The Best Man (19 page)

“I’m concerned about our billable hours,” Joel’s tone was firm as he sat in the chair across from Luke. “I think we should focus on building our list of paying clients.”

“I agree,” Kate said. She saw the surprise on both their faces and shrugged. “My father devoted everything to this firm. I don’t want his efforts to go to waste.”

Luke studied Kate’s expression for long seconds. “In other words, if he loved this firm enough to turn his back on his personal life, you want to make the firm count for something since it’s all you have left of your father?”

Kate’s face warmed, but she refused to get into her personal issues. Even with Luke. For one thing, Joel didn’t need in on her personal thoughts...and neither did Luke if she wanted any shred of independence. She cleared her throat.“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“And the volunteer work?”

Kate angled her chin high. “Court isn’t in session on weekends.”

“You can still rack up billable hours.” Joel muttered.

“What about the pro bono hours at the Center?” Luke arched a brow as he studied Joel.

“She needs to stop that,” Joel’s temper warmed in his tone. He shrugged and met Luke’s questioning gaze. “I mean, she almost got herself killed by working there, didn’t she?”

Luke rested his elbows on the arms of the chair. “I’ve been giving this situation some thought.” He glanced at Joel, and then let his gaze settle on Kate. “I think all need to volunteer a set number of hours each month.”

“Wait—”

Luke held up a finger. “You choose where,” he said staring at Joel, “but I think Kate’s hit on a good thing by initiating this volunteer work.”

“But we need the income from billable clients.”

“We don’t need to risk losing touch with what’s important.” Luke’s glance settled on Kate. “We need personal priorities and we need to act on them.” He straightened, appearing taller in the chair. “I don’t know about you,” his glance touched on Joel before he looked back at Kate. “But I don’t want to be like your father. No offense, but I want a family. I want them to feel they are important in my life.”

I want a family!

Luke’s words haunted Kate the rest of the day and into evening as she sat counseling her latest client at the Crisis Center. Luke’s words had put her unspoken dreams into focus. His four little words defined the yearning existing inside her for as long as she could remember.

Shadows from the partially lit dining room lured her thoughts to the past. Barely discernible memories of images took her back to childhood. She remembered her mother’s tears in private and her determined effort to smile in the face of adversity.

Suddenly, it all became clear to Kate. Sitting here in a folding metal chair across the table from a woman who’d lost everything familiar and still struggled, Kate realized she finally understood. In this woman’s eyes, she recognized the same tentative hope she remembered in her mother’s eyes.

After all this time, Kate finally understood how hard her mother had struggled to keep life normal. New respect for her mother filled her heart and nearly brought her to tears. Her mother wanted a family. When her husband walked away her and her baby, she held her head high and made the best life she could for her child.

Her breath trembling, Kate recalled the love her mother had shown her. And sitting here, across the table from a woman who suffered even more and still had hope, Kate realized her mother’s determination had given her the courage to dream.

Kate had longed for a family as long as she could remember. But she’d focused on gaining the love of the wrong parent to make that dream come true. Her mother was the one that valued family, not her absentee father. During her studies, she’d lain careful plans to study law and make her mark in the same field as her father to gain his attention.

How had she been so wrong? How had she missed all her mother sacrificed to give her a home and focused on the father that hadn’t cared any more than her abused client’s husband cared.

Still, she hadn’t been totally wrong. She’d loved her mother with her whole heart and shared her life with her. After her mother died, she’d finally made contact with her father. It hadn’t been the storybook ending of her dreams, but the fact that her father left his partnership in the firm to her meant he had cared for her.

She would have to build on that positive thought. Luke had been right all along. She couldn’t desert her father’s firm. If his life’s work became worthless, then all the time he’d spent away from her counted for nothing. She would not reduce her life, her achievements, to nothing.

Being independent meant having the freedom to make her own decisions. Well, she had that choice, now. She wanted the make a success of her father’s law firm and have a life of her own.

Luke’s words rang in her ears.
I want a family. I want them to know they count in my life.

Chills raced down Kate’s spine. She couldn’t have voiced her own desires better. Luke’s simple words filled her heart with yearning. She longed to feel his arms around her again, and feel the connection to him emotionally and physically. Would he believe she loved him or would he think she’d transferred her misplaced emotions from her father to him?

How could she show him she’d changed? How could she prove to Luke that she understood what he stood for and admired him, first as a friend and then as...

She’d made mistakes. Luck turned against her when Joel slipped into her father’s firm and claimed the last partnership he planned to offer. Or, had luck been with her? Her father’s lack of attention shut out her feelings, time and again. But that pain hadn’t deterred her from her wish for a family.

Luke’s words made her see things clearly for the first time. Her father lacked the emotions necessary to make him part of a loving family. He donated his DNA, but that was the extent of his emotional involvement in her life.

Joel shared many of her father’s traits. He’d made it clear he didn’t want children. If she’d been stronger and independent minded back then, she could have ended the relationship without wasting six years of her life. Joel wanted prestige and wealth, at the expense of personal happiness.

But Luke…was different.

Luke’s caring was apparent. He helped the less fortunate, not just volunteering here at the Crisis Center, but everyday. He’d helped Joel. She could see his influence, now that the scales had fallen from her eyes. Luke could have shunned Joel’s claims of friendship from university days…but he hadn’t said a word. Then Joel wormed his way into her father’s graces.

Kate sighed at thoughts of what might have been. Luke was strong, determined, a leader. The kind of man a woman could count on. He’d even come to search for her after the tsunami. Learning of his actions warmed her heart. He hadn’t found her, but he had cared enough to search for her.

The fact that he turned her into a mass of hormones when he looked at her didn’t hurt, either. That fact was evident when here she was, taking notes about a woman’s abusive husband, yet she images of Luke in his bed made her feel warm.

“Kate?”

Startled, she looked up to see Luke standing beside the table, smiling down at her. “Oh, hi. I didn’t see you come in.”

“Your thoughts  must be a million miles away. I called you three times.”

“No, just concentrating on notes.” Kate blinked away the image of his naked chest showing above a draped sheet and looked around in confusion. “I was—”

“Working on your client’s defense, I know,” Luke aimed a thumb over his shoulder. “She told me you needed some information she had in her room.”

“I do?” Heat rushed to her face at hearing her admission. She blinked, staring around the room. Nothing had changed in the shadow-filled room, except Luke’s presence. But suddenly, she felt transported to a place that made her want to smile.

Did she have the courage to grab for her dream? Did she dare risk emotional involvement with Luke? Who was she kidding? She lost that battle the night she ended up in his bed. “Sorry, I guess I was lost—”

“How about coffee, later?” Luke’s grin implied that his words offered more than caffeine treats after they finished their volunteer work.

Kate questioned her urge to agree. Being with Luke made her lose sight of her goal, but then she bit back a snicker. Who needed independence when being with Luke made her insides feel soft as marshmallows?

“Maybe—”

“Ms. Sommers?” The director of the Center stood at the door, watching them. “May I have a word?”

“Of course,” Kate responded, giving Luke an apologetic smile she followed the director to her office.

***

“I’ll get right to the point, Ms. Sommers.” The director settled in the chair behind a desk stacked with numerous files. “Please don’t misunderstand. We’re grateful for all the time you’ve allotted to our residents here, but we’ve decided to look for a more high profile attorney.”

“Sorry?” Kate couldn’t believe her ears. The women in this shelter needed legal assistance. Any help they could get. “I…don’t understand.”

“I’m afraid this is going to sound bad,” the director said as she shuffled through the files. “And don’t think for a minute that we don’t appreciate all you’ve done for the Center over the past few weeks, but…” She pulled a file from the bottom of the stack and scanned the contents. “Well, according to this sign-in sheet, you put in as many hours as many of our paid employees.”

“And that’s a problem?”

“Ms. Sommers, you have given us time and energy. We are grateful. But we need big name volunteers to get our needs noticed by the public.”

The tight band around Kate’s chest squeezed air from her lungs. “Let me get this straight. You want me to quit volunteering…so you can attract a big name attorney to your cause?”

The director nodded. “I’m sure you don’t see the point, but believe me, it’s important. We need funds, Ms. Sommers. Money to keep this place operating. We need to expand and, we, the board and I, think the best way to get the needed funds is to attract big name volunteers.”

“I’ve won several cases in court for your residents.”

The director nodded. “Even with the number of hours you volunteer, which we are grateful for, we feel we need to make room for others to offer their aid.”

Kate walked out of the Crisis Center in a daze. She wound never have expected her efforts on behalf of the women in this shelter of being rejected.

Rejected!

The ring of that word sent her nerves on edge. She had been on the receiving end of rejection all her life. Her deepest emotions involved pain caused by the number of rejections in her life.

And this was just one more.

She’d been fired...from her volunteer position.
Why
? She couldn’t imagine the Center refusing free help. But that’s what the director had said.

Her services were no longer necessary. Kate blinked as she put her key in the car door. Those were almost the same words her father had used the day he had told her he was naming her husband-to-be as his new legal partner.

Her services were no longer necessary!

Of course, her father’s words had hurt more than the director’s had. In one tidy sentence, he ended her efforts to gain his attention. She had dedicated years to the study of law, which she loved, in hopes that she could work with the father she had never known.

Now, rejection from the Center’s director so fresh in her mind, Kate relived that painful time with her father, all over again.

A knock at the driver’s side window jerked her attention back to the present. She was sitting in a dark car, in a deserted parking lot, near a shelter that could attract men of violence. Was she losing her mind?

Heart hammering in her chest, Kate stared out the glass. She finally regained the ability to breathe when she recognized Luke’s face on the other side of the door. Rolling the window down, she offered him a weak smile. “Hey!”

“What do you mean, sitting out here in the dark?” Luke leaned down, peered intently at her, and then frowned. “You’re white as a sheet. Are you okay?”

Kate swallowed and sat rigid against the back of the seat. “Just tired. I think I’ll pass on the invite to coffee, if you don’t mind. See you tomorrow.”

Luke studied her for long seconds, his quick wit obvious as he took in every feature of her face. “You’re sure you’re Okay?”

Kate nodded. Once again, training at her mother’s knee was driving her to put on a good face. “Working with these clients is draining, you know.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” doubt echoed in Luke’s voice. He gave her one last intent stare and stepped away from the car. “Call if you need me.”

***

Call if you need me.

Luke cursed his actions, calling himself every name in the book, as he drove home. He could tell Kate was stressed over something. Yet he’d let her go with the reminder to call if she needed anything.

He knew her well enough by now to realize she wouldn’t call. Kate was determined to do things for herself, even when she needed help. She gave new meaning to the word independence. She had been that way from the first day she started at the firm.