One Fine Day by Erica Abbott

Author:Erica Abbott [Abbott, Erica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gay & Lesbian
ISBN: 9781594933158
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2013-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

Jill stood in the doorway of Walter’s office. Walter was on the phone, his back to her. She considered going back to her own office, but he’d summoned her, so she decided to wait.

He turned around in his chair, still listening to whoever was talking to him. He saw her and gestured toward his visitor’s chair. Jill came in and sat down as he continued his conversation, which consisted on his end of an occasional “Yes” and “I see.”

She glanced around the office. Walter had one of the prized corner western views, the Rockies spread out a few miles away. They were a light blue-purple this morning, with a few of the higher peaks on the back ranges still sporting some late spring snow.

Walter had ignored the frequent attorney design choice of leather-bound law books on bookcases, and gone with paintings and prints that had a decidedly nautical theme. There was a beautifully framed original oil on the opposite wall where he could see it from his desk, a painting he had once described to Jill as his prized possession. The artwork was a small Winslow Homer that depicted a lonely rowboat on a sea lit by an orange-red sunset. Jill often wondered why a man raised in a state filled with beautiful mountain scenery was obsessed with seascapes. But she thought the painting was gorgeous. It reminded her of Satie’s Gymnopedie, serene and yet moving.

Walter swiveled in his chair again, planting his elbows solidly on his desk as he said into the telephone, “Turner, you know that outcomes vary tremendously by jurisdiction. And you also know it would be entirely improper to contact members of the commission prior to the public hearing.”

Ah, she could tell he was talking to one of their biggest and most troublesome clients. Turner Grant was a real-estate developer who managed to keep several divisions in the firm busy, from property to corporate to litigation. Walter had apparently been called in to soothe the unhappiness of a client who paid the firm several hundred thousand dollars last year.

She tuned out the rest of the conversation, Walter alternating between reassuring murmurs and gentle rebukes. One reason Grant needed a law firm like Worthington & Steele was his tendency to run roughshod over procedural niceties that got him sued regularly.

A box that used to hold copier paper was tucked into one corner of the office, and Jill noticed that a few of Walter’s personal items were missing from his desk and the small bookcase behind him: an award from the state bar association in the form of a gavel, a couple of certificates of appreciation, his personal photographs. It hit Jill that Walter was really leaving, that he wouldn’t be right down the hall anymore. He’d been there when Jill joined the firm, and she thought he’d be there forever. Losing him was going to be hard.

Walter finally hung up and turned to Jill with a snort. “The man is an idiot,” he said succinctly.

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