Love's Verdict Read online

  Jane turned to Mark. “Did you know she was coming up for the party?”

  “No. Probably didn’t RSVP,” Mark said. “You know how she hates to commit. I’ll take care of it.” Mark strode briskly to the door, and Carly kept watching, riveted as Mark swept the stranger into a hug and shrugged off the doorman, who stepped to the side to let them pass. Mark escorted the woman toward the bar, but it took them forever to make the trek because everyone they passed stopped to greet them. It quickly became clear Mark wasn’t the one they were greeting.

  “Who is she?” Carly asked, almost in a whisper to herself. Almost.

  “That’s Landon Holt, from the Austin office. She started just a few months before you.”

  Landon Holt. Carly rolled the name over in her mind. Of course she’d heard the name. The business of the Austin and Dallas offices intersected on occasion, and she’d met several of the partners and associates from Austin, but never Landon. Word was she never came to Dallas, and rumors swirled around the office as to why that was the case, but Carly didn’t spend her valuable time paying attention to idle gossip.

  As Landon made the rounds, Carly found it surprising Landon didn’t spend much time in Dallas since she worked the room like she owned the place. She treated everyone to an intense smile, a lingering handshake, and fully focused attention. Landon talked and laughed and handled each interaction like it was the most important meeting she’d have that day, and for a moment Carly forgot her usual reticence about social events and wished she was on the receiving end of a Landon Holt encounter.

  Chapter One

  Eight months later

  Carly stood in front of the courthouse waiting for the press conference to start, but unlike the rest of the attorneys representing football star Trevor Kincade, she made sure she was nowhere near the podium and as far away from the cameras as possible.

  Trevor, sporting wavy sandy brown hair, caramel eyes, and a million-dollar smile, was flanked by his agent and the two named partners of Sturges and Lloyd, the premiere boutique law firm in Texas. Jane Sturges stepped to the podium and thanked the press for covering this important story.

  “Today, justice was done. Federal District Judge Niven entered an order finding the evidence insufficient to support the unreasonable and unjustified ban imposed on Mr. Kincade by the NFL. Under Judge Niven’s ruling, Mr. Kincade will be able to play without restriction at the start of the regular season, and he is grateful to the court and all of his loyal fans for believing in his character. We’ll take your questions at this time.”

  Hands shot up throughout the crowd of reporters, and Carly watched in awe at the way Jane fielded their every question with ease. Jane had been the face of the case in court, but Carly had done all the research and written all the briefs to convince the judge to overturn the ban. She wasn’t jealous of the attention. She preferred to work behind the scenes without the attendant client drama, but Carly couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride knowing that this big win, drawing national press coverage, was due to her legal smarts.

  After the press conference, Jane insisted Carly join them for a celebratory lunch. Three courses in, Carly was completely over the social aspect of the meal and engaged in a mental pep talk about how this kind of schmoozing was good for her career. Trevor sat directly across the table, persistently trying to engage her in conversation, while Keith, who’d only worked tangentially on the case, badgered him about inane football stats. Carly could almost get how every straight woman in Dallas found Trevor so appealing. For her part, she found him to be nice but of fairly average intelligence, which didn’t really matter in his profession since he had an insane ability to run really fast and leap high into the air to catch footballs—trivia she’d picked up only since she’d started working on his case. Keith was acting like he wanted to switch teams and ask Trevor out on a date.

  Carly had spent the last few weeks learning only what she needed to about the game of football. It wasn’t that she wasn’t sporty. She’d participated in several sports, like cycling, running, and rowing, but none of her activities involved long commercial breaks, six- to seven-figure incomes, and stadiums full of adoring fans, and she was cool with that since being in the limelight wasn’t her favorite thing. Even this lunch, as innocuous as it seemed, was way more interaction with people than she usually preferred. She was happiest when she was hunkered down with a load of files, a puzzle to figure out, and briefs to write.

  While Jane and Mark ordered dessert, Carly took the opportunity to go to the ladies’ room. When she emerged from the stall to wash her hands, Trevor’s agent, Shelby Cross, was at the counter, applying a fresh coat of lipstick to her otherwise impeccable face. Shelby caught her eye in the mirror and smiled, a fact Carly found surprising since Shelby had been fairly standoffish from the moment they’d met.

  “Hey,” Carly said, waving her hand under the sink in a futile attempt to trigger the motion detector that would set the water running.

  “Here, try this one.” Shelby eased away from the sink in front of her and Carly had no choice but to give it a go, and was relieved when the water started flowing. “Thanks.”

  “I guess it’s me who should be thanking you,” Shelby said, tucking her lipstick in her expensive-looking handbag. “If he’d wound up having to sit out the entire suspension, it would be hell for all of us.”

  Carly nodded, but she thought the sentiment was a bit overstated. She’d worked as hard to win as anyone else and she was happy that her well-briefed arguments had won the day, but if they’d lost it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. It was football, not saving the planet from destruction. “We had the law on our side.”

  “You and I both know that you can be in the right but still lose,” Shelby said. “It’s all about convincing the powers that be through whatever means necessary. Why do you think we pay y’all what we do?”

  It was a rhetorical question laced with sarcasm, and Carly let it go unanswered. As a fifth-year associate with the firm, she took home a hefty salary plus bonuses, and she didn’t need to mess that up by telling one of their highest profile clients they were being overcharged. Besides, she knew just how important this case was to the firm. Jane and Mark viewed landing this case as a gateway to even bigger things. The services of Sturges and Lloyd were already highly in demand when it came to criminal defense, but if they could get more cases involving administrative issues like Trevor’s suspension, it would create an entirely new line of business.

  Lunch lasted another hour, and Carly tried not to think about all the work piled up on her desk back at the office, which would be harder to wade through now that she was loaded up on Dom Perignon. When the bill finally came, Jane leaned over and whispered to her, “This win was all you. Don’t go back to the office this afternoon. Go do something fun with the rest of your day. We insist.”

  It sounded like a trick, but the offer was tempting. She saw Keith watching their exchange, his eyes questioning, and she begged off. “I’ll think about it,” Carly said, knowing there was nothing to think about. Even if she took Jane up on her offer not to return to the office, she had a brief due on the Rogers case in two days and tons of research left to do to get it in shape.

  Jane persisted. “Seriously, Carly. You make the rest of us look bad. Do it as a personal favor to me.”

  Well, when she put it that way. Carly ruminated. Fun for her would be putting the Rogers brief to bed, which spoke volumes about her life. But most of the files were on the network, and she could access them just as easily from home in her pajamas as she could at the office pretending to be sober. “Okay, fine.”

  Jane smiled and started to say something else, but a clatter of a commotion behind them captured their attention, and Jane’s expression turned to the steely anger Carly had only seen when one of the associates missed a deadline or she was facing down an opponent in court. Carly turned to see what was going on and gasped at the sight of no less than five Dallas police officers surrounding their table.
She whipped her head back around to speak to Jane, but Jane was on the move, placing her body between the wall of officers and the rest of their lunch party.

  “Excuse me, officers,” Jane said. “May I help you?”

  “No, ma’am,” one of the officers replied. “We’re not here for you.” He started toward the table again, but Jane, not to be deterred, moved into his path. “If you’re here for someone at this table,” she said, “then I need to know what’s going on. I’m Jane Sturges, attorney for everyone sitting here.”

  The big guy in the lead sighed and handed her a folded slip of paper. “Arrest warrant.”

  While Jane scoured the paper, Carly glanced around the table. Other than Mark and Jane, who regularly skewered the police in court, there was only one other person worthy of such a big public display, but Trevor didn’t look at all rattled to see a herd of police officers standing only inches away. Mark, finally catching on to the show, stood up and walked over to Jane and Carly, and asked in his trademark slow, easy drawl, “What’s the problem, Officers?”

  Carly chimed in. “They have a warrant.”

  “And it appears to be in order,” Jane announced, handing it back to the lead officer. “Seriously, you couldn’t have just called and asked us to turn him in? Did you bring the press in with you or are they waiting outside?”

  The cop shrugged. Carly figured it wasn’t his call anyway. Forgetting for a second—probably due to the champagne—she wasn’t in charge, she spoke. “What’s the charge?”

  Jane shook her head. “Not here.”

  But the officer got the word out before she could stop him. “Murder.”

  “What the hell?” Mark said in an exaggerated whisper. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “What do you need me to do?” Carly asked, feeling tremendously out of her element, but now completely sober.

  Jane pulled her aside. “Go outside and see who’s here from the press. Give them your card, tell them Trevor has just learned of the charges against him and he is innocent. Tell them you’re not at liberty to discuss the case now, but they can call the firm later for details.” She stared hard. “You got this?”

  “Absolutely,” Carly said with tons more confidence than she felt about stepping out from behind the scenes. She shot a look at Trevor. Shelby had moved to sit next to him and was whispering in his ear, no doubt preparing him for what was about to happen. Carly wanted to stick around and watch her client through this mess, but she had a job to do. She dug in her purse for a mint, lodged it in her cheek, and strode toward the front door. She had this.

  * * *

  Landon, like everyone else in the Austin office of Sturges and Lloyd, watched the replay of the arrest of Trevor Kincade on the big screen in the conference room.

  “There went my fantasy football season,” Greg Paulson, the senior partner at the Austin office, said. “I guess he did harass that woman after all.”

  Landon punched him in the arm. “Shut up. You don’t know jack about the guy, and he’s our client.”

  “Like being our client means he’s automatically not guilty. I’ve never met the guy. Have you?”

  Landon shushed him as one of the reporters outside the restaurant where Trevor was being arrested started talking. “We’re here with Carly Pachett, attorney for Trevor Kincade. Ms. Pachett, we just saw a group of police enter this restaurant and they tell us they have a warrant for Mr. Kincade’s arrest. Can you provide any specifics about the situation?”

  Carly pushed her glasses up her nose and frowned at the reporter. “No, Linda, I can’t give you specifics about the case, but Mr. Kincade has volunteered to help law enforcement with their investigation.”

  “But aren’t they here to arrest him?”

  “I have no personal knowledge of that.” Again with the glasses.

  “Do you have any comment about the big win Mr. Kincade had in court this morning and what impact, if any, this new development will have on any appeals?”

  Her response was cut off when a group of police officers escorting a very unhappy-looking Trevor burst through the doors. The press abandoned Pachett and ran after Trevor and the officers like they were chasing a first down.

  “Who the hell is Carly Pachett?” Greg asked. “I thought Mark and Jane were handling Trevor’s case.”

  “Who knows? Not my problem.” Landon backed out of the conference room. She had plenty of real work to do, and the Dallas office would take care of the big shiny cases.

  Back in her own office, Landon pulled out the case file for her hearing the next morning. What should’ve been a simple bond reduction hearing had turned into an examining trial on a new charge after her client said some pretty hair-raising things about the victim while talking to his girlfriend on the jailhouse phone. Clients never listened when Landon told them all those calls were recorded. Everything she ever told a client, from the moment they were arrested to the moment they were released, went through a filter that held back anything that didn’t match what they wanted to hear. Now that this guy had complicated things, it was her job to try to smooth over the very pissed-off district attorney assigned to the case to keep him from filing a new case based on the threats made in the phone conversation.

  A couple of hours later, the buzz of a text on her phone jarred her out of work.

  Don’t forget, you promised. Seven sharp.

  Landon groaned, but she had promised and she didn’t take promises lightly, even when they interfered with her usual routine. If she left now and went straight to the restaurant, she’d make it on time. Landon closed the file and packed up her desk. When she walked down the hall, she was surprised to see she wasn’t the last one in the office. “Hey, Greg, you trying to show me up?”

  “As if,” he called out. “Jane and Mark asked me to pick up some slack after their day hit the skids with Trevor’s arrest.” He set the file down. “What’s got you out the door before ten o’clock?”

  “Just a thing. I’ll be ready for the hearing tomorrow,” Landon said, hoping he wouldn’t pry. Greg exaggerated about the hours she kept, but it was true that she was almost always the last one to leave. “Just figured I’d mix it up a bit.”

  “Right.” Greg looked like he wanted to say more, but settled with, “You know, you don’t have anything to prove. Not to me, anyway.”

  “I better get going.” Landon waved good-bye and took off before Greg could say or ask anything else. She’d known him since he’d been a professor at UT and she was a first year struggling her way through Constitutional Law. Greg had always had her back when it came to work, but their close relationship at the office didn’t merit breaking her steadfast rule about not mixing business with her personal life.

  Austin traffic was its usual snarl of madness, but a lead foot and quick moves had her at the valet stand just moments before seven. She tossed the valet the keys, grabbed the claim check, and crashed through the doors. “Tremont party?” she asked the hostess.

  “Right this way.”

  It was seven straight up, but she was in the building, so that should count, right? She followed the hostess to the back of the restaurant, preparing her excuse for why she was slightly late. When they reached a door, the hostess stepped aside, and Landon gave her a questioning look, but before she could ask what was going on, the door swung open and a loud chorus of “Surprise!” flooded her ears.

  She pushed into the room and was swept into a hug from her best friend, Kylie Tremont.

  “Oh my God, you’re actually surprised.”

  Landon shook her head. “Is this the ‘emergency, I have to talk to you tonight and it can’t wait’ dinner you had planned for us?”

  “Be nice. It’s your birthday eve and I never thought I’d be able to pull this off without you finding out or coming up with an excuse why you couldn’t make it. I even had to get your boss in on the deal to make sure you didn’t get swept into some urgent case at the last minute. All your friends are here, so act like you’re having a good time.” />
  Landon looked around the room. A big cake, a buffet line, a bar, and lots of people—mostly Kylie’s friends. Kylie had thrown a surprise party for her, the absolute very last thing she’d expected, and she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Perhaps by the end of the night you’ll be saying that with the right tone, but for now have some fun.” Kylie pushed a drink into her hand.

  Landon stared at the drink. Kylie had been begging her to come out and play for weeks, but she’d pushed her aside with various excuses, all of which ended in words like write a brief, file a motion, or court appearance. Her fifth year at the firm was kind of make it or break it—either she wound up snagging a partnership slot or it was time to consider other options. She wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted, but she didn’t want to limit her choices, so work had become her girlfriend, her confidant, and the only thing she came home to at night. But one evening off wouldn’t hurt, would it?

  Three tequila shots later, she blew out the exaggerated amount of candles in one breath. Not bad for an almost thirty-year-old. While everyone grabbed a piece, Kylie pulled her aside. “Look at you, having fun in spite of yourself.”

  “You make it sound like I’m normally a dud.”

  “You didn’t used to be.”

  “I didn’t used to have a high-stress job. And I was younger. You may be able to party all night and go to work bright and early, but I require a little bit more recovery time nowadays.”