Excerpt of For the Defense by Maggie Wells

Simon moved from the window, hoping to find a shady spot along the side of the building far away from Darlene to wait, but found himself face-to-face with the woman with the tightly coiled hair. Lourdes Cabrera. She of the soulful eyes and Master County Sheriff’s Department uniform. He didn’t have to check her name tag to be sure. The hostility in her stance said it all.

“Deputy,” he said, giving her a polite nod.

“Snake handler,” she replied, keeping her voice even, though her eyes glowed with banked fury.

He chuckled, mentally tallying up a point in her favor. “Just doin’ my job, ma’am,” he answered, giving her a tip of an invisible hat.

Peeking around the corner of the building, he spotted a sliver of shade he might claim for himself. He was about to wind his way through the waiting customers when he heard her mutter, “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“I sleep the sleep of the innocent, Deputy Cabrera,” he said, meeting her gaze. “Every night I indulge in the peaceful, unfettered rest of a man with a clear conscience.”

“You’re certainly no Wendell Wingate,” she retorted, not backing down an inch.

He shook his head. “Ah, I hate to tell you this, but you’re wrong.”

“Oh?” she asked archly.

“Since we have yet to be formally introduced, you can’t be expected to know my full name.” He extended a hand to shake. “I’m Wendell Simon Wingate III.”

“Are you serious?” She snorted a laugh, a sound he usually found distasteful. For some reason, when this woman did it, he wanted to crack a smile. Her hand flew up to cover her nose and mouth and two spots of bright red appeared on her high cheekbones.

“I am always serious about meeting a pretty woman.” He hit her with his best smile. “I’m new to town, and I appreciate you making me feel so welcome.”

When she lowered her hand, a sheepish smile curved lush, full lips. Simon’s gaze dropped to them, and he found he had a hard time tearing it away. “You are welcome here,” she relented. “And I’m sorry. I’m—”

“Miffed?” he supplied.

She laughed again, and this time it rang clear and true. “Not the word I would have chosen.”

“It was nothing personal, Deputy,” he assured her in a low voice. “He retained me to be his counsel. You didn’t have much of a case.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but Darlene called for her. “Lori, honey? Your shakes are ready.”

She stood her ground, her defiant glare locked on him. Simon found he didn’t mind this particular woman’s boldness. “You didn’t have to take him on.”

“You may not have noticed, but lawyers aren’t thick on the ground here. At least, not defense attorneys.”

She tipped her pointed chin up a notch. “He could have gone elsewhere for representation.”

He leaned in and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Big-money clients are few and far between in these parts. I promised my granddad I wouldn’t run the place into the ground in the first six months,” he added with a wink. Simon winced inside. His mother would have tanned him for making such a tawdry move. “He’s already handed all the Timber Masters business over to their new in-house counsel, so I’ve been tasked with keeping the firm afloat.”

Until a few months ago, the majority of the firm’s business had come from the Masters family and their family-owned forestry and lumber business, Timber Masters. Marlee Masters had come home to roost after earning her law degree, and his grandfather got the notion to make a run at one of the elected posts on the circuit court. The timing of it all seemed…inevitable, if not exactly fortuitous.

The problem was, Simon wasn’t sure he could keep his promise to his grandfather. Other than writing a new will for Eleanor Young, a timid divorcée who’d lost her only son earlier in the year, he hadn’t done a single lawyerly thing since he’d moved to Pine Bluff. The call from Samuel Coulter needing someone local to represent his “various business and personal interests” had broken weeks of Dora reminding him his calendar was distressingly open.

“So, naturally, you scraped the bottom of the nearest barrel to find a client. Congratulations,” she added as she shouldered past him to get to the pickup window. “You’ve got yourself a real winner there, Wingate.”