The Friendship Pact. Tara Quinn Taylor

      Chapter Four

      May 2009

      “You want a drink?” Jake Murphy, dressed in a designer black suit with a red silk tie knotted perfectly at his starched white collar, slid an arm around Bailey’s waist as he came up behind her.

      “I thought you’d never ask,” she told the man who’d escorted her to so many functions over the years she’d lost count of them.

      “Tom Collins?”

      Her drink of choice back in college—because it hadn’t tasted like alcohol. Not that she’d shared that piece of information with anyone but Koralynn.

      “Red wine.”

      Judge Weiner, the man who’d been her mother’s sixth and final husband, was making his way toward her and, catching his advance out of the corner of her eye, Bailey slipped her arm through Jake’s and accompanied him to the bar.

      “This is quite some shindig the Mitchells have put on for you,” Jake was saying.

      Most of the students graduating from her law class were having parties, the majority thrown by their families.

      “They’re the best,” Bailey said, instinctively looking through the crowd for Koralynn, who’d been by her side for most of the past year while she simultaneously grieved for her mother and completed her last year of a very grueling law program.

      Weiner had stopped for conversation. And was still looking at Bailey.

      Not seeing Kora, Bailey stood next to Jake at the portable bar set up by the pool. Mama Di and Papa Bill had chosen a lovely resort for the festivities. They’d invited her father, who’d sent a card, a check and some flowers, and Brian, who hadn’t been well enough to make the trip. But she had Kora.

      She kept her back to the room, but she could still feel those eyes on her. Boring into her.

      He reminded her of Stan. And for a second there, out of the blue, she remembered the roughness of Stan’s fingers in her pants. It wasn’t the first time she’d remembered. Wasn’t even the hundredth. She pushed the memory away with the familiarity of long practice.

      Weiner didn’t give a shit about her. It was all about appearances—his acceptance by his deceased ex-wife’s only daughter, a young lawyer who couldn’t afford him as an enemy. Their small world would have talked if he hadn’t shown up. And although he hadn’t been invited—and would’ve known why—he would also have known that she’d never make a scene. Not here.

      Just as Stan had known she’d never tell...

      Bailey listened as Jake ordered her wine and a scotch sour for himself.

      In high school, he’d been a beer drinker. In college, when the four of them had met either at Penn State or at Wesley, it had been Jäger bombs. Not until Koralynn’s wedding had she seen him drink scotch sours.

      The judge, who’d financed his stepdaughter’s first year of law school, was getting closer. She could hear his booming voice.

      Jake handed her a glass of wine and held up his highball. “Here’s to you. I’m proud of you, Bail.” His grin did that crazy thing to her, and for a second she was willing to lose herself in sensation. To lose thoughts of Stan to something healthier.

      Until she heard the voice again. The fake, professional tone. With almost no resemblance to the biting demands it had issued at home.

      “You feel like a breath of air?” she asked, leaving the bar and making a beeline for the pool outside. A hundred or more strings of little white lights gave the outdoor area a festive glow.

      But before she made it to her goal, Bailey was stopped by a close friend of Mama Di and Papa Bill’s. A woman she’d known most of her life.

      And then there was a couple from the church she’d attended when she spent the weekends at the Mitchells’. Jake joined in the conversations and in some private ones of his own. A steady presence by her side. She wondered if he’d recognized Weiner. If he was purposely keeping himself between her and the older man.

      It wouldn’t work for long. She knew the man. He got what he wanted. Always.

      “He’s gone....” Koralynn’s whisper right behind her changed Bailey’s world yet again.

      Bailey turned, that irritating lump in throat, but her friend was no longer there. A couple of seconds later, she caught a glimpse of Koralynn’s retreating back just as she and Danny greeted another one of their many guests.

      As if on cue, Koralynn turned around and gave her a knowing look, and Bailey sent her a silent thank-you. Koralynn’s smile brought peace back to Bailey’s evening and she relaxed as she sipped her wine, hardly daring to believe that she’d really graduated from law school.

      That all these people were there just for her.

      When the Mitchells had purposely and deliberately failed to invite the judge, the only member of the currently seated Pittsburgh Superior Court bench not to receive an invitation, Mama Di and Koralynn and Bailey had suspected he’d show up anyway—to save face among his peers before whom he’d played the grieving widower. Bailey had assured them it would be fine if he did. She was going to have to face him in court eventually.

      But it hadn’t been fine. It would never be fine. She might have to work with the man on occasion, but she would never forget or forgive the fact that he’d abused his power and killed her mother as surely as if he’d pointed a gun at her head and pulled the trigger.

      Koralynn hadn’t said a word when Bailey said she’d be fine, but, as always, her best friend had known exactly how she felt.

      And somehow she’d come through again, protecting her from the evils in her world. Whether Kora had actually asked him to leave, or had someone call him away on some pretext, she didn’t know, but she knew the Mitchells had been prepared; they’d handled the situation.

      As Bailey walked around that magical-looking room, which was brimming with conversation and congratulations, the judge’s presence lingered. She finished one glass of wine and stopped at the bar for a second, wishing her mother could see her—could know that she’d really made it through law school. Know that her daughter would be everything she’d ever wanted her to be, everything she’d ever wanted to be herself. Bailey was going to live the dreams her mother had given up for her and Brian.

      A second glass of wine became a third.

      Thankfully Jake took his position of escort seriously and stayed beside her. He even asked her to dance, which he’d shied away from when, as a favor to Danny, he’d escorted Bailey to their senior prom. And anytime since, at college homecomings, or an evening at a club.

      He’d been saved from escort duty during their high school junior prom because he’d had a girlfriend.

      And from having to accompany her to a college graduation party for the same reason. Different girlfriend, though.

      “I’ve got something to ask you,” he said, about four drinks into the evening as they danced their first ever dance together.

      “Yes, you can have a ride home in the limo,” she said, unusually chipper with him. The Mitchells had rented a limo for her and Kora and Danny, in case they wanted to go to a club after the party.

      “Danny already offered and that wasn’t the question.”

      “What?” Her come-hither smile as she looked up at him, her arms looped over his shoulders, was alcohol induced. But damn, it felt good.

      “Are you gay?”

      Her come-hither went south, but her gaze didn’t falter. “Absolutely not.” How could he even ask? They’d had sex—more than