Page 12 of Legally Mated
Laine fobbed the man off with some platitudes, let Dan think he was appropriately chastened so he could get out of there and make it to court before he pissed the judge off too. That would be all this daywouldneed.
But as he opened the office door to leave, Dan stopped him with one more statement. “If you want to pay him out of your own money, that’s fine. But he’s upsetting the other paralegals and I won’t have that, so it would be best if he workedelsewhere.”
“Absolutely,” Laine said, one foot out the door, and made his escape before he could go back inside that smug office and beat the man with all the reasons the packs had to be much worse than they were. He swung by his office, all his emotions hidden behind his usual mask, and grabbed Garrick before the other man could even get a word out. “Let’s go, we’re going tobelate.”
“I thought—” Garrick started to say, then he got a look at Laine’s face and let himself be led back toward thelobby.
“I’ll drop you at the law library,” Laine said as he pounded the button for the elevator and debated whether it might not be faster to take the stairs. The doors opened, and he made himself walk calmly inside. Law offices were crazy for gossip—he was pretty sure that speculation was rife already and he didn’t want to add anything that would feed thestories.
“I’m sorry,” Garrick said after the doors closed and they were aloneagain.
“Not your fault,” Laine said tightly, and risked a quick squeeze of Garrick’s hand before they reached the ground floor. “Let me work on this. In the meantime, I guess you can work in my living room in your pajamas.” He forced a grin, trying to make lightofit.
“Sure,” Garrick replied, andsqueezedback.
Laine was stillrippingmad.
The elevator doors opened and Laine got them both out of the building before he did something that everyone wouldregret.
Chapter9
Garrick wasat the pack house, doing his penance or paying his dues for his stay over at Laine’s the night before. Laine hoped it worked. It had to, and he had to trust Garrick to know what would keep the pack off his back. Especially with this sudden betrayal by Laine’s firm. They didn’t need to be fighting a battle on twofronts.
Well, he had an evening free. Whattodo?
He called his ex. “Hey, you want me to take April to dance classtonight?”
“Sure. I’ll always take a free night off. You want to havesupperhere?”
“Why don’t I picksomethingup?”
“When you’re like this, I remember why I married you. But no, I already have pork chops on. April’s decided she doesn’t like beef anymore. Unless it’s meatballs. I guess they don’tcount.”
Laine laughed. “When did thishappen?”
“She hit me with it yesterday,” Brenna said with dry humor. “Right when I was putting her shish-ka-bob on the table in frontofher.”
“Definitely going to be a lawyer when she grows up. It’s thattiming.”
“Don’t say that. Like we need another one in thefamily.”
An old joke, and Laine kind of missed hearing his father-in-law joking in response about his retirement plan. “See you soon,” he said, and theyhungup.
A half-hour later he pulled into the driveway of his old house and felt again that strange sense of dislocation. He didn’t miss the place at all, but sometimes he missed hislifehere.
“Dad!” April ran across the front yard, abandoning her hula hoop to roll disconsolately away across thegrass.
Laine crouched down and opened his arms to her as she flung herself at him. “Hey, how’s my girl?” he said and huggedherhard.
“Wanna seemehoop?”
“Sure.” He let her lead him over to sit on the step, and he made himself comfortable as she ran to collectherhoop.
“Watch!” she commanded him and spun the hoop aroundherself.
Brenna came out the front door and handed him a glass of white wine before sitting beside him. “The queencommands?”
“I know where I stand in the dominance hierarchy,” he said placidly and whistled as April did something complicated-looking with the hoop. “She’sreallygood.”
