Paradise (Second Opportunities 1)

Parker had suggested a friend of his, but Meredith wanted someone she knew and liked. She didn't want to mix business problems with personal ones, so Sam Green was out of the question. Idly, she picked up her pen and wrote down the names of attorneys she knew socially, then she slowly crossed out each one. All of them were very successful, and all of them belonged to her country club; they played golf with one another; they also probably gossiped together.

There was only one man who met her criteria, although she hated to tell him about all this. "Stuart," she sighed with a mixture of reluctance and affection. Stuart Whitmore had been the only boy to like her when she was a homely thirteen-year-old, the only boy to voluntarily ask her to dance at Miss Eppingham's party. At thirty-three, he was as physically unimpressive as ever, with narrow shoulders and thinning brown hair. He was also a brilliant lawyer from a long line of brilliant lawyers, a fascinating conversationalist, and—most of all—her friend. Two years ago he'd made his last—and most determined—effort to get her to go to bed with him; he did it in a typical Stuart fashion: As if he were delivering a well-prepared legal argument to a jury, he itemized all the reasons that she ought to go to bed with him, ending with "including, but not limited to, the future possibility of matrimony."

Surprised and touched that he'd considered marrying her, Meredith had gently turned him down while trying to make him understand that his friendship mattered very much to her. He'd listened intently to her rejection, and dryly replied, "Would you then consider letting me represent you in some legal action? That way I can tell myself that ethics, not lack of reciprocity of feelings, prohibit our getting involved." Meredith was still trying to decipher that sentence when she belatedly heard the wry humor in it, and her answering smile had been filled with gratitude and affection. "I will! I'll steal a bottle of aspirin from a drugstore tomorrow morning, and you can bail me out of jail."

Stuart had grinned at her, and stood up, but his good-bye was warm and endearing. Handing her his business card, he said, "Plead the fifth until I get there."

The following morning, Meredith had coerced Mark Braden into calling a friend of his—a lieutenant at the local precinct, who then called Stuart and told him that Meredith had been busted for shoplifting in a drugstore. Suspecting a prank, Stuart had hung up, called back, and discovered there was a Lieutenant Reicher, and that Meredith was supposedly in custody.

Perched on a step outside the police station, Meredith watched Stuart's Mercedes sedan screech to a stop in the towaway zone in front. Not until she saw him leap out of the car, leaving it with the motor running, did she realize how much he really cared for her.

"Stuart!" she called when he ran up the steps right past her. He paused and spun around, and instantly realized he was the victim of a joke. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I only meant to show you how far I was willing to go to preserve a friendship that means very much to me."

The anger drained from his expression, he drew a long, steadying breath, then he grinned. "I left two opposing parties of a bitter divorce alone in our conference room, waiting for the other attorney. By now they've either killed each other or, worse, reconciled, and in so doing cheated me out of my very exorbitant fee."

Still smiling at the memory, Meredith picked up the phone and pressed the intercom button. "Phyllis, would you please get Stuart Whitmore at Whitmore and Northridge on the phone for me?"

The moment she put down the phone, nervous tension began to build in her, and her hand trembled as she reached for a stack of computer printouts on her desk. She hadn't seen Stuart more than twice in the last year. What if he didn't return her call... what if he didn't want to get involved with her personal problems... what if he was out of town? The sharp, short buzz of the intercom made her jump.

"Mr. Whitmore is on line one, Meredith."

Meredith drew a steadying breath and picked up the phone. "Stuart, thank you very much for calling me back so quickly."

"I was on my way to a deposition when I heard my secretary take your call," he replied, his tone businesslike but polite.

"I have a small legal problem," she explained. "Actually, it isn't a small problem. It's rather large. No, enormous."

"I'm listening," he said when she hesitated.

"Do you want me to tell you what it is now? On the phone, when you're in a hurry to leave?"

"Not necessarily. You could give me a hint though—to whet my legal appetite."

She heard it then—the dry veiled humor in his voice—and she breathed a sigh of relief. "To put it briefly, I need advice about—about my divorce."

"In that case," he gravely and immediately replied, "my advice is to marry Parker first. We can get a better settlement that way."

"This isn't a joke like the last time, Stuart," she warned, but there was something about him that inspired so much confidence that she smiled a little. "I'm in the most amazing legal mess you've ever encountered. I need to get out of it right away."

"I normally like to drag things out—it builds up the fees," he drolly replied. "However, for an old friend, I suppose I could sacrifice avarice for compassion just once. Are you free for dinner tonight?"

"You're an angel!"

"Really? Yesterday the opposing counsel told the judge I was a manipulative son of a bitch."

"You are not!" Meredith protested loyally.

He laughed softly. "Yes, my beauty, I am."

Chapter 32

Far from being judgmental, or appalled by her behavior as an eighteen-year-old, Stuart listened to her entire tale without a sign of emotion—not even surprise when she told him the identity of the father of her baby. In fact, so disconcerting was his bland expression and unwavering silence, that when Meredith finished her recitation, she said hesitantly, "Stuart, have I made everything clear?"

"Perfectly clear," he said, and as if to prove that, he added, "You've just finished telling me that your father is now willing to use his influence to get Farrell's zoning request approved with the same disregard for the illegality of influence peddling that he displayed when he had Senator Davies block it? Right?"

"I—I think so," she replied, uneasy about his smoothly worded condemnation of her father's actions.

"Pearson and Levinson represent Farrell?"

"Yes."

"That's it, then," he declared, signaling the waiter for the check. "I'll call Bill Pearson in the morning and tell him that his client is unjustly putting my favorite client to a lot of needless mental anguish."