One Night With You (26 page)

“Did you plan them for dinner and forget to serve them?”

“No. I planned them for you, 'cause I knew you'd get hungry.”

He stared down at her, wishing he understood women, any woman. “How did you know we would make love?”

She locked her hands behind her head and purred as any sated feline would. “Because I planned it.” He stared at her with what he supposed was a quizzical expression. “You don't think you're the only person who can get hungry, do you?” she said.

With no answer for that, he rolled out of bed, went to the kitchen, put the ham biscuits and wine on a tray and got back in bed. “You'd better have some of this, too,” he told her. “You can't make love on an empty stomach. At least, I can't.”

At a quarter to four the next morning, he sat on the side of her bed tying his shoes. She tightened her robe, poured the last of the wine into a glass and handed it to him. “I forgot to tell you something. My clerk said that Brown and Worley are on the court's docket for Monday after next.”

He hardly believed his ears. “You forgot to tell me
that?
You've been with me nine hours, and you haven't remembered to tell me until now?”

“I don't know who the plaintiff is.”

“And you didn't go to the trouble to find out?”

“I didn't want to appear overly interested.”

“That's a weak excuse. Since you didn't know the answer, you could ask, and especially since you just judged a case against them. I wish you had waited and told me tomorrow. This isn't the ending I'd wish for to one of the most wonderful evenings of my life. I'll call you.”

It hurt, and she suspected that the pain would deepen with the passing days. She hadn't asked Carl Running Moon for the name of the plaintiff in the Brown and Worley case because she knew. She walked into her chambers the next morning, found the file on her desk—Maguire versus Brown and Worley—and telephoned Reid.

“Hello, Kendra.”

Well,
she thought,
if he's feeling frost now, he'll probably freeze when he hears what I have to say.
“Hi. In the Brown and Worley case two weeks hence, you are the plaintiff.”

“I know. My lawyer told me a few minutes ago.”

“Reid, I'm going to recuse myself from that case.”

“What did you say?”

“It would be improper for me to judge that case, Reid, and that's a matter that has worried me ever since we met. I am incapable of impartiality concerning something so important to you.”

“I don't believe what I'm hearing.”

“Please, Reid. I could be disbarred for judging your case, and besides, I have to live with myself.”

“Why would you be disbarred? Nobody here in Queenstown knows about us but us.”

“Myrna knows, and so does that architectural examiner…uh…Helligman. But if no one else knew, I know, and I have to respect myself. I'm sorry, Reid.”

“Do what you have to do. I'll be seeing you.”

She hung up and telephoned the county clerk. She would do most anything for Reid except compromise her integrity. He hadn't understood, and he'd walked. It hurt like hell, but it wouldn't kill her. She got through the day as best she could, fighting to focus upon the trials and to stave off images of Reid smiling, grinning, hot with desire and in the grip of orgasm.

She got home later than usual, for she had no reason to rush. Reid wouldn't call. The red light flashing on her answering machine didn't fool her, either. After checking, she returned her sister's call.

“How's it going?” she asked Claudine.

“Great, but I see things aren't so good with you. When did you ever ask me ‘How's it going?' What's wrong?”

After Kendra's recitation, Claudine said, “He's upset because he has so much at stake. Too bad he can't see it your way. If I were you, I'd find ways to help him behind the scene.”

“Oh, I plan to observe the trial, and I hope his lawyer will accept whatever suggestions I may have.”

“That's the spirit. Years from now, you'll look back on this as a mere ripple in a pond.”

“Please God you're right. I'm paying for his ex-wife's folly, but I'll get through this. Are you spending the weekend with Philip?”

“I'm going down Thursday night. I've applied for a teaching position in Princess Anne, and they want to interview me.”

She let out a gasp. “Does this mean what I hope it means?”

“You know Philip can't move. His life is there. I'm sure I'll get the job. That man has so much clout that evidence of it continually shocks me. Kendra, everybody seems to love Philip. I haven't met anybody, from the local postal clerk to the mayor, who doesn't seem to admire him. Last Saturday, I went with him to a reception at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. He doesn't seem to know what a big shot he is.”

“And, honey, let's hope he never learns.”

“I think we'll probably get married around Christmas time. Doris is planning to barbecue two grown pigs. You and Reid had better get it together, because he'll be best man and you'll be maid of honor.”

But they didn't get it together. On the Monday morning when the trial opened with the Honorable Judge Weddington presiding, Reid met Kendra in the courthouse lobby, nodded and kept walking. He had a good lawyer; she knew and had worked with Dean Barker, and now she shook his hand.

“I'd been hoping that you would try the case, Kendra, but I hear you recused yourself and stepped down. Mind if I ask why?”

“Reid is a personal friend, and I want to see him win.”

“I see. Well, I'll take any hints you can give me. We have a pretty tight case, but the jury will be impressed with the fact that he lost this case earlier.”

“I'll be taking notes, Dean.” She took a seat in the rear of the court so as not to be conspicuous. Her belly twisted into a knot when Brown and Worley entered the court with Fred Emerson between them. Among unscrupulous lawyers, Emerson stood out.

Immediately, she sent Dean a note. “Reid's ex-wife is in town. Ask her to testify. She wants him back, so she won't lie.”

Dean opened with a history of Reid's accomplishments and noted his deal with Reginald English and his consultancy with Mark and Connerly. “If it pleases the court, I'd like to read and file a registered architectural examiner's affidavit on the condition of Judge Kendra Rutherford's house and other cases in which structural damage was discovered in Brown and Worley's buildings.”

In spite of that evidence, Kendra sensed that Dean did not have the jurors with him, and when Emerson began his attack on behalf of Brown and Worley, she got busy and asked for a meeting with Dean and Reid.

“Three of those jurors were witnesses for Brown and Worley in their case against CFSL a couple of weeks back,” she said. “Have them thrown out. Reid, you should have Marks and Connerly—especially Jack Marks—testify on your behalf, also Philip and Arnold Dickerson, especially Philip. And Myrna? What happened to her?”

“She flew the coop as soon as Dean called her. Myrna couldn't pass muster if Emerson decided to expose her as a person without honor. She's gone for good,” Reid said. Kendra tried not to show her delight, but the grin that brightened Reid's eyes told her that her solemnity hadn't fooled him.

Dean opened his cell phone and called Jack Marks. “This is Dean Barker, Reid Maguire's attorney. Would you be willing to testify on his behalf at the Brown and Worley trial that's now in progress?” He listened for a minute. “Thanks. We hadn't thought we'd need witnesses, but the defense is playing hardball, so I have to shore up our fences. Tomorrow morning. Many thanks. Reid? All right, I'll tell him.” He thanked the man and hung up. “Reid, he wants you to call him.”

“Another thing,” Kendra said. “There's no law that says you can't read Helligman's affidavit to the jury again. Imprint it in their minds. Don't ask permission. Just do it.” She noticed how Reid observed her professional demeanor, all the while nodding in agreement. “If I think of anything else, I'll let you know.”

“Reid,” she said as they left the lawyer's office, “have you thought of writing out some relevant questions for Dean to ask you? I mean questions about that building that collapsed. You
are
going to take the stand, aren't you? You'll make an immense impression, especially if you wear what you wore to my house the night I fixed dinner for you.”

His eyes blazed hot with the fire of desire, and she let her own eyes answer his in kind. “I'm going to take your advice about this and everything else. I have to call Philip, but I'll be in touch later.”

She watched him as he headed for his car, his masculine swagger proclaiming who he was. Whether or not he knew it, his sense of self did not depend on the outcome of the trial; he didn't need the validation that a victory would give him. And she hoped he would realize that he had recovered his self-image and his status as an architect without Brown and Worley having been found guilty of incompetence.

“I'll look forward to it, Reid,” she told him, and she would. She'd had enough of sleepless nights and soggy pillows.

“You're helping me in spite of…of my ungraciousness,” Reid said when he called her. “Why?”

“What a pity you feel you have to ask. I want you to win, and I don't love you less just because you were pigheaded.”

“I suppose that's about as kindly a way as you could describe it. Trust me, I've paid for my pigheadedness a thousand times. You're one hell of a woman, Kendra. When this is over—”

She interrupted him. “Let's focus on winning this case, Reid. We can't afford to miss a single trick. Emerson is not a nice man, but he's a very clever lawyer, and after losing the case against CFSL, he doesn't plan on losing this one. Did you speak with Philip or Arnold?”

“Philip and Arnold will be here tomorrow around eleven. I'd like to see Emerson tie up with either of them.”

As it happened, Jack Marks's testimony practically sealed the case in Reid's favor, for he testified that he had accepted a contract worth one hundred million dollars only after Reid had agreed to be the architect, working for him as a consultant. “I don't have an architect capable of designing that kind of building,” he said, “but for Reid Maguire, it's little more than a chicken scratch. He can design anything, and he certainly didn't put any structural flaws in that simple building that Brown and Worley erected in Baltimore. Reid showed me the plans. I couldn't find a flaw in them.”

When Emerson began his cross-examination, after his first question, Marks eyed him scornfully and said, “Man, if you're going to be a lawyer for architects, learn something about architecture. That's a ridiculous question.”

She hardly recognized Philip when he took the stand, for she hadn't previously seen him dressed in business attire, and the effect was stunning.

“A level-four hurricane severely damaged my barns and stables, but only a few shingles came off the two-story dormitory that Reid designed,” Philip told the court. “He also served as engineer for the building which has eleven bachelor apartments, a recreation room, lounge, dining room and professional kitchen. The exterior resembles an elegant clubhouse. Reid Maguire doesn't do shoddy work, not even when it comes to grooming a horse.”

When Reid strode to the witness stand, she'd never been so proud.
What a gorgeous man!
she said to herself. Dean Barker fed Reid questions guaranteed to make him shine, and shine he did.

“So you think a man like you can take on a prestigious firm like Brown and Worley, do you?” Emerson said to Reid as he began the cross-examination.
That question means he knows he's lost the case,
Kendra said to herself, leaned back and crossed her knees.

A grin lit up Reid's face. “That can't be a serious question. They're sloppy builders, and the court has as proof the sworn opinion of one of the best architectural examiners anywhere. Imagine leaks in a house completed less than six months earlier…” And so it went, as lawyer and witness showed their mutual antagonism.

The next morning, both sides summed up and the case went to the jury. Kendra didn't go to court that day or the next for although she believed Barker had won the case, she'd learned never to second-guess a jury. At three-thirty on the second day of the jury's deliberation, a banging on her front door startled her, and she peeped out of a second-floor window, saw Reid standing there and raced down the stairs. As she reached the door, fear gripped her, fear that he might have lost. When he banged again, she slipped the door chain, turned the lock and opened the door.

He picked her up, twirled her around and around and then, as if becoming suddenly sober, he set her on her feet, wrapped her in his arms and whispered, “We won. You and I. We won, baby. I have my reputation and six million, a million for each year. They're probably too broke to pay it, because you stuck it to them when they lost to CFSL.