Falling For The Lawyer
Read Falling For The Lawyer Online
Authors: Anna Clifton
Anna Clifton
Alex Farrer has just one resolution: don’t get sacked by the new boss that day. Enter one knight to rescue her from a run-in with a pile of mud. But will upending Alex’s entire life be the next job on her knight’s ‘to-do’ list, whether she likes it or not?
Legal eagle JP McKenzie has just one resolution: never get involved with a woman who won’t stand up for herself. That is until a muddy Alex Farrer lands in his life with a crushingly big mountain of family expectation in tow. So what else is a modern-day knight to do?
Anna Clifton is a lawyer by trade, a high school teacher in training and a mother to three children and a couple of cats. Her husband is not quite sure how her compulsive writing squeezes itself into the family schedule but like all good heroes he knows better than to stand in the way of the woman he loves on a mission.
Anna lives in Sydney but escapes with her family as often as possible to North Queensland where she loves to catch up on reading amongst the mozzies, crocs and cane toads—seriously!
Falling for the Lawyer
is her first novel.
My heartfelt thanks to Kate Cuthbert and the team at Escape Publishing for placing their faith in and deciding to publish
Falling for the Lawyer
, turning dream into reality.
To Romance Writers Australia and the dedicated staff who work there, thank you for keeping the dream alive at one in the morning when the writing efforts feel oh-so-futile.
Finally, thanks to my wonderfully wise and supportive husband and three children. Their zest for life is perpetually inspirational.
For John
Also Available From Escape Publishing…
‘Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.’ That was Murphy’s Law. And Alex Farrer knew with absolute certainty that her life had once again become the starring jewel in its crown of truth.
‘Take charge of your life or it will take charge of you.’ That was another saying to send a shudder through Alex. She only had to glimpse it running cheerily along the top of a desktop calendar page and it would set
her
running—in the opposite direction!
‘Destiny is made in the decisions we make.’ She was damn sure she was the pin-up girl for that one too—living proof that if you don’t make a single decision for yourself destiny vanishes in a heartbeat.
Yet it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Just that morning Alex had vowed to become the captain of her own ship of destiny. So what if her new boss’s first job on his ‘to-do list’ was to sack her. She refused to take defeat lying down! She would seize the day, impress the socks off him and prove he couldn’t possibly do without her! Finally, once and for all, she would take control of her own future! There was just one tiny little problem: life, as usual, had gotten in the way.
Alex stood on the kerb of the busy Sydney street, convinced destiny had just sniggered in her ear as a cocktail of mud and dirty water had risen like magic from underneath a passing truck’s tyre and deposited itself all over her.
The pedestrian signal flashed green. Office workers huddling under umbrellas and lost in their own thoughts about the coming workday streamed out over the crossing. But not Alex. Alex didn’t move. What was the point? Backwards or forwards the destiny trolls were lying in wait for her—either way she could kiss her job goodbye.
“Are you in some bother there, darlin’?”
Alex jumped. A man had emerged like an apparition out of the mist and rain at her side.
“I was waiting to get some money out of the cash teller,” he went on, nearly shouting to be heard over the deafening torrents of rain tumbling around them. “I noticed you hadn’t moved in awhile. Hey, you’re right manky!” he declared suddenly as Alex turned to him and presented herself in all her muddy glory.
He began to laugh then—uproarious laughter drawing stares and smiles from passers-by as they took in Alex’s appearance.
“Is it really necessary you draw everyone’s attention to me?” Alex questioned tetchily while a remote part of her brain tried to work out what on earth the word ‘manky’ meant.
“I’m sorry.” He suppressed his laughter but was unable to repress the Cheshire Cat grin. “But do you know that you are literally covered in muck? There’s not a square inch of you that’s clean! It really hasn’t been your day, has it?”
“No, and it’s about to get a whole lot worse,” Alex thought out loud as she stared out through the rain, frozen within a miasma of panic and resignation.
“Well m’dear, you can’t stand here all morning. What are you going to do?”
His accent suggested a childhood somewhere in the west of Scotland. It was lilting and musical, seeming to lean languorously into every vowel. And despite Alex’s predicament it had a powerfully soothing effect upon her mood.
“I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do,” Alex confessed, her thoughts beginning to cascade back into her own problems again like the rain tumbling around them both. “If I go home to change and arrive late for work I’ll lose my job, but if I arrive on time looking like this, I’ll lose it anyway. Not exactly great options are they.”
She could hear the bitter resignation in her own voice yet it wasn’t really losing her job that was the problem. The problem was the train of events losing her job would trigger. If she thought her life was not in her own hands now she dreaded to think what it would be like once she was unemployed. In fact she’d been worrying herself sick about the prospect for weeks and yet fate had taken things into its own hands anyway, as it always did.
“Lose your job!” the stranger scoffed, still shouting to be heard over the dull roar of the storm which seemed to be hurtling towards them. “Don’t be ridiculous. No one loses a job over a bit of mud.”
“You do if your new boss is looking for any excuse to get rid of you.”
The stranger studied Alex intently before taking her elbow firmly in his hand and guiding her away from the kerb and into the foyer of a nearby office block. There they found some respite from the tempest building around them.
“So this guy wants to get rid of you,” he began again, resuming his posture of leaning enquiringly towards her as he spoke, his umbrella tossed to one side. “What have you done exactly, although you look like you could be trouble,” he added with the flash of a quick smile.
“I’m not trouble!” Alex protested, choosing to ignore the teasing curl to his lips. “And as a matter of fact I haven’t done anything yet, but he’s arriving today and he’s not called the ‘Grim Reaper’ for nothing.”
“If you’re not trouble then why are you at risk?”
“Because I’m an Assistant PA and my law firm has decided we’re an unnecessary expense, like the biscuits in the tea room.” Alex was staggered at the bitterness driving her indiscretion but at that moment felt completely powerless to rein it in.
The stranger’s expression was thoughtful. “I see, and they call this new guy ‘The Grim Reaper’,” he repeated, his mouth forming an unreadable straight line.
“We’re all dreading his arrival. No one in litigation thinks their job is safe with him around. Not that it’s your problem of course,” Alex added quickly, disconcerted by his increasingly pensive look as black clouds exploded into thunder claps above. “So thank you for your concern but I’d better go and find somewhere to get cleaned up.”
“Don’t be daft,” he drawled, snapping out of his reverie at once. “You won’t be able to clean yourself up under a tap in some ladies bathroom. Half that stuff on you is engine oil. Nothing less than soap, hot water and a change of clothes is going to sort you out but don’t despair, I’ve got an idea. There’s a frock shop up the road. I know the manager. She won’t be open yet but she gets in early. We can get you a change of clothes in there and she’ll have somewhere you can clean up.”
“That’s really not necessary,” Alex objected; it was bad enough being in the hands of fate, let alone in the hands of a perfect stranger.
“I’m afraid it is necessary.”
Again, Alex was distracted by his eyes as they rested intently upon her and waited for her answer. Nevertheless she tore her gaze away from his to look down at her filthy beige skirt, drenched cotton shirt and sodden black shoes. Biting her bottom lip she looked up at him.
“Is it really that bad?”
“Does The Creature from the Black Lagoon ring any bells?” He raised his eyebrows at her then in wry amusement.
Alex began to tug at the wet tendrils of her hair as she cast her eyes around her. She prayed some other solution might emerge out of the rain but of course none did. Once again her life was being tossed around by the forces of the cosmos as they played astrological tennis with her future—with grim resignation she admitted to herself that the man next to her was her only hope.
“You’re sure this boutique manager won’t mind?”
“Positive.”
“And you’re sure you have time to do this?”
“Aye,” the stranger laughed at her. “And I’m sure there’s not going to be an invasion of little green men in the next five minutes too.”
“Okay then,” she agreed finally, again deciding to ignore his sarcasm. “If you’re sure it isn’t too much trouble.”
“I’m sure,” he replied as the walk signal changed to green at the nearby crossing. “Come on.”
Before Alex could object the stranger had grabbed her hand and was dragging her through unremitting sheets of driving rain, across the street and up the wide pedestrian mall on the other side. Alex ran as best she could behind him, her umbrella wobbling uselessly above her head as she struggled to keep up with his cracking pace. Finally he dragged her up the stone steps of a nineteenth century building fronted by a string of shops. It was towards one of these that he guided her when she stopped dead and shook her head.
“You’ve got to be kidding! I can’t go in there!”
The stranger turned to her. “Why not?”
“You said a frock shop! That’s not a frock shop. That’s an exclusive boutique for customers with very exclusive black credit cards. Look, I really appreciate your offer of help but an outfit from there will set me back months.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t have to pay for this. The owner’s a pal of my … of mine,” he corrected himself quickly. “We can work something out with her.”
Alex hesitated before replying, battling to get her head around why this man was going to a whole lot of trouble over a drowned rat he’d picked up on the edge of the street. “It’s not that simple. You’ve been very kind but I’m afraid it’s the end of the line on this rescue mission. There is no way a boutique like this will work something out for someone like me.”
The stranger shook his head in exasperation. “God help your boss if you’re this stubborn at work!” he declared before pressing on. “Now listen to me. This is how it’s going to be. You’re going to walk into that boutique and accept the help being offered because I
am
going to finish this rescue mission and I sure as hell haven’t got all morning to spend on it.”
He set his jaw then with a gritty determination Alex guessed would continue to rise with every protest she could throw at him. For some reason he’d decided to be her knight in shining armour and nothing was going to get in his way.
“All right then,” she agreed finally. “I’ll go in and see if there’s anything I can afford but I know we’re wasting our time. A single coat hanger from there will send me broke.”
“Just don’t make any decisions until you’ve cleaned yourself up and tried something on. Is it a deal?”
Alex nodded as she began to shiver violently in her wet clothes.