3

  The Uniform

  The following week, Nathan was walking into his lawyer’s office. Normally he dealt with Rob via email or the phone and had plenty of time to get him things, but with the turnaround going so fast he found it was just easier to drop the documents off this time.

  He was turning the corner to Rob’s office, the secretary letting him through, when he bumped into someone not paying attention.

  Not just someone, but Sabrina Shepard from last week.

  “Sorry,” she said, looking up from her phone.

  “Good thing you weren’t doing that in your car or it’d be another ticket.”

  She looked at him for a few seconds and then it must have dawned on her who he was. He didn’t think much of the fact he looked different in uniform. Or that people didn’t see anything else but the uniform when he was in it.

  “The trooper who gave me a ticket,” she said.

  He lifted one eyebrow at her. No grin like last time. He’d smiled that day because she was so flustered and annoyed at the same time. She hadn’t thrown her weight around being a lawyer but you knew she was antsy to get a move on.

  “That’s me. Did you get your brake light fixed yet?”

  “The very next day,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to get pulled over twice for the same violation.”

  “And you’ll pay a tiny fine with no threat of your insurance going up.”

  She snorted. “Thank you.”

  “It feels like it hurt for you to say that, but I have to ask why you’re thanking me.”

  “For not writing the ticket for speeding.”

  “You were speeding?” he asked.

  “I was going with the flow of traffic,” she said. “I wasn’t paying attention since I was trying to get to the courthouse.”

  She didn’t admit or lie. Just like a lawyer avoiding a direct question. “And what did the judge say when you were late?”

  “He wasn’t happy,” she said.

  “I’m sure, but he probably understood too.”

  “Nathan,” Rob said, gesturing to him from the hallway. “I was just going to go up and see if you were here since the secretary isn’t always at her desk. Come on back.”

  Nathan nodded his head to Sabrina and moved past her to Rob’s office.

  “Sorry. I was just talking to someone,” he said once he was seated in Rob’s office.

  “Oh, Brina. How do you know her?”

  “Brina?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Brina Shepard. She’s an attorney here. Been here a few years.”

  Must be a version of her name. “Why did you wrinkle your nose?”

  Rob shrugged. “No reason. She isn’t the typical lawyer. She’s kind of righteous when the rest of us just do what we can to win or settle.”

  “Not her?”

  “No. She doesn’t wheel and deal. She only takes plea bargains if it benefits her clients. She isn’t in it for the money. Plenty have told her she’d never make partner here if she doesn’t look for the big clients rather than those sob stories that need her help.”

  Imagine that. Something that maybe they had in common. “Unlike you that charges me two hundred an hour for something you can do in your sleep?”

  Rob laughed. “And I make your life easy too. Which is why you keep coming back to me and you know it.”

  That was true, not that he’d admit that to Rob, whose head was already big enough. “Here are your papers.”

  “Thanks. So you’re selling the house you’re in now too?”

  “I’ll be listing it soon. Once it’s under contract I’ll be in touch. When do you think we can close on this one?”

  “I spoke with Ruby Gentile yesterday and got the name of her client’s lawyer. Three weeks tops, maybe two weeks. I’m pretty swamped.”

  All he could think of was if the owners lost the house to the bank, then he might not get it. “You do realize they are under a deadline so she doesn’t get foreclosed on.”

  “I can deal with the bank. As long as they know it’s in the works they will be fine.”

  “No,” he said. “That family has been through enough. There is no reason for them to stress over this.”

  “It’s business,” Rob said.

  “Make it happen, Rob, or I will find someone else. It’s a cash transaction. If there is a fee for a speedy process then bill me for it, but if you can make it happen next week, do it.”

  Rob grinned again. “And that is how you bring money into the firm. Brina should learn from me.”

  He snorted and walked out, this time watching where he was going.

  He didn’t see Sabrina again. No, Brina. He didn’t see her again and thought it was funny that he’d been doing business here for years and yet they’d never crossed paths.

  Then again, there were probably twenty attorneys here and he didn’t know them all, didn’t see them all either.

  But he would have remembered her if he’d ever seen her before. A face like hers was hard to forget. Sharp cheekbones, light eyes slightly wide, pouty lips that looked annoyed not sexy, but sexy enough in his mind. She didn’t hide what she was feeling at that moment like so many lawyers did.

  Just like he could see what she was wearing in his mind right now from that brief interaction. Black pants, a purple short-sleeved sweater. He’d bet she had a black suit jacket in her office that matched if she was meeting with someone.

  Her dirty blonde hair was loose and flowing around her shoulders where the other day it was pulled back. He supposed she tried to look a bit more presentable when she was going to court. She looked older with it back. No way did she look thirty-one today though. He’d noticed her age on her license when he’d taken it. Today she looked more like a fresh-faced college student.

  He went back to the parking lot, climbed into his truck and made his way to the kitchen and bath supply store. He needed to see what was available and what needed to be ordered. If he could get in next week, he wasn’t waiting to start.

  He was ready and willing to go in more than he’d been with any other flip and he wasn’t sure of the reason but just decided to go with it.

  Brina couldn’t believe she didn’t recognize the trooper that had given her a ticket last week. Especially since she’d found herself waking up hot and sweaty from a pretty steamy dream she’d had of him a few nights ago.

  Only in her dream he’d been wearing those sunglasses and grinning at her. No hat on his head, his large hands reaching for her, holding her, his mouth leaning close, then she woke up.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d woken up frustrated from a dream before.

  If she hadn’t gathered her wits enough she might have called Blair to talk to her about it. It wasn’t worth it though and she’d put it from her mind.

  “So we know a mutual client?”

  And here was Rob standing in her doorway wanting to chat like he always did.

  “Who is that?”

  “Nathan Randal.”

  She hadn’t been sure what the N stood for, but since Rob addressed him in front of her, she at least knew who he was talking about.

  “We’ve met once,” she said. No way she was saying Nathan pulled her over. She’d never hear the end of it if Rob asked if she said she was a lawyer to try to get out of the ticket and didn’t. That she accepted the ticket and moved on with her day. She broke the law, she got caught. End of story.

  She wasn’t like everyone else in this building and they were finally starting to realize it.

  “He’s a good guy. Always buying and selling houses.”

  Hmm, she could find out something about Nathan without even asking. “I thought he was a trooper?”

  “He is. But he’s a flipper on the side. He’s closing on a house in a week or so and had to drop off some papers for me. A nice guy. A little mysterious though.”

  “Mysterious?” she said in a tone that could lead Rob to believe she was asking when she was really just repeating his words.

  “Yeah. He’s quiet. It always makes me wonder what is going on in his mind.”

  “Does it matter what is?” she asked. “He’s a paying client.”

  “Nope, you’re right. Doesn’t matter in the least. Guess I was trying to see if you knew more about him.”

  “Sorry, I can’t help you,” she could honestly say.

  When Rob left, she went back to work. She had more important things to think about than a sexy trooper that gave her hot dreams and made her coworker wonder what was in his background.

  It didn’t matter. She most likely wouldn’t see him again.

  4

  Justice

  But three days later she was walking into the Albany County Courthouse to get ready for a trial when she did see Nathan Randal exiting. She noticed him right away in his uniform and that dream she’d had of him before came slamming to the front of her brain almost like whiplash making her flush.

  Almost. Thank God she was able to hold it back!

  “Counsel Shepard,” he said to her, no smile on his face again.

  “Trooper Randal. Here for traffic court?”

  “That was going to be my question to you,” he said, the lifting of the corner of his lip almost visible but not quite to release a grin or a smirk. “No. The Demount trial.”

  Everyone in the area knew of that trial, as it was big news. A trooper had been shot during a shootout with the drug den that had been under surveillance.

  “Were you present during the...incident?” she asked.

  “I was,” he said, turning his head when two other men started to walk toward him. Both dressed up with a tie, badges at their belts.

  “I’m glad you weren’t hurt,” she found herself saying.

  “Josh Turner, Mick Stokes, this is Counsel Shepard.”

  “Brina,” she said, reaching her hand out to the two men. “And you must be the investigators,” she said of the men in the suits who introduced themselves.

  “Nice to meet you,” both men said.

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” Nathan said to them.

  They both grinned and walked away. “How is the trooper that was shot doing?” For some reason she didn’t want to end the conversation with him and had no clue why.

  “He’s on the mend. Josh is our computer guy who’d been tracking their money; Mick deals with the drug investigations in the area. So I’m assuming you aren’t here for that trial.”

  “No,” she said. “Another courtroom. Mine’s a slumlord versus tenants in deplorable conditions.”

  “Good luck with it,” he said, looking at his watch. “You don’t want to be late.”

  “Crap,” she said, looking at her own watch.

  That’s when he started to crack a grin and turned to leave as she raced to her courtroom. Thankfully she got there with four minutes to spare.

  “So what’s going to happen today?” one of her clients asked. A single mother of four who couldn’t afford to move or live anywhere else on her minimum wage job. Broken windows, leaky pipes, and lead paint were just some of the issues that they were dealing with now. “If the building gets condemned we’ll be on the street.”

  “It won’t be condemned. At least not yet. He’s not stupid enough to let it get that bad. What we want is the paint removed, the windows replaced, and the leaks fixed. These are all things he should be doing per your lease and he knows it.”

  “But plenty of us have been late with our payments and he said that is a breach of the lease and he doesn’t have to fix things.”

  It burned her ass when dicks played on people like this. “No. You’ve all been late but you play catch-up. If you were several months behind he’d evict you and even then there is a process.”

  “No. I’ve never gotten that close. I’ve just been behind a month before, but I’m caught up.”

  Brina looked around at the other two clients there with her. They were nodding their heads too. “We need to take small steps to start. I wish we could fix the whole building up, but that doesn’t always happen. These three things need to be done first and then we’ll move onto the remaining other things. He didn’t expect you to retain a lawyer. They wanted to settle and get the suit tossed, but I wouldn’t let them just blow it off.”

  “What do you mean?” one of them asked.

  “Mr. Freeland’s lawyer contacted me last week and said they’d get everything fixed by September first if we would drop the suit. I said no.”

  “Why?” another one asked. “It’s what we want.”

  “Coming to trial forces his hand and he knows it. He could say he is fixing it, but what if he doesn’t? Then we are back to square one. The judge will give him a timeline and make him stick to it and now he has legal fees. Trust me. He won’t be happy, but everything will work out.”

  And she was exactly right two hours later. Mr. Freeland was ordered to fix the three items presented and given until September first to do it when he’d have to provide proof or they’d be back in court.

  “Thank you so much,” the single mother of four said. “I wish we could pay you.”

  “Don’t worry. The firm takes pro bono cases all the time. It was my pleasure to see him squirm. And not only that, he knows he’ll be watched for all of his properties now.”

  She tended to be the pro bono attorney on staff that most of these cases went to and she was just fine with that.

  Money wasn’t the end all and be all. Not to her.

  Nope. Justice was what she was after. Fighting for those that couldn’t fight for themselves.

  She hated bullies and she was damn well going to make sure they all ended up in their places.

  “Who was that?” Mick asked him in Josh’s SUV when they were leaving the courthouse. Today was Nathan’s day off, but that didn’t matter when there was a court appearance. He’d go back and complete his paperwork and then finish up the rest of what he needed to do in his current house so he could get it listed.

  He hated being short on cash. Or having not much in his bank account. The faster he could get his house listed and sold, the sooner he could get some cash back in the bank.

  “An attorney I pulled over for a brake light out a few weeks ago.”

  “I bet you still gave her a ticket,” Mick said. “You’re a hardass that way.”

  “I did,” he said back.

  Josh laughed. “Give him a break, Mick. It’s not like it’d affect her insurance or anything and would force her to get it done.”

  “I don’t get you two. You could issue warnings and be on your way. It’s always good to have a lawyer in your debt,” Mick said.

  Nathan snorted and turned his head to look at Mick in the backseat. “Over a simple thing like that? Give me a break. Laws are laws,” he said.

  “That’s right,” Mick said. “You’d give Ruby a ticket if you pulled her over too, wouldn’t you, Josh?”

  Josh laughed. “It depends on the violation.”

  “Oh my God, Allison would ream my ass if she got a ticket for anything with my job.”

  Mick always talked about his nag of a girlfriend that no one had ever met but heard plenty about. “You should ream hers if she breaks the law with your job. Or is she someone that speeds on purpose knowing she could throw your name out there?” Nathan asked.

  “She knows better after the first ticket she received and I got it tossed. I don’t like owing anyone anything.”

  “Exactly,” Nathan said.

  “So when are you closing on the house?” Josh asked.

  “Next week by the sounds of it. I’m getting everything in order now. I’ll reach out to Ruby to list the house I’m in soon too. Might as well try to unload it as fast as I can. I just need to see what I can do in the new one first before I can move in.”

  “I’m around the corner if you need help,” Josh said.

  “Demo day,” Mick said, rubbing his hands together. “I’m all in. I love swinging a hammer and it gets me away from the nag on the weekends.”

  “What does she think of you calling her a nag all the time?” Nathan asked. “And why stay with someone who is a nag?”

  “I’m just busting,” Mick said. “She isn’t all that bad. She has some good qualities.”

  “She must if you’ve been with her for two years,” Josh said.

  “She’s good in bed,” Mick said.

  Nathan shook his head. He didn’t want to get into any sex talks, which always happened with Mick.

  It’d been way too long since he’d held a naked woman in his arms.

  He’d just been too busy to think much of it, but lately it was in his mind more than it should be. Thanks to the sexy confident Brina Shepard that he seemed to keep running into.

  5

  Completely Dysfunctional

  “It’s all yours,” Ruby said when they walked out of the lawyer’s office.

  “Nightmares and all,” Nathan said.

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “I hope not.”

  He’d been wondering why he jumped so fast and put so much on the line. Or strapped himself so thin for a period of time. But the truth was, he knew this was a highly sought out area. The money he could make on this when it was done might top his annual salary. That alone was worth the risk.

  He refused to acknowledge that when he walked in, it was the first time he’d been drawn to a house that might feel like a home when he was done with it.

  So far he’d had no problem moving around as much as he did. It was just money and profit and he was fine compartmentalizing it in his mind that way.

  It’s not like he had a significant other or kids he had to worry about packing up. He lived light and liked it.

  He was so used to moving around in the service that he kept his life in order and ready to pack up at any point.

  He hadn’t set down roots once since he left home. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if he had roots in his family home that his father still lived in.