A Good Kind of Trouble (A Trouble in Twin Rivers Novel Book 1) by Ellie Ashe Page A

gone on at length about it.  
    "Christ, that must have been terrible," Ben said. "No wonder you were eavesdropping on other tables."
    "It was the mayor..." Lindsey said, defensive.
    "I know, I know," he said, holding up a hand. He didn't want to fight over this again. "Well, in the last six months, I haven't learned to like my job any better."  
    "But you spend so much time at work, so much of your life, you should be doing something you like."  
    "Thanks, Pollyanna, but I have crushing student loans that I cannot discharge in bankruptcy. Basically, the only way to get out of paying off my law school debt is to die."  
    Unlike most of the jerks at Stanton & Lowe, Ben's parents hadn't footed the bill for his college degree or the three years of law school. A baseball scholarship had paid for most of his undergraduate degree, but law school was all on him. He’d worked as much as he could while he’d been in school, but still had to take out over a hundred grand in loans.  
    "So, what exactly do you do? I mean, you clearly know your way around a public bond contract."  
    It was true. He knew his way around a sneaky, high-priced deal designed to benefit a mega-bank while bankrupting a mid-sized city. That was not exactly something to be proud of.  
    "Yeah, I’ve done enough corporate work that I can cut through the bullshit in these documents," Ben said.
    "You didn't represent EFB, did you?"  
    "No, not that bank. The firm has represented a couple financial institutions, but nothing this large. Banks like EFB would pick a bigger and more prestigious law firm to do their legal work."  
    She nodded and leaned back on the couch, a contract in her hand. She was so intent on understanding the bond deal that he smiled.  
    “You know, you’re going to be the only person to have actually read these, other than the few people who drafted them.”  
    “That’s my job,” she said with a sigh.  
    For how long? If Dave was correct, the newspaper was about to fire her. He felt a pang of guilt about withholding that information from her.
    “Why did you become a reporter?” he asked.  
    She picked up a pen and underlined a clause, then answered him without looking up from the paperwork. “My parents are journalists. My dad’s an editor. My mom was a correspondent. She teaches at USC now.”  
    She gave him a smile that showed off deep dimples. “I grew up watching them and they just seemed to have so much fun at work. I wanted to do that. Plus, I read All the President’s Men at an impressionable age.”  
    “Did you ever think you might do something else?”  
    Maybe she’d gone into journalism because of family pressure and losing her job would be a blessing in disguise. But she shook her head and his hopes vanished.  
    “No, never. I practically grew up in the newsroom, watching my dad work. He’d let my brother and I help out on election night and it was so exciting. I just loved it.”  
    “Is your brother a reporter, too?”
    “No, Adam’s a firefighter in Ventura,” she said. “I guess there’s a similar impulse, to run toward the trouble instead of away. Though I think Adam’s wife would prefer if he’d drive a desk instead of a fire engine now that they’re having a baby.”  
    Ben smiled at her enthusiasm for her job and her family. At the same time—knowing about her precarious job situation—his gut churned.  
    Should he tell Lindsey that she was about to lose that job she loved so much? How could he dash that enthusiasm? Had he ever been excited about work? Maybe at one time. When he was in law school, he worked in the school's legal clinic helping people fight their landlords. He went out and documented the complaints—a leaking, sagging ceiling that a landlord refused to repair, a back porch off the townhouse that had a gaping hole in the floor and a family of raccoons living underneath.  
    In one house, he had nearly electrocuted himself with a kitchen light switch that had