“Okay, okay, think, Gabrielle,” I said to myself as I put my hands on my h*ps and paced. “She’s a single woman, so if we see guy trash it’s probably not hers.”

“Guy trash?” Jess asked dubiously.

“You know, stuff that a guy has that women doesn’t.”

“A penis?” Jess shook her head in bewilderment.

“Cam, what kind of stuff would a guy have that a woman probably wouldn’t?”

“Uh, Playboy, Penthouse, cigars, Scotch. Actually, if you find that stuff let me know. I think I want to hang out with that guy.”

“Well, what kind of stuff would a woman have that a guy wouldn’t?” I was getting desperate.

“Tampons!” Jess yelled and clapped her hands like she was on Family Feud.

“Will you be quiet?” I hissed. “The point is we can figure out within maybe five cans which one is hers. It looks like there’s an alley over there and there are street lights. I say we carry the cans back there and figure out which one it is.”

“Okay, good luck with that. I’m the lookout, remember?” Cam said, walking away.

“I’m the driver,” Jess chimed in.

“And I’m the trash picker. Yes, I recall the conversation, but I need your help carrying it back there.” They sighed and both of them went over and picked up a can and hauled it back to the alley. I picked one up too and we soon had five cans back there. We had placed them directly under a street light and I opened the lid and started going through the first can. I was leaning into it covered in garbage myself when Jess finally broke.

“Oh Jesus, honey! I can’t watch you do this anymore. Move over!” She started going through a second can. I saw Cam squirm.

“I’m not going to do this.”

“So, don’t. You’re the lookout,” I reminded him.

“I’m serious. I’m really not picking through trash.”

“Ew! Is that a condom?” Jess asked.

“Ah man!” Cam made a face and kicked the base of the street light. “It’s like I can hear my mother saying ‘a gentleman picks through trash for a lady, Cameron’,” he grumbled. “Move over!” He stormed over and ripped the lid off a third can. “I don’t know if we’re going to find anything we can use,” he said, and suddenly a voice called out.

“Cameron? Is that you?” Cam froze. Three male shadows approached. “It’s Bob – Bob Lewis.”

“Bob! How are you?” Cam stood up as a well-dressed middle-aged man and his two companions approached.

“Phil, Jack, this is Cameron Clay from Findlay Clay. He’s my financial planner. I trust him with all of my most important money decisions.”

“Uh, I would shake your hands but…” Cam was fighting hard to maintain his dignity. Maybe he would make a good public defender yet.

“What are you doing here, Cameron?” Bob asked, seemingly noticing for the first time that his financial planner, the man he trusted with all of his most important money decisions, was at the moment picking through a garbage can.

“Um…”

“I know!” Jack said with a chuckle.

“You do?” Cam asked dubiously.

“Yes, I do. It happened to my wife just last week.”

“It did?”

“Her diamond ring came off in the kitchen and wound up in the garbage. We spent an hour digging through the trash before we found it. So did your girlfriend lose something valuable?”

“Yes!” both Jess and I said at exactly the same time. We looked at each other and then said “she did” at the same time too. “You did!” I said through gritted teeth.

“I did,” she said. “My uh, yearbook.” Huh? “My high school yearbook. It must have fallen into the garbage. I’m very broken up about it.” Jack looked confused. I didn’t blame him.

“Well, uh, I hope you find it,” he said with a nod and a smile, backing away slowly. Clearly he thought we were either nuts or on drugs. I didn’t blame him for that either.

“Take care,” Bob threw in, looking like he thought maybe he was missing something here and there really was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this. The three of them continued walking down the alley and around the block. Cam breathed a sigh of relief and then he glared at me.

“You look angry,” I noted, taking an involuntary step back.

“Angry? Why would I be angry?” he asked quietly. “A multi-millionaire who trusts me to give him investment advice just caught me picking through trash and saying that we might not find anything that we could use.”

I glanced at my watch. Shit! It was ten minutes to ten! “We have to get out of here. I told Braden I would be ready to go to his place by ten.”

“Come on!” Jess said and headed for my car with Cam and I right behind her. We pulled into my parking garage at ten exactly. I thanked Cam again and apologized for the fiftieth time about Bob. He seemed to be over it. In fact I think he was starting to find it kind of humorous. He waved as he hopped into his own car and headed home. Jess and I sprinted up the stairs and tore into the lobby… where Braden and Adam and Mark and Bruno were patiently waiting.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I saw their faces register confusion and then, well, disgust to be honest, and I looked down. I was covered in garbage. There were gum wrappers, used napkins, bits of tinfoil and something that I hoped was a wad of gum stuck to my clothes. I looked over at Jess and she was no better. Among other things she had a Ziploc baggie stuck in her hair and there was a banana peel melded to her shorts.

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” Adam said.

“I may need to take a quick shower before we go.” Bruno began to whine and then he hid under a chair. Braden handed his leash to Mark and got up to walk over to me. When he got about two feet away, though, he halted.

“Oh, Gabrielle!” He made a face and waved his hand to clear the air. “Maybe not a quick one.” Great. I smelled bad too. Jess walked over to the elevator.

“Might as well come on up and make yourselves comfortable,” she offered.

“Uh, we’ll take the stairs,” Mark said with a grimace.

Twenty minutes later I was clean again and entering the living room, where Jess was already talking to the guys.

“I was just explaining how we went out to eat and I left my wallet on the tray and it got dumped into the trash and we had to check the dumpster to find it.” Wow, that was a lot better than ‘I accidentally threw my high school yearbook away’.

Bruno gave a happy yip and came running up to me. Braden came over hesitantly, leaned down, nuzzled my neck and inhaled deeply. “Mm, much better. What were you two out doing tonight anyway – besides going out to eat and digging through dumpsters?”

“Gathering evidence for a case.”

“What? Why were you doing that? That’s what your office pays investigators for.”

“It wasn’t dangerous.”

“Gabrielle, anything could be dangerous right now. You know that. And you wound up crawling around in a dumpster. I really don’t want you doing things like that anymore.” He didn’t want me doing things like this anymore? Who was he, my dad?

“Oh? And you’ll never go out to a crime scene or go out to interview a witness in the field huh?”

“I’m a guy,” he said, like that explained everything.

“So. Female prosecutors do it too.”

“Yeah, but they’re not my girlfriend and they’re not getting harassing letters.” He was starting to sound annoyed.

“They probably get lots of harassing letters.”

“Okay, have I mentioned that they’re not my girlfriend?” He was definitely sounding annoyed now.

“Even before the letter, you were worrying about me going into lock-up to interview clients charged with violent crimes.”

“Because you could get hurt and there are plenty of male public defenders who could do it.”

“But I can do it and it’s my job to do it. Next you’ll be telling me that you don’t want me to represent anyone charged with a violent crime in general.” I was getting rather annoyed now too.

“Well, now that you mention it…”

“Braden! I’m a criminal defense lawyer. I defend criminals. All kinds of criminals. Not just criminals that you approve of.”

“Well, you can’t expect me not to worry or care, Gabrielle!”

“Are you guys arguing?” Jess asked.

“Are we?” I asked.

“Maybe a little but that’s okay. Couples argue. We’ll figure it out and we can have make-up sex later,” Braden said, and Bruno yipped.

“Hey, I think the dog knows that word,” Mark said, studying Bruno curiously.

“Look who his parents are,” Adam said dryly. “God knows what he’s been exposed to. He probably needs psychoanalysis.”

“Okay, you know it’s getting late, guys and we all have court tomorrow, I’m sure,” Jess hinted.

“Yeah, I had better be heading home. Come on Adam, I’ll drop you off,” Mark said.

“Let’s go, Sherlock,” Braden said to me. By the time we got back to his place it was eleven. He put Bruno in the bedroom and came back into the living room area, shutting off the lights. “Look,” he said and pulled me over to the window. I could see the city lights. The view was gorgeous.

“It’s beautiful.” I sighed.

“You’re beautiful.” He stood behind me and pulled me against his chest. “I’m sorry if I sounded pushy. I’m feeling very protective of you and I’m not used to that. I just don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I know Braden, and believe me, I love the fact that you care so much. I care about you too. It scares me that you make enemies of dangerous people every day. It’s what you do, though, just like defending them is what I do. I won’t knowingly put myself in any actual danger. How’s that?”

“I guess it’ll have to be good enough. Do you want to do this for the rest of your life?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think so and other times I don’t.”

“Do you want to have real kids someday?” Wow, Braden was talking about kids. That was surprising to say the least.

“I think so. I’d like to be married first, though.”

“Of course,” he said, like that was a given. Wasn’t this guy a major player a month ago? This was a rather quick metamorphosis. Something about it felt right, though, and I think he just sensed it too. “So you really like the lights, huh?”

“Yeah, I really do.”

“I’ll be right back,” he said and went over to a closet. He grabbed a comforter and brought it back to where I was standing and spread it out on the floor. “Let’s make love here then,” he said quietly. He had never called it that before. He sank down and pulled me down beside him. Then he laid me back and kissed me sweetly and softly, my lips, my cheeks, my eyelids, my jaw, my ears, my neck, my everywhere. I sighed with both contentment and arousal. He undressed me slowly and then undressed himself, holding my gaze the entire time. Then he covered me with his wonderfully warm body and sank into me as the lights sparkled in the distance. We made love, slowly and tenderly until finally we cl**axed one after the other. Afterward we laid there holding each other for quite a while before heading off to bed. Bruno was asleep doing his little Chihuahua snore and I fell asleep in Braden’s arms.

* * *

The week went by quickly. By some miracle all of my cases were pretty normal. There were no confused fanny grabbers, geriatric pot-heads or armed robbers who worked the counter or offered to show ID. Just your typical run-of-the-mill felons. I had a few cases against Adam that week, which gave him the opportunity to catch up on teasing me about something besides my love life. Bruno took well to doggy day care, where he was reportedly quite popular. Braden and I were spending every evening together at either his place or mine. Bruno learned to accept hanging out in the living room and eventually forgave us for playing the humping game without him. His reward for being so understanding was that he got to sleep in the bedroom with us when we were done playing. In his own bed of course. He now had one at each of our apartments.

Unavoidably, after spending several hours on Thursday night talking in bed and making love, Friday morning arrived. Braden and Adam were flying out to Pittsburgh to avoid a five-hour drive and they were leaving at ten, so I said goodbye to him before I left for work in the morning.

“So, you’ll text me to let me know you got there okay?”

“Right, and you’ll text me to let me know that you and Bruno had a good day?”

“Yes, and you’ll call me to say goodnight?”

“There’s some kind of cocktail thing. Should I call you before or after?”

“After. Then you can just relax. You and Adam are sharing a room?”

“Yeah. I’ll probably leave the party a little early so I can speak to you privately. In case I get mushy. Or horny. Or both.” He kissed me and then he said goodbye to Bruno and we parted ways.

I dropped Bruno off at doggy day care and made it to the office by nine. I didn’t have court that day as so many prosecutors and judges would be out of town. Jess and Cam and I were all planning to take the afternoon off to go in search of costumes and finalize plans for Operation Cole. Mark would be coming by at noon the next day.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It took some searching but we finally found what we needed at a place called Tony’s Fantasy Land. It was a little scary finding out what other people fantasized about.