Dale set his jaw on edge and narrowed his eyes. He leaned forward, resting his crossed arms on the desk. He flicked a few of the marked pages, sending them wafting to the floor.
"Well, your reservations are duly noted, Miss Winslow. As it happens, I do have a rather sizeable project for you to start working on. Today in fact." He pushed away more of the file and closed his fingers around a small black flash drive. He lobbed it at me and I caught it one-handed.
"Eminent domain," he said. "I might have mentioned it before. There are few unpublished cases and other materials on that drive. Why don't you dive in? I'd like a memo from you by the end of the week. Think your talents are sharp enough to handle that?"
"Of course. Is there any particular angle you want me to emphasize?"
Dale let out a laugh that sent an icy chill down my back. "Yeah. Federal takeovers of state-owned and private property."
My mouth went dry when he looked up at me; his eyes had gone black. Foster's words to him rang in my ears. He and Dale hoped to take land away from Bas and the Wild Lake packs. Now, it looked as though I'd been indirectly enlisted to help them.
Chapter Six
"You look like shit."
I kept my head down, my forehead resting on my elbow, my fingers lying flat against the keyboard of my laptop.
"No, I mean it. Actual shit."
I raised my hand in a middle-fingered salute and opened one eye to face my accuser. Said accuser, Kendra Fletcher, peered at me with her wide brown eyes as she popped a Twinkie in her mouth.
"It's been a long day." When I lifted my head, paper stuck to it.
Kendra laughed and reached out to take it off. Popping the last bite of Twinkie in her mouth, she flipped the paper.
"Kelo v. City of New London. Hmm, sounds juicy. Any sex scenes?"
I snatched the paper back from her and added it to the ever-growing pile next to me. "Oh yeah. I found my new book boyfriend to be sure."
"Please tell me this is work related, not class related. ‘Cause I know I didn't brief that one."
Darby Gaines plopped down in the chair next to Kendra. He put an arm around her and gave her a big, slobbery kiss. Kendra squealed and slapped at him.
"Ugh. Not enough coffee yet." I held up a hand to shield my eyes from the escalation of their P.D.A. Kendra's giggles earned her a round of shushing from deeper in the library.
Darby let her go and reached over to tousle my hair. "You're keeping vampire hours, Winslow. Not good for your complexion."
I hauled myself into a sitting position and closed my laptop. I'd spent the last eight hours working on Dale's project, plus trying to prepare for Con Law. I was just about to make a snide comment to Darby about his own complexion when he slid a steaming, 20 ounce Styrofoam cup in front of me.
"Bless you. You are a miracle man. I knew there was a reason I liked you." I carefully lifted the lid and gulped down a scalding mouthful of black coffee. Screw the roof of my mouth; I needed caffeine more than skin.
"Don't let him take the credit. That was all my idea."
I believed her. Kendra and I had only met six months ago as two wide-eyed first years on the morning of orientation. But, she, Darby, and I had instantly clicked during Legal Research & Writing I. None of us would have survived it without each other. Now, they kept me sane and drove me crazy all at the same time. The romance between them was only a week old. I just hoped it didn't go sour and ruin our friendship. At the moment, they were all I had.
"This is work stuff," I answered after another steaming gulp of coffee. I wouldn't have said no to one of Kendra's Twinkies either. If Iris knew that's what I planned for dinner, she probably would have boxed my ears as I got off the bus this morning. Or was that last night? I spent the entire day in the law library between classes and had one left to go before I could finally call it a day.
"Anything you care to share? You haven't said much about your fancy new internship. You know how pissed Ross and Cal are that you got it?"
Ross and Cal were currently competing for the top spot in our class after Lud Morris dropped out of school. They were a couple of insufferable eggheads who fit the First Year Law Student stereotype to a tee. They proved the old saying: If you don't know who the class asshole is by week three, it's you. Let's just say Ross and Cal had no clue who the class assholes were. Ross had taken an internship with a bankruptcy judge downtown and was rumored to be knee-deep in unglamorous Chapter 13 filings. Cal worked for his father, senior partner at one of the oldest law firms in town.
"Nothing too exciting," I said. I bit my lip and Kendra noticed. Though we may have only known each other for a short time, we'd gone through a kind of academic trench warfare together. She already knew me quite well.
"Come on. You need to give me some gossipy nugget about working with Foster. You know, before Lud flew over the cuckoo's nest, he told Ross one of his aides was, uh . . . you know. One of them." She whispered "them" and looked around making sure no one overheard her.
I gave her a coy bat of my eyelashes and rested my chin back on my hand. "Whatever do you mean, Kendra?"
Darby reached over her and grabbed the other Twinkie from her pack, killing my breakfast plans. "She means werewolves."
"Thanks, Captain Subtle." Kendra whacked him on the top of the head.
I shrugged but kept my mouth shut. I wasn't sure whether disclosing Dale's werewolf status violated confidentiality, but I wasn't in the mood for a zillion questions. But, Kendra hadn't exaggerated about Captain Subtle. Darby shoved the entire Twinkie in his mouth at once and seemed to swallow it whole. I wondered if he might be a were-snake or something.
"Fess up, Winslow. You're busted. My sister's a cashier at Wild Lake Outfitters. She saw you chatting it up with Sebastian Lanier in the lobby of the store the other day. She said he looked like he was into you. And that you were there for work on account of fact you looked ‘all worky.' Her words, not mine."
Another round of frantic shushing followed Kendra's gasp of surprise. So much for my plan to keep things under wraps.
"Don't get your shorts in a twist. I had to drop off some files for him. And that's all you're getting from me on the subject. I can't talk about work stuff. But, suffice it to say it was work stuff. Nothing more interesting."
Kendra slapped my shoulder. "Bullshit! You're gonna spill. What's he like? Is he nice? God. He's so tall. I just wanna, I don't know. Lick him. Is he lickable? Could you tell? I mean the werewolf stuff. What's he like up close."
I did my level best to keep my face neutral when answering her. A blush would give me away, and I'd never hear the end of it. "He's, uh, a little intense. I don't know if I'd use the word nice. He's very direct. And I didn't spend more than five minutes alone with him."
The librarian started walking toward us as Kendra squealed. I nodded with my chin, mouthed "sorry" and started gathering my papers and laptop. "Come on," I said. "We're going to be late for class."
Darby grabbed Kendra's books and made a talking gesture with his cupped hand as Kendra's words gushed forth. "You were alone with him? Oh my God. I would die."
"Don't fangirl out on me," I said as we hit the elevator. "It wasn't a big deal." God. I felt like the worst liar ever. I was never going to hear the end of it from Kendra.
"Did he bite you?" Darby asked, wagging his eyebrows suggestively.
"He did not bite me. He did not touch me. I gave him papers. He wrote notes on them. I left. Now, that's the end of the story. Hush. Put a cork in it, Ken. Nothing to see here."
"Oh, you are going to do a better job of explaining yourself, Missy." Kendra took her books from Darby as he leaned over me to press the down button and the doors shut.
But, time was on my side. We had thirty seconds to make it to the other end of the hall when the elevator stopped. Professor Cline locked the doors on you if you weren't inside the room at the top of the hour. We made it just in time, and Kendra was stifled by the alphabetical seating chart. Fletcher was across the room from Winslow, and I got to be alone with my thoughts. Lucky for me, the Commerce Clause turned out to be just the thing I needed to douse the more wicked ones brewing at the mention of Sebastian Lanier.
Cline's lecture ran long and when he finally let us go, I had about two minutes to race across the quad and make the last bus. Iris was off tonight, and there was no chance any of the other drivers would wait on me if I was late. I had to face Kendra's indignant stare as I dashed out of the lecture hall and pushed my way through the throng of dismissed students.