Defender

“Okay, when you get philosophical, I know it’s past my bedtime,” Sari teased.

Mandy hugged her one last time. “You’re a sweet child. Go to bed. Sleep well.”

“You, too.” She went to the doorway and paused. She turned. “Thanks.”

“What for?”

“Caring about me and Merrie,” Sari said gently. “Nobody else has, since Mama died.”

“It’s because I care that I sometimes say things you don’t want to hear, my darling.”

Sari smiled. “I know.” She turned and left the room.

* * *

Mandy, older and wiser, saw what Sari and Paul really felt for each other, and she worried at the possible consequences if that tsunami of emotion ever turned loose in them.

She went back to her chores, closing the kitchen up for the night.

TWO (#ulink_8ca37913-9389-54a2-aa2f-9c6a486a88fb)

When Isabel walked past Paul’s bedroom after she called Nancy, she noticed his door was closed and the lights were off.

She went into her own room, climbed into bed and extinguished the single bedroom lamp in the room.

She recalled what Mandy had said, about the dangers of getting too close to him, with sadness. Yes, of course, her father would fire him if anything indiscreet came to light. She also recalled the pain she felt when the older woman spoke of Paul going on dates with other women.

He didn’t take them to bed, that much was clear. But it also indicated that he wasn’t ready to get serious about a woman, that he wasn’t interested in marriage and kids. And Isabel was. She’d gladly have given up college to end up in Paul’s arms with a baby of her own.

But that seemed more unlikely by the day. She was living in pipe dreams. Paul was content to have her at arm’s length. He didn’t want her. At least, he didn’t want her the way she wanted him. She cared more for him than she’d ever cared for anyone, except her mother and sister.

As Paul liked to remind her, though, she hadn’t been out in the world long enough to know what she really wanted. That amused her. He seemed to think she was still the seventeen-year-old he’d taken to school every day in the limo. She was twenty-one, almost twenty-two now. She’d graduate from college in a few months. That made her, in the eyes of the world, an adult. Not to Paul, though. Never to Paul.

She had to start thinking about what she was going to do with her life after college. Law had always fascinated her. She’d been hanging around the courthouse after school, grilling one of District Attorney Blake Kemp’s assistant DAs about what it was like to practice in a courtroom. Glory Ramirez was happy to talk to her, filling her head with thoughts of working in the DA’s office.

“Blake knows how much time you spend here, on my lunch hour and after work,” Glory teased.

“Oh, no,” Sari began.

Glory held up a hand. “He doesn’t mind. There aren’t that many people blazing paths up the street to the courthouse to solicit work in the DA’s office.” She sobered. “It’s hard work, Sari, with long hours. Sometimes defendants’ families target us, because they think we’ve been unfair. Sometimes the defendants themselves try to attack us when they get out. Those instances are rare, but they do happen. Family life is hard.” She smiled gently. “I’m qualified to know that, because my husband and I have a son who’s almost four years old. Rodrigo still works for the DEA and I’m at the courthouse all hours. Sometimes we have to have the Pendletons babysit.” The Pendletons were Glory’s adoptive family. Jason’s father had been Glory, and Gracie’s, guardian.

“I don’t really think they mind,” Sari teased, because it was well-known that although Jason and Gracie Pendleton had a son and daughter of their own now, they still loved to watch their nephew. All the kids had enough toys to stock a nursery.

“Of course not,” Glory laughed. “But I’m still missing out on time with my family to do this job. I love it,” she added gently. “It’s a special thing, to help keep people safe, to make sure people who do terrible things are punished and off the streets. That’s why I do it.”

“I…would do it for that reason, as well,” Sari said, not adding that her terror of a father was one of her own motivations. He was the sort of person who should have been sitting in a jail cell, but never would, because of his wealth. “Justice shouldn’t be dealt according to who has money and who hasn’t,” she added absently.

Glory, who had some idea of Darwin Grayling’s illegal dealings, only nodded her head.

“Anyway, what about those courses you mentioned?” she asked, bringing Glory back to the present.

Glory laughed. “Okay. Here’s what you need to consider in law school…”

* * *

Sari was full of fire for the fall semester in law school, after she got her undergraduate degree. Her cumulative grades assured that she would graduate, the finals from each class notwithstanding. She already had a graduate school picked out. Law school in San Antonio.

“You’ll have to drive me, of course,” Sari told Paul with a sigh when she outlined the courses Glory had told her about. “There’s no way Daddy will ever let me drive myself. I don’t even have a driver’s license.”

He scowled. “Surely not.”

She shrugged. “He holds the purse strings, you know. Either I do it his way or I don’t do it,” she said with the complacency of a woman who’d lived such a sheltered life. “So I do it.”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to break out?” he asked suddenly.

She grinned at him across a plate of cookies, which they were sharing with cups of coffee at the small kitchen table. “You offering to help me?” she teased. “Got a helicopter and a couple of guys wearing ninja suits?”

He chuckled. “Not quite. I used to know a couple of guys like that, though, in the old days.”

“Oh, please,” she said, munching a cookie. “You aren’t old enough to be remembering ‘the old days.’”

His eyebrows rose. “You need glasses, kid. I’ve got gray hair already.”

She eyed him. He was so gorgeous. Black wavy hair, deep-set warm brown eyes, high cheekbones, chiseled mouth; he was any woman’s dream guy. “Gray hair, my left elbow.”

“No kidding. Right here.” He indicated a spot at his temple.

“Oh, that one. Sure. You’re old, all right. You’ve got one whole gray hair.”

He grinned, as she’d expected him to. “Well, maybe a few more than that. I’m like my grandfather. His hair never turned gray. He had a few silver hairs when he died, at the age of eighty.”

“Do you look like him?” she asked, sipping coffee.

“No. I look like my grandmother. Everybody else was Italian. She was tiny and Greek and she had a mouth like a mob boss.” He chuckled. “Do something wrong, and that gnarled little hand came out of nowhere to grab your ear.” He made a face.

“So that’s why your ears are so big,” she mused, looking at them.

“Hey, I was never that bad,” he argued. He glowered at her. “And my ears aren’t that big.”

“If you say so,” she said, hiding the gleam in her eyes.

“You little termagant,” he said, exasperated.

“Where do you get all those big words?” she asked.

“College.”

“Really? You never told me you went to college.”