Page 37

I woke up to the sound of classical music playing on the clock radio Emily had loaned me the night before, in the middle of a dozen apologies about the chocolate milk. Looking around the room at my motley collection of furniture, I realized I had to call the moving company again as soon as I got into the office. This sleeping on the floor on an air mattress was ridiculous when I had a perfectly good bed. Somewhere.

Plus, living in a house furnished in "early yard sale" wasn't exactly good for the morale.

I jumped in the shower and did a rushed hair and makeup thing, then put on my lightest-weight celery-green summer suit, since it was supposed to be a kajillion degrees by noon. Then I headed for the office, thrilled all over again to be running my own law firm. I'd tried for years to talk to the partners at my old firm to have a pro bono day once a week. Even once a month. But nobody was all that interested in putting in unbillable hours in that corporate culture. Some lawyers had actually bragged about how long it had been since they'd seen their children when the kids were awake.

It was my show to run now, though. I could work all the unpaid hours I wanted. I winced a little as I opened my car door, remembering that all of my hours these days were unpaid, and then firmly shoved that thought to the back of my mind.

Non-existent budget: Deal with later.

Twenty minutes of radio NPR and one difficult conversation with Aunt Celia later, I pulled up to my office to find a long line of people snaking through the parking lot. The head of the line was at my office door. I parked and climbed out of the car, catching sight of Mr. Ellison rushing over to me. "Hey, girl—Ms. Vaughn."

I almost fell over. Ms. Vaughn?

"Are you sick?" I asked when he skidded to a stop in front of me.

"No, what? I'm fine, he said, panting, then snatched my briefcase out of my hands. "Give me that and get going. You've got thirty-two people waiting to see you already."

I scanned the line, feeling last night's lasagna or something like panic roiling around in my stomach. "Thirty-two? I've never even met with thirty-two different clients in a week, let alone one day. How are we going to handle this?"

He looked up at me, chin thrust in the air. "You listen to me. If I can handle a whole busload of rowdy teenagers, you can handle this. You've got more backbone than you realize, I reckon."

With that, he wheeled around and marched to the door, leaving me gaping after him in surprise. "Finally, a comment on my anatomy that I can live with," I muttered. Then I took a deep breath and pasted a huge "I can do it, I can do it; I've got a backbone" smile on my face and nodded to the people in line as I strode over to unlock the door.

NOTE TO SELF: Give Mr. Ellison a key. After this, he deserves it.

He stood at the door, rocking from side to side. "By the way, I gave everybody cups of coffee from the diner down the street. You can't expect clients to wait out in the cold. You owe me thirty-seven dollars and sixty-two cents."

"In the cold? It's nearly ninety degrees out here, Mr. Ellison," I said.

"Still, it's the principle of the thing. Don't want to get a rep as a cheapskate after you-know-what," he mumbled out of the corner of his mouth.

In a weird way, it was touching. He was trying to protect my reputation. He'd even called me Ms. Vaughn, instead of girlie, in front of my prospective clients. Plus, he'd said I had a backbone.

Oh, oh. I was starting to like him.

"Tell Max to give you the cash out of the petty cash box. Just give her the receipt for the taxes, okay?" I said, unlocking the door. "And Mr. Ellison?"

He turned to look at me, eyes narrowed, probably ready to argue about coffee.

"Thank you," I said.

He flashed a huge smile at me, and it was my turn to narrow my eyes. Damn. I bet Mr. Ellison was quite the hottie in his day .

Okay, now that I've officially gone over the bend, it's time for me to talk to my new clients.

"I'm here, I'm here," Max called, hurrying up behind us. "Sorry I'm late. I . . . I didn't get much sleep last night."

Oh, oh. That was the "Ryan screwed me over again" voice.

I pulled Max to the side, and Mr. Ellison escorted the clients inside and started unfolding folding chairs at the edge of our reception room. "Folding chairs? Where did . . . never mind. Please tell me that wasn't your 'I gave Ryan one more chance, like a big fat idiot' voice."

She wouldn't look at me, but moved so the reception desk was between us, stuffed her purse in a drawer, then locked it. "Full house today. We'd better get started."

"Look, Max," I said, then glanced behind me. Thirty-plus faces looked at me expectantly. "Fine, but we'll talk about this later, okay? You know I worry about you."

"I don't need a big sister anymore, either, D," she said.

"Maybe I still need to be one," I mumbled, then straightened my shoulders. "Okay, triage. Let's take the eldest and anybody who looks frail first. Also," I said, glancing around again, "that woman who's breastfeeding in the corner. I don't want to make a woman and her baby wait around for hours."

I swung around to face the room, then stopped and looked back at Max. "We need to move to compel in Charlie Deaver's case first thing this morning. I emailed it to you last night after I showered the chocolate milk out of my hair."

"What?"

"Never mind. Long story, and I shouldn't eat my 'basketti' after my dessert. Tell you later." I grinned and faced my new clients. "Welcome, everybody. I'm so glad you're here, and I hope we can help every one of you. My name is December Vaughn, and I'm a lawyer."

W hy did I ever want to be a lawyer again?

"No, Mrs. Stilkich, I am not a loser druggie. The reporting was grossly inaccurate. But we've been going around and around on this topic for nearly," I glanced at my watch and did a mental eye roll, " . . . nearly twenty minutes. I'd completely understand if you choose to seek different counsel." I stood up, smiling and holding out my hand, figuring I'd be way better off if she'd just go away.

Mrs. Stilkich was a big woman with a slight trace of an accent and a bright yellow scrunchie holding her hair up in a big know on the top of her head. She was somewhere between fifty and seventy, and suspicious as hell. Whether about me, personally, or lawyers in general, I didn't know yet.

Naturally, after ten minutes of grilling me about my background and "addiction issues," she suddenly changed her mind. "Oh, no, no. Lordy, anybody can see that you're not a drug user. I mean, if you want to take that jacket off and show me you don't have any track marks . . ."

"Mrs. Stilkich!" I said and crossed my arms. "I'm running out of time and patience, to be honest. There are still more than a dozen people in the waiting room, and it's almost two. I have had no lunch, and I'm getting cranky. So either tell me your legal problem, or go get another lawyer, but do it now, please."

Maybe not the preferred method of winning over your new client, but sometimes a lawyer's gotta do what a lawyer's gotta do.

"Speaking of which, excuse me for a moment," I said, picking up the phone and pressing a button.

"Hey, D, what's up? Ready for the next person?"

I sighed. "I wish. No, I'm ready for lunch. I'm starving here. Let's order pizza, okay? And get enough for any clients who are still waiting, too. Take the money out of petty cash."

"D? We have twelve cents in petty cash after I paid Mr. Ellison for the coffee. Any other ideas?"

"Oh. Right. I'll bring you out my credit card." I hung up the phone and looked at my recalcitrant potential client. "Are you coming, or would you like to wait for me, ma'am?"

She opened her mouth, then shut it again. Then she settled back in her chair. "I'll wait here, young lady. I think you can help me after all. Anybody who'd feed that crowd in the waiting room can't have much of a need for drug money, right?"

Saved by the pizza. Who knew?

I walked down the hall to give my credit card to Max, who had the pizza place on the phone. She gave me a thumbs-up signal, then continued ordering extra cheese and pepperoni.

Mr. Ellison barreled his way over to me when I walked back to my office. "Hey! Did you know none of these people plan to pay you?"

"Yes, that's why they call it pro bono . It means 'for the public good.' We're giving back to the community here." I smiled, feeling benevolent again.

He scowled at me. "Sounds like pro stupido to me. And now you're buying them pizza, too? Bunch of deadbeats with no jobs? How do you expect to pay my salary if you don't have any clients that got actual cash?"

The headache that had been lurking behind my skull started pounding again. "Don't worry about it, Mr. Ellison. Everything will be fine."

He snorted and stomped off down the hall, muttering something about "damn fool women." I stood there and watched him go, wondering suddenly what his salary was. Come to think of it, I wasn't exactly sure what Max's salary was, either. We'd sort of discussed working the details out when money started coming in the door.

My forehead started doing the scrunchy thing again. Max couldn't afford to go without a paycheck for very long, despite her pageant-winnings savings. I needed to make money. I needed to?—

"Are you coming or what?" Mrs. Stilkich yelled down the hall. "Don't make me change my mind about you, young lady."

I needed to get Mrs. Stilkich out of my office.

" O kay, we did it. Somehow, we saw twenty-seven clients," I said, sprawled out on the couch in reception.

"I thought there was thirty-two," said Mr. Ellison, who was slumped in a chair.

"Five were friends or relatives who came for moral support," Max said, from her position draped across the other chair.

Mr. Ellison squinted at us. "You two look terrible."

I was too tired to argue with him. Max lifted her head briefly, then sank back down on the chair. "Whatever. You're not exactly fresh as a daisy, you old geezer," she said.

He puffed out his chest. "Hey! I've got twenty years on you two!"

I lifted an eyebrow. "Twenty? Which would make us what? Fifty-two? Nice. Very nice."

He snickered.

Max raised her head again. "Oh, by the way, D, that annoying Addison Langley called. He wanted you to hold off on filing your motion to compel. I told him you were busy, but that we'd already filed it. He got pretty nasty about it and told me the boxes were on the way. Said he hoped we could handle them when we got them, whatever that means."

I waved a hand in dismissal of Addison Langley and his condescending ways. "Who cares? We'll withdraw the motion if he actually serves the discovery. We did intake on twenty-four new cases today. At least a half-dozen were about collecting disability or unemployment benefits, which I know squat about and should probably start researching right now."

I closed my eyes and started neck rolls to ease the tension. "But all I want to do right now is go take a long bath and go to bed. Or go to the air mattress. Oh, crap!" I smacked myself in the head. "I totally forgot about calling the moving company. I'm never going to get my stinking furniture."

"I called them," Max said. "No news. They're hoping he'll call his mom for her birthday this weekend, so she can figure out where the heck he is."

"Argh!" I pounded my head against the back of the couch a few times. "What did I do to deserve this? I need my furniture!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the front door swing open. "I thought we locked that?"

An enormous, bushy head peered around the edge of the door about a foot higher than you'd expect a head to be. I stared in surprise as the biggest man I'd ever seen outside of the movies walked in. "Hello? Is this where December Vaughn works? I'm Bear Anderson, and the folks over at Legal Aid sent me over. Is it too late?"

Mr. Ellison whistled. "What'd you do, son? Sit on somebody and squash the life outta them?"

Even as I shushed Mr. Ellison, I could understand why he'd asked. Bear was nearly seven feet tall and probably three feet wide across the chest. He wore a t-shirt with a giant panda bear on it and a pair of denim shorts, plus running shoes. He had bushy red hair and a bushy red beard, and thoughts of the books I'd read as a kid about Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and the mountain men flashed into my mind.

That and Paul Bunyan.

Bear's eyes widened, and he shook his head. "No, I took a really pretty lamp home for Grandma, but I guess I didn't pay for it." He looked down at the cap he was twisting in his hands. "I kinda get forgetful and do that sometimes. I guess they're planning to prosecute me this time. But I always give it back!"

I dragged myself up out of my chair and tried to look perky.

Or awake, even.

"Sure, Mr. Anderson. Why don't you come on back and let's see what we can figure out."

Max sat up straight in her chair, eyes narrowing suspiciously as she gave Bear the once-over. "I'll just wait out here for you, December. Waiting for my large police officer boyfriend, who will be here in a few minutes, to pick me up."

I turned my head so Bear couldn't see me and hissed at her. "Nice. Subtle, even."

She hissed back. "So you want me to leave you alone here with him ?"

"Don't even think about it."