Take a Chance on Me(15)
Grandpop Gibs lay in his recliner, emitting a shallow snore. Claire spread one of her grandmother’s knit afghans over him, then considered him a long moment in the pool of light from the standing lamp. He wore his Vietnam years in the lines on his face, his white hair nearly gone now, his skin doughy. His worn, giant hands rested on the arms of the chair, his barrel chest rising and falling.
If she lost him, she’d have no one.
Okay, that wasn’t fair. Her parents were still alive, but they had only really shown up in the past ten years in the form of letters, e-mail, and more recently, Skype. They had about as much knowledge of her life as Jensen, next door.
She wondered if he was home.
Turning off the lamp and then the porch light so she wouldn’t eat a mouthful of moths, she grabbed another afghan from the sofa and stepped outside. The lake lapped the beach, dark and mysterious, and she walked down the path, letting her bare feet sink into the sand.
She cast a gaze over to Jensen’s place, the palatial estate of his father’s sprawling log vacation home. The moon slid off the green roof, across the manicured lawn, towering white pine and balsam trees, and a trio of birches. Beyond the massive deck that ran the length of the house, the windows remained dark. Sometimes, however, when she came out here, or even canoed on the lake, she could feel Jensen watching her.
Or maybe she just imagined that he did, with those blue eyes, his lopsided playboy smile suggesting he could have anything he wanted.
No matter what the cost.
Claire sank into an Adirondack chair, wrapping the afghan around herself, shivering as the wind found her hair and untangled it from her ponytail. She leaned her head back to stare at the stars, listening to memories, laughter, tears.
Trying not to hear the accusations.
Most of all, she refused to be upset that Felicity had abandoned them all to figure out how to live without her.
“IF YOU’RE TRYING to impress me, it’s working.”
The county attorney had cracked open Ivy’s office door after a quick knock and stuck his head in. “Second day and you’re already burning the midnight oil.”
DJ Teague looked and dressed like a man who should be living in a high-rise in Minneapolis and dating some supermodel, with his cocoa skin, soft brown eyes, crisp blue dress shirt, tie and jacket, after a day of meeting with county departments, preparing major cases, and defending the county from lawsuits.
Ivy leaned back in her chair and gestured to the pile of manila folders stacked on her desk. “Oh, I’ll be here long past midnight, familiarizing myself with these. I have forty hearings in two days,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “How did this happen?”
On the floor, two cardboard boxes held more files, and on a bookshelf along the wall, all manner of legal reference books filled the shelves. First thing she did yesterday morning, after meeting her secretary, Nancy, and her paralegal, Jodi, was start to dig through the piles stacked on her empty desk.
DJ came in and sat in one of the chairs. “We share a judge with the next county, so we have to pack in as many cases as we can during our two days. Ask Jodi to help you catch up and prepare because on Monday, you’ll have a new stack of cases to look at.”
The afternoon had long since slunk into the horizon, leaving behind pools of light from her lamp. She hated the fluorescent glow and kept the overhead off but had plundered a standing lamp from the reception area to spread light over her shoulder and onto the mess of papers scattered on her L-shaped desk.
Her cursor blinked on an evidentiary brief she was reviewing for tomorrow’s hearing.
Ivy forced a smile and debated warming up her coffee, maybe finishing the sandwich she’d ordered from the Blue Moose Café. “I’ve reverted back to my days as a clerk, I guess. Getting up at 6 a.m. for class, working at the firm at night. I think I lived on coffee and Hot Pockets.”
“Daniel said you were his top assistant prosecutor down in Anoka.” He smiled, kindness in his eyes. “I have no doubt you can handle this.”
A burn filled her throat at the mention of Daniel Wainwright, her mentor/boss/friend. “Daniel might have been overly optimistic about my abilities.”
“I always considered him a great judge of character and ability. If he believed in you enough to offer you a junior prosecutor position out of law school, then I believe I hired the right person.”
She blinked away a rush of heat in her eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Teague.”
“DJ. And I miss him too. The cancer took him too quickly.” He leaned forward. “You weren’t the only one to sit under his teaching.” Ivy could feel the quote before it came. “‘You hold justice in your hands. Treat it with respect.’”