his tongue for only God knew how long stunned Mitch.
He cleared his throat and softly asked, “Have I told you two lately how much I love you?”
Vernon removed the pipe from his mouth, smiled and looked down, brushing at imaginary lint on his thigh. Marian’s hand closed tenderly over Mitch’s forearm.
“It’s always good to hear,” she said softly.
Mitch sat back and lightened the moment by asking, “What’s for dinner?”
His mother hopped up and headed to the kitchen, answering him over her shoulder, “Your favorite, of course—chicken potpie.”
Vernon waited until she was out of earshot before confiding, “When I asked, she told me leftovers.” He stuck the pipe between his teeth and winked. “Glad you came over.”
Mitch just smiled.
Piper bit off a chunk of sandwich and momentarily turned her face up to the sun, eyes closed. The air felt like silk today, thanks to unusually mild temperatures and a steady breeze that blew the pollution southward. Chewing rapidly, she looked down at the folded newspaper in her lap, her gaze skimming an article on the so-called megachurches in the area. Suddenly a shadow fell across the newsprint. When it failed to move on, she glanced up.
Mitch Sayer stood in front of her, smiling, a hot dog cradled in a waxed wrapper in one hand, his suit coat draped through the crook of his other arm.
She lowered the newspaper to her lap. “Hello again.”
“Hello.” He lifted his eyebrows as if for permission to snoop. She nodded slightly, and he tilted his head to get a look at what she was reading. “Looking for a church?”
She thought of it more as preparing to look. “Starting to.”
“I’d be delighted if you’d try mine.”
She made no reply to that beyond a tight smile, but somehow she wasn’t surprised to find that he was a practicing Christian.
“May I sit?” He indicated the stone bench that she was occupying.
She pulled her nylon lunch bag a little closer. “Sure.”
Mitch tossed his coat over the end of the bench and sat, biting into the hot dog. She saw that he took it covered in chili, cheese and jalapeño peppers.
“You really do like the spicy stuff, don’t you?”
He looked over his meal and said, “This one’s mild. I forgo the onions when I have a meeting too soon after lunch.”
She grinned. “Considerate of you.”
“Even murderers and thugs can smell,” he quipped. Seeing her shock, he apologized. “Sorry. Little jailhouse humor. I forget it’s not always appropriate.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s all right. You said you were a lawyer. I just didn’t think…”
“Criminal law,” he supplied, and she nodded.
“I figured corporate something or other.”
“I’m a defense attorney,” he told her forthrightly. “Dirty job, but someone’s got to do it—someone who actually cares about justice, preferably.” He bit off a huge chunk of the chili dog.
“And that would be you,” she hazarded.
He nodded, chewing, and swallowed. “I do, actually.” He waved a hand. “I consider it more of a calling than a profession, which is not to say that I don’t find it exciting at times.”
“I can imagine.” The emergency room had often been an exciting place to work, too, until… She pushed that thought away. “So, do you have any high-profile clients at the moment?”
“A couple,” he answered matter-of-factly, shifting on the hard bench. “You heard about a case where a couple of kids took to playing practical jokes on one another and one of them went wrong, put out the eye of an eleven-year-old?”
She shook her head. “No, I live, er, lived in Houston until recently.”
“Well,” he said, “my client is the kid who rigged his buddy’s lunch box with a small explosion. It wasn’t a bomb—it was just supposed to make a popping sound. Unfortunately, his buddy’s little brother took the wrong lunch box to school that morning, and he happened to be holding a fork in his fist when he opened it. You can guess what happened.”
“Oh, that’s awful.”
“Sure is, and with school violence on everyone’s mind lately, my client found himself looking at an attempted murder charge. A Houston lady who just happened to be visiting her granddaughter for lunch that day saw the whole thing. If she hadn’t remembered seeing a name written on the box top in ink marker, my client would still be looking at an attempted murder charge. Seems he was not exactly a fan of his buddy’s little brother, and the D.A. was taking a hard line until my witness remembered seeing that. She’s the reason I was on that plane, by the way. How about you?”
“It was the cheapest airfare,” she told him honestly.
He chuckled. “Yeah. It’s bare bones on those daily shuttle flights, but that’s not what I meant. I was wondering what it is exactly that you do for a living.”
“Oh. I thought I told you.”
“You told me that you work for an insurance company,” he said before taking another bite of his lunch.
She lifted her sandwich and nibbled at it. “That’s right. Case review. You know, that’s where a rejected claim is appealed, so it goes for review, and I either have to justify the refusal to pay or offer some settlement.” She wrinkled her nose, thinking how often she’d complained about some asinine bureaucrat dictating treatment to facilities like the one where she used to be employed. “Like you said, somebody’s got to do it.”
“Okay. Gotcha. Go on.”
“That’s about it,” she said.
“What about family?”
“Everyone has family,” she answered evasively. “Even you, I assume.”
He nodded. “My parents live in the White Rock Lake area to the east of here. What about yours?”
“Oh, they’re in Houston.”
“So that’s where you grew up?”
“No, actually, we lived overseas.”
“Really? Whereabouts?”
“Thailand.”
“Ah, the sandpipers.”
“That’s right.”
“Must’ve been interesting.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, it was quite a culture shock when I came to
