. First she’d been eligible for a scholarship because her father had been a miner. That sufficed despite the fact that her parents had died in a car accident unrelated to his work. That, combined with a lot of hustle and hard work, had gotten her through her undergraduate degree and into law school, and then into a choice job at her firm. She’d picked that firm for two reasons. One, it had some of the best reviews for being a place a woman could advance. Half of the partners there were women.

Second? They had one of the more generous compensation packages for new associates. They demanded a lot, but they paid a lot. And Laura was going to make it. No matter what.

She thought she’d been on the right path until tonight, when Irene had burst her bubble. She wasn’t going to make partner before she turned thirty, she wasn’t going to be the toast of the town, she wasn’t going to be breaking records on getting to the Supreme Court by the time she was forty.

But as she thought about it, those goals, had been set long ago when she’d been seeing the pretty lawyer on stage at career day, elegant and beautiful in her fitted suit and high heels, powerful and smart and everything Laura wanted to be. Tonight, those goals felt a little hollow.

Was she happy?

Well, she had a job. She even could pay for an apartment of her own, a rarity in the city.

But she didn’t have a boyfriend. She didn’t even have a decent list of ex-boyfriends, really.

She didn’t have anyone she could share her life with, someone to talk to when her day was bad, or someone she could listen to. No real friends. At best, she had co-workers that she could grab a drink with after a day’s work. It took her a few minutes to think of the last person she’d had a conversation with that wasn’t a lawyer.

She didn’t even know the name of her hairdresser.

So was she happy?

No.

But, enough of that negative self-pity.

She was Laura Bennett, and she was going to reach her goals and more.

So what if it took her an extra six month or year to make partner? That wasn’t going to stop her from doing everything that she wanted to do.

Getting off the elevator in her building, she was fumbling for her keys when her phone rang, and she looked. It was an out-of-town number. She knew the area code. It was a Pueblo number.

“Hello, this is Laura Bennett.”

“MissBennett? Hello, I’m Adam Franklin,” the man on the other end of the line said. “Are you busy?”

“I’m just getting home from work, Mr.Franklin,” Laura replied, opening the door. She stepped inside, and as soon as the door closed, flipped the twin locks she had by habit. “There we go. Now what can I do for you, Mr.Franklin?”

“Dr.Franklin, actually. I am so sorry, but I am the bearer of bad news,” he said. “I was your grandfather’s GP and I just got the call from the hospital. David Bennett, has passed.”

Laura stumbled as the words hit her, and she staggered to her living room, falling into a chair. “He’s dead? How?”

“The ER doctors said it was almost instant,” Dr.Franklin said soothingly. “I was trying to reach you earlier, but your phone wasn’t on?”

“Yes, I… I’m a lawyer,” Laura said as if that explained all. “I had my phone turned off.”

“I understand,” Dr.Franklin said. “I do the same when I’m working. David talked about you often when he’d come in for his checkups. He was quite proud of you, and all you’ve done with your life since leaving the Rockaways. I understand that you’re his only family?”

Laura nodded, tears stinging her eyes.

“Yes. I… I haven’t been a very good granddaughter.”

“Nonsense, I’ve been a doctor for longer than you’ve been alive,” Dr.Franklin replied. “He understood, and was always happy to see and talk to you whenever he could.”

Laura cleared her throat, and wiped her eyes. “Thank you.”

“I don’t want to be insensitive here,” Dr.Franklin continued, “but the hospital called me… there are some things that need to be taken care of now that David’s gone. Do you have arrangements already made?”

“I’m the executor of his will.” Laura laughed hollowly. “Side benefit of having a lawyer for a granddaughter.”

“I see. Well, if you wish?—”

“I’ll call you tomorrow, Dr.Franklin.” Laura’s emotional defenses dropped into place. She was a lawyer, and lawyers had to be detached, at least temporarily. “And I’ll be back in Colorado by tomorrow night.”

“I understand. Again, Miss Bennett, I’m very sorry for your loss,” Dr.Franklin said. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Dr.Franklin” Laura hung up. Laying her phone aside, she looked up, and let the tears flow.

She’d go back into business mode after a good cry.