Legally in Love Boxed Set 2 Read online

  Legally in Love

  Boxed Set Volume III

  Books 4-8

  Includes: Wills & Trust, Asked & Answered, Attractive Nuisance, Moot Court, First & Last Christmas Date

  Jennifer Griffith

  Wills & Trust

  Chapter One

  Resisting Arrest

  The breeze from the Chesapeake Bay cooled Brooke Chadwick’s face in the summer sun, as the baseball came hurtling at her off Dane’s pitching arm. With her rear practically glued to the seat of this wheelchair for the eighth week running, she’d never reach it. Stupid accident.

  “Hey, I thought we were playing catch, not fetch,” she called. The baseball sailed over her outstretched glove, far out of her grasp, and plunked into the sandy reeds farther down the beach.

  Brooke watched with covert longing as Dane jogged past her to retrieve the wild toss, his lazy gait confident as always— longing for both the ability to jog down the sand as well as for the guy she could never have.

  It still amazed her daily that he was even here with her like this. He deserved some kind of good Samaritan award.

  “We are playing catch, but you’re not fulfilling the catching end of the deal, Brooker.” His eye twinkled, electrifying her heart— blast him— as he tossed the ball again, this time straight into her mitt. “Come on, Chadwick. Two broken femurs and a broken hip? That’s nothing but lame excuses, so step it up.”

  Despite how unlucky or tragic the last three months of her life had unquestionably been, today felt almost lucky here at the beach. Playing ball with Dane Rockwell for the umpteenth day in a row gave her a nice view of his wicked grin and its accompanying heart-melting dimple.

  “I will step it up when you quit lobbing that ball at altitudes only professional basketball players could reach. Wrong sport” She threw it, snapping it hard twice into her mitt before winding up and hurling it at Dane. “This is baseball, dude.”

  “Some people are such whiner-babies.” He caught it and returned the red-stitched piece of physical therapy to her. “They seem to think a car wreck that happened three whole months ago is a valid excuse for not giving a hundred percent in the die-hard sport of catch.”

  This time she caught it. “See? When it’s thrown with skill, I’m all over it.”

  Week six into this banter, they had the pattern down: a little trash talk, a little flirting, a little bad-mouthing her brother, Quirt. They never mentioned the other consequences of the car accident that put her in the casts and this chair: the loss of both her parents’ lives— as well as the loss of her brother Quirt’s emotional presence.

  They also never mentioned what was going to happen at the end of the summer when Dane left for law school, if he got in.

  If he got in, she sighed again inwardly. Brooke knew how much he wanted it, for whatever reason. Being a lawyer hadn’t been the joy of her dad’s life— coaching Maddox Little League had— but Dane admired him so much that as soon as the accident happened in May, he’d started the late application process.

  Boy, if Dane already wore the white-sheep wool of the Rockwell family, becoming a lawyer would bleach him by comparison.

  “I’m sending you a pop fly. Catch it, Brookie Baby.” He threw it vertically, and it disappeared into the sun. “It’s yours.”

  Brookie Baby. The name startled her. It was what her dad called her. She’d always been just Brooke to Dane; or Brooker, when he was being nice. Most of the time with him she’d been nothing more than Dane’s best friend’s annoying tag-along while Dad coached the boys, back when Brooke was far too young to know anything about boys— except that the only one she’d ever want was Dane Rockwell.

  The ball tipped the end of her mitt, but she snared it with her left hand. “A-ha!”

  “Not bad, for Quirt Chadwick’s younger sister. He never was much of a catcher.” Yeah, the pattern continued: bag on Quirt, who’d never lived up to his potential as little league catcher for Dane’s legendary pitching skills. Legends in their own minds, more like.

  Catch, throw. Catch, throw.

  You should tell him, a treasonous voice inside her nudged. Tell him what this game really means to you.

  Uh, no? Nuh-uh. Tell him that it meant everything? That it was the only therapy doing anything to keep her soul afloat while she couldn’t walk, and while Quirt ignored her and pretended nothing had happened? Tell Dane that without him she’d still be curled in a ball with the remote control, refusing to concern herself with preventing muscle atrophy? Tell him that he was, cheesy but true, her only hope this past week?

  The second she told him that, he’d bolt. If she even hinted, he’d get embarrassed and quit showing up every day and this catch game would end.

  And she’d shrivel.

  No, tell him you’re interested.

  Uh, whoa. She wasn’t telling him that in this state, while she wore basically a body cast and was the poster girl for ‘Stay Alive by Wearing a Seatbelt’ after her parents’ double funeral. Hello, here she sat, the least attractive she’d ever been since Dane had met her—at least since she left the icky stage when she had braces and frizzy ponytails.

  Yeah, I love you would go over like a lead balloon.

  She sighed. After losing her parents but before her fourth surgery, Brooke had told herself she’d walk again— if only to follow through on her mom’s dream that Brooke compete in a beauty pageant someday. Pageants held little interest for Brooke personally, but she knew it would please her mother.

  However, after the fifth surgery, the doctor cautioned she’d have to undergo a miracle to be able to walk again, let alone stride with grace across a stage wearing high heels and a form-fitting dress, so her mom’s plans for Brooke seemed to evaporate.

  So many dreams vanished when her dad’s Buick rolled off that embankment.

  Catch, throw. Catch, throw.

  The rhythm lifted her as it continued. Not everything had to die. She might walk again—and more. What did that surgeon know? Brooke could beat the odds. Hey, Dane Rockwell was here playing catch with her—and the odds of that seemed astronomical.

  Then again, this whole catch-playing thing was more likely nothing more than a time-filler for Dane while he waited for his law school admission results. Either that or else he lugged her out here out of respect for her mom and dad’s memory. They’d pretty much taken him in when he was a kid, notwithstanding his extensive Rockwell heritage, which was defined by a legacy of court appearances and time in the state penitentiary.

  Summer’s going to end. It might be now or never. Tell him.

  True. Summer would end. She’d get her casts off and start physical therapy. Dane would go away to some law school, at which point she could just quit pretending he’d ever see her as anything but someone’s kid-sister.

  A ball slipped past her, and Dane had to retrieve it.

  “Nineteen-year-olds just lose their touch when it comes to catch. If you were still eighteen, I’m sure you would have had the flexibility for that one. You’re getting old, Brooker.”

  Brooke watched him walk toward her to clean up her missed catch. The length of his stride left broad stretches between his footprints on the wet sand. Her eyes canvassed his well-made form.

  Oh, she wanted him so much she ached.

  Tell him, the voice inside her insisted. It hollered in her soul. Darting away from the thought, she pounced on fifteen excuses. Anything she said would sound juvenile. Desperate. He’d just called her nineteen. By contrast, Dane was done with college. Now that she was going to postpone her education a full year— to play patient instead of nurse— she’d forfeit her scholarship to nursing school. She was nothing he’d want.

  Besides, telling him she liked
him risked this whole setup—the friendship, the catch-playing therapy, the outside chance that he might take her in his truck to spin doughnuts on the sand dunes. Being out here with him was basically the only conversation in her life that didn’t revolve around medical appointments, health insurance, or life insurance details like she and Aunt Ruth immersed in every day. She couldn’t risk all that based on some juvenile urge to say, I like you, do you like me, too?

  “Dane? I—” It shot out of her mouth before she could stop it, like a wild pop fly off the tip of a bat.

  He looked up from the ball, their eyes meeting. An electric current surged in Brooke’s heart. This was it— her moment.

  “Well, well, well.” Into Brooke’s moment, a leggy blonde rode a beach-comber bicycle. “If it isn’t Dane Rockwell, voted Most Likely to Be a Great Makeout by our high school yearbook staff.” She sidled up to him and gave him a kiss-hello, ignoring Brooke. “Playing a little ball?”

  Dane’s eyes dragged away from Brooke and focused on the blonde. The whole substation of power that had been surging in Brooke’s soul lost connection. The moment snapped.

  “Um…” He shot Brooke an apologetic look.

  “Oh, hi.” The blonde noticed Brooke. “You’re Quirt Chadwick’s little sister, huh? Bummer about your mom and dad.”

  Understatement could slice like a knife.

  “Yeah, bummer.” It came out a mumble, and Brooke wished for quicksand to form beneath her and suck her under this very second.

  “So, Dane. Are you coming by later?” She looked a little worse for the post-high school wear, but she was giving him all the come-on signals.

  Dane didn’t answer her, just gave a non-committal shrug with that aloofness all the girls fell for—girls ripped each other to shreds for the unattainable Dane Rockwell.

  Brooke was nothing but one of the masses.

  Finally, the floozy left, and Dane started tossing the ball to Brooke again, his face a mask.

  Throw, catch. Throw, catch. Throw, catch.

  He’d never see her the way she wanted him to. And she couldn’t tell him now.

  Brooke collected the little shattered pieces of her hope and tucked them deep inside her heart.

  __________

  Well, that was awkward.

  Why did that bimbo have to barge in? Dane couldn’t give her the brush-off fast enough.

  The letter in his back pocket threatened to burn a hole in his jeans. The words glowed like they’d been written with twenty-four karat gold ink when he’d read them this morning, and his blood had thrummed in his veins ever since.

  He had to tell someone soon or his circuits would overload.

  He had to tell Brooke.

  For one, it wasn’t like he could tell his family. None of the Rockwells would be first in line to give him any big ol’ fist bump. More like they’d tell him he’d sold out when he ought to be stickin’-it-to-the-man. Like Uncle Tyrone with his fake IRS phone call scam. Or like Dane’s parents with their Bonnie and Clyde impression. Hope you like the Big House, Mom and Dad. He wouldn’t be jotting down a letter to them with the news.

  Besides, Brooke’s reaction was the one he cared about most. Her dad, Matthew Chadwick, had been the lawyer and the reason Dane had applied to law school. Her past and her future might be affected by this letter.

  If his plans meant anything.

  How should he casually drop it into conversation that he’d gotten his acceptance letter to top-ranked University of Virginia’s law school without sounding overeager, like he was trying to impress her by telling her that he’d been admitted to her dad’s alma mater?

  “So. Now that whoever-that-was is gone,” he prompted. “You were saying?” Maybe she’d talk a little. Not that Brooke was one of those talkers, which liked about her. But if she would keep talking just for now, then he could mentally formulate his announcement.

  Brooke was silent though, and when Dane concentrated on her expression, something in it had changed.

  Great. Now how was he supposed to tell her? Especially considering what he wanted it to mean to Brooke?

  If he finished law school, got that degree, he’d finally have concrete evidence that proved that he wasn’t a Rockwell— in the traditional sense of the name.

  Law school meant he’d finally be worthy of Brooke Chadwick.

  “You know Brooke, dude. She’s not, uh, the Rockwell type.” Last year’s argument with Quirt still reechoed, when Dane told his friend that he wanted Brooke as his date for a fraternity formal.

  “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

  Quirt had lost his temper. “I’m saying, Brooke isn’t for you, dude.” He’d chucked a dirty sweatshirt at him from across the frat house bedroom.

  “Isn’t that for Brooke and me to decide?” Dane had chucked it back. “She’s a big girl,” he’d argued, even though she’d only been eighteen at the time.

  A murderous stare from Quirt preceded a angry grumbling as he stomped out of the room. “Brooke is not dating a Rockwell.”

  Things had been pretty chilly between him and Quirt since then and basically below zero since the accident, though it was possible Quirt might have been icing everyone.

  But Dane would show him. He’d show Brooke. He’d show everyone.

  Throw, catch. Throw, catch. There was a therapy about it. Baseball and Matthew Chadwick had saved Dane from a Rockwell fate. As Dane’s little league coach, Matthew had yanked Dane away from an obviously bad home life and given him baseball—and his first glimpse of Brooke. Not that she’d been much to distract him back then. He’d been just a kid. But man, lately she’d been all he could think about.

  “I got into UVA.” The news burst through the dam he’d built against it. Brooke’s eyes did that to him.

  “Dad’s school?” Brooke brightened a degree. “That’s fantastic. Good for you, Rock.” She called him Rock. When she did that, the distance closed. “How long until you go?”

  Her tone held some longing. He couldn’t help hearing it.

  Oh, yeah. She didn’t want him to take off. If she’d been ready to shove him away, she would have asked, when do you leave? But this phrase was different, like she wanted him to stay.

  It was just enough hope to sustain him for the next three years.

  Law school. Just make it through law school. Then he’d finally be enough.

  Chapter Two

  Failure to Appear

  THREE YEARS LATER

  Where is he? Brooke Chadwick scanned the bleachers, searching for him, but wearing a stupid pageant dress, pinching shoes, and a clunky baseball mitt. And the tiara—don’t forget the tiara. Ridiculous.

  Ames Crosby was nowhere in sight. Not in the crowd, not behind the grandstands, not at the concessions stand, not answering his phone.

  And here stood Brooke, ready to toss out this year’s First Pitch—with no one to catch it.

  He’d promised.

  The March air smelled of equal parts popcorn and fresh-bloomed lilacs, with a healthy dose of newly cut grass, but she couldn’t enjoy her favorite smells on her favorite day of the year. And not just because of these horrid, pinching heels she had on.

  Her hands started to sweat. She wasn’t going to be able to throw well with sweaty hands— and no catcher.

  Not only had Ames promised to be at home plate with his catcher’s mask on, he’d also hinted that Brooke should be looking forward to something even bigger.

  You’ll be surprised, he’d said.

  Expectation had ballooned inside her. What could be bigger than being seen together officially at First Pitch, Maddox’s biggest annual celebration?

  Unless…

  I heard down at the Bob and Weave, Aunt Ruth had said this morning over a diet cola, some people saying Ames Crosby bought a ring last week over at Appleton Jewelers.

  Brooke had waved away the rumor.

  But Aunt Ruth and her beauty salon rumor had cruelly fueled the tiny ember of Brooke’s hope, kindling it into a flame—
one she’d let burn all morning from her lilac-bedecked spot on the Miss Chesapeake parade float. It had blazed even brighter when she’d allowed herself to imagine how it would be to throw the ball at the iconic First Pitch and have Ames catch it.

  He would run out to the pitcher’s mound, lift her off her feet and swing her in a circle, her bedazzled gown flying out around her. The crowd would be aghast at seeing Ames Crosby, golden boy and former Maddox all-star recruited to the majors right out of Maddox High, falling for Brooke Chadwick, a nobody, rinky-dink pageant winner or not— especially now that he was a doctor.

  Brooke had never expected things to get this far. Not when they met at a town Christmas party when he’d come home to study for his state medical examination. Not when he’d asked her out for New Year’s Eve just three months ago. Not even when they’d started seeing each other every day.

  Still, where was he? She checked the time on the Thunder Chadwick commemorative clock tower. Just five minutes to go, Grandpa Thunder? Thanks for the harrowing update.

  “Brooke!” A shrill voice pierced the air. “You look so much better in that lavender gown than your grandpa would.” Pansy Proust sashayed up, her overly processed hair sticking straight up in places. One of the hazards of running the beauty salon was clearly acting as the guinea pig during all the down time.

  “Thanks. Maybe I should have worn his coaching jersey since I’m representing him today.”

  Pansy frowned. “I’m sure the organizers prefer you looking like Miss Chesapeake, or Miss Virginia first runner-up or whatever you are. But how can you pitch in that thing? It’s so clingy.”

  Brooke instinctively tugged at the snug fabric.

  Pansy waved away her criticism. “Not that Ames Crosby will mind, I’m sure. Where is he, anyway?” She looked around. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but I heard he’s planning something. Big.” She shot Brooke a glinting stare and then broke away when a churro vendor passed.

  “Well, well, well. Brookester.” Up walked Brooke’s brother, his hand shielding his eyes from the sun.