Match Made in Court

He followed, to her relief. When she asked, he poured milk for Hanna and her and juice for himself while she dumped tomato soup in a pot and started slicing cheddar cheese. Hanna stuck close to her, a silent, ghostlike presence, while her uncle Matt sat at the kitchen table and watched her with a brooding gaze. The atmosphere reminded Linnea unpleasantly of home, when Finn would sulk about something and she tried to avoid drawing his attention and her mother insisted that obviously he’d been wronged and shouldn’t she go into the school and talk to the principal? Dad, of course, slipped away to his den.

Naturally, Linnea felt compelled to chatter. “I think my favorite animals are the otters. Do you remember that time we saw one playing in the stream at the zoo?” she asked her niece, who didn’t answer. To Matt, she said, “He kept sliding down, then going back up and doing it again. It was so cute. But I like the giraffes, too, and the lions. And, oh, when there’s a baby gorilla!” Flipping the sandwiches, she stroked Hanna’s hair with one hand. “Did you see the gorillas today?”

Hanna shook her head.

“We didn’t get that far,” Matt said. “She didn’t even really look at the animals we did get to.”

Oh, dear. “I’m sorry you didn’t have fun,” she said softly to her niece. “Oops! The soup is boiling.”

She dished up three bowls and had Hanna carry saltine crackers to the table. Then she brought the grilled cheese sandwiches on plates, lifted Hanna into her seat and sat herself.

It felt … strange having a man here. Except for her dad, no man had ever eaten here in her kitchen with her. Tess dropped by casually once in a while, but never Finn.

Anyway, Linnea suspected her brother hardly ever ate lunch unless he was entertaining a client or talking on his cell phone or texting at the same time.

Matt seemed to fill the space in a way Linnea knew she didn’t. It was partly physical; he was a large, solidly built man with broad shoulders. But it was also a matter of temperament. She could feel his tension, as if the very air crackled with it. Those gray eyes were both impassive and dark with what she felt sure was an incipient storm.

Of course, his tension wound Linnea tighter than a rubber band ready to snap, which, coupled with Hanna’s withdrawal, didn’t make this lunch an undiluted pleasure.

Hanna ate half a sandwich and a few spoonfuls of soup, then, to Linnea’s relief, asked to be excused. “Can I watch TV?” she asked, after a wary glance at her uncle.

“Why don’t you take a book and lie down instead?” Linnea suggested. “You look tired, kiddo.”

She’d been letting Hanna watch entirely too much television. She always curled up at one end of the sofa, clutching a throw pillow as though her stomach hurt, and stared at the screen as if mesmerized. Mesmerized, or not seeing it at all, Linnea wasn’t sure which. It had become Hanna’s refuge, which didn’t strike Linnea as entirely healthy.

She could tell now that her niece wanted to argue, but after a moment she gave a reluctant nod and trudged from the kitchen. Matt didn’t say anything, but he watched her go with that same brooding expression. When Hanna didn’t even look back, a muscle twitched in his cheek, and Linnea wondered if his feelings were hurt.

From her seat she could see the hall. She waited to say anything until Hanna went in her bedroom and shut the door. Then she looked at Matt.

“Was she just shy?”

“She wouldn’t talk to me. Is that shy?”

“Well, of course it is,” Linnea said in bewilderment. “What did you think?”

Very coolly, he said, “I wondered if someone had been talking to her about me. She almost acts as if she’s afraid of me.”

“Someone?” Then she got it, and her mouth dropped open. “You mean me? Why would you think …?”

“Perhaps your brother.”

“I really doubt that Finn—” She couldn’t tell him that she didn’t think Finn actually talked to his daughter that often.

He raised an eyebrow, giving his face a saturnine cast that made her wonder if he’d read her mind. “Finn?”

“I doubt he gives that much thought to you.”

“Then what’s going on? Hanna and I have always been good friends.”

“You haven’t seen her in a year. That’s forever for a child.” She hesitated. “And things have been hard for her at home. I suspect Tess and Finn were fighting a lot. Hanna hasn’t seemed very happy to me lately. She’d already … withdrawn. Become clingy when she was with me.”

Matt frowned. “Tess hasn’t said anything.”

“Would she have?” Linnea weighed how much to say, then thought, What does it matter now? “Hanna wasn’t like them,” she explained. “She’s quiet, and sensitive, and she shrivels when voices get raised. I’m not sure even Tess understood that she didn’t react the way either of them would have to … anything.”

His mouth flattened. “Then suddenly she’s being told that her mom is dead.”

“There were police in the house, and then I took her and she hasn’t even talked to her dad since.”

To his credit, he was listening. “Your parents?”

“They adore her.”

He waited.

“Dad is always gentle with Hanna. But it wouldn’t surprise me if Mom is saying more than she should to a child Hanna’s age. She’s pretty worked up on Finn’s behalf. She and I—”

Gaze suddenly intense, he prodded her again. “You what?”

“We had an argument today. She’s not happy that Hanna is spending time with you. Mom always defends Finn, you see. It won’t surprise me if she calls to tell him.”

“It doesn’t sound like he gives a good goddamn.”

“No, he does love Hanna. In his own way. And also—” She stopped, wondering why so many private thoughts were attempting to spill out today.

Matt’s eyes narrowed. “She’s his. That’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?”

After a moment, she nodded.

He surged to his feet. His chair clattered back, rocked and almost fell over. “Not anymore, she isn’t. I intend to get custody.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “What?” she asked faintly.

“You heard me.” His voice was as flinty as his gray eyes. “I’ve already retained an attorney. Finn murdered my sister. When he did that, he forfeited all rights to Hanna.”

“Just because he’s been charged—” Oh, how weak that sounded. And why was she defending the brother who had actively made her childhood miserable?

“Charged?” Matt snorted. “What’s he claiming?

That she crawled under the coffee table and banged her head on it?”

“Under?” Her confusion must have been plain, because after a minute he straightened the chair and sat.

“You haven’t heard the whole story?”

“No.”

“Her skull was shattered. The hair and tissue weren’t on the top edge of the table, where they would have been if she’d fallen. They were on the lower edge.” He slid a hand along the table in demonstration. “The bastard picked it up and slammed it into her head.”

“Oh, God,” Linnea whispered. “Mom doesn’t know that.”

His expression hardened. “Or does and won’t admit it.”

“He’s her son …” No more convincing than her own defense of Finn. And the very words made her ache. I’m her daughter, too. Why do I matter so much less?

Matt rose to his feet again, looking down at her. “Frankly, I don’t want Hanna to have any contact with your parents. That’s one reason I don’t want her staying with you.”

“But—she’s happy with me.” Linnea stood, too, although being on her feet didn’t help much with him towering over her.

His tone softened slightly as he made the grudging admission, “You seem like a nice woman. You’re obviously well-intentioned, and Hanna is fond of you. But I can’t imagine you defying either your parents or your brother. No.” He shook his head. “I won’t risk it. I’m asking for custody.”

She felt sick as she stared at him, hating the way he’d dismissed her in a few words. You’re a weakling. Maybe she was, but in defense of Hanna she’d do anything.

“She’s scared of you.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Did you ever stop to think it might be yours?” she cried. “How is a child supposed to feel attachment to someone who’s no more than an occasional visitor in her life?”

She thought her accusation had struck home from the way his eyes darkened. But then he shook her words—her—off with a flat, “We’ll be changing that. I rented a house yesterday. I’m moving in this weekend. We’ll start with a few overnights.”

Linnea took a deep breath, clutched for all her courage and said, “No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, given your hostility to me and to her grandparents, to the family Hanna knows and loves, no. I don’t have to let her go with you. I don’t have to let her see you.”

“You’re threatening me?”

“I’m saying no. That’s all.” She swallowed. “Go to court. Until a judge orders me to let her see you again, I’m going to keep saying no.”

He leaned forward, menace in every line of his body. “Why, you little …”

She was shaking, but stood her ground. “Please leave now.”

“For God’s sake …”

“Now. Don’t make me call the police.”

Along with the anger, his face held shock and disbelief. He swore, swung on his heel, and stalked out. An instant later, the front door opened and slammed shut.

Linnea’s knees gave out and she collapsed in her chair at the kitchen table. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “What have I done?”

But she knew: she’d whipped out a red cape and waved it in front of an angry, wounded bull. Encouraged him to attack. Not so smart, given that she had no sword.

Gazing at her hands, laid flat on the table and still visibly trembling, she thought, He drove me to it. It was almost as if he wanted to dislike her. Or as if she was nothing, merely an obstacle to what he wanted.

Linnea had discovered in the past week how very tired she was of being dismissed. She’d never been willing to fight back for her own sake, but for Hanna … Oh, that was different.

Still, she quailed at the idea of what he’d do now. She hoped and prayed that, in making an enemy, she hadn’t been very foolish.

PACING HIS HOTEL ROOM, Matt muttered an obscenity. Stupid, he thought. He’d lost his temper. He never did that.

He’d needed Linnea’s cooperation, and now he’d blown it.

How long would it take to force a family-court hearing? Days? Weeks? He could have been building a relationship with Hanna in the meantime. Instead, he would become an ogre in her mind. She’d probably heard the raised voices in the kitchen and quailed, remembering Mommy and Daddy’s fights and the terrible outcome of them.

God. He stopped, flattened his hands on the desk and bowed his head. He was breathing as if he’d come in from a run.

Had he misjudged Linnea entirely? Was Finn’s quiet sister very capable of defending Hanna from anyone and anything? She’d become a lioness today. She hadn’t relented at all, even though he’d been able to tell she was afraid of him.

And, damn, he hated knowing that. He could be a hard-ass at work, but women didn’t quake at the sight of him. He couldn’t remember ever feeling the blinding anger he had since the early-morning phone call that had him on the plane for the U.S. within hours.

Rocked by a tsunami of grief, he thought, Tess. For a moment, he saw her face. She was … what? Eighteen, twenty? In college, for sure. He couldn’t remember what he’d said or done, but she was laughing at him. She was going through a stage with her hair short, spiked and dyed hot pink. He remembered thinking it suited her. She was five foot ten inches tall, slim but strong, a star basketball player in high school and college both. His baby sister, Tess, was also beautiful, with spectacular cheekbones, eyes a deep, navy blue, her mouth wide and sensuous and always flapping. As a kid, he swore she never shut up. The loss of their parents had tempered her, made her more thoughtful, given her a layer of sadness beneath the joie de vivre. He carried the memory of that laugh, of all the other laughs, of the way her eyes sparkled, the way she would fly into his arms and hug him as hard as he hugged her, even in front of her college friends. She was never too cool for her brother, Matt.

And now she was gone.

He was stunned to realize tears poured down his face and dripped onto his hands. He was paralyzed by this grief that ran like acid through his veins, damaging his heart as it went.

“Tess,” he whispered. “Tess, no. No.”

It had to be fifteen minutes before the tears spent themselves; the pain washed away and left him nearly numb. Matt staggered into the bathroom and turned on the taps, bending to splash first hot and then cold water over his face. He toweled his head dry, then went to the bed and sat on the edge of it, his elbows on his knees.

Now what? Would apologizing to Linnea get him anywhere?

He couldn’t imagine. He’d been a son of a bitch; she’d threatened to call the police if he didn’t leave that minute.

He hated remembering the expression on her face. Damn it, she’d been decent to him. More than decent. Encouraged him to spend time with Hanna, worked to include them both in conversation. Pretty clearly, that argument with her mother had been about him, and they wouldn’t have fought at all if Linnea hadn’t been defending him and his right to see Hanna.

And from the moment she’d opened her front door to him, he’d seen that she wasn’t mousy as he’d always believed. Instead, she was … shy. Private. Gentle. Not a good fit in her family.

Maybe her gentle nature was exactly what Hanna needed right now, he thought, staring blankly at the far wall of the hotel room.

Maybe.

He wouldn’t be opposed to her continuing to see her niece. Hanna did love her, and he even understood why. To his surprise, he’d liked Linnea. Even … No. He hadn’t named whatever he’d felt as sexual attraction, and he wasn’t going to. They had officially become enemies today. And even if they weren’t … Good God. Imagine the complications.

No, pretty Linnea Sorensen wasn’t speaking to him anymore. She would be unlikely to even answer his calls should he try to apologize. He regretted coming on so strong today. She hadn’t deserved it. But he had to concentrate on Hanna. On keeping her away from her bastard of a father.

He reached for his cell phone. The attorney would want to know that Hanna’s aunt was now refusing him contact with his niece. This new circumstance was reason enough to push for a hearing as soon as possible.

He didn’t know how he’d survive until then, unable to see his only family in the world, unable to talk to the one person who had seemed to understand what he felt.

Now his enemy.

My fault.

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