Free The First Law of Love by Abbie Williams Page A

cabinets, an old-fashioned phone with a long corkscrew cord, a wheeled desk chair.
    â€œYou can bring whatever you’d like to spruce up the space,” Al told me, leading me behind the counter that ran the length of the main room; his desk was towards the back, near a closed door labeled CONFERENCE ROOM. “There’s one bathroom, just over there, and a storage room down that hall. We haven’t redecorated in some time,” he added, as though apologetically.
    â€œNo, this is great,” I said, recalling the lack of any personal space I’d ever been afforded during my summer externships at Turnbull and Hinckley.
    â€œI’ll have you start researching right away, if you would,” Al said. “This next Tuesday, a week from tomorrow, there’s a city council meeting at the courthouse. An information session I requested, actually, and Derrick Yancy has also requested to present. He wants to argue why people should sell to him, why it’s in their best interest. I want to prove him wrong, and that’s where you can help me.”
    I nodded, tucking stray hair behind my ears. I said, “Just point me in the right direction.”
    Four hours later, I had shed my jacket. Al had left an hour earlier to attend a hearing at the courthouse, and Mary a second ago, for lunch. She had addressed me as ‘Patty’ when she bid me farewell, but I felt impolite correcting her. I looked up from my notes to watch her make her way down the sidewalk under the brilliant noon sun, which sparked in her jeweled glasses chain, nearly blinding me. I took the opportunity of being momentarily alone to stretch, twisting at the waist and rubbing the back of my neck; this office was not air-conditioned, not that I was a complainer, but the only window that actually opened was on the opposite side of the room, near Mary’s desk.
    I had been gathering information all morning, and was proud of the stack of notes I’d already managed to take. Al had tasked me with looking into Capital Overland’s activity over the past five years, specifically the fates of the people displaced from the towns the company had purchased and then typically dozed and resold. What I had discovered wasn’t a pretty picture. The families that I had found information for had not fared any better after selling and relocating; so far, dozens had since declared bankruptcy.
    â€œDraft up an argument,” Al told me. “We want to rally all the locals at the meeting. We want solidarity. Point out that they aren’t assured of finding a better circumstance by selling and relocating.”
    I was thinking about getting a batch of t-shirts made that read Save Jalesville!, as this had been my mantra for the last month. Truly, though, I felt I was doing something worthwhile, a feeling I had not experienced in some time. If ever. I was just about to bend back over my notes when a movement out the window caught my eye and I unexpectedly received a jolt of pure and unrefined adrenaline. A man who was unmistakably Case Spicer was approaching the law office from across the street, and my heart stuttered, kick-started and then pounded hard, fueling the rush of angst in my entire body.
    Oh my God. Oh my God.
    Is my picture still in his wallet?
    All those things he said at Camille ’ s wedding …
    He said he knew we were meant to be together …
    That ’ s long gone now, for fuck ’ s sake, Tish.
    Wow, he looks different than I remember …
    The bell above the law office door tingled as he entered, his gaze scanning the otherwise empty room before coming to rest on me. Maybe I imagined that his eyes held all of the attraction and longing that I remembered from years ago, the puppy-love he’d so openly admitted to back then.
    You ’ re imagining it , I told myself harshly, heart thudding so hard it was probably audible, even as I rose to my feet and offered what I hoped was a professional and