Dill My Pickle (Sample - First 5 Chapters)

1 Elliot

"Is this the only place you're ever going to want to meet for breakfast?"

I glanced up from the mountain of paperwork crowding the small diner table in front of me and smiled up at Austin Johnson, my best friend and, truthfully, my only friend. I pushed my papers back into my briefcase as he sat down across from me and waved the waitress over. I waited for him to order his usual eggs, toast, and sausage links, burnt as he liked them. He could complain about the regularity all he wished. I knew he liked this place just as much as I did.

"Why did you want to meet me?" I asked when he had gotten settled. He looked up at me and shook his head, taking a sip of the coffee I had ordered him before he'd arrived. He sighed after a moment when I kept watching him, leaning back in his seat and looking over at me.

"I need your help, Elliot." It was phrased like a request even though we both knew that I would do it. Whatever it was. I sat back in my own seat and nodded for him to continue, "It's Jenny. It's her family. They have this farmhouse down in Lynnville. It's been in their family for generations. They-"

"Lynnville?"

He smiled, "I forget you aren't from around here, California boy. Lynnville is a town an hour south of here. It's real rural. It's where Jenny grew up. Anyway, they have this farmhouse there. It's run by her two older brothers and an older sister and whatever friends they have hired on as farmhands for the season. We go visit quite a bit. But there's this other family. The Moores. I know it might sound ridiculous to you but southern family feuds, they're real, and that's what Jenny's family has with the Moores. So Ray Moore, he's the head of the family, he figured out that Jenny's parents' will wasn't done right. They died a couple of years ago in a car accident and the kids all inherited the farm. Or so they thought. But apparently their parents never put that in writing and now they've got a local lawyer saying they have to leave the farmhouse their family has owned for generations."

I listened to Austin as he spoke, sipping my coffee and nodding my head in encouragement. When he had finished, I set my mug down and took a breath.

"I'm no estate attorney," I told him then. "Nor do I specialize in property law."

His face fell, "But you can do it, right? I mean, you graduated top of your class. Please, man. This is Jenny."

I watched him then. He was leaning forward, pleading. I had seen Austin go through his fair share of girls. He always fell for them, hard, and they always ended up hurting him and yet somehow his trust had never wavered. Jenny had been different. Austin had met her when he moved here to Nashville and they had been together for some months now. I did not know Jenny well, having just moved to the area and met her myself, but I knew what she did to Austin. He was putty in her hands and, normally, that would be cause for concern but with Jenny I didn't worry. She was perhaps the sweetest, bubbliest girl I had ever met and her positive attitude and confidence had rubbed off on Austin in exactly the ways I had hoped it would. He was taking more chances than he ever had, going after his dreams and planning a stable future. He seemed to be having more fun than I had seen him have in years and I could tell that he was in love just by the way he spoke her name. So how could I deny him this?

"I will meet with them," I told him and his lips spread into a wide grin at the promise. "But in a consulting capacity only. I will review this Ray Moore's case against them and tell them their chances of winning. I will try to find someone who specializes in property law but-"

"See, the thing is," Austin interrupted then, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, "they don't exactly have the money to hire a lawyer."

I raised a brow at him, "So I'm doing this pro bono?"