Justice Blue: Back to Work (continued)

The office door was unlocked, but the small foyer and reception area were empty. Only a handful of lights were turned on, which always gave the interior and strange, almost eerie glow. She tapped the panel and brought up the rest of the front lights; she could get to the others once she was past the interior.

Allison smiled when she saw the cup of coffee waiting for her. It might be nearly cold, as late as she was, but she had to give Thad credit. For all of his male chauvinistic posturing (and she knew that it was just that—a front he put forth in order to protect himself—from what?), he was almost varyingly thoughtful. Scott was too, but in entirely different ways.

She noticed that the message light was blinking. That did not surprise her. The mornings when it was not already flashing when she arrived were the exceptions. She was continually amazed by the number of people who seemed incapable of calculating time zone differences and then left semi-irate messages when their calls were not answered promptly at what was actually six o’clock AM in this time zone. It was very likely, she had decided long ago, that there was a direct correlation between the two acts. She also knew that the boys were available by cell phone to anyone that they really wanted to talk to.

After tucking her purse into the lower desk drawer, she tapped the keyboard and then entered her password as the computer display brightened to life. The counter in the lower right corner of the screen stopped at 88 new messages. It was hardly a new record, but it would probably mean a good hour of her time to sort through them all to determine which of them were important, which could be dealt with later, and which were pointless and could go unanswered. This last category, however, often also held the most interesting ones—interesting covering the range from intriguing to laughingly outrageous.

Thad strolled into the room, munching on what seemed to be some kind of a large donut. At first, Allison’s mouth watered at the sight, and then her stomach sent a warning of how it might respond to her sending such a delicacy its way. She glanced away quickly, hoping that Thad had not noticed her momentary flush of green.

“You’re late,” he offered matter-of-factly, perching on the edge of her work surface.

She nodded, unable to take her eyes off the motions of his mouth as he chewed the donut.

“I . . . overslept.”