Some Came Desperate: A Love Saga (9 page)

“I didn’t try to kill you.”

“You did try to kill me, you witch!”

“Jeremy!” Jules said angrily and Jeremy quickly rose to his feet. 

“Let’s just dance,” he said impatiently.  “Let’s try and salvage something of this pitiful evening.”

Jules glanced guiltily at Simone as she rose and walked to the dance floor with Jeremy.  Simone sighed and folded her arms, wondering why in the world did she allow Jules to talk her into coming anywhere with that Jeremy Druce, especially on her birthday. 

But her thoughts were constantly interrupted as numerous attractive men, realizing that she was now alone, began making a beeline to her table asking if she wanted to dance.  Since dancing was the last thing on her mind, she declined each and every one of them.  They didn’t try again, not because they didn’t want to, but because that
don’t even go there
look in her pretty eyes made it clear to them that they’d be wasting their time.

Nick knew it too, as he watched her from afar, as young man after young man arrived at her table figuring they’d just scored them a pretty darn good catch only to leave empty-handed.  They were not her flow at all, Nick believed, because no way were those kids going to be able to handle a woman like Simone.  Her zealousness alone would scare them away.  And heaven forbid if they disagreed with her.  She’d get that fiery temper going and those poor young men would run for their lives.

Nick smiled at the prospect and broke his stare long enough to tap the ash off of his cigarette.  His legs were crossed, his mind was relaxed, and he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent an evening doing nothing but staring at some woman he’d be better off not even thinking about.  But when he looked back up, however, he had to do a lot more than just think about her.

Their eyes met, and like him, she was unable to release her stare.  For a few moments that seemed like hours, they did nothing but gaze at each other, remembering the last time they met, when she told him to take a hike and he sped away from her.  How he’d told her no.

It was Nick who broke the stare as he doused out his cigarette.  Then he stood and walked over to her table.

“Remember me?” he said with the warmest of smiles, his sweet lips parting off into an adorable line of such luscious white teeth.  Simone looked at his large frame, his jeans and turtleneck, and then at that smile.

“Yes,” she said, a little later than she had planned, and he motioned if it was all right for him to sit down.  When she didn’t object, he sat down. 

“Well, Miss Simone,” he said as he crossed his long legs and sat upright, “how have you been keeping yourself?”

“I’ve been okay,” she said.  “And you?”

Nick didn’t respond.  He was too concerned by what he was seeing.  She’d been a long way from okay, he thought, as he looked deep into her eyes.  Up close they weren’t as intense as he had thought, but looked stunned, tired, almost as if they barely had the strength to open.  Without even asking, he knew why. 

“Any word on your sister?” he asked and her expression immediately changed, as if that old burden was upon her once again.

“No,” she said, shaking her head.  “I tried to get custody again, or at least visitation rights, but I was denied.  Again.”  She looked at him with a sincerity that nearly broke his heart.

“Who was your attorney?”

“I didn’t have one.  Nobody would take my case.”

Nick’s heart dropped.  “So you handled it yourself?” he asked.  When she nodded that it was so, he felt like crap.  For some reason he always thought she’d just drop it after he turned her down, that she’d understand how futile her crusade really was.  But she didn’t think about dropping it, she had, in fact, petitioned the court again.  The idea of her trying to maneuver through the mumbo jumbo of the legal system hurt him, because he should have been helping her whether it was a good case or not, and he knew it. 

He pulled out a notepad and pen and exhaled.  “What’s her name?” he asked her.

Simone looked at his pad and pen and then looked at him.  “What’s whose name?”

“Your sister?”

“My. . . You mean you’re. . . I mean . . . You mean you’re going to take the case?  You’re going to try and get Shay back for me?”

When Nick said yes, that was all it took.  A smile that melted his heart crossed her pretty face and she leapt from her chair and threw her arms around him, her small body slamming so hard into his that he had no choice but to hold her too.  She was practically in his lap as he held her, her feet off the ground and her knees in the seat between his legs. 

It started out as nothing more than a thank-you hug for Simone, an innocent gesture that she felt he richly deserved.  But now it was something different.  Something strong, intense, and different.  She felt his arms move around her waist, and they felt good to her.  And when he pulled her closer against him, that felt good too.  Better than good.  It felt wonderful to her.  She even closed her eyes as he held her, as every fiber in her body seemed to be contracting in a kind of exhilarating comfort. No one had ever held her like this before, where she felt protected and warm and finally in somebody’s loving care.  She wanted to cry.  That was why she let him pull her closer against him.  She’d never, not ever, felt like this before.

Nick was feeling it too as he held her, and although he tried his best to accept her hug for the sweet little gesture it undoubtedly was and keep his hands off of her, he couldn’t do it.  Her body felt too good against his, as if it fit perfectly in his arms, and they found themselves holding onto each other far longer than either intended.  But it was Nick, who knew better than to be holding this woman the way he was, who relaxed his hold on her just enough for her to get the message.  And they finally parted.

Both seemed shaken by the remarkable sparks that flew between them, especially Simone, who couldn’t begin to explain how glorious she felt.  And it wasn’t just because he was going to help her get Shay back, which meant the world to her, but also, in an unexpected way, she felt like she was getting something too.  She sat back down in her rightful place at the table and could hardly take her eyes off of Nick.  She may have made a big fool of herself tonight, she thought, but she didn’t even care.  It felt good, and it felt right, and if it never went any further than it went tonight, she’d still be grateful.

Nick may have been equally touched by the intensity of their attraction, but he was far more astute than Simone at not showing it.  He, instead, began questioning her about Shay, and writing down everything she was telling him, deciding to focus all of his attention on the task at hand.  Simone, however, couldn’t stop staring at him, at that big, beautiful man she now had on her side.  All her life she was fighting alone, praying and fighting and losing every battle.  She knew it was her fault, she knew she was somehow going about it the wrong way, but she didn’t know a better way. 

Now, she thought, as she watched him work, God had sent her somebody to fight with her.  And not just any old body, but Nick Perry himself, the lawyer of lawyers, according to a business magazine she was reading a few weeks after she first met him.  She remembered feeling warm inside when she saw his picture on the cover of a magazine in her doctor’s office.  He was standing in front of his law firm with his large arms folded and his beautiful smile on grand display.  She remembered thinking how his wife must be very proud to have someone like him, until she read that, to her amazement, he wasn’t married and never had been.  And her warm feeling turned into regret.  He seemed to have liked her once, she thought.  What could have been if she had only been able to handle it.

“Rescue me, Simone!” Jules yelled playfully as she hurried to the table, with Jeremy hurrying behind her.  “He wants another dance.”

“Another dance?” Simone said with a smile, not even Jeremy could knock that smile off of her face tonight.  “Y’all been out on that floor for a long time.”

“I know,” Jules said as she sat down.  “It was great.”

Jeremy sat down too, just as exhausted as Jules.  “I’m getting old, y’all,” he said.  Then he looked at Nick.  “I know you,” he said.

Simone cleared her throat.  She knew just saying his name was going to make her giddy.  “Jules, Jeremy, I want y’all to meet Nicholas Perry.  He’s my lawyer.”

“That’s right!” Jeremy said, extending his hand to Nick.  “I knew I knew you.  You filed a couple of malpractice suits against Bay General and a few of my friends got canned bad, man.  You won big time.”

“Bay General?  Doctor?”

“Surgeon,” Jules said proudly. 

“I saw you operate in court,” Jeremy said.  “You’ve got skills my friend.”

“But I’m sure you weren’t impressed.”

“You lawyers are gonna be the death of doctors yet.  All these frivolous law suits.”

“One of those Bay General ‘doctors’ removed the wrong limb from one of my clients.  Her right leg, to be precise.  Another one of those ‘doctors’ gave the wrong anesthetic to one of his patients and turned a fine young woman into a quadriplegic.  I doubt seriously if the victims would call those lawsuits frivolous.”

“So you’re Simone’s attorney?” Jules asked to change the subject, sensing a rise in temperature at the table. 

“Yes,” Simone said smilingly.  “He’s going to help me get Shay back.”

“Not again!” Jeremy leaned back and bellowed.  “You’re still on that kick?”

“It’s not a kick, Jeremy, okay?” Simone said.  Then she looked at Nick, refusing to let Jeremy rain on her parade.  “Jules is my sister, Mr. Perry.  My oldest sister.”

Great looking sister, Nick thought, as he shook her hand.  “Nice to meet you, Jules.”

“Isn’t she pretty?” Simone asked and Jeremy immediately looked at Nick.  But it was Jules who quickly interceded.

“Don’t put that man on the spot like that, Simone,” she said with a smile and Nick smiled too.

“She’s very pretty, Simone,” Nick said.

“Isn’t Simone pretty?” Jules asked smilingly as she grabbed her sister’s small shoulders and leaned her against her.  Jeremy, however, laughed.

“In her dreams,” he said.

“Anyway,” Jules said, to forestall any Jeremy-Simone confrontation, “I think it’s wonderful that an attorney of your caliber would represent my sister.  Thank-you, Mr. Perry.”

“She’s a very persistent lady,” Nick said.  Simone heard this and beamed.  Jeremy, however, chuckled.

“Yeah, she’s persistent all right,” he said.  “A persistent pain in the—”

“As I was saying,” Jules said, “I’m very glad to hear that she finally has some representation.  I told her countless times not to keep worrying those Georgia courts with petitions her GED-educated behind doesn’t even know how to complete.”

Simone was a little stunned by Jules putdown, especially since Jules didn’t even seem to realize she had put her down, but Nick noticed it. 

“I think she did fine,” he said.  “Better than many lawyers could have done.”

Jules seemed surprised by such praise and so was Simone.  Simone, in fact, felt like walking on air.  In all of her twenty-three years on the face of this earth she’d never known anybody, let alone some big shot lawyer like Nick Perry, praise her in any way.  Jules, yes, always received praises, and deservedly so, in Simone’s eyes.  But for Simone it had always been criticisms and put downs and cynicisms that made her sometimes wonder herself if there was something about her that just rubbed people wrong.  Even her mother once told her that she was like “the Christmas gift you give to somebody else.”  She was only ten at the time, and her mother didn’t explain what that meant exactly, but even then Simone knew it didn’t mean anything good.

“Today is her birthday, you know,” Jules said, sensing something more than your standard lawyer-client relationship between her sister and the very attractive Mr. Perry.  He appeared much older than Simone, which concerned her, but then again, she thought, maybe that was what somebody like Simone needed.