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I arch a brow. “How do you know that?”
“I told you I checked you out.” His lips curve. “I called Lauren.”
“You called Lauren,” I repeat. “That wouldn’t surprise me if she would have actually told me.”
“It was right before court.”
He was thinking about me right before court instead of his work. “And what did she tell you?”
“Good luck.”
My brow furrows. “Good luck?”
“She said I’d need it to get anywhere with you.”
“She’s right,” I say, and quickly turn the topic back to him. “Why didn’t you run the ranch with your brother? That has to be a big job.”
“I need more than horses and hay. He didn’t, and I didn’t miss how you just deflected from you back to me.”
“How old are you?” I ask.
“Thirty-five.”
“Ever been married?”
“Never,” he says. “Must be my bad manners, right?”
“Exactly,” I say. “They say you can tell a lot about a man based on his manners and his mother.”
“So says my mother when she calls me three times a week, usually to bitch about my father. They’ve been married forty years and hate each other. I’m not inspired to fall in love. What about you? What’s your story?”
“Thirty next month. Never married. If my mother was still alive, your parents and mine could be best friends, based on what you just told me about yours. And as for the interview, I don’t want it anymore.”
He crumples up his paper and tosses it into the trash before turning his big body and the full force of his blue-eyed stare on me. “Why?”
“Okay, I do want it but I don’t want it because you—we—whatever this is that we’re doing.”
“Whatever this is wouldn’t be happening if I thought that’s why you wanted the interview. You still have a job to do, and this case will be over soon.”
“You’re going to move to dismiss, aren’t you?”
“What would you do, counselor?”
“Move to dismiss, but there’s pressure on the judge and cameras on the court. It will be declined. But I’d then quickly establish another suspect, point out that the lack of evidence just as easily points to that person, and then move to dismiss again and quickly.”
“Why aren’t you practicing?”
“I never wanted to practice. It was just what was expected.”
He studies me for several intense beats. “I have to get back to court, but I’ll call you for coffee and that kiss, sooner rather than later. For now.” He picks up my hand and kisses it. “I’ll settle for that.”
He stands up and leaves.
Hours later in court, the prosecution rests. There is a quick-held breath as everyone waits to hear what the defense will do next. Will they move to dismiss? And, of course, he does. But the judge declines his request. The court is adjourned, and it’s not long before there’s a press conference outside, put on by the prosecutor while the defense stays in hiding, most likely preparing for tomorrow.
I stand on the sidelines and listen to what amounts to more of the courtroom conversations. Hours of the blown-up nonsense, and I’m sad for one reason. Right now, there will be no justice for a dead woman and her unborn child.
Twenty minutes later, I’m in my favorite coffee shop, at my corner table, heading to the bar to collect my order. It’s then that I notice the prosecutor, a tall, lanky man in a basic blue suit and tie, sitting alone at a table and working on his MacBook. Seeing an opportunity, I walk up to his table.
