Legally Binding Read online

They walked back to Lindsey’s office. As soon as they stepped inside, she closed the door behind her and turned those intense blue eyes on him. He could see the wheels turning in that pretty head.

  “When I came to Lambert & Church, I took over Andrew’s old office and he moved to the annex.”

  Bart nodded and waited for her to continue.

  “He was busy with cases and I was busy studying for the bar, so it took forever to complete the move.”

  “And?”

  “When he died and the annex burned down, some of his personal papers were still in my office.”

  “Do you have them?”

  “No.”

  He let out a breath.

  Lindsey held up a finger, a smile spreading over her lips. “I gave them to his sister, Kelly.”

  He nodded, his pulse breaking into a jog. Kelly McGovern Lansing wasn’t only Andrew’s sister, she was Wade Lansing’s new wife…and Lindsey’s friend.

  Lindsey grasped the cordless phone from her desk and punched in a number. She gave Bart a little smile as she listened to the phone ring. “Kelly? It’s me, Lindsey. Do you still have those notes of Andrew’s I gave you a couple weeks ago? I need to take a look at them, if you don’t mind.”

  IT DIDN’T TAKE Lindsey long to tie up her business in the office. And when Bart offered to give her a ride to Kelly’s, she didn’t argue. The garage had left a message while she was attending the reading of Jeb’s will. They’d replaced the distributor cap and tires, but the new paint job would take longer to complete. Unless she wanted to drive through town with red spray paint slashed across the hood, she wouldn’t have a car until tomorrow. Tonight she was stranded. Or she would be if it weren’t for Bart.

  He pulled the truck to the curb of a little house nestled on a quiet Mustang Valley street and threw it into Park. He climbed from the cab and circled to the passenger side. He held out a hand as Lindsey pushed her door open.

  A little feminine shiver rippled through her at the touch of his callused fingers. She gritted her teeth. Wouldn’t her brothers love this? Her client helping her from a truck as if she wasn’t capable of jumping down herself?

  Even so, she had to admit she liked the way Bart held doors open for her, helped her from his truck and took off his hat when she entered a room. She liked the roughness of his fingers and the gentleness of his touch. She liked the scent of fresh air and leather that emanated from him, more seductive than any cologne. As a matter of fact, there seemed to be nothing she didn’t like about the cowboy.

  And that’s what drove her craziest of all.

  Once her foot hit pavement, she pulled her hand from his grasp and stood on her own two feet. “Thanks for the ride. Kelly said she’d give me a lift back to my apartment.”

  “I can wait until you’re done.”

  She drew another breath. As much as she wanted him to stay, she knew she needed to be away from him now. She needed to be on her own. “Not necessary. Kelly said she’s dropping by Hit ’Em Again later to pick up Wade. My apartment isn’t far out of her way. Really.”

  “All right. But if you get in trouble, I expect you to use that little cell phone of yours to give me a call.”

  She couldn’t keep the tension from creeping up her spine at his words. But if there was anything she’d learned while dealing with her brothers’ protective streaks all these years and with Bart’s the past couple of days, it was that she could tell him she’d be fine on her own until she was hoarse and it wouldn’t make a difference. He would still hover. He would still worry. He would still believe she couldn’t take care of herself. “I’ll call if I need you.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “And if you learn anything from the files—”

  “You’ll be the first to know.”

  A grin spreading across his face, he circled to the driver’s door, climbed into the truck and waited until she entered the little house.

  As soon as Lindsey stepped inside, Kelly, wearing a Hawaiian shirt that set off the blue of her eyes, swept her upstairs. “It took some digging, but I found Andrew’s papers.”

  “Thanks, Kell. I owe you one.”

  “Don’t be silly. What are friends for?” She shook her blond head and waved Lindsey into the master bedroom. Sparsely furnished with only a bed and a single dresser, the room was stacked with open boxes. “I’m still moving in. With everything that’s happened and the wedding and Wade training Jerry to run Hit ’Em Again while we’re on our honeymoon, we haven’t had much time to unpack.”

  To Lindsey’s amazement, Cara, the newshound, sat among the boxes in the middle of the floor, a folder open in her hands. A stack of folders and legal pads perched on a box next to her, obviously already perused. She looked up at Lindsey through her red curls. “Hey, Lindsey. Have a seat. These are a lot more interesting than trying to decide what image Kelly should project on her honeymoon.”

  Lindsey’s stomach clenched. She shot Kelly an alarmed glare.

  Kelly held up her hands in front of her as if to ward off the look. “She was here when you called. She helped me dig out the box. She had to look at the notes. You know Cara.”

  Lindsey knew Cara, all right. That’s what had her worried. “You can’t write about anything you’ve found in that box.”

  “Why not?”

  “Have you ever heard of attorney-client privilege?”

  “Have you ever heard of freedom of the press?”

  “Have you ever heard of getting me in a lot of trouble at the firm? Maybe even with the state bar?”

  “They aren’t official legal files, Lindsey. Just Andrew’s private notes.”

  “Depending on what’s in them, they could be classified as attorney work product.”

  Cara closed the file in her hands. “I never thought of it that way. I’m sorry, Lindsey. I’d never do anything purposely to get you in trouble.”

  Lindsey plunked onto the floor beside her friend. “I know.”

  Kelly sat cross-legged beside them. “Cara got the papers from me, and I’m not bound by any kind of attorney-client privilege. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “Not really, since I gave them to you in the first place.” Lindsey looked at the stack with dismay. There was no sense in being upset with Cara or Kelly. The situation was her fault.

  “Hey, it’s understandable, Lindsey,” Kelly said. “The past few weeks have been tough for all of us.”

  Especially Kelly. She’d found the man of her dreams, but she’d also lost her brother. Lindsey laid a supportive hand on her shoulder.

  Cara tapped the folder in her lap. “I won’t write about any of this unless I can verify it through another source. And at that point, who’s to say where I uncovered the idea originally?”

  Lindsey nodded. Cara wouldn’t violate her ethics any more than Lindsey could violate her own.

  “Are we all friends again?” Kelly asked.

  Lindsey looked at the two women next to her. She’d had friends back in Boston. But those friendships had mostly been based on family ties and political influence. Her friendships with Kelly and Cara weren’t like that. Even though the two of them had been buddies since childhood, as soon as they’d met Lindsey, they’d opened their arms to her without reservation. And since then, the threesome had formed a strong bond simply because they liked and respected each other. Friendship for friendship’s sake. “Of course we’re friends.”

  “How about a hug then?” Kelly reached out her arms.

  They rose to their knees, put their arms around each other and hugged. When they finally sat back on the floor, all three had tears in their eyes.

  Cara was the first to recover. “Well, now that we have that out of the way, let me show you what I found.” She reached for a file marked Rawlins, flipped the manila cover open, pulled out several pages and handed them to Lindsey.

  Lindsey skimmed the pages. “These look like stories.”

  Cara nodded, her eyes bright. “Local legends
, actually. Most of them are about Shotgun Sally.”

  Lindsey remembered Bart mentioning that Kenny had tried to pass off the Bar JR as Shotgun Sally’s original homestead.

  “Here. You’ve got to read this one.” Kelly plucked one of the legends from the pile and slipped it in front of Lindsey’s nose.

  She started to read. In the legend, Shotgun Sally was a lawyer back when women weren’t yet allowed to join the Texas bar. When a cowboy named Zachary Gale was wrongly accused of murder, Sally stood up to defend him when no one else would. And she fell in love with him. Believing in him and laying her life on the line, Sally finally saved Zachary from hanging. And at the end of the story, married to the cowboy she loved, Sally became the first female lawyer to officially pass the Texas bar.

  “Sounds a little like you and your good-looking cowboy, Bart Rawlins, don’t you think?” Cara’s eyes twinkled with humor.

  Heat crept up Lindsey’s neck and pooled in her cheeks. She remembered the look Cara had given her and Bart in the alley. If her attraction to Bart was that obvious, she was in trouble. “That’s ridiculous. He’s my client.”

  “Client, schmient. He’s hot.” A teasing smile curved Cara’s lips. “Maybe even hot enough to tempt you into his bed?”

  “Cara!” Lindsey protested. Her cheeks felt like they’d burst into flame. She never should have confessed to her friends she was still a virgin. That she’d been so busy focusing on her career she hadn’t had the time or interest to get involved with a man.

  “Don’t mind Cara. She’s a hopeless matchmaker,” Kelly said.

  “Hey, I was right about you and Wade, wasn’t I?”

  Kelly gave Cara a knowing half smile. “Yeah. Even though it took a shotgun to convince him.” The two of them broke into laugher.

  Lindsey shook her head. She still couldn’t believe Kelly had held a shotgun on Wade to get him to agree to marriage—as if he’d really needed convincing. Lindsey was lucky she wasn’t defending Kelly in court, too.

  “It was Shotgun Sally’s blood in me. And now I’m a saloon owner just like Sally.” Kelly grinned and lowered one eyelid in a playful wink. “A saloon owner by marriage, anyway.”

  Lindsey frowned. “I thought Shotgun Sally was a lawyer.”

  “Actually—” Cara piped in “—she was an investigative reporter. All the other things she did were just covers so she could get her scoop.”

  “Now you’ve really confused me.”

  “Look.” Cara spread the pages out on the floor. “There are a dozen or more Sally legends, all of them different. But in each one Sally gets her man, Zachary Gale, and metes out justice on her own terms.”

  Lindsey nodded. “On her own terms. I can identify with that ambition.”

  “See? You’ve been bitten by the Shotgun Sally bug already.”

  Lindsey looked down at the legends covering the bed. Legends Cara had pulled from a file marked Rawlins. “Did you find the legends in that folder originally?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why would Andrew keep them in a folder marked Rawlins?”

  “I wondered that same thing,” Cara said.

  Kelly shrugged.

  Lindsey flipped open the file’s cover. The rest of the folder seemed to be filled with scribbled notes about the Bar JR. “It doesn’t make sense. Unless…”

  “Unless what?” Kelly asked.

  “Bart said Kenny Rawlins tried a few get-rich-quick schemes to cash in on the Sally legends.”

  Cara nodded. “I remember. It was before his cemetery plot scam.”

  “Could the legends have something to do with that?”

  Cara tilted her head and regarded the folder. “Maybe. But the rest of the notes don’t have anything to do with Kenny’s scams.”

  Kelly compiled the legends into a stack. “Maybe they were just misfiled. Andrew was a wonderful lawyer, but no one in her right mind would describe him as organized.”

  Lindsey nodded. Maybe Kelly was right. Maybe the legends had found their way into the file through nothing more intriguing than sloppy filing.

  “I might know someone who can answer your questions,” Cara said. “One of the professors at the community college specializes in local folklore. Della Santoro. If there’s any kind of a connection between the Sally legends and the Bar JR or Kenny Rawlins, she would know. You can meet Kelly and me for lunch tomorrow and then I can take you down to the campus and introduce you.”

  “That would be great, Cara. Thanks.” Lindsey took the papers from Kelly and stuffed them back in her briefcase. At least she had a direction.

  “No problem. But you have to repay me by answering one question.”

  Lindsey groaned. “Cara the investigative reporter rears her ambitious head again.”

  Cara smiled, unfazed. “What were you hoping to find in these files? I know you want to find some dirt on Kenny Rawlins, something to show he killed old Jeb, but what specifically are you looking for?”

  Lindsey sighed. It probably wouldn’t do any harm to tell Cara. And maybe her friend could help. “Off the record?”

  “Of course.”

  “The blonde with Kenny in the alley the other day was also in the bar with Bart the night Jeb was killed. And she was hanging around Jeb before his death. I hoped Andrew’s notes could tell me how she’s connected.”

  “You mean Brandy Carmichael?”

  “I know Brandy,” Kelly said.

  Brandy Carmichael. So that was her name. “I thought there was a chance she’d been involved with Kenny in his past scams.”

  Cara frowned. “I doubt it. Unless the scam had something to do with real estate.”

  “Real estate?”

  Kelly nodded. “Brandy is a real estate broker. She has her own company in Dallas. I met her when I was toying with the idea of going into real estate after college.”

  Lindsey nodded, her mind whirring with possible implications of this new information. “Thanks. I should have known I could count on you guys.”

  Kelly grinned. “Like I said before, what are friends for?

  BY THE TIME Kelly dropped Lindsey off at her apartment, it was well past ten o’clock. Except for the low rumble of CNN coming from the open window of one of the ground-floor apartments, the building and surrounding landscaped grounds were silent as death. Other than the news junkie, Lindsey’s fellow tenants in the mid-priced eight-unit had either not realized it was one of the rare June nights that was cool enough to do without air conditioning, or they had turned in early to catch some sleep before work the next day.

  Letting herself into the glassed-in foyer, she turned and waved to Kelly, who was waiting at the curb for Lindsey to get safely inside before she drove away. After collecting her mail from the locked box in the foyer, Lindsey climbed the stairs, unlocked the door and slipped into her apartment.

  The air was dead and stuffy. Setting her briefcase on the floor and her mail and cell phone on the telephone table in the little alcove just inside the door, she eyed the blinking light on her answering machine. She hit the Play button. Sure enough, there was a call from her brother Cam. Add the call David made to her at work, and that qualified as a call from each of her four big brothers in the past two days. A full-scale barrage. No doubt it would be Mom and Dad’s turn to call her tomorrow.

  After erasing the calls, she walked to the sliding glass door overlooking the quiet street below, opened it a crack and breathed in the fresh air. There was nothing like fresh air to remind her of all Mustang Valley offered that she couldn’t find in Boston. It wasn’t that her brothers and parents didn’t want what was best for her. The problem was they assumed only they could provide it. That she couldn’t find it on her own. That she couldn’t make it without help.

  She strode into her bedroom to change into the New England Patriots T-shirt she always slept in. Slipping the red-white-and-blue-logoed shirt over her head, she laughed. Maybe she’d even trade it in for Dallas Cowboys sleepwear. That would be sure to get her brothers’ goat.


  And she could imagine the smile on Bart’s face.

  Cara’s comment about Bart tempting her into bed teased at the back of her mind. She shook her head. She couldn’t let herself think about Bart as anything but a client. If she wanted to prove herself, she had to confine her thoughts to the framework of his case.

  After washing her face and brushing her teeth, she padded back into the living room to lock the patio door before she went to sleep. She had another long day ahead. Hopefully her meeting with Della Santoro and an investigation into Brandy Carmichael’s real-estate business would yield results. If not, she didn’t know where to turn.

  She closed and locked the sliding glass door. She had just flipped off the lights when a thud caught her attention.

  Her heart lodged in her throat.

  Someone was in her apartment. Someone—images of paint, red as blood, flashed through her mind. She had to get out of here. She had to call for help.

  As quietly as she could, she padded for the door. If she could wake one of her neighbors, use their phone—

  A dark shadow lurched toward her from the alcove.

  Panic shot through her. She threw up her arms, trying to protect herself, trying to fend off the assault.

  Something hard and flat hit her.

  She stumbled backward, grabbing the wall to keep herself from falling.

  Another blow landed against her head.

  She hit the phone table and crumpled to the floor, mail scattering on the tile around her.

  Chapter Seven

  Lindsey curled into a ball on the cold tile, her arms shielding her face. Her pulse thundered in her ears. She was afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

  The shadow loomed over her. A man. He clutched her briefcase in his fist.

  She braced herself for another blow.

  But instead of hitting her, he spun and bolted for the door. Throwing it open, he dashed into the hall. Heavy footfalls echoed the length of the hall and down the stairs. The thump blended with the frantic beat of her heart.

  He could have killed her.

  She struggled to her feet. Her legs wobbled. Her stomach rolled. Grasping the wall, she struggled to rein in her panic.