Another update of this strange story, hope you enjoy it and thanks for the feedback!

She walked to work that morning, because she really didn't live that far away from the office. The sun had broken through a thin layer of clouds which had cloaked the valley but had started off softly saving most of its intensity until later that day.

Working for Jack this time hadn't been like when she had clerked for him before heading off to law school because for one thing, now that she had a law degree, she could do more even though she still had to pass the Texas State Bar exam. She had been studying hard for it, the nights that she spent at home after a long day at the office. The questions wouldn't be too tough for her because she had a quick mind for churning through the dry language of laws and statutes and memorizing them in rote fashion.

But the previous night she had begun to study and then had put her books and notes aside because she thought she had heard something outside the window. The breeze had whistled through the trees outside her building and she had grown used to that but somehow, she didn't think it had been the wind. Not the crackling of branches that seemed like they weren't from the trees but closer to the ground. Then the movement of what sounded like a living creature through the shrubbery, and a rap against the side of the house.

Now that couldn't have been the wind because they were talking about gale force winds here. Just a simple autumn breeze signaling that the long hot days of summer and their sweltering counterparts at night were mercifully coming to an end.

And of course when she realized it hadn't been the wind, her first thought had been of him.

Dylan.

She had grabbed a flashlight and had unlocked the backdoor near the kitchen to take a look outside into the darkness that surrounded her and her small beam of light. Maybe it had just been a small animal scrambling around and she peered out even further than her flashlight would illuminate to see if that had been the case. Then her heartbeat could drop to more normal levels and she could go back to studying.

And then she saw it, a white piece of paper tucked beneath her placemat. She reached down to pick it up and unfold it. Her eyes widened as she read it.

Don't tell Nadine

She frowned, don't tell Nadine, what? It's not like the two women hung out together after all. In fact they couldn't stand each other and that had always been the case since C.J. had first moved out to Wild Fork. Relations hadn't become friendlier with the years that passed but fortunately C.J. had spent most of those recent years away from this town.

But she knew the man that wrote it was Nadine's husband. The man who now worked as a reserve deputy and did favors for her boss. Between notes like these and the phone calls she had been getting telling her not to trust her boss, Jack, life was definitely taking on a strange and even menacing tone in Wild Fork these days.

The next morning, she had put the latest note in the back of her mind as she headed off to work because Jack had left her some briefs to revise that were needed in court by afternoon and he would send a courier to swing by his local office to pick them up.

So she had been walking down the tree-lined streets heading towards the main thoroughfare of town that housed the local prosecutor's office. She had stopped by to pick up a coffee and Danish from Dianne at the café. Her friend had asked her if she wanted to drop by for lunch and C.J. had told her she might if she could ever finish her briefs.

"Jack working you hard again," Dianne had asked with a smile.

C.J. had nodded, but she enjoyed what she did and she knew that in a couple weeks when she started working on trial motions for a couple homicide cases, it would start to pick up but also in a more stimulating way.

If not for these strange events going on, she would be looking forward to jump into those challenges with both feet.

Her phone rang and she braced herself for another strange caller, but she looked on the ID and saw a very familiar number.

"Hey Houston, what's up?"

"Not much, and hey yourself," he answered from somewhere.

"You sound like you're not at home," she guessed, "Traveling again?"

"Guilty as charged," he said, "I'm on my way to the airport to jet off to Vancouver again."

"You know you really should stop for five minutes," she scolded lightly, "instead of running around so much."

"Well if I had a certain recently graduated attorney working with me," he said, "It might cut down on my traveling."

"Houston…we already had this discussion."

She heard him sigh on the other end.

"I'm a very persistent man but then you already know that," he said.

Ah that she did indeed, but she had put her foot down that she wanted to remain in Wild Fork for at least a while longer while she sorted through her uncle's complicated estate including the possessions in storage that still needed to be auctioned off. But that was only reason why she had been avoiding Matt, turning down his offers to come work with him. Because she wondered if he wanted more than that, more than their friendship or a business relationship and she really didn't know what she wanted.

"So where's Christina?"

A pause met that question.

"She's…back East getting ready to launch that new perfume line," he said, "She's the main model on the ad campaign."

"That's very good for her," she said, "How are you taking it?"

"Our relationship has always been long-distance," he said, "beginning when we met up again in Afghanistan."

"Okay so maybe you can both take a short vacation from your busy professional lives when you return," C.J. said, "so you can catch up and get grounded again."

"C.J…are you giving me advice about my relationship with her?"

She furrowed her brow, because that's what she had been doing and he hadn't asked but she just felt she had to offer it for some reason.

"Houston…we've only got this one life and we have to do what we can do to live it without any regrets when we leave it."

A long pause followed then when he finally responded, his tone had changed.

"C.J. are you telling me everything…"

She sighed in response to what she knew might be coming.

"No, but then do you tell me everything about what you're doing," she said lightly.

"You would tell me if there were anything going on that I needed to know, wouldn't you?"

Now that irked her. Needed to know, oh brother but then he always had been a bit on the overprotective side. She definitely didn't want him dropping everything including his fledgling business to rush back to his hometown to help her over some strange notes and crank calls. So she didn't answer his question with anything but a question.

"What about you," she said, "You telling me everything about your life, your relationships, and your work?"

He paused and she knew she had him there. Because he hadn't been all that forthcoming about what he faced over a thousand miles away. After all, she had to hear from his father that he had been nearly knocked out in an altercation while he intervened in the mugging of a woman in downtown L.A.

She walked while listening to him explain why the situation was different with her than with him and she thought, oh brother. She had shot at a man who had attacked her not needing his or anyone's help and she didn't need his help now because of Dylan's annoying behavior.

"Houston, I'm almost at the office now," she said, "Anything else you want to say?"

"Just to ask you to come and work with me," he said, "but I know what your answer will be."

She chuckled.

"Goodbye Houston," she said, "Have a safe flight."

She clicked off her phone and continued walking to the front door of the building and she opened it, walking inside. Lorraine manned the desk today and handed her another stack of files without a word. The two of them had never really saw eye to eye with each other since C.J. had beaten her out in a debate competition their senior year in high school. Lorraine had believed she had the award sown up while C.J. had been away from school tending to some repair work with the other hands after a tornado had struck the ranch, leveling a barn and some fencing.

While hauling away the old pieces of siding and nailing up some new framework, C.J. had practiced her speech and Matt had been her audience. She must have repeated it to him a dozen times and he never complained. And when she told him she had nailed the championship, he had told her he never doubted that.

C.J. had moved on but Lorraine apparently had never forgotten it and now as Jack's head office manager, she never let her forget that she now supervised C.J.

"I've got six other briefs to finish first," C.J. told her, "But I should get to these after that."

Lorraine's mouth wore a straight line.

"Jack needs these done before those others," she said, "He's sending a courier to pick them up."

"This batch is also set for pickup," C.J. said, "so I'll try to get them all done by this afternoon."

And then she went back into her small office, not allowing Lorraine to ever believe she was getting to her by piling her with a ton of work every day. She just dug in and got it done and then handed it off to Lorraine with a smile, which didn't please Lorraine. But then, she wasn't working for Jack to rehash past history with his other employees who went to the same schools that she did.

She finished the briefs by lunch and then went down to the diner to eat lunch with Dianne who was on her break. They both sat in a booth and ordered sandwiches and iced tea.

"So Alexis isn't coming…"

Dianne shrugged.

"She's got more business and she wants to be a stylist," she said, "This is good for her."

C.J. knew there was more to it than that and she knew it had to do with Nadine, who had been fighting with her husband again and claiming that he had been cheating on her again. C.J. knew her name had been on the rumor mill, and that Alexis hadn't defended her against the rumors like Dianne had when they had started circulating.

"So how's work?"

C.J. sipped her iced tea.

"Busy…and Jack's hardly ever there," she said, "He's already working on his reelection campaign and going to a lot of meetings."

Dianne nodded.

"Yeah I've seen him when Danny invited us all to his birthday party at the Elks' club," she said, "Lot of power players there, even from Abilene."

C.J. had heard about those parties but hadn't paid much attention to them. But she did notice that Jack hung around the office sometimes late at night on the days he came into work there. And a couple of times, Dylan and another man had been standing outside the office in the lobby sitting and talking both in their reserve deputy uniforms when she had left to go home.

"Nadine's always complaining about how much time Dylan spends at those parties," Dianne said, "But she decided to marry him."

It had been an impulsive decision on Nadine's part, C.J. thought, because she hadn't seen a way out of this town and her only other ticket, Matt, had already left to go into the military. But C.J. hadn't really known when Nadine had suspected that Dylan had started cheating on her. C.J. seemed a natural target because she had been involved with Dylan but while she heard the whispers that Nadine had tried to generate about her, she didn't pay them much mind.

Until Dylan started bothering her even after she told him she wasn't interested.

"She thought she loved him maybe," C.J. said, "or that he could get her out of Wild Fork."

Dianne chuckled.

"She's still here, you're here, and I'm here,"she said, "At least you got out of here for a little while."

C.J. heard the hint in her friend's voice that she still didn't understand why she had stayed. She did know why she came back to bury her uncle and settle his estate but she should have just left and taken a job back in Boston, or even a larger city in Texas like Houston or Dallas.

But C.J. hadn't done any of that and she hadn't gone to California to work with Matt. She had wound up working with Jack and she felt that would suit her for a while.

"Jack pays well," she said, "and when I pass the bar, I'll do some cases at the county seat."

She couldn't wait until that date came when she would actually be fulfilling her dream of being a trial attorney. But her date with the bar exam still stood about three months off and in the meantime, reality dictated that she did a lot of the office's scuttle but work which was mostly doing legal research and writing endless legal briefs for the trial attorneys. She had worked on the law review journal at Harvard so she knew she had great writing skills. Jack had read a couple of her briefs when he'd been in and had praised her work.

"So what's on for tonight," she said, "Going to the Blue Cactus?"

That was a new club that had popped up in the past six months during the latest round of revitalization in Wild Fork. C.J. had wondered if it would attract a crowd to keep it afloat but to her surprise, it had become one of the most popular night spots in town.

"I got work to do," she said, "But maybe…"

"Oh come on C.J. all work and no play…"

C.J. laughed at the earnestness in her friend's voice and nodded.

"I'll check it out," she said, "There's a new act there tonight isn't there?"

Dianne shrugged.

"Who cares," she said, "As long as there's plenty of booze and men to dance with."

C.J. didn't really care about that. Her dating had pretty much gone by the wayside because she worked so hard and spent long hours at the office. That and knowing every guy in town kept her away from all the single joints. But a few hours of relaxation wouldn't hurt…

"I'll see you later," she said.

Matt relaxed in his brand new Lear Jet, which had been a necessary purchase since he did so much traveling to places further and further away as a part of expanding his new company across the globe. He had met up with much greater success than even his brightest projections had indicated and since Christina traveled a lot for her job…well it suited their long distance, high paced relationship just fine.

He had a pilot's license and could have flown the jet but he had decided to get some much needed work done on the flight up to Vancouver. The galley had been stocked and he had dined on gourmet pizza and some cold beer.

Taking a brief break away from his work, with several hours still left to fly before the plane touched down at its latest destination.

His mind wandered to C.J. back in Wild Fork and how hard he had tried to get her to come work with him. But she kept telling him in no uncertain terms that she would remain at her job in Wild Fork working with Jack to become a criminal prosecutor as she always wanted.

Murray, his new accountant stuck his head out of the galley.

"Hey you want some more of the pizza?"

Matt shook his head.

"No you can take the rest of it," he said, "I've filled myself up already and I'm just taking a few minutes until I reexamine the specs on that fiber optics company."

Murray brightened.

"It looks absolutely great," he said, "and we should pick it up for quite cheap."

"Murray, I'm going to buy it at a fair price," he said, "I'm not interested in taking advantage of someone great with communications technology and short on business sense."

Murray sighed in disappointment.

"You're lacking in that killer instinct Big Guy," he said, "I'm going to have my work cut out with you."

Matt smiled at the man he had plucked out of the graduating class of the Accounting program at one of the top universities and had done that because he knew that Murray could crunch numbers quickly and do an analysis like no one else and that's what he wanted for his new business venture.

"We're booked at the hotel in the middle of the business district," he said, "We'll be getting in earlier enough to check out the reception."

Murray's eye lit up.

"A great opportunity for networking," he said, "There's going to be some movers and shakers there."

"A good place to meet some ladies and have a good time…"

Murray shot him an approachful look.

"Matlock…I don't think."

Matt winked.

"Just kidding," he said, "I'll call Christina when I get in and let her know I made it safely."

"And what about C.J?"

Matt paused thoughtfully, thinking the situation with his best friend was more complicated these days than even that involving his on and off girlfriend.

"I'll call her too," was all he said.

C.J. dressed up a bit in a skirt and a blouse before meeting up with Dianne outside the Blue Cactus which had attracted quite a crowd on the warm evening, as a line formed out on the sidewalk.

She had worked like a dog all day and finished all the briefs to hand off to an incredulous Lorraine who just nodded and stacked them by the door to be picked up by the courier. C.J. left earlier than she usually did and headed on home to get ready.

"We'll stake out a spot when we get inside," Dianne said, "I wish Alexis had joined us."

They moved a few inches up the line.

"She said she had to help take care of her sister's kids," C.J. said, "and her mother's been sick."

They finally made it inside the door and saw that the place already looked packed, with music playing and a crowd near the bar, getting their first round of drinks.

"We'd better get some beer before they run out," C.J. said.

Dianne shook her head.

"I want a shot of whisky."

C.J. ordered a beer and Dianne got her shot and drank it down. They walked through the crowd, greeting people that both knew until they reached an empty table where they both sat down to watch the activity around them.

"Is Jake here," Dianne asked, "I don't see him."

C.J. hid a smile knowing that her friend had always had a soft spot for the mechanic who had purchased the repair shop owned by the man who had taught him everything he knew.

"Who you looking for," Dianne asked her.

C.J. shrugged.

"No one really," she said, "I don't have time to think about men. I'm working all the time."

"No one's that busy," Dianne pointed out, "That's just an excuse."

C.J. sipped her beer.

"I had a boyfriend, Carl but he's working in Japan right now for a company and we both decided…"

"You both would see other people," Dianne said, "but you need to take your own advice."

C.J. arched her brow.

"Here…in Wild Fork," she said, "There's no one that interests me."

Dianne sighed.

"Well if you're going to stay here, you might as well pick someone."

C.J. shook her head.

"I don't want anyone," she said, "Dylan's a creep only a married creep and I only slept with one other local guy."

Dianne looked intrigued.

"Really, who," she asked.

C.J. remained quiet, looking at her beer thoughtfully and Dianne widened her eyes.

"You don't mean…"

C.J. knew what name would be coming and why she'd be shocked to figure out that she had sex with her own best friend, although technically they hadn't been in town at the time but at the lake miles away. Suddenly Jake popped up and asked Dianne to dance and of course, Dianne dropped everything and joined him on the floor. C.J. watched knowing that most of the local men would stay away.

Unfortunately not all of them.

"C.J…want to dance?"

She looked up and saw Dylan.

"No I don't want to dance with you," she said, "Where's your wife?"

He downed a shot of whisky and slammed it on the table.

"I don't care where that whore is right now," he said, "Can we talk about something else?"

"Just go away," she said, "Go home to Nadine."

"You know she thinks we're doing more than just talking…"

She sighed.

"We're not even doing that," she said, "Get lost."

He tottered away from her when Zach saw him and called him over to where a group of guys stood drinking beers. And suddenly C.J. just wanted to go home, to be anywhere but inside the club. Dianne pulled Jake back with her to the table and C.J. looked up at them.

"You are leaving?"

Dianne shook her head.

"A couple more dances at least…what about you?"

C.J. looked across the club.

"I really should be going," she said, "I've got to get to the office early tomorrow."

Dianne rolled her eyes.

"All work and no play…maybe you should go."

C.J. picked up her things and started to head towards the hallway which led to the parking lot.

"Hey where are you going," a voice said in front of her.

She looked up and saw Dylan who started to approach her.

"Leaving already," he said, "Well so was I…we could leave together."

"I don't think so Dylan," she said, "I don't think your wife would like that much."

He stepped closer to her, and the smell of liquor overwhelmed her.

"I don't care what Nadine thinks," he said, "She's screwing around on me anyway."

C.J. didn't doubt that but that didn't concern her because she was going home. She tried to walk past him and he grabbed her arm.

"Don't walk out…"

She pulled her arm away and he pushed her against the wall, his body pressing against hers. She tried to push him off and he just stroked the hair off of her face.

"Now this is nice…more of this and less of you ignoring me…"

"Get off of me," she said, "I'll ask you nicely once."

He chuckled as his hand moved from her face to her shoulder where he nudged one of her shirt sleeves down her arm.

"You're prettier than Nadine," he said, "Always have been."

When he tried to slip his hand in her blouse, she kneed him and when he exclaimed in pain, she pushed him off of her.

"Like I said, only nice once…"

His face twisted in rage.

"Why you…"

Then they heard another voice.

"Why you tramp, you stay away from my husband," Nadine said, glaring at C.J.

C.J. met her gaze directly.

"Gladly if he keeps his hands off of me," she said, "If he doesn't, he'll be sorry."

She moved away from Nadine who grabbed her arm.

"Don't you walk away from me," she said, "After I caught you with him?"

C.J. pulled away her arm easily from the former beauty queen.

"I'm getting out of here," she said, "Feel free to take Dylan back on home."

She walked away from both of them, ignoring the insults that came flying out of Nadine's mouth egging her to stay and play that game but C.J. had better things to do like go home. All she wanted to do was to get out of these clothes and forget that Dylan had touched her.

She just shook her head and walked out of the bar to her car, making sure neither of them followed her and then her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and saw Matt's number again.

"What you doing calling so late," she said, "You should be out having a good time. Christina won't mind if you have some fun."

"I'm just checking to make sure you're okay," he said, "and to tell you I made it safely to Vancouver."

She sighed thoughtfully.

"Well thanks, but everything's fine here," she said, "Same as always."

Now Matt listening to her knew those words were loaded with baggage but her voice appeared fine. But a part of him still wondered.

"I'm getting in my car and heading on home," she said, "I need to get some sleep before work tomorrow. I'm doing briefs for a big trial."

"Sounds exciting," he said, "I know you've been working very hard."

"Houston…I love what I do," she said, "It's not always easy being back here but I'm where I belong."

"You belong where you're happy C.J. and if Wild Fork is that place then I want you to be there," he said, "But what I really want is for you to move to L.A. and work for me."

She chuckled at that and they talked a little bit and then hung up. As she got into her car, she didn't notice that someone else had done the same and watched her leave the parking lot, before following behind her.