Shattered Read Free Page B

I don't know, you might be running late." His voice dripped sarcasm.
    In point of fact, she had called in and spoken to one of her fellow research assistants, Emily Jantzen, who had promised to grab the needed material from her desk and hurry over to courtroom twelve to cover for her. She wondered what had happened to Jantzen. Something clearly had.
    Whatever, there was no way she was getting Jantzen into trouble on her behalf.
    "I'm sorry," she said again.
    Scott snorted. "You missed court. We don't do that here in the DA's office. That's a big no-no with us." He said it as if he were talking to a slightly stupid two-year-old. "Judges don't like it when we look unprepared. I don't like it. It's un- pro -fessional. You ever heard that word before?"
    God, she hated to grovel to him. "It won't happen again."
    He gave her a level look, and she knew she was safe. From being fired, at least. Well, she hadn't really thought he meant it.
    "It better not. You probably don't know it, having just come down from Mount Olympus like you have, but this here is called a job because we work. From eight a.m. on the dot until whatever time the work is finished. Pretty much six days a week. No excuses accepted. Got that?"
    "Yes."
    "We have to have this talk again, and you'll be out on your ass before the first wheedling little apology gets all the way out of your mouth. Am I making myself clear?"
    It was all she could do not to shoot him the bird and turn on her heel. "Yes."
    "Great." The phone on his desk began to ring. He picked it up, said, "Yeah. On my way," into it, and hung up again, all without taking his eyes off her. "I don't have the time or the patience to follow you around and make sure you're doing what you're supposed to be doing when you're supposed to be doing it, and I can't spare anyone else to babysit you, either. Until further notice, you're down in the basement sorting through the cold cases. When you get down there, you can send Gemmel up here to take your place. She at least has some kind of work ethic."
    That stung. "Scott . . ."
    He was already shrugging into his light gray jacket and coming around his desk, heading for the door. Since everyone in the office called one another by their last names, that slip of the tongue had his eyes colliding with hers and holding them for a pregnant instant.
    "Baby, you're that close"--he pinched together his thumb and forefinger so that there was maybe half an inch of air between them--"to being out of a job, so I'd watch myself if I were you. I didn't want to hire you in the first place. The only reason I did was because of your mom."
    The thought of mentioning that she probably liked being called baby, especially at work, even less than he enjoyed hearing her say Scott occurred, only to be instantly dismissed. To begin with, the first time he'd called her that had been roughly a dozen years ago, so despite the fact that he was a male DA speaking to a newly hired female attorney currently working for him as a research assistant, it wasn't as demeaning as it might seem. Second, ticking him off any more probably wasn't something she wanted to do right now. No, correction, something she should do. Because she wanted to. She definitely wanted to.
    "She loves you, too." As annoying as it was to admit, it was the truth. Her beautiful, kindhearted, gentle-souled mother, the owner of Grayson Springs, the storied, thousand-acre horse farm she had inherited from her wealthy parents, had taken an interest in the young son of a loser neighbor from the time he'd first started doing odd jobs for them for a couple of dollars when he was about twelve years old. From that time on, as he grew up, he had pretty much spent his summers and after-school hours working on their farm. Martha Grant had invited him into the kitchen to eat (the meals were prepared by Elsa, the cook, but a teenage farm worker wouldn't even have been allowed inside the house without Miss Martha's say-so) and seen to it that there