Free Lawyers In Love: In His Own Defense by Ann Jacobs

back of Tony’s neck. “Someone has to,” he said more sharply than he intended. “Why do you work for the state attorney?”
    “Because I want to see criminals put where they belong.”
    Suddenly Tony pictured Ezra Ruggles, the scrawny, twenty-two-year-old kid whose conviction he was trying to get overturned. A boy who’d spent nearly five years so far in the state’s maximum-security prison for a crime he hadn’t committed.
    “What if a defendant isn’t guilty? Do you still think he belongs in prison?” He recalled the railroad job Ezra had suffered, courtesy of the Hillsborough County state attorney’s office. They’d had a lot of help from an overworked, underpaid public defender barely out of law school and still wet behind the ears, he reminded himself, to be fair.
    “Of course not.”
    “Are you sure?”
    She twisted around far enough to meet his gaze. “I wouldn’t want to see someone wrongly sent to prison. But I can’t imagine making my living by trying to get criminals set free.” She paused, as if hesitant to go on. “What made you choose criminal law? Criminal defense?”
    He just about said money—his stock answer to that question. Instead, he thought for a moment before replying.
    “Prosecuting and defending people accused of crimes was what I pictured lawyers doing from the time I decided I wanted to become one. The idea of setting up estates and trusts, or dotting I’s and crossing T’s on corporate charters, didn’t fire my imagination, even after I realized those specialties were part of law too. I couldn’t imagine myself haggling with a colleague over how much someone’s broken leg or neck was worth in money, either. As for defense, I chose it because it seems to me the little guy needs more help than the big, bad government.”
    “And because it pays better?”
    “That, too. I like my creature comforts.” No way was anybody going to make him feel guilty for that. Tony leaned back against the cushioned bulkhead and met Kristine’s solemn gaze. “What about you, Krissy? Criminal law’s not the usual choice for women attorneys.”
    She looked away, as if searching for something hidden in the cloak of darkness beyond the boat. “Your chauvinism is showing, Mr. Landry.”
    “I plead not guilty. There aren’t many female criminal lawyers. Take my firm, for example. Being politically correct, we have forty-one junior associates who are women, compared with forty-three men. Not one of the women has exhibited the slightest interest in pursuing criminal defense as her specialty. Why did you choose criminal law?”
    “Asked and answered, Counselor.” She paused, turned away, then back to meet his gaze. “I wanted to see criminals punished.”
    She had to have suffered terribly, to have focused not only her career goals but her life on gaining retribution. Not for the first time, Tony wondered what the hell had gone wrong with his brain. Here he was, lusting—no, more than lusting, aching—for a woman whose dreams and obsessions appeared completely at odds with his own. He doubted he could have found a worse match if he tried.
    “Can we agree to disagree on this, Krissy?” he asked. “Get to know each other as individuals, not as opposing counsel?”
    She sighed, a soft, plaintive sound that layered itself gently onto the slapping noise of waves against the hull of the boat. Tony realized he’d been holding his breath when he nearly choked before inhaling a gust of warm, moist air.
    “I want to,” she said after a long pause. “Maybe it’s the moonlight and the stars. The magic…”
    “I’ve been hard for you from the first time I saw you, interviewing jurors. You’ve wanted me, too, from that first day we faced off in court. Moonlight and magic? I don’t think so.”
    “Tony, I’m afraid.”
    He gave in to a powerful urge, lifted and turned her. When he set her down on his lap, her soft curves met and molded to the hard plane of his belly and chest. Blood