Confessions Bundle. Jo Leigh

small hand and patted his. “Good night.”

      Hands on the table in front of him, Blake said, “Good night, sweetheart.”

      Juliet had a feeling he’d have given his life for a hug, and felt her heart break a little bit more when he didn’t push the little girl.

      HE WAS WAITING alone in the kitchen when she returned from the bedroom.

      “I’m so, so—”

      “Don’t.” He held Freedom’s leash. “I don’t want to hear it. I just stayed to let you know I intend to see her as much as possible over the next couple of weeks.”

      There was no softness in his voice, and no warmth in the eyes staring back at her. Cold and withdrawn now that Mary Jane was gone, Blake was more of a stranger than he’d been the moment she’d first met him nine years before.

      “As long as it’s okay with her, it’s fine with me.”

      “You don’t really have much choice in the matter. You owe me eight years and I’m not aware of any way you’ll ever be able to pay that back.”

      She could feel the tears filling her eyes again and could do nothing to stop them. She didn’t blame him for his anger and wouldn’t blame him if he never spoke a civil word to her again.

      “If you’re ever ready to listen, I’m here and will tell you anything you want to know.”

      He tapped his leg for Freedom. Put the dog on his leash.

      “Would you like me to drive you to your car?”

      His eyes were hard as he glanced over at her. “I’ll walk,” he said. “I need the air.”

      And being in the same car with her would be far too confining, she read between the lines.

      He opened the back door and was halfway through it before she spoke.

      “Blake?”

      He turned.

      “Do you want to find a new attorney?”

      He frowned, gave a derisive sigh. “There’s hardly time, is there?”

      Probably not. The paper trail was too extensive for anyone to have time to come in cold and get up to speed.

      “I’ll do my best.”

      He nodded. Walked out. And closed the door behind him with obvious finality.

      OVER THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, Juliet saw Blake but spoke to him only briefly, to make arrangements for his visits with his daughter and to update him regarding his case. She tried a couple of times to speak with him about the past—and a future. Each time, he reminded her that he was her client and any kind of personal interaction between them would be unethical.

      They both knew his words were more a slap in the face than a demonstration of concern over legal ethics. While they certainly couldn’t embark on a relationship while she was representing him, they’d already had some highly personal conversations.

      Mary Jane was still claiming she didn’t want a father, but after her first dinner with Blake—a dinner she almost backed out of—she agreed to see him every time he asked. She didn’t say much to Juliet about what they did or where they went, or even what they talked about. For the first time, her daughter wasn’t sharing everything with her.

      Juliet tried to talk with Mary Jane about her growing feelings for her father, whatever those feelings were, wanting her to know that she supported them, but Mary Jane wouldn’t discuss Blake with her. Nor did she seem to want to talk about Blake’s upcoming trial.

      Until the day the trial began.

      “You’re not wearing red,” Mary Jane said that morning, her voice almost accusing as Juliet came into the kitchen.

      “It’s not my turn yet, you know that,” she said, pouring herself a second cup of coffee. She’d taken the first one into her bathroom with her while she got ready for a day she was dreading.

      Marcie had come into the bathroom and talked with her while she put on her makeup and did her hair, but, not feeling well, she’d gone back to bed for another half hour rather than follow Juliet out to the kitchen.

      “But this case is special. You should wear your power suit every day.”

      If she’d had more than one red suit, she would have changed. “I can’t wear the same suit every day of the trial,” she told the little girl. “Besides, it loses effectiveness if you wear it all the time.”

      Mary Jane dug into her bowl of cereal, spilling some of it over the side of the bowl onto the table. “You’ll wear it the first day it’s your turn, though, right?”

      “Right.”

      “And you’re going to win.”

      “I’ll do my best.” She couldn’t give the girl the promise she wanted.

      Eight years of love and trust had seen them through this crisis with Blake. Neither of them had ever mentioned Mary Jane’s mistaken assumption that Juliet had lied to her. But she couldn’t risk having Mary Jane accuse her of lying a second time.

      JURY SELECTION TOOK ten days. The prosecution only took four to present enough evidence to put Blake away for life. Much of it was circumstantial. The bank account was not.

      Juliet had a few tricks up her sleeve, but even with those, things didn’t look good for Blake.

      “We’re up first thing in the morning,” she told him as they left the courtroom the second Wednesday in August. Dressed in a navy suit and sedate navy and cream tie, Blake walked beside her out of the building and toward her car.

      It was the first time he hadn’t taken his leave of her at the first opportunity.

      “For what it’s worth,” he said, hands in his pockets, “I have complete faith that you’ll do the best job that can be done. I won’t blame you if things don’t go well.”

      He blamed her for robbing him of his daughter, but she got full marks for her legal ability.

      Juliet wondered if that said something about her priorities. She hoped to God it didn’t, and was scared to death it did.

      SHE ASKED HIM to go for drinks, to talk over the questions she’d be asking him on the stand the next morning. He figured he already knew the drill. They’d been discussing the case for months. But for some reason, he agreed anyway.

      Probably because Mary Jane was out with Marcie that evening and Blake didn’t want to go home to a house empty of her sweet voice. He’d had her for dinner almost every night since the day he’d met her. She wouldn’t let him get too close, wouldn’t discuss her feelings and interrupted him or pretended not to hear any time he tried to tell her how he felt. But she was friendly and generous with her thoughts on any number of topics. And she had hundreds of questions. Blake attempted to answer every one of them. He tried to be patient, although the days were passing far too quickly—days that might be his only chance to establish a relationship with the daughter he’d lost.

      Juliet had been completely generous with the little girl’s time; he had to hand her that.

      Or not. So she’d given him a couple dozen nights. She’d taken eight years.

      He’d have preferred to meet Juliet downtown, some bar with a lot of people and enough noise to make conversation just difficult enough to keep the meeting short. They ended up at their usual bar out in Mission Beach, but only because Blake wanted to stop in and see Mary Jane before she went to bed.

      As soon as Lucy had served them, commenting on their absence in the past weeks, Juliet got right to the point, outlining the questions she’d be asking—about his time abroad, his relationship with his father, certain business dealings that revealed him as a man to whom integrity came first. She didn’t acknowledge the possibility