Nick, p.8
NICK, page 8
It wasn’t calving season when no one on the ranch got proper rest. Nick had admitted to falling asleep in class more than once and being jarred out of sleep by a ruler being smacked on top of his desk.
In a ranching community like Lone Star Pass, it wasn’t uncommon for everyone to pitch in during calving season. Or so she’d been told. Vanessa never set foot in high school, except to use the pool so she could get into a good college.
Everything in her life had been geared toward graduating early, finishing college early, and then getting into a good law school early so she could hurry and get her degree. About halfway through all the rushing, she started wondering what all the hurrying had been about.
Because once she graduated, she’d been required to intern at her father’s law office. Her workload had been twice that of everyone else’s because she’d had to prove herself. Looking back, her father had been hard on her. He’d demanded a lot.
And for what?
She hardly saw him outside of the firm. Mainly because he worked all the time. When he wasn’t working, he was gambling. Except she didn’t know that until recently. He’d kept it hidden from her, making her wonder what else he’d kept from her.
With all the lies and cover-ups, she should probably hate her father. Or resent him at the very least. He would deserve it. Except she couldn’t. Maybe it was the father-daughter bond or that she wanted to believe they had one.
Didn’t people have to have open communication if they wanted to be able to trust each other? They certainly didn’t hide their secrets or manipulate the people who loved them the most. They say love is blind. Vanessa was certain they were talking about romantic love. But the same applied to other relationships too. Like parental love, for instance. There, she’d been blind as a bat.
Working in law, she’d learned no one was all good or all bad. Her father had his good sides too. He loved her deeply. He wanted her to live with him. That wasn’t always the case in divorces. He thought she hung the moon, though his need to protect her also made him controlling and overprotective. His personal drive was legendary, but he had flaws. Gambling, for one. Was it a coping mechanism for a stressful life? For defending criminals that he had to know were guilty. How many above-board people paid their lawyer with unmarked bills stuffed in an envelope?
When she asked her father about the payments, he shrugged and said some of his clients worked on a cash basis. Told her not to worry about it. Said not everyone had a bank account or trusted the system with their money. He said it didn’t mean his clients were guilty of wrongdoing.
He also told her the easy answer was usually the right one. In the case of cash-filled envelopes, criminal was the easy answer.
Vanessa issued a sharp sigh. Since his death, she was seeing just how complicated a man her father had been. But then, wasn’t that always the case?
She couldn’t count the number of times she’d been investigating a claim only to have her preconceived notion turned upside down. There was one time she was defending a mother who’d claimed an abusive husband. She was fighting for full custody of their eleven-year-old son, and Vanessa had taken the case pro-bono because the mother had no money. She worked a server job and had a side hustle selling thrift store items she bought and embellished. The second business helped make ends meet. The father had a history of blackout drinking but his friends swore on the Bible that he’d never been a mean drunk. Except his wife and son had unexplained bruises. The deeper Vanessa dug into the case against the husband, the less she liked him. He didn’t come off as violent but he was lazy. He wasn’t stepping up to do his part around the house despite his wife’s two jobs. He worked part-time taking care of grass at the country club’s golf course. His wife claimed he had a wandering eye.
And then the little boy slipped up. Said his mother accidentally dropped the iron on his arm and that was the reason for one of his bruises. Vanessa took the boy aside and asked a few more questions. The more he talked, the bigger the holes in his story became. She questioned him as gently as she could while needling around for the truth. Then, he broke down and cried for an hour. The term ‘ugly cry’ applied here. After, he unburdened himself of his mother’s plans to take them far away because her internet business was making a lot of money and she didn’t want the dad to lay claim to any of the profits.
Talk about a turn-around story. The mother had been a sympathetic character. She wore long sleeves in the summer and heavy makeup around her eyes that simulated bruising.
Right up until the kid started talking, Vanessa had been ready to unleash hell on the dad. Instead, she focused on ensuring the dad got half of the business and checked into rehab. Fast forward four years, the dad was sober and employed full-time. He never missed a child support payment or his visitation.
The case had made her believe anything was possible if someone was determined enough. It had also taught her guilty people could come off as innocent if they tried. Jackie Firebrand rolled over the minute she’d been caught. A practiced criminal would have pled the fifth and asked for a lawyer.
Mrs. Firebrand might not be innocent, but it was possible she would never have gone through with the plan to kill either.
9
“Why did you really take on my mother’s case?” Nick asked Vanessa as she walked into the kitchen. He cleared the sudden dryness in his throat at seeing her in nothing but a bathrobe.
“Who does this belong to?” she asked, motioning toward the robe and ignoring his question.
“I asked first,” he said, which sent him back to middle school. Was he going to pull her ponytail next? “Meaning, I’ll answer when you do.”
“I already told you,” she said. “Your mother called my father’s firm. I stepped in since he can’t.”
He stood up and moved to the coffee machine. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have,” she defended.
“How did my mother even know your father?” he asked.
“That’s a good question,” she said. “I assumed she made the connection because of us and the fact my mother still lives here.”
Nick grabbed a plate and then moved to the fridge to portion out meatballs. “You’re probably starving.”
“I could eat.”
At least she’d dropped her question. The truth was that he didn’t know who the bathrobe belonged to. It had to have been someone from his past who’d decided to leave something behind. No one had ever asked for it back, so he washed it and hung it in the guest bath.
The key to making sure everyone was on the same page in a relationship was keeping separate spaces. Nick never slept over at anyone else’s place, despite being monogamous. If a guest wanted to stay over, he had a room just for that purpose. It might seem a little cold but it kept both parties from blurring the lines, him included.
In fairness, he didn’t want to get too comfortable because he’d seen too many folks stay in bad relationships just because it was easier. Neither moving on when they should because they had a joint bank account or one person gave up their home to move in with the other.
Clear lines had to be drawn or he risked getting attached. As long as the other person had no problem with the arrangement, he would stay faithful until they agreed otherwise.
He nuked a plate before setting it on the table across from where he’d been sitting. “Meatballs okay?”
“Are you kidding?” she quipped, taking the seat with wide eyes. Her tongue darted across her lips. “These aren’t just any meatballs. I could identify Aunt Lucia’s based on smell alone.”
“Coffee?” he asked with a smile despite himself.
“Yes, please,” she said. “I had the worst headache but your guest room worked magic.”
“It was probably just the nap that helped,” he said as he poured a cup. “Sugar and cream?”
“A little cream is all,” she said. “I drink way too much coffee to keep adding sugar.”
Nick fixed her cup, and then brought it over to her.
She picked up the mug and wrapped her hands around it. “The warmth feels so good on my palms.”
When her plate was cleaned, Nick rinsed it off and then placed it in the dishwasher. “I don’t know.”
Her left eyebrow flew up. “What?”
“Who the robe belongs to,” he said. “Most likely a former friend of mine.”
“Oh,” she said. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”
“You’re welcome.”
“The reason is two-fold,” Vanessa said, picking up the other conversation thread. She didn’t need to explain further for him to know what she referred to. “Call it a bout of nostalgia, but I really wanted to help your mother out. She was never mean to me when I was over, which I always appreciated. The second is that I want to prove myself. This case is going to be difficult and a challenge like this one could change my career.”
“Still trying to please your father?” he asked in a voice so low he didn’t think she’d heard him. Until he glanced over and saw the look on her face.
“My father’s dead. Remember?” she said. It wasn’t the words that were daggers to his heart so much as the hurt in her voice when she said them. The broken look in her eyes wasn’t helping.
Nick was being a jerk. “Hey, sorry. All that between us with your father is ancient history. There’s no reason to drudge up the past.”
“It’s fine,” she said. Those two words meant anything but in the context of a conversation like this one.
“I didn’t mean to cause—”
“I’m fine,” she interrupted.
“You’re here to help and I shouldn’t—”
“Everything is fine.”
Nick didn’t have to study her face to know the opposite was true. Hell, he didn’t have to look at her at all.
So, he took in a slow, deep breath and restarted. “I’m a jerk.” He held his hand up when she opened her mouth to speak. “Turns out, letting go of the past is easier said than done, but I want to because you’re here in good faith to help someone who desperately needs you. And, in truth, I’m not the jerk that I’m coming across as. Can you forgive me?”
“Are you suggesting we start over? Forget the past?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Why would I want that? I had some of my best memories of high school because of you.”
“I didn’t even go to your high school,” she said, her tone softening.
Instead of continuing down that particular path, he changed the topic. “Why do you believe there is a coverup of what really happened to my mother in the jail?”
“They don’t want a lawsuit or the bad publicity,” she said. “Full disclosure, my uncle on my mother’s side is the warden. We’re not close so I don’t have any cards to play there if your mother is sent back.”
“She won’t be,” he insisted. “She can’t be. It would be inhuman.”
“A judge who is out playing golf in the middle of the week might not care what we think,” she said. “I’ve seen it before with small-town judges. They don’t seem to think they should be held accountable for doing their job.”
“Why is that?”
“They’re elected,” she said. “They don’t tend to rock the boat of their constituents. People snap judge situations and sometimes want the book thrown at innocent people.”
“She’s not innocent.”
“You’ve said that already,” she pointed out.
“I hate what happened to her in there,” he said before grinding his back teeth. “She should be able to pay her debt to society without being sent to the hospital.”
“Agreed,” she said.
“Are you trying to have her acquitted?” he asked.
“I went into this thinking that was going to be the play,” she admitted. “Right now, I’d be happy to have her relocated somewhere safe to serve her time. I’m going to try to get the lightest sentence possible. And you should know that I’m prepared to fight hard for her.”
“Tell me about the warden,” he said.
“My uncle?” she asked, but it was rhetorical. “I know he and my mother haven’t spoken in years.”
The admission brought up another question. “What about you and your mother? Did you two ever fix your relationship after you moved?”
“No,” she said with a frown. “Not to this day.”
“She still lives in Lone Star Pass, correct?”
“That’s right,” she said. “We check in every few weeks. Sometimes a month goes by.”
“Do you mind if I ask why?” he asked. Nick, of all people, understood complicated parent-child relationships.
She shrugged. “I was busy when I first moved away. Then, I got busier. The longer we went without talking, the easier it became to avoid making the call in the first place.”
He nodded.
“I never knew what to say to her about going to live with my father,” she continued. “At first, I left because I felt sorry for him and, to be honest, because he pressured me to. Later, I realized he was good at guilt trips and that was the reason I chose to go to him.” She shook her head. “It’s weird how deep a father-daughter bond goes.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” he said. Not with eight brothers and no sisters in the family. His mother and Aunt Lucia were the only females around the ranch on a permanent basis until recently.
Vanessa cocked her head to one side. “Do you ever think about having children?”
“No,” he said emphatically. “Actually, correction, I think about what a bad idea it would be for me to have a child.”
“Can I ask why?”
Did he really have to explain? “With parents like mine, I honestly can say having a family never appealed to me.”
“You would make an amazing father,” she countered, much to his surprise.
The only time he’d ever thought about a future with someone was with her. Look where that had gotten him. “No, thanks.”
“What about you?” Nick asked, and his question caught her off guard.
It probably shouldn’t, given the conversation.
“My career has always come first and it probably always will,” she said. Speaking of family, Vanessa should call her mother. She filed the thought away on her list of things to do when this case was over. “People rarely change.”
Nick got a little too quiet at her remark.
“I should probably give my uncle a heads up that I filed several motions earlier,” she said, pushing up to standing. “Thanks for the dinner. It was amazing.”
He nodded but didn’t say a word. Instead, he drained his coffee cup and stood.
As he walked toward the sink, she reached for his arm. He stopped but didn’t make eye contact.
In college, she’d dated a guy who couldn’t be bothered to call if he decided to break their plans to go out with his buddies. Don’t even get her started on the boy she’d started hanging out with as a study partner. He’d been good-looking and smart. Their texts became flirty. Next thing she knew, they were spending more time together outside of the library than in. Sebastian had asked her to go with him and three other couples to Dallas for the weekend. The guys had pitched in and rented a party bus so no one had to drive. Since she liked the other couples, she’d agreed.
The weekend had turned into one of the worst weekends of her life. Not only did her date get so drunk off his gourd, but he also slept with one of his friend’s dates. Sebastian claimed to have spent the night in the hotel lobby, which she’d later learned wasn’t the case.
He’d apologized a dozen times by the time they made it back to Austin. She couldn’t stand to sit next to him on the ride back. And she sure as hell couldn’t find it in her heart to forgive him. The whole event was gross and she wanted nothing to do with him after. So, it was the worst when he ended up in two of her classes the next semester and, as her luck would have it, her litigation partner in a mock trial.
“I was a jerk all those years ago,” she managed to drum up the courage to say. “Leaving the way I did was cruel and I would handle everything so differently now. Walking away from Lone Star Pass, from you, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I did it for all the wrong reasons.”
Nick stood rooted to his spot, silent.
“You don’t have to forgive me,” she continued, her heart battering the inside of her ribcage. “I would never expect anything like that.” She paused a beat to give him a chance to tell her how awful a person she was. When nothing came, she added, “My father was very convincing and I wanted, no needed, to make him happy and gain his approval.”
“Did that make you happy?” he finally asked.
“No,” she said on a sharp sigh. “I’ve never been more miserable than when I realized I’d lost you forever and would never gain his approval. Eventually, I figured out there was always going to be a narrow path that I had to walk on to earn his love. But that took years and the damage was already done between us.”
With a shirtless Nick standing close enough for her to touch him, she suddenly felt very naked underneath the bathrobe. The man was a combination of silk over steel. He was gorgeous, and caused her heart to pound wildly in her chest. Her fingertips tingled from contact with his skin. It was taking all her willpower not to close the distance between them with a small step.
Taking in a breath only served to usher in his warm, masculine scent. He was campfires and spice, all male with a powerful presence.
Before she did or said something that couldn’t be taken back, she released her grip on his arm. The minute she let go, she saw the finger imprints on his muscled arm. “I’m sorry. Did that hurt?”
Nick glanced down at his arm. He shook his head. Then, he lifted his gaze to meet hers. Those beautiful eyes of his took her in when they locked onto hers. A dozen butterflies released in her stomach as awareness skittered across her exposed skin. It felt like Nick could see right through her.
“We were kids,” he said in a low, gravelly tone. “It was puppy love. Nothing more.”
As he turned to face her, she dropped her gaze. There was no way she could look into his eyes when she felt this vulnerable. His hand came up to cup her chin like he’d done so many times when they were younger, right before he was about to kiss her.
