AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As soon as Judge Smith adjourned court, everyone began filing out of the room while Stevie and I stayed to gather up our paperwork. Soon, it was just the two of us alone again.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She closed her briefcase and then looked over at me. “I’m fine. A little shaken up, a lot pissed off, and also relieved that Mr. Ferguson will no longer be able to hurt his little boy. That son of a bitch can rot in jail as far as I’m concerned.”
“I agree. Again—I am so sorry all of that happened with him. I wouldn’t have let him hurt you.”
“I know.”
I paused to look over not only Stevie’s flushed face but all five feet seven inches of her. Then I said, “I saw a very different side of you today.”
She glanced around the courtroom—to be sure we were still alone, I knew. “And why are you surprised by that? I already told you that when it comes to my job, I will always do what’s right and go down fighting for justice for any victim that I represent.”
“I know what you said. It was just different seeing you in action is all, Joan of Arc. You did a great job of kicking my ass and no one does that.”
She grinned then. “You might’ve kicked mine had your client not messed things up for you.”
“Who knows? But for the record, I’m done representing him.”
“I’m really happy to hear you say that. I’d be even happier if you ditched all the pieces of shit you represent.”
“I have a job to do, Stevie, and not all my clients are pieces of shit.”
She nodded her head in agreement, then walked around the prosecutor’s table and started looking around the courtroom floor in front of it.
“Did you lose something?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, yes,” she said, glancing over at me. “One of my earrings. I know it’s in here somewhere because I pushed the clasp tighter on it before court began. It’s gotten loose over time and my hair always seems to get caught in it, which then pulls the earring loose from the clasp.”
I walked over to where Stevie was standing and started looking around on the floor for an earring of some sort. I didn’t see one, though.
“Okay, what does your earring look like?” I asked.
“Like this.” Stevie pulled back her hair from her left ear and showed me the tiny silver butterfly. “If I can’t find the one that I lost, it’s really gonna suck. My parents got the set for me when I graduated from law school.”
“Can you get another set?”
“No,” she said, glancing up at me again. “The Austin jeweler who made them retired last year. Closed his store.”
Stevie and I made a few more sweeps across the floor and even underneath the prosecutor’s table, but couldn’t find her earring.
“I’m sorry, I don’t see it anywhere,” I said, giving her a sympathetic smile.
“Neither do I.”
She rested her hands on her hips and let out a long sigh. I glanced around the courtroom to make certain that Stevie and I were still alone, then walked all the way up to her. I was standing close enough to her to smell the Warm Vanilla Sugar body lotion that she’d rubbed onto her skin again and also the coconut scent of her lip gloss. She stared into my eyes while I did the same to hers, and then I pulled her into my arms and hugged her. I had to.
“Nothing can ever happen to you, Sinclair. It’d kill me if it did,” I whispered into her ear.
“Nothing’s gonna happen to me, so don’t worry.”
“I can’t help but be protective of you.”
“I know. I feel the same way about you.”
I squeezed her a little tighter, then let her go, taking a few steps back in case someone happened to walk into the courtroom.
“Listen, I need to go back to my office but I’ll come back here later to look for your earring again.”
