The Ballerina's Stand. Angel Smits

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СКАЧАТЬ wants to know if you’re a patron of ballet. Have you seen her perform?”

      “Once.” Jason’s gaze met hers and the wonder of that night returned. Time stretched out.

      Needing a bit of distance from Lauren and the feeling she stirred, Jason paced around his desk and went to the windows to stare out at the hustle and bustle of the city far below. What the hell must it be like to live in foster care in LA?

      He’d lost his father when he was young, but he’d had his mother, and older siblings who were definitely stand-in parents.

      He couldn’t imagine being practically alone in the world as a kid. In the reflection in the window, he saw Lauren and Dylan signing back and forth. For a second he felt excluded, which made him wince. He wondered how many times they’d felt like that on a day-to-day basis.

      “Okay.” He faced Lauren so she could read his words. Watching closely, he hoped he could tell if she understood. “I don’t do criminal law.” When she frowned, he lifted a hand. “I have colleagues here who do. Let me do some research.” He pulled out a card and grabbed a pen. He wrote on the back. Bring your foster parents with you. Come back and I’ll help. He added his signature so they’d know it was legit.

      He handed the card to the boy, which brought a smile to his young face. He nodded and made a gesture cupping his hand from his jaw to his chest. “Thank you,” he said in accompaniment.

      Then Jason faced Lauren. She was making the same gesture and smiling at Dylan. She signed quickly and Dylan answered, then faced Jason again. “She thinks my foster parents will be glad.”

      Jason lifted his hand and, for one last question, he used his rough finger spelling. “Tina?” He made the question mark in the air as he’d seen Lauren do earlier.

      The boy’s face fell. “She’s mad at me. But she came home. Should she come?”

      Jason slowly nodded, a look of what he hoped was resoluteness on his face. Lauren signed. “We’ll try,” Dylan said.

      That’s all he could ask. As they stood and turned to leave, Jason took a step and reached out to touch Lauren’s arm. She looked back with a questioning frown. Jason tapped her file on the desk and held it up. “We need to discuss your inheritance.”

      She stared at the file. She put her hands together, then moved one forward in front of the other an inch or two.

      “She says later,” Dylan explained.

      Lauren’s hands moved quickly again, and Jason’s frustration returned.

      “What?” Jason asked.

      Dylan’s movements in sign were fluid, perfectly in sync with his words. “She says if you keep me out of jail, she’ll consider it.”

      That was it? Even he could read the message in her body language—she wasn’t asking him. She was telling.

      Reluctantly, Jason nodded and tried to imitate her gesture for later, then slowly created O-K. He must have been close, because she smiled and the boy laughed.

      Jason walked with them to the elevator, feeling strange not speaking the normal, polite conversation his mother had beat into his thick skull, but they seemed comfortable.

      The metal doors whooshed open to reveal a startled Susan, a cup of coffee in one hand and cardboard cup holder with three paper cups nestled tightly in the other. “Oh.” She stared at them.

      “For us?” Dylan asked, his eyes bright.

      “Hot chocolate for you, young man,” Susan said, not bothering to notice they couldn’t hear her. She pulled one cup out, skillfully not spilling anything, and handed it to the boy. She turned to Lauren with a frightened look on her face, as if she knew she’d screwed up earlier, but didn’t know how to not do it again. With a tentative smile, she offered the coffees.

      Not to be outdone, Lauren peered at the cups and chose one, making that same scooping gesture Jason now knew meant “thank you.” She took a sip of the sweet drink, and Jason found his gaze glued to her slim throat as she swallowed.

      Susan cleared her throat.

      “Uh, yes. Thanks, Susan,” Jason said.

      Lauren and Dylan stepped into the elevator and waved as the doors closed. Jason fought the urge to jump in behind them.

      He didn’t say a word, simply grabbed the last coffee and headed back to his desk. He did not want to know what Susan was thinking.

      “New client?” She sipped her own drink as she stood in the doorway.

      “Uh, sort of. She’s not new. The boy is.”

      “Uh, what kind of business does he own?”

      Jason looked up at her, not appreciating the speculation sparking in the woman’s eyes. “It’s a different type of case.”

      “Really?”

      He wasn’t explaining himself, certainly not until he understood what the hell he’d gotten himself into. “Check out sign language classes for me, would you?”

      She actually looked surprised. He glared at her, not liking what was most likely going through her head, though it was probably fairly accurate.

      “And sign us both up.” Jason sat down at his desk and rearranged the computer setup, trying and failing to put his world back to the way it had been before Lauren Ramsey had walked in.

      * * *

      THE ELEVATOR’S MOVEMENT was smooth, and, before Lauren knew it, they were down on the main floor in the shiny marble and chrome lobby. Dozens of people passed, coming and going. The revolving door never stopped.

      Outside, the day was warm, the sky clear. She sipped her coffee, walking with Dylan toward the bus stop.

      There was something different about that man, Jason Hawkins. Lauren couldn’t quite put her finger on it, and the fact that she couldn’t peg it, bothered her.

      Growing up as she had, in foster care, in rough neighborhoods early on, she’d had to learn to read people. Even once she’d gone to live with Maxine, she’d maintained and honed that skill.

      The rich were no less predatory than the poor. They just looked prettier doing it.

      But Jason Hawkins wasn’t like anyone she’d ever met before.

      His office was high-end, chrome and glass, with polish written all over it. But back on the credenza, she’d spied a photo frame of over a half dozen people, all smiling, looking like family. His family.

      Between the frame and his law school diploma had sat a belt buckle. One of those big, shiny Western ones.

      She’d wondered if it was his, or someone else’s. And what was it for? It had caught her eye, and her curiosity.

      She’d had the “joy” of meeting an endless stream of lawyers, judges and social workers in her childhood. Maybe as a kid she’d had a skewed view. But the few lawyers she’d come across as an adult hadn’t changed СКАЧАТЬ