Haven beamed.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“You too. If you need anything else, just give a wave.”
“Will do, thanks,” Miriam responded.
“She seems nice,” I said quietly as I lifted the cup to my lips and took a sip. “Wow, you’re right. This is good coffee.”
“Haven is nice,” Miriam agreed. “That’s one of the reasons I love coming here. Mr. C is a super-sweet old man, and he doesn’t mind that I spend every afternoon drinking coffee and taking up space. He says I remind him of his grandson, who’s apparently a writer too.” The smile on her face dimmed. “It’s almost too nice, you know? I keep waiting for something to happen ...”
“Nothing is going to happen,” I said firmly, silently praying that it was true. “You haven’t heard anything from Caleb, have you?”
Miriam bit her lip and shook her head slightly. “No. He doesn’t know where I am.”
I glanced at the laptop, wondering if she knew just how easy it was to find and stalk someone digitally. I did it all the time. Research and fact-gathering were huge parts of my job.
She hastened to ease my fears. “Relax. I only connect to the Wi-Fi for research, and I use an incognito, cookie-free browser.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t want to believe that Miriam’s no-good ex would try to track her down and cause trouble, but I saw enough ugliness on a daily basis to warrant erring on the side of caution. “Good. Let’s keep it that way. Now, tell me about the book you’re working on.”
Just like that, her eyes lit up again. “Oh, it’s a fantasy-romance trilogy with sexy dragon shifters!”
I laughed. I should have known. My sister had a penchant for anything dragon-related as well as an obsession for paranormal romance.
“Of course it is. Tell me more.”
Chapter Two: Paulie
The office phone continued to ring incessantly. It stopped for a heartbeat, maybe two, before starting again. My part-time receptionist, a grandmotherly widow, typically left early each afternoon to get her grandkids off the school bus—at which point, answering calls became the responsibility of my assistant, Stella. I growled in the back of my throat, put down the brief I had been reading, and stepped out of my private office to stalk down the hallway to where my assistant should have been.
Her computer was off, the lights had been dimmed, and the desk and surrounding area were piled high with stacks of files, binders, and reference materials. I scanned the area in disbelief. It appeared as if more had accumulated since the last time I was in here, which shouldn’t be the case. I was paying Stella to reduce my workload, not add to it.
What the hell did she do all day? And where the hell was she now?
I had some vague memory of Stella popping her head in and telling me something about having plans, but I’d been deep in case notes at the time and hadn’t really been paying attention.
With muttered curses, I reached over the desk and pressed a few buttons, forwarding the calls directly to voice mail. Stella could sort through them in the morning. I still had several things I had to do before I could call it a night.
The fact that business was so good was both a blessing and a curse. Yeah, it put money in my pocket, but it also meant that situations requiring legal family counsel were on the rise. More divorces, more custody battles, more domestic abuse cases, more estate disputes. In a perfect world, there’d be no need for my services. We didn’t live in a perfect world, however, and I was burning the candle at both ends these days, trying to meet demand.
I barely stepped back into my office when my personal cell sounded with the ringtone I’d assigned to family members—Frank Sinatra’s “The Best Is Yet to Come,” if you were wondering. The man was one step short of a saint in my parents’ household.
That call I answered without hesitation.
“What’s up, Gina? I’m still at work.”
“I know you are,” my youngest sister replied, “which is why I’m standing outside your locked office with a bag of food. Let me in, will you?”
I chuckled to myself. It didn’t matter how old we were, my mother felt compelled to ensure her single offspring were well fed. She said once we were married and started giving her grandchildren, she’d back off. That claim hadn’t been tested yet, but it wouldn’t be long before my brothers Nick and Vinnie, both of whom had gotten engaged recently, came through.
I hustled back out to the front and unlocked the double doors, where Gina was standing with a carryout bag from our family’s restaurant, Mama C’s, her features pinched in annoyance.
“When did you start locking the doors anyway?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
I didn’t bother reminding her that my family services law practice often meant I had to deal with people who were abusive, hurt, or angry. She knew. I knew she knew. Just as I knew she’d probably call our brother Vinnie the moment she left and tell him to beef up the patrols around my building. We were protective of each other that way.
Instead, I shrugged and said, “Stella must have done it on her way out.”
My clever little sister wasn’t fooled for a moment, but she pretended she was for my benefit and covered her concern with a smirk and her trademark sass. “I guess she doesn’t want anyone poaching on her territory when she’s not here.”
Gina was convinced that Stella had a thing for me. I disagreed. Stella was just ... Stella. What Gina saw as romantic interest, I saw as a form of gratitude. I’d given Stella a break by offering her a job after her cheating ex drained their bank account and ran away with his mistress.
But as Gina was a woman and therefore had a much
