She called him seconds later. “You still got some of my cards?”
“Yeah, why? And what are you still doing up?”
“Going through what I can find about Louis’ case online. Kid never should have been charged. Make sure to give Holly one of my cards tomorrow when you get there so she’s got my info. And my personal cell number.”
“But we’re still on for five tomorrow, right?”
“I know that, but it’s not uncommon for inmates to call home on Sundays. She works weeks. If he happens to call her, he can get started right away on adding me to his visitor list before I even get paperwork filed. Plus she can give him the heads-up about me being his attorney.”
“You haven’t even met them. I mean, I’m glad you’re all in like this, but don’t you want to at least talk to her first?” He couldn’t remember Kimbra ever sounding this worked up over a case before, and he’d heard her at her most vehement.
“Yeah, but I don’t even need to meet them to accept this case. This is going to be the case that finally helps me put that motherfucker out of a job.”
“You’re not going to sleep much tonight, are you?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re already on the way to using up a ream of printer paper for stuff you’re compiling on the case.”
“Damn, boy. All these years, you still know me so well.” She laughed. “See you tomorrow at five. Don’t break it off rubbing one out.”
Like that, she hung up on him.
Walt chuckled. Yeah, as much as he loved and missed Kimbra, he had to admit their relationship was far easier as friends.
Didn’t mean he wasn’t lonely, though.
Chapter Eight
What’s going to want to work this morning?
Holly already knew it was after eight from the time on the cable box. That meant she needed to get up and moving…or some semblance thereof. Walt would be there at ten and she wanted to be vertical and ready.
As ready as she could be.
Fortunately, he seemed to be the understanding type.
For now.
Closing her eyes again, Holly tried to shut down that particularly annoying inner voice. The one that sounded an awful lot like Jason Davids’ voice. The voice of a man she had loved as her step-father, even though as she grew older she saw his veneer slowly stripped away by life and his failings.
A veneer that, once completely gone, had taken her mother, her brother, and had almost taken her with it.
In the times when her self-esteem and doubt—and the bad pain—were at their worst, that voice was the one she heard, telling her she was less-than. That had she died, maybe Louis wouldn’t be in jail because maybe Jason would have killed himself before Louis got home.
Nate’s treatment last night seemed to have helped. While she still felt sore in the good ways, she was able to move around more easily than usual. Sitting up, she actually felt good enough to go start the coffee before she took her shower, and that was a major miracle in and of itself.
She opted for an oversized cami and a jersey-knit skirt that hit her around midcalf. Loose and soft, neither would irritate her skin, chafe her, make her uncomfortable.
One battle won.
Walt arrived five minutes early, something she appreciated.
And he came bearing donuts.
“I guess I should have asked you if you had any food allergies,” he said. “Sorry.”
The gesture touched her. “No allergies,” she said, peeking inside the box he’d set on the counter. “Just a lot of pain. And thank you. This was very sweet.”
He wore a pair of khaki shorts and a T-shirt, and sneakers that looked like they’d been well-worn. Somehow, he managed to make being dressed more casually than last night look even sexier.
Huh.
“I’ve got my tools out in my truck. I’ll grab them. Wasn’t sure what you’d have, so I brought what I thought I’d need.”
“For the door?”
He smiled. “And the leaky faucet, the running toilet, and the porch light that’s about to commit suicide over your front door.”
“Oh. Thank you. C-can I offer you some coffee?”
“I’d love some, thank you.”
“How do you take it?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up in a sexy smile. “Hot and sweet.”
“Kind of like you?”
When the other corner of his mouth curled up to match the first, Holly realized that’d come out of her mouth instead of just rattling around in her brain.
“Aw, thank you.”
He headed back outside.
She closed her eyes and fought the urge to bash her own brains in against the kitchen cabinets.
Stupid stupid stupid!
* * * *
Holly was fricking adorable. Walt knew she hadn’t meant to say it aloud. The way her face turned a lovely shade of beet proved that much. As he unloaded his stuff, he knew that he’d have a very busy day ahead of him.
He didn’t even mind.
Sure, usually he preferred his weekends as free and unimpeded as possible by chores, but this was different.
This was helping.
Helping in a way that made an immediate, tangible difference in someone’s life. That wasn’t something he could always accomplish at his job. He couldn’t take her pain away—and he could see she was still moving slow and stiff this morning—but he could at least do something to make her life a little easier and ease her emotional burden.
Within an hour he had a shopping list ready to go on his phone of things he needed to take care of the immediate projects, and had started a secondary list of other items Holly hadn’t told him about, but that he could see with his own eyes needed to be repaired.
He walked into the house to tell her he was going to run to the store and found her in her home office. Stopping in the doorway, he scanned the boxes full of folders and papers, the stacks, the piles of legal books. An unexpected sensation of déjà vu washed over him, remembering the small apartment where he and Kimbra lived right after they’d married and how one bedroom had become her office.
Looking much like this.
“Whoa,” he said. “Someone’s been researching.”
She turned from her desk, where she’d been working at her laptop. “Yeah. I guess if I had the money or energy, I could probably go to school to be a paralegal and ace it. I feel like I’ve done the work.”
“I just wanted to let you know I’m going to go get the supplies and I’ll be back soon.”
She stood, and it was almost painful for Walt to watch how she had to use her arms to force herself up and out of her office chair, the way her face drew in, tight, pinched with pain. “Let me grab my wallet so I can go with you and pay for it.”
“No. I’m not going to take your money. I’ll trade you cooking dinner for me a few times when you feel like it. How’s that sound?”
She had stopped, frozen, as she stared at him. “I can’t let you spend money on me.”
“You can’t stop me, either.” He offered her a smile. “It’s like you think you can stop me, and that’s so adorable. Besides, you walking around a big home improvement store is going to wipe you out. I’d rather have the pleasure of your company later today.”
He wasn’t altogether sure she might not burst into tears. She finally took her glasses off and wiped at her eyes. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“I’d tell you to say, ‘yes, Sir,’ but we don’t know each other quite that well yet.”
Fortunately, she took it the way he’d meant it and rewarded him with a laugh and a weary smile. “Thank you.”
“Oh.” He reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card, which he passed to her. “That’s Kimbra’s information. She told me to give it to you now in case Louis calls you before you and Kimbra talk. I don’t know if your brother will have to file something, or if Kimbra does, or what.”
She put her glasses back on to read it
. “Oh, thank you.” She stared at the card, fingering it as if she couldn’t believe she was holding it. Like maybe it was a golden get-out-of-jail-free card or something.
“Louis almost always calls me on Sundays. He won’t let me visit him every Saturday anymore.”
Sadness tinged her tone and threatened to break Walt’s heart. He didn’t have to read every piece of paper in that office to see that Holly’s dedication to freeing her brother had consumed her life, maybe even at the cost of her own in addition to her fibromyalgia. Her health, certainly, wasn’t better for it.
“I talked to her last night after I got home,” he admitted. “I’d texted her your info and she called me. She’s already researching his case. I expect when she shows up today she’s going to have a good chunk of background information already compiled, and a decent plan of attack formulated in her mind.”
“I’ll try to pay her however much I can. It won’t be a lot, but—”
“Nope. You don’t understand—she wants this case. If you tried to force her to take your money, not only would she refuse it, she’d probably get her feelings hurt. Trust me when I say it’s best just to give her the information she requests and get out of her way, because she’s like a force of nature when she gets like this.”
“How do you want to handle telling her how we met?”
“The truth. She already knows. That side of me is no secret to her. She knows Tory.”
“She does?”
“Yeah, they’re friends. That’s how Tory and I met in the first place.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll be back in a little while. Do you need me to pick up anything for you while I’m out?”
She shook her head, her gaze still focused on the card. “No, thank you. I’m okay.”
“Then I’ll be back shortly.”
He fought the urge to hum as he walked out to his truck.
What a fucking unbelievably great day this was turning out to be.
It felt good to be a good guy.
Even better than beating someone’s ass.
* * * *
When she heard Walt’s truck start up and pull out of her driveway, Holly collapsed into her office chair, removed her glasses, and started crying.
If this was a dream, she hoped she never woke up. It felt too good to be true.
For once in her life, it seemed something was going right, and that terrified the crap out of her.
A nice, handsome, single guy just happens to have an ex who’s an attorney, and who he’s friends with, who wants to help get her brother a new trial…for free?
There had to be a catch, or another shoe that was going to fall, or…something.
Things just did not go that right for her and Louis.
Their dad was killed. Then the day Jason attacked her and her mom. Louis getting blamed for it.
Her health dropping into the shitter, followed by her income because she couldn’t do her damn job.
She pinched her left arm, hard, wincing and letting out a gasp.
Nope. I’m awake.
She jumped when her cell phone rang, her heart racing until she realized it was Joyce calling. Holly almost let it go to voice mail but then decided that she wanted this confrontation over with sooner rather than later.
“Yes?” she answered.
Joyce hesitated. “Are you all right?”
“Not really, no. Thanks for abandoning me last night.”
“Look, I’m really sorry. Luke chewed me out over it when you guys left, then he left. I thought I’d said it.”
“Thank goodness Walt was looking out for me,” Holly said, no longer caring if this cost her a friendship. “Someone had my best interests at heart.”
“Hey, I said I’m sorry, okay? I feel bad about it.”
“I’m sure that has nothing to do with making you look like a bad friend in front of Luke, huh?”
“Geez, what do you want from me?”
“I want to know what the hell you were thinking? You said the whole point of you dragging me out to the club last night was that you wanted me to get out and you wanted a wingman. Then you ditch me? Not cool.”
Joyce hesitated, and Holly bit back the urge to apologize for her catty tone.
“Do you want me to come over today and help you out around the house?”
“No, because Walt’s going to be back soon. He ran to the store. On top of everything else, my front screen door fell off last night, embarrassing the hell out of me, and he’s going to fix it. And he’s got a friend who’s an attorney who’s coming over later to talk about Louis’ case.”
“Oh. Well, that’s all good, right?” Another pause. “Guess maybe that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t fucked up.”
It took every last spoon Holly had not to hang up on her. “No. You do not get to twist stuff around like that to make you look like the good guy, here. Thank you for talking me into going to the club last night. Yes, I’m glad I went, but I’m still pissed off at you over leaving me there. We can talk more about this tomorrow at work.” Her phone beeped. “I have to go. I have another call.”
Sure enough, it was from Louis. “Hello?”
Nobody responded. When she’d switched the call over, she’d fumbled the phone a little and she briefly panicked that she’d accidentally disconnected the incoming call until the operator spoke.
“I have a collect call for Holly Olson from—”
“Yes, I accept the charges! Please, yes!”
“Thank you.”
There was a soft click of the call transferring and then Louis’ voice. “Sis?”
“Hey, buddy.” She closed her eyes and fought the urge to cry. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“How you doing? You feeling okay? You sound tired.”
She dodged his questions. “I’ve actually got some great news for you…”
By the time she got off the phone with him, she’d cried, and so had he. He said he’d file the paperwork for both Kimbra and Walt to be added to his visitor’s list, as well as request Kimbra’s cell and work numbers be added to his approved call list.
Holly stared at her phone, hoping she hadn’t just gotten both their hopes up for nothing. There’d been plenty of times she’d held info back from him so as not to get his hopes up, only telling him when she reached a point where an attorney would have to file paperwork, or speak with him.
This time felt…different. In a way she couldn’t explain.
Only time would tell if she’d once again set herself—and Louis—up for disappointment.
Chapter Nine
Walt consulted his list and the pictures he’d taken while hurrying up and down the store’s aisles. No, he wasn’t rich, but a couple hundred dollars or so wasn’t going to break him, either. Not when he knew how far that money would go in terms of making Holly’s life a little bit easier and reducing her stress.
Things he easily took for granted—like not spending every waking moment in pain—were luxuries in her life.
Maybe things between them wouldn’t go any farther than being just friends. It was too soon to tell. He didn’t care. He wanted to help.
Nearly an hour had passed by the time he backed into Holly’s driveway and started unloading his purchases. She walked out onto the front porch and as the breeze caught and toyed with her curly brown hair, which she’d worn loose today, he spotted the pain on her face.
“Why don’t you go sit down?” he gently suggested. “I got this.”
“Can I help you unload?”
“Nope. I might need your help with the door, to brace it when I get the frame replaced.”
“Replaced?”
“Just the outer section. It’s dry-rotted. A couple of pieces of wood and it’ll be fine. I got some primer to cover it, too.”
“That sounds like it’s difficult to replace.”
“Nah. I had to do the same thing at my house a couple of years ago. It’s just the outer frame pieces.”
He dropped t
he tailgate and started moving stuff onto the porch. It might rain later, and he didn’t have a topper on the back of his truck. He wanted to put everything where it would be safe and stay dry.
Twenty minutes later, he was already working on the doorframe, while Holly sat in a camp chair on the porch with him and watched despite him gently trying to shoo her inside.
He wouldn’t deny she was fun to talk to.
As he worked, he slowly drew her out, got her talking about her job, more details about what had happened during the attack, and about her brother.
Above all, her love for Louis shone through.
“He was my little brother, you know? I was five when Mom and Dad adopted him. I’m actually the one who picked him. We were going through a ton of files. I look back on it and it’s really kind of sad when you think about it, because it could have been a bunch of puppies or kittens we were looking at instead of kids. But when I saw his picture, Mom told me that I pointed at him and insisted we’d adopt him.”
“Why was that?”
“Because he looked sad. That’s what she told me I said. Because he looked really sad, even though he was just an infant, and I wanted us to make him happy. That we could be his family and make him not be sad. I don’t remember all the details. I remember meeting him for the first time, but only because we also have video of that.”
“Why’d your parents decide to adopt?”
“Mom had some pretty bad complications with me, I guess. She said Dad refused to put her through that again, but they’d wanted more kids. The obvious solution for them was to adopt.”
“How old were you when your dad died?”
“Eight. Louis barely remembers him. Fortunately, we have a lot of videos of us together, a lot of pictures.”
“So your step-father was Louis’ dad, to him.”
“Sort of. Louis was closer to him than I was, but I didn’t call Jason ‘dad,’ so neither did Louis. Louis always followed my lead.”
“How did you feel about him? Your step-father.”
She shrugged and seemed to consider her answer before finally speaking. “I mean, I loved him,” she said. “But he had a temper sometimes. He was kind of strict but not unreasonably so, I guess. I never saw him drunk that I can remember, so I don’t know if him drinking was just a reaction to what happened, or if he hid it really well from all of us. He and Mom would bicker sometimes. Sometimes he’d get really pissed off and blow up and it’d seem to come out of nowhere, but then he’d settle down and be fine.”