Legally Tender

“Coming,” Bella called.

“I’m going to go check the gym again,” one of the firefighters said. He followed the girls back inside.

Christina turned to the firefighter who had spoken to her earlier. Mr. Hunk. Although the moniker fit, she really had to purge how attractive he was from her mind. Finding a new man was not a priority. Establishing her career and raising her daughter away from the glitz of Cincinnati was. “Thank you for your patience.”

The firefighter shrugged, the high-wattage smile bestowed on the Brownies dimming fast. “It’s all part of the job.”

“Yes, but it isn’t actually your job. You volunteer.”

His blue eyes narrowed. “Exactly. I volunteer to do this job. We choose to do it because we help the community. This has been one of my easier calls.”

“You’re not disappointed when there’s no fire?” Christina pressed, oddly finding herself wanting to understand what made a man like him tick.

His crossed his arms. “In a way I am. Once the adrenaline high wears off, though, believe me, we don’t mind false alarms at all.”

“But you dropped whatever you were doing, and on a Friday night.”

“Yeah, well, that comes with the territory.” He paused as one of his partners passed by with the big fan. “Seems like the place is all aired out. Duty calls to help load up. Excuse me.”

Christina stood there for a moment. He deliberately ignored her presence and walked off, entering the school to retrieve the other equipment.

She laced her arms across her bare midriff and followed at a safe distance. Perhaps she was being too intense, too serious. She’d been so driven her whole life to prove herself—to her family, to Kyle. Perhaps she should just take things at face value. Maybe the firefighter meant exactly what he’d said. This was Morrisville, Indiana, and she was a fish learning to live in new waters.

And just because Mr. Hunk was the first man who’d aroused her interest in years—that meant nothing. Even if he found her appealing, she wasn’t ready to date again.

She reentered the cafeteria, and within moments the last of the firefighters had left the school. Soon the fire truck pulled away, taking Mr. Hunk with it. Thank goodness she’d never see him again, Christina thought. She could bury the bad memory of this night forever.

BRUCE LANCASTER TOSSED his firefighter gear on the coatrack and hooked his black helmet over a peg. He stepped through the laundry room and into the kitchen of his small three-bedroom ranch. He’d dropped everything the moment the fire call had come through, and the TV still blared the ESPN sporting event he’d been watching. His plateful of chicken strips was gone, his dinner now in the stomach of the very sleepy and contented cat sleeping innocently near the heat register.

Bruce set the bag of just-purchased fast food on the kitchen table. Wise men with chicken-loving felines knew how to make stops at drive-through restaurants on their way home from firefighting gigs.

Bruce sighed and snagged a French fry, the rustling of the bag waking the cat. Boris, more interested in food than sleep, had come to investigate the smells and was sniffing the sack. Bruce finished one more fry and put the bag in the microwave for safekeeping. After every firefighting run he always wanted a shower before he ate, and tonight was no exception, even though the fire had been a false alarm. He was making his way to the bathroom when the phone rang. He glanced at the Caller ID and picked the phone up. “Hi, Granddad.”

“Hi, Bruce. I didn’t have a chance to touch base with you this afternoon. Welcome back. You ready for Monday morning’s meeting?”

“Yes. I’ve got some files here at home and I’ll be making final notations over the weekend.”

“Great. I told your father not to take that three-month cruise with your mother. Not that I haven’t always liked her, mind you, but this is a crucial time for the firm. We would never have hired some outsider as a full partner while I was at the helm, that’s for sure, especially at the expense of a family member. You should have been named to that spot this year. Or two senior partnerships should have been offered. It’s an insult that they weren’t, and I’m in a mind to go talk to Reginald Morris again. He’s certainly not like his father. No family values whatsoever. I’m sure your father knew nothing about it. If he did, I’d have to disinherit him. Just who is this upstart Chris Jones, anyway? Heard he went to Harvard. Probably an upper-crust New Englander who speaks six languages.”

Tired, tonight Bruce didn’t smile the way he normally did at one of his grandfather’s legendary tirades. At seventy, Roy Lancaster had once argued a case successfully in front of the United States Supreme Court and received the majority opinion in his favor. Roy’s father had founded the firm, but Roy had been the one to build Lancaster and Morris into the reputable and respected law firm it was today.

“I’m not certain who Chris Jones is,” Bruce said slowly. He really didn’t have any idea. “I’ve been in Indianapolis for the past four weeks, finishing up the Benedict appeal. Since I returned only two days ago, I still haven’t met the guy. Heck, I’ve barely been in the office. The case requires someone who speaks Spanish, and I’m sure we’ll get along fine.”

“Always the politically correct one, aren’t you? In my day everyone learned English,” his grandfather scoffed. “None of this multicultural and bilingual fluff.”

“And I’m sure our plaintiffs will learn English, as well. They are legal immigrants, Granddad. It just may take them a while. Their rights have been violated, English or none.” Bruce raked a hand through his hair. He hated that his fire helmet made his hair stick to his head. “Can we talk later? I just got back from a fire call. I’m off to the shower.”

“Ah, firefighting. How I miss it,” his grandfather said wistfully, even though he hadn’t fought a fire in at least forty-five years. “Was it a big one? I didn’t hear anything on my police scanner.”

“No, just a smoke machine that set off the alarms at the elementary school.”

“Ah.” His grandfather sounded disappointed for a second. “So, will I see you at the club this weekend? Golf season’s just about over. This is probably the last nice weekend we’ll have. The grass gets really brown in November, and it becomes way too cold for golf.”

“I’m not planning on playing.”

His grandfather chuckled. “I see. A woman. Well, I’d better let you go.”

“Yeah.” Bruce let the fib stand and, after saying goodbye, dropped the cordless phone on his king-size bed. He’d been without a woman for a couple of months now, and celibate for longer than that. Maybe he was losing his touch, but the appeals case he’d just worked on had meant long hours and little free time to date. And he’d never been the one-night-stand type.

Now that the case was in the hands of the federal judges, Bruce hoped he’d have some leisure hours to scope out some new female companions. After all, the firm had hired Chris Jones as a full, senior partner. He could do the work.

Bruce backed into the hot shower spray and leaned forward so that the water cascaded over his neck and back. Who knew how much longer he’d be able to stay on Morrisville’s volunteer force. While Bruce would have loved to be a paid firefighter on some department in a larger city, it wasn’t what Lancaster boys did.

For multiple generations they’d been lawyers. Heck, one of his great-great-great-grandfathers had worked in Congress with Abraham Lincoln. The family accepted Bruce’s volunteer firefighting only because the Morrisville citizenry considered it an honor, a duty and a matter of civic pride. The fact that Bruce’s grandfather had once served in the fire department had also helped convince Bruce’s worrying parents that a few more years wouldn’t hurt. After losing one child at four months, his parents refused to lose another.

All in all, Bruce knew that he had a great life. At twenty-nine, he was well into his bachelorhood and enjoying it, much to the dismay of his parents. Morrisville girls married early, and the few women he’d met in Cincinnati didn’t want to move more than an hour west to Podunkville, U.S.A. Heck, the closest Wal-Mart was twenty-seven miles away in Greensburg. Domino’s Pizza didn’t even deliver out here. Bruce liked it that way.

His thoughts drifted to the woman he’d seen at Morrisville Elementary. She wasn’t local; his gut instincts told him that. And her ethnicity wasn’t pure Caucasian. Was she Mexican? The water pounded on his back, and he turned and let it cascade over his chest for a moment before he reached for the soap. Not all Mexicans fit the dark-skinned, dark-haired stereotype.

The surrounding counties had been experiencing an influx of legal immigrants lately, especially those from Mexico. That was why the Title VII case Lancaster and Morris was representing was so important and why Bruce wanted to take it to trial so badly. Those workers deserved the same legal protections that native-born American citizens had. Just because the immigrant women didn’t know the civil rights law didn’t mean that companies like Morrisville Garment could circumvent it.

Winning this case would be a landmark, and he could ride the wave of his success with it for a long time. He agreed it had been important to hire a partner who spoke Spanish and who could better communicate with the victims. He had taken French, which got him only as far as impressing a woman at Chez Jacques in Cincinnati.

But making this person a full partner? Admittedly, it stung Bruce that he hadn’t been named senior partner this year the way everyone, including him, had expected.

Luckily, he’d been in Indianapolis at the time and had avoided the town gossip, which for a week had centered on his being passed over in favor of an outsider. However, winning this case, even under someone else’s leadership, would seal his senior partnership.

Bruce tossed the soap back into the holder, reached for the shampoo and let his mind again remember the woman he’d seen at the elementary school. She’d seemed frazzled by the fire alarm. She’d been beautiful, though. Her brown eyes had been haunting, with a depth to them he hadn’t seen too often before. He’d wanted to smile and reassure her, but had deliberately kept himself aloof and professional.

Unfortunately, she had a child, that cute little girl dressed up for the party as a black cat. A child made whoever the woman was off-limits, despite the absence of a wedding ring on her left hand. No, he liked his women young, single and dependent free. He wanted them to be able to pick up and go on a weekend trip at a moment’s notice—which as a busy lawyer was often all he could afford. That meant no strings. No restrictions. No instant family. Although, when he did marry he wanted a lot of kids. He knew too well what being raised as an overprotected only child was all about. He rinsed his hair and turned off the water.

Besides, even if seeing her didn’t break the parameters he’d set for himself, he was on call this weekend, plus he had to finish the case file so he could discuss it with Chris Jones Monday morning. He had other things to worry about than a woman with a child, no matter how beautiful or intriguing the woman was. Before he had to turn the water on again, this time to cold, he pushed her image from his mind and reached for the towel.

Chapter Two

The insistent ringing Monday morning that invaded her dream of Antonio Banderas sweeping her away wasn’t her alarm clock. Or her cell phone. It was her doorbell.

Christina sat straight up in bed and studied her bedroom. Something was wrong, and it wasn’t the fading of her very pleasant dream. She blinked and attempted to focus. Except for the shrilling doorbell, the noises in the house were normal and the amount of light in her bedroom was the same as it always was at this time of the day.

Except that it wasn’t this time of day. It was an hour earlier. She’d set the clocks back yesterday, after her mother had reminded her during their weekly Sunday-night chat that Daylight Savings Time had ended. The clocks were to “fall back.”

The insistent noise at her front door still hadn’t stopped, and Christina shifted. The clock read 6:30 a.m. Who would be here this early? Bella’s carpool wasn’t due for another hour. Christina drew on her robe and rushed through her house. She peered through the peephole, groaned and pulled the door open. “Marci?”

Marci Smith stepped back a pace and frowned. “Christina? Did you oversleep? Remember, I’m driving today. Is Bella ready?”

Christina’s head pounded. “School’s not for another hour.”

Marci frowned. “What are you talking about? School starts in twenty minutes. Same time as every day. It’s seven-thirty.”