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Tapping her toe to keep from saying something spiteful, Willow managed to hold her tongue for a second. Then she calmly answered, "Since I'm presently your lawyer, all legal issues regarding you are indeed my concern. I can't help you unless I know what I'm dealing with. Therefore, you need to cooperate with me, or I'll let you walk home."
He lurched intimidatingly closer. "Listen, you stupid cow—"
"No, you listen, Theo. I'm through with your insolence. Find yourself a new lawyer."
Stumbling to a stop, he sputtered, "What? You can't do that."
Willow lifted an amused brow. "I most certainly can. Now, what did you do to get yourself arrested?"
He stalled another moment, glaring. But adept at the mortal staredown, Willow won, and he broke his gaze first.
"I saw Lashonda last night," he mumbled, glancing away.
Willow's shoulders fell when she heard the name of his ex-wife. "You broke your restraining order?"
"He kicked her door in and wrecked the place," the interrupting officer was more than happy to divulge. "Busted the woman's jaw too."
Shifting from one leg to the other, the tall, incredibly stout Theo shrugged. "I wanted to see my kids."
Willow rolled her eyes but held in a tired sigh. "You see your girls once every month at your scheduled meeting."
He snorted. "As if that's enough."
This time, there was no containing the sigh in her lungs. "I understand your desire to see them more. But if you had just taken my advice and found a job, gotten a decent place to live, stopped hanging around your crack-dealing friends, and learned to control your temper, then the court would've let you have more time with them a month ago. Now, they're not going to—"
"Look," he interrupted. "I'm sick of hearing you yap all the time. Will you cut the lame lecture and break me out of here already?"
Willow paused. "Oh, hell no. You're wife's only had that order against you for three days. Three days! You're never going to see your kids again if you keep acting like a dumb idiot. You need to pull your head out of your ass and straighten up. And that's my final bit of legal advice for you. We're finished."
As she turned to march off, he shouted after her. "Hey! You don't know nothing about what's going on."
"I know you're a fool," Willow called over her shoulder.
She was only five feet from the exit when his outraged roar warned her of trouble. With no time to brace herself, she wasn't at all prepared when he slammed into her from behind, tackling her to the ground.
Two
Willow's skull bounced against the concrete floor. Stars immediately rotated around her head. But she never lost consciousness. Not even when Theo Franklin wrapped his meaty hands around her neck and squeezed.
She flailed under her heavy, sweat-sticky client for barely two seconds before a door flew open, slamming against the wall, and eight pair of county-issue combat boots flooded her very limited field of vision. A cacophony of shouting followed, and the weight of Theo Franklin was instantly ripped off her.
Unable to move just yet, Willow continued to lie limp and useless with her face pressed against the cool, smooth concrete. As she sucked in sweet, life-giving air, she decided the county needed to sweep and mop more often. Their floor was just plain nasty.
Sprawled on her stomach for what felt like hours but more realistically was barely seconds, she attempted to regain her scrambled senses. When she finally lifted her face, the county boys were still struggling to restrain and handcuff Theo. Three men provided a fort between her and her ex-client, keeping him from returning to her, while one brawny forearm wrapped around his neck, choking him from behind, and dragged him away.
Willow squinted and could've sworn the guy with his arm pinning Franklin's windpipe was the sexy Deputy Malloy. But with black dots dancing in her eyes, she could barely make out Theo much less the face looming over his shoulder. The expression snarled into his features was so fierce, Willow shivered and told herself she never wanted to get on that man's bad side. Then she frowned, remembering she already was Malloy's least favorite person on earth.
Either four men or one really personable octopus tried to help her up, all the hands tugging her in different directions, smothering her almost as badly as Franklin had.
"Are you okay?"
"Ms. DeVane, where does it hurt?"
"Can you sit up?"
"I'm fine," she mumbled, beginning to struggle against the unwanted
attention. When no one seemed to hear her, she snapped, "I'm fine! Please, just give me a minute. Alone."
