CHARGED
Jay Crownover

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

The News Building

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper 2016

Copyright © Jennifer M Voorhees 2016

Cover design by Studio Takoma © HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Cover photograph © Fotosearch/Getty Images

Jennifer M Voorhees asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008116279

Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780008116286

Version: 2016-05-06

Dedication

Dedicated to the one person that has held my hand through all my worst decisions and cheered me on through all my amazing ones … this book and this story about bad decisions leading to the best things in life is for you, Mom.

You’re just the best, and every mistake I’ve ever made, every bad choice I’ve blindly made, you’ve been there to pick up the pieces afterwards.

Luckily, I do indeed have some pretty awesome stories to tell after everything is said and done, and all the storms have passed. But nothing makes me happier than knowing that none of those tales of wonder and of woe would have had a happy ending if I hadn’t been able to share them with you.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1: Avett

Chapter 2: Quaid

Chapter 3: Avett

Chapter 4: Quaid

Chapter 5: Avett

Chapter 6: Quaid

Chapter 7: Avett

Chapter 8: Quaid

Chapter 9: Avett

Chapter 10: Quaid

Chapter 11: Avett

Chapter 12: Quaid

Chapter 13: Avett

Chapter 14: Quaid

Chapter 15: Avett

Chapter 16: Quaid

Chapter 17: Avett

Chapter 17.5: Church

Chapter 18: Quaid

Chapter 19: Avett

Epilogue: Quaid

Author’s Note

Avett and Quaid’s Playlist

Acknowledgments

Keep Reading – Riveted

Keep Reading – Built

Keep Reading – Rule

About the Author

Also by Jay Crownover

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

She’s immature.

She’s a brat.

She’s annoying and not very nice.

Why is she getting a story?

Whenever I have a character that seems like they shouldn’t get a story or like they might not deserve some kind of happiness, they are inevitably the characters that I most want to turn it all around for. I want to know their stories more than anything, and I want to dig into why there might be more to them than we initially see. It happened with Asa, and it happened with Avett from the minute she touched the page. I always knew I wanted Brite’s daughter to get a story, but I had no clue how layered, complex, and difficult that story was going to be. She’s a hurricane all right, and watching the storm break on the shore has made for some of my most favorite writing to date. I never start out with a character determined to make the reader like them, but I do hope that by the end of the journey, the reader understands the character and maybe even sympathizes with them a little bit … and hey, if you do end up liking that character you were so sure you hated … score one for me. <3 (Looking at you, Melissa Shank!)

I think Avett is the character that speaks the most to the person I was at the same point in my life. As I was writing her I kept cringing and thinking, yep … been there and done that, and now I definitely have a story to tell about those choices and the consequences they led to. Sometimes the story is the best part of screwing up, and really, no matter who we are or where we’ve been in life, we all have a story to tell. I feel that for all my characters, but for some reason it really, really rang true with Avett and Quaid.

When I was twenty-two I made a lot of questionable choices: about men, money, school, and my future in general. I had to be rescued (by family, not a handsome fella, which was a total bummer for me!) and one would think I learned my lesson because I was sure that was as low as I was ever going to get. Flash forward to my early thirties when things once again fell apart because of my bad choices and my foolish stubbornness. There I was for the second time in my life needing to be saved with more stories to tell and harsh lessons learned. (That story involves Rule getting published and my whole life changing, so even though it starts with heartbreak, it ends with a dream come true.)

So go out there and screw up. Have experiences so that you have stories to tell, and do it without an apology.

Memories and mistakes are both beautiful and important in their own ways.

Love and Ink,

Jay

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

—Ernest Hemingway

CHAPTER 1
Avett

Don’t worry, Sprite, bad decisions always make for good stories …

I could hear my dad’s gruff voice, lightened with humor, in my ear as he told me those words every single time I got caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to do when I was growing up. I was always doing something I shouldn’t then and now, so I heard those words a lot from him. Unfortunately, as an adult, my bad decisions resulted in consequences far worse than a scraped knee or a broken wrist from falling out of the tree in the backyard he warned me repeatedly wasn’t sturdy enough to climb. And sadly, my dad reassuring me in his firm and gentle way, while calling me his little Sprite as he kissed my boo-boos, wasn’t going to help my current situation at all.

This boo-boo was big-time.

This boo-boo was life-changing.

This boo-boo was anything but a good story waiting to be told.

This boo-boo very well could be the end of me, the end of the rope where my patient parents had dangled precariously for years, and it very well could be the end of any kind of future I may have had. A future I was well on my way to letting a lifetime of bad decisions and even worse choices screw up. At barely twenty-two, bad decisions had sort of become my stock in trade and were as familiar to me as my own face. I was almost legendary, at this point, for putting all my trust in the absolutely worst kind of people. If there was a wrong path to take, I was going to skip gleefully down that road and not look back until I ended up exactly in the kind of situation I found myself in at the moment. It wasn’t like this was even a new dead end; it was the same one I ran into over and over again. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get myself turned around, and the longer I was circling this dead end, the darker and more wicked it became.

I knew better. I really did, even if there was a boatload of evidence contradicting that fact.

I wasn’t stupid, naive, immature, or senseless. I might appear that way to anyone on the outside looking in, but I had my reasons for being a consummate failure and lifelong loser. All of those reasons had nothing to do with me not knowing better and everything to do with me knowing exactly what I deserved.

For a long time now I had been spiraling out of control, whirling, falling deep and deeper into a pit of really awful actions and consequences, each seemingly worse and more painful than the last. I also hadn’t made any kind of effort to try and pull myself out of the tailspin, so logically I knew the only place I was going to end up was right here, right at the lowest part of rock bottom. I never imagined the landing would be so jarring.

I had been in need of rescue for a long time and now I really needed it because I was facing a very real prison sentence, and a very real attorney dressed in an immaculate suit, while I sat there shivering, locked in handcuffs, and choking on fear. I never in a million years would have imagined rescue coming in the form of a man like the one sitting across from me. He looked like temptation and ruin, not salvation and redemption.

I wasn’t guilty of what they were saying I did, but I wasn’t exactly innocent in all of it either. Sadly, that was the story of my life. I was always the girl that wasn’t quite good, the one who was just bad enough to be trouble, and the man seated across from me looked like he didn’t have the tolerance or patience to deal with any of the chaos that I always seemed to be drowning in.

I laced my tense fingers together, and fought not to wince, or even worse, break down into sobs as the handcuffs snapped around my wrists, knocked loudly on the metal table that was separating me from the man that was supposedly here to save the day … and me. He told me his name, but I couldn’t remember it. I was a mess of nerves and confusion, and he wasn’t helping put any of my anxiety to ease. I was also sleep deprived, and terrified of what was waiting for me after this meeting was over. My future had always been uncertain, resting on shaky and unstable ground on a good day. Right now, I was longing for that wobbly foundation, and scared shitless that my latest bad decision had finally landed me in a spot that I couldn’t lie, cheat, steal, or manipulate my way out of.

The stoic and startlingly good-looking lawyer seated across from me didn’t look like any white knight I had ever seen. He was too slick for that, way too calculating in the way he looked at me while he silently judged me. No, this guy wasn’t the good guy riding in to rescue the damsel and prove himself a hero; this was the guy that the villains paid megabucks to in order to keep them out of jail. In all that I had done, I’d never considered myself a villain. I knew I was a bad guy (or girl), but I wasn’t a corrupt, amoral criminal with the actual intent to harm anyone other than myself. However, under the scrutiny of this man’s unusual gunmetal-blue gaze, which held not even an ounce of warmth or reassurance in it, I was starting to reconsider my stance. He made me feel like I was well on the road to corruption and disgrace, and he had yet to utter a single word. I’d never done anything bad enough or stupid enough that I required a professional to defend my actions before now, and I was having a hard time believing this guy gave a single shit whether I was innocent or not.

All I wanted to do was cower away from him, and pretend like I was anywhere else in the world but in this tiny room with a metal table that was bolted to the floor between us. I moved my hands again, and couldn’t hold back a flinch and a tremor as metal scraped across metal. Rock bottom was going to leave more than bruises if I ever managed to pull myself up and dust myself off. This was going to scar, deep and vicious, and I hated that I deserved every single stinging mark.

“I don’t want your story.” His words were sharp and to the point. I blinked at the rough sound of his voice in the sterile room.

“I don’t want to know if you knew what your boyfriend was up to or not. I don’t care. All I want to know is if you understand what you’re being charged with, and how serious those charges are. If the answer is yes, all I need to know is if you are willing to do whatever I tell you to do moving forward.”

Did I understand how serious the charges were?

Was this guy fucking kidding me right now?

I was hooked up in cuffs. I was wearing an orange jumpsuit, and had on rubber shoes that squeaked across the floor when I walked. I hadn’t slept in two days because, after everything went down the night I had been arrested and booked, I’d been locked up in a cell with one woman who was so strung out she kept seeing little gremlins coming out of the floor and, as a result, kept jumping up on the rigid bunks suspended from the concrete cell wall, barely missing stepping all over me. The other woman in the holding cell was there because she had tried to run her cheating husband over with the family minivan when she found him in bed with their next door neighbor. He had been in the family’s dining room at the time, so not only was the woman fighting mad about the affair, but she ranted and raved well into the early hours of the morning about how her unfaithful spouse better be on the phone with the insurance company to repair the damage she’d caused. She was a bag stuffed full of crazy, and the more I tried to ignore her, the more she seemed determined to tell me her entire life’s story.

Yeah, Legal Eagle, I had a pretty damn good idea how serious the charges were, and I was scared shitless about what would happen to me if I was going to be found guilty of them.

I lifted my chained hands in front of me and let them fall back on the table to make a noisy and unmistakable point. The man didn’t bat a single, ridiculously long eyelash at the motion, but his mouth tightened a fraction. It was a pretty mouth. All of him was pretty, in one way or another, and I wondered if when he walked out of this industrial meeting room he shook himself off like a wet dog to rid himself of the feel and taint of crime, sleaze, and bad decision making. He looked like the type that had never, ever took a wrong step. He oozed confidence, self-assurance, and arrogance like it was an expensive cologne that was crafted and bottled just for him. It should be reassuring, should make me feel like he had this all handled, like I would be home safe and secure in my own bed in no time, but instead it made me bristle and feel even worse than I already did. I was a train wreck and that was bad … but having a witness to the wreckage, a witness as put together and unflappable as this man seemed … Well, that made the fallout from my latest bad move seem a hundred times worse.

This guy wasn’t the type to chase bad choice after bad choice. In fact, he made his living riding to the rescue for us poor slobs that did. A very nice living if the Rolex on his wrist and the Mont Blanc pen he was tapping against the file in front of him was any indication.

“I understand how serious the situation is.” My voice was quiet and tiny in the empty room. I cocked my head to the side as we continued to size one another up. “My dad hire you?”

I wanted to hold my breath while he answered, but I couldn’t get my lungs to work. I couldn’t get anything to work.

I was a screwup. I was a failure, a flunky. I was a loser, a manipulator. I was one hot freaking mess on top of another, and through it all my parents, more often than not my dad, had always been there to pick up the pieces. He forgave me. He excused me. He cleaned me up and gave me helping hand after helping hand. He loved me when I didn’t want to be loved. He was always there, but not this time.

Bad decisions make for good stories, Sprite.

Dad’s words chased themselves around in frantic circles in my head as I felt myself slip a little farther, fall a little deeper and realized this … this point was actually my rock bottom, as the man who claimed to be my defense attorney shook his tawny head in the negative. “No. A former client actually contacted me and asked me to represent you. He paid my retainer in full and told me that any bills that are incurred while handling your case should be handed over to him. I was hired before the police had you booked and taken to lockup.”

My dad wasn’t here to kiss the boo-boo this go-around. He wasn’t waiting in the wings to dust me off and tell me everything would be all right. Not this time. This time I had gone too far and a miserable, uncomfortable night with a drugged-out weirdo and a psycho, suburban mom had nothing on the ice cold fear that climbed up my spine, vertebra by vertebra, at the thought that I had finally done something Brite Walker couldn’t forgive. I knew it was coming. I knew that even my big, badass, former Marine, Harley-riding father had a breaking point. I pushed and pushed to reach that point my entire life. I always figured when the fracture happened it would come with a giant boom. I expected an explosion that would level Denver. The fact that it was barely a whimper, a whisper of sound that indicated a good man’s heart was breaking, made me feel even worse than I already did. I had no idea how it was possible, but I sunk even lower than rock bottom. This was what a torrent of misery and despair felt like and I was submerged neckdeep in it.

I blinked back tears and tilted my chin up at the attorney. “Who’s paying for you to be here?”

My mom loved me. She had a huge heart that was made of marshmallow, but she had reached her point of no return with me much earlier in my life than my father had. My parents divorced when I was in high school, right on the heels of one of the most defining moments of my youth. My dad rallied like he always did and tried to make the separation as easy on me as possible. My mom went from being distant and confusing to actively pushing me away. I was never sure if she forced the distance between us because things were so easy between me and my father or because they were so hard between her and me. Either way, the strain in our relationship did nothing to help the rapid descent that started to engulf me when I realized exactly what kind of person I was.

A harmful one.

A guilty one.

A selfish one.

I could even be considered a dangerous person, if you asked the right people, and they weren’t necessarily wrong. It was amazing how hazardous doing nothing could be. It had even more disastrous results than doing the wrong thing … at least, it had up until now.

The lawyer’s cultured and smooth voice startled me out of my dreary thoughts. “Asa Cross. He was one of the victims of your boyfriend’s armed robbery attempt. The other was an off-duty police officer. So it’s no surprise that they booked you and locked you up with almost zero lag time. The DPD protects its own so no one is looking to do you or your boyfriend any favors.”

I winced when he brought up Jared.

Jared, the boy who had come along and convinced me he loved me. The boy that assured me we were so much alike we couldn’t fail. He was as screwed up and unhappy as I was, so we were bound to be together forever.

Jared, the boy that had hid from me the fact he was not only an addict with a serious problem but also deeply involved in the city’s drug trade until I was so far in, with what I thought was love for him, to pull myself out.

Jared was the perfect punishment for a girl that couldn’t get it together and deserved nothing more than exactly the kind of guy he really was.

Jared was also the boy who had run off with his supplier’s stash and money, leaving me behind to pay the price for his dishonesty and to pass along the message that his connections weren’t happy with him. He was also the boy that managed to convince me the only way to help him to help us, was to steal from the one place that had always been home no matter what. He convinced me that petty theft made no difference, that it was money I was owed anyway since my father had handed over his bar, his livelihood, without a thought as to what that meant to me. Jared was good with words when he wasn’t high, and like always, I couldn’t do the wrong thing fast enough. Only, the handfuls of cash from the register barely put a dent in the amount he owed.

Like I said, I wasn’t stupid or naive, so I should’ve known when he told me he needed to swing by the bar my dad used to own and where I used to work that he was up to no good. Jared was always up to no good, and more and more frequently that no good left marks on my arms and legs. He’d learned pretty quickly that even though I constantly disappointed and let down the people that loved me, they still cared, they always cared, and they didn’t appreciate me walking around with black eyes and swollen cheeks. He hadn’t slapped me across the face again after Church, the new bouncer at the bar, followed us out to the car one night and gave a few crystal clear hints about what would happen to Jared if I showed up looking roughed-up again. Addicts were unpredictable, but they knew how to hide the things they were doing that were wrong, the things they didn’t want other people to know about. So Jared still did bad things to me; he just got more skilled at hiding the evidence, and I pushed harder at the people that cared so I didn’t have to make excuses. I could never explain why I stayed or why I thought a guy like Jared was the kind of guy I was supposed to be with. I knew why, but that didn’t mean my reasons would go over well with them because, despite everything, they cared about me, even if I knew I didn’t deserve it. The lawyer didn’t want my story … That was fine because it felt like I would be torn in half every time I was forced to tell it.

“Why would Asa hire you to represent me? He hates me.” And rightly so. I had given the gorgeous southern charmer a thousand really good reasons to loathe me in the short time we had known each other. I couldn’t imagine why he would go out of his way to help me out. He wasn’t exactly the warm and fuzzy type, even on a good day.

The attorney lifted a gold-colored eyebrow and leaned back in his seat. He put his expensive pen down on the file in front of him and considered me through narrowed eyes. This guy had silent interrogation and intimidation down to a fine art. I felt like he could tell exactly what made me tick and exactly why I did the things I did simply by looking at me. I wasn’t used to that kind of perception from anyone, especially not from a guy that clearly came from a different kind of world than I was familiar with.

“Considering your current surroundings, shouldn’t you simply be grateful that he did?”

I bristled a little at the censure in his tone. “I’m just confused.”

“Good. That’s what I want you to tell every single person that asks you anything about what happened that night. You were confused. You didn’t understand what was happening. Your boyfriend coerced you and lied to you. You had no clue what his plans were that evening.”

I shifted in the rock-hard seat and all the chains attached to me rattled again. “That’s all true. I didn’t know what he had planned that night. I never would have gotten in the car with him if he told me he was going to rob the bar.” But I knew as soon as I recognized where we were headed, something bad was going to happen, and I did nothing to stop it … again.

I could have slid into the driver’s seat and left. It would have been so easy. I could have put the car in drive and kept going and going until I ran out of gas and ended up somewhere far away from the nightmare I was stuck in now. I could have climbed out of the car, walked inside that bar, and begged Jared to stop. I could have picked up my cell phone, called the police myself, and told them that my junkie of a boyfriend was tweaked out, owed some bad people a lot of money, and was currently trying to stick up the bar that had saved my dad’s life and that had always been a safe place.

So many good choices, so many right things I could have done, and yet all I did was sit there in the car and wait. I knew it was going to go bad. I knew someone was going to get hurt and I had done nothing. Nothing was the worst choice of them all, so of course that was the one that had settled around me like a lead blanket. I was suffocating on all the things I could do, should do, but it was the nothing that won. It was the nothing that defined me. It was the nothing that owned me, ruled me. It was the nothing that haunted me, chased me. It was the nothing that I spent my entire life trying to repent for and live beyond, but nothing always won.

Moments later, while I was still fighting through the nothing of the past and the paralyzing nothing of the current moment, I found myself facedown on the asphalt of the parking lot in front of my father’s legacy, being arrested for accessory to armed robbery and, according to the very angry cop that shoved me in the back of his patrol car, looking at anywhere from three to five years in prison if convicted.

“I told you I’m not interested in your story. Your boyfriend is in the hospital with a bullet wound but he’s already singing a pretty little tune that points the finger at you as the mastermind behind the robbery. He’s painting you as a vindictive daughter, angry that the family business was passed on to someone other than you. He’s claiming you used your relationship to manipulate him into robbing the place, to teach your father a lesson. Considering he has a five-mile-long criminal record and a history of drug-related charges, he’s not exactly credible, but then again, neither are you.”

He tapped the file in front of him with his index finger and all I could do was sigh. That file held a lifetime of poor decision making on my part. It was all laid out in black and white, every flaw, every terror, every mistake … right in front of this too-pretty man and his chilly and unwavering gaze.

I don’t think I’d ever been this exposed, this unprotected and bare, before anyone. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling and it took every last scrap of self-control I had not to squirm guiltily in my seat.

“I’ve had a few hiccups here and there, but I’ve never been in jail before now.” I sounded defensive and infantile. I didn’t understand how he wasn’t getting up and walking out of this room without looking back. I thought that was probably what I would do if I was in his shoes … not that I would ever be able to afford his shoes. The guy was the complete opposite of everything I had ever known. I don’t think my dad even owned a suit and the only time I saw him in a tie and shoes that weren’t boots was when someone was getting married or buried.

Those golden eyebrows danced upwards again and the corner of his mouth pulled down in something that would have been a frown on a less extraordinary face, but on him it looked more like a practiced expression of displeasure. I wanted to kick myself for noticing anything about him other than his credentials, considering the circumstances. He was distractingly good looking and it was annoying because I needed to focus on my impending doom, not his perfectly straight teeth and his disarmingly sharp blue eyes. “Multiple tickets issued for underage drinking, public intoxication, a recent DUI, a citation for shoplifting, a citation for trespassing, more than one basic assault charge … should I keep going?”

I gave my head a little shake. “No. I understand that it can’t be my word against Jared’s because we’re both equally untrustworthy. Neither one of us is running around with angel wings attached to our backs.”

That had his frosty demeanor thawing enough that the corners of his mouth kicked up and I felt my breath catch and my eyes widen at how the slight expression turned him from outrageously handsome into something so otherworldly attractive that my simple human mind couldn’t compute it. I wondered if he won all his cases because the female jurors were too blinded by lust to listen to any of the evidence he presented. That could really work in my favor, so I sure hoped it was part of whatever he was planning to spring me from the slammer.

“You don’t need angel wings or a halo to persuade a judge or a jury that you’re innocent. You need to listen to me and be more believable than him. I think it’s pretty obvious he’s trying to throw you under the bus. I’ve seen the surveillance tape the cops took from the bar and this is not a respectable individual we are dealing with.”

If he had seen the tape, then that meant he had seen Jared grab the back of my head and slam my face into the dash of the car when I told him I wasn’t going to be part of whatever he had planned for the bar. Absently, I lifted up my joined hands and rubbed at the knot that was still prominent between my eyes. I hadn’t had a mirror to look in to check out the bump but the paramedics at the scene had declared it a minor injury, even if the headache that had eventually settled in from the blow felt pretty major.

“No, he’s not respectable at all. He’s an addict.”

“It sounds awful to say, but that actually works in our favor.” He picked up the fancy pen again and folded the file closed in front of him. He rose to his feet in a lithe movement and I found myself shrinking back in my chair to make myself as small as possible. He had already been sitting on his side of the table when the cops brought me into the room so I wasn’t expecting him to be as tall as he was, or as big. “Your bail hearing is in the morning, which unfortunately means another night in lockup for you. However, I’m confident I can get you released tomorrow but it isn’t going to be cheap, and I also need to prove to the judge you have a place to go if they do, in fact, grant you bail.”

He looked at me expectantly and all I could do was shrug. My dad wasn’t here and that spoke louder than any words he had ever said to me.

“I was staying with Jared at his place, but clearly, I can’t go back there now. As for bail …” I shrugged again. “I don’t have any money and I doubt that my parents are willing to foot the bill. I’m not sure that I’m willing to ask them for that kind of favor.”

His eyes narrowed a fraction as he reached for the paperwork on the table and slid it into a leather satchel. Even his bag looked expensive and fancy.

“If the judge sets bail and it doesn’t get paid, then you stay in jail until we have the preliminary hearing. That can take weeks, maybe even months.”

I blew out a breath and felt that bottom I had careened into reach up to embrace me even tighter. “It is what it is. I’ve let both my folks down a lot over the last few years but getting caught up with a guy that would rob the bar, a guy who could threaten my dad’s people.” I shook my head. “I deserve to rot.”

I was being overly dramatic but that’s how I felt. I deserved to sit in jail and so much worse than that. Self-pity was good company down here at rock bottom and I wasn’t ready to let go of the warmth it provided just yet.

He gave me a look I couldn’t read and headed for the door. “I’ll call your parents for you and see if we can have something in place before tomorrow. Working on your case will be a lot easier for both of us if you aren’t incarcerated. Remember, you need to listen to me, Ms. Walker. That’s the first rule in all of this.”

Panic hit me like a truck. What if he called my dad and my dad told him he’d had enough of his problematic daughter and her endless nonsense? What if he couldn’t love me anymore? Jail I could survive; losing my father for good, well, it would be the end of me.

Without thinking I jumped to my feet, which had the chains on both my hands and my legs rattling loudly, and two uniformed officers hurried into the room. I was about to make maybe the worst decision to date but I couldn’t stop the words from sliding off my tongue.

“Don’t call my dad!” Recklessness, thy name was Avett Walker.

The attorney turned around and looked at me like I had grown a second head. He didn’t say anything as the officers moved to either side of me and told me to calm down.

“You can’t call my dad.” The words sounded as panicked and as desperate as I felt on the inside.

His broad shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug like he really couldn’t give a shit that he was about to ruin my life … which was saying a hell of a lot considering where I was.

“I have to.” He sounded bored and impatient with my outburst.

I narrowed my eyes at him, and that vortex of awful, which I always seemed to be smack dab in the center of, started to spin faster and faster around me.

“Then you’re fired.” I saw the cops exchange a look as my rushed words had the blond man turning fully back around to look at me. “I don’t want your help. I don’t want anything from you.”

Finally, there was something other than indifference in his gaze. There was surprise, maybe a hint of admiration colliding with a huge splash of humor in the pale depths.

“Sorry, Ms. Walker, but you didn’t hire me, so that means you don’t get to fire me.” That grin of his, which should be registered as a deadly weapon, flashed across his face again as he watched me, and then he was gone.

I looked at the cop that was closest to me and frowned. “That’s not how it works, is it? If I want a new attorney, I get one, right? The state will give me one, won’t they?” I was babbling uncontrollably.

He shrugged. “We aren’t here to give legal advice, lady, but there’s no way in hell, if I was in your shoes, that I would be handing Quaid Jackson his walking papers. The rumor is that the guy could get the Grim Reaper acquitted of murder if he had to.”

Quaid Jackson.

I was struck dumb by him and by the situation. I couldn’t deny that his looks and overall demeanor had sort of left me starstruck. His name, like the man it was attached to, was unusual, sophisticated, and impossible to forget. It rattled around in my head, along with the million and one other things I had done wrong in order to get to this point.

After Quaid was gone and the officers had the shackles off my ankles, I followed them back to the cell and swore softly under my breath when I noticed that gremlin-girl was gone but psycho-wife remained. She was sitting on one of the bunks hunched over and sobbing uncontrollably into her hands. She sounded like a suffering animal and I knew it was only going to take a few minutes for the noises she was making to have my head pounding. It was going to be another sleepless night and not because I was turning over and over in my head what my dad was going to say when Quaid called him.

I shot the cop on my right a look as he opened the door to the cell for me to go through. He shook his head and muttered so that only I could hear him, “The husband served her with divorce papers and a bill for the car and the house. It’s gonna be a long night in lockup.”

That was putting it lightly.

As the barred door slid shut behind me, I stuck my hands through the slot so the cuffs could be removed. It was all very Orange Is the New Black, but far less entertaining. I silently prayed that I wasn’t here long enough to draw any more parallels like that one.

I made my way to the opposite wall of the tiny cell and propped a shoulder up against the hard cement wall. I pushed some of my faded pink hair out of my face and winced when my fingers brushed over the bump that was between my eyes. I hissed out a sound of pain and met the bloodshot and watery eyes of the woman across from me.

I leaned my head back against the wall and stared up at the industrial ceiling transfixed by the fluorescent light as it buzzed above me.

“When I was little, my dad used to tell me that bad decisions made for good stories. He told me that while I was crying in the hospital, getting a metal plate in my arm, after I fell out of a tree he told me not to climb. Again, he told me that when I crashed my first car, which he said I wasn’t ready to drive during the winter. He also told me that when he caught me smoking my first cigarette and it made me sicker than a dog.” I tilted my head back towards the woman who was still crying, albeit silently now as she watched me intently. “He was right. All those stupid things I did, even though he told me not to, led to some pretty good stories over the years, and I’ve always appreciated the battle scars that serve as constant reminder that Daddy does indeed know best.”

The woman sniffled loudly and wiped a hand across her damp face. “Why are you telling me this? I don’t think the fact that I drove a car through my own home will ever make for a good story. I’m sure my kids aren’t going to appreciate the fact that my bad decision is more than likely going to result in their mother going away for a long, long time.”

I turned my head back towards the ceiling and concentrated really hard until I could hear Brite Walker’s deep and rumbling voice whispering to me: Bad decisions make for good stories, Sprite.

I hadn’t been telling her for her … I had been telling myself because I needed to hear it … now, more so than ever.

Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.

—Boethius

CHAPTER 2
Quaid

I pulled my already loosened tie the rest of the way off and kicked the front door of my loft shut with my foot. I threw my leather satchel towards the big sectional that took up most of the open living room and swore when it missed the mark by a hair and went careening to the floor. My laptop clattered and slid out of the top flap, taking with it the file from the last case of the day. I pushed my hands through my hair in aggravation and blew out a frustrated breath.

I was home hours before I had planned to be and I was alone, something else I hadn’t planned on being by the end of my date. The rejection and subsequent dismissal from a woman that was not only beautiful but as smart and successful as I was had left me edgy and antsy. I was also grumpy and short tempered due to sexual frustration and the unfamiliar feeling of being denied something I wanted.

What I currently wanted was a shot at getting Sayer Cole in my bed.

I was married the first time I was introduced to the stunning family-law attorney but it was a marriage well on its way to crashing and burning. I wasn’t married anymore, and as far as I was concerned, Sayer was the perfect woman to celebrate my newfound singleness with. She was gorgeous and she didn’t need anything from me. She made the same kind of money that I did. She was already a partner in the firm she worked for, so she didn’t need my name or reputation to get ahead in the legal game. She had been unattached the entire time she was in Denver, so I didn’t have to worry about her clinging to me. She didn’t seem like the type that was husband hunting, which was perfect, because I wasn’t going to be anyone’s prey. I was much more comfortable being the hunter rather than the hunted and nothing appealed to me more than a woman that had absolutely no reason to bleed me dry. I knew that even though she came across as chilly and reserved, I could warm her up if I got her naked and underneath me.

I should have taken the hint after the second time Sayer rescheduled on me. Women never bailed on me. In fact, more often than not, women chased after me and I had to bail on them because I was busy or because I was bored. After my divorce was final, I went on a sexual bender. I was hurt and reeling from my ex’s betrayal, so it was obvious that I was trying to even up the score and soothe my wounded ego with an endless string of willing bed partners. I was trying to screw wasted years, wasted money, and a broken heart out of my system. It became clear from the get-go, that even meaningless one-night stands wanted more than I was willing to give.

One wouldn’t leave the next morning until I threatened to call the police. One acted like she was waiting for an engagement ring after one night together. One disappeared with my favorite Tag Heuer watch. One showed up outside of court after an intense day at trial and wanted to know when we were going out again. Then there was the one who called the top partner at my firm, the guy with his name first on the sign, and asked him for an interview claiming me as her reference. That one led to an embarrassing explanation and a ding on my nearly spotless reputation within the firm. I wanted my name as partner on that sign in the near future, and I wasn’t going to let my vengeful dick or my anger towards my ex hinder that possibility.

I stopped sleeping around, set my sights on Sayer, and waited for her to get on board with my plan. Only she wasn’t interested and sent me on my way, frustrated and at a loss for what to do next. I didn’t have a backup plan because I very rarely needed one.

I walked over to the couch and tossed the silk tie in my fist over the back of it, this time hitting the target. I bent to pick up the computer and scowled when I noticed the toss had dinged the corner. That meant I would have to buy a new one even if this one still worked. It wouldn’t do to have a damaged Mac. It wouldn’t do to have a damaged anything even if it meant throwing good money away.

I scooped up the scattered file on Avett Walker and plopped myself back on the couch. I looked at the expensive watch on my wrist, yet another prop that was nothing more than a waste of money considering I had a cell phone with the time on it, and then back at the file. It was still early enough in the evening that I could call the young woman’s father, letting him know that without someone to pay her bail and without a permanent address for her to be released to she was looking at a decent amount of time behind bars until we had a preliminary hearing date. The system didn’t take kindly to one of their own being threatened, and since the robbery had involved an off-duty police officer, I wouldn’t be surprised if paperwork got lost or misfiled along the way to us getting in front of a judge.

I tapped the edge of my thumb on the black-and-white mug shot photo and couldn’t stop the grin from tugging at my mouth.

She tried to fire me.

She was five-foot-nothing, a lifetime younger than me, had multicolored hair that had seen better days, wild eyes that couldn’t decide if they wanted to be green, gold, or brown, while dressed in convict orange and obviously scared out of her ever loving mind, yet she still tried to fire me. If it had been any of my other clients—the cop accused of sexual battery, the frat boy accused of manslaughter over a bet on a football game gone wrong, the middle school teacher accused of pedophilia and having an inappropriate relationship with several of her students, or the pro football player accused of domestic abuse—I would have tipped my proverbial hat, wished them luck while I cut my losses, and walked away without a backward glance. People always committed crimes. People always needed a good defense, so it wasn’t like I was hurting for clients, but there was something about the girl. Something about the defiant tilt of her chin and the raw desperation in her tone when she begged me not to call her father.

“I don’t want your help. I don’t want anything from you.” She sounded like she meant it when she said it, but I figured she was too young and too scared to know exactly what she wanted or needed. Regardless, it was still refreshing to hear.

Everyone always wanted something from me and my help was usually the least of it.

I tapped the picture again, wondering why I found it so easy to believe that she really hadn’t been a part of the boyfriend’s plan to rob the bar. She wasn’t anyone’s idea of a model citizen and she had the shady track record to prove it. She was too young, and frankly too adorable, to have a file this thick. From what I could see, she also had a set of parents always willing to ride to the rescue when she got herself into trouble. She looked like some kind of colorful woodland fairy from a Disney movie with her odd hair and delicate features. None of it added up, but the sincerity in her tone when she said she would never have gone with the boyfriend if she knew his intent and the fear in her eyes when I mentioned her father seemed genuine.

I learned long ago to treat everyone like they were guilty of whatever it was I was paid to defend them against. I didn’t want to know the truth. I didn’t want to know the circumstances. I wanted my clients to listen to me and let me do my job as I tried to convince the rest of the world they were innocent, regardless if they were or not. But this girl with her faded, rose-colored hair and turbulent eyes oozed innocence through the cracks of her very guilty façade.

Because I was intrigued and actually believed the girl might be innocent, I wasn’t going to let her fire me. I was going to call her father and hope that he would help me keep her out of the slammer while I figured out how to plea bargain her charges down or get them dismissed altogether. Again, because a cop was involved in the robbery and because the boyfriend, junkie or not, was offering up a pretty plausible explanation for Avett’s involvement in the crime, nothing was a slam dunk, yet. I was going to help her whether she wanted me to or not.

I found the father’s contact information in the file and dug my cell phone out of my pocket. If he wasn’t willing to help the girl out I was going to call Asa and see what my former client thought the next best course of action should be. I didn’t often take on cases based solely on referral, but I truly liked Asa Cross and he was another one of my clients that I actually believed was innocent when I was hired to help him out. If he was willing to pay my admittedly hefty fee to help this young woman out, I knew he would want to know if she was going to end up stuck behind bars if dear old dad didn’t step up to the plate.

I pressed the number into the screen while continuing to stare at the grainy mug shot and wondered why I wasn’t letting my assistant or one of the paralegals at the firm make the call instead.

A deep voice rumbled a curt hello in my ear and I tilted my head back on the couch so I was looking at the exposed ductwork that crisscrossed the ceiling of the loft.

“Is this Brighton Walker?”

There was a grunt and then, “Who wants to know?”

I almost laughed. It was so far removed from the way the people I usually dealt with on a day-to-day basis interacted with me that it was startlingly refreshing.

“My name is Quaid Jackson, and I’m calling because I am currently being retained to represent your daughter.”

There was a beat of silence followed by a heavy sigh that could only come from a frustrated parent. “One of my boys hired you.” It wasn’t a question but rather a statement of fact.

“I don’t know if Asa Cross is one of your boys or not but we worked together in the past on a situation involving the same establishment. He called me as soon as the police read your daughter her rights and told me if I agreed to take the case that money was no object.”

A soft curse hit my ears followed by another deep sigh. “I was waiting for Avett to call. She always calls me first when she gets into trouble. They charged her?”

I shifted on the couch and tucked the phone against my cheek. “They did. Accessory to armed robbery, aiding and abetting the commission of a felony involving a firearm, and accessory after the fact. Some of the charges are throwaway charges simply because they wanted to book her fast and hold her in lockup. The fact that there was an off-duty police officer involved in the crime is going to complicate things for the duration.”

“Royal.” He mentioned the young policewoman’s name softly. “I’m so glad that the only person that got hurt was that loser my daughter was hooked up with.”

I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “If the police officer hadn’t been there that night it might not have been the case. The boyfriend went in armed and pulled a gun on Mr. Cross. This entire situation could have had a much worse outcome.”

The man on the other end of the phone went silent again and then muttered, “I am well aware of what could’ve happened, Mr. Jackson.”

I felt like a little kid getting a scolding for speaking before the teacher called on me. That was an impressive feat. I very rarely felt put in my place and this man had done it with his tone of voice and a few carefully chosen words. Again, I wondered how his daughter had trailed so far off the straight and narrow when she seemed to have such a strong support system in place.

“I can’t tell you why Avett didn’t call you, Mr. Walker, but I can tell you that she is in pretty big trouble. Her arraignment hearing is tomorrow, and while I’m almost certain that I can get her released on bail, it won’t be cheap and the judge won’t let her go unless she has a stable, safe, and permanent address to go home to. He may even put her on house arrest considering her uncanny ability to find trouble. If that’s the case, she’ll have to have an address to register the ankle monitor to.” I paused to let all the information sink in. “She mentioned she was living with the boyfriend. Understandably, that is no longer an option.”

There was rustling on the other end of the line that sounded like he was scraping his hand through his hair, only rougher and scratchier. “So you’re asking me to pay my daughter’s bail and to bring her home with me, even though she was involved in an armed robbery that could’ve resulted in people I care deeply about getting injured … or worse?”

When he laid it out like that, it sounded like an insane request. It was my turn to sigh. “If it makes any kind of difference Avett didn’t want me to call you. I felt that if there was an option to save her from having to spend time behind bars while we wait for the preliminary hearing, we should pursue it. From your reaction, I’m guessing she didn’t call you because she knew it would be a waste of time.” I didn’t know the man, barely knew the girl, but I was oddly disappointed in his reaction. One more thing about this entire case and situation that made no sense. My reactions were totally out of character, but instead of worrying about it, I kind of liked the thrill of it. Being numb was boring.

I paused and as I was about to thank the man for his time there was suddenly a chuckle that sounded like thunder rumbling through the mountains coming from the other end of the call.

“She didn’t call me because she’s scared and embarrassed. That girl.” Even though I couldn’t see him, I knew the man had to be shaking his head ruefully. “She’s always been a handful, and she’s always had a knack for finding the deepest, hottest water to jump feetfirst into. Sometimes I wonder if she’s testing me and her poor mother to see just how much we can take. She doesn’t realize when you’re a parent there are no limits on the love you have for your child. I’ll take whatever she dishes out and come back for more. Her mother is a firm believer in letting Avett suffer the consequences of her foolish actions alone—she thinks it’s the only way she’ll learn—but I’m more of a ‘walk through the fire side by side’ kind of parent. Tell me what time the hearing is and I’ll be there, with bail money or a bondsman and with whatever proof you need that my daughter has a permanent place to stay with me. I’ve always been her home and regardless of what she’s done that will never change.”

I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. I wanted to pump my fist in victory even though the battle hadn’t even started yet. Maybe my job and the recent collapse of my marriage had made me too jaded. I was so used to seeing the bad in people, so accustomed to believing the worst by default, that I needed this man to have unconditional love for his child in order to keep some sort of faith in humanity alive.

I ran through what he would need to bring with him for the arraignment proceedings in case the judge needed proof, and warned him that his daughter was going to look worn down and was dressed like a convict. It could be jarring to see someone you loved like that, but the man assured me he would be fine and he would be there to take care of his little girl.

I thanked him for his time and was getting ready to hang up when he stopped me with a quietly spoken question. “Can I ask why you took the time, after what I’m assuming was a long workday, to call me yourself, Mr. Jackson? Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the personal touch and the obvious commitment to my daughter’s well-being. I can’t say I’ve had a ton of experience dealing with attorneys, but something tells me this isn’t standard operating procedure.”

It wasn’t, but there was something about the girl so I told him the truth because I had a suspicion that this man would be able to smell a lie or a dodge from a mile away. “It’s not and I’m generally not the type to bring a case home with me. I try to leave the law at the office and in the courtroom, but there is something about your daughter.” I paused and it was my turn to shake my head. “She isn’t exactly blameless, but she doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with the kinds of violent criminals I deal with on a daily basis either. She’s still young enough to have a shot at something better. I want to help her out.”

“Avett’s always been special and maybe a little lost. Her mother and I tried to show her the right way, but the girl is stubborn and determined to find the path she’s meant to be on in her own way. This is another speed bump, albeit a big one, for her to navigate her way around. I appreciate your help, son. I’ll be getting on the phone with Asa as soon as I get off with you. That boy is coming from a good place, but this is a family matter so I’ll be taking care of your fees from here on out.”

I rubbed a hand over my face and sat up. “I’ll let you fight that out with him. As long as I get paid, I don’t care who pays the bill.”

There was another deep and rumbling chuckle. “You serve in the military, son?”

I blinked in surprise at the offhanded question and looked down at my oxblood Burberry wingtips and the legs of my custom fit, navy Canali suit. I was miles away from the rebellious and untrained eighteen-year-old that had enlisted what felt like a lifetime ago. No one asked me about those four defining years of my life. They asked about finishing my undergrad in record time, they mentioned law school, they talked about passing the bar, and they questioned me about defending a well-known serial killer and getting a sitting congressman acquitted of vehicular manslaughter charges. Most of the time, I forgot about the kid that had been shipped to the desert to fight hostiles and insurgents on endless miles of bloodstained sand. I was too busy being the guy in the suit with a slick haircut and perfectly placed accessories to show how successful, how good at my job I was.

“Why do you ask?” I wasn’t going to confirm his suspicions because I hadn’t been a soldier or a wide-eyed kid in a very long time and I didn’t want to give the man the wrong impression about who I was or what kind of man he was going to be dealing with.

The other man made an amused noise and told me, “I can always tell. Something about the way a man speaks, the way he presents himself, even if it is over the phone and to a total stranger. Like recognizes like. I look forward to meeting you in person tomorrow, Mr. Jackson.”

He hung up and left me shaking my head in bemusement. It took a lot to surprise me considering I was intimately acquainted with all the appalling things humans were capable of, but both father and daughter had managed to knock me sideways today.

I hit the Google search bar on my phone and tapped in the name Brighton Walker out of pure curiosity.

Like recognized like.

That may be true but I wasn’t sure how alike the two of us actually were. There was plenty of information on the ever informative Google about Brite Walker, including details from his illustrious military career with the Marines, a career that lasted decades rather than the mandatory four like I had served. There were articles about his work with the VA and disabled vets all over the country, news stories ranging from good to really bad about the bar he no longer owned, and several articles that tied him to the largest and most notorious motorcycle club in the Rockies. The man was equal parts hero and outlaw. He was the stuff local legends were made of and the kind of man other men told stories about. He impressed from nothing more than a web search, so I couldn’t even imagine how dynamic and enthralling he would be in person. Something told me Brite Walker had never even seen a Rolex and that the things that impressed everyone else who filled my day-to-day would not awe him in the least. For some reason I suddenly felt entirely inadequate, and I started regretting not letting the pink-haired spitfire actually get away with firing me.

Normally, I was a man used to being at the top of my game. I was a man used to getting what I wanted no matter what stood in my path. I was a man used to winning … but not lately. Lately, I was a man that had been betrayed, rejected, and drained emotionally and financially. Everything that went down with Lottie, my ex, had left me feeling like a loser, like a failure, like a fool.

We’d known each other since high school, had grown up in the same small mountain town a couple hours outside of Denver. Lottie came from money; I didn’t. She grew up in a mountainside mansion that looked like a goddamn ski resort; I grew up in a tiny cabin that only had running water and working electricity half of the time. Her parents worked in the entertainment industry and summered in the Virgin Islands; mine lived mostly off the land, refused to work for “the man,” and had bartered and traded for everything we had ever owned.

I hooked up with her at first to prove that I could. Girls had always liked me even though I came from nothing and had a shit attitude about it. Once I sealed the deal, I realized she was sweet, fun, and unendingly kind considering her affluent background. The sex was a stroke to my immature ego which quickly turned into something more. I begged her to wait for me because I had no other choice but to enlist and try to figure my life out. Joining the Army was the only way I was able to afford college, and I was determined to make something of myself, even if it meant leaving my girl and my very disapproving family behind.

Lottie promised to wait, and while I was sent overseas she went to Vassar and started her poli-sci degree. Lottie wanted to be a lawyer long before I did, but only one of us had the dedication and drive to actually get the degree and pass the bar. While I was away fighting a war and becoming a man, she was busy dropping out of school and flitting from guy to guy, all while sending me letters and messages telling me she loved and missed me. I was none the wiser, thought she was still the sweet, innocent girl I had fallen for ages ago. When I got back stateside, I put a ring on her finger, moved her to Boulder so I could attend CU, and spent every dime I made trying to keep her in the lifestyle she was accustomed to while simultaneously paying tuition.

It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.

The expensive suits, sports cars, the fat bank account … none of it had been enough to keep Lottie happy or faithful. At first, I was gone because of Uncle Sam, then I was in school, then I was busting my ass to pass the bar while working full time, and then I got hired at the firm and started working eighty- to ninety-hour workweeks to make a name for myself. She told me I wasn’t around. She told me I wasn’t present. She told me that she never loved me, and only stayed with me because I was safe and a good bet for her future financial security.

She told me all of that when she was five months pregnant with a baby that wasn’t mine. A baby that I knew couldn’t be mine because Lottie hadn’t let me touch her in close to eight months. The marriage was in the garbage and it wasn’t until she really started to show that I figured out why. Even with the evidence sitting plain as day between us, the woman still tried to blame the split and her scandalous actions on me. If I had been better, if I had given more, she would have waited, she would have stayed, she would have been faithful and loved me the same way I loved her.

Lottie had never been faithful, not since high school, but I’d been so blinded by her, so impressed with myself that I had scored someone like her, I’d been oblivious. I’d been trained to observe, honed my natural skills at reading people and being able to tell truth from fiction. I could tell a person’s entire life story by the way they moved, the expression on their faces, but my own wife, the person I had always been the closest to, fooled me. Or I had fooled myself because I couldn’t believe she would do that to me, do it to us. Now after it was all said and done, I could choke on my own arrogance and self-assuredness. It never even occurred to me she would go looking somewhere else for what she evidently found lacking in me.

I thought I’d given her all I’d had, but it hadn’t been enough and she wanted more. She wanted the house. She wanted my money. She wanted my car. She wanted my retirement. Hell, the greedy bitch had even tried to make me responsible for the future school expenses for the baby that wasn’t mine.

We’d been together for so long I thought I was going to have to hand it all over, but luckily, Colorado had some pretty cut-and-dry divorce laws considering the high quantity of military marriages in the state, which made it impossible for Lottie to take me totally to the cleaners. I also hired the best damn divorce lawyer I could find and made it clear I was going to fight her tooth and nail for everything. I’d grown up with nothing, and I wasn’t about to give up what I had now without a fight. I’d worked too hard for what I had and I wasn’t about to let that work and those sacrifices go easily.

I let her have the house in Boulder because I couldn’t walk in the front door without imagining who had been in my bed while I was working to keep the extraordinarily expensive roof over our heads and gourmet food on the fucking table. I also let her keep the car. Even though it went with all the trappings of the man I was now, it had never been my style. I preferred my massive, black 4x4 with its monster all-terrain tires and lift kit. Sure it didn’t go with my Ferragamos or my Armani, but I didn’t give a shit, and if I wanted something fast and sporty I had my Ducati Panigale in storage. The Italian-made street bike may have matched my wardrobe better but Lottie still hadn’t approved. She’d never been on the back of the rocket-like bike and I couldn’t picture her there if I tried.

In the end, I agreed to a hefty chunk of change for her monthly maintenance fee for five years or until she remarried, which meant that being the coldhearted bitch she was, she hadn’t yet accepted her babys daddy’s proposal. I told myself Lottie had cheated down instead of up because the baby’s father was a struggling artist and not exactly rolling in cash and prospects. I had no doubt she would keep him and his engagement ring at bay for the five years or until someone else with a fatter wallet came along.

It had been a hard and humbling lesson to learn. One that still stung and still made me cringe when I thought about it.

I don’t want anything from you …

The words danced around in my head along with the image of the young woman dressed in convict orange.

It was a good thing she felt that way because I was pretty sure after Lottie and the string of disastrous women that came after her, I didn’t have anything besides my knowledge of the law and my skill at working the legal system to give to anyone.

CHAPTER 3
Avett

It was a sleepless night in lockup and not because of the scorned cell mate. She had actually quieted down some after I told her my dad’s words of wisdom. She did spend several hours muttering to herself, questioning what she had done, what her kids were going to do without her, but she eventually fell asleep. That left me alone, in the not quite silent jail cell, worrying about what my dad was going to say when Quaid, the too handsome for my own good lawyer, called him. I turned over every scenario I could imagine in my mind, and none of them added up to Brite Walker being in that courtroom when I went before the judge.

He was going to be so disappointed. He was going to be so hurt. He was going to be disgusted and fed up that, once again, I hadn’t listened to him, hadn’t listened to any kind of common sense or paid attention to any of the red flags flapping wildly in my face when I decided to hook up with Jared. I wasn’t twelve anymore and it was no longer cute when I stubbornly went against the grain. No, this situation wasn’t cute at all and there was no way my always supportive, always loyal, and compassionate father was going to condone my behavior when it led to other people he cared about getting hurt. If something had happened to Asa or to the cop, who also happened to be the gorgeous, southern bartender’s girlfriend, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. As it was, I felt the guilt for having any part in putting them in danger weighing me down with every single step I took as I was herded into the courtroom. If I couldn’t stand myself for what I had done, how could my dad be there to offer me his massive shoulder to lean on?

The arraignment wasn’t like anything I had ever experienced before during all my other dustups with the law. I was hauled there in a van with an armed policeman in the front and back. I was transported with other women, and I learned quickly that the different colored jumpsuits they had us in represented the different levels of offenses that we were waiting to be arraigned on. It was a lot more intense and serious than any marathon of watching The Good Wife made it seem. I was forced to sit on a hard wooden bench next to a woman that told me she was waiting to be arraigned on manslaughter charges. She assured me she was innocent but that didn’t make me feel any better about the fact I was practically sitting in her lap. We were also placed behind a Plexiglas screen, which I assumed was supposed to be some kind of protection. I couldn’t tell if it was for us or for the people in the packed courtroom.

There were so many people, rows and rows filled with curious faces, all with their eyes locked on those of us on the wrong side of the barrier. Some people were crying; some looked furious as they glared at the group of us waiting to learn our fates. I was trying to search out the tawny, perfectly coiffed head of my unwanted, but very much needed, legal representative in the crowd but I didn’t spot him. My heart kicked hard in my chest and my handcuffed hands started to sweat as I curled my fingers into my palms. I was in so far over my head that panic and dread were starting to fill me up as I realized I very well might be stuck in this mess, leveled and flattened on the bottom of rock bottom, all on my own.

I was the idiot that fired him. I told him I didn’t need his help because I didn’t want him to call my dad. I did what I always did and fucked everything up. God, when was I going to learn to tamp down my foolish and impulsive reactions? Why did I always have to be my own worst enemy? I hadn’t ever done myself any favors, and now, it looked like I had gone and shot myself in the foot, all because I didn’t want to let my dad down again. When I least expected it, pride and remorse reared up to remind me that I wasn’t quite as awful as I made myself out to be. I still had a heart, still had a soul, even though both were tattered and torn.

I sucked in a deep breath and willed myself not to start crying. I really wanted to. I wanted to sob, shake, and fall into a million tiny pieces of regret and shame. I wouldn’t though. I was willful and foolish, but I wasn’t fragile. I had screwed up, like I always did, and I would take whatever consequences that followed that screwup stoically and silently. I would man-up, take whatever hits I had coming, and maybe finally pull my head out of my ass and start making better choices. That was the only way I had left to let my dad know I wasn’t a total lost cause. I could still turn it around if he didn’t give up on me.

I didn’t realize that I had squeezed my eyes closed to keep the moisture at bay. When I pried them open after I got my emotions under control, not only did I spot that elegant golden head coming through the large wooden doors, but I also quit breathing when I realized it was bent towards a much darker, much grizzlier one as they walked towards the front of the courtroom. Charcoal gray eyes locked on mine and shined so much love at me that I couldn’t stop a rebellious and wild tear full of liquid relief from sliding down my cheek. My heart expanded and started beating in a familiar rhythm tapping with hope and warmth as my dad tilted his heavily bearded chin in my direction and took a seat next to the attorney. The chin tilt was a universal signal from Brite Walker indicating everything would be okay, and with him here, with him looking at me like he always looked at me, for the first time since I had been arrested, I actually had a tiny sliver of belief that it would all work out in my favor. Maybe I was on the bottom, but my dad was there to give me a boost up, and this time, I was determined not to immediately fall down as soon as I got my feet under me.

A deep shudder worked through my body and it took me a second to notice that not only was my gigantic and impossible to miss father in the courtroom, but so was my much smaller, much more delicate mother. She had her hand in my dad’s, and while I was fighting back tears, she was letting hers freely flow. I knew both my parents adored me, but Darcy had a firm breaking point and I had pushed her to it more than once. I was surprised to see her and wondered if she was here to support me or to support my dad. Even though they were divorced, and often argued like cats and dogs, there was still something between my mother and father that no amount of discord and tension, or even relationships with other people, could kill.

Whoever she was here for, I was glad to see both of them and it was impossible to miss the triumphant look on Quaid’s face as I switched my attention to him. He dipped his very whiskerless, chiseled chin at me, much like my dad had done. With both of them here to silently assure me that things would be okay, or as okay as they could be for the moment, I started to breathe easier and finally unclenched my hands. It wasn’t relief that was flooding me, but it was something close.

Since my last name was Walker and W was always at the end of everything that went in alphabetical order, I didn’t get my turn in front of the judge until well after the possible murderer, who was denied bail, and the drug dealer, who was also denied bail. The longer I had to wait, the more anxious I got. I didn’t know the ins and outs of everyone else’s circumstances, but I was astute enough to put together the fact anyone going before the judge that had an extensive criminal history already on the books was mercilessly shot down and sent back to the enclosed bench looking at more time in the slammer. I was stunned that it all happened so fast. Each hearing took less than five minutes, which seemed far too quick to decide if someone was worthy of going home or sitting in jail for an undetermined amount of time. None of it seemed to bode well for me when it was my turn, but every time I met the golden-haired attorney’s gaze through the protective glass, it never wavered or betrayed any kind of worry. The expression in his light blue eyes never indicated anything but steady assurance and stone-cold confidence.

My dad, on the other hand, was getting just as antsy and just as fidgety as I was the longer time dragged on and the more accused that the judge shot down. Brite Walker was a massive human being. He took up all the available space around him and then some. When Brite was uncomfortable, it made everyone else within his vicinity uncomfortable. I saw the judge shoot my dad a couple of narrow-eyed looks throughout the different hearings, and I watched every single person seated in the same row as my father get up and move the more agitated he became. I kept waiting for Quaid to tell him to dial it down, for him to ask my dad to put a lid on his natural fatherly and protective instincts, but he never did. In fact, every time the judge looked in their direction or another person abandoned their front row seat, a small grin would tug at the man’s perfectly sculpted mouth and wry humor would dance in his eyes. My dad typically made a lasting impression on everyone that crossed his path; it appeared Quaid Jackson wasn’t immune to my dad’s legendary charisma and presence either.

Finally, the court clerk called my docket number and said, “The court will now hear the case of the State against Avett Walker,” and it was my turn to go stand at the podium and plead for my temporary freedom—well, let Quaid plead for it. It took a minute to maneuver around the remaining defendants and I almost fell over once without the use of my hands to balance myself. The bailiff shot me an annoyed look as several of the other accused snickered at my clumsiness, calling me a rookie under their breath. I almost melted into the floor in a puddle of gratitude when I was finally standing next to Quaid.

The judge looked at me and surprisingly over my head at what I could only assume was my father. His attention then shifted to the other man in the suit standing off to the left of us.

“Are we waving a formal reading, Counselor? Mr. Townsend has had a long day and I’m sure he would appreciate getting right to the arraignment.”

Quaid gave a dry chuckle and nodded his head slightly. “That’s fine and every day is a rough day for the prosecution, Your Honor.” The judge grunted and flipped open a file in front of him. I wanted to run up to his bench and snatch it away. Every single mistake I had ever made in my life was there, encouraging him to deny me a chance at freedom.

“What’s the people’s thoughts on bail in this case, Mr. Townsend?” Across from where I was doing everything in my power not to collapse into Quaid since my knees felt like Jell-O, the other attorney leafed through another folder full of my sins and shot me a frown.

“The charges are serious. The defendant is a known offender and there was an off-duty police officer involved during the commission of the crime Ms. Walker is accused of abetting in. The people can’t find a known address, work history, or any kind of solid ties to the community where this defendant is concerned. The people feel that she could be a flight risk, so we are asking bail be set at no less than $500,000.”

My knees almost buckled and I couldn’t stop the slight wheeze that escaped my lips. Half a million dollars? My dad made all-right money and had a pretty nice nest egg, but he wasn’t a millionaire by any stretch of the imagination, and even if he bonded me out that would still be more than he could comfortably afford to give up. Not to mention I would never, ever be able to pay him back. I was going back to jail; even if I knew I deserved nothing less, it still burned.

I turned to Quaid, ready to beg him to do something, to do anything to fix this, but he was looking at the prosecutor with narrowed eyes and a frown. The tip of his elbow brushed against mine. I thought it might was an accident, but then his gaze shifted back to me and the annoyance was replaced with calm assurance.

“Mr. Jackson, I’m sure you have plenty to say about the State’s recommendation for your client, so let’s hear it.”

“I think Mr. Townsend has forgotten that my client is only being charged as an accessory to this crime. There is an actual perpetrator in custody awaiting his own time before the court on actual charges, not just accessory charges relating to the commission, Your Honor. Yes, Ms. Walker has made some unfortunate choices in the past when it comes to following the law, but none of those charges are felonies and none of them resulted in time served. But because I’m realistic and know the court can’t overlook those prior indiscretions, I won’t push my luck and ask for my client to be released on her own recognizance. As for being a flight risk”—a grin pulled at his mouth, and again I wondered if he used it as a weapon because the damn thing was a killer—“Mr. Townsend was kind enough to point out that Ms. Walker isn’t working and doesn’t have a long employment history, so I’m not sure how the State assumes she would fund going on the run from the law.”

A deep chuckle rumbled from behind me and all I wanted to do was turn around and throw my arms around my dad. The judge grunted and made a “go on with it” gesture with his hand.

“As for her permanent residence, Ms. Walker has and still does keep a room at her father, Mr. Brighton Walker’s, home here in Denver. Once we agree to a reasonable bail amount”—Quaid shot the other attorney a hard look that made the man scowl—“Mr. Walker is going to pay it and take his daughter home. He has also given his assurances that his daughter will be present and willing to participate in her own case as well as the case the State is building against Jared Dalton. While Ms. Walker may not have ties to the community, her father has them in spades and I believe him when he says he will make sure Avett is present and accounted for as we move forward.”

I held my breath. It felt like an eternity passed as the judge returned his attention to the file in front of him and then once again lifted his gaze and let it settle somewhere over the top of my head.

When he looked back at me I stiffened my spine and tried to make my expression look as innocent as I possibly could. That was a challenge because I sure as hell didn’t feel very innocent. Quaid’s elbow rubbed against mine again and I realized it hadn’t been a mistake the first time. He was letting me know I wasn’t alone in this, that my fate wasn’t in my own hands. It was barely a touch, barely a connection, but that little bit of pressure, that tiny brush, hit me harder and more deeply than any full embrace I had ever been wrapped up in.

“Ms. Walker.” I jolted when the judge addressed me directly. I blinked at him a little stupidly and gulped before I spoke so I didn’t sound like a bullfrog croaking.

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“Your counsel is trying to make light of the charges you’re facing, but I need you to understand they are serious and that the State has every intention of pursuing its case against you.”

I nodded, and when Quaid nudged me, I cleared my throat again. “I understand.”

“You seem to be a young woman with a bad habit of ignoring the law. The court doesn’t appreciate that attitude but also recognizes that you are young enough to learn from your litany of mistakes. I agree with your attorney that the amount of bail requested by the State is unreasonable considering the circumstances and your prior history.” He looked over my head again and I actually felt the air shift along with my dad as he moved on the bench behind me. “Young lady, I also hope you appreciate how influential it has been to know you have a strong support system in place to keep you from making any more foolish decisions as you await your preliminary hearing. The court agrees to release the defendant on bail in the amount of $150,000. The defendant is being released on the grounds she remains at the permanent address of the home of Brighton Walker until the court proceedings are concluded.”

I wilted. I couldn’t help it. My knees folded and relief blindsided me so strongly I couldn’t stand up under the weight of it. Quaid’s strong arm was around my waist before I fell all the way into him and he gave my hip a little squeeze before setting me back on my feet.

“Ms. Walker.”

I sucked in a breath and tilted my chin up at the judge as he said my name again.

“Yes, Your Honor?” There was a tremor in my voice but I didn’t bother to try and hide it.

“My advice to you is to wise up. Stay away from anyone else involved in the situation that landed you here and start using your head.”

It was good advice. People always had good advice for me, if only I was wired to take it.

This time around I was determined not to let my father down, so I nodded. “Thank you, Your Honor.”

Quaid put his hand on my arm and turned me so that I was facing him. “Your dad is going to post bail and then pick you up from the jail. It’s going to take the rest of the afternoon to process you out. I’ll give you a couple days to settle in at your dad’s and get your head on straight, then we need to have a strategy meeting. The State is going to have a plea bargain on my desk sometime this week and I need to know where we’re going with all of this.”

I scowled at him and shook his hand off my arm. “I’m not taking a plea bargain, Counselor. I’m not guilty.”

He heaved a sigh at me and gave me a look like I was being ridiculous. Before he could say anything else, a man, large enough to block out the rest of the room, was between us. I was pulled into a barrel chest with my face buried in a beard that was as much of a legend in Denver as the man that wore it.

I never wanted to hug my dad so badly in my life. As soon as his tree-trunk-like arms folded around me, I couldn’t hold it together anymore. Tears started leaking through my closed lids and my lashes weren’t strong enough to stem the flow. My shoulders shook and my cuffed hands curled desperately into his faded Harley-Davidson shirt.

“I’m so sorry, Daddy.” I wasn’t sure how the words made it out over the lump in my throat as one of his massive paws curled around the back of my head and pulled me closer.

“I know you are, Sprite, but we gotta get to a place where you don’t have to be sorry like this any more.”

“I know.” I breathed the words out and pulled away as someone cleared their throat. My dad dropped his hand onto my shoulder as the bailiff inclined his head towards the doors that led to the prisoner holding area.

“You can have her back in a bit, sir. But right now she has to come with me.”

My dad practically growled at the man, which made him fall back a step. He released me after giving my shoulder a squeeze and a kiss on the top of my head. I let the bailiff take my arm and peeked around my dad’s broad frame so I could see my mom. She could only meet my eyes for a moment and when she did I saw the heartbreak and disappointment clouding her gaze.

“Thanks for coming, Mom. I’m so sorry for all of this.” The bailiff started to guide me away as Quaid ushered my dad back to the part of the courtroom reserved for the families and audience.

“Saying you’re sorry and actually being sorry are two very different things, Avett.” She got to her feet as my dad reached for her hand with a hard look on his face. She shook her head at me, and even though I could barely hear her because she spoke as they were calling the case after mine, her words hit their mark.

“Sorry” rolled off my tongue so easily and frequently that the words hardly held any meaning anymore. This time around I needed to actually be sorry for what I had done, even if what I had done was nothing. I had a lot to prove, a lot to make up for, and my track record for doing the right thing was shit. I didn’t want my mom to barely be able to look at me. I didn’t want my father to have to borrow against his retirement to bail me out of jail. Saying sorry wasn’t enough; this time around, I was actually going to have to change.

I went back into what the bailiff referred to as the “pen” and took my place between the murderer and the drug dealer. They both turned to me with envy and annoyance in their eyes. I was going home at the end of the day; they were going back behind bars.

The druggie lifted her eyebrows at me and stuck her tongue out, licking her dried lips. I cringed involuntarily, which had her giving me a crooked smile that showed all of her yellow and chipped teeth. “That guy representing you is hot. How much does he charge an hour? Are you fucking him? I would fuck him. I bet he’s expensive and good in bed. That hard-ass judge denied us all bail, except for you.”

I felt my eyes widen and I looked at the woman on the other side of me; she seemed as interested in my answers as the drug dealer.

I cleared my throat and shifted uneasily on the hard wooden bench. “I didn’t pay for him, so I don’t know how much he charges, and no, I’m not sleeping with him. I only met him yesterday.” Which didn’t explain why everything inside of me turned gooey and warm when he unleashed that grin of his. Or why I instantly felt better when his elbow briefly touched mine. It was a totally inappropriate reaction seeing as the man was a decade older than me, noticeably from a different background and social class than I came from, and had only ever seen me in jailbird orange while he was trying to keep my ass out of the slammer. My hormones must have missed the memo that the rest of me was in deep shit and Quaid Jackson was the guy holding the shovel to dig me out.

“I would fuck him.” This from the possible murderer on my other side. I wondered if Quaid knew that the entire female criminal population of Denver considered him fuckable.

I clicked the metal snapped around my wrists together to distract myself and muttered, “I don’t think we’re exactly his type.”

I imagined guys like Quaid preferred women that didn’t know what real handcuffs felt like when they were used for their intended purposes, and I couldn’t see him getting all hot and bothered over a chick with pink hair, even if mine was quickly fading and turning more rose colored as my natural dark brown took over at the crown.

“Girl, I’m every guy’s type if the price is right.” The druggie licked her lips again and I wanted to curl in a ball and make myself as small as possible to get away from both of them and the way they were talking about my attorney. I didn’t like it. Furthermore, I really didn’t like that I didn’t like it.

Luckily, there were only a couple of cases left and soon enough we were all being herded into the van and heading towards the jail. I was dreading having to sit behind bars again, but instead of taking me back to the cell with the scorned spouse, I found myself in a room similar to the one I had spoken to Quaid in the day after my arrest. The clothes I was wearing the night of the robbery were brought to me and I was told to change and sit tight.

I happily shed the jumpsuit and scrambled back into my own clothes. I never thought torn jeans, a stretched-out cotton T-shirt, and battered Vans could feel like the most expensive evening gown with designer heels. It wasn’t haute couture, but man, did it feel luxurious compared to the scratchy jailhouse jumpsuit. There was even a hair tie in my pocket, so I wrestled my thick and colorful hair up into a messy top knot, then did what I was told to do and sat tight.

It was only a few hours, but it felt like days. I counted the tiles on the floor, memorized the pattern in which the flickering fluorescent light above my head was going to flash, and I had plenty of time to go over every single fuckup I had made on my way to this point. The right thing was always there, always right in front of me screaming, “Pick me! Pick me!” and I was always the defiant moron that ignored the best option and went chasing after my downfall. Now that I had officially caught it, I could confidently say it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Falling meant I had to land eventually. The falling was scary and endless, but the landing … that was where things really got rough. That was what left a mark.

I should have known the second I met Jared that he was no good. There was no reason for him to pursue me. I was a recent college dropout, didn’t have my own place, had no job; too much Netflix and junk food had left my tiny frame far rounder and curvier than most twenty-year-old dudes chased after. I needed my dad to come save me when my last boyfriend ditched me, so I knew there was nothing about me that screamed, “She’s a good catch.” Even with all those marks against me in the girlfriend material department, Jared had pursued me relentlessly.

At first he was sweet and charming. His low-key, stoner vibe worked for me, so did the fact that no one seemed to like him. The more my dad glowered and grumbled about Jared, the more attracted to him I became. My dad was my hero, my idol, my best friend, but the more he disapproved of the men in my life, the more determined I was to hold on to them. It hurt to do that, but the hurt was what I was after. Eventually, Jared and I were sleeping together and I was spending more and more time at his place, even as it became clear he enjoyed more than the occasional marijuana high. I convinced myself Jared was a recreational drug user, that he liked to dabble, but it was a lie, one that I couldn’t even tell myself with a straight face as time went on.

I begged Dad for a job at the bar because I needed space away from the drugs and the abuse. Right there, I should have been smart enough to walk away from the man and the situation, but I couldn’t and I wouldn’t. Jared loved having me work at the bar. It meant free food and booze, and whenever he was short when he had to pay his dealer, he thought it meant an easy place to snatch some cash. I hated stealing. It made me feel dirty and ugly, but I hated having to explain a black eye and a fat lip even more. I didn’t have the words to try and justify why I stayed. I sure as hell didn’t have the words to describe why I froze and did nothing the night of the robbery.

Eventually, after what felt like eons and eons left alone with my own sour thoughts, a uniformed cop showed up and told me to follow him. I stopped at a desk and was told to fill out a bunch of paperwork. I signed it all without reading it, then took a sealed plastic bag that was pushed my way; it was filled with my belongings from the night of my arrest. My cell phone, as well as my purse, were in the bag, so I took them both out, turning to see my father getting to his feet from where he was sitting in a small plastic chair.

Without a word, I hurled myself at him and wrapped my arms around his waist. He squeezed me back and I felt him rest his furry cheek on the top of my head, squishing my bun down. I inhaled his very-dad scent, which always reminded me of his bike and his bar, letting his familiarity and strength prop me up under the weight of everything pressing down on me.

“You ready to go home, Sprite?”

I hugged him as hard as I could, making a silent promise to myself that I would never put him in the position of having to rescue me from myself again.

“Yeah, Dad. I’m very ready to go home.” It was, after all, where my heart, as battered and bruised as it may have been, always was.

CHAPTER 4
Quaid

I was late getting back to my office after court because I’d had a meeting with the district attorney’s office that ran long. It happened all the time, but today I found myself irrationally annoyed at the hitch in my schedule and seriously resentful of the wasted thirty minutes that Avett had to spend sitting outside my office while my assistant gave her the side eye from behind her computer. It had been three days since our last encounter in the courthouse, and even though I would never admit anything out loud, she had been on my mind a lot. Her—not her case. That, coupled with the fact that I immediately noticed jailhouse orange didn’t do her any favors, and that she was even cuter, even more innocent and fresh looking in her normal street wear, made me approach her more abruptly, even harsher, than I tended to be with my clients.

I jerked my head in the direction of my office door without a hello and didn’t look to see if she was following me when I asked, “Where’s your dad? I thought he was sticking by your side through all of this?” I sounded like a dick. I was acting like a dick. I could tell when I rounded my desk and finally turned to look at her that she was very aware of the fact that I was in a mood.

She crossed her arms over her chest, a chest that was ample, round, and far more plush than I would have imagined considering her small stature. And even though I shouldn’t have, I had imagined a whole hell of a lot about her over the last few days. Those curves and valleys she possessed were far too enticing and appealing. I was annoyed that I had noticed and was having a hard time landing my gaze on any part of her I didn’t appreciate in an entirely unprofessional way. She was more than a handful in a lot of ways and a couple of them had my dick twitching inappropriately. The prison jumpsuit had swallowed her up and what it had been hiding was a curvy little figure currently radiating with as much repressed attitude as I was freely throwing at her.

I shouldn’t be noticing her curves, or the way her dark eyebrows snapped into a fierce V over the top of her nose. She was just a kid in the grand scheme of life, but more than that, she was a client. It was my job to help her, to keep her out of jail, not to be enthralled by the irritated pucker of her mouth or entranced by the way her cheeks flushed to the same rosy pink as her hair as she visibly battled for the proper way to respond to my shitty greeting and overall asshole-ish demeanor. I shouldn’t like the way she bristled and stiffened but I did.

“Dad wanted to come, but I’m working towards proving that I am capable of doing something right in this lifetime. He’ll hold my hand forever if I let him, and frankly, I don’t want him to be involved in this mess any more than he already is.” She leaned back in the chair and continued to scowl at me. “You’re going to offer some kind of plea deal that will seem reasonable and make sense because it will make all of this go away. Dad will encourage me to listen to your advice. He will tell me we’re paying for you to look out for my best interest.” She shook her head and wrapped her arms tighter around herself like she was giving herself a hug. “And he might be right, but I didn’t help Jared rob the bar. I wasn’t his accomplice or his accessory. I didn’t aid or abet him in anything, so I’m not going to take a deal. Me not taking a deal would probably make my dad worry about what was going to happen to me. I’ve put him through enough.” She finally broke eye contact and looked down at the lush Berber carpet below her sneakered feet. “It might not be the right thing to do, but I’m used to that.”

I felt some of the tension that was coiled up inside of me unwind as I listened to her. Most of my clients had their own self-interests in mind when they made decisions about what they were going to do when faced with charges, but not this young woman. It was startling, even refreshing, to have someone in this office genuinely concerned about how their actions and consequences affected someone else, someone they loved. Even if she was a little late to the game, I was glad to see Avett had come to play.

“The D.A.’s office sent over a plea deal this morning. They’re willing to drop all the charges except for the accessory charge if you agree to serve ninety days in jail with a two-year probationary period. They also want you to testify against Jared Dalton.” I laced my fingers together in front of me and watched as her breathing quickened. The gold on the outer rim of her eyes seemed to blaze as the brown in the center darkened to pitch-black. It was like watching a kaleidoscope shift and change shape and colors.

“I don’t want to see Jared.” Her voice hitched and her knuckles turned white where she was clutching her upper arms.

“You aren’t going to get a choice in the matter. You’ll have to testify, deal or no deal. You’re a witness and either the state or Jared’s attorney will eventually call you to the stand. Jared is trying to use you and the story that you were pissed your dad sold the bar as his reasonable doubt. You’re an integral part of his trial regardless of what happens with your own.”

She pouted.

I blinked because it should have looked indulgent and petulant. It should have made her come across as spoiled, sulky. It didn’t. It made her look adorable and put out. It wasn’t the kind of pout Lottie would give me when she wanted to spend an ungodly amount of money on a new couch or some purse that she would only use once; no, this was the pout of a woman that legitimately didn’t want to do something and was sullen about it. It was charming in a totally innocent way, and again, I silently berated myself for noticing the tiny gesture at all.

“It’s a good deal, Avett. A really good deal. The minimum time served if you’re convicted on the accessory charge alone is three years.” I lifted my eyebrows at her. “Three years is the minimum, meaning if we do end up at a trial with a jury and they find you guilty, the judge can give you anywhere from three to five years. That’s a big chunk of time to sit behind bars if you take a gamble and lose.”

She let her arms fall and scooted forward on the chair. She leaned forward and looked at me intently. Her eyes were mesmerizing and I found myself distracted by all the different colors trapped there. I had to ask her to repeat herself when I realized she said something and was waiting for a response from me. I needed to get my head in the game where this girl was concerned … this girl … that was the part I seemed to keep forgetting.

“What did you say?” My voice dipped lower than it normally was and I shifted in my seat as other parts of me started to notice all the interesting and attractive things about Avett Walker as well.

“I said, I Googled you.” She swept some of her hair back from where it had fallen over her shoulder, and I literally had to force myself to keep my gaze locked on her face as the motion pushed her chest up higher and tighter against the plain black T-shirt she had on.

“Oh, yeah? How did that work out for you?” I knew what she would find: my service record, my wedding announcement, my work history with the firm, various tidbits on my most high profile cases, and several articles chronicling my divorce. Most divorces weren’t newsworthy, but when one of the people involved came from money and the other was as high profile as I was, it made for good filler on a slow newsday. I was curious to see what her interpretation of the snapshot of my life that existed on the Internet was.

She got up from the chair and started to pace back and forth in front of my desk as she talked. “It worked out well enough, I guess. I saw that you were enlisted when you were younger, which explains why my dad immediately liked you.” She looked at me over her shoulder and a tiny grin tugged at her mouth. “He doesn’t usually like anyone instantly. It takes him a while to warm up.”

I listened with half an ear as I watched her brightly colored hair swish around her shoulders. She didn’t come across as the girlie or overly feminine type, so I wondered why she had gone with such a delicate and pretty pink when coloring her hair.

“I learned that you’re a Colorado native, that you grew up in the mountains, that your birthday is right around Christmas, which means you’re almost thirty-two, so you’ve accomplished a lot in your career in a short amount of time. I also learned that you own a lot of suits.”

I snorted out a surprised laugh at that last part, which made her stop pacing. She took a step closer to my desk and put her hands on the opposite edge, leaning forward. The new position made her T-shirt gape at the collar, and even though I refused to look down, I could see the hint of a leopard-print bra peeking out. That hint of something that shoul be forbidden made my mouth go dry and had my pulse kicking. It was a powerful reaction to very little provocation, and I made myself beat it back, forcibly.

“Every single picture you’re in, after you got out of the Army, you’re in a suit. Blue ones, black ones, gray ones, pinstripe ones. That’s a lot of suits.”

I grunted. “I spend a lot of time in court. Suits are necessary for that.” They also set me apart from that kid running through the forest with exactly one pair of new jeans and one pair of boots that didn’t have holes in them. “And I’ve accomplished a lot because I work hard and I’m good at what I do.” I’d been working hard since I was born and I hadn’t ever had the opportunity to stop. When I was in high school, I pushed myself academically so that I could take advantage of every accelerated class my school offered. I knew college wasn’t going to be an option without the military, which meant I was giving four years to my country, so I was going to lose that time when it came to my career. Luckily, by the time I graduated high school, I had enough AP credits under my belt that I practically had an associate’s degree. My undergrad took no time at all, but I’d killed myself academically when I was younger to make that possible.

“Yeah, I got that you are kind of a workaholic from all the stuff printed about your divorce.”

Her dry tone made me stiffen. I dropped my hands and tapped the fingers of one against my bent knee in obvious irritation. “I don’t discuss my private life with clients, Avett.”

A grin pulled at her mouth and her dark eyebrows danced upwards. “Why not? Your clients are probably the only people in a worse position than you were. We’re the last people that can judge what’s going on behind anyone else’s closed door. I’m here because I’m trying to prove I didn’t help my ex-boyfriend rob a bar. What’s a little infidelity compared to that?”

I shot to my feet before I could control my reaction, shoving my hands through my hair. “She was unfaithful, not me. Not that it matters or that it’s a topic open for further discussion.” It was the wound that bled and bled, no matter how much pressure I applied to stop it.

Avett righted herself and put her hands on her hips. She looked at me for a second and tilted her chin down a little bit. “Even when someone doesn’t want our story, we are still compelled to tell it.”

My words to her from the interrogation room at the jail hit me hard when she threw them back at me like a fastball.

She started pacing again and quietly told the room because she was no longer looking at me, “I also learned you are very good at your job. You win more than you lose. You have sent some very guilty people back to the streets, as well as saved some very innocent ones from a life behind bars. If I’m going to gamble on my future, then I couldn’t ask for anyone better to be holding the cards. I choose to believe that, for once, the deck is stacked in my favor.” She stopped once she was across from me again and we spent a moment staring at each other. “Thank you for not letting me fire you, Mr. Jackson.”

Her softly spoken words spurred me on to say something I hadn’t said to a client since I started practicing law professionally. “Call me Quaid.”

Her spectacular eyes widened a hair and she bit down on her lower lip. “All right, Quaid. I’m not going to take the plea deal and that’s my final answer.”

We both sat back down with my big desk between us. There was a pulse in the air, a vibration I couldn’t name, but it felt electric and more alive than anything that had crossed my path in decades. In fact, the last time I had the same shot of adrenaline, the same thrill racing through my blood, making my heart beat erratically, I had been getting on a plane for the first time in my life, headed to basic training and far, far away from an existence that was a constant struggle and hardship. It was like starting over, being given a second chance at something worthwhile. I understood it then … I was baffled by the rush of it overtaking my common sense now.

“The preliminary hearing will be set in a few weeks. The State is going to take that time to dig up every little thing they can on you in order to prove they have enough to make the charges stick if we go to trial. I’m going to remind them that their case against you hinges on a known addict and is nothing more than hearsay. We also have the video from the parking lot that shows the boyfriend manhandling you. Our evidence and witnesses that point the finger at Jared being the sole perpetrator are far more compelling than anything the State might pull out of its hat.” I grinned at her and I thought I heard her suck in a breath. “Honestly, if I was in your shoes, I would tell the prosecution to shove their deal, too.”

She gasped out a surprised laugh and it made something low in my gut tighten.

“We’re in this together, Avett. We gamble together, which means we win or we lose together.”

She snorted a little. “Except I’m the only one stuck doing time if we lose.”

“True. But I’ve won cases far more complex, with way better evidence stacked up against my clients. If I lose this one, it makes me look like I’m slipping. I don’t slip.”

“I gathered from the way your secretary was giving me the hairy eyeball that I’m not your typical kind of client.”

“Well, if you called Pam a secretary to her face that might have something to do with it. She prefers to be referred to as my assistant.” I gave her a steady look and made sure she could hear the sincerity in my tone when I told her, “And my typical client is anyone that can afford me. I don’t care if you have pink hair or if you’re the star running back for the Denver Broncos. If you hire me, you will get the best defense I can give, and I will treat your case like it is my top priority.”

She breathed an audible sigh of relief. “I’ll need to thank Asa for hiring you, then.”

I decided not to tell her that her dad was picking up the bill now and instead absently told her, “I like your pink hair, by the way.”

She blinked rapidly at me and then lifted her hands up so that the tips of her fingers were touching the rosy ends of her hair.

“You do?” She sounded incredulous.

I nodded. “I do, but you might want to consider changing it before court. It never hurts to look as respectable and as law abiding as possible.” She frowned at me and I lifted my hands up in front of me like I was warding off her ire. “That’s the kind of advice your dad would tell you to listen to if he was here. I told you, I spend a lot of time in court, and while your hair might seem insignificant to you, it can have a huge impact on the impression you leave on the judge and the jury. If we get that far.” Even though I would be inexplicably sad to see it go. It suited her and I liked the way it and she brightened up my typically drab office.

She fisted a handful of the pink locks and closed her eyes for a split second. When she opened them back up, they glimmered with resignation. Again, her bottom lip jutted out in a pout that not only did I want to bite, but that also made the custom fit of my suit pants much tighter.

“Okay, besides my hair, what else do I need to do before the preliminary hearing? How do I make myself respectable and law abiding?” She sounded so disgusted by the idea, I had to bite down another chuckle.

“The hair, and dress appropriately for court. Something conservative but not too stuffy. You’re young and you look fairly innocent. You’ve got your entire life ahead of you. We want to play that up. Besides that, do what the arraignment judge told you—stay away from the boyfriend and try and keep yourself out of trouble.”

She stiffened across from me and whispered, “Ex-boyfriend, and I told you, I don’t ever want to see him again.”

“And I told you that you aren’t going to have a choice.” I looked at the watch on my wrist and was shocked to see that I had been talking to her for well over the time I had blocked out in my schedule to meet with her. It felt like it had only been a handful of minutes. “I understand where you’re coming from. I wouldn’t want to see the person that got me into this kind of mess either, but you’re the one that walked in here claiming you want to do something right. That you don’t need someone to hold your hand. It’s up to you to put the guy that hurt you, the monster that threatened those people with a gun and tried to rob a place that means so much to your family, away for a very long time. It is a huge step in the right direction, Avett.” I got to my feet and she followed suit. “I have another client waiting on me, so we need to wrap this up. I’ll be in touch. I’m sure the D.A. is going to want to talk to you about their case against the boyfriend. I should have a date for the next hearing soon.”

I reached out to shake her hand and almost jerked my palm away when our skin touched. A jolt shot up my arm. It took all my restraint not to rub it like I had brushed up against a live wire.

She pulled back and curled her fingers into her palm, like she was trying to hold on to the vibrant electricity the contact between us had created. When we touched, my blood felt charged, stimulated in a way I’d never felt before.

“I look forward to hearing from you.” She delicately cleared her throat, making her way to the door of my office. Once she was there, she paused with her hand on the knob and turned back to look at me over her shoulder. “Quaid.”

I looked up from the file I had turned my attention to and lifted my eyebrows at her in question. “Yeah?”

“I’m neither as young nor as innocent as you seem to want to believe I am. If you want to sell that to a judge and jury because you think it will help keep me out of jail, then I’ll play the part. But you need to recognize that’s not the reality of the situation.” She was out the door before I could formulate a response.

I called Pam to let her know I needed a few minutes to prep before my next client meeting, rocking back in my chair as I tried to recover from Hurricane Avett. She was a tiny whirlwind of destruction and I couldn’t seem to keep up with the different directions she was blowing my emotions in. I’d never encountered anyone like her. I couldn’t remember ever dealing with someone as real, as open with their faults and failures, as Avett seemed to be. I’d never met anyone as reckless with their own fate as she was. Something about that was really intriguing. So was the gauntlet she threw down on her way out.

Obviously she was technically young, much younger than me at least. When I was twenty-two I had gotten back from the desert and was starting college for the first time. I wasn’t as untried as a lot of men in their early twenties but that had more to do with the way I was forced to grow up than it did with fighting for my country. Still, the difference between what I knew then and what I know now was huge, so yes, Avett Walker was young, regardless of her assurances that she wasn’t.

As for her being innocent … I had her criminal record in front of me, so I knew she wasn’t an angel. However, there was something in those wild eyes of hers that seemed so gentle and soft. How innocent she may or may not be was still very much up for debate.

I was getting ready to call Pam and tell her to bring my client in when the phone on my desk rang as I was reaching for it. I knew from the caller ID that the man on the other end was Orsen McNair, the man who had hired me and who was the McNair in McNair and Duvall, the founding partners of the firm. I liked Orsen, appreciated that he gave me a shot right out of law school and the fact that he had stood by me during the divorce when Lottie had done her best to drag not only me but the firm through the mud. I owed the guy a lot considering my pedigree wasn’t as polished and shiny as most of the attorneys hired right out of school. I also recognized I had made it to this point in my career based on my own work ethic and own skills at knowing how to read and work a jury. I wanted my name on the sign along with Orsen’s and I hadn’t been shy about letting him know that.

“What’s up, old man?”

There was a raspy chuckle on the other end of the phone and I could hear his chair creak under his weight. “I hear we’re in the business of representing punk rockers now.”

I frowned, even though he couldn’t see me, and glared at Pam through my closed door. “Where did you hear that?”

“Come on, Quaid. You know the ladies in this office gossip like that’s what they get paid to do. Pam couldn’t wait to tell Martha about the girl with pink hair, saying she was locked up with you in your office for over an hour. Told her that she seemed flushed and agitated when she finally came out. You have something you want to tell me, kid?”

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples in vicious circles. “Nothing to tell, Orsen. She’s a new client. She was referred by another client. The pink hair is a minor issue, but I already advised her that it needs to go before court. If she seemed upset or worked up in any way when she left my office, it was because I told her she was going to be the State’s star witness against her boyfriend. She’s not happy about it. Pam has a big mouth.”

“Pam is worried about another gold digger getting her claws into you.”

The reminder of what I had been through, what I had put the firm through, hit its mark. “She doesn’t need to worry about that happening ever again. I’ve told you a hundred times I’ve learned my lesson.”

Another rusty-sounding chuckle made its way across the phone line. “You need a willing woman that knows how to give a man what he needs and that looks good while she’s doing it. In fact, you should find yourself one and bring her to the partners’ holiday party that will be here before you know it.”

I grunted and forcibly turned my mind away from the image of walking into Orsen’s opulent Belcaro mansion with a pink-haired hurricane on my arm. The partners would lose their minds and not just because she was a client. McNair and Duvall had an image to upkeep, a reputation to uphold, which meant everyone that represented them was expected to look and act a certain way. On the outside, Lottie was the perfect lawyer’s wife, even though she was corrupted and the worst kind of wife on the inside. It made me cringe that I was even comparing the two women. They weren’t cut from the same cloth at all; in fact, I was pretty sure Avett came from some kind of custom textile that only existed to create her. “I’ll see what I can do. My caseload is a nightmare at the moment, so that hasn’t left a lot of time for much else.”

“There’s always time for the right kind of woman, kid, especially after you wasted so much time on the wrong kind of woman. Pencil me in for a lunch meeting early next week. You can catch me up on what you’re working on, including the punk rocker.”

He barked a good-bye, hanging up before I could tell him pink hair did not automatically equal someone being a punk rocker. Orsen was old school and set in his ways. He wouldn’t recognize the hair as another facet of Avett’s spirited and untamed personality. I wasn’t lying when I told her I liked it. It was different and suited her, but I was practical enough to know that it had to go, even if I disliked the idea almost as much as she did.

The entirely unprofessional thoughts I was having where Avett was concerned also needed to take a hike. If there was a right kind of woman for what I currently needed, it absolutely wasn’t one that was an almost felon and that seemed a hundred times more comfortable in her skin than I had ever been. I needed a woman I could fuck and forget, not one that was already lingering on my mind and poking holes, without even trying, in the iron façade I had spent years hiding behind.

CHAPTER 5
Avett

You look pretty, Avett.” My dad’s gruff voice startled me from where I was still trying to pin strands of pink hair into the tightly coiled bun at the back of my head.

I should have changed it. I’d had almost three weeks to buy a box of dye, to make the pink no more, but I couldn’t do it. Every time I thought about it, every time I really contemplated the fact I might have to go to prison for an extended amount of time, the idea of going away as someone that wasn’t me, the thought of facing the judge and everyone else slotted to judge me as an imitation of myself, it made my skin crawl. Plus, every time I had a meeting with Quaid in his stuffy office, with its fancy carpet and boring furniture, the first thing he did was look at my hair, then look at me with a combination of reproach and admiration in his eyes. I liked both of those responses from him. I liked any kind of response from him. Getting him to react to me had become a personal challenge, and I was well aware I was pulling on a big, golden lion’s tail. The man was a predator, a civilized beast in a designer suit. There was more to the handsome lawyer than met the eye. I was dangerously intrigued by what kind of secrets his killer grin and steely blue gaze kept hidden.

He never mentioned me changing my hair again, so I was secretly hoping he realized it came with the territory … one more choice I was making that might bite me in the ass, but like all my other choices, I would face the consequences of my actions. I would own being the type of person that was critically flawed and forever fucking things up. I wasn’t hiding any of that, so that meant the pink hair stayed, but I did my best to make it as subtle as possible, and I did concede to part of Quaid’s advice, deciding not to dress like a college dropout for the big day. That was why my dad was leaning in the door of the open bathroom looking at me like he hadn’t ever seen me dressed up before.

Probably because he hadn’t.

My family was casual to our bones. I owned one skirt that dated back to high school. I’d had to go shopping, with my dad, because I didn’t have a car or any kind of cash to buy something that was suitable for convincing a judge I would never take part in an armed robbery.

I put my hands on the sink, looking at my dad’s dark gray eyes in the mirror. Things had been tough since I’d come home. There was a tension there, a lingering cloud that hovered over us, and I wasn’t sure how I was ever going to fix things with the most important person in my whole world. I knew a lot of his unease came from the fact my mother still wasn’t happy with me, and when she wasn’t happy Brite wasn’t happy. I didn’t know how to make things better with her either and that meant I did nothing. Doing nothing was always the action that seemed to hurt the worst and, even knowing that, I still found myself doing it over and over again.

“Thanks, Dad. How does the hair look?” The tightly coiled bun had taken more time than I’d spent on my hair in all my twenty-two years. Generally, I let the loose and wavy strands do their own thing. I was all about no-fuss-no-muss.

“Pretty, all of it is pretty. You can’t even see the pink from the front.” He was trying to be reassuring but I could tell he was nervous by the tense set of his broad shoulders and the downturn of his mouth within the forest of his beard.

“Good. I’ll remember not to turn around in front of the judge. Thanks again for the classy duds.” I pulled at the front of the lacy, cream-colored, three-quarter-sleeved, knee-length dress he had actually been the one to pick out for me. It was cute and totally conservative enough when I paired it with black leggings and ankle boots. It wasn’t something that made me look like a mom or like some high-class chick I would never, ever be. It was an outfit that made me look like a twenty-two-year-old that should, theoretically, have her shit together. So that’s who I was determined to be, even if it felt like I couldn’t have my shit less together if I tried.

“I’m happy to help you out, Sprite. Always have been.” His frown went deeper into his fuzzy face as his salt-and-pepper eyebrows slanted down over his eyes. “Your mom, too.”

There it was. The Darcy-sized elephant in the room that had been hovering between us since he bailed me out of jail … or longer. Things had never been particularly easy between me and my mother. I blew out a breath and turned to face him. I leaned back against the sink and met his solemn gaze.

“I don’t know what to say to her, Dad. She isn’t you. She doesn’t forgive the way you do.” When I started my downward spiral, when I went from being a simple yet defiant party girl to the girl determined to ruin everything good in her life, my mom didn’t understand and she watched me fall with little sympathy or compassion. Granted, she didn’t have the whole story but I wanted her to love me enough to forgive me and excuse me anyway. Instead, she forced enough space between the two of us that my guilt and the blame I fostered from the night I learned how tragic doing nothing could be had plenty of room to flourish and grow.

“You have so much of your mom in you, Sprite. I think you’re both too stubborn and hardheaded to see it though. She loves you. She will always love you and support you just like I do. She had to find her way just like you did, kiddo. Darce wants more for her baby girl. She doesn’t want to see you waste your time on loser after loser like she did, and she doesn’t want you tied to a no-named bar. We both know you have so much more to offer. Those aren’t bad things to want for your kid.”

I sighed and stiffened my spine. “I’ll convince Mom I’m innocent and have learned my lesson after I convince a judge. Deal?” He looked at me until I squirmed under his intent gaze. “Dad, I promise I will figure out a way to work on things with Mom. I’ve let things go for far too long and it’s gotten me nowhere good.”

Finally, after a beat, a grin that transformed him from surly, grumpy biker badass into a warm, kind, and much more Santa-esque badass broke across his face. “I know you will, Sprite. I have faith in you … always. And you might’ve let go but we’re your parents. We’ve been holding on tight since the beginning.”

I pushed off the sink and nervously tugged at the hem of my dress. “Thanks, Dad. Let’s do this thing.” Quaid seemed so sure the charges would be dismissed, but he never forgot to remind me that we could take the plea deal, that ninety days in jail was a much better option than three years. I was nervous, but there was something about Quaid Jackson, something about the way he handled himself, something about the way he handled me, that gave me unbridled confidence that the situation would go the way he guided it. I honestly believed the man would get the charges dropped, and if he didn’t, then I had full confidence he could unleash that dangerous grin and wicked charm of his on a jury and bend them to his will.

My dad moved out of the doorway and followed me down the hall towards the front of the house. I grabbed my purse and was pulling the front door open when my father’s heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I turned to look at him in question and was relieved to see his grin was still in place.

“Avett, you need to understand how I got to a place where I learned how to forgive. The main reason I can hang in there until someone that’s lost finds their way is because I was a man, not too long ago, that needed that kind of forgiveness and needed someone to show me the way. All the choices we make, good and bad, have a lesson in them. I think it’s time you quit letting those lessons go over your head, Sprite.”

The lessons weren’t going over my head. They were hitting me right in the heart, right in my very soul, and I deserved all of them. Those lessons reminded me every single day what kind of person I was; they reinforced the fact that when you were a bad person, bad things happened to you, and I knew I deserved them all. Every lesson I learned, I held close and let prick at me with sharp barbs over and over again.

My dad pulled the door closed behind him and we walked down the front steps of the beautifully restored two-story Italianate brick home that my dad had lived in since his split with my mom. It was home, as much as the bar had always been, and I loved it and the Curtis Park neighborhood it was located in. We were walking towards his red truck when he stopped by my side and waved at someone across the street. I squinted against the sun to see who he was waving at, but all I got was a flash of rust-colored hair and an arm full of brightly inked tattoos as it disappeared into the driver’s side of a beautiful old Cadillac. The guy moved quick and his car sounded loud and mean when he started it. That wasn’t a show Caddy; that was a Caddy with some balls and well-maintained guts.

“Who was that?” Dad pulled open my door for me because even the most badass of badasses treated his daughter like a lady, and wouldn’t accept anything less from any man in her life.

My dad lumbered up behind the wheel, slapping on a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Maybe Quaid should have given my old man a list of dos and don’ts for proper court wear instead of me. At least he had left the Harley T-shirt at home and had opted for a plain black one in its place. That was totally how Brite Walker dressed to impress. I chuckled a little at the thought as he backed out of the driveway.

“New neighbor. The boys call him Wheeler. He runs a garage down in the warehouse district. Boy has skills when it comes to anything with a motor in it. I keep telling him if he comes across a 1959 Pan-Head, I’ll buy it no questions asked and have him rebuild it for me. He’s a good kid, and my boys like him.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “And he just happened to end up in the house across the street from you?”

My dad chuckled and turned to look at me, but all I could see was my own pale and pinched expression reflected back at me. Definitely not a chick that had her shit together. I wasn’t going to fool anyone.

“The boys may have mentioned he was looking and I may have mentioned there was a for-sale sign in the neighborhood. Kid’s got himself a girl and recently got engaged. He’s trying to settle down and do right. You know how I feel about a good man trying to do right.” He paused and then muttered under his breath so quietly I almost didn’t hear, “Even if he’s doing right by the wrong girl.”

“You don’t like his girlfriend?”

My dad shrugged and turned back to the road. In Brite Walker speak, that meant he more than didn’t care for her.

“The kid works hard, has raw talent when it comes to what he does. The girl seems happy to sit around and take him for a ride. She’s been around a long time and I think the kid doesn’t know anything else. Reminds me of my first wife, and my first marriage, and we both know how that turned out.”

It turned out bad … really bad. Dad had cheated with my mom, knocked her up with me, and left the first wife without a backward glance, even though they had been together since high school and she had waited for him for years while he was overseas with the Marines. He said, time and time again, that he regretted the way things ended with his first wife—she deserved better from him—but he got me out of the deal. I was his great story from that bad decision and I knew he wouldn’t trade me for anything in the world.

I chuckled again and looked out the window as we got closer and closer to downtown and to the courthouse. “It’s not your job to save every single, confused, twenty-something in Denver, Dad.”

He chuckled as well, and wheeled the big truck into a paid parking lot because there was no way to parallel-park the beast on the busy downtown streets. Even badasses hated parallel parking on crowded city streets.

“I’m retired, Avett. What else am I going to do with my time?” I guess he had a point, and as he came around to open my door, I hooked my hand in the elbow he offered, and took a deep breath. My nerves kicked into high gear and my tummy started to tie itself into knots.

“I hope they appreciate you and what you do for them.”

He patted my hand where it had gone clammy against his tattooed arm. “Doesn’t matter if they do, or don’t. I appreciate them and what they do for me.” And there it was. He was giant-sized, he took no shit from anyone, he was grizzly, and he was gruff, but there would never be a better heart than the one that beat strong and true inside of Brite Walker. He was amazing through and through. I knew I had never done a single thing in my short life to deserve him, but I was selfish and greedy enough to know I would never, ever let him go. Even if I knew I would never feel entirely worthy of his loyalty and devotion to me.

His voice rumbled over my head and distracted me from my dark musings. “You ready to do this, Sprite?”

I took a deep breath as he pulled open the door and guided me towards the security line. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

We didn’t say anything else as we passed through the security checkpoint, the officers giving my dad pointed looks and predictably pulling him aside to run the wand over him before they let us go. We found the tiny room Quaid had instructed us to meet him in outside of the actual courtroom. When we walked in, he was already there tapping away on his phone and looking as sharp and as pulled together as ever.

Today’s suit was black and the shirt under was a charcoal gray. The silk tie knotted at his tanned throat was a pretty royal blue and all of it made him look good enough to eat. The man wore a suit well, but I was curious to know what he looked like out of it. There had been one picture Google was generous enough to share with me of him in his Army fatigues, but he was so young then—a boy, really, and not the tall, imposing man that stood before me now. I wondered if he ever relaxed, if he took the suit off when he got home and rocked a pair of tattered sweats and a stained T-shirt. I doubted it, but I would bet good money that he looked as good in casual wear as he did in a thousand-dollar suit.

His eyes roved over me and he gave a quick nod before reaching out to shake my dad’s offered hand.

“I see you took my advice to heart, Ms. Walker. This will do, this will do nicely.” I rolled my eyes at him when he called me Ms. Walker. For weeks now, I’d been Avett when we were alone in his office, and he had been Quaid. The formal title was a reminder that it was showtime and I better get my act together for the powers that be.

“Thanks. Dad picked it out and I spent forever trying to hide the pink hair. This is the best I could do.” I turned my head slightly to the side so he could see the bun, and if I hadn’t been standing right in front of him, I would’ve missed the barely there breath of what seemed like relief that whispered out of him.

“The work paid off.”

I nodded my head a little and met his chilly gaze with one of my own. “Whatever happens today is happening to me. I’m going to face the music, own up to the fact I messed up, picked the wrong person. Again. And I’m going to do that as me. Me, who has pink hair and won’t be caught dead in a power suit.” I let my eyes roll over his long and elegant frame draped in material that cost more than my dad’s monthly mortgage payment. “No offense.”

Like he would take any. No man on Earth had ever looked as good in a suit as this one did. I mean, I was pretty sure that was an actual fact.

His eyebrows lifted a hint as the edge of his mouth dipped because he wasn’t going to let himself smile at me. “None taken and you don’t need a power suit. What you’re working with is fine and more importantly you seem comfortable. That comes across as earnest and honest. We don’t need you in anything that would make you fidgety and uneasy. That behavior comes across as anxious and guilty.”

He turned away from me and moved to the table where his computer and a bunch of paperwork was laid out. “Remember the State gets to play their hand first. They’re going to bring up every single thing on your record. They’re going to bring up the fact you dropped out of school. They’re going to hammer the point that you worked at the bar, that you were fired, that you were upset your dad sold it.”

My dad stiffened behind me but I didn’t turn around. I nodded at Quaid. “I’m ready for it.”

“They are going to try and convince the judge you were there to help Jared, that you are a legitimate threat to society, and that you would be better off behind bars, then they are going to try and sway the judge with generosity by offering up the plea bargain.” He gave me a pointed look. “I don’t get to do my part until all of that is over, so you have to sit there and keep it together while they drag you through the mud. Both of you need to keep it together. Am I making myself clear?”

I peeked over my shoulder and saw that my dad was scowling again and that he seemed almost as anxious as I was feeling on the inside.

“I hear you, son.” My dad’s voice rumbled low and hard through the tiny room.

Quaid nodded. “Good. I’m here for one reason and one reason only, to win this judgment for you. The State has a decent enough case, but mediocre isn’t good enough when I’m the opposing counsel. We’re in this together, got it?”

He’s been telling me that for weeks, saying this was his battle as much as it was mine, but since I was the only one with something to lose, namely my freedom, I’d had a hard time believing him. Here in this tiny room, with my dad practically vibrating with tension at my back and him seeping confidence and talent in front of me, I actually started to believe him.

“Okay. We’re in this together.”

His eyes thawed just a hint and warm shots of pewter blazed from the depths. That look made my heart beat faster and some of the anxiety that was riding me warmed into something that was heavy and more languid. Even though it was the least likely thing in the world to happen, I realized I would totally fuck my attorney. Exactly like those girls had been talking about at the arraignment. He was hot in a way that was totally foreign to anything I had ever considered sexy before, beautiful even, but it was his steadiness, his indomitable attitude, that pulled at me.

Quaid wasn’t reckless or rash. He was a man with a plan, with the kind of fortitude to put that plan into action, and follow it through to the end. He most definitely had his shit together. While that never appealed to me before, it was suddenly the most desirable trait I had ever seen in a man. He was flawless, and to someone that was deeply and tragically flawed, it was impossible not to be fascinated by that kind of perfection.

I pulled a whoosh of air into my lungs and held it as I followed him out of the room and into the courtroom. Since this was the preliminary hearing, the only people in the room were the court recorder, the prosecutor plus his assistant, and our little entourage. It should be less nerve-racking to have all my mistakes laid out in front of a smaller audience, but since this audience mattered more, and my father was a part of it, my stomach churned and burned as we took a seat on our side of the room.

The prosecutor was the same one from the arraignment. He walked over and shook Quaid’s hand before he sat down and let his gaze skim over my attorney’s slick attire.

“Nice suit, Jackson.”

Quaid gave the other man a smile, but it wasn’t a nice one. It was a smile that had too much teeth in it and it didn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy like I usually felt when he grinned.

“Thanks, Townsend. I dressed up for you.”

The other man grunted in response and shifted his gaze to me. I wanted to squirm in my seat but repeated over and over again that I was pretending to have my act together today so I needed to sit still.

“You sure your client doesn’t want to take the plea deal? I thought the bosses were being generous when it came across my desk.”

I opened my mouth to snap that I hadn’t done anything, but then shut it just as quickly. Quaid was getting paid a minifortune to defend me, and I knew I would make a mess if I tried to defend myself, so I kept quiet and forced myself not to react to the other lawyer.

“It is a good deal … if she was guilty of committing a crime. Having bad taste in men and getting caught up with a junkie loser is not a punishable offense.” Quaid’s tone was icy and there was no missing that he wasn’t in the mood to banter with the other man.

“When that junkie loser robs a bar with an unregistered weapon and threatens the life of a cop, it is a punishable offense. She didn’t call the cops, Jackson, she didn’t do anything.”

I cringed and tore my gaze away from their intense standoff. She didn’t do anything … I never did and it forever haunted me. It lingered around me like a black cloud. Nothing was just as bad as participating in a crime; at least, that was the way it felt. Nothing could linger heavy and thick until you couldn’t breathe through it, and I’d been gasping for air for a very long time.

“Again, Townsend, doing nothing is not a crime.” It might not be a crime, but the punishment that came with doing nothing might be worse than the punishment that came along with actually committing a crime.

“We’ll see if the judge agrees with you or not.” The other man skulked his way back to the other side of the room. Shortly after the exchange, the court bailiff told us all to rise and an older man, in billowing robes, entered the room and took his place at the bench. The court recorder read my case number and the charges that I was facing, then we all had to say our names clearly for the record.

The judge said a curt hello to both Quaid and the other attorney, and without any preamble, the other man launched into why the State thought I should be behind bars. Just like Quaid warned, all my dirty laundry was dragged out and laid flat for everyone to see. The DUI charge I’d recently bargained down, the bar fight that had resulted in a trip to the police station all because I was drunk and thought the other girl was trying to hit on Jared. The trespassing from when I jumped the fence at a resort to go skinny-dipping with some boy in a band that I met at a bar. All of it in its twisted, torn, and ragged glory. Every bad choice and mistake I had ever made there to be judged and weighed. Every instance I had taken the opportunity to do the wrong thing because I didn’t deserve to do the right thing. It was rough, but I sat silently, unflinchingly, and refused to look away from the judge, who had his eyes locked firmly on me.

“We also have a witness that will happily testify that Ms. Walker was fired, from the very bar she is accused of helping rob, for stealing. The same witness will testify that Ms. Walker was angry her father sold the bar, the bar she felt belonged to her and should stay in the family, so she concocted the plan for the robbery out of revenge.”

Quaid stood up and put his hands on the table in front of him. “Seriously, Townsend? Are you going to disclose to the court that your witness is a known drug user? Do you plan to clue the court in to the fact that you are in the midst of pressing charges against said witness for armed robbery and endangering the welfare of a police officer? What kind of deal did you offer this witness to testify against my client, Counselor?” I finally pulled my gaze away from the impossible-to-read judge and looked at my attorney.

There was a hard line of tension in his arms and along the line of his back. He was angry on my behalf. The little crush I was working on building towards him bloomed into full-blown infatuation. My dad had been the only man in my life to fight for me, so to have this man, this polished, seemingly perfect man, take my back, regardless of the fact he was doing it for a paycheck, still warmed me to my toes.

“Mr. Jackson, you will get your turn to argue against the State’s case soon. Please refrain from those kinds of outbursts in my courtroom. You know better.”

Chastised and clearly annoyed by it, Quaid sat back down next to me and shot me a look. It was full of heat and turmoil, so it was my turn to tilt my head in reassurance, and even though I’m sure he thought it was an accident, I let my elbow brush against his like he had done at the arraignment. We were in this together, after all.

After the prosecutor was done talking, the judge took his time looking at the paperwork scattered in front of him and then turned back to the other attorney.

“I’m assuming there’s a deal on the table since I’ve seen the tape from the parking lot, and it makes it very clear Ms. Walker was not at the establishment of her own free will.”

The prosecutor visibly stiffened and cleared his throat. “The district attorney did offer a deal, Your Honor. Ms. Walker turned it down. We feel like we have a solid enough case to take this to trial.”

The judge didn’t say anything and looked at Quaid, who climbed to his feet. “Your client is aware of what happens if she turns down the deal and takes her chances with a jury, Mr. Jackson?”

“She is, Your Honor. The fact of the matter is she didn’t know Jared Dalton was going to rob the bar that night. She didn’t know he had a gun, and when he told her his plan, she tried to exit the car, and we all know what happened.” He looked at me. “Ms. Walker was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and is paying a remarkably high price for hooking her wagon to the wrong guy. You put me in front of a jury with her and you know as well as I do that they’re going to see a pretty, young woman who’s made some mistakes but none as bad as sticking around in an abusive relationship with an addict. That video is damning, but so is the witness testimony I’ll bring forth. It will attest to the fact she showed up to work with black eyes, and will also state that everyone that witnessed the two of them together knew Jared was bad news. Not to mention the fact, the State’s witness is being investigated on trafficking charges, on top of the armed robbery charges. When he was shot during the commission of the crime, it seems he got real chatty while he was in the hospital recovering. Offered the cops a lot of info in search of a deal. Avett Walker is a victim, not a perpetrator.”

I wasn’t a victim; I was a glutton for punishment and I had my reasons to be that way, but the judge didn’t know that. He shifted his attention to me and I swallowed hard.

“Ms. Walker.” I got shakily to my feet as Quaid put a hand on my arm and pulled me upwards.

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“What exactly happened that night?”

I felt my knees start to quiver and my heart thudded heavily in my ears. “I, uh …” I started to stutter and had to clear my throat. I curled my hands into my fists and told myself to be honest. All the ugly was already out, so it couldn’t make it any prettier or any messier with the truth. “Jared had left town for a while. He owed his supplier a bunch of money, which was why I was stealing from the bar. It was stupid. It was desperate, but I did it because I thought I was helping someone that cared about me.” My voice cracked a little and I realized Quaid hadn’t let go of my arm because he gave it a gentle squeeze.

“While he was gone, some guys showed up looking for him. They, uh …” My voice drifted off again and I had to close my eyes and brace myself to get through the rest. “They broke into the place we were staying and roughed me up.” It had almost been so much worse, but thank goodness Jared’s landlady was a nosy old bat that had heard the ruckus and showed up in the nick of time. “When Jared came back to town and found me all messed up, he told me he was going to make it right, that he had a safe place we could go. He hustled me into the car, told me he had to make one quick stop, and the next thing I knew we were at the bar.”

I felt a sharp pressure in my chest and lifted my hand to hold on to the spot where my heart was kicking against the inside of me like a horse. “I should have known better. He was high—he was always high—and he was angry.” I moved my fingers from my chest to the spot on my forehead where the knot had lived for weeks. “I told him to stop it. I told him I was going to call the police. That was when he grabbed the back of my head and shoved me into the dashboard. I was already messed up from the thugs that were looking for him and he nailed me right between the eyes. I think I blacked out a little bit.”

I gulped. “I wanted to call the police.” I laughed a dry broken sound. “I really wanted to call my dad.” I looked over my shoulder at the man that was my own personal rock to lean on and wanted to wither away at the expression on his hard face. I was breaking his heart again, and again. “I didn’t do anything though. I sat there with my ears ringing, wondering how in the hell I had ended up in such a terrible spot. I didn’t know he had a gun. I never saw it and didn’t know until we got to the bar what his plans were. I should have done something, anything, but I didn’t, including help him plan the robbery.”

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