Lawyers In Love: In His Own Defense (13 page)

Confusion muddied her mind, made her unsure. “I don’t know.”

Tony pulled back on the throttle as they entered the narrow channel to the Harbour Island dock. After he’d tied
Miss Trial
securely in her berth, he walked Kristine to her car.

He hugged her fiercely, then loosened his hold and tipped her chin up until she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “I know what I want, Krissy, but if I told you now, it would scare you half to death.”

“Try me.”

He shrugged, shot her a rueful grin, then looked out at the murky water in the nearby ship channel. “For the first time in my life, I find myself thinking about a vine-covered cottage—no, a vine-covered mansion on Old Tampa Bay. Six bedrooms, a big pool and a tennis court, a monster mortgage, and memberships at all the clubs where my partners keep trying to sponsor me.”

Though she’d heard him speak as eloquently on behalf of the infamous Manny Garcia, Kristine believed without a doubt that Tony’s wishes were sincere. She smiled when he turned to her and lowered his voice almost to a whisper.

“You and me and two-point-five good-looking, bright, well-behaved kids. On second thought, make that two kids, or three. I’m not into doing anything by halves. Hell, what I’m thinking I might want with you scares
me
half to death.”

“You want all that? After we’ve spent just one night together?”

“I’ve wanted it since I first laid eyes on you in the courtroom when we were picking jurors for Manny Garcia’s trial. I just didn’t know it right away.”

“Why does wanting all this frighten you, Tony?”

“Lots of reasons. You’re not certain you can accept what I do, or that you can love the man I am—and I’m not sure you should be able to stomach where I came from.”

“You’re talking in riddles.”

Smiling, he ran his hands up her arms and under the loose sleeves of his T-shirt to caress her shoulders. The rough feel of his palms and the warmth of his callused fingers against her bare skin sent shivers down her spine, made her want him again. More than she should, more than was prudent.

“We’ll talk more later. This is one conversation I want to have when we’re not subject to time constraints.” His deep voice poured over her like honey, as if he were delivering a closing argument that could free his client or send him to death row.

As he did with most juries he faced, he prevailed with Kristine. “All right,” she said.

“Then let’s relax and enjoy each other whenever we can steal a few minutes. It’s going to be hard to squeeze out many spare hours until I finish preparing for Ezra’s new trial.”

Tony’s smile made Kristine want to throw her arms around his neck and hold him, but she settled for stroking the back of his hands with her thumbs. “I thought big-time defense attorneys had an army of investigators and associates to do all the legwork.”

“Yeah. Well, we don’t like to run up huge bills with contractors on
pro bono
cases. My two associates will do some of the digging, but most of it will be up to me.”

“Could I help?”

Tony laughed. “Can you say ‘conflict of interest,’ honey?”

“Oh.” Stupidity wasn’t usually one of Kristine’s major flaws, but she’d clearly spoken before engaging her brain.

“Yeah. Oh. Thanks anyway. I appreciate the thought. I’ll call you.”

“Okay.” Straining on tiptoes to reach his lips, Kristine gave Tony one last kiss before climbing into her car.

* * * * *

When she began her workday in a misdemeanor courtroom two hours later, Kristine felt Tony’s presence as if he were still with her. Maybe he was, because she had the feeling he’d invaded her mind as surely as he’d claimed her body.

“By the way, Harper wants to see you after you finish up with these arraignments,” Andi mentioned after she’d handed Kristine a folder bursting at the seams with the case files on Judge Hamilton’s docket.

That wouldn’t be before afternoon, Kristine thought after Andi had left. She exchanged a few words of casual conversation with Bill Ward, the other assistant state attorney who would be working with her, alternately presenting the state’s cases against a hundred or so unfortunate souls who’d been caught breaking the law last night.

Accused drug dealers, prostitutes, thieves, drunk drivers, and others suspected of having gone awry of the law straggled into the courtroom, distinguishable from the attorneys not only by their casual attire but by universally worried expressions. Kristine nodded and smiled at her colleagues for the defense as they came in, briefcases in hand. They were a motley crew—worn-out men years past their prime and fresh-faced youths who’d chosen private practice or associate positions with large firms. None held a candle to Tony.

But then criminal defense lawyers of Tony’s stature sent their associates to handle arraignments, rarely showed their faces in court until it was time for jury selection. Kristine murmured a quiet good-morning to one of those associates, Hank Ehlers, when he approached the bench with a well-dressed woman accused of drunk driving in conjunction with an accident that had injured two children. She couldn’t help contrasting Hank’s prosperous-looking client with the handcuffed, orange-garbed prisoner she’d had bound over for trial a few minutes earlier on a similar charge.

Rich miscreants and big-time criminals. The backbone of Winston Roe’s clientele. How could Tony look in the mirror, knowing he was putting people like these back on the streets? Kristine wished she could make up her mind whether the handful of
pro bono
cases he took on to see justice served negated the evil he apparently condoned from his paying clients.

“Ms. Granger?”

Chiding herself for woolgathering, Kristine pulled the last file from her box. “I’m sorry, Your Honor. The State is ready.”

Judge Hamilton scowled. “Proceed, then, with the State versus Francone. Will the prisoner stand?”

He did, though he took his time.

“Marcus Francone is charged with two counts of armed robbery of convenience stores last night.”

“Priors?”

“Two, your honor.”

Kristine handed the file to the judge, whose gaze had shifted to a skinny, shackled prisoner with a surly look on his swarthy face. “Do you have counsel?”

“Nah.”

The judge advised the prisoner of his rights, and the public defender’s representative stepped forward. “We plead not guilty, your honor,” he said after speaking briefly with Francone. “Request that you set bail.”

“Bail is set at fifteen thousand dollars.”

After setting a trial date, the judge called a fifteen-minute recess. The arraignments were finished. As usual, efficiently.

Done with her duties at the courthouse for the day, Kristine gathered her briefcase and headed to her office. Nothing worked to get her mind off Tony.

* * * * *

It was nearly time to leave for the day when State Attorney Harper Wells stepped inside Kristine’s office and closed the door. “Your father would be horrified if he knew you were consorting with Landry,” he said without preamble.

Kristine looked up from the brief she’d been preparing, met the gaze of a man who had once been one of her parents’ closest friends. “Why do you say that?”

“He’s not our kind.”

The snobbish statement, so typical coming from Mr. Wells, rankled. “By that I assume you mean Tony didn’t inherit his membership in the yacht club?”

“I’d be surprised if the club would let him in. No, I suppose I wouldn’t be. Money talks. God knows Landry has more than his share of it, thanks to his ability to get criminals acquitted. The directors probably would admit him at that, if he applied. Which, by the way, he hasn’t.”

“If we were in court, I’d say you were speculating.”

Wells shook his head, then took Kristine’s hand. “Almost twenty-five years ago, Landry’s father killed a man. He was convicted of first degree murder.”

Kristine couldn’t help the shocked sound that came from deep in her throat. “Murder?”

“He killed a fellow migrant worker in a bar fight.” Wells shrugged. “Happens all the time with those people. They’re no better than animals.”

“Oh.” Her tender heart went out to Tony for all she imagined he must have suffered.

“So, my dear, you see why I’ve been warning you against Landry. He has bad blood.”

“That sounds positively medieval. Surely you don’t believe—”

“I believe the man’s an upstart. He may look and dress like us, but underneath, he’s nothing but white trash. He’ll revert, mind my words, and if you’re there when it happens, you’ll get hurt.”

The more Wells said, the more determined Kristine became to defend Tony, though she had no doubt he could defeat her boss any day, should he choose to rise in his own defense. After listening to a character assassination that was nothing short of vicious, she couldn’t hold her tongue a moment longer.

“As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Wells, Tony Landry is every bit as good as you or me. Like him or not, you can’t deny he’s a brilliant trial lawyer.”

“A brilliant trial lawyer with a murdering migrant worker for a parent, whose sole purpose in life is to get rich by seeing the guilty set free.”

When Wells looked at her, she noticed his cheeks had turned unnaturally red. “You’re determined to keep seeing him, aren’t you?”

“Asked and answered, sir.”

Kristine realized she’d stepped over the line. Tony was her friend. Her lover. The man she couldn’t help loving, no matter what his father might or might not have done. No matter how he chose the clients he’d defend.

She might not be able to reconcile being with Tony if she couldn’t accept him defending clients she believed deserved conviction, but she wasn’t about to stand by and listen to Harper Wells or anybody else defame him.

“Your poor mother would turn over in her grave,” Wells muttered as he stomped out, a scowl marring his florid face.

Andi barely missed colliding with Wells. “Problems?” she asked as she settled onto the straight chair beside Kristine’s desk.

“He doesn’t want me seeing Tony Landry.”

“Since when does Harper give a damn what his employees do on their own time? I seem to recall he’s the ogre who wouldn’t let us take up a collection to help out when the receptionist’s husband got killed a few months back. He told us then that personal matters weren’t this office’s concern.”

Kristine shrugged. “Mr. Wells was my parents’ friend. He tried to tell me they’d have fits if they knew I was going out with Tony. First, he hinted that Tony wasn’t good enough for a blue-blooded Tampa girl like me. Then he came right out and told me Tony’s father murdered someone years ago. Tony couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old.”

“And that’s supposed to make Landry bad? Specifically what did Wells say other than that Tony’s dad was a killer?”

“That Tony wasn’t ‘our kind.’ He mentioned that Tony grew up in a series of foster homes. Like Tony’s father murdering someone, all the things Wells mentioned were circumstances Tony had no control over. When I told him I didn’t care about Tony’s past, he pointed out that he makes his living now by defending criminals and said I should care about that.”

“Now the fact Landry’s a damn good criminal defense attorney is certainly no news. Neither is the fact that defendants have the right to competent counsel.” Andi’s expression softened. “Kristine, don’t pay Harper any mind. Do what you have to on the job, but when you get off work, let your heart lead you. Or your hormones,” she added as she shot Kristine a cheeky grin.

* * * * *

When Tony showed up on her front porch after work that night, briefcase and Chinese restaurant carryout bag in hand, Kristine’s heart warmed. She wondered why he came, though, when it seemed all he wanted was to talk shop. Feeling out of her league, she listened, inserting an occasional comment now and then. Amazing, how carefully he thought out strategy for questioning the witnesses he planned to call tomorrow, in order to cast the most possible doubt on evidence the state had already presented.

He’d apparently meant it when he told her his time would be limited, but surely he’d soon set aside his scribbled notes and do something about easing the sexual tension that was beginning to drive her crazy. Just as she was about to give up and chalk the evening up as a great lesson in courtroom tactics, he laid down his pen and stroked her cheek.

“Know what I need about now?” he asked as he slid his hand over the sensitive spots on her neck and downward to rest lightly on the upper curve of her breast. “I need my Krissy fix.”

“I–I need you, too.” Already her juices were soaking her plain silk panties, that reaction having been triggered by his nearness—the mellow, sensual sound of his deep voice and the unique fragrance of his cologne. She wanted to see him, touch him…belong to him again the way she had last night. And she wanted to drive him crazy with wanting, shatter his control.

From the way his fingers shook when he slid them inside her blouse and fumbled with the front clasp of her bra, she guessed he was none too far from losing it. “Need some help?” she asked, tackling the buttons and then sliding the silky material off her shoulders and away just as he freed her aching breasts.