right, ma’am,” he drawled, and there was that Southern deference she’d expected, along with a tiny glint of amusement in eyes that hovered somewhere between blue and gray.
“What kind of lawyer?”
“Defense,” her father said, settling into his chair heavily. “I’m being sued. Malpractice.” He made a wave with the fingers of his right hand as if to dismiss a bothersome fly as he picked up his drink with his other. “It’s…a headache. It’ll go away.” But the bits of melting ice cubes in his glass clinked, and she noticed that his right hand shook a bit. And the beads of sweat clustered in the thinning strands of his straight hair were unusual for him, even on a hot day.
“So everything’s okay. Or gonna be?”
“Of course.” Her father smiled tightly. Falsely.
She glanced back at Cole. All signs of amusement had faded from his angular features and deep-set eyes, and in an instant he seemed to transform from a laid-back ranch hand to something else, something keener and sharp edged, something honed. She didn’t ask the question, but it hung there.
“Your father’s innocent,” he assured her. “Don’t worry.”
“Innocent of what?”
“It’s just a little malpractice thing,” Terrence Renner muttered again, taking a sip from his glass.
“I don’t understand.”
The two men exchanged swift glances. Her father gave a quick nod to Cole and then, carrying his now-empty glass, walked to a glass-topped cart where a bottle of Crown Royal Whiskey sat near an ice bucket.
“Civil suit. Wrongful death,” Cole explained.
Enlightenment followed. “This is about Tracy Aliota again, isn’t it? I thought the police said you weren’t responsible, that you couldn’t have predicted her suicide, that releasing her from the hospital was normal procedure.” She stared at her father’s back, watching his shoulders slump beneath the fine silk of his shirt as he added a “splash” of amber liquor to his glass.
Cole cut in. “This is different. It’s a lawsuit instigated by the family. It’s not about homicide or—”
“I know the difference!” she rounded on him. Her face was hot, flushed. The anger and fear she’d been dealing with ever since first hearing that one of her father’s patients had swallowed so many pills that no amount of stomach pumping and resuscitation had been able to save her life, came back full force. Tracy Aliota had been under Dr. Terrence Renner’s care ever since her first attempt at suicide at thirteen.
“But how…I mean, can they do this? Legally?”
“If they find a lawyer willing to take the case…then they’re in business,” Cole said.
Eve closed her eyes, hearing the mosquitoes buzzing over the sounds of a tractor chugging in a nearby field. The trill of a whip-poorwill sounded. Everything seemed so perfect, so easy and somnolent. She wanted it to be that way, but it wasn’t. “Damn it,” she whispered.
Finally she opened her eyes again, only to find Cole staring at her.
“You okay?”
Of course I’m not okay! “Just dandy,” she responded tightly.
“It’ll be all right.” Her father was swirling his drink, ice cubes dancing in the late afternoon sunlight. His voice lacked enthusiasm. And conviction.
“Is that true?” Eve asked Cole, who had rested a hip against the porch railing as Terrence lifted the bottle of Crown Royal, his glance a silent offering to his guest.
Cole shook his head. “No, thanks.”
“I asked if everything will be all right,” Eve reminded.
“I’ll do my best.” Again that hint of Texas flavored Cole’s words.
“And you’re good?”
A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Beneath the worn Levis, ratty T-shirt, and “Aw-shucks, ma’am” attitude, he was a cocky son of a bitch.
“He’s the best money can buy,” her father said.
She stared straight at Cole. “Is that right?”
“I’d like to think so.” Was there just the suggestion of a twinkle in those deep-set eyes? Almost as if he were flirting with her…or even baiting her.
Whistling to the dog, she picked up her duffel bag and opened the screen door. “I guess we’ll find out.”
And she had. Inside a dark-paneled Louisiana courtroom where ceiling fans battled the heat and Judge Remmy Mathias, a huge African-American man with a slick, balding head and glasses perched on the end of his nose, fought a summer cold, the trial had played out. Cole Dennis, the scruffy would-be attorney, had morphed into a slick, sharp lawyer. Dressed in tailored suits, crisp shirts, expensive ties, and a serious countenance that often showed just a glimmer of humor, Cole was charming enough to woo even the most reticent jurors into believing that Dr. Terrence Renner had done everything in his power to preserve and keep Tracy Aliota’s sanity and well-being. Cole Dennis indeed proved himself to be worth every shiny penny of his fee.
And over that summer, Eve had fallen hopelessly in love with Cole, a man as comfortable astride a stubborn quarter horse as he was while pleading a case in a courtroom. A private, guarded individual who, when called upon, could play to judge and jury as well as to the cameras.
He’d been amused that Eve initially thought him unworthy in his disreputable jeans and running shoes, and it was weeks before he explained to Eve that her father had called him and told him to “drop everything” to meet with him at the old man’s house. Cole had been helping a friend move at the time and on the way home had stopped by the old farm to do Renner’s bidding.
In the end, after days of testimony in that small hundred-year-old courtroom, her father had been acquitted of any wrongdoing.
And Eve, watching from the back of the room, had grown to wonder if justice truly had been served.
CHAPTER 3
Sam Deeds nosed his BMW to the cracked curb of the street surrounding Cole’s new home—a hundred-and-fifty-year-old bungalow that was the kind of place described as a “handyman’s dream” in a real estate ad. The front porch sagged, the gutters were rusted, the roof had been patched with a faded rainbow of shingles, and several of the original wood-encased windows had been replaced sometime in the past half century with aluminum frames. Cars were parked on both sides of the narrow, bumpy concrete of the street, crowding each other.
“Home, sweet home,” Cole muttered under his breath as he climbed out of the passenger side of Deeds’s BMW 760.
“Hey, I said you could crash with me for a while.”
“You mean with you and Lynne and your two kids. And Lynne’s pregnant again, right? Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.”
Deeds had the good grace not to look too relieved that his friend hadn’t taken him up on his
