The Gentlemen's Hour Read Online Free

answered. “And I don’t like water either.”
    Which pretty much does it, beachwise.
    Cheerful is, to say the least, eccentric, and one of his weirder things is a quixotic crusade to stabilize Boone’s finances. The utter futility of this exercise makes him blissfully unhappy, hence the sobriquet. Right now he has his tall frame slouched over an old-style adding machine. His slate-gray hair, styled in a high crew cut, looks like brushed steel.
    â€œNice of you to make an appearance,” he says, pointedly looking at his watch as Boone comes upstairs.
    â€œThings are slow,” Boone says. He steps out of his boardshorts, kicks off his sandals, and goes into the little bathroom that adjoins the office.
    â€œYou think you’re going to speed them up by not coming in till eleven?” Cheerful asks. “You think work just floats around on the water?”
    â€œAs a matter of fact . . .” Boone says, turning on the shower. He tells Cheerful about his conversation with Dan, adding with a certain sadistic satisfaction that Nichols is FedExing a substantial retainer.
    â€œYou demanded a retainer?” Cheerful asks.
    â€œIt was his idea.”
    â€œFor a moment,” Cheerful says, “I thought you had learned some fiscal responsibility.”
    â€œNah.”
    Boone steps into the shower just long enough to rinse the salt water off his skin, then gets out and dries off. He doesn’t bother to wrap the towel around himself as he steps back into the office to look for a clean shirt—okay, a reasonably undirty shirt—and a pair of jeans.
    Petra Hall is standing there.
    Of course she is, Boone thinks.
    â€œHello, Boone,” she says. “Nice to see you.”
    She looks gorgeous, in a cool linen suit, her black hair cut in a retro pageboy, her violet eyes shining.
    â€œHi, Pete,” Boone says. “Nice to be seen.”
    Smooth, he thinks as he retreats into the bathroom.
    Idiot.

8
    â€œBusiness or pleasure?” he asks when he comes back in, Petra having handed him a shirt and jeans.
    She gave him his clothes a tad reluctantly because (a) it’s fun to see him embarrassed; and (b) it’s not exactly painful to see him in the buff, Boone Daniels being, well, buff. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, with the lean, long muscles that come from a lifetime of paddling a surfboard and swimming.
    â€œAnd why can’t business be a pleasure?” she asks in that upper-class British accent that Boone finds alternately aggravating and attractive. Petra Hall is a junior partner at the law firm of Burke, Spitz, and Culver, one of Boone’s steadier clients. She got her good looks and petite framefrom her American mother, her accent and attitude from her British dad.
    â€œBecause it usually isn’t,” Boone answers, feeling for some reason that he wants to argue with her.
    â€œThen you really should find a new line of work,” she says, “one that you can enjoy. In the meantime . . .”
    She hands him the slim file that was tucked under her arm. Boone nudges a copy of Surfer magazine off the cluttered desk to make a little room, sets the file down, and opens it. A deep red flush comes over his cheeks as he shuts the file, glares at her, and says, “No.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” Petra asks.
    â€œIt means no,” Boone says. He’s quiet for a second and then says, “I can’t believe Alan is taking this case.”
    Petra says, “Everyone has the right to a defense.”
    Boone points down at the file. “Not him.”
    â€œ Every one.”
    â€œNot him. ”
    Boone glares at her again, then slides his feet into a well-worn pair of Reef sandals and walks out.
    Petra and Cheerful listen to him pound down the stairs.
    â€œActually,” she says, “that didn’t go as badly as I anticipated.”
    Petra had known before she asked that the Corey Blasingame case