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Quaid had his appetite back. “Now let’s talk about how to get Geraldine in her swimsuit.”
•••
Her stomach was pleasantly full of yummy sugar and carbs and bacon she would never have touched a couple of months before. She would have to add another mile to her jog, but she hadn’t been able to resist some comfort food this morning. Especially when Quaid Havery was paying.
She wished the man wasn’t so pretty. He had sandy blond hair, and his shoulders still went on for days. His youthful, cute-boy look had been replaced with whole grown-man handsomeness. If she wasn’t careful, she would end up right where she’d been in high school—mooning over a man she couldn’t have. Shouldn’t have.
He hadn’t even remembered her damn name.
“So you’re taking over the park project?” Quaid asked, laying out his napkin over the plate.
“I finished it.” She’d been surprised when the mayor had shown up on her mom’s sad doorstep earlier in the week.Sylvie Darois explained that the parish had a few projects their normal attorney was behind on and offered her the work. She’d taken it immediately and gotten it done quickly thanks to the tiny library’s Wi-Fi, which was so much faster than her mom’s. She was fairly certain her mom’s provider was only one step away from dial-up. “I’ve moved on to a few of the other parish projects. I’ve got depositions for the suit against the sanitation department scheduled for next week.”
It seemed like the whole world waited on Quaid. Before Jayna took them over, the depositions hadn’t been scheduled because they weren’t sure when Quaid could get to them. The fact that a whole parish’s legal system was dependent on the whims of one man seemed like a mistake.
His eyes flared, surprise plain on his face. “You’re moving fast. I thought discovery would take a while.”
“What am I supposed to discover, Quaid? The sanitation worker is suing over a raccoon taking over the cab of his trash truck. He shouldn’t have left the door open with his half-eaten sandwich on the seat. In fact, he shouldn’t be eating on the job at all. He literally handles trash. He should wait until his break. If he hadn’t left food on the seat and the door open, the animal wouldn’t have snuck in. If he’d been paying a lick of attention, he would have noticed he had a friend. And if he hadn’t panicked, he wouldn’t have lost control of the vehicle.”
It was one of the silliest suits she’d ever been a part of, and she had to try to convince the mayor to let the sucker go to court. Apparently, the former counsel preferred to settle out of court. Always.
“Who did the driver get to represent him?” Quaid asked, sitting back, and she tried not to notice how the sun hitting his hair made it even more golden than usual. “I hadn’t gotten around to that file yet.”
“Someone from Houma.” She glanced down at the file. “Lionel Carter.”
A huff came from Quaid that she shouldn’t find so charming. “He’s an ambulance chaser.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” she said. That was the only type who would have taken on this crazy case. “I’m not sure how they think they can prove the parish is responsible for a curious raccoon.”
“Oh, they’ll tell you it’s Brian,” Quaid explained.
She’d already heard this story. “I refuse to believe that a raccoon leads a band of woodland creature thieves that the parish has failed to round up.” She picked up a second folder. “Nor do I believe there is a Cajun werewolf eating pet rabbits. That is a clear case of a lazy dad who forgot to secure the cage. He’s trying to get out of his guilt for letting his baby girl’s pet hop away.”
Quaid’s lips curled up in the sweetest grin. “Yeah, the parish gets a lot of crazy claims. Did you work out a deal for Sylvie to pay you in chocolate chip cookies?”
“No.” It wasn’t optimal to get paid in barter, but most of the potential clients she’d seen couldn’t afford her and, damn it, she was bored. She could only send out so many CVs a day, and sitting and waiting for her phone to ring had become beyond annoying. “I’m charging a project rate to the parish. They can’t afford my hourly rate.”
“Very few people around here could ever afford a lawyer’s hourly rate,” he admitted. “It’s pretty much why I negotiate instead of letting things get to the court.”
Here was where they completely differed, and she didn’t mind telling him what she thought. “You know it’s not ethical to negotiate for both parties.”
A brow rose over his deep green eyes. “For most of the negotiations I help with, I don’t receive payment from either party. Any negotiation where I’m the counsel of record forone of the parties, it’s disclosed, and the opposition is able to decide whether or not they wish to seek counsel. Do you always walk into a situation and immediately question a person’s ethics?”
It was good to know she could irritate the man. He seemed so very calm, so laid-back.
“Not usually. You’re special. You know they can’t afford counsel and even if they could, they would have to look outside the parish,” she pointed out.
“What exactly do you think I get out of these negotiations? Do you know how many times I’ve had to convince the LaMont brothers that they can’t turn their mechanic shop into an amusement park? I’m not joking. They had an annual park pass and a bunch of used cars they wanted to turn into rides. It comes up at least twice a year. What do I get out of that?”
“Some people get off on the power.” She knew many people like that, including her ex-husband. He’d enjoyed being the heir to his father’s throne, loved having power over every single person in the firm.
A deep chuckle came from Quaid. “Power? You’ve been living in the city for a long time if you think I have a lick of power. I don’t even have it in my home. I serve this town, not the other way around.”
“Then why stay?” She’d understood that Quaid had been raised a prince waiting to take his daddy’s crown, but it wasn’t like the man didn’t have choices.
“Why did you go?” Quaid countered.
“For the same reason everyone leaves. There wasn’t any opportunity for me here.” She’d been thinking a lot about this question lately.
