the man who’d laughed with her over drinks just weeks before.
And of the strong, ethical man who was attempting to stand against the lies and disasters plaguing his life.
A man she had no business thinking about.
THE PILE OF MAIL on her desk on Tuesday was twice as thick as usual, because she hadn’t yet attended to Monday’s stack. Going through the usual briefs, invitations and junk that just took up space and killed trees, she was surprised by a legal-size envelope toward the bottom of the pile.
For two reasons. The return address was Eaton James’s. And there was something little and hard inside.
Staring at the envelope gave her an eerie feeling, raising all of the dark emotions her client’s death had evoked several weeks before. How could Eaton James have sent her anything?
It didn’t take long to find out.
The letter had been sent from James’s attorney—a part of the distribution of his estate that no one but James and his attorney had known about. Other than the predated letter from James, telling her this, the only thing inside was a small key. And a post-office-box number.
THE BOX WAS IN La Jolla, not far from the address Blake Ramsden had given her. Juliet didn’t get out that way often. She thought about driving around to see if she could find his place—just to see it.
And because she couldn’t afford anything that was going to tie her to the man any more closely than she’d already been tied, she didn’t.
It took her several minutes and a couple of conversations centered on the signed and notarized letter in her hand, but Juliet finally persuaded a supervisor at the post office to tell her who was registered to the box number and key she held. The answer sent chills down her spine.
The box had two registered users. Eaton James and Walter Ramsden. And inside were several recent bank statements from a bank account in the Cayman Islands.
The name on the account was Blake Ramsden.
“WE’VE GOT TROUBLE.” On her cell phone in the post-office parking lot, Juliet used every calming technique she’d ever learned. The bright sun, which usually cheered Juliet, was giving her a headache.
If he was guilty, she wasn’t going to be able to save him. And she couldn’t fathom the alternative.
“Juliet? What’s up?”
She’d found Blake in his office. He sounded preoccupied.
“I’d like to talk to you in person. Can we meet someplace?”
In the end, she agreed to wait for him in La Jolla, on a stretch of private beach not far from his home. As soon as he’d figured out that the news she had was not good, he’d opted for the ocean as a meeting place.
Juliet wasn’t surprised. She’d made all of her toughest decisions by the ocean. Sitting on a beach late one night, letting the waves wash up around her legs, she’d decided to keep the baby she carried.
And not to tell the baby’s father that he’d made a child.
She found the parking alcove and picnic table just as he’d described. She could drive right up. Take two steps to the table. No reason to remove her pumps and hose to walk in the sand. But she did, anyway. She couldn’t pass up the feel of the sand between her toes and the scratching along the bottom of her feet.
Had Blake lied to her?
Juliet had left the jacket to her violet spring suit in the BMW, but it wasn’t long in the bright sun before she was sweating anyway. Not that she cared.
Her ability to judge character had always been one of her strongest suits and was a significant factor in the success of her career.
Blake wouldn’t lie to her. Or anyone. He was honest to a fault. If anything, his propensity to tell the truth proved the old adage that too much of anything was a bad thing.
Or was she just blinded by memories of sand and moonlight and the most incredible mind and voice and hands? And mouth.
She couldn’t forget that mouth. It had done things to her body, aroused responses inside her, that she hadn’t known were possible.
Responses she hadn’t felt since that night.
And if he hadn’t lied? What then? There was no way she was going to be able to fight a bank statement bearing her client’s name. Some things really were black and white.
But there had to be some explanation. Blake would be able to clear this up. She just had to wait for him to get there.
Down at the water’s edge, she waited for the shock to come as the cold water lapped at her toes. Seagulls skimmed the edge of the ocean looking for prey.
What had happened to the days when being on the beach meant looking for shells and dreaming of sailing out to sea with a dashing captain? When had she lost those days, those childish dreams? At thirteen? On the move to Maple Grove? During law school? When she’d won her first case?
“I expected to find you back here.” She hadn’t heard Blake’s steps in the sand.
She didn’t turn. Not yet. She hadn’t found the answers, the solid place to stand, she’d been looking for.
“I couldn’t get this close and not feel the water,” she told him, knowing he’d understand.
They’d discovered the night they met that they were ocean soul mates.
“Do you get to the ocean often?”
She looked over at him, squinting. “Every day. I live in a cottage on a private strip of Mission Beach.”
His smile was small but genuine as he glanced down at her through his dark sunglasses.
“If I’d had to guess, I’d have had you living on the beach.”
She’d left her sunglasses in the car. She needed to see the colors of the sky and the ocean and the golden glow of the sun on the beach in all its bright splendor.
“Do you own the place?”
It wasn’t really a question for a client to ask his lawyer. But perhaps it was one that an old lover might ask?
Or, probably more accurately, it was one that might allow him to avoid the reason they were there together in the first place. It would give him a moment to soak up a bit of the ocean’s healing energy.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s not big, just three bedrooms, but I love it.”
He’d removed his shoes, too, and rolled up the cuffs of his navy slacks and the sleeves of his white dress shirt.
“How long have you been there?”
“Four years.” Just before Mary Jane had started at the first of a couple of private schools for gifted children. While academically they’d challenged her a bit more than her current situation, Juliet hadn’t been happy about the rigid exclusivity. They were reputedly good schools but not the very best. Unfortunately the best had waiting lists ten years long.
“You live alone?”
They weren’t here to talk about her. They were here to establish whether or not Blake Ramsden had lied to her, or to find the miracle that would explain the evidence sitting back in her car.
“My sister lives with me.” She told him the truth, knowing that it wasn’t the way he’d have presented the truth given the same circumstances. He’d have mentioned everyone who lived in his house.
Juliet tried hard to ignore the pressure in her stomach.
“Is she a lawyer, too?”
Hands in the pockets of his slacks, he started to walk slowly along the water’s edge and she fell in beside him. The mail in her car was going nowhere. The facts would be the same later