Chapter 6
SIX
Dane
This woman has a hold on me. She’s all I thought about the rest of the weekend. And now I’m heading to the Town Hall to give Roland a push to close out her permits. He shouldn’t be giving her a hard time, and it will be remedied this morning.
I swipe my suit jacket off the passenger seat and hop out of my car, throw my suit jacket on, and march through the doors. Once I’m at the building department, I walk in and look for Roland.
“Ah, Walsh. What brings you to this side of town?” he asks, his tone deceptively warm.
“Roland…I heard through the grapevine you’ve been holding up some permits,” I say casually.
“What are you talking about?” Roland dramatically waves his hands in the air.
“There’s a salon on Main Street that’s expanding. Ring a bell?”
He freezes for a second and looks sheepish. Caught ya, asshole. This guy is constantly overstepping.
“Ah, yeah. I have a meeting with her this morning.”
“You’ll approve everything, as there’s no reason to delay this small business opening any further, correct?” Heat is rolling up my neck, and I’m getting fired up. It’s one thing to do your job, but it’s a whole other ballgame when you decide to make it harder for others to get permits.
“Of course not,” Roland stutters, clearly thrown by my involvement.
“It’s nice to know you’ll do the right thing, Roland.”
What a fucking schmuck. My good deed is done; off to the office.
That guy practically shit his pants. Experience should’ve taught him better than to delay permits.
We had to file against the town a couple of years ago, and that seemed to wake them up.
Yet, they didn’t fire this guy. I suspect he knows someone higher up, and that’s how he keeps his job.
Hopefully, my visit will not only help Kendall, but I’m sure there are other small business owners he is trying to bend over the barrel. Not on my watch.
I get into my car and look at myself in the rear-view mirror.
This woman has me doing things for her, and she doesn’t even realize it.
Grabbing my wallet out of my pocket, I hold out her business card.
I stare at it for a few seconds and flick the edge.
It’s then that I decide to program her name and number into my phone.
Trying to decide if I should text her or not, I slap it against the steering wheel a couple of times.
I can’t resist sending her a text.
Dane:
You’ll be all set for your meeting with the building inspector.
I don’t wait for her to text back; instead, I drive to my office. Traffic is light this morning, which gets me there faster than expected.
Once I’m in the office, I’m bombarded by Logan, tearing me a new one. His dark brown eyes squint at me—does he need glasses or is he really annoyed? I settle on annoyed.
“Dane? You were supposed to be here an hour ago.” He’s running his fingers through his dirty blond hair and down his neck. Stress. He is definitely losing his mind with this case. His family probably hasn’t seen him much this week.
“Have you been home for more than a couple of hours?” I ask, avoiding his interrogation.
“No. We need to get this case in order, or we’ll lose.”
“You need to go home. And I ran an errand this morning. We have…”
He interrupts me. “An errand?”
“I detoured to the town hall,” I say, attempting to shrug it off.
“Why?” He stops what he is doing to watch my every move.
“It was my good deed for the day.”
He drums his fingers on the table with his mouth open. Finally, he says, “If we weren’t so buried with this case, I’d interrogate you. But for now, this conversation is on hold until we go grab lunch or a beer.”
Off the hook easily, thankfully. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say about the Kendall situation.
Logan, my brother, is five years younger than I am and is married to the most amazing woman.
They have a two-year-old daughter. He lets things bother him, and they burrow into his skin too easily.
We are partners in our father's law firm. Dad was supposed to retire, but hasn’t yet.
I don’t think he’ll know what to do with himself if he retires, so he meddles in the cases and the day-to-day business of the firm.
Logan and I could run this firm without him, and hope to, sooner rather than later.
“Let’s determine our next steps regarding the Finney case,” says Logan.
“Your head needs to be in the game.”
“It’s in. Let’s get to work.”
As my phone vibrates with a notification, I swipe it off the table before Logan can look.
Kendall:
And how would you know this?
Dane:
I’m just leaving the town hall.
Kendall:
Umm… you didn’t have to do that.
Dane:
It was nothing.
A huge smile crosses my face as I shake my head. I know I didn’t have to do it, but I felt compelled to take care of it for her. She shouldn’t have to deal with that mess.
Logan interrupts me. “Hey, enough with smiling at your phone. We have work to do.”
Files and boxes litter our conference room table, and information on this case fills the whiteboard. Being a defense attorney has its luxuries, and at other times, it’s a lot of pieces we are trying to fit together. And then at any moment, everything falls into place… most of the time.
This case has us working through the afternoon.
We talk about almost nothing else. Eventually, we look at each other and decide it’s time for lunch.
Time is of the essence here, so we ask our executive assistant, Rylee, to order lunch and dinner for us.
We’ll be working another late night on this case.
There are so many boxes to sift through.
“This is fucking bullshit,” I complain, talking to no one in particular.
But Logan answers, “Stating the obvious.” He shakes his head.
It feels like we just gave Rylee our order, and she’s already walking through the conference door with lunch and, as if on cue, my stomach growls pretty loudly. We take a brief break to eat and refresh our brains. Although it’s hard to completely shut it off.
“What were you doing at the town hall?” Logan asks as he takes a bite of his sandwich.
“I heard Roland was giving a small-business owner the runaround with permits.”
“That guy! Is he ever going to learn?” He shakes his head.
“He seemed sheepish when I showed up. I’m guessing he’s up to his old shit again. I put him in his place. He’ll make it right today.”
The Italian sandwich makes my mouth water with the smell of dressing, deli meat, and veggies. A huge bite straight into my mouth just as Logan asks me, “What business was he dragging his feet on this time?”
I say through a mouth full of food, “Just a salon expansion on Main Street.”
“That’s very specific. Which one?”
Which one? I didn’t even realize there was more than one.
“Some woman I met named Kendall.”
He snaps his head to me with wide eyes. “Kendall, huh? How did you meet her?” He looks me up and down, trying to decipher whether he should continue. “You going to share more about her?”
“Nope, let’s finish our lunch and get back to work.”
“You’re being evasive. Something is up with you. You’re resisting now, but I’ll break you soon.”
I ignore him and finish my sandwich. After hours of concentrating on the case, my mind wanders to the fiery redhead with penetrating eyes that can see right through me.
She is gorgeous, independent, and sassy as fuck.
All the other women I’ve slept with always ask for my number right away. She didn’t even hint at it.
One night is my motto. It keeps my personal life transactional, just the way I like it. Why does it always come back to fucking Maggie? She crushed me.
But now, transactional won’t do. I want more because I’ve never met anyone like Kendall.
I’m hooked and still trying to figure her out.
Yeah, she’s skeptical, and for good reason—look at my life.
All one-night stands, no attachments. And then she walks through my door, and I’m practically begging her to stay longer. What is wrong with me?
“Hey, where did you go? It’s like you aren’t even listening,” Logan says, waving his hands in front of my face. I must have been really out there.
“Yeah, I’m right here.”
Work is a priority for me, and that’s what I need to focus on right now. Clearing the Kendall cobwebs out of my head, I dive back into the case files. My head needs to be in the game with this case, not with the fiery redhead.
“I think we need to attack this from a different angle.” Logan stands up and writes on the whiteboard. He drones on, essentially repeating everything I said earlier today. He continues talking, and I let him believe the fresh approach was entirely his own idea.
“Logan, that’s brilliant. Who do we need to talk to?”
Brilliant, probably borderline genius, and he is quick on his feet. He does well in this dog-eat-dog world. Me, I’m here to work and do my best to defend people. Innocent until proven guilty. I listen to my gut with clients and can smell a lie from a mile away. We make a good team.
My phone is ringing, but I can’t find it. Moving files until I find my phone, I catch it just before it goes to voicemail. “Gram calling,” I say to Logan.
I look at my brother and shrug my shoulders. There are only a few reasons for her to call right now.
Answering the phone, “Gram, is everything okay?”
“Oh, you know. I’m doing well. When is our next lunch date?”
She never just calls. There’s something up her sleeve, and right now, I don’t have time to figure it out. I click speakerphone and bring up my calendar to see when I have her scheduled for lunch.
“Okay, you are on my schedule for dinner this Friday. Does that still work for you, or do you need to reschedule?”
“This Friday, yes, that’s perfect. It’s on my calendar. See you then.”
Gram keeps her cards close to her chest until you are face-to-face with her. The entire world could burn to the ground, and she’d wait until you were in front of her to tell you. I’m going to forget about it for now.
“Okay, I love you, Gram, and we’ll talk then.”
She hangs up in the middle of me talking. Something is bothering her. If I had more time in my schedule, I would reschedule our lunch for tomorrow. But we have too much to do.
Logan and I look at each other, and I say, “That was weird.”
“Well, keep me in the loop. I’m sure she will tell you all about it on Friday. If she needs anything, I’m here too. I know she doesn’t like bothering me because I have a family, but I always have time for her.”
“I will. I’m going to the gym to blow off some steam and clear my head. I’ll be back later.”
“You’re all over the place today. Come back with a fresh outlook because we’re going to need it.”
“Head home too, I’m sure Theresa would like that,” I say, encouraging him to take a break.
When I’m all fired up, the gym allows me to work it out and reduce stress.
Logan points his finger at me. “And don’t get caught up between some chick’s legs. We’ve got work to do. Be back by seven.”
“See you later.” I ignore his last comment and walk out the door.