Ann Voss Peterson - Legally Binding

Bart pushed himself off the bed and stumbled to the bathroom. Peering into the mirror, he checked his face. Although his nose was slightly crooked from a fall off a horse when he was ten, it looked fine. So did the rest of his face. And a quick check of other body parts turned up nothing, either. The blood must have come from the other guy.

The doorbell’s chime echoed through the house.

Who the hell could that be? He tried to scan his memory for an appointment this morning, but his sluggish mind balked.

The doorbell rang again. Whoever it was, he wasn’t going away.

Bart turned on the water and plunged his hands into the warm stream. He splashed his face, grabbed a towel and headed down the stairs. He’d better answer the door before the bell woke his dad. Good thing the old man was a heavy sleeper. Bart would get rid of whoever it was so he could nurse his hangover in peace. And try to remember what in the hell had happened last night.

He reached the door and yanked it open.

As wide as he was tall, Deputy Hurley Zeller looked up at Bart through narrowed little eyes. The sheriff’s right-hand man had a way of staring that made a man feel he’d done something illegal even if he hadn’t. And ever since Bart beat him out as starting quarterback in high school, he’d always saved his best accusing stare for Bart.

Bart shifted his boots on the wood floor. “What’s up, Hurley?”

“I have bad news.”

Bart rooted his boots to the spot. If he’d learned one thing about bad news in his thirty-five years, it was that it was best to take it like a shot of rotgut whiskey. Straight up and all at once. “What is it?”

“Your uncle Jebediah. He’s dead.”

Bart blew a stream of air through tight lips. Uncle Jeb’s death meant there would be no reconciliation. No forgiveness to mend the feud in the Rawlins clan that had started the day Bart’s granddad died and left his son Hiriam a larger chunk of the seventy-thousand-acre ranch. Now it was too late for a happy ending to that story. “Well, that is bad news, Hurley. Real bad. How did he die?”

Hurley focused on the leather pouch on Bart’s belt, the pouch where he kept his Buck knife. “Maybe I should ask you that question.”

Bart draped the towel over one shoulder and moved his hand to the pouch. It was empty. The folding hunting knife he’d hung on his belt since his father gave it to him for his fourteenth birthday was gone. Shock jolted Bart to the soles of his Tony Lamas. “You don’t think I killed—” The question lodged in his throat. He followed Hurley’s pointed stare to the towel on his shoulder.

The white terry cloth was pink with blood.

A smile spread over Hurley’s thin lips. “I think you’re coming with me, Bart. And you’ve got the right to remain silent.”

LINDSEY WELLINGTON ADJUSTED her navy-blue suit, tucked her Italian leather briefcase under one arm and marched toward the Mustang County jail and her first solo case. She hadn’t been this nervous since she’d taken the Texas bar exam. At least her years at Harvard Law School had given her plenty of experience taking tests. This was a different story. This was real life.

This was murder.

She’d explained to Paul Lambert and Donald Church, senior partners of Lambert & Church, that she hadn’t specialized in criminal law. She’d also reminded them she didn’t have trial experience, that either of them would be far more qualified. But they’d insisted she take the case anyway. Even though both Paul and Don had backgrounds that included criminal law, Lambert & Church didn’t have a true criminal attorney on staff. Not since Andrew McGovern had died in the annex fire last month. Not since Andrew was murdered, she corrected herself. A murder that wouldn’t have been discovered, let alone solved, if not for her dear friend, Andrew’s sister Kelly, and Kelly’s new husband Wade Lansing.

Lindsey pushed into the air-conditioned lobby of the jail, checked in at the desk and followed a deputy back to a small visiting room to wait for her client.

Her client.

A shiver crept up her spine at the thought. She tried to quell it. She couldn’t afford to be nervous. This case was the opportunity she’d been waiting for. Over fifteen hundred miles from her well-meaning family’s influence and penchant for pulling strings to help her, she was finally getting a chance to prove herself on her own terms.

She set her briefcase on the table and took a calming breath. She couldn’t let her client know how nervous she was. Or how little experience she had. If she wanted to prove herself a professional, she had to act like one.

The door swung wide and a deputy led a tall man wearing an orange jumpsuit into the room. Lindsey looked up into a tanned face and sparkling green eyes, and struggled to catch her breath. It was a good thing she was sitting because her knees felt weak.

When she’d imagined defending an alleged murderer named Bart Rawlins, she’d pictured Black Bart, the infamous outlaw. Big and mean, with coal black hair to match his black hat. But the man who folded his big frame into the chair opposite her couldn’t be further from that image. With the body of Adonis and blond visage to match, he looked more like a hero straight from the silver screen.

“You must be Lindsey Wellington.” He held out a hand. “I’m Bart Rawlins.”

She shook his hand, a thrill skittering over her skin at the touch of work-roughened fingers. “Don’t worry, Mr. Rawlins. I’ll get you out of here immediately.” Her voice sounded breathless in her ear. As breathless as she felt. She inwardly cringed.

“Call me Bart. Paul and Don said you were the best criminal lawyer in the firm.”

The best? So they hadn’t told him they’d handed his case to a lawyer who’d just passed the bar. “Paul and Don exaggerate. But I’ll do my best, Bart. I promise you that.”

“I’m sure you will.” He tilted his head to study her, the fluorescent lights overhead gleaming off his sun-bleached hair. “They forgot to tell me you were the prettiest lawyer in the firm, too. Hell, I’d be willing to bet you’re the prettiest lawyer in the whole damn county.”

To Lindsey’s horror, a warm flush inched up her neck and burned her cheeks. “I—we should—I mean, thank you,” she finished lamely. What was wrong with her? She was blushing and stammering like a teenager with a crush.

“So where do we start?” he asked.

She looked at Bart, her mind a blank.

“My defense. Where should we start?”

She snatched herself out of the idiot-trance that had grabbed her the moment he’d strode into the room. She had to pull herself together. She was a professional. “Tell me what happened last night.”

He ran a big hand over his face and shook his head as if he’d already told the story more times than he cared to remember. “I went to Wade Lansing’s place, a saloon down on Main Street called Hit ’Em Again. I shot some pool, downed a few beers and found myself at home with a hangover to wake the dead.”

“What time did you leave the bar?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember the time?”

He grimaced. “I don’t remember leaving.”

She tried to keep her surprise from showing on her face. Bart Rawlins didn’t strike her as a heavy drinker. In the high-pressure world of law in which her family lived, heavy drinkers abounded. But all the heavy drinkers she’d known in her twenty-six years had an air of despair about them that was lacking in Bart. “How many beers did you drink?”

“Three. Four, tops.”

She looked him up and down, trying to ignore the tightening sensation low in her stomach at the sight of his long, lean legs and broad muscled shoulders. With his size, three or four beers shouldn’t lead to a blackout. But then, people often underestimated their alcohol consumption. “Are you sure you didn’t have more?”