Playing House Or Playing For Keeps?
Motorcycle-riding judge Wyatt Carter runs his life by the book...mostly. But when his old friend Amber Towers calls him in need, he doesnât hesitate to help her, even though inviting the single and secretly pregnant lawyer to stay in his house has suddenly made him the scandal of Conard County!
Wyatt is the port in Amberâs stormy situation. Even though their friendship sizzles with an underlying attraction, she has to steer clear, because she is pregnantâand he is headed into an important election! But why, this time, does it seem like Wyatt and Amber are willingâno, eager!âto give the town something to talk about?
âMaybe you just need a break from it all. Thereâs been a lot to deal with.â
âMaybe.â
âNo maybe about it,â Wyatt said. âYou were awfully clinical when you called me and told me you were in a mess.â
She gazed into his face, reading his concern but more, his kindness. Heâd always accepted her just as she was, and he was doing it right now.
He touched her cheek, and a pleasant shiver ran through her. Well, at least she could still feel that. It would have been so easy to just fall into his arms. Because she wanted to know what it would feel like to rest her head on his shoulder. To feel his lips on hers. To feel his skin against hers. To feel him filling the emptiness inside her.
Sheâd always wanted to know.
* * *
Conard County: The Next Generation
Prologue
Circuit Judge Wyatt Carter had just finished a pleasant dinner at home, a too-rare occurrence, because he lived alone and was generally too busy to take the time to indulge in cooking. But this was a quiet Sunday evening after a comfortable day of catching up on his reading, and heâd made the effort to cook chicken Alfredo for himself and enjoyed it with a glass of pinot grigio. He felt somewhat self-indulgent, but considering how little time he had for indulgences, he didnât feel guilty.
When the phone rang, he assumed it was his father. Earl Carter ran the family law practice, although lately it had shrunk because Earl was getting older and didnât take as many cases. Earl seemed content enough to let the practice contract even though heâd once said it was his legacy to his son. Then Wyatt had become a circuit court judge, and the plans of a father-son practice had melted away.
But it was not his father, much to his surprise. It was a voice out of the past.
âWyatt?â
He recognized Amber Towersâs voice. Theyâd kept in touch over the last decade, mostly by email and occasional phone calls. Amber had moved on from law school to a large firm in St. Louis, then recently to a much bigger firm in Chicago, headed for the heights. Wyatt, who had graduated two years ahead of her, had joined the military and spent three years in the judge advocate generalâs office. Then heâd come back to out-of-the-way Conard County to fulfill his fatherâs dream of a shared practice.
He and Amber had once been very close friends, although nothing more than that, and since then theyâd maintained a long-distance friendship, except for dinner or lunch at a bar association conference.
Now he heard her voice with astonishment, since she hadnât called in ages, and concern popped into his mind. âAmber? Whatâs wrong?â
âYouâre never going to believe it. Iâm in a mess. Got an hour or so?â
âOf course.â
His mind dived down the byways of memory, recalling Amber as he had first seen her. She was young for a first-year law student, having gone to college two years early and finishing her bachelorâs degree in three years.
She had, in short, been barely nineteen. Heâd been twenty-seven, because heâd taken a couple of years after college to try his hand at other things before going to law school. Sheâd been very pretty, so pretty that every guy who wasnât already marriedâand some who wereâchased her. He hadnât chased. It wasnât that he hadnât found her attractive, but facing his tour with the military in exchange for them paying his law school expenses, he felt it was the wrong time to get involved, especially since the direction she wanted to take was far from his path. Heâd also felt that given the difference in their ages, it might be close to cradle robbing. Amber had seemed so young to him then.
So theyâd become friends over textbooks and in oral arguments. Heâd mentored her, having already taken the classes she was in, and sheâd challenged him with her sharp mind.