Farrah Rochon - Yours Forever

“Will do,” Carmen said.

Matt pushed his chair away from the desk and stood, luxuriating in a total-body stretch. It was just after 10:00 a.m., yet it felt as if he’d already put in a full day. He knew he should have started turning down cases when he’d made the decision to run for office months ago, but his was the only law practice in town. In fact, for more than a century and a half, the Gauthier Law Firm had been the only means for legal representation in a twenty-mile radius. How could he turn anyone away?

He thumbed through the messages Carmen had handed him when he’d come in this morning and ran across at least one person he was pretty good at turning away. He crumpled the green slip of paper with yet another message from that nosy Professor West and tossed it in the trash.

The woman had been the biggest pain in his ass for the past six months. Ever since it had been discovered that this building had once been a part of the Underground Railroad, she’d been calling and emailing, digging her nose in his business. If not for all the stationery he’d have to replace, Matt would have changed the office’s phone number.

He didn’t have time to concern himself with Professor West right now; he had more than enough to worry about. The first item on his plate was to bring some semblance of order to his desk. Carmen had straightened it out yesterday. If she came in and saw the mess he’d made, there would be hell to pay.

Matt did his best to get the files back in order. He opened the bottom drawer and retrieved a can of the energy drink he kept stashed in there. As he chugged half the can in one large gulp, he replayed the YouTube video again, his jaw clenching as he watched the ridiculous commercial.

Carter might have more years on him, but he was the exact opposite of what the people in this area needed. He was one of Leroy Gauthier’s old cronies. Matt’s father and Patrick Carter had had a falling-out years ago, but the two men were cut from the same cloth. Their way of thinking tended to provide more benefits for themselves than their constituents. It was time for a change in the way politics was played around here.

Carmen gave two short raps on the door before she entered the office, carrying a file.

“Thanks,” he said as he captured the beige folder she held out to him. His high-school English teacher, Mrs. Black, was suing the school system’s health-insurance company for lack of coverage. Matt wanted to read through the file again before his telephone call with the school board’s attorney.

He looked up at Carmen, who’d remained standing in front of his desk.

“Yeah?” Matt asked.

“You have a visitor,” she said. The smile tipping up the corner of her mouth sent a tremor of unease down his spine.

“Who is it?” he asked, hoping to God it wasn’t his father. Although his father would never wait in the lobby like a guest. He’d officially passed the Gauthier mansion on to Matt, but the old man still took ownership of this office. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t practiced law here since becoming an appellate-court judge in New Orleans several years ago.

“It’s Professor Tamryn West,” Carmen answered.

“What?” Matt shot out of his chair. “You’re kidding me.”

“I am not,” Carmen said. “Should I send her in?”

“No.” He came around the desk. “What the hell is she doing here? Doesn’t she teach somewhere up on the East Coast?”

“Boston,” Carmen answered. “The woman came all this way, Matt. You have to see her.”

“No, I don’t.”

Carmen gave him a look. He hated that damn look. It was the same look his mother used to give him when she thought he was being stubborn.

“Shit,” Matt cursed. “Send her in. But if she’s not gone in five minutes, you’d better make up some excuse and come rescue me, Carmen. I mean it.”

She laughed. “What are you so afraid of when it comes to this professor?”

“Nothing. I just don’t like people snooping around in my business.”

“Fine. But she traveled well over a thousand miles. The least you can do is give her ten minutes of your time.”

“Seven,” Matt countered. “If she’s not gone in seven minutes, I want you to bang on the door and yell fire.”

Carmen shook her head, still laughing.

Matt went around his desk and sat, then immediately sprang from the seat. He didn’t want to feel as if he was at a disadvantage when he faced an adversary. He went around to the front of the polished oak desk that had occupied this office for the past sixty years and perched against it, crossing his feet at the ankles.

Carmen knocked on the door and opened it. “Professor Tamryn West is here to see you,” she announced.

Matt’s stomach bottomed out as he stared at the woman who’d just walked into his office. “You have got to be kidding me.”

* * *

“You’re Dr. West?”

Tamryn just barely held in the laugh that was precariously close to spilling from her lips. The look of shock on Matthew Gauthier’s face was priceless.

The rest of him looked...amazing.

Yesterday’s jeans and black T-shirt had been the stuff of carefully choreographed fantasies, but this morning’s charcoal-gray suit, Tiffany-blue shirt and striped tie were fantasy-worthy in their own right.

“Good morning to you, too, Mr. Gauthier,” Tamryn said. She strode over to the desk that occupied the center of the vast office, stopping a couple of feet in front of him.

“Good morning,” he said with a note of apology, as if he’d been reprimanded for forgetting his manners. “You’re Tamryn West?” he asked again.

She nodded and extended her hand out to him. “Dr. Tamryn West, professor of African-American and women’s studies at Brimley College.”

He accepted her handshake, disappointment and disbelief clouding his face.

The office manager, who had introduced herself as Carmen, cleared her throat. “It looks as if my employer has misplaced his manners,” she said. “Can I offer you a seat, Dr. West?”

“Thank you,” Tamryn said.

“Yes, I’m...I’m sorry,” Matt said. He shook his head as if to clear it and gestured to one of the high-backed leather chairs. “Carmen, is there coffee?” He looked to her. “Would you like coffee?”

“I’m fine.” She waved off the offer.

“Well, I’ll leave you two,” Carmen said as she backed out of the office.

Matt’s brow dipped as he studied Tamryn for several moments before rounding the desk and settling into the chair behind it. The brown leather gleamed, but it was obvious from the many cracks and faded spots that it was well used. He picked up a pen, tapped it twice on a thick file folder and then tossed it onto the desk.

“I never put two and two together,” he said with a bemused shake of his head. “Even after you told me your name yesterday, I still didn’t make the connection.”

“I must admit that I didn’t recognize you right away, either,” Tamryn said. “In the few pictures I found of you online, you were always in a suit and tie, never on a Harley.”

“Ducati.”

“Excuse me?”

“My bike is a Ducati, not a Harley.” He waved it off. “Never mind.”

“Well, whatever the brand of motorcycle, I never pictured you on one. Coupled with the fact that I was beyond exhausted and frustrated, it isn’t all that surprising that I didn’t recognize you right off the bat.”

And in those few online pictures she had found, never once had he been smiling. If he had been, those dimples would have been a dead giveaway.

“But you did recognize me after a while?” Matt asked.

She nodded.

“Well, if you recognized me, why didn’t you say anything yesterday?”

Tamryn couldn’t contain her wry smile. She crossed her legs and folded her hands over her knee.