She blinked. “I’m not laughing. That’s really cool. Do you write music? Do you play an instrument? Tell me more.” She couldn’t sing or play, so she was immediately impressed.
“I play the guitar and sing. I do some covers but if the crowd’s right, I do a few of my own songs, too.” He was clearly pleased to be sharing this and also pleased that she hadn’t laughed. “Shooters Bar in town has an open mic night once a month and they liked me so much I play one Friday a month there now.”
“That’s fantastic. Good for you. I will have to get my friends to come with me some night to hear you.”
“Yeah?” He nodded. “That would be all right.”
He couldn’t spend that much time on his music, though. “You must also spend a lot of time on the beach to be that tan.”
“I do,” he said. “It gives me a real sense of peace to be by the water. I write a lot of lyrics out there. And, yes, I hunt for shells. My mom and I used to do it, and it stuck with me. Kind of my way of keeping her memory alive, I guess.”
“That’s sweet.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why did you ask me out? You’re obviously a lot cooler than I am.”
He laughed. “I don’t think that’s true.” He shrugged and stared at his basket of food. “You looked so beautiful in that golden light. There was such joy in your eyes.” He winked. “Now, I know it was the wine.”
She chuckled. “That was probably part of it.
“I felt like running into you that way wasn’t just happenstance. It made me think there was a reason it had happened. That I should at least get to know you. Asking you out seemed like the best way to do that.”
She tried not to focus on the fact that he’d called her beautiful, but she was extra glad she’d asked for Blaise’s help getting ready tonight. “You believe in fate?”
“I guess I did in that moment. You don’t?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Do things always happen for a reason? If so, the universe owes me some answers.”
“Maybe all those things that happened were leading you here.”
“An easier path would have been nice.” She quickly smiled to take the bitterness out of her words. “Sorry. I’ve been through some stuff in my life but who hasn’t, right?”
“You can say that again. Life is not always simple, is it?” He got an odd look on his face. “Have you ever been nearly disbarred?”
Her eyes widened. “You were disbarred?”
“Nearly.” He shook his head. “I had to make a choice about a case, and it cost me my career, but I can still live with myself, so I’m all right with it. I didn’t expect to be forced into early retirement, but it worked out.”
She wanted to tell him what had happened to her, but she also didn’t want it shared. Suddenly inspired, she pulled a dollar bill from her purse and slid it across the table. “Here. I want to hire you.”
His brows bent in confusion. “I’m not?—”
“I want attorney-client privilege.”
His confusion changed to amusement. He took the dollar. “All right, you’ve got it, but I’m putting this dollar toward the tip.”
“Fine with me.” She took a breath. “I was an investigative journalist. I broke a big story. Won the National Press award, then it was discovered that one of my sources, my main one, lied to get revenge on his employer.”
“Wow,” Joe whispered.
The hurt and humiliation of those days came back to her. She nodded. “The award was rescinded and my husband left me, although I later found out he’d already been seeing someone, and my scandal was the perfect excuse he was looking for.”
“What a piece of?—”
“Yes, he was.” She almost told him about having to go through cancer alone, too, but she didn’t want his pity.
“I’m really sorry that happened to you.”
“I’m really sorry you almost got disbarred.” They had more in common than she’d have guessed.
He shook his head. “You didn’t need to hire me for me to keep your secrets but thank you for confiding in me. What you went through was worse than my situation. That kind of betrayal…I don’t get how human beings can treat each other that way. That’s part of why I had to stop being an attorney. The things I saw…” He exhaled. “My soul couldn’t take it anymore.”
