they’d declare as they put another batch of homemade biscuits into their ovens. I’d been raised differently; my parents had convinced me that I would never need to depend on a man. But I had depended on Benton. I depended on him to help me escape from the onslaught of unpleasantries that had landed on my shoulders when my parents died.Rehashing old memories wasn’t getting me anywhere. I stood up and smoothed my too short skirt and headed for Paul Standish’s office. I tapped on the door jam, “Paul, I just got your email. What time have they scheduled the meeting with the Charleston firm?”Paul’s bald head lifted from the stack of files on his desk in front of him, “Ah, Liz. Thanks for coming. It looks like the rednecks will be here in an hour.”I stepped into his office as he motioned for me to take a seat across from him. “Heads up on that, most Charlestonians prefer not to be called rednecks,” I smiled teasingly.Paul scoured me from his desk with a laugh, “I guess not. Anyway, thanks for assisting me with this. I think it’s fairly cut and dry, but Webster Shipping is one of our largest clients. If they want us to mediate, then something is going on.” He slid the stack of files across his desk in my direction, “Well, here’s the information. You have an hour to study it and figure out what the fuck they’re up to. Then meet me at the elevators at ten. Any questions?”I hesitated, tempted to ask the names of the Charleston attorney’s who’d come up to meet with us, but instead shook my head to indicate no. Frazier, Rice, Rutledge and Calhoun was a huge firm, and chances of them sending Benton Frazier were slim. I headed back to my desk to read the files. By ten minutes of ten, I had a firm grasp of the problems and some fairly good solutions. I stood in front of the bank of elevators clutching the files and waited for Paul.“Alrighty then, let’s head up and do this thing,”
