Tempest - Kris Michaels Page 0,44

her shoulders. She was about three-quarters of the way through her notes. Luke had hooked up a second computer and split his screen so he could highlight pertinent information as she was typing, entering it onto another document which would be forwarded to his organization along with her transcribed notes. They'd been at it for hours.

"Would you like to take a break?" Luke didn't look at her but kept pecking away with his two fingers. In reality he was very fast but talk about inefficient.

"A short one. Didn't you learn how to type in school?" She chuckled when he stopped typing and turned to her.

"Ah, no." He leaned back in his chair and reached for a bottle of water.

"What? No typing 101 in high school?"

"No high school, actually. Well not much."

An iron weight landed somewhere in her stomach. "Oh... I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry. You weren't responsible."

God, how did she so squarely put her foot in it when all she was trying to do was to tease him? "Well, no, but––"

He put a hand up. "Long story short. My mother died. My dad dealt with his grief by drinking. No abuse, no horror stories, but he didn't give a shit if I went to school or not. I spent my days at the beach learning to surf, smoking pot, doing drugs and getting into trouble up and down the coast of Florida." He chuckled and rubbed his face. "If I could only go back and have a talk with that kid."

"What would you say?" She moved in her chair, careful to look where her poor toe was in relation to the bolted table legs.

"Oh wow. Let's see... Don't believe everything your buds tell you. Don't let anger consume you. Don't make stupid mistakes or take the last hit of X at the beach party." He shook his head. "But if things hadn't played out the way they had, I'd probably be a drunk, a doper or dead at this point in my life. Getting into those scrapes got me attention from the person who threw me the lifeline which got me out of there. He probably wouldn't have known about me if I hadn't acted on my anger, so I guess I'd like the opportunity to tell the younger version of me everything will turn out all right."

She leaned forward and placed her chin in her hand as she stared at him. "You've been through so much. I wish the older version of you didn't have any connection to my mother."

He shook his head. "Then I wouldn't have met you."

"The cost you bore was too high." She put her hand on his arm.

He shrugged. "Acknowledging what we've experienced and putting it into perspective builds a strong foundation for forward progress."

"You sound like you have a very good education."

"Ah, well after a lifeline was thrown in my direction, I made strides. Still no typing classes, however." He winked at her and nodded to the notebook. "We can stop and continue tomorrow if you'd like."

She shot her notebook a glance and reached to ruffle through the pages left. "Let's get finished and maybe have a drink on the deck and watch the stars show themselves when we're done." She glanced at the clock. "Or look at the stars, I don't think I'll be done by sunset."

"Deal. Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

"No, I'm fine. I needed a mental break for a couple minutes. How about you? Are you finding anything you can use to build a case against my mother?"

He nodded and then glanced at her.

"What?" She angled her head, assessing him the way she would a client in her office. He didn't give away much, but just then he had. He wanted to ask her something, or perhaps tell her something.

"If all things were even and your mother had committed horrible crimes, crimes against people who had no defenses, would you want to know about it?"

A cold fist wrapped around her gut. "As her lawyer, no."

"As her daughter?"

"If I were only her daughter and not her lawyer? Then, yes. But I'm not just her daughter, so while I am giving you these open-ended questions and allowing you to draw your own conclusions, if you were to give me information on my mother it would place me in a moral obligation to report her." She drew a long slow breath into her lungs. "I have no doubt my mother is many things." She released a small humorless laugh and looked at Luke. "I