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I'd taken her back to her rental car in the bar's parking lot and ensured she sped off in the direction of her uncle's house before I turned toward the office. Three hours later as she sat across from me at my desk, she didn't have that mussed up, I-just-had-sex look about her. Which was terrible. I liked it much better than her hair pulled back neatly in a ponytail—one which I'd love to grab hold of as I fucked her from behind… again—and another prim blouse and skirt. Her heels were gone and in their place a pair of purple flats. I'd never seen shoes that color in Montana before.
She lifted her head from the papers before her to look at me. “I'm reading legal documents. Do you want me to pant over them?”
My eyebrows went up, then couldn’t help but grin. “That would certainly make being it better.”
She rolled her eyes and got back to reading. While her cell was on the desk in front of her, she'd set it to silent when she sat down, knowing that while this wasn't her job, it was why she'd flown across two time zones. She was in lawyer mode. I respected her focus, but wished she took the same principal to task in her personal life, putting value to it.
“They're standard forms. The quit claim deed transfers the property to you today. If we get them signed before noon—” I stressed this as she was taking a damn long time to go over them. “—the courthouse can file them before end of day.”
“You want me to chill the fuck out,” she mumbled, shaking her head and picking up the pen. With a flourish, she signed at all the designated spots and slid the pile over to me.
“I was where you are, you know,” I told her, lifting the papers and tapping the bottom of them on the desk so they all lined up before stuffing them in a yellow envelope. “I left Bridgewater when I was eighteen, went to college, then law school on the west coast. I went corporate, just like you. Did the whole eighty hours a week deal, the partner track. No life. Just worked my ass off for three years. Cell phones, email, texting, IM, deadlines, heartburn pills, I know all of it.”
I had her attention. “Why did you come back here then?”
“Because one of my dads had a heart attack. A small one, and he's fine now. But I came back for about a month to help out and realized I didn't need to live with the insanity. It was sucking the life from me, so I walked.”
“Didn't you want to make partner?” she wondered.
I shrugged. “That was what drove me for so long, like a carrot dangled in front of my face, then realized I didn't really want it. It was time to come home to my family.”
“Yeah
, well, my parents aren't a ray of sunshine.” I waited, hoping she'd add to that. “They're thrilled I'm a lawyer because they're lawyers. They think this time before partner is called paying my dues.” She lifted her hands and made those curled finger air quotes.
“Why don't you go into practice with them?”
She laughed. “I'm guessing your family had dinner every night together. You do Sunday dinners, spend Christmas wearing ugly sweaters, right?”
I nodded. “The ugly sweaters only come out for the holiday party, not on the actual day itself,” I clarified.
She, too, nodded slowly. “My parents are retired and travel. I see them about twice a year for lunch when they are in the city to switch out their clothes in their luggage from summer- to winter-wear. Last Christmas they were in Hong Kong. I ate a frozen dinner while watching football on TV. And I worked.”
“Of course,” I added. Of course, she worked on Christmas. Fuck. The idea of her being alone in New York while I was with my parents and cousins, aunts and uncles was a sucker punch to the gut.
“We aren't huggers or Sunday dinner people.” She sighed, sat back in her chair. I didn't see any sadness about her, just resignation. She was resigned to having shitty parents, to being alone. “Besides the two meals a year, I get a phone call when my mother hears about an update to the Law Journal. We're not much of a family.”
It was obvious to me now. She kept herself busy enough so she wouldn't realize how fucked up her life was. If she slowed down, she'd realize her parents were assholes and her job sucked. So she just kept juggling all those fucking balls.
“Family isn't always defined by blood. You can make your own family. I came back here to start one of my own.”
She stiffened and color drained from her face. “You have a wife?”
I shook my head, ran my hand over the back of my neck. “Jesus, Katie. Of course not. Before you ask, neither does Jack. But if we're going to share a wife, it helps to be in the same town.”
Her mouth fell open. “You want to… to share a wife?”
“Yes.” I told her the truth and succinctly. There was zero question she could misconstrue that answer.
She frowned. “Um… last night, yeah. That was a one night stand.”
“Get laid by a cowboy… or two, right? Get it out of your system.”
“Well, yeah. That's what Jack said at the bar.”
I stood, went around the desk so I stood right in front of her. She had to tilt her head back to meet my gaze. Leaning forward, I put my hands on the arms of the chair, caging her in. I picked up her scent. Lemon. Tart and sweet, just like her. “So I shouldn't feel any chemistry between us? I shouldn't want to press you over my desk right now and fuck you.”
She flicked her gaze at my desk, then back to me. Licked her lips.
