The Bachelor. Marie Ferrarella
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Still, he knew a great many women who, deprived of their paints, powders and brushes, looked far less attractive than Jenny did. There was something to be said for that.
“So, is this what you do?” Eric asked.
With Eric so close, at times brushing against her in this crowd, it was all Jenny could do to focus on what he was saying, to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking. Thinking was out of the question, so she hit on the first thing that came to her mind.
“You mean badger men?”
He laughed and though it was dangerous to her newly returning sanity, she allowed herself to absorb the rich sound and bask in it for a moment before, once again, reminding herself that this was not about her long-standing infatuation with Eric, it was about the charity.
Ah, but charity begins at home, a tiny voice whispered, and wouldn’t you like to take him home?
Jenny shifted in her seat, as if to physically get away from the thought that neatly tucked itself under the heading of impossible dreams.
“No,” Eric said, “I meant fund-raising.”
Holding her gaily decorated cup in both hands, she stared into the light chocolate liquid, making a deliberate effort to avoid his eyes. If she looked into them, she knew she could easily get lost. And without a lifeline or compass to guide her, she might never be able to find her way back.
“No,” she replied, raising her voice above the murmuring din. “I’m an attorney.”
Eric cocked his head and looked at her, as if absorbing the information and trying to apply it to her. “Really.”
It sounded as if it was half a question, half a statement uttered in disbelief. Obviously her big brother didn’t talk to Eric about her. Not that she would have expected him to, she supposed. When handsome men in their prime got together, siblings were probably the last things they talked about.
From some automatic pilot region that was usually tapped into only when her mother was around, Jenny felt her backbone stiffening.
“Yes, really.”
She saw amusement curving his mouth. Did he find lawyers amusing, or just the idea of her being one?
“Which firm?” he asked.
“Advocate Aid, Inc.” There was a touch of pride in her voice as she told him. They were an incredibly small group, numbering four now that Russell had bailed on them. But they were a proud group nonetheless.
Eric really hadn’t expected that. He’d thought that Jennifer’s father’s connections would have placed her in some highbrow law firm, the way they had Jordan. He tried picturing her in less than affluent surroundings and came up short.
“Why?”
Jenny’s back became ramrod straight. This she was accustomed to. Being challenged. For a moment, she forgot that a glance from Eric Logan’s soft brown eyes could melt steel pins at a hundred paces. Her protective nature came out, the same nature that allowed her to champion so many of the championless people who came her way, looking upon her as their last chance.
“Because they need someone on their side a lot more than the people who come to Jordan’s firm do.”
Eric wondered if this was something she truly believed in, or just something she felt she should be giving lip service to. So many men and women involved in charities only did so by remote control. They kept their hearts completely out of the affair.
Because the noise level was rising, he leaned forward across the table. “So you’re saying the poor need more justice than the rich?”
It felt as if his face was inches from hers. She could feel his breath along her skin. Could feel the inside of her body coiling, ready to spring. Not that she ever would. She was too terrified to make a move.
It took her a second to find her voice. “No, I’m saying the poor are just as much entitled to it as the rich and because they’re poor, they don’t get it.”
His eyes held hers. She had nice eyes, he thought. Sincere eyes. He began to believe her. Or at least believe that she believed herself. “Except for you.”
He was smiling again. Was that indulgence? Gas? Or something more meaningful?
She struggled not to sink into his expression. “I’m not the Lone Crusader here. There are others, although not nearly enough.” The sigh escaped her before she realized it had been hovering in the wings.
The last time he’d heard anyone sigh like that, it was the man next to him at the blackjack table. The man had lost ten thousand dollars at a single turn of the cards. “That sounded pretty intense. Care to elaborate?”
Before she knew it, Jenny found herself doing just that.
Eric, she realized, had the ability to draw words out of her despite the fact that they had to get past a blank mind and a thick tongue. She concluded that the man was nothing short of a magician. The kind who pulled on a single scarf only to draw out another and another while the audience looked on in awe.
But maybe he was just being polite. She didn’t want to bore him with details. “It’s just gotten a little harder since Russell left.”
“Russell?”
She nodded. Since he hadn’t yawned or had his attention drawn away by the voluptuous redhead who was unabashedly staring at him from across the room, Jenny continued.
“Russell Riley. He was one of the founders of Advocate Aid, Inc.” Russell had been the one to recruit her, straight out of law school. The ink hadn’t dried yet on her diploma when he’d told her about the fledgling law firm that he and his friends had put together so that they could practice “real” law as he’d put it. “He just up and quit one day.”
A wry smile played on her lips as she recalled the scene in her head. Recalled progressing from guarded amusement when she thought Russell was kidding, to disbelief, to utter sorrow. And finally to anger because he was deserting them after getting her so caught up in the concept.
“He said he’d had enough of tilting at windmills. That the windmills had won and he was taking an offer from a firm that could actually help him pay his bills at the end of the month.” She supposed she couldn’t fault the man. After all, she had never been in that position herself. Maybe she would have thought differently if it was a matter of choosing between paying her rent and eating that week.
Finished with his espresso, Eric toyed with the empty cup, his eyes on her. “Don’t you ever feel that way?”
“My bills are paid at the end of the month.” At times, the admission almost embarrassed her. It was what separated her from the people she was trying to help. They were poor and she was far from it, even if she didn’t take a cent from her parents. That was because of the inheritance. “I had a very generous grandmother who left me more than enough money in her will.”
Eric shook his head. One strand of brown hair fell into his eyes and she had to curve her fingers into her palms to keep from reaching out and sweeping the strand back into place. “No, I meant tired of tilting at windmills.”
She smiled. “Sometimes.” She was unaware that exhilaration entered her voice. But he wasn’t. “But then, those wonderful times when the windmills lose—and they do lose—make it all worth it. So does the expression on the face of my client, a person who thought no one cared and that he was doomed to be the one that everyone else stepped on.” Forgetting who she was talking to for a moment, she warmed to her subject, to her unending quest. “I deal in hope and there’s no greater high than to see it actually take root and spread.”
She realized that he’d gotten quiet. Not bored, just quiet. He was looking at her as if she was saying something he was actually interested in.
Also his gift, she thought.
She’d heard women say that Eric Logan