me. And as far as the last F…well hell, there was a reason that my nickname was Panty Dropper, and had been since high school.
She tilted her head and met my eye, a coquettish smile playing on those luscious lips. “Wonder which one you’re known for?”
I grinned. “Well, darlin’, I think it’s time to find out.”
She had just dipped her hand inside my pants when the door of the closet flew open.
There, standing on the other side and holding the handle, wearing his usual baleful expression, was my oldest brother Hank. The fighter. His jaw was set and his tone flat as he spoke, “Put it back in your pants.”
It was more words than he normally strung together and I knew playtime was over. Avoidance had fueled me, allowing me to be sidetracked by the temp receptionist who ended up being Miss Shaw’s niece, but it was time to face what I’d been running from and get down to business.
I had a will reading to attend.
CHAPTER 2
Reagan
I reclined in the leather high back office chair and tapped my pen against the file sitting on the table. It was the one sign of impatience I allowed myself. Being a lawyer, I often found myself in situations where I had to control my emotions in the face of conduct I found distasteful.
In most cases, it wasn’t from corporate raiders or criminals, but rather was fellow attorneys displaying deplorable behavior. As progressive as I’d like to think this field, or any field for that matter, was—I found that, for better or worse, it was a boys’ club. So I had a lot of practice not allowing repugnant attitudes and comments to affect me.
But the one thing I absolutely couldn’t stand was disrespect of people’s time. It was my Achilles’ heel. I didn’t need to have a PhD in psychology to figure out where my aversion came from.
Growing up, my mother had never been on time for anything. In first grade, I’d started waking her up to take me to school, and I still ended up rushing in after the bell rang half the time.
She was so late to my high school graduation that she missed my walk across the stage. And considering my last name is York, she’d had more than enough time to get there.
So, for that specific pet peeve, I allowed myself a small pen tap.
Right now I was employing the pen tap of judgment on William Comfort, AKA the missing offspring. He was keeping his entire family waiting while he did—God only knew what. When Daisy, the temporary receptionist, informed me that the entire Comfort family had arrived, I’d asked her to show them to the conference room and swiftly finished up the call I’d been on.
I’d expected to have this meeting concluded by now. Instead, we hadn’t even begun, since William had disappeared in the time it had taken me to wrap up with a potential client and walk down the hall from my office to the conference room.
He’d been gone so long, in fact, that his older brother had headed off to hunt for him.
After buzzing the reception area and not getting an answer, I’d suggested that perhaps William had become ill, but Henry, the eldest Comfort brother, mumbled something under his breath that sounded a lot like, “if you count being a jackass an illness,” before standing and walking out of the room.
The look on his face when he’d left said that this wasn’t the first time his little brother had pulled a stunt like this.
The remaining siblings and I sat in a loud silence, the only sound coming from the rhythmic beat of my passive-aggressive pen taps.
No one else appeared to be bothered by the delay.
I’d relocated to Firefly Island two days ago and was still getting used to the slow-as-molasses pace. Technically, I’d lived on an island before moving here, but comparing Firefly to Manhattan was like comparing a house cat to a mountain lion. Sure, they were the same species, but one was dangerous and wild, something you’d encounter on an adventure. The other was docile and tame, something you’d curl up in bed with.
This was my first official day and case as an attorney at Abernathy & Associates and I was doing my level best to keep my cool. It wasn’t easy considering the delay was only partially to blame for my current headspace. My life had just imploded and I was having a difficult time processing it.