Lift You Up (Rivers Brothers 1)

Pure curiosity had me walking toward the offices, dipping into the closest one that had another neat brushed bronze plaque with Kingston's name on it.

It felt oddly wrong when my hand closed around the knob. I mean, I had totally snooped through his nightstands at his apartment and his medicine cabinet. Though when it came to the medicine cabinet, I'd been looking for some aspirin for my crying headache. And in the bedroom, I had been hoping to find a notepad and pen to jot down the number for Jamie's cell when it randomly came to me.

I shook off the uncertainty, reminding myself that Nixon had invited me into King's office, had told me that the TV was there if I wanted some distraction.

King's office was much like the front room. The wall to the back of the building was the lime-wash brick, the floors were the same, the champagne was painted on the other walls. His desk was oversized, but all neat lines. In front of it were two wide, dark brown chairs, the kind you could picture yourself folding yourself into with a blanket and cup of hot chocolate on a cool fall day. The TV was huge - Kingston was a guy, after all - taking up most of the wall across from the desk. The framed picture on the wall behind where he likely sat many long days and nights wasn't local. It was the inside of what looked to be a very small apartment building, sparsely furnished, neat. There was no real focal point, but my eyes were drawn immediately to the line of shoes set up near the door. A pair of low heels, four sets of boys' sneakers in varying sizes from biggest to smallest, and a little pair of girls' sneakers.

The whole Rivers family.

Before they lost their mom.

It was sweet, yet somehow sad at the same time.

I wondered if clients asked about it, if he was willing to tell them the truth, or if it was just background noise to whatever crisis existed in their lives to send them to Kingston's office in the first place.

An oversized brown and tan speckled clay mug sat on the desk, the contents cold beside a giant pile of paperwork, each section flagged with different tasks.

Fax.

File.

Mail.

Well, I decided flipping through the papers, at least I could help him out a bit in exchange for all the work he was doing for me.

I washed out his cup, refilling it for myself, taking a somewhat unnatural, perverse sort of pleasure in using his daily work cup, and got to filing, faxing, and packaging things up to be picked up by the mail person.

"Savvs, what are you doing?" Kingston's voice broke through my concentration as I held up one sheet of paper to the light, trying to decide if the number on the sticky note was a two or a seven.

My body jolted violently, even though his voice had been low, calm. My arm dropped as my heart sped up. Turning in the chair, I found him standing there in a simple dark gray tee and jeans, his eyes a little hooded, tired, his brows scrunched in confusion.

"You have the worst handwriting of anyone I have ever seen," I declared, shaking my head while sending him a small smile. "I saw your pile of paperwork that needed to be dealt with, so I decided to handle it for you, lighten your load a little. I know how hard it can be to get to the paperwork when you have other things to handle too."

"That's really sweet of you," he told me, moving into the room, the door automatically sliding closed behind him with a quiet click. "Nixon told me on his way out that you were in here watching TV."

"Leave it to him to confuse me constantly coming out to use the fax machine and ask where the stamps were for watching TV. Are the pups still sleeping?" I asked, having heard a complete lack of yipping or playful growling over an hour ago.

"Didn't even hear me come in. What, did you tranquilize them?"

"I think Paddy would like a buddy," I told him. "He and Hannibal wore each other out all day. None of the whining to go for walks like you told me he usually does."

"Feel bad having more than one when I don't have a yard right now," he told me, rolling out the tension in his neck as he came over toward me, sitting off the edge of the desk, trapping me in.

"You take him for like four walks a day. And Scotti has a yard. As do most of the Mallicks. You could totally let them hang there on occasion."

His lips tipped up as he looked down at me, eyes warm. "You're a bad influence."

"I'd have five of them if I could," I admitted. "I have the yard. I just don't have the time. Two Hearts would give you another one in a heartbeat. But you have to make sure it will grow up to be around Paddy's size. He couldn't roughhouse with a little dog."