“OH,” GWEN SAID INTO the phone. She guessed this was Aaron’s girlfriend, the one she’d hoped he’d have so she could safely get him to spend time with her son. But for some reason, the delight she’d felt over the ring tone dissipated at the sound of this woman’s voice.

“Is Mr. Zimmerman available?” the woman asked.

That seemed odd. Why would Aaron’s girlfriend refer to him so formally? “Aaron’s not here,” she said. “We mixed up our phones. He has mine. I have his. By accident. We work together. Well, actually we’re usually working against each other. But we had a meeting. Our phones are identical BlackBerries.” Shut up, she told herself. Just stop babbling.

“Yeah, right. Whatever. Can you give him a message for me?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Tell him to call Opal Kingston as soon as possible. It’s about my brother. It’s important. He has my number.”

“Okay. I’ll tell him.” Gwen realized this must be Omar Kingston’s sister. Which meant she was talking to a close relative of Aaron’s client—the same client he’d spoken about at the coffee shop. Even though it wasn’t her fault, Gwen felt uneasy about intruding into Aaron’s professional world without his knowledge. She wanted to end the conversation quickly and then try calling Aaron again.

“Are you his secretary?” Opal asked. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Can you tell him Omar got hurt in a fight at the prison. We need to hurry up and get my brother out of there before worse things happen.”

Gwen did not want to hear more. The desperation in this woman’s voice could end up affecting her ability to be impartial about Omar’s case. She couldn’t afford to let emotions enter into her work. “I’ll tell him. Thanks for calling.” And she thumbed off the phone before Opal could interject another word.

The water hadn’t even cooled, but she lathered her skin, determined to finish her bath quickly. Keeping Aaron’s phone felt like a betrayal somehow. She might be his opposition in court, but she wanted to be an honorable enemy.

She’d begun to swipe the soapy washcloth over her legs when “Puff the Magic Dragon” began to play once more. Startled, she dropped the cloth and sat upright so suddenly, water splashed onto the BlackBerry. It kept on chiming the happy tune, so she gave two fast wipes of her hand on a nearby towel and picked the thing up again. The number on the caller ID was her own.

“Why didn’t you answer when I called you before?” she asked without preamble. “I need my phone back. And you need yours.”

After an infinitesimal pause, Aaron said, “Wow. You like to get right to the point.”

“Sorry.” The warm water swirled around her body, making her very aware that she was talking to Aaron Zimmerman while naked. “I just don’t like the idea of you having my phone.”

“Hey, I’m the one who should be worried, not you. Your PDA has all the information carefully password protected. Mine, on the other hand, is available for you to sift through at will.”

“I didn’t look,” she assured him. “I wouldn’t go through the stuff on your phone, but you should consider better security.” She sat up straighter as a thought came to her. “Hey, wait a minute. Did you try to get into my stored data? How else would you know everything is password-protected? Where is your honor?”

He laughed. “To tell the truth, I just assumed you had everything locked up carefully inside your electronic little black book. Nice to know I guessed correctly.”

Was he implying she was uptight and prudish? “It’s a matter of protecting client confidentiality,” she said. Then she was annoyed he’d made her defensive. She reacted as any lawyer would by going on the offensive. “Why didn’t you answer before when it was early enough to make a quick exchange of PDAs? I got my own voice mail when I tried to reach you.”

He sighed. “Sorry. I called as soon as I realized the mix-up, but you were doing those depositions and must have had the ringer silenced. Then I was distracted at home by my son’s antics.”

“Antics?” she asked, wondering how she could be interested in the answer at a time like this. The bubbles were disappearing and the water was cooling around her. Silly, but she found herself wrapping her free arm across her chest, partially hiding her breasts from a man who couldn’t see her.

“Yeah. He turned the laundry blue by accident. My mother-in-law lives with us now that we’ve moved to this bigger place in Columbia, and she’s taking care of some of the chores I used to need a housekeeper to do. You can imagine how upset she was when all the white clothes came out blue.”

“How did he manage that? Food coloring?” Stop asking about his household drama, she told herself. The only thing that mattered was setting a time to switch phones.

“Hmm, I forgot to ask. I suspect it was something from his chemistry set. Maybe I should confiscate it.”

“Ya think?” she said with a laugh. She couldn’t help it. Hearing Aaron Zimmerman as frazzled father was entertaining. “But listen, as much as I’d like to hear more about the blue laundry, we need to make arrangements to switch our PDAs.”

“Right. I guess it’s too late for me to come over to your place tonight,” he said.

Inexplicably, Gwen felt her nipples harden. “Not a good idea. How about first thing in the morning at the—”

“Hold on,” he interrupted. “There’s another call coming in. Do you want me to answer it?”

“Okay,” she said, and she heard their connection go silent as he picked up the other call. Too late, she realized she’d given him the go-ahead to answer her own line. Who would be calling her so late? And how tricky would it be to explain why the defense attorney for Release Initiative was answering her phone? “Shit,” she muttered. But at least this interlude would give her the chance to get out of the bath and into her robe.

She had risen partway out of the tub, dripping water and suds, when Aaron’s voice suddenly came back to the phone.

“Sorry about tha—”

Reflexively, she dropped back into the water, splashing loudly. He can’t see you, she reminded herself.

But he could hear her. “Was that water splashing?” he asked.

She didn’t speak.

“Sounded like maybe too much water for a sink, so I’m guessing bathtub.”

“Um…I plead the fifth.” It was all she could think to say, even as heat rose to her cheeks. Then her training kicked in again. “We need to stick to figuring out a time and place to do the phones.”

A pause made Gwen wonder what he was thinking.

“Sure,” he said. “But you probably want to know it was your ex-husband on the phone just now. And I’m not going to keep talking to you while you’re… Well, just call me back after you get settled and…just call me back. Bye.”

Gwen heard the connection go dead before she could respond. But she didn’t think she could have come up with any words anyway, she was so embarrassed. Aaron was a man, after all, and any man would now be picturing her bare, dripping body.

Then she remembered she’d forgotten to tell him about the call from his client’s sister. Should she phone him back right away? No. She should get out of the tub first and try not to think about Aaron Zimmerman in the context of her own nakedness.

AARON TOSSED GWEN’S PDA onto his bed as if it had caught on fire. Staring at it, he ran his fingers through his hair and then held on to his head as if the gesture could erase the erotic pictures that danced through his brain. It wasn’t that he thought sexual fantasies were a bad thing, but fantasies featuring Gwen seemed very wrong.

Now he had to cope with a new woman invading his most intimate thoughts. Gwen hadn’t meant to put the images into his head, but they were there. Again and again, he heard the splash of the bathwater, and from that one sound came visions of his courtroom opponent rising from her tub and walking toward him through clouds of steam—wet, warm, naked.

“Damn,” he whispered as his body began to respond. In desperation, he started humming the national anthem and pacing back and forth past the foot of his wide bed in the hope of evicting Mrs. Gwen Haverty from his mind. He managed to achieve a measure of control. But when the BlackBerry began to ring, his blood ran hot all over again.

He gave himself a moment to breathe deeply before answering. Affecting the composed tone he used in the courtroom, he said, “Hello, Gwen.”

“Sorry,” she said. “Awkward as hell to have to call you back right now.” She sounded nearly as flustered as he felt. That made everything a little more tolerable. At least he wasn’t alone in his discomfort. “I need to—”

“Don’t worry. I explained to him that our phones got switched.” He’d figured out she’d be deeply concerned about how bad it looked to have defense counsel in possession of the D.A.’s phone.

“Good. Clay’s always looking for an excuse to make things difficult for me. If he’s serious about suing for custody—even just for spite—he might twist the fact you have my phone into something else. He’s a master at making people see the world through his own reality. He—” She stopped midsentence and didn’t continue.

Filling the silence, he said, “He let you have custody when you first split up. Why would he sue for sole custody now?”

“I’m pretty sure he just doesn’t like not getting his way. And I think he believes he’s lost some control over Joshua’s life, which he’s not happy about. Or maybe he just wants to impress his girlfriend. Josh tells me she likes kids, even though she doesn’t have any of her own.”

“She’ll like kids right up until one of them turns her laundry blue.”

Gwen laughed and he felt his tension ease. It pleased him—in a completely nonsexual way, he told himself—that he could make her laugh.

“Why does your phone play ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’?” she asked, apropos of nothing.

“Because it’s funny.”

“I don’t get the joke.”

“I’m a big proponent of legalizing marijuana. I do pro bono work on the medicinal weed legislation we’ve been trying to get passed in Maryland.”

“Why am I so not surprised,” she said. “You really are a hippie.”

He chuckled. “Well, that’s true, but another reason for my interest is my mother-in-law’s glaucoma. She moved here from California where she’d been prescribed the stuff.”

“That’s not legal here,” Gwen pointed out.

“But it helps her. So I’m not taking it away from her.”

“You’re an officer of the court,” she reminded him.

“I’ll take my chances. Hey, on a much more important subject, Clay asked me to tell you that he wouldn’t be taking Josh to New York this weekend after all,” Aaron told her, deftly changing the subject from marijuana use—an issue that would once again underscore the differences between him and the prosecutor on the other end of the line. “He said he had a change of heart.”

“What? Are you serious? Josh and I have already had a big fight about him missing the Blue Man Group.”

“Well, you can have the tickets back,” he offered. Then he wondered if Ben would be as disappointed as Josh. He’d told his son about going to the show when he’d tucked him into bed for the night and Ben had been excited.

“Only if you haven’t told Ben yet,” she said. “If you’ve already told him, then I’m not taking the tickets back.”

Aaron hesitated. He wanted to lie so she’d agree to take her own son to the show. But lying didn’t come easily to him, and before he could come up with the words, she knew the truth.

“You already told him, didn’t you.” She said it as a statement of fact. “Ben was happy about going, right? So, I can’t accept the tickets back. I’ll figure it out with Josh. Don’t worry about it.”

He could hear the tension in her voice. “Are you going to be okay? Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I’m fine. But, hey, a call came in on your phone earlier.” She told him about Opal Kingston and the brother who’d been hurt in prison.

“I need to call her back.” Though he felt frustrated about ending the conversation with Gwen—as if they had unfinished business—he said goodbye and closed the phone.

“CALM DOWN, OPAL. WE won’t do your brother any good if we’re freaked-out,” he said to his client’s sister. “I’ll go to the prison right now and see what I can do for him.”

“He needs to be outta that hellhole,” she shouted. “He’s getting beaten up because he don’t belong there.”

“I know. I’m doing everything I can. Trust me.” But then he thought of his conversations with opposing counsel and he wondered if he deserved Opal’s trust. He hadn’t even persuaded Gwen to talk to the recanting witness in Omar’s case.

He thought about that all the way to the prison in the nearby town of Jessup where Omar was incarcerated. Even if he couldn’t get him freed as quickly as he’d hoped, he’d at least see his client in person, regardless of the late hour, and make sure he hadn’t sustained any serious injuries. He had to listen to some grumbling from the guards, but eventually Aaron settled into an interview room and waited for Omar while trying hard not to think too much about Gwen in the bathtub.

The gray metal door swung open and a guard stood aside to allow the prisoner access. A shuffle of awkward footsteps preceded Omar’s appearance. A second before he saw the young man, Aaron’s stomach knotted with dread. Opal’s fears were justified.

Omar’s bruises were less noticeable against his dark skin, but the cuts on his lips and the swollen eye couldn’t be missed.

“Why weren’t you admitted to the infirmary?” Aaron asked.

“I told ’em I’m fine. No sense showing weakness in a place like this.”

“Where else are you hurt?”

The stoic expression Omar had been maintaining wavered slightly then quickly returned. “I’m awright,” he said.

“You don’t need to be tough with me, Omar. In fact, it’s important that you tell me about every cut or bruise.” He looked steadily into those dark brown eyes, hoping to see some remnant of the boy he’d been before prison. But Omar had learned to keep his thoughts hidden, much as he’d learned to bury the gentle nature his sister spoke of so often. At six foot four and with a rock-solid two hundred and fifty pounds, Omar looked like the kind of man who would be able to hold his own while incarcerated. But his teddy-bear temperament was his undoing. It hadn’t taken the inmates long to discover the sport that could be made of tormenting a big guy with a soft heart.

“I said I’m awright,” he insisted, but this time Aaron heard the lisp in his speech that hadn’t been there the last time they’d met.

“Did you lose some teeth?” he asked.

“Yeah, a couple. So what?” Playing the tough guy, even in the privacy of the interview room.

“What else?” Omar said nothing, so Aaron tried a new tactic. “Your sister is worried sick, Omar. That’s why I’m here at this hour of the night. I need to be able to tell her honestly that you’re okay.”

“I didn’t start nothin’,” he said, sounding a bit more like the kid he’d been before prison had aged him. “They just got into it and I had to defend myself, but then there were four, maybe five others joined in, and it was a brawl on my ass.” Abruptly, he lifted up his shirt and showed a hematoma the size of a dinner plate across several ribs.

Aaron stifled an expletive. “Did a doctor take a look at this?”

“Didn’t look this bad when I went. And I figured it’d go bad if I complained.”

“Well, I’m getting you transferred to the infirmary for the next few days, at least until you’re healed.”

Omar’s expression softened. “You serious? I could stay there awhile?”

“Maybe longer, if you have broken ribs. Does it hurt to take a breath?”

“Shit yeah!”

“Can I see the back of you?”

Omar stood up slowly, careful not to jar any part of his abused body. He turned. This time Aaron couldn’t stifle the gasp. The broad muscled shoulders and torso were a mass of straight dark purple lines, as if he’d been beaten relentlessly with a pipe. Aaron didn’t hesitate another moment. He took out his cell phone and rapidly took photos from every angle. To avoid any possible loss of evidence, he sent the pictures to his email account at Release Initiative. He pocketed the phone and urged Omar to sit down again, then went to the door and pounded until the guard opened up.

Aaron made his demands for medical treatment for Omar in no uncertain terms. He waited until the prison’s clinic sent a medic and a stretcher to take Omar to the infirmary. Once his client had been taken into custody by the health officials, Aaron filled out dozens of official forms demanding copies of the dental treatment plan, X-rays of skull and ribs, and reports of any other tests done. At the very least, this ensured that all concerned knew Omar’s attorney would be keeping a close eye on how the prisoner was treated.

Driving home at two in the morning, he plotted various ways he would get justice for Omar, none of them very practical. And the half-baked speeches were all, inevitably, aimed at a certain district attorney who had ever so recently been talking to him by phone while she was in her bathtub. As he drove and his rage about Omar’s situation settled down under the weight of his inability to do anything more, he found his mind drifting to the same erotic thoughts as earlier in the evening— Gwen in the bathtub, stepping out of it, moving toward him. He tried to thwart those visions, but they kept reappearing.

By the time he got into bed, his fantasies about Gwen had extended far beyond the bathtub incident. The vulnerability that he’d heard in her voice when she’d talked about her son and ex-husband had stirred his imagination. He couldn’t help but be unsettled by this other side of Gwen so unexpectedly revealed to him. As a single parent himself, he could empathize. And the protective side of him, which had always been a strong part of his personality, wanted to help her. If he could do that while making love to her—or so his fantasies went—all the better.

But he knew it would be his undoing to dwell too long on either the protection or the lovemaking. Gwen was, for all practical purposes, his professional enemy. If he began to feel any personal connection to her, it would be very hard for him to manipulate her for the benefit of his clients.

With that realization, he recalled that they’d never planned a time and place to exchange their PDAs. Given the late hour, he tapped out a text message to her: Need to figure out how we can exchange phones ASAP.

Before he could set the BlackBerry down, a reply appeared. Y r u up @ 3 am? Crzy.

He chuckled and wrote: I just got back from the prison. Feel sorry for me?

Mere seconds after he’d hit the send button, her response lit up his screen. No. 2 bzy feeling sry for me.

He couldn’t resist: Why is that, counselor?

That took him a few seconds to decipher. Evil ex-husband and custody problems. That sucked. Tell me what’s happened since we last talked.

So he gave up on texting and called his own phone number.

“I shouldn’t be talking to you about this,” she said instead of hello.

“I’m awake and not likely to sleep anytime soon. So if you want to vent, I’m willing to listen.”