Legal Affairs - Mitigation: Legal Affairs Serial Romance Read online

  LEGAL AFFAIRS

  Vol. 4 - Mitigation

  By Sawyer Bennett

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2014 by Sawyer Bennett

  Published by Big Dog Books

  ISBN: 978-1-940883-08-3

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Find Sawyer on the web!

  www.sawyerbennett.com

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  I vaguely note that Matt is wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes… an outfit that I’ve never seen him in before. It’s a far cry from the tailored business suits and silk ties he always wears.

  No matter what he’s wearing, when I release my mom’s hand and turn to walk into his outstretched arms, I finally feel a small measure of comfort.

  Matt wraps himself around me, and I lay my head on his chest. He smells like fresh soap, and I could care less how obvious I am when I turn my nose into his shirt and inhale him deeply. Unfortunately, it makes me painfully aware that I probably smell like a garbage dump since I haven’t showered in over a day and a half.

  Pressing his lips to the top of my head, Matt just holds me until I’m ready to break free. But I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. This is the first time in our tortured game that he has held me just to comfort me, with no expectation of getting anything in return. It’s a side of Matt I’ve never seen, and I probably won’t see again after he leaves.

  Which now makes me realize… why is he here? This is very anti-Matt. We eat dinner together… we have sex. That’s all there is.

  But I can’t let that be one of my worries because I have enough on my plate. For now… I’ll just enjoy Matt’s strong embrace and worry about everything else later.

  Unfortunately, my peaceful moment is disturbed when my stomach gives an incredibly loud and embarrassingly long rumble of hunger. It sounds like Chewbacca and a T-Rex having a mixed martial arts contest inside my stomach.

  Matt pulls slightly back and looks down at me. “When’s the last time you’ve eaten?”

  “When I had dinner with you, I guess,” I answer, because I think that’s the last time I’d eaten. Wracking my brain, I couldn’t remember putting anything else in my stomach other than coffee, which is probably why it felt full of burning acid right now.

  Grabbing my hand, Matt says, “Let’s rectify that.”

  I pull back, glancing in worry at my mom laying in the bed… the respirator slowly whooshing in and out. “I can’t leave her.”

  Matt’s eyes turn warm, but they are stern. “Mac… she’ll be fine if you leave for just a few minutes. The nurses’ station is right outside her door. We’ll come right back, but you need to eat to keep up your strength. Okay?”

  He waits for me to decide, which again is very anti-Matt. The Matt I’ve come to know and ‘love to hate sometimes’ would have dragged me kicking and screaming down to the cafeteria and shoved food down my throat. Now, he’s presenting me with an option and leaving the choice up to me.

  “If you don’t want to leave her,” he continues, “I’ll go down, get you something, and bring it back. But I think you should come with me… stretch those legs a bit.”

  I glance back at my mom and feel tremendous guilt for leaving her side for even a minute. But then rationality comes back and I realize… she won’t even know I’m gone. She won’t know anything, ever again.

  I nod at Matt and he takes me by the hand, linking his fingers with mine as we walk through the hospital. Following the signs pointing to the cafeteria, we walk in silence for a bit because I’m still stunned that he’s here. I can’t figure out why. It’s not something he should be doing as my employer. But he doesn’t seem to have any feelings for me outside of the bedroom, so that doesn’t make sense either.

  Deciding to go ahead and put this worry to rest so I can concentrate on the more important things, I stop and turn to look at Matt. “Why are you here?”

  “Because no one should go through something like this alone,” he says simply.

  “Yeah… but I’m not your responsibility or concern.”

  Matt shrugs his shoulders and resumes walking. “Truth be told, Mac… I’m not really sure why I’m here. When I got into the office this morning, Miss Anders told me what happened. I guess Macy called her.”

  “Yeah, I vaguely recall telling Macy to call the office for me.”

  “Well, I called Macy back to get more details. She was beside herself fretting about you. Said you hadn’t called her, and you weren’t returning her calls. She wasn’t sure whether to get on a plane to fly to be by your side or not, but then she said you sort of told her you didn’t want her there, so she didn’t want to intrude. I’m telling you… she was a mess.”

  Guilt courses through me for doing that to Macy, and honestly… I don’t even remember doing that. I think I was operating in a state of shock. I make a note to call her as soon as I finish eating something.

  Matt continues. “Anyway, I decided to take the worrying away from Macy and told her I would fly down here to help you out. I made a quick stop at home to pack a small bag, and here I am.”

  “Thank you for coming,” I say in a small voice. “You really didn’t have to.”

  “I know,” is all he says, and then the subject is closed.

  Matt walks me through the line but nothing looks good to me, so he proceeds to fill my tray up with a variety of items. After he pays, we find a seat and he points at the food. “Eat.”

  “You always have to be in control, don’t you?” I grumble, even as I pick my fork up and take a small bite of mac and cheese.

  Damn, that’s good.

  Matt just gives me a knowing smile and watches me while I eat. If I look like I’m ready to slow down, he points at the food and that’s all he has to do to urge me to eat. When I’m done to Matt’s satisfaction, I push the tray off to the side and lean back in my chair. I’m exhausted, and I scrub my hands over my face in an attempt to revive myself.

  Finally, I focus on Matt, who is patiently waiting for me to talk… if I want to.

  “I don’t know what to do,” is the first thing I say to him.

  He gazes at me in understanding and sympathy. “Tell me what’s going on, and we’ll talk it out.”

  I inhale deeply, sucking all the oxygen in that I can hold. After slowly letting it out, I tell him, “The doctor is going to come by tonight and talk to me in more detail about her condition, but from what they’ve told me so far, she isn’t going to recover. She has minimal brain activity… The machines are keeping her alive right now. I think tonight… I think he wants to talk to me about taking her off life support.”

  “Did your mom have a Living Will or any other health care directive?”

  I knew this question would be coming from Matt—he’s a lawyer aft
er all—but it’s like a sharp slap in the face when it comes. Tears well up in my eyes, and I shake my head in the negative.

  “I’m so stupid,” I say vehemently. “I’m a fucking lawyer, and I never thought to have my mom do one.”

  Reaching across the table, Matt takes my hands and attempts to soothe me by rubbing them gently with his own. “Don’t do that to yourself. It has no purpose here to dwell on those things.”

  Pulling my lower lip between my teeth, I bite down hard to feel some type of physical pain that will force the emotional tears back. It works and, with a few blinks, the wetness dissipates.

  “Did you and your mom ever talk about this?” Matt asks.

  “No,” I say miserably, staring at the Formica table in front of me. “Not even when my dad died. He had a heart attack. It was so quick… We never thought about something like this happening. I never thought I’d have to make these decisions.”

  Matt’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Okay… let’s figure out what your mom would want then. Tell me about her?”

  A slow smile creeps onto my face, and I raise my eyes to Matt’s. I know what he’s doing, and it’s brilliant. He wants to make me focus on the type of person my mom is… I mean really focus, so that I could determine what her inherent wishes may be.

  “She’s energetic… always on the go. She works full time, but in her spare time, I don’t think she sleeps. She’s always been so active with her church, and she does volunteer work. Oh, and she loves to garden. She always said she was happiest when her hands were about three inches deep in soil.”

  “Tell me about her church,” Matt says. “What sorts of things does she do there?”

  And it goes on and on. Matt sits there, using all of his skills he’s acquired as an attorney, and he questions me like I’m a witness with a juicy piece of information that he’s trying to discover. He’s trying to help me discover what my mom would want. Except he’s amazingly gentle with his questions, like he’s leading a small child on the witness stand.

  Matt gets me to talk for almost an hour straight, and things start to get clearer. My mother loved life too much to ever want to live life in a bed, stuck to a respirator.

  “What about you, Matt? What would you want if this happened to you?”

  “If I was just like your mom? I’d want to be let go.”

  I nod, because that’s exactly what I would want, too.

  Matt and I head back to the room and wait for the doctor. I marvel at how Matt seems to be at ease in this situation, and I can only guess that has come from years of dealing with people, such as lawyers, judges, and doctors. I think it’s probably very hard to get Matt Connover flustered about anything. He’s a rock, and it’s something I sorely needed today.

  While we wait for the doctor, Matt and I work a crossword puzzle together. Every once in a while, I’ll take a break and walk over to my mom. I’ll stroke her cheek or hold her hand for a bit.

  I start my goodbyes.

  The doctor finally comes, and I introduce Matt as a “friend”. Dr. Fritz is a neurosurgeon and was called in last night to evaluate my mom. He’s a warm and outgoing guy, maybe in his mid-fifties, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a doctor more personable. But he’s very grave when talking to me about my mom’s condition. He uses a lot of large words that I don’t understand, but at the end of the conversation, he pats my knee gently and says, “Bottom line… there is almost absolutely no hope of your mother regaining brain function.”

  Matt reaches out to take my hand, and I’m grateful for the contact. He turns to the doctor and says, “Put it in a percentage for us to understand, Dr. Fritz.”

  The kind doctor looks at Matt seriously. “Less than a one-percent chance. I mean… far less than one percent. It would be a medical miracle.”

  Less than one percent. A medical miracle. The thing that sucks about that phraseology is that it still implies there is some hope, no matter how infinitesimal it is.

  “If it was your mother… what would you do?” I ask.

  Dr. Fritz gives me a knowing smile, and I can tell this is not the first time he’s been asked that question. “Miss Dawson, if my mother was in the same exact circumstances as your mother… there’s no question. I’d discontinue extraordinary measures and let her go.”

  Taking a deep breath, I nod. I know what has to be done.

  Matt checked us into the The Hermitage in downtown Nashville and immediately sent me to take a hot shower while he ordered room service. It took a whole lot of fighting on his part, but he finally got me to agree to sleep in a hotel rather than in a chair in mom’s room. My time with her is running short, and I want to be with her every minute. I feel guilty now... at this very moment, as I stand under the hot water and let it cleanse my body. I feel guilty because I only have precious hours left with my mom, but here I am in the comforts of a swank hotel.

  The only reason I’m here is because Matt gently reminded me that my mother is essentially gone already. That she has no comprehension, and she wouldn’t know if I was sitting by her side or sitting in a hotel. But the real kicker—the way Matt got me—was he told me that based on what he’d learned about my mom that day, she wouldn’t want her daughter suffering and would want her to get some rest.

  I caved, and now here I am.

  I had made my decision to discontinue extraordinary measures for my mom. Dr. Fritz asked how much time I would need for friends and family to say goodbye, and I honestly wasn’t sure. My mom and dad’s families were all out in California. Mom and Dad had settled in Nashville when I was three years old.

  After a brief call with Aunt Kay, my mom’s sister, she felt we should let her go now rather than wait for them to all fly in. No one really wanted Mom suffering on the respirator for very long, and Aunt Kay promised she’d be in the following day to help with the funeral. That left her friends locally, and I merely called her pastor and advised him that if anyone wanted to visit, they could come by in the evening.

  I told Dr. Fritz I wanted to do it first thing in the morning, and so we scheduled it for eight AM. I even put an appointment entry on my iPhone calendar, and then realized that was a fucking moronic move. There was no way I was going to forget this particular appointment, so I erased it.

  Finishing my shower, I brush my teeth. I take a few minutes to dry my hair before I throw on the hotel robe that Matt had apparently stuck on the back of the door because it hadn’t been there when I stepped into the bathroom.

  When I come out into the room, I see that Matt has some food laid out.

  “I know you ate just a few hours ago,” Matt says as he uncovers everything, “so I just got something light… some soup and sandwiches. And after you eat, you’re heading straight to bed to get some rest.”

  He pulls the chair out for me to sit down, so I do. He even takes my napkin, snaps it out, and lays it on my lap with flourish. I really and truly cannot help the giggle that comes out. That seems to egg Matt on so he opens the bottled water and holds it out for me to inspect, stating, “Our finest vintage, madam.”

  “It looks spectacular,” I tell him, and we both chuckle while he pours me some water.

  Matt keeps my mind occupied as we eat. He tells me that Lorraine seems to have calmed down, and they are rationally discussing Bill taking over her caseload. I also make a quick phone call to Macy just to tell her how sorry I am for my behavior and assure her I wasn’t thinking clearly. She told me she was catching a flight to Nashville in the morning and that she would stay here until I was ready to come back.

  When we finish eating, Matt takes the tray and sticks it outside our room door for housekeeping to pick up. I root through my bag, trying to find something to wear but, apparently, I didn’t throw in a single pair of pajamas. Grabbing a pair of underwear, I slip them on under the robe, and then stand up. I place my hands on my hips, looking around in confusion.

  “What’s wrong?” Matt asks.

  “I forgot my pajamas.”

  �
��No worries,” Matt says, and he lifts the t-shirt he’s wearing over his head. He tosses it at me. “Put this on… it will be more comfortable than wearing that robe to bed.”

  I open the robe and shrug it off my shoulders, dropping it to the ground. I have no modesty where Matt’s concerned… he’s seen it all.

  Hell, he’s licked it all.

  Just before I put his t-shirt over my head, I lock eyes with him, and he’s watching me with an odd mixture of what I think is lust, but also compassion. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen, and it unsettles me. I have a rush of desire for him in that moment, but I also have no want or need to act upon it. Instead, I inhale his scent from the t-shirt and look longingly at the fluffy pillows on the bed, which are calling my name.

  Matt pulls back the covers and motions me under. When he has me tucked in, he walks to the other side and takes off his jeans. Even though I’m exhausted and heartsick, I lie on my side and watch him with appreciation. His body is utterly beautiful, and I sigh knowing that tonight it’s only for me to look at. Matt catches me checking him out, and I’m not even embarrassed. But I am so tired that I can do nothing but give him a tiny smile.

  Matt then pulls out his laptop from his briefcase.

  “Do you mind if I do some work?” he asks me.

  Still smiling at him, I give a tiny shake of my head.

  Setting the laptop on the bedside table, Matt gets under the covers and turns to his side so we’re staring at each other.

  “Do you want me to hold you until you fall asleep?” he whispers.

  His words are like a soothing balm over my shredded heart, and I nod. He pulls me into his embrace, tucking my head under his chin. His hands slowly stroke my back, up and down. Long, measured strokes… not too light and not too firm. Just enough to relax me and, before I know it, my eyes start to close.

  I think my last thought before I went to bed was that if Matt treated me like this all the time, I’d probably fall head over heels in love with him.