Page 25 of Legally Mated
The work helped. Digging into the on-line law library, looking for case law, hunting reasons to exclude evidence that would make his job harder—it slowly absorbed him into its precise and mysterious heart, making the time pass. But always, at the back of his mind, was the thought of Garrick and the sheer injusticeofit.
Well, why not dosomething?
Why not? His phone was in his hand before the thought was truly formed. It rang through, then a man’s voice came on, the thumping beat of dance music obscuring the background. “Hello?”
“Ravi, it’s Laine. What are you doingrightnow?”
“Checking out the landscape, my friend. You need something? Because I’d rather not cut my evening short, if you know what I mean.” Laine could hear the grin in Ravi’svoice.
“No, not tonight, I don’t think. I was wondering if you could look into something for me.” Ravi did investigations for the firm, using his charm and his dark good looks to shockingeffect
“Sure. One of the newcases?”
“No,” Laine said, and tapped his pen against his legal pad. “I want to look into why the Mercy Hills lawyer wasn’t allowed to takethebar.”
“You’re still sticking your neck in that trap? He must be fucking amazing in bed.” The noise began to fade, and then it disappeared outright. “Well, that’s spoiled mynight.”
“It wasn’tmeantto.”
Laine heard Ravi sigh before he said, “Do you really think you can force Dan’s handonthis?”
“Who said I wanted to force his hand? But something smells about it all, and I’m ashamed I didn’t look into it beforehand. See if you can get a copy of his transcript while you’re at it,wouldyou?”
“Why not ask himyourself?”
“He’s in Washington.” Having the time of his life, Laine hoped, and ignored his jealousy. Garrick deserved this, dammit. He started to doodle on his pad, small hearts trailing along the edge of the page, and tried to shade them to make themlook3D.
“And it needs to bedonenow?”
“Just, whenever you have a moment. I’d like to know what happened. You know yourself he’s good. It’s like a stone inmyshoe.”
“Yeah, yeah, all right. I’ll lookintoit.”
“You can let people think it’sforDan.”
“I’m not going to lieforyou.”
“Not a lie, just let them draw their own conclusions.” He drew an arrow through one of the hearts and took some time carefully fletching it. “I appreciate you doing thisforme.”
“If it’ll get your head back in the game, I’m in.” Then in a lower voice. “What do you think you’re going to get out of this?Really?”
“A feeling of accomplishment? A sense of having righted a wrong? Why does itmatter?”
“I’m just wondering if blowing your career up is worth this. Don’t you think, if there was no basis for the laws, they would have been struck downbynow?”
“What did it take to strike down the slavery laws? Give women the vote? Why the hell am I talking about this with you?” Laine threw his pen across the room, a 3D cube half-finished on the page. “If you don’t want to do it, then don’t do it. I’ll findsomeoneelse.”
“No, no, I’ll do it. I like him, even if he does turn furry and eat small children, and I don’t likeanyone.”
“He eats cookies and cake for every meal if I don’t stop him. I don’t think small children even hit hisradar.”
“Point taken, counsel. I’d love to see a woman look at me the way he looks atdonuts. ”
His comment made Laine snort with laughter, and he ended the call in a much more hopeful frameofmind.
Chapter20
Laine buriedhimself in work the next morning, arriving at the office before anyone else and finishing most of a discovery summary by the time his secretary turned on her computer, but it didn’t feel the same. He missed having Garrick working on his cases, missed the shifter’s quick mind and salient comments. Sure, he had competent clerks and paralegals, even gifted ones, but none that could read his mind the way Garrick did. So when Ravi blew threw his office door without so much as a courtesy knock, he was glad to have something to distract him from the sense that a part of him was missing. “What didyoufind?”
