Dawn Patrol

10

Petra walks in to the bathroom, reaches into the shower, and turns on the cold water.

“Naked here!” Boone yells.

“Sorry-didn't notice.”

He reaches up and turns off the water. “That was a sketchy thing to do.”

“Whatever that means.”

Boone starts to reach for a towel but then gets stubborn and just stands there, naked and dripping wet, as Petra looks him straight in the eyes and informs him, “Mr. Daniels, I intend to make partner within the next three years, and I am not going to achieve that goal by failing to deliver.”

“Petra, huh?” Boone says. He finds a tube of Headhunter and rubs it over his body as he says, “Okay-your dad was Pete and he wanted a boy child, but that didn't work out, so he glossed you Petra. You figured out pretty young that the best way to earn Daddy's affection was to add a little testosterone to the mix by growing up to be a hard-charging lawyer, which sort of accounts for that log on your shoulder but not the analretentiveness. No, that would be the fact that it's still the law firm of Burke, Spitz and Culver, not Burke, Spitz, Culver and Hall.”

Petra doesn't blink.

Actually, Daniels's shot in the dark isn't far off. She is an only child, and her British father, a prominent barrister, had wanted a son. So, growing up in London, she had kicked a football around the garden with her dad, attended Spurs matches, and accompanied him to British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

And perhaps becoming a lawyer was yet more of an effort to earn her father's approval, but doing it in California had been her American mother's idea. “If you pursue your career in England,” her mother said, “you will always be Simon Hall's daughter to everybody, including yourself.”

So Petra took a first at Somerville College in Oxford, but then had crossed the water to Stanford for law school. Burke's talent spotters had plucked her easily from the crowd and made her an offer to come to San Diego.

“Your off-the-cuff psychoanalysis,” she says with a smile, “is all the more amusing coming from a man whose parents named him Daniels, Boone.”

“They liked the TV show,” Boone says. It's a lie. Actually, it was Dave the Love God who, back in junior high, gave him the “Boone” tag, but Boone is not about to reveal this-or his real first name-to this pain in the butt.

“And what are you putting on your body?” she asks.

“Rash guard.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Ever had wet suit rash?” Boone asks.

“Nor a rash of any other kind.”

“Well, you don't want it,” Boone says.

“I'm sure. Towel?”

Boone takes the towel, wraps it around his waist, and shuffles out into the office.