Page 24

N obody ever tried to stab me when I did corporate work.

"Hey! All I did was suggest that your neighbor have his property surveyed." I shoved my desk chair between me and a hundred and ten pounds of angry senior citizen. "I never told him to bulldoze your lawn shed if it crossed over the property line. You need to calm down, Mr. Ellison, or I'm going to have my assistant call the police."

I eyed the distance between my desk and the door. Surely I could outrun this guy, even in my heels. He had to be ninety years old.

"Don't even think about it, girlie. I've got pepper spray, and I ain't afraid to use it. Those self-defense classes down at the senior's center were good for something." The little white-haired troll brandished a menacing-looking can in the air with one hand, while still pointing the knife at me with the other. If I hadn't been in imminent danger of being filleted, I would have laughed.

My name is December Vaughn, and I'm a lawyer. That means that I'm usually the most annoying person in any room, even when I don't have PMS. Not this morning, though.

I tried reason. "Look, you have a claim against him for the shed. He has to pay to replace it, OK? The shed and any tools he may have destroyed. Now, put that knife down before somebody gets hurt."

Ellison lowered the knife, but it was still pointing at me. This was not how I liked to start my Mondays, being chased by somebody's rabid, weapon-toting great-grandfather. Especially not before coffee.

"He ain't been the same since that testicle problem. Man's got half his left nut missing, and it drove him insane." He squinted his eyes at me behind his bifocals. "Can I garnish the rat turd's Social Security?"

"I can't really advise you on your actions, since you are an adverse party to the rat turd, er, my client, sir. However, I'd be glad to recommend somebody–″

"HA! I knew you'd say that. You lawyers are all the same. Cause problems and then weasel out of trying to fix 'em. I don't want another lawyer. You started this; you can figure it out." He shuffled around the edge of the desk and sat down, looking a lot like a prune, or somebody who needed to eat one.

Maybe lots of prunes.

I could hear my teeth grinding together and forced myself to relax. "OK, Mr. Ellison, what exactly is it you want? I really, really need some coffee before my life is threatened any more this morning. Would you like some coffee?"

"Wouldn't mind some coffee. None of that fancy flavored crap, though. Just straight up normal coffee with some cream. Make it fresh cream, too, not that powder." He watched me closely as I walked out of my office door to the tiny adjacent kitchen. Weasel lawyers couldn't be trusted to make good coffee, I guess.

My new assistant and best friend since high school rushed in behind me. Max "never, ever call me Maxine" Emmanuel Hutton was five feet, four inches of beauty pageant alumni, from the tips of her silky brown hair to the toes of her rounded-in-all-the-right-places body. Luckily for the state of my office management, she was also unbelievably efficient when she wasn't dating one of the losers who always found her.

"What's going on with the geezer?" she asked, voice low. "I just got here and heard the end. Do you want me to call the police?"

I turned to face her, holding two mugs, which I promptly almost dropped. " What are you wearing?"

"Oh, this old thing?" She did a slow turn, treating me to a 360-degree view of the most bizarre outfit I'd seen outside of a bullfighting ring. She had tight black silk pants tucked into knee-high black leather boots and a flowing, ruffled white shirt, with a red embroidered vest topping it all. All she needed was a cape and a sword, and I'd start yelling Toro, toro. Since she normally wore your standard office-worker clothes, this new look was a teensy bit unexpected.

"Where's the bull? Or is this Be Kind to Matadors Week? I forgot to check my calendar."

"Hilarious, especially coming from the queen of bargain-basement shopping. I'll have you know, this is the very latest knockoff of a Mistraldi original last seen on the Milan runway not three months ago. It's not like you have any fashion sense anymore, December." She sniffed as she took in my sensible navy suit, white blouse, and (okay, boring) navy heels. "You moved to Ohio and morphed into Midwestern-lawyer drone, somehow. I'll bet you don't even own any tube tops any more. At least you didn't cut your hair off."

I cringed, remembering Orange Grove High fashion. "Hey, one of us has to look like somebody who works in a lawyer's office, don't you think? I figure it may as well be me, since you've lost your mind." I touched the clip holding my shoulder-length blonde hair off my face, wondering again if I should cut it.

"Oh, ho, Miss Big Stuff. Three entire weeks of owning your own practice, and already you're acting like the big boss. What's next? Unpaid overtime?"

It's tough to get respect from someone who knows you stuffed your bra in tenth grade. Even worse, when she'd helped you stuff. (Hey, it was prom–I was nervous!) I was considering booting her in the silk-covered butt with one of my ugly pumps, when the voice of doom broke in. "Where the heck's that coffee? Did you have to go to Colombia and pick the beans? I'm getting bored in here." Quavery and demanding at the same time. Neat trick.

"I'm on the way, Mr. Ellison." I called, then turned back to Max.

"Don't bother with the police. I'll get him calmed down and out of here. If he ruins my new furniture with his knife or pepper spray, the police will be the least of his worries."

I brushed past the office toreador and marched back into my office. "Here's your coffee. Freshly made, unflavored, and with cream. Now let's talk."

He sipped his coffee, peering at me over the mug. I noticed he'd taken the time to pat down his wisps of silvery white hair and straighten his tie while I was making the coffee. The knife and pepper spray were nowhere in sight. Maybe he was ready to be reasonable.

"I think you and Mr. Bessup will be able to work this out amicably, Mr. Ellison. If you'll just–″

"Does somebody who would bulldoze my shed without even discussing it with me first sound amicable to you, girlie? The old fart hasn't been right in the head since he lost his wife." His hand darted behind the desk, and he pulled the pepper spray back out.

I sighed. So much for reasonable.

"My name is December Vaughn. You can call me December, or you can call me Ms. Vaughn, but girlie is definitely out. Please treat me with the same respect I'm giving you, sir." Eight years of litigation in a corporate firm had given me a bellyful of condescension. I wasn't about to take it when my name was finally the one on the door.

Well, it would be on the door as soon as I got a sign. "Also, don't you think you should give the man a break if he's recently widowed?"

"Okay, December—and, just for the record, what the hell kind of name is that? Parents some kind of hippies? And widowed, hell. His wife ran off with the UPS driver. They live down to St. Augustine now," he said, shaking his head. "Hated to see her go. She had the nicest set of bazumbas in the neighborhood."

My lip did an involuntary curling thing at the idea of Mr. Ellison scoping out his neighbor's wife's bazumbas.

He smacked a hand on my desk for emphasis. "Anyway, here's the deal. I'm out twenty-five hundred dollars, and I know that rat bastard will never pay it. For one thing, he don't have no money, and for another he's about the most contrary individual I've ever come across. So, the way I see it, you owe me the money." He sat back in the chair with a flourish, clearly pleased with his solution.

I gaped at him over my mug. "How do you come up with that? I gave my client legal advice about his property line. He went way, way beyond anything I discussed with him and bulldozed your shed. You're nuts if you think—I mean, it is clearly an incorrect conclusion for you to assume that I am liable to you for the damages."

Sometimes I lose my grasp of lawyer-speak when I get ticked off, which—to my mind—calls into question the value of a sixty-thousand-dollar legal education. If you can't res ipsa and tort feasance at the drop of a hat, you're not worth the paper your bar license is printed on.

"Damage is right. Twenty-five hundred dollars' worth of damage. I don't expect you to just give me the money. I don't want your charity. The way I figure, you owe me a job. I'll work for you until I earn back the money. I'm only seventy-two years old and can do just about anything." He smiled in triumph and smacked the spray can down on my desk.

"There is no way . . .″

Sadly, my do-gooder gene picked that moment to kick in. He's just a lonely old man.

He beamed.

"You can definitely not work for me . . .″

Probably no friends or family.

He folded his arms over his chest.

"I don't even need more . . ."

He smiled all over his prune-cheeked face.

He'll give up and lose interest in a couple of days, anyway.

"Fine. So, what can you do, anyway?" I slouched back in the visitor chair, and then changed my mind and stood up. "Hey, if you're going to be working for me, get out of my chair. Get over here on this side of the desk and hand over the weapons." I held out my hand.

He pushed himself out of my chair, grinning, and walked around the desk. "Here's the knife, girl- . . . er, December."

"This is a butter knife! You chased me around my own office with a butter knife?"

He grinned, unapologetic. "You run pretty good in a skirt, too. Nice legs. Not much in the way of bazumbas, though."

I closed my eyes and prayed for patience, then snapped them back open and glared at him. "First rule of employment: no comments on your boss's personal baz— . . . person . Hand over the spray, too."

"Now, you wouldn't want to leave an old man helpless against the muggers, would you?" He gave me the puppy-dog eyes look, which might have worked if he hadn't threatened my life a few minutes earlier.

"I think it's the muggers who would be helpless against you." I muttered, still holding out my hand.

He grumbled, but pulled the pepper spray out of his pocket and handed it over. I tried not to think about what other instruments of death might have been concealed in his pants. The old pervert.

"Max, get in here." I yelled.

Max, who'd been lurking right outside the door — if a woman dressed up like a matador can ever lurk — popped her head in the doorway.

"You bellowed?"

"Mr. Ellison is going to be working for us for a while. I have to get ready for my ten o'clock, so please get his information for the employment forms and figure out something for him to do."

Max stared at me in disbelief. "You're kidding, right? What's he going to do?"

"Hey, I'm right here, chickie. What the heck are you wearing, anyway?" My new employee drew himself up to his full nearly five and a half feet of height and squinted down at Max. Visually speaking, it was an interesting contrast. Matador meets shuffleboard chic.

I sighed. Hugely. "Mr. Ellison, what did you do before you retired? I assume you are retired?"

He puffed up his tiny chest. "You bet. Forty-five years as a school-bus driver. Best safety record in the Claymore County school district."

I dropped my head in my hands as Max led my new employee out to the reception area. School-bus driver. Well, that's surely an under-used talent in a law firm. I tried not to think about what adding another person to the payroll was going to do to my rapidly vanishing bank account. I'd shoveled everything in my 40K plus the small inheritance from Dad into the new practice. I'd traded in my sweet Mercedes convertible for an ugly but practical Honda and some cash. I was even living in my aunt and uncle's rental house for no rent, like some kind of deadbeat college kid.

One of my ex's pet phrases for me flashed through my mind. You jump without bothering to figure out where you're going to land, December. You're suicidally optimistic .

I refused to admit he might have had a tiny point.

I would have pulled out the file on my ten o'clock, but I didn't have one. He was a potential new client, referred by my Aunt Celia. So I shuffled papers around, pulled out a clean legal pad, and practiced looking like a seasoned personal injury attorney, trying to ignore the crashing noises coming from my file room.

"I'd go with the pose where you lean forward with your hands clasped on the desk, honey. You look all Lawyer Barbie that way."

I jerked in surprise, then glared at Max. "Do you need something, or are you just here to mock me?" I'd been hearing "Barbie" since I turned about fourteen. The long legs, long blonde hair, and blue eyes made me an easy target. Sometimes I thought about dying it brown, just for a change, but I never did.

Maybe red?

"Well, Mr. Deaver is here for your appointment, but mocking is good, too." She grinned at me when I gave her my Reserved for Opposing Counsel Death Glare.

"Save your death glares, girlfriend. You forget I've known you since high school, when you were the annoying dweeb who sat in front and raised her hand all the time." She had a little dimple when she smiled. It'd been her pageant circle secret weapon.

Then the smile faded. "Plus, you owe me for putting up with your new hire. That . . . mean man called me chickie. He does it again, and I'm going to help our nation's Social Security deficit by one paycheck." Max being scary wasn't actually scary. It was mostly just cute. But I could never tell her that . It would hurt her feelings.

"Quit with the scowl. You'll scare the clients. Plus, I stopped doing the hand-raising thing in tenth grade. You better . . . Oh, forget it. Please show Mr. Deaver in." I shook my head. So far, if my first two employees were an indicator of the future success of my firm, I was in big trouble.

My dad's words rang in my ears. Great at book learning, but no common sense . Even two years after he'd died of the heart attack he'd spent forty years chasing, Dad liked to pop in occasionally and poke at my self esteem.

Putting aside for the moment the fact that I was arguing with a dead guy, I poked back. Ha! Takes more than book learning to run your own law firm, doesn't it?

As he always had in life, Dad had the last word. Three weeks isn't exactly a track record.

I shook off my burgeoning brain meltdown and stood up to greet my new client, as Max showed him in to my office. "Mr. Deaver, I'm December Vaughn. How are you? Can we get you some coffee or water?"

"BDC Pharmaceuticals killed my wife, and I want them to pay."