At His Fingertips

The universe didn’t give you what you wanted, she knew, it gave you what you needed.

She needed Mitch Margolin? A brusque and suspicious lawyer who thought she belonged in a rubber room? It seemed impossible. Despite that, even after he’d gone she was shaking with arousal.

If he came to the workshop tomorrow night, she would get a chance to separate the tug of lust from the nudge of fate.

It just couldn’t be him.

Could it?

A LITTLE PUNCHY from the encounter with Esmeralda, Mitch swung by his office to pick up some files and to see if Craig had returned his call. He had to verify that the foundation was sound now that he’d promised to bring Dale to her workshop.

On dreams. God Almighty, how had she talked him into that?

It was that husky voice, those eerie eyes. And that mouth…

“You again!” Maggie, his motherly secretary, looked at him with dismay. “When you left here at four, soldier, I thought you were finally acting like a civilian.”

Maggie was always on him to take it easier. Her husband was retired military and Maggie swore that all the moves had taught her how to determine what mattered in life.

When you’ve packed as much as I have, you know what to U-Haul and what to yard-sale.

“Julie around?” he asked. He preferred to avoid her, at least until he got over the pain of his stupid crush. It had been three weeks, though. Should be time enough.

“Working at home.” Maggie’s steel-gray eyes were sympathetic. She’d figured it out, he guessed, and that made him feel even more ridiculous.

Before his crush on Julie had dead-ended, Maggie had strong-armed him into dating one of her daughter’s single friends—a PR woman with her own firm, as driven as he was. He’d liked her a lot, but they eventually got tired of matching calendars. When he’d felt only relief, it dawned on him what had kept him so disengaged. Julie. The way he felt about her.

He liked to hit problems straight on, so he’d asked her out to dinner, aching to lay it on the line. The rub was that they worked together. Also, she was younger than him. But if she felt like he felt, they’d figure out a solution.

She’d wanted to talk to him, too, it turned out, which gave him hope. As soon as they took their first sip of the wine he’d selected in the restaurant he’d chosen for its romantic ambiance, reserving a private table, she’d told him how much his friendship meant and how grateful she was that he’d taken her on right out of law school, and she wanted him to be the first to know that she was engaged to be married.

To some bureaucrat in land management. Dull as the dirt he parceled.

Mitch should have spoken up sooner. Why had he waited? Too late then and his confession had died in his chest. He’d wished her well. Of course. He wanted her to be happy.

He’d just hoped it would be with him.

“Dinner’s in your office,” Maggie said now. “A basket of homemade tamales from the wife of the landscape guy to thank you for all the extras. I could buy a new house with the billables you give away, Mitchell. Keep it up and your pro bonos will make us pro-broke-os.”

“I see their tax statements, Maggie. It does not serve us well to break their piggy banks paying us.” His clients often needed piddly advice he could rattle off without any research. “It’s practice-building,” he said. “Gets me referrals.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. He was swamped and she knew it.

The way he saw it was you gave extra and extra came back to you. Esmeralda would call it karma. He called it good business.

Right out of school, he’d gotten tons of experience with a business-law firm. Pro-bono work with the Small Business Administration helping startups had fired his blood, so he’d opened his own firm with that specialty six years ago, hired Maggie, then grew enough to bring on Julie last year.

He was up to his eyeballs in work, but he’d begun to feel restless, as though he needed a new challenge. Craig was after him to work for the A.G.’s office. A big income dive, but it was important work. A good next step, he figured.

“Let me see if any of this is urgent.” Maggie flipped through the pink message slips. “It can all wait. Go home.”

“When I’m ready. What are you doing here so late?”

“Keeping your head above water. Ed can heat up leftovers and Rachel’s working. Soon enough I’ll have more time than I’ll know what to do with.” She sighed and he realized she was talking about the fact that her daughter started college soon.

“You need time off to drive her up there?” She’d be attending Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, just three hours away.

“Nope. Saturday’s move-in day, so we’ll drive up then.”

“So hang with her a couple of days maybe.”

“And be accused of clinging? She’d be mortified. No. We’ll be fine. I’m just…antsy, I guess.”

“You know what I’m going to say….”

“I don’t need more school.”

“A paralegal would really help. I’d pay your tuition.”

“You don’t need to do that,” she said.

“It’s a write-off. Good for my taxes.”

“You are such a softie.”

“Eh-eh-eh. I’m a ruthless shark and don’t you forget it.” He gave her a stern look. “If my clients hear otherwise, they’ll quit me cold.”

She smiled. “I’ll take off then. Just don’t stay too late.” She shut down her computer, then adjusted the small photo of her daughter as a young girl, running a thumb across the surface in a sad and tender gesture.

Damn. He hated to see her blue. She had to stay busy. That was the secret. He’d cook up an extra assignment for her. Hell.

“What’s that?” Maggie nodded at the brochure in his hand.

He looked down at it. “A foundation that offers grants. Something I’m looking into for Dale.”

She leveled her gaze. “You can’t live his life for him.”

“Just a jumpstart, that’s all. Craig call?”

“Nope. Sorry.”

“I’ll try him again.”

“Don’t stay—”

“Late, got it. Good night, Mom.”

“I don’t know why I bother. You never listen to me.” She was shaking her head as she walked out the door and he headed into his office. Maybe if he kept her busy nagging him, she wouldn’t have time to miss her daughter.