Chapter Twenty-Three

Callie Richards stirred her coffee absently, it had been two days since her conversation with Jon. Two whole days, and while she’d calmed down considerably, she still felt unsettled. Part of her wished she hadn’t blurted it all out to Jon just like that on the phone. But the other half, was relieved and thankful to have someone she could turn to. Someone that believed in her enough to tell her to get her head out of her ass.

She flipped through the files of her upcoming cases, and as she did her shoulders grew heavy with doubt and sadness. She was due in court all next week on some of these cases, and she was lacking the gumption and fire that she so desperately needed.

Her chair squeaked as she leaned back and reached tugging her bottom desk draw open. There lying as the only contents of the draw, were papers she’d kept there for nearly a year now. Papers that displayed the definitive bold logo of the University of Medicine, New Jersey.

She sighed and rolled the draw back in. The choice seemed to simple, yet so life changing. Everything would change. Not just her job – but her whole life as she knew it. She’d borrow tens of thousands of dollars to do this and lose the respect of her family. What a great draw card.

Jon was apparently further in the Midwest by now, and she hadn’t heard from him since that call but found herself wishing he was here to keep drumming it into her.

The loud shrill of her desk phone broke her thoughts as she tucked the receiver under her chin.“Callie Richards,” she forced out cheerfully.

“Callie, my favourite baby sister.” The cheery voice of her sister Chelsea can down the line over the warbled cry of her newborn niece in the background. God, she’d hardly seen Chelsea or Ally since she was born and she felt awful

“Chelsea, hey… how is Ally doing?”

“Shh sweetie. She’s good, she’s just settled after a feed. What about you? Mrs Rockstar! Dad told me about your little arrangement with .. Jon is it?”

Callie rolled her eyes, trust her father to call a marriage an arrangement. Even if technically that is what this was. “Yeah, it’s Jon. He’s ok – and it’s more a marriage Chelsea.” She snapped a little more than she intended.

“Ok yeah – because the baby sister I know goes around marrying random rock stars, just like that. Please Callie. I wasn’t born yesterday --I know you did this to get back at Dad.”

Her sister was arguably the smartest of the siblings according to their father, until she went and had a child when her career as a high profiled divorce lawyer was just taking off. Chelsea, just as ruthless as Pierce knew how to get exactly what she wanted in a courtroom.

“I didn’t do it to get back at Dad, --“ok so it was a small lie but it had been Jon’s idea at first and she’d gone along with it. She snapped her head up, there it was again. She’d gone along with something that wasn’t her idea – again. She thunked her head down on the desk.

“Callie, I know you. You’ve had this thing ever since you didn’t go to med school. Dad’s always been tougher on you but it’s because he knows you can be like me and him. He believes in you Callie.”

Callie kept her cheek resting against the old pine of the desk. “If he believed in me he‘d of let me go and do what I wanted, Chelsea.”

“Did you know he was planning to open a law firm in the family name after Ally turns one, and he wants you and me to run it with him?”

Callie’s neck clicked as her head shot up. “He does?”
“Yes, he does but he won’t tell you this because he wants you to earn it. He wants you to be the criminal law expert and me to fun the family law office of it.”

Her heart skipped a beat, her father didn’t doubt in her ability after all? Her hand clutched around her coffee mug. However, this was yet again another decision that had been made without her knowing.

Well hell, criminal law? Callie was just starting out in those cases – she hadn’t fully decided if it was to be her speciality at this point. She wasn’t sure if she was prepared enough to step into the world of being able to defend guilty murderers and rapists.

But he believed in her? Her gut twisted, as her mind tumbled through the possibility of this and her again – giving up on her dream. Why was this so hard? Dreams were meant to be fought for, she knew that much. But why was this fight, so damn hard?

Because she was fighting everything she ever knew.
“Remember we used to play when we were younger, pretending it was the law firm Daddy owned… we’d shift all the furniture in the living area and make the makeshift office, and the toys were our clients?”

She clutched her gut and closed her eyes, god they so used to. And Chelsea would get into trouble by stealing their father’s letterhead paper to draft cases up on. Cases that included, missing hats and buttons from various toys and extended to the more serious - like kidnapping, where more often than not, the guilty party was the family cat Spike. “That was so long ago Chelsea – so much has changed, I’ve changed.”

“Have you, really – is it Jon? I hear he stood up to Dad that was pretty bold. What’s he like Callie?”

A pain in the ass, who I want to strangle every single moment of the day and…

[I]A great kisser. You know the types that can kiss you stupid and make you forget about the world. Yeah that’s him.[/i]

“Uh, what’s he like? He’s nice enough. He’s pretty busy with touring at the moment. His band is trying to make it,” she said with a little more pride than she expected.

“And you’re more than just—friends?” Chelsea asked teasingly.

Callie felt the blood rush to her cheeks, “yes we are.”
“I see, and being that he’s the centre of every woman’s wet dreams when he’s on stage doesn’t worry you one bit?”

She bit her lip, “no it doesn’t because he respects marriage.” Man, she was getting good at this – conviction in her statements. Even if they were lies.

“Well good – and the sex?”

“Chelsea!” she exclaimed as her sister started to laugh.

“Come on, does he shake you to your core, messing up your right little ponytail?” she teased.

Callie reached subconsciously for her neatly pulled back ponytail. “Chelsea, do I ask you – how your sex—never mind I don’t want to know. This conversation is off-limits.” Her eyes closed and for a moment she felt his, all over her body. The heat of his palm slipping down her belly and his index finger founding her right spot, she squirmed across in her chair.

Jesus Christ, you’ve got to stop that.

She came crashing back to life when her sister laughed in her ear. “Oh Callie – my baby sister – all sexing it up.”

“Stop it you’re not helping. And besides – I was going to tell you… “ she took a deep breath and glanced down to the draw that held her dream.

“I am thinking of applying to med school.” She exhaled, surely if she said it enough she’d feel like it was the right decision that had to be made.

The line went silent. “You really are? Are you sure Callie?” the light heartedness had all dripped from her voice.

“I want to do it…I want to become a doctor. Why does no one believe that?” she sighed.

“Callie – look it’s your life in the end you have to do what is best for you. And you alone, but you are a great lawyer. Mr Jefferson and Mr Callaghan love you – and you’ve got so much potential to be huge…and besides….” She chuckled, “What would you talk about at family dinners?”

Callie shook her head. The Richards’ family dinners for as long as she could ever remember them, were around law and cases – analysing to the death. Her father always wanted to know what they were working on and the approach they were taking, all of course within the realms of client confidentiality. The clients would be referred to Client X and Client A.

Her mother, the only one not a lawyer would just smile and laugh along while she played the good hostess. God, they would be a nightmare if she did this. She’d probably be banished from them anyway, so really what was she worried about?

“My medical career – that is what I will talk about,” she replied indignantly. Why was this such a big deal? It wasn’t like she had expressed interest in being an actress or something that obviously had risks. This was a guaranteed career move, a successful one she wanted so bad.

“Well Callie, as I said I can’t decide anything for you. And you’ve more than proven yourself in that area by marrying someone we hadn’t even met. That you hadn’t even met for god’s sake Callie.”

For a moment she wondered what Jon was doing right this minute, she bet anything that he wasn’t sitting listening to life lectures. His freedom compared to hers was priceless. He had the freedom to make his own mistakes, his own decisions. His own life.

She sighed, “I don’t know what to do anymore. Everything’s so – mucky.”

“It doesn’t have to be Cal, it seems to me that were thrown off balance with Jon coming into your life that things have become complicated. They weren’t before – you were happy doing what you were doing right?”

She twisted the cord around her finger, “well I was content…” content enough to see she has a good steady job and could do it well, so she thought.

“Do you want to throw away all those hard year studying and start all over again? Really? And be thirty by the time you are a doctor or surgeon? When by thirty you could be the top criminal lawyer in the state.”

Callie sighed and thunked her head against the desk. No one was ever going to listen to her, so what was the point? It didn’t matter. The rattle of the coffee cart down the hallway reminded her that her one, thanks to Chelsea was now cold.

“Yes Chelsea, I know…”

Like a godsend, the desperate cry of a child in the background interrupted them.

“I’ve got to go and feed Ally, its past her feed time…but hey – don’t be a stranger Cal, I miss you."

She missed her sister too. Surprisingly the oldest/youngest sibling relationship had been the strongest for Callie. But lately, well just lately she felt like she was growing apart from her family, and that saddened her.

“I miss you too Chel, I’ll keep in touch more, and I promise to come and see Ally.”

“Bring Jon with you, whenever he’s back. I’d love to meet my brother in law,” she teased.

“I will, see you later Chelsea.” They finally hung up and Callie sank back into her chair. She leaned down and pulled open the draw and closed it quickly again when Mr Callaghan came into her office.

“Ready for our ten o’clock?” he asking peeking around the door.

She nodded and gathered her files. “Absolutely, I’m coming now.”

She closed her office door behind her and took a deep breath. She just had to get over this, this was her life. So she had to make the best of it, for now.