Southern Lawyers-Part Nineteen
Updated: June 23, 2023 Aubrey The box of returned letters my grandfather wrote to my Daddy sat in front of me on my desk. There were over one hundred letters spanning thirty years. My grandfather wrote to my father, and they were returned unopened. But where did he get the pictures? These were not the […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Eighteen
Updated: June 18, 2023 Aubrey At my dining room table sat the Assistant AG, Jasper Moody, Jimmy Lee and my long-time boss and surrogate father, Dean Grayson. My husband sat beside me like a watershed presence. I wasn’t kidding with my husband before, I did have a platonic thing for his friend- Jasper was a […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Seventeen
Updated: June 18, 2023 Clay I headed into court to prosecute Arthur Trevino and the multiple partners of his disreputable law firm. They had consistently, and over the course of many years, embezzled money from their clients and misappropriated funds in the millions of dollars. The trial lasted two weeks with the amount of forensic […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Sixteen
Updated: June 18, 2023 Aubrey Back to work wasn’t as easy as I hoped it would be. I didn’t have nearly the stamina I thought I would have. After spending the morning reviewing the preliminary investigative notes on the Saint Helena property, I ran out of steam. Miss Angelica stopped in to fix my lunch […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Fifteen
Updated: June 18, 2023 Aubrey After an hour of discharge instructions and scheduling follow-up appointments, not to mention the gathering of all the flowers and gifts, we finally headed down to the truck. Clay wheeled me down as we said our goodbyes and thanked the nursing staff. Two officers stayed with me while he […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Fourteen
Updated: June 18, 2023 Clay I don’t know how long I’d been asleep, my head on her thigh holding her hand in mine. It was the middle of the night when a nurse came in to administer an injection into her IV. Outside her room, on post since she came out of surgery, was a […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Thirteen
Updated: June 18, 2023 Clay Like she said, everything does melt. Time does what its designed to do. Six months have now passed from the night I picked Aubrey up at Charleston Airport. Our lives collided into a fast-moving cyclone. I don’t know where the time went. As I was occupied prosecuting criminals, she was […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Twelve
Updated: June 18, 2023 Clay The press were besieged outside my building. Shouting questions and demanding a comment. I put my head down and waded through the crowd. They pushed their microphones toward my face as I slipped through their grasp. “Mr. Hoover is it true you’re marrying the woman who owns that property?” […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Eleven
Updated: June 18, 2023 Clay After we returned to the house, I slipped out the back way in Carl’s truck to pick up some take out from Miss Dottie’s. When I returned, Bree had taken a shower and changed into her nighttime clothes. She waited for me to do the same and heated the […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Ten
Updated: June 18, 2023 Aubrey The rain was drumming hard on the roof and against the windows. We ate leftovers for dinner, and I washed the dishes and straightened up the kitchen while Clay caught up on work. He was staged at the dining room table with his laptop and a stack of files. […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Nine
Updated: June 18, 2023 Aubrey Clay was telling me all morning to stop fidgeting. According to him I looked ‘more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room filled with rocking chairs’. I couldn’t help it, the anticipation of meeting his only son was making me so anxious I was breaking out into hives. […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Eight
Updated: June 18, 2023 Aubrey The Beaufort County Sheriff’s office was a nondescript brick building. Pretty multicolored flowers were planted around the base of the flag pole out in front. Clay pulled up and parked. “Bree, how you holding up. honey?” he asked quietly, reaching to hold my hand. I was fidgeting and […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Seven
Updated: June 18, 2023 Aubrey Three days later it hit me, I woke up in a daze. What did I agree to? I lay in my bed, anxiety starting to percolate, what was I thinking? I reached for my phone and saw his handsome face on my lock screen. We had talked for hours […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Six
Updated: June 18, 2023 Clay I drove out toward my office, it was still early so I stopped at the drugstore to have the pictures I wanted from the phone printed out. I walked around the store like a love sick teenager, shopping for frames, I wasn’t starting my day without her images surrounding […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Five
Updated: June 18, 2023 Clay On the long ride back to the Gracie Hotel, Aubrey was curled up and fast asleep in the front seat of the truck. I covered her with a flannel jacket I kept flung in the backseat. My mind was wandering, all the information I knew about her currently, […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Four
Updated: June 18, 2023 Aubrey He helped me into the passenger seat of his truck. No joke–I was good and sore now. I kept shifting in my seat trying to find a comfortable position. He climbed in and started it up. The sound of his music blared with the engine and caused us both […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Three
Updated: June 18, 2023 Clay What is it about elevators? Why in every movie or smutty book is the elevator the start of the real heat? You feel like you should be filming a scorching rock music video when you step into one– three whiskeys shots in with an attractive woman beside you. A willing […]
Southern Lawyers-Part Two
Updated: June 18, 2023 Aubrey “Clayton Hoover, Ooof.” I watched his entire trial, it was live streamed every day for weeks and the lead prosecutor caught my attention from his opening statement. His voice, his command of the court, his confidence were swoon worthy. The sexy, Lowcountry drawl in his speech, how he used his […]
Southern Lawyers
Updated: June 18, 2023 Clay I saw her walk into the lobby bar. My team and I had just finished a lengthy, seven-week criminal trial and surrounded by these victorious co-workers-I sipped my first whiskey in a very long time. The adrenaline and stress from such a high-profile case was starting slowly to […]
Waking up a Widow
Posted–March 10, 2023 There is something about going back in time to read your raw and bleeding thoughts. It grounds me, it reminds me how far I’ve come alone. No one wants to hear how strong they are, or how proud they should be of themselves in this situation. I didn’t choose this, but who […]
Welcome
March 9, 2023 So, what do you think about this? I’ve got a website. It has been 1021 days since my world crashed with the unexpected death of my beloved husband. I spent most of the first ninety days just crying myself to sleep and trying to figure out what was next. I couldn’t see […]
Meet Dana
Dana Giovinetti-Devine by her own admission is a late bloomer. The oldest of her parents three children, she was always acting “in charge” of her siblings, her friends and any occasion she encountered. She blames it on being born under the sign of Leo. Did she really have a choice?Her late mother, Diane was an […]