Stay (Dunham series #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

half. What’s the occasion?”
    She plopped down in her chair and folded her arms
across her chest. Glared. “For your information, I can’t sleep
without Knox, okay?”
    “Justice,” Connelly said. “You can sleep standing up
with your eyes open. When did that get to be a problem?”
    “Since my house was broken into, my baby was shot
at, my home was burnt to the ground, and my husband was killed,”
she snapped, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “All of
which I would’ve slept through if Knox hadn’t been there.”
    Eric reflected that now might not be the time to
tease his predecessor’s wife, all things considered. Nobody wanted
to think about the details of why Eric had had to take over
as Chouteau County prosecutor a month sooner than anybody
planned.
    Knox’s death and resurrection was still too fresh
for gallows humor.
    “Sorry,” Connelly finally muttered when he spotted
the moisture on her cheek.
    She sighed. “Me, too, Richard. I’m just—” She raised
a hand helplessly and dropped it on her desk. “I’m kind of lost
right now, you know? Too many changes in too short a time, too many
things to think about, too many plans to make. This whole last
year, being pregnant and planning a wedding— Having a baby ,
for God’s sake. Then Knox getting shot— Leaving Mercy with Giselle
this morning just killed me. She’s three months old and it’s the
first time I’ve been away from her since I had her. And we’re
supposed to be moving to Utah in May—not like I want to go,
but it’s important to Knox—and I just don’t know how . . . ”
    “You don’t have anything to move, Justice,” Davidson
murmured. “It’s a lining. Not much of one and fairly tarnished, but
Knox and Mercy are alive.”
    “Don’t forget the cat,” Eric teased to see if he
could get a smile out of her. It worked. Barely.
    “I swear, I’ve done nothing but cry for a month,”
she muttered, and pulled a box of Kleenex out of her desk
drawer.
    Eric figured she was perfectly entitled, but he had
his doubts about her ability to remain cool and collected in front
of a judge today. Or any time in the near future. If he had to send
her home, he would.
    But he kept his mouth shut about that for the time
being. “I’m assuming you left Knox with a bunch of nurses and
physical therapists?”
    Justice huffed and blew her nose. “Yes. But he
wouldn’t let me stick around to supervise them.”
    “Terrorize them, you mean.”
    “That’s what he said, but it’s so not true.”
    Her cell phone rang and she snatched it open without
looking at the caller ID. “What,” she snapped, but then her pixie
face lit up. “Okay. I love you, too.” She clapped it shut and
stuffed it in her purse, picked up her things and scampered out the
door, a hurried, “He can’t sleep without me, either,” floating back
to them. “Be back later.”
    Davidson chuckled. “Later meaning in a couple of
months.”
    “If ever,” Eric muttered, staring at Justice’s desk,
and wondering if she’d ever be back and how fast he could get some
new lawyers hired. He was down to four at this point, not including
himself, and their docket was full to bursting. Discussing
political strategy with his staff wouldn’t get the business at hand
done, and the business at hand was his ticket to the next step of
his master plan.
    “I’ll tell you something,” he said, pointing from
Connelly to Davidson and back again. “We’re getting some
secretaries in here. And no more Chouteau County residency program.
I’m hiring experienced attorneys from now on.”
    He took in their amazed stares. “Oh, is that right,”
Davidson said, and Eric grinned when he heard the approval in
that.
    “I— We are done training newbs. If I hire any
new grads, they’re going to have to pass the Justice McKinley
Hilliard test.”
    “Oh, hell, I wouldn’t pass that test,”
Davidson grumbled, and turned his attention to his latest case.
Connelly