Legally Binding Read online

  He nodded but still didn’t meet Lindsey’s eyes. “Before I forget, Nancy wanted me to tell you she has the files you wanted.”

  Lindsey nodded. The office administrator, Nancy Wilks, had promised to have an intern copy every file that had been subpoenaed by the prosecution to present to the grand jury. No doubt Lindsey had a late night ahead of her. “Thanks, Paul.”

  Paul nodded, glanced at his watch and focused on Bart. “I have to run. I have a meeting. I hope you reconsider coming to the will reading. You might find it illuminating.”

  As soon as Paul disappeared through the office door, Bart glanced at Lindsey. “That was strange.”

  Lindsey nodded. “Paul obviously knew who the blonde was. But why wouldn’t he admit it?”

  “Hell if I know. But I think you were right. I think I should probably go hear what Jeb put in his will.” He let out a stream of air. “But I’ll do it on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want to bring my lawyer with me. I don’t like to make a move without legal advice I can count on.” A grin spread over his lips and a twinkle appeared in his green eyes.

  She returned the smile despite herself. “I think that can be arranged.”

  He really was an amazing man. He seemed to know just what to say, just how to smile to disarm her. Yet his warm grin and unassuming phrases didn’t seem like merely an attempt to manipulate her. They seemed true and honest and a genuine part of who he was.

  “Do you need help toting those files Paul mentioned?”

  “That would be great.”

  Feeling stronger and more confident than she had in a long time, she walked out the door and down the hall to the main office, Bart by her side. She had a lot of work ahead of her. She just prayed she would find something useful soon. Because if she didn’t, a very good man would pay the price.

  Chapter Five

  Lindsey rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger and glanced at the clock hanging on her kitchen wall. Almost eleven o’clock at night. For two days she’d been sorting through the files she and Bart had picked up, and she still hadn’t found anything.

  She trained her eyes on the paper in front of her. Figures from the last year Jeb had cattle on his ranch swam on the page. Number of head sold, maverick rate, shrinkage rate—a regular crash course in cattle ranching and none of it seemed to lead anywhere. Luckily Bart had spent a couple of hours explaining the terminology to her over dinner. If it weren’t for him, she would really be lost.

  As if finally gaining permission to go where it wanted, her mind latched on to thoughts of Bart. His honesty, his sincerity and his disarming smile.

  The phone rang, cutting through her thoughts. She punched the Talk button and held it to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Baby.”

  Lindsey flinched. All her brothers called her Baby. When she was a kid, the name had made her feel special, like her four older brothers really noticed her. And cared. Now at the age of twenty-six, she’d reevaluated. “What’s up, David?”

  “What’s up? Why does something have to be up? Can’t I just call my little sister occasionally?”

  “If you, Michael, Rich and Cameron only called occasionally instead of every night, it might be nice. As it is, your calls are bordering on harassment.”

  “I’m just doing my part to save your career, Baby.”

  “My career doesn’t need saving.”

  “Come on, Lindsey. You’re a Wellington. You have a brilliant legal mind. Why waste it out in the sticks?”

  His patronizing tone made her nerves stand on edge. “I’m not wasting anything. I’m making a career for myself. The same way the rest of the Wellingtons did.”

  “But you didn’t have to travel halfway across the country to do that.”

  She blew a frustrated breath through pursed lips. She’d been through this argument countless times with each of her brothers. Even her mother and father chimed in on occasion. “I want to make it on my own. Why is that so hard for everyone to understand?”

  “Maybe because we’ve given you an open invitation to join our firm here. In your home. And you won’t be defending drunk drivers and reading real estate contracts on the side. Or you can clerk for Dad, specialize in constitutional law, work on what you care about. Hell, maybe someday you can make it to the bench. Follow in Dad’s footsteps. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  David knew darn well that was what she wanted. But that wasn’t all she wanted. “I want to make it on my own,” she repeated. “I want to earn my own way just like the three of you did when you started the firm from scratch. Like Cam did. Like Mom and Dad did in their careers.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Lindsey. That’s my point. There are advantages to you being so much younger than the rest of us. Mom and Dad are established in their careers now. We’re all established. Why not cash in on that? We all respect you. You don’t have to earn anything.”

  “You respect me? That’s a new one. That must be why you don’t trust me to make it on my own.” David, Michael and Rich had started their own firm. Cameron had risen to the ranks of federal prosecutor. Her dad was now a judge. Even her mother had finished her degree and landed a job teaching law after years of raising a family.

  “Come on, Baby. Not that whole ‘make it on my own’ thing again.”

  “Why shouldn’t I make it on my own?”

  “Because you don’t have to.”

  He would never understand. None of her family would. They all wanted to take care of her. To protect her. To coddle the baby sister. To give her all the advantages they never had. Advantages they didn’t believe she could earn for herself. “I don’t have time to talk about this, David. I have a big case I’m working on.”

  “Don’t tell me, a drunk driver who dented someone’s pickup truck and ran over a dog?”

  She set her chin and scowled into the phone. Maybe in a way, she needed Bart as much as he needed her. Because by proving his innocence, she would also prove herself. To her family, to the world.

  She just hoped she was as brilliant as her family liked to think.

  TRUSSED UP in a white shirt with pearl snaps and a black tie to match his black Wranglers, Bart felt about as uncomfortable as a boy dressed for Sunday school. But he sure didn’t feel like a boy around Lindsey Wellington. Far from it. Every glance from those intense blue eyes made him feel all man.

  Her baby blues bored into him now. “Ready?”

  He clapped his Resistol straw hat on his head and forced his thoughts to the will-reading ahead. He didn’t know why he bothered dressing up. If the situation was reversed, he had no doubts Jeb would walk in with tattered jeans and manure on his boots. But somehow it didn’t seem right to wear work clothes while attending the only last rites a man would ever have.

  Not that any part of this felt right. “I still don’t like this. I never wasted much time on good thoughts about Jeb when he was alive. I feel like a damn hypocrite suddenly showing up for the will.”

  She pushed back her chair and stood. “I know. But your uncle put your father’s name in his will for a reason. We need to know what it is. Besides, the last several nights I went over the files Nancy copied for me, and I found absolutely nothing. We need a break.”

  Bart sighed. Good points. Not that Lindsey had to make them in order to convince him. Hell, he’d follow her anywhere. All she had to do was crook one of those ladylike fingers. “Let’s get it over with, then.”

  With a decisive nod, Lindsey strode out the door of her office and led him down the hall.

  Even though the annex fire, which had burned Andrew McGovern’s body, had happened weeks ago, the scent of smoke still permeated the building. Especially in the area near the now-boarded-up entrance to the annex. Bart tried not to think about Andrew or the fire or the subject of murder as he swung through the open door of the conference room behind Lindsey and looked straight into the angry black eyes of his cousin.

  “What the hell a
re you doing here?” Kenny bellowed. He balled his hands into fists, as if threatening to take Bart on in the middle of the conference room.

  A challenge Bart would be happy to oblige if they were back in the alley behind the Hit ’Em Again. “I wouldn’t be here if Paul hadn’t asked me to come.”

  Kenny threw a scowl in Paul’s direction.

  The firm’s partner leaned against the table, his eyes moving over a file in his hands, clearly unfazed by the likes of Kenny Rawlins.

  At the end of the long table, Donald Church, the other half of Lambert & Church, stretched to his full five-foot-and-a-sliver height and cleared his throat. Dressed in his usual starched white shirt, French cuffs and two-thousand-dollar suit, Don reminded Bart of a round little peacock the way he preened and strutted in his fancy clothes. But the man also had the warmest smile Bart ever remembered seeing. He turned that smile on Kenny. “I’m sorry, Kenny. I know it’s hard to have Bart here. But Jeb stipulated that Bart’s father attend this reading. And since Hiriam can’t be here, Bart has agreed to take his place.”

  Kenny growled deep in his throat like a dog on the end of a fat chain. “The old bastard must have done it to torture me. One more kick from beyond the grave.”

  Paul tossed the file he was perusing onto the table and clapped a hand on Kenny’s shoulder. “Have a seat, Ken. This will all be over soon enough.”

  Kenny sank into a chair, his glower still focused on Bart.

  Bart couldn’t blame him. If the situation was reversed, he’d probably be across that table with his hands around Kenny’s throat before either of the partners could say their first cajoling word.

  Turning away from Kenny, Bart grasped one of the chairs and pulled it out for Lindsey. Flashing him a small smile, she lowered herself into the chair and set her briefcase on the floor beside her. Legal pad in hand, she crossed her long legs and looked to Don, waiting for him to begin.

  Bart folded himself into a chair beside her. The faint scent of roses teased the air between them. He fought the urge to lean close and breathe her in.

  Paul was the last to find a chair. Once he had, Don treated the whole table to one of his smiles and chewed over a long preamble about Jeb being of sound mind—which Bart had always doubted. Then he cut into the meat of the will. “To my only son, Kenneth B. Rawlins, I leave the case of whiskey in the basement of the house.”

  “Case of whiskey? He drank every drop of that a long damn time ago.”

  Don held up a hand. “I also leave him the contents of my safe-deposit box at First Texas Bank, Mustang Valley branch and my 1995 Ford pickup.”

  Kenny leaned forward in his chair. “What about the ranch? What the hell does it say about the ranch?”

  Paul laid a hand on his shoulder. “Let Don continue, Ken.”

  Eyes drilling into Bart, Kenny grasped in his shirt pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and shook one from the pack.

  Flipping the cigarette between his lips with one hand, he searched his pocket for a lighter with the other. Finding a red Bic, he lit the smoke and took a deep drag.

  Don blinked his eyes a few times and looked back down at the document in front of him. “I leave the acreage and buildings that make up the Bar JR ranch to—”

  Bart shifted in his chair. He drew a breath and held it.

  “—my brother, Hiriam Rawlins.”

  A wooden feeling crept through Bart’s limbs. He glanced at Lindsey. Shock was written all over her face, the same shock that had him numbed from hat to boots. He forced his gaze to Don. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “It’s all right here.”

  He shook his head, trying to cut through the sluggishness in his brain. “I don’t believe it. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It all makes perfect sense to me.”

  Bart winced at the rasp of his cousin’s voice.

  Leaning back in his chair, Kenny’s lips twitched into a smirk. He blew smoke from his nostrils, a thickening cloud circling his head.

  Chapter Six

  Back in her office, Lindsey set her briefcase on the desk and struggled to hide the anxiety threatening to overwhelm her. Judging from the look on Bart’s face when Don had read Jeb’s will, he was already unnerved. The last thing he needed was to see that his lawyer was struggling with worries of her own.

  Bart sank into one of the chairs in front of her desk. Grasping his hat by the crown, he lifted it off his head and raked a hand through his hair. “Jeb’s will doesn’t make a lick of sense. Hell, if I didn’t know the old coot better, I’d think he set me up and killed himself just so I would take the fall.”

  Her stomach clutched. “Is it possible?”

  He blew out a frustrated breath. “Jeb was a miserable son of a bitch, but he wasn’t suicidal. Not unless you count trying to drink himself to death.”

  Lindsey shook her head. “The facts of the case don’t point to suicide anyway. Suicide victims don’t slash their own throats. I guess I was just grasping at straws.”

  “The way things are stacking up, I’d give about anything for a few of those straws.”

  Lindsey gave a heavy sigh and leaned back against the desk. So much for hiding her apprehension. Not only was she grasping at straws, she’d just admitted it to her client. “Nothing has changed. We still have to find who had most to gain from Jeb’s murder. And Kenny is still tops on the list.”

  “Maybe if he’d inherited Jeb’s land. But he didn’t.”

  “That doesn’t matter. He probably didn’t know what Jeb planned any more than you did.”

  Bart shook his head. “He knew. The thing I can’t figure out is why he wasn’t more angry about it. He was more upset about me being in the room than about the ranch going to me and my daddy.”

  Lindsey thought about the smirk on Kenny’s face. Bart was right. Kenny knew. And he seemed more amused than upset.

  Bart shook his head. “Why the hell would Jeb will the land to Daddy and me? He never cared much for me, and he outright hated my daddy.”

  “Would your father know why?”

  Bart dropped his focus to the carpet. “No.”

  “Maybe it’s something in their history. Maybe your grandfather made them promise to reunite the ranch when one of them died.”

  “If that’s it, we’ll never know.”

  “Why not?”

  “My daddy…” He trailed off.

  “Your daddy what?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. He won’t remember, that’s all.”

  She was pretty sure that wasn’t all, but Bart obviously wasn’t planning to come across with more. And without knowing more, she would have to take his word that asking his father was a dead end. “If only we knew how the blonde fit into all of this. Or if she fits at all.”

  “Maybe I could take her picture and ask around.”

  “That might tell us who she is.”

  Reconsidering his idea, Bart shook his head. “But it might also let Hurley Zeller know exactly what we’re up to. And we still won’t know how she fits in with Kenny’s schemes.”

  “True.” She tented her fingers and tapped them against her lips. “So what if we come at this from another angle?”

  “What angle would that be?”

  “Both Jeb and Kenny were clients of Lambert & Church, right?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Then what if we have a chat with the lawyer who handled Kenny’s criminal case?”

  “Can we do that? Isn’t there some kind of attorney-client privilege?”

  “For the lawyer’s dealings with Kenny, there would be. But unless the blonde is a client of Lambert & Church, confidentiality doesn’t extend to her.”

  “Who worked on Kenny’s case?”

  By the time the question crossed Bart’s lips, she was already starting for the door. “Let’s find out.”

  THE WAY OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR Nancy Wilks watched over the offices of Lambert & Church reminded Bart of a mother hen keeping tabs on her chicks. She clucked
out orders to everyone from employee to partner. She fussed over each detail with motherly intensity. She even bobbed her head when she was upset. She was bobbing her head now as she sorted through a stack of file boxes, her severely cut dark hair swinging against her cheeks. “I swear interns these days have no idea how to file anything. I had a case last week where one filed a brief under the client’s first name. Can you imagine?”

  Lindsey gave her a nod and an understanding smile. “I have a question for you, Nancy.”

  “Can it wait until I straighten out this mess?”

  “Actually, no.”

  Nancy dragged in a put-upon breath. “Let me find one thing, and I’ll be all yours.”

  Despite the frustration crawling over his hide, Bart tried to hang on to his patience. No point in getting Nancy’s back up. Besides, she seemed like a nice enough person, poultry tendencies aside.

  He helped her shove around a few boxes, placing them where she directed. Finally she seemed to locate what she needed. Once she’d finished her business, she lit a cigarette and focused on Lindsey. “Okay, what can I do for you?”

  “Do you remember Kenny Rawlins’s conviction for fraud?”

  “Sure. He was convicted for selling cemetery plots.”

  Lindsey nodded. “Who acted as his lawyer?”

  “It had to have been Andrew. He handled all the criminal work back then.”

  Bart jolted. “Andrew McGovern?”

  “He’s the one.”

  “Damn.” There would be no asking Andrew McGovern about the details of Kenny’s scam. Not since the mayor had murdered him a month ago.

  Lindsey let out a sigh that echoed with the same frustration that wound in Bart’s gut. “Thanks, Nancy.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. Good luck straightening out the filing system.”

  “Thanks. It looks like I’m going to need it.” She took a drag off her cigarette like she was preparing herself for the ordeal ahead.