Free First Class Justice (First Class Novels) by AJ Harmon Page A

her.”
    “I know she would like that. She called you her angel.”
    “I didn’t think you were allowed to talk about your other
patients,” Katy smiled.
    “Special circumstances, indeed,” Dr. LaVaughn said as she
stood and walked to the window and stood next to Katy. “Are you agitated just
because of tomorrow? Or is there something else?”
    Katy sighed. Her doctor was able to read every expression in
her face and every move her body made.
    “Mark showed up on Friday night.”
    “Showed up?”
    “Yeah. I had called him after lunch when Shelby was asleep.
I guess I was having a moment and needed to hear a kind voice.”
    “You didn’t call Janie.”
    Katy squirmed a little. “That’s a bad sign huh?”
    “Why do you think that?”
    “Well Janie has been the person I have turned to since,
well, since forever. And she wasn’t who I called. I called Mark, the man who
can never be anything more to me than just a friend. I’ve picked somebody who’s
totally unavailable.”
    “So you talked to him on the phone and then he arrived?”
    “Yeah. Well, ten hours later.”
    “He got on a plane in New York and flew to Portland because
you had a ‘moment’ on the phone?” Dr. LaVaughn was stunned.
    “Yeah.”
    “And you think he’s unavailable?”
    “Well at Christmas he was dating this tall blonde.”
    “And is he still dating her?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “So why do you say he’s unavailable?”
    “Because!” Katy said a little louder than she had intended
to. She stomped back to the chair and sat. “He looks at me like I’m some
wounded animal that he has taken pity on. He doesn’t think of me as anything
more than a charity case.”
    “And you can tell all of that from the way he looks at you?”
    “Yes!”
    Dr. LaVaughn turned to Katy. “I think you look at yourself as a wounded animal. I think you can’t imagine anybody wanting you after what
you’ve been through. I think you feel like you don’t deserve somebody to care
for you. I think you need to reexamine the way you think of yourself.”
    “Hmph!” Katy preferred it when she did the talking and Dr.
LaVaughn said nothing.
    *****
    Mark was a shrewd businessman. He and his older brother Matt
made excellent partners in their real estate investment company. Mark was able
to secure the best buildings in the best locations and negotiate the lowest
prices, and Matt had the vision to turn them into something almost magical and
extremely profitable. They had built an empire together, one they were both
extremely proud of.
    Mark was an excellent son. He was devoted to his parents and
never wanted to cause them grief or pain. He had rebelled just a little in his
later teenage years, but it was short-lived and never involved police
intervention. He looked up to his father, Peter, as the man he should strive to
be. His mother adored all her boys and had sacrificed all for them. She had
almost died giving birth to Mark and the doctors had told her she shouldn’t
have more children, but she had delivered five more boys after him. She loved
them all unconditionally. And even though it was difficult for her when Andrew
told her he was gay, her love for him never wavered and neither did her
support. Mark tried hard to live up to his parents expectations of him as both
a son and as a man.
    Mark was an excellent athlete. He excelled in every sport he
played in high school and received a full-ride scholarship to play basketball
at the University of Connecticut.  He set records for the most assists and
three pointers his junior year and then broke his own records his senior year. 
Since then, he had graduated to extreme sports like sky-diving, rock climbing
and snowboarding mountains, jumping from a helicopter. He loved the thrill and
he loved the rush of adrenaline.
    But when it came to women, Mark did not excel at all, but
only because he really didn’t try. He didn’t have a lot of time and he didn’t
have any patience to ‘woo’ anyone.