Ruthless
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Synopsis
Dear Reader,
Early in my career, I wrote several novels inspired by Oregon's stunning scenery. I'm thrilled that three of these books are now available again in one volume, with a new title, Ruthless. Best of all, here you'll meet three of my favorite heroes: Attorney Jake McGowan, world-class skier Gavin Doel, and developer Brandon Scarlotti. Each is as rugged and memorable as the landscape-and as intriguing as the women they can't forget.
Jake couldn't feel much sympathy for the woman who'd married his wealthy, despicable, sworn enemy. But now that she was embroiled in a child custody battle, he would help her-and relish getting sweet revenge against her ex. . . . Superstardom hasn't helped Gavin get over his first love, or the way she inexplicably left him. When he returns to Taylor's Crossing and finds himself facing her, his bitterness is impossible to hide. But he's determined to unearth the buried truth of their past. . . . No family, no strings. Except for his professional success, little has changed for Brandon since he left Rimrock-including his feelings for Dani Stewart. Now that he's back, maybe he'll discover what went so wrong between them. But what he doesn't know will change both their lives forever . . .
If you enjoyed my previous collection, Revenge, then I'm sure you're going to love Ruthless!
Lisa Jackson
Release date: February 27, 2018
Publisher: Zebra Books
Print pages: 752
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Ruthless
Lisa Jackson
“You can’t do this to me!” Kimberly Bennett’s fingers curled around the smooth oak arms of her chair. She stared, dumbfounded, at her attorney.
“And here I thought you’d be the first to offer congratulations!” Diane Welby, petite and blond, leaned her chin on her clasped hands. Her elbows were planted firmly on the top of her wide desk, and her eyes fairly sparkled. “I’m getting married, for God’s sake!”
“I know, I know, but why now?” Kimberly asked, seeing all her plans go down the proverbial drain.
“Because Scott asked me.” Diane had been widowed for seven years.
Kimberly’s brows drew together in vexation. “Fine. Congratulations. I’m glad you’re getting married, Diane, really, but do you have to move out of the state?”
“Scott’s job is in L.A.”
“But your practice is here and I need you!”
Diane sighed. “You don’t need me—you need a good lawyer.”
“You are a good lawyer. The best,” Kimberly said, a slow panic spreading through her when she thought of her ex-husband and his most recent demands. She shivered. There was a side to Robert she hated to think about—a deadly side. “Robert’s not kidding. He’s threatened to take Lindsay away.”
Diane grew sober. She tapped her pen on her desk. “Look, Kim, he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. The court already decided to grant you custody.”
“But that was before he cared,” Kimberly pointed out, feeling her hands begin to sweat. As soon as the divorce had become final, Robert had married his mistress, a gorgeous woman who was blind to Robert’s flaws—just as Kimberly had been, years before.
“And now he cares?” Obviously Diane didn’t believe it.
“Apparently!”
“Why?”
Kimberly’s throat felt tight. “I guess Stella can’t give him a son, either.”
“And now he’ll settle for a daughter?” Diane asked dryly.
Hot injustice swept through Kimberly’s veins. “So it seems.”
Diane’s mouth clamped together thoughtfully. “You know, I wouldn’t just abandon you. I know Robert and how ... determined he can be. The man who bought my practice is a lawyer—the best—and he’s agreed to either take my pending cases or refer them to someone else.”
“I don’t want some man I’ve never met.” Kimberly insisted, trying to hang on to her rapidly escaping calm. “I want you.” Unnerved, she stood, folded her arms across her chest and walked past Diane’s desk to the window. She watched a few dying maple leaves fall to the wet asphalt of the parking lot. In the past few years Robert had changed, and his reputation had become black as ink. No court would give him custody—or would it? She couldn’t trust fate. “Maybe it’s crazy, but I’d rather have a woman represent me.”
“Why?”
Kimberly shrugged.
“Let me guess. You think a woman can better understand your maternal feelings?”
“Yeah.” She glanced over the shoulder of her black suit. “A man might sympathize with Robert.”
Diane scowled. “I doubt it. And as for Jake—”
“Who?”
“Jake McGowan, the lawyer who bought me out.”
“Oh.”
“He can help you. And he’ll do a damn good job.” Diane’s voice was filled with admiration.
“He works on custody cases?” Kimberly asked without much interest.
“He used to.”
“Used to?” Kimberly whirled, her blue-green gaze pinned on Diane’s face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Diane lifted a shoulder and slid her gaze away from Kimberly’s. “He concentrates on corporate law now. You know—taxes, mergers, that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, I know,” Kimberly said, thinking of the bevy of lawyers who were retained by the bank for which she worked. And then there were the attorneys who had worked for Robert. It seemed as if half the lawyers in Portland had been on her ex-husband’s payroll at one time or another. She worried her lip. The name McGowan was familiar—but not as one of Robert’s gophers. No ... but there was something . . .
“At one time Jake McGowan was the best domestic relations attorney in Portland.”
“‘Was’ seems to be the operative word,” Kimberly challenged.
Diane twisted in her chair so that she could stare up at Kimberly and hold her with her frank blue gaze. Her forehead creased thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t refer you to him unless I had absolute faith. He’s the best. The man you need. There was a time when he hadn’t lost a case.”
“And what happened?”
Diane hesitated. “He had a few personal problems.”
“Oh great.”
“But they’re in the past. Listen, Kim, would I refer you to him if he weren’t the best? He’ll go up against anyone Robert hires and come out on top.”
“You’re sure”
“As sure as I am about anything.”
Kimberly felt Diane was holding something back—something important. “What is it you’re not telling me?”
“Nothing. As I said, at one time he was the best in the business. He still could be.”
“If . . .” Kimberly prodded.
Diane’s mouth tightened. “If he were properly motivated.”
“‘If he were motivated.’” Kimberly repeated with more than a trace of cynicism. “This isn’t some case in one of your textbooks, you know. This is my life, and Lindsay’s.”
“That’s why you need Jake.”
Kimberly wasn’t convinced but forced a thin smile and raked her fingers through her long hair. A headache was building behind her eyes. “You know, I think it’s wonderful that you’re getting married again. Really.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
“Maybe I’m just envious.”
“You? The woman who’s sworn off men for life?”
Kimberly managed a thin smile. “Yeah, but Scott’s a great guy, and I’m sure you’ll be happy breathing all that smog in L.A.—”
Diane laughed.
“I’m just disappointed, that’s all. I was counting on you.”
“So, count on McGowan. Believe me, he can help you. Better than I can. I’ll leave a note with Sarah—she’s staying on—and she’ll set up an appointment for you in the next couple of weeks.” Diane touched Kimberly on the shoulder, “Trust me.”
“I guess I have to,” she said, feeling as if she had no other choice.
“You’ll like him, I guarantee it.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You’ll be the first woman who didn’t.”
“Oh great. A lady-killer.” Kimberly wasn’t impressed. Robert had cured her of that.
Diane shook her head. “It’s not intentional,” she said.
“Good. Not that it matters. He wouldn’t get to me.”
“Oh?”
Kimberly skewered the lawyer with a suspicious look. “I’m not in the market for a man—any man. If Robert taught me one thing, it’s that I can only depend on myself.” She offered Diane a small smile. “I’m just interested in McGowan if he can help me keep my daughter.”
“He can.” Diane was firm.
Kimberly’s answer was a skeptical smile. She glanced out the window, noticing that the ominous sky had opened up and rain was pounding the horizon in furious, windblown waves. Raindrops drizzled in jagged rivulets across the windows. The gutters of the old cottage-turned-office gurgled. Ever-widening puddles appeared on the uneven asphalt of the parking lot. Kimberly’s thoughts were as dark as the slate colored sky. Could anyone really help her if Robert decided to follow through on his demands? Or worse yet, would Robert ignore the law, as she suspected he had in the past, and just steal Lindsay away? Kimberly’s fist clenched. Over my dead body.
If it was the last thing she ever did, she’d keep Lindsay safe with her. And if it took Jake McGowan or an act of God to do so, then so be it.
Robert, whether he knew it or not, was in for the fight of his miserable life!
She left Diane’s office and headed home, stopping for groceries before driving through the dark, rain-slickened streets to her neighborhood, an older section in the southeast section of Portland known as Sellwood.
Her house, built in the early twenties, was a story and a half, painted white, trimmed in beet red and mortgage free. Though a little cramped inside, the rooms were cozy and big enough to accommodate a single mother and an energetic five-year-old. The fenced yard was surrounded by a laurel hedge and was equipped with a sandbox, picnic table and swing set. True, the house wasn’t nearly as grand as the massive brick colonial she’d shared with Robert during their marriage, but the little cottage would do. And do nicely. If only Robert would leave things as they were.
As if expecting Robert or one of his shady underlings to be watching, she glanced nervously over her shoulder, then shook off her case of nerves. She couldn’t afford paranoia—not now.
She locked the car, then, balancing two grocery sacks, ducked under a dripping clematis and hurried up the cracked concrete walk to the back door.
“I’m home,” she called as she stepped into the kitchen and shook the rain from her hair. She heard a high-pitched squeal and the scamper of excited feet as Lindsay clambered through the hardwood halls to the kitchen.
“Mommy!” Two blond pigtails, their ribbons long gone, streamed behind an impish face and sparkling blue eyes. Lindsay flung herself at her mother.
“How’re ya, pumpkin?” Kimberly asked, scooping her daughter into her arms and kissing Lindsay’s flushed cheek.
“Hungry!”
“Oh, don’t tell me, Arlene doesn’t feed you?” Kimberly guessed, laughing as she pointed to the stains from lunch on the front of Lindsay’s sweatshirt.
Lindsay’s lower lip protruded. “She doesn’t feed me enough!”
With a chuckle Arlene Henderson, a neighbor who took care of Lindsay while Kimberly worked, entered the room. An energetic, whip-thin woman of fifty-five, Arlene seemed taller than her five feet two inches. With frizzy, steel-gray hair and twinkling brown eyes, she winked broadly at Lindsay. “She’s just mad ’cause I won’t let her have a cookie until after supper. We made pumpkin cookies today, didn’t we?” she asked a still-pouting Lindsay. “Even though Halloween’s long over and Christmas is just around the corner.”
Kimberly chuckled, but Lindsay’s brow pulled into deep furrows. “I’m starving,” she complained, rubbing her stomach theatrically.
“You’ll survive,” Kimberly predicted. “We’re going to have hamburgers in less than a half an hour.”
“At McDonald’s!”
“No, here.”
Lindsay frowned again, then squirmed out of her mother’s arms. “I like McDonald’s better,” she pronounced, sneaking a sly look up at Kimberly.
“I know you do.”
“And they’ve got fries and McNuggets and—and fruit pies!”
“We’ll go on Saturday,” Kimberly promised.
“Tonight!”
“Then not at all.”
“Saturday!” Lindsay cried.
“Fair enough.”
Mollified, Lindsay cast a suspicious look over her shoulder and wandered back into the living room. Once there, she began assembling Legos in front of the television.
“Robert stopped by today,” Arlene said when the child was out of earshot.
Kimberly felt a cold knot settle in the pit of her stomach.
“What did he want?”
“To talk to Lindsay, which he did.” Arlene scowled as she slipped her arms through the sleeves of her oversized jacket. “Of course I didn’t leave the room. I don’t trust him.”
Kimberly fought down the panic that crawled up her spine. “What did he want?”
“Well, actually he asked about you.”
“He knows I work—”
“I know, but he stopped by the bank and you weren’t there, so he assumed . . .” Arlene shrugged.
“I was with Diane.”
“I didn’t mention you had a lawyer.”
“Good—because I don’t,” Kimberly said, kicking off her heels.
“No lawyer? And why in heaven’s name not?”
“It’s a long story—I’ll fill you in later. Just tell me about Robert.”
“Well, the pixie was glad to see him.”
“She should be—he’s her father,” Kimberly said woodenly.
Arlene rolled her eyes. “If you can call him that. Anyway, he didn’t stay long, just said hello, hugged her and asked about you.”
“Was anyone with him?”
“Two men. But they waited in the car.”
His bodyguard and chauffer. In recent years, Robert was never without either man.
“Lindsay wasn’t upset?”
“No,” Arlene admitted grudgingly. “And I guess he does have the right to see his daughter, but . . .” She shrugged her slim shoulders.
“Of course he does,” Kimberly said, ignoring the ridiculous panic that chilled her to the very bone. She’d been married to Robert for less than two years, and he’d been a stranger. She hadn’t known him at all. The marriage had been a mistake from day one. They both knew it. And now, suddenly he wanted Lindsay. Ignoring the tightness in her chest, she reached for one of the cookies still cooling on racks near the window.
“Well he isn’t much of a father, and don’t you stand up for him!” Arlene didn’t even try to hide her dislike. “You and I both know he walks on the dark side of the law.”
“It’s never been proven,” Kimberly said, defending him instinctively, as she had for years. She couldn’t believe some of the stories she’d heard about him—wouldn’t. And yet ...
“No, but then he didn’t do right by you. Carrying on with that Stella woman while you two were married.”
“That Stella woman’s his wife now.”
“And now she wants your daughter.”
“She won’t get her,” Kimberly said, though she felt the familiar fear knot in her stomach.
“Diane tell you that?”
Kimberly frowned. “No,” she admitted, explaining about her visit with her attorney.
“So Diane’s remarrying—that’s good,” Arlene said, scratching her head. “But what do you know about this McGowan character?”
“Not much, except that Diane’s sure he’s the man for the job.”
In the living room Lindsay giggled loudly, and Kimberly’s heart turned over. She glanced down the hall and spied her daughter. Lindsay, tired of her building blocks, was trying to do headstands on the couch. She tossed her legs into the air, tried to balance against the wall and ended up flopping back on the couch only to start the process all over again.
“Things’ll work out,” Arlene predicted with a steadfast smile. “The Lord will look after you.”
“I hope so,” Kimberly said.
“I know so!” Arlene snatched her umbrella from the floor. “Don’t you worry, and if you take Lindsay outside, you bundle her up good. There’s already a foot of snow in the mountains. Winter’s coming early this year.”
“I’ll remember that,” Kimberly replied.
“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Waving, she hurried down the hall and called a quick goodbye to Lindsay.
As Arlene shut the door behind her, Kimberly snapped the blinds shut and thought ahead to meeting with Jake McGowan. Why did she feel there was something she should know about him? What was it?
“Come on, Mommy! Let’s cut paper dolls!” Lindsay gave up her balancing act, turned off the television and, dragging one tattered, fuzzy pink bunny, dashed over to her mother. “Please, now!”
“I thought you couldn’t wait to eat.”
“We can do both!”
Kimberly laughed, forgetting about Jake McGowan for the moment. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I might get confused and cut my hamburger with the scissors and pour ketchup all over the dollies.”
Lindsay giggled. “That’s silly!”
“So are you pumpkin,” Kimberly said, poking a finger in Lindsay’s belly.
“No way!” Jake growled, disgusted. His shirtsleeves rolled over his forearms, his tie strung loosely over the back of his chair, he sat amid boxes, pictures and framed awards that had been stacked against Diane Welby’s desk. With a flourish he signed the contract for the house and grounds Diane had owned. A second document took care of the legal practice. “You know how I feel about custody cases.”
“She needs your help,” Diane insisted.
“She doesn’t need me. There are several dozen lawyers in the yellow pages.”
“Humor me, Jake—meet with her.” Diane skimmed her copies of the agreement, deed and contract before stuffing all the papers into a file and jamming them into her briefcase. Satisfied, she snapped the black leather case closed. “The movers will take care of all this—” she motioned to the office debris she was shipping to Los Angeles “—on Thursday.”
“Good.”
“Now, about Kimberly—give it a shot, okay?”
Jake’s lips compressed, and he grew thoughtful. “Oh, I get it,” he drawled. “This is a ‘special client,’ right? Maybe a friend or a friend of a friend, and she’s upset you’re abandoning her.”
“Something like that.”
Shaking his head, Jake said, “Find someone else.”
“Just meet with her. If it doesn’t work out, refer her to Dennis Briggs or Tyler Patton.”
“They’re both good.”
“Not as good as you are—”
“As I was.”
“You could be again if you’d stop wallowing in self-pity.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” Jake asked, feeling his lips curve downward. He really didn’t give a damn.
“Yes. And it’s such a waste. You could’ve been—could still be—the best!”
“Maybe I don’t want to be,” he said, scowling darkly.
“Suit yourself. But this time someone needs you.”
“Humph.”
Diane slid her case off the desk and walked to the door. Her hand rested on the knob. “Do yourself and me a favor—meet Kimberly Bennett. I’ll have Sarah set up an appointment next week.”
“I’m going skiing next week.”
“Then the next.”
“It’s a waste of time.”
“I don’t know why I bother with you.”
“Neither do I.”
Diane sighed, opened the door, then closed it again and, holding her briefcase in both hands, said, “Fine, consider it calling in my markers—okay?”
Jake’s jaw clenched, and the knot in his stomach twisted. Diane Welby had helped him pick up the pieces of his life when he needed her most. Again the horrid grief seared his soul. There was no period in his life he’d rather forget more. The days and nights had seemed to run together in pitch darkness. And the pain! God, the pain had been so intense—so all consuming. He would have given up and accepted a fate of living in his own hell, had it not been for Diane.
At the time, Jake and Diane had worked at a large firm in Portland. Diane had covered for him at the office—given him the time he needed—and comforted him when he didn’t want anyone around. She’d even helped him make the move from domestic to corporate law just so he could function again. Finally he’d managed to pull himself back together to the point where he could go on with his life. And he owed Diane Welby.
A grim smile tightened his lips. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I guess I owe you one, Dr. Welby.”
Shaking her head, she laughed. “More than one, but who’s counting?” Opening the door again, she glanced over her shoulder. “And it won’t be Dr. Welby much longer.”
He laughed. The pet name he’d given her when she’d cared for him would always stick. “Dr. Donaldson just doesn’t have the same ring.”
“Work on it. I’ll see you at the wedding next week.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jake said with a cynicism too ingrained for his thirty-five years. Through the window he watched Diane slide into her bronze Mustang, and he wondered if she had any idea what she was getting herself into.
Marriage, he thought with the same stygian anger that always consumed him when he thought of his own tragic, short-lived union, who needs it?
He was late. Checking his watch and frowning, Jake drove his pickup into the parking lot of his new office building. Tall maple and fir trees separated the lot from the main road, and the building itself, a pasty-colored stucco cottage with sloped roof, gables, moss-green shutters and several chimney stacks, reminded him of country homes he’d seen in Europe. Without the wooden sign swinging in the front yard, no one would guess this quaint little retreat to be a lawyer’s office.
Perversely the office appealed to him, though he’d bought Diane Welby’s practice on a whim because he was tired of the run-as-fast-as-you-can pace of downtown Portland.
He parked the pickup near the door and climbed out. Rain lashed at his neck and tossed his hair away from his face. Hiking the collar of his denim jacket against the wind, he lowered the tailgate and pulled out the first box of books he could reach.
Despite a plastic tarp, the box was wet. The cardboard sagged as he carried the awkward crate through the lot and down a mossy brick path to the door. Cursing as the box began to split, Jake shouldered his way into the building.
He dropped the box on his desk and rubbed the crick from the small of his back. As he surveyed the spacious room with its mullioned windows, fawn-colored carpet, any use fireplace and plaster walls, he wondered if he’d made a mistake.
But he’d been bored with the rat race of the city and was sick of the high-rises, chrome, glass and crisp white shirts beneath neatly buttoned wool vests. He’d had it. If he never saw an athletic club again, or walked into a boardroom of self-important executives surrounding a hardwood table and puffing on cigars, or spent hours reading through the latest books on tax loopholes, it would be too soon.
“So, here you are, McGowan,” he muttered as he spied a half-full bottle of Scotch shoved into his soggy box. His lips curled into a sardonic smile. Ignoring the fact that it wasn’t quite noon, he dusted off the bottle, twisted off the top and, mentally toasting this new turn of his career, muttered, “Cheers.”
He took a long pull right from the bottle. As the liquor hit the back of his throat and burned a path to his stomach, he grimaced. Without bothering to recap the bottle, he strode outside.
Sooty gray clouds moved restlessly across the sky. The wind whistled through the fir boughs, and rain peppered the ground. Growling to himself, Jake climbed into the rear of the pickup, threw back the tarp and yanked on a heavy crate. He’d overslept, got a late start packing these final boxes and now he couldn’t possibly drive to Mt. Bachelor by nightfall.
Hearing the purr of an engine, he glanced over his shoulder.
A sleek black Mercedes wheeled into the lot. The driver, a woman, yanked on the emergency brake, cut the engine and climbed out. Clasping a billowing black jacket around her, she headed straight for the cottage. She didn’t even glance his way, but sidestepped the puddles and walked crisply along the path. Once inside the open door, she stopped dead in her tracks. “Hello?” she called in a voice so low he could barely hear it. “Sarah? Are you here?”
Jake vaulted from the bed of the pickup. His eyes narrowed on the rich woman and her raven-black coat and matching boots. He hauled the box off the back of the truck and followed her path just as she, perplexed, walked back outside. Statuesque, with high cheekbones, skin flush from the cold and mahogany-colored hair dark with the rain, she stared at him through the most intense blue-green eyes he’d ever seen. “Excuse me, I’m looking for Jake McGowan,” she said, offering a tentative smile.
“I’m McGowan.”
“You?” she repeated as if she didn’t believe him. Her gaze moved from his wind-tossed hair to his scuffed boots. “But I thought—the man I’m looking for is a lawyer. . . .”
“As I said, I’m Jake McGowan,” he repeated flatly.
Kimberly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This was the hotshot attorney Diane had told her about? This man dressed in worn denim, in desperate need of a shave and smelling slightly of alcohol? “There—there must be some mistake.”
“If you say so.” He shifted a huge box full of books and desk paraphernalia and carried it down a short hallway—to Diane’s office, or what had been Diane’s office.
Wary, half-expecting him to own up to the fact that he was the groundskeeper, Kimberly followed a few steps behind, noting the man’s broad shoulders stretching taut a cotton T shirt, his lean hips, low-slung, extremely faded jeans and well-worn leather boots.
He dropped the crate in the one empty corner of the office, then turned to face her, resting his hips on a large walnut desk and crossing his arms insolently across his chest. “What can I do for you, Ms.—?”
“Bennett. Kimberly Bennett. I have an appointment with Mr. Mc—you—this morning.”
Something flashed in his eyes. “So, you’re Kimberly Bennett,” he drawled as if her name were distasteful. His gaze moved slowly from her head to her feet, then he glanced through the window to the parking lot at her car.
“Diane told you about me?”
“A little. But your appointment is next Monday.”
“This is the second—”
“Sarah told me the ninth.”
“Oh, no.” Kimberly thought ahead to her schedule at the bank. Next week was overbooked with trust clients starting to put together their year-end information. “I don’t know if I can make it then ... look, I’m here now. Can’t you just see if this is going to work?” she asked. “I don’t know if I can get away next week.”
He smiled as if at some private joke.
Kimberly plunged on. “Diane must’ve mentioned how desperate I am,” she said nervously. “I don’t want to lose my daughter.”
“Not even to her father?”
Why did he sound so bitter? “Not to anyone. Lindsay’s only five. The divorce was hard enough on her, and Robert and I agreed that I should have full custody.”
Jake’s brows shot up.
“But he’s changed his mind.”
“Why?” His strong, chiseled features were taut beneath his tanned skin.
Kimberly’s shoulders squared at the antagonism charging the air. He hadn’t said as much, but she felt as if he didn’t trust her, didn’t believe her, though they’d barely met. “He claims it’s because he remarried and his new wife can’t conceive children.” Her lips twisted at the irony of it all. Robert, the man who had once thought she should consider abortion as the solution to her surprise pregnancy, now wanted his daughter all to himself. “Robert claims Stella doesn’t want to adopt.”
“He claims?” Jake repeated. “You don’t believe him?”
“It’s difficult—with Robert.”
“Why?”
Kimberly bristled. Damn, these questions were personal. What did you expect? “He, uh, was less than honest while we were married.”
Jake’s mouth twitched. “And now he wants full custody?”
“That’s what he says.” She felt herself shaking inside, shaking with the rage that gnawed at her often during the nights when she couldn’t sleep. “He told me he’d go to any lengths, even if it meant proving me unfit.”
“Could he?”
“Prove me unfit? No! Of course not.” Her cheeks flushed angrily. “I mean—it’s not true. He has no proof, no evidence—and I don’t even think he’d go through with it, but I don’t know. He’s been obsessive about Lindsay lately.”
“Lindsay’s your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“And Stella’s his wife—have I got it straight?”
“Right.”
His silvery eyes were cold, his gaze intense. “Wasn’t Robert ‘obsessed’ with your daughter while you were married?”
“No—not at all.” She cleared her throat. “At times he acted as if she didn’t exist.”
“And yet, now that he’s changed his mind, he’d go as far as to claim you’re unfit?”
Was this man baiting her? “I believe him.”
“Because of his track record?”
That did it. “Look, I’m just telling you what he told me—okay? That’s what he’s threatened.”
Scowling to himself, Jake plowed one hand through his wet, near-black hair. Then, noticing the condition of the room for the first time, he muttered something under his breath, cleared a dusty stack of files from a nearby chair and waved her onto the cushion.
Kimberly perched on the edge of the chair.
“I wouldn’t worry about the unfit business,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Why not?”
“If there’s no proof, your husband’s attorney won’t go along with it.”
“His attorney would jump off a cliff if Robert told him to.”
Jake actually grinned—a crooked smile twisted by derision.
Kimberly smiled back. “Will you take my case?”
“I don’t usually handle custody or domestic problems—”
“You did once. Diane said you were the best in Portland.”
“She’s stretching the truth.”
Kimberly’s eyebrows raised. “And why would she do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to satisfy you.”
“I don’t think so, Mr. McGowan. She seemed to think you could help me.”
“Any attorney can help you,” he replied evenly.
“I want the best.”
“Then try Ben Kesler,” he suggested coldly, feeling the irony of the situation. The bastard had been Jake’s wife’s lawyer. “He’s gained quite a reputation for himself as a divorce attorney.”
“Can’t do it,” she said softly as all the color drained from her face and her voice threatened to give out.
“And why not?”
“Kesler’s my husband’s lawyer.”
Jake froze. His shoulders bunched, and pain flickered across his angular features before he looked away quickly, through the window to a flock of geese flying south in an uneven V. “Then we’ve got problems.”
“That much I already know,” she snapped. “Listen, this wasn’t my idea. But Diane seems to think you’re the best attorney around. I don’t know you from Adam, but I trust Diane.” Kimberly r
“And here I thought you’d be the first to offer congratulations!” Diane Welby, petite and blond, leaned her chin on her clasped hands. Her elbows were planted firmly on the top of her wide desk, and her eyes fairly sparkled. “I’m getting married, for God’s sake!”
“I know, I know, but why now?” Kimberly asked, seeing all her plans go down the proverbial drain.
“Because Scott asked me.” Diane had been widowed for seven years.
Kimberly’s brows drew together in vexation. “Fine. Congratulations. I’m glad you’re getting married, Diane, really, but do you have to move out of the state?”
“Scott’s job is in L.A.”
“But your practice is here and I need you!”
Diane sighed. “You don’t need me—you need a good lawyer.”
“You are a good lawyer. The best,” Kimberly said, a slow panic spreading through her when she thought of her ex-husband and his most recent demands. She shivered. There was a side to Robert she hated to think about—a deadly side. “Robert’s not kidding. He’s threatened to take Lindsay away.”
Diane grew sober. She tapped her pen on her desk. “Look, Kim, he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. The court already decided to grant you custody.”
“But that was before he cared,” Kimberly pointed out, feeling her hands begin to sweat. As soon as the divorce had become final, Robert had married his mistress, a gorgeous woman who was blind to Robert’s flaws—just as Kimberly had been, years before.
“And now he cares?” Obviously Diane didn’t believe it.
“Apparently!”
“Why?”
Kimberly’s throat felt tight. “I guess Stella can’t give him a son, either.”
“And now he’ll settle for a daughter?” Diane asked dryly.
Hot injustice swept through Kimberly’s veins. “So it seems.”
Diane’s mouth clamped together thoughtfully. “You know, I wouldn’t just abandon you. I know Robert and how ... determined he can be. The man who bought my practice is a lawyer—the best—and he’s agreed to either take my pending cases or refer them to someone else.”
“I don’t want some man I’ve never met.” Kimberly insisted, trying to hang on to her rapidly escaping calm. “I want you.” Unnerved, she stood, folded her arms across her chest and walked past Diane’s desk to the window. She watched a few dying maple leaves fall to the wet asphalt of the parking lot. In the past few years Robert had changed, and his reputation had become black as ink. No court would give him custody—or would it? She couldn’t trust fate. “Maybe it’s crazy, but I’d rather have a woman represent me.”
“Why?”
Kimberly shrugged.
“Let me guess. You think a woman can better understand your maternal feelings?”
“Yeah.” She glanced over the shoulder of her black suit. “A man might sympathize with Robert.”
Diane scowled. “I doubt it. And as for Jake—”
“Who?”
“Jake McGowan, the lawyer who bought me out.”
“Oh.”
“He can help you. And he’ll do a damn good job.” Diane’s voice was filled with admiration.
“He works on custody cases?” Kimberly asked without much interest.
“He used to.”
“Used to?” Kimberly whirled, her blue-green gaze pinned on Diane’s face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Diane lifted a shoulder and slid her gaze away from Kimberly’s. “He concentrates on corporate law now. You know—taxes, mergers, that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, I know,” Kimberly said, thinking of the bevy of lawyers who were retained by the bank for which she worked. And then there were the attorneys who had worked for Robert. It seemed as if half the lawyers in Portland had been on her ex-husband’s payroll at one time or another. She worried her lip. The name McGowan was familiar—but not as one of Robert’s gophers. No ... but there was something . . .
“At one time Jake McGowan was the best domestic relations attorney in Portland.”
“‘Was’ seems to be the operative word,” Kimberly challenged.
Diane twisted in her chair so that she could stare up at Kimberly and hold her with her frank blue gaze. Her forehead creased thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t refer you to him unless I had absolute faith. He’s the best. The man you need. There was a time when he hadn’t lost a case.”
“And what happened?”
Diane hesitated. “He had a few personal problems.”
“Oh great.”
“But they’re in the past. Listen, Kim, would I refer you to him if he weren’t the best? He’ll go up against anyone Robert hires and come out on top.”
“You’re sure”
“As sure as I am about anything.”
Kimberly felt Diane was holding something back—something important. “What is it you’re not telling me?”
“Nothing. As I said, at one time he was the best in the business. He still could be.”
“If . . .” Kimberly prodded.
Diane’s mouth tightened. “If he were properly motivated.”
“‘If he were motivated.’” Kimberly repeated with more than a trace of cynicism. “This isn’t some case in one of your textbooks, you know. This is my life, and Lindsay’s.”
“That’s why you need Jake.”
Kimberly wasn’t convinced but forced a thin smile and raked her fingers through her long hair. A headache was building behind her eyes. “You know, I think it’s wonderful that you’re getting married again. Really.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
“Maybe I’m just envious.”
“You? The woman who’s sworn off men for life?”
Kimberly managed a thin smile. “Yeah, but Scott’s a great guy, and I’m sure you’ll be happy breathing all that smog in L.A.—”
Diane laughed.
“I’m just disappointed, that’s all. I was counting on you.”
“So, count on McGowan. Believe me, he can help you. Better than I can. I’ll leave a note with Sarah—she’s staying on—and she’ll set up an appointment for you in the next couple of weeks.” Diane touched Kimberly on the shoulder, “Trust me.”
“I guess I have to,” she said, feeling as if she had no other choice.
“You’ll like him, I guarantee it.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You’ll be the first woman who didn’t.”
“Oh great. A lady-killer.” Kimberly wasn’t impressed. Robert had cured her of that.
Diane shook her head. “It’s not intentional,” she said.
“Good. Not that it matters. He wouldn’t get to me.”
“Oh?”
Kimberly skewered the lawyer with a suspicious look. “I’m not in the market for a man—any man. If Robert taught me one thing, it’s that I can only depend on myself.” She offered Diane a small smile. “I’m just interested in McGowan if he can help me keep my daughter.”
“He can.” Diane was firm.
Kimberly’s answer was a skeptical smile. She glanced out the window, noticing that the ominous sky had opened up and rain was pounding the horizon in furious, windblown waves. Raindrops drizzled in jagged rivulets across the windows. The gutters of the old cottage-turned-office gurgled. Ever-widening puddles appeared on the uneven asphalt of the parking lot. Kimberly’s thoughts were as dark as the slate colored sky. Could anyone really help her if Robert decided to follow through on his demands? Or worse yet, would Robert ignore the law, as she suspected he had in the past, and just steal Lindsay away? Kimberly’s fist clenched. Over my dead body.
If it was the last thing she ever did, she’d keep Lindsay safe with her. And if it took Jake McGowan or an act of God to do so, then so be it.
Robert, whether he knew it or not, was in for the fight of his miserable life!
She left Diane’s office and headed home, stopping for groceries before driving through the dark, rain-slickened streets to her neighborhood, an older section in the southeast section of Portland known as Sellwood.
Her house, built in the early twenties, was a story and a half, painted white, trimmed in beet red and mortgage free. Though a little cramped inside, the rooms were cozy and big enough to accommodate a single mother and an energetic five-year-old. The fenced yard was surrounded by a laurel hedge and was equipped with a sandbox, picnic table and swing set. True, the house wasn’t nearly as grand as the massive brick colonial she’d shared with Robert during their marriage, but the little cottage would do. And do nicely. If only Robert would leave things as they were.
As if expecting Robert or one of his shady underlings to be watching, she glanced nervously over her shoulder, then shook off her case of nerves. She couldn’t afford paranoia—not now.
She locked the car, then, balancing two grocery sacks, ducked under a dripping clematis and hurried up the cracked concrete walk to the back door.
“I’m home,” she called as she stepped into the kitchen and shook the rain from her hair. She heard a high-pitched squeal and the scamper of excited feet as Lindsay clambered through the hardwood halls to the kitchen.
“Mommy!” Two blond pigtails, their ribbons long gone, streamed behind an impish face and sparkling blue eyes. Lindsay flung herself at her mother.
“How’re ya, pumpkin?” Kimberly asked, scooping her daughter into her arms and kissing Lindsay’s flushed cheek.
“Hungry!”
“Oh, don’t tell me, Arlene doesn’t feed you?” Kimberly guessed, laughing as she pointed to the stains from lunch on the front of Lindsay’s sweatshirt.
Lindsay’s lower lip protruded. “She doesn’t feed me enough!”
With a chuckle Arlene Henderson, a neighbor who took care of Lindsay while Kimberly worked, entered the room. An energetic, whip-thin woman of fifty-five, Arlene seemed taller than her five feet two inches. With frizzy, steel-gray hair and twinkling brown eyes, she winked broadly at Lindsay. “She’s just mad ’cause I won’t let her have a cookie until after supper. We made pumpkin cookies today, didn’t we?” she asked a still-pouting Lindsay. “Even though Halloween’s long over and Christmas is just around the corner.”
Kimberly chuckled, but Lindsay’s brow pulled into deep furrows. “I’m starving,” she complained, rubbing her stomach theatrically.
“You’ll survive,” Kimberly predicted. “We’re going to have hamburgers in less than a half an hour.”
“At McDonald’s!”
“No, here.”
Lindsay frowned again, then squirmed out of her mother’s arms. “I like McDonald’s better,” she pronounced, sneaking a sly look up at Kimberly.
“I know you do.”
“And they’ve got fries and McNuggets and—and fruit pies!”
“We’ll go on Saturday,” Kimberly promised.
“Tonight!”
“Then not at all.”
“Saturday!” Lindsay cried.
“Fair enough.”
Mollified, Lindsay cast a suspicious look over her shoulder and wandered back into the living room. Once there, she began assembling Legos in front of the television.
“Robert stopped by today,” Arlene said when the child was out of earshot.
Kimberly felt a cold knot settle in the pit of her stomach.
“What did he want?”
“To talk to Lindsay, which he did.” Arlene scowled as she slipped her arms through the sleeves of her oversized jacket. “Of course I didn’t leave the room. I don’t trust him.”
Kimberly fought down the panic that crawled up her spine. “What did he want?”
“Well, actually he asked about you.”
“He knows I work—”
“I know, but he stopped by the bank and you weren’t there, so he assumed . . .” Arlene shrugged.
“I was with Diane.”
“I didn’t mention you had a lawyer.”
“Good—because I don’t,” Kimberly said, kicking off her heels.
“No lawyer? And why in heaven’s name not?”
“It’s a long story—I’ll fill you in later. Just tell me about Robert.”
“Well, the pixie was glad to see him.”
“She should be—he’s her father,” Kimberly said woodenly.
Arlene rolled her eyes. “If you can call him that. Anyway, he didn’t stay long, just said hello, hugged her and asked about you.”
“Was anyone with him?”
“Two men. But they waited in the car.”
His bodyguard and chauffer. In recent years, Robert was never without either man.
“Lindsay wasn’t upset?”
“No,” Arlene admitted grudgingly. “And I guess he does have the right to see his daughter, but . . .” She shrugged her slim shoulders.
“Of course he does,” Kimberly said, ignoring the ridiculous panic that chilled her to the very bone. She’d been married to Robert for less than two years, and he’d been a stranger. She hadn’t known him at all. The marriage had been a mistake from day one. They both knew it. And now, suddenly he wanted Lindsay. Ignoring the tightness in her chest, she reached for one of the cookies still cooling on racks near the window.
“Well he isn’t much of a father, and don’t you stand up for him!” Arlene didn’t even try to hide her dislike. “You and I both know he walks on the dark side of the law.”
“It’s never been proven,” Kimberly said, defending him instinctively, as she had for years. She couldn’t believe some of the stories she’d heard about him—wouldn’t. And yet ...
“No, but then he didn’t do right by you. Carrying on with that Stella woman while you two were married.”
“That Stella woman’s his wife now.”
“And now she wants your daughter.”
“She won’t get her,” Kimberly said, though she felt the familiar fear knot in her stomach.
“Diane tell you that?”
Kimberly frowned. “No,” she admitted, explaining about her visit with her attorney.
“So Diane’s remarrying—that’s good,” Arlene said, scratching her head. “But what do you know about this McGowan character?”
“Not much, except that Diane’s sure he’s the man for the job.”
In the living room Lindsay giggled loudly, and Kimberly’s heart turned over. She glanced down the hall and spied her daughter. Lindsay, tired of her building blocks, was trying to do headstands on the couch. She tossed her legs into the air, tried to balance against the wall and ended up flopping back on the couch only to start the process all over again.
“Things’ll work out,” Arlene predicted with a steadfast smile. “The Lord will look after you.”
“I hope so,” Kimberly said.
“I know so!” Arlene snatched her umbrella from the floor. “Don’t you worry, and if you take Lindsay outside, you bundle her up good. There’s already a foot of snow in the mountains. Winter’s coming early this year.”
“I’ll remember that,” Kimberly replied.
“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Waving, she hurried down the hall and called a quick goodbye to Lindsay.
As Arlene shut the door behind her, Kimberly snapped the blinds shut and thought ahead to meeting with Jake McGowan. Why did she feel there was something she should know about him? What was it?
“Come on, Mommy! Let’s cut paper dolls!” Lindsay gave up her balancing act, turned off the television and, dragging one tattered, fuzzy pink bunny, dashed over to her mother. “Please, now!”
“I thought you couldn’t wait to eat.”
“We can do both!”
Kimberly laughed, forgetting about Jake McGowan for the moment. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I might get confused and cut my hamburger with the scissors and pour ketchup all over the dollies.”
Lindsay giggled. “That’s silly!”
“So are you pumpkin,” Kimberly said, poking a finger in Lindsay’s belly.
“No way!” Jake growled, disgusted. His shirtsleeves rolled over his forearms, his tie strung loosely over the back of his chair, he sat amid boxes, pictures and framed awards that had been stacked against Diane Welby’s desk. With a flourish he signed the contract for the house and grounds Diane had owned. A second document took care of the legal practice. “You know how I feel about custody cases.”
“She needs your help,” Diane insisted.
“She doesn’t need me. There are several dozen lawyers in the yellow pages.”
“Humor me, Jake—meet with her.” Diane skimmed her copies of the agreement, deed and contract before stuffing all the papers into a file and jamming them into her briefcase. Satisfied, she snapped the black leather case closed. “The movers will take care of all this—” she motioned to the office debris she was shipping to Los Angeles “—on Thursday.”
“Good.”
“Now, about Kimberly—give it a shot, okay?”
Jake’s lips compressed, and he grew thoughtful. “Oh, I get it,” he drawled. “This is a ‘special client,’ right? Maybe a friend or a friend of a friend, and she’s upset you’re abandoning her.”
“Something like that.”
Shaking his head, Jake said, “Find someone else.”
“Just meet with her. If it doesn’t work out, refer her to Dennis Briggs or Tyler Patton.”
“They’re both good.”
“Not as good as you are—”
“As I was.”
“You could be again if you’d stop wallowing in self-pity.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” Jake asked, feeling his lips curve downward. He really didn’t give a damn.
“Yes. And it’s such a waste. You could’ve been—could still be—the best!”
“Maybe I don’t want to be,” he said, scowling darkly.
“Suit yourself. But this time someone needs you.”
“Humph.”
Diane slid her case off the desk and walked to the door. Her hand rested on the knob. “Do yourself and me a favor—meet Kimberly Bennett. I’ll have Sarah set up an appointment next week.”
“I’m going skiing next week.”
“Then the next.”
“It’s a waste of time.”
“I don’t know why I bother with you.”
“Neither do I.”
Diane sighed, opened the door, then closed it again and, holding her briefcase in both hands, said, “Fine, consider it calling in my markers—okay?”
Jake’s jaw clenched, and the knot in his stomach twisted. Diane Welby had helped him pick up the pieces of his life when he needed her most. Again the horrid grief seared his soul. There was no period in his life he’d rather forget more. The days and nights had seemed to run together in pitch darkness. And the pain! God, the pain had been so intense—so all consuming. He would have given up and accepted a fate of living in his own hell, had it not been for Diane.
At the time, Jake and Diane had worked at a large firm in Portland. Diane had covered for him at the office—given him the time he needed—and comforted him when he didn’t want anyone around. She’d even helped him make the move from domestic to corporate law just so he could function again. Finally he’d managed to pull himself back together to the point where he could go on with his life. And he owed Diane Welby.
A grim smile tightened his lips. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I guess I owe you one, Dr. Welby.”
Shaking her head, she laughed. “More than one, but who’s counting?” Opening the door again, she glanced over her shoulder. “And it won’t be Dr. Welby much longer.”
He laughed. The pet name he’d given her when she’d cared for him would always stick. “Dr. Donaldson just doesn’t have the same ring.”
“Work on it. I’ll see you at the wedding next week.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jake said with a cynicism too ingrained for his thirty-five years. Through the window he watched Diane slide into her bronze Mustang, and he wondered if she had any idea what she was getting herself into.
Marriage, he thought with the same stygian anger that always consumed him when he thought of his own tragic, short-lived union, who needs it?
He was late. Checking his watch and frowning, Jake drove his pickup into the parking lot of his new office building. Tall maple and fir trees separated the lot from the main road, and the building itself, a pasty-colored stucco cottage with sloped roof, gables, moss-green shutters and several chimney stacks, reminded him of country homes he’d seen in Europe. Without the wooden sign swinging in the front yard, no one would guess this quaint little retreat to be a lawyer’s office.
Perversely the office appealed to him, though he’d bought Diane Welby’s practice on a whim because he was tired of the run-as-fast-as-you-can pace of downtown Portland.
He parked the pickup near the door and climbed out. Rain lashed at his neck and tossed his hair away from his face. Hiking the collar of his denim jacket against the wind, he lowered the tailgate and pulled out the first box of books he could reach.
Despite a plastic tarp, the box was wet. The cardboard sagged as he carried the awkward crate through the lot and down a mossy brick path to the door. Cursing as the box began to split, Jake shouldered his way into the building.
He dropped the box on his desk and rubbed the crick from the small of his back. As he surveyed the spacious room with its mullioned windows, fawn-colored carpet, any use fireplace and plaster walls, he wondered if he’d made a mistake.
But he’d been bored with the rat race of the city and was sick of the high-rises, chrome, glass and crisp white shirts beneath neatly buttoned wool vests. He’d had it. If he never saw an athletic club again, or walked into a boardroom of self-important executives surrounding a hardwood table and puffing on cigars, or spent hours reading through the latest books on tax loopholes, it would be too soon.
“So, here you are, McGowan,” he muttered as he spied a half-full bottle of Scotch shoved into his soggy box. His lips curled into a sardonic smile. Ignoring the fact that it wasn’t quite noon, he dusted off the bottle, twisted off the top and, mentally toasting this new turn of his career, muttered, “Cheers.”
He took a long pull right from the bottle. As the liquor hit the back of his throat and burned a path to his stomach, he grimaced. Without bothering to recap the bottle, he strode outside.
Sooty gray clouds moved restlessly across the sky. The wind whistled through the fir boughs, and rain peppered the ground. Growling to himself, Jake climbed into the rear of the pickup, threw back the tarp and yanked on a heavy crate. He’d overslept, got a late start packing these final boxes and now he couldn’t possibly drive to Mt. Bachelor by nightfall.
Hearing the purr of an engine, he glanced over his shoulder.
A sleek black Mercedes wheeled into the lot. The driver, a woman, yanked on the emergency brake, cut the engine and climbed out. Clasping a billowing black jacket around her, she headed straight for the cottage. She didn’t even glance his way, but sidestepped the puddles and walked crisply along the path. Once inside the open door, she stopped dead in her tracks. “Hello?” she called in a voice so low he could barely hear it. “Sarah? Are you here?”
Jake vaulted from the bed of the pickup. His eyes narrowed on the rich woman and her raven-black coat and matching boots. He hauled the box off the back of the truck and followed her path just as she, perplexed, walked back outside. Statuesque, with high cheekbones, skin flush from the cold and mahogany-colored hair dark with the rain, she stared at him through the most intense blue-green eyes he’d ever seen. “Excuse me, I’m looking for Jake McGowan,” she said, offering a tentative smile.
“I’m McGowan.”
“You?” she repeated as if she didn’t believe him. Her gaze moved from his wind-tossed hair to his scuffed boots. “But I thought—the man I’m looking for is a lawyer. . . .”
“As I said, I’m Jake McGowan,” he repeated flatly.
Kimberly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This was the hotshot attorney Diane had told her about? This man dressed in worn denim, in desperate need of a shave and smelling slightly of alcohol? “There—there must be some mistake.”
“If you say so.” He shifted a huge box full of books and desk paraphernalia and carried it down a short hallway—to Diane’s office, or what had been Diane’s office.
Wary, half-expecting him to own up to the fact that he was the groundskeeper, Kimberly followed a few steps behind, noting the man’s broad shoulders stretching taut a cotton T shirt, his lean hips, low-slung, extremely faded jeans and well-worn leather boots.
He dropped the crate in the one empty corner of the office, then turned to face her, resting his hips on a large walnut desk and crossing his arms insolently across his chest. “What can I do for you, Ms.—?”
“Bennett. Kimberly Bennett. I have an appointment with Mr. Mc—you—this morning.”
Something flashed in his eyes. “So, you’re Kimberly Bennett,” he drawled as if her name were distasteful. His gaze moved slowly from her head to her feet, then he glanced through the window to the parking lot at her car.
“Diane told you about me?”
“A little. But your appointment is next Monday.”
“This is the second—”
“Sarah told me the ninth.”
“Oh, no.” Kimberly thought ahead to her schedule at the bank. Next week was overbooked with trust clients starting to put together their year-end information. “I don’t know if I can make it then ... look, I’m here now. Can’t you just see if this is going to work?” she asked. “I don’t know if I can get away next week.”
He smiled as if at some private joke.
Kimberly plunged on. “Diane must’ve mentioned how desperate I am,” she said nervously. “I don’t want to lose my daughter.”
“Not even to her father?”
Why did he sound so bitter? “Not to anyone. Lindsay’s only five. The divorce was hard enough on her, and Robert and I agreed that I should have full custody.”
Jake’s brows shot up.
“But he’s changed his mind.”
“Why?” His strong, chiseled features were taut beneath his tanned skin.
Kimberly’s shoulders squared at the antagonism charging the air. He hadn’t said as much, but she felt as if he didn’t trust her, didn’t believe her, though they’d barely met. “He claims it’s because he remarried and his new wife can’t conceive children.” Her lips twisted at the irony of it all. Robert, the man who had once thought she should consider abortion as the solution to her surprise pregnancy, now wanted his daughter all to himself. “Robert claims Stella doesn’t want to adopt.”
“He claims?” Jake repeated. “You don’t believe him?”
“It’s difficult—with Robert.”
“Why?”
Kimberly bristled. Damn, these questions were personal. What did you expect? “He, uh, was less than honest while we were married.”
Jake’s mouth twitched. “And now he wants full custody?”
“That’s what he says.” She felt herself shaking inside, shaking with the rage that gnawed at her often during the nights when she couldn’t sleep. “He told me he’d go to any lengths, even if it meant proving me unfit.”
“Could he?”
“Prove me unfit? No! Of course not.” Her cheeks flushed angrily. “I mean—it’s not true. He has no proof, no evidence—and I don’t even think he’d go through with it, but I don’t know. He’s been obsessive about Lindsay lately.”
“Lindsay’s your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“And Stella’s his wife—have I got it straight?”
“Right.”
His silvery eyes were cold, his gaze intense. “Wasn’t Robert ‘obsessed’ with your daughter while you were married?”
“No—not at all.” She cleared her throat. “At times he acted as if she didn’t exist.”
“And yet, now that he’s changed his mind, he’d go as far as to claim you’re unfit?”
Was this man baiting her? “I believe him.”
“Because of his track record?”
That did it. “Look, I’m just telling you what he told me—okay? That’s what he’s threatened.”
Scowling to himself, Jake plowed one hand through his wet, near-black hair. Then, noticing the condition of the room for the first time, he muttered something under his breath, cleared a dusty stack of files from a nearby chair and waved her onto the cushion.
Kimberly perched on the edge of the chair.
“I wouldn’t worry about the unfit business,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Why not?”
“If there’s no proof, your husband’s attorney won’t go along with it.”
“His attorney would jump off a cliff if Robert told him to.”
Jake actually grinned—a crooked smile twisted by derision.
Kimberly smiled back. “Will you take my case?”
“I don’t usually handle custody or domestic problems—”
“You did once. Diane said you were the best in Portland.”
“She’s stretching the truth.”
Kimberly’s eyebrows raised. “And why would she do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to satisfy you.”
“I don’t think so, Mr. McGowan. She seemed to think you could help me.”
“Any attorney can help you,” he replied evenly.
“I want the best.”
“Then try Ben Kesler,” he suggested coldly, feeling the irony of the situation. The bastard had been Jake’s wife’s lawyer. “He’s gained quite a reputation for himself as a divorce attorney.”
“Can’t do it,” she said softly as all the color drained from her face and her voice threatened to give out.
“And why not?”
“Kesler’s my husband’s lawyer.”
Jake froze. His shoulders bunched, and pain flickered across his angular features before he looked away quickly, through the window to a flock of geese flying south in an uneven V. “Then we’ve got problems.”
“That much I already know,” she snapped. “Listen, this wasn’t my idea. But Diane seems to think you’re the best attorney around. I don’t know you from Adam, but I trust Diane.” Kimberly r
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