Page 14 of Justice for the SEAL
As a judge in civil court, she’d seen everything from wrongful death like the HERO Force case to slander and breach of contract. Some of the cases were heartbreaking, but the one today was personal and she’d been dreading it forweeks.
It was a medical malpractice case being brought by the mother of a young woman who had died of breast cancer the year before. The patient was the same age Gemma had been when she was diagnosed with breast cancerherself.
Gemma hadlived.
This woman’s daughterhaddied.
It was hard to make sense of that, no matter the details of the case, and she wouldn’t hear those for quite some time. It was her job to be impartial, but she was only human. Some cases affected her more than others, and she needed to work hard to keep her emotions in check and her judgment freefrombias.
Jury selection could be a long process in a case like this, and two hours later they’d barely made any progress. The head lawyer for the doctor’s team stood up. “Your honor, we request numbers three, five, and nine beexcused.”
She nodded. Those people had close relationships with people who’d had breast cancer. The damn disease was everywhere. If they hoped to avoid jurors who hadn’t been touched by it in some way, they had a long road aheadofthem.
She crossed her arms over her chest, thinking of a T-shirt she had in her closet at home that she should wear under her robe sometime during thistrial.
Yes,they’refake.
My real ones tried tokillme!
Oh God, had Logannoticed?
Don’t think about himagain.
But her mind went rogue and her cheeks flooded with heat as she wondered what he might have noticed about her chest. She’d only had one other relationship since her surgery – a six month stint with a cardiologist – and he knew about her reconstruction long before they’d had sex. But Logan had no idea, and it had been very dark intheroom.
Stopit.
She tapped her pencil on her blotter, wishing the lawyers woulddo somethingso she could get the hell out of herownhead.
There was something about Logan that wasn’t going to be easy to forget, and she hadn’t bargained on that in her quest for anonymous sex. There had been moments during the night when it felt like they’d been lovers foryears.
Akiss.
Atouch.
His fingers intertwinedwithhers.
And his body! He was hung. She’d never been with a guy like that, had barely believed April when she told her men of such size existed, like unicorns or Sasquatch. And the man had stamina. They’d had sex four times in the night, the intimacy of being woken from sleep by sexy kisses and erotic touches still at the forefront ofhermind.
Definitely not easy toforget.
The lawyer moved forward to question a potential juror and she snapped back to the present, but it wasn’t long before voir dire turned to quiet consideration and her mind was right back inLogan’sbed.
Man, how old is he,anyway?
That might be a question she really didn’t need answered. He looked about thirty. If that estimate was right, she was a solid fifteen years older than him. Hell, if this wereTeen Momshe could be hismother.
She still had that thought in her mind several hours later after she’d adjourned the case for the night and finished some work in her chambers before heading home,exhausted.
It was dusk by the time she got off the bus near her house and started the three-block walk to her door. The evening air was warm and humid, a breeze carrying the smell of barbecue and flowers. For the first time all day, her mind was finally free of the buzzards that had been haunting her consciousness since sheawoke.
A noise behind her and she turned, relieved to see it was just a jogger. Her neighborhood was pretty safe, but she was always conscious of the inherent dangers of a woman walking alone atnight.
She moved to the side as he approached, when suddenly she was knocked hard to the ground, the man on top of her and the foul stink of body odor allaround.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed. She twisted her head in an attempt to see him, but only caught part of aplasticmask.
OhmyGod.
