Page 30 of Legally Mated
“Why?” I half-laughed in surprise and hugged him a littletighter.
“Clients should never be allowed to talk,” he said in reply. “We should just duct tape their mouths shut until after sentencing.” He lifted his head and put his hands on either side of my face. “I’mserious.”
Yeah, he was. His eyes were dark with worry. “I get threats all the time. So do you. Why is this onedifferent?”
“I don’t know, it just is. I can say, though, that it won you a few brownie points with the judge, because he told the client to stop blaming his lawyers for his own deficiencies.” He let go of me and walked over to fall on the couch and stare up at me from there. “So, we’re going through the sentencing and I do my thing, and I think I got him a pretty good deal, and he loses his shit and he’s blaming me and he’s blaming you and the judge was shouting. It was fucking circus, and I didn’t even get to see the acrobats. Just theclowns.”
I snorted a laugh and went to sit next to him. “Well, at least I got something outofit.”
“Yeah, but I mean it. He’s going to be in custody now unless he wins his appeal, but he’s got family and friends with power and as far as I can tell, they’re all as spoiled and entitled as him. So, becareful.”
I watched his face for a moment, his irritation and anger and worry chasing each other around like pups on the first nice spring day. “Yeah, okay, I’ll becareful.”
“Maybe work from my house from now on?” he said, and leaned over to kiss my temple. “One less trip into town. And there’s something here too, that we’re going to have to talkabout.”
“What?”
“Do you remember, when you applied to take the bar, what exactly was the problemtheyhad?”
“Two problems, really. I couldn’t get the third recommendation I needed, and apparently there was some statute that meant I couldn’t practice even if Itookit.”
“Yeah, do youbelievethat?”
“No, but what could I do? Abel did what hecould.”
“Who was it that told you about thatstatute?”
“Gil Balding. He was Dean of Law after Prescottretired.”
“Isn’t that convenient?” He frowned and leaned back on the couch, but he didn’t seem relaxedatall.
“What are you up to,Laine?”
“I was wondering if there was any way to get you to thatbarexam.”
I felt like I was drowning in good will. “That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about this morning, and we gotdistracted.”
“What?” He reached for my hand and I gave it to himhappily.
“Eva, the constitutional lawyer, she wants me to start gathering up everything I’d need to apply to the Bar again. I told her I thought you’d probably give me a reference.” I held my breath, for no good reason really because I knew the kind of manLainewas.
“Of course! When do you need it? And who, exactly, is Eva, besides the constitutionallawyer?”
“Eva Mutch. She says she’ll be able to give me one too, once we’ve done some more worktogether.”
“Mutch?”
“I think she would have been a year behind me, if we’d been at the same school. She’s smart, though, and the President listens to her. She’s working on getting the segregation laws struck down and I’m going to be helping her.” I leaned in and kissed him and if he was a little slow to kiss me back, well, I’d just landed a whopping pile of information in his lap. “Isn’t it great? Lysoon, I was terrified going in there, but it turned out so much better than I expected. And, oh, the chest.” What time was it? We were going to have lunch together, right? “Come on, let’s go get lunch, you can eat your feelings of doom and I can tell you about the night we spent in the White House. It wasincredible.”
He smiled at me and laughed. “All right. Let’s go get lunch. Or do you want toorderin?”
“Oh, I don’t care. I’m just glad to be home again and have a chance to talk to you aboutallthis.”
I hadn’t realized until then just how tense he’d become, but it all washed out of him in an instant. “What do you want? Hamburgers andfries?”
“Why don’t you pick? I promise to eat it.” I could be magnanimous today. His eyebrows went up and up and up, until I punched him. “Stopthat.”
“I’ll try not to abuse my power,” he promised solemnly, but there was a gleam inhiseye.
