Page 46 of Before We Fell

“Let’s take a quick ten-minute break.”

All eyes around the table slid in my direction.

“Noah?” Tom Larson eyed me speculatively.

Couldn’t blame the guy for being wary. I wasn’t known for breaks, but my concentration was shot, stuck on a pretty brunette back in Kansas.

“It’s all right, Tom,” John Peterson said. He was the main defense attorney on this case, and for the last half hour, he’d been rubbing his eyes, sighing heavily. The man probably hadn’t slept in days as he prepared his client for trial and we were all stressed. “I need to call my wife, anyway. Let her know I won’t be home for dinner. Again.”

He pushed away from the table and ran his hand through his thinning, silver hair. In the six months I’d been gone, John had aged four years.

Ties had been loosened and thrown over the chairs along with suit coats hours ago. Theirs, not mine. I’d shown up in my new standard uniform of jeans. I still had on a button-down shirt, but the jeans and boots I’d taken to wearing in Carlton raised more than a few sets of brows. Our dress shirts were rumpled, rolled to our elbows, and we were still knee-deep in briefs, discovery, and pounding out his attack plan come the following Wednesday when opening statements would be made.

I could barely see him over the stack of files, but even looking at him now, I didn’t envy him.

This case was going to be difficult to win, and frankly, I couldn’t give two shits about it.

Hard to want a guy to get off on murdering his wife when your own sister and brother-in-law were shot in almost the same places on their bodies.

I’d stared at the photos of this female victim for way too damn long today when I arrived at my old firm to help out. For years, I’d defended these people. Everyone had a right to a defense. Shame on me for being so damn good at it.

All I wanted to do was get in my truck, slam the gas pedal to the floor and get back to my destroyed house in Carlton, plop my ass on the couch, and drink a bottle of scotch.

Maybe tequila. Or vodka. Anything to erase the taste of vomit pooling in my throat from looking at bloody photos and examining evidence.

For years, I’d never had regrets for doing my job, but maybe I’d been gone too long.

The fire that used to coil in my gut at the thought of presenting opening statements, the anticipation of facing a fight head-on had burned out.

I couldn’t give two shits about helping John with this defense, which left me shaken all day.

If I didn’t have a desire to do the one thing I’d trained for, the one thing I’d spent hours and years in school for, fighting for, what in the hell did I do know?

Plus, there was the fact I wasn’t able to stop thinking of Lauren and Riley. What were they doing? Were they watching movies? Eating popcorn? Was Lauren teaching Riley how to braid her doll’s hair so I didn’t have to do it anymore? Would they paint nails or order pizza in?

Was Lauren thinking about me at all? Had she since I left her house on Wednesday? Riley had spent last night with my parents so I could get an early start this morning and the look in my mom’s eyes last night before I left said way too damn much.

We’re happy to watch her Friday, too.

It’s okay. She wanted Lauren.

Lies. All lies. Riley had been ecstatic when I told her she was spending Friday night with Lauren, and that she’d take her home after school, but did my parents have a horse competition on Saturday?

Nope.

Was I going to get caught in this lie?

Yep.

Did I have regrets?

Nope. I’d do anything to keep Lauren busy on a Friday so she couldn’t have another date with Shawn, and I wouldn’t ask for forgiveness.

Apparently, I had some fire left in my gut after all. It just wasn’t about winning a case…but winning a woman.

I slid my chair back from the conference table and grabbed my phone. Everyone else besides an intern had taken my suggestion for a break seriously and it was just me and some kid who looked too damn young to be heading to law school in January in the room.

“There somewhere private I can make a call?” I asked, his name completely forgotten. Something hipstery, though, like Elias.

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