Sweetest Kisses: A Single Kiss Part 15

She moved through her appointments, developed a position on each case, and started trading calls with Margaret Jenson to prepare for the next docket. Anxiety became a constant gnawing ache low in her gut, and Hannah was reminded of the many, many times she'd felt the same thing in a new foster home, a new school, a new minimum-wage student job.

Beginnings were hard for her. She knew that, and she knew why: beginnings invariably preceded unhappy endings.

Trent stood in the doorway to his own office, his enormous courthouse briefcase at his feet, his coat slung over his shoulder while Hannah Stark shelved reference books, each going back to its exact, proper location. She handled every tome as if merely touching a bound volume of Maryland law was a privilege.

The way he'd like to handle her.

Maybe he'd sighed a little too loudly.

"How long have you been standing there?" She peered at Courts and Judicial Proceedings as he moved into the room and closed the door.

"Long enough to know you borrowed half my library."

"Just the child support references, and I wanted to check the most recent decisions from Annapolis. You don't look so good, Trent Knightley."

She put the book away and turned to lean against his desk as he often did. She was welcome to the d.a.m.ned desk, which sported half a ream of pink message notes. Trent tossed his coat in the direction of the coat stand and plunked his tired a.s.s down in a guest chair.

"My guy won," he said, because small talk and even boss talk was beyond him. "Sole physical custody, use and possession of the family home, child support, and mortgage a.s.sistance from Mom. He won."

"Why aren't you doing the end zone dance?"

Why did he never do the end zone dance? "Judge Merriman is terrific at talking to kids. She keeps crayons and stuffed animals in her office, gets down on the floor with the little ones so they can make up stories with her. Even she couldn't get anything out of these two. Mom and Dad are good people, they love their kids, they simply can't both live with them anymore."

"Sometimes, every available option stinks." Hannah pushed his hair back over his ear, her touch as comforting as her words.

Trent hated wearing a tie, and as soon as he'd left the courthouse, he'd taken off the one Merle had picked out for him that morning. "I'm not exactly ready for inspection."

"The grooming police have the day off. You're in your own office, and it's only me."

A sign of trust, that Hannah would promote herself to "only me" status so soon. Trent used a foot to shove his briefcase away.

"My guy had the decency to leave the kids with the mom for this weekend, and the judge made Mom and Dad write down phone numbers for the children and exchange them while the kids looked on, all the micro-ritual bulls.h.i.t."

Because it was bulls.h.i.t. Band-Aids concocted by adults to deal with arterial bleeding from the hearts of children.

Hannah scooted back onto the desk and toed off one shoe. "You're sad for the kids, the parents, and maybe even the judge."

Ouch. Merle could coldc.o.c.k him with p.r.o.nouncements like that.

"I'm sad, tired, and ready for the weekend." He leaned forward so his crown was against Hannah's midriff. He closed his eyes and felt the weight of a very long, difficult two days.

Maybe mashing on his new hire would get him sued; maybe his radar had malfunctioned completely when it suggested she wouldn't be offended. Still, Trent did not move, but remained leaning against her.

Hannah's hands settled on his hair, her touch tentative. "It's a wonder you don't have one h.e.l.l of headache."

She slid her fingers over his scalp and ma.s.saged the base of his neck. A glorious warmth spread from his nape to his shoulders and down into his body, and he was reluctant to breathe lest he give her an excuse to stop.

"That feels-I might fall asleep right where I'm sitting." Oh, the dreams he could dream, with Hannah easing away all of the day's stress and exhaustion.

Her touch shifted, to a slow, rhythmic stroke over his hair. "You have such beautiful hair."

"I used to have longer hair, but it's tidier this way, and when you're a parent, you have to set the kind of example you want your children to follow." Trent was thinking of shifting in closer, or nuzzling her belly or pulling her into his lap, for G.o.d's sake, when her hands went still then disappeared.

"I've been meaning to ask you about that. You're a dad."

A carefully neutral statement, which told him his next words mattered. Trent sat up, and abruptly, the lovely moment faded.

"Merle is seven, or almost eight as she constantly reminds me."

A smart woman knew that if she had to compete with a child for a guy's attention, the relationship would proceed slowly, if at all.

Too bad he wasn't interested in being anybody's booty call.

"How much do you see her?"

"Have a seat." Trent patted the chair beside him. "I will regale you with the details of my parental privileges. I am Merle's sole custodian, and she hasn't seen her mother for three years, except for the occasional visit by webcam."

Hannah stayed right where she was and crossed her legs. "Three years?"

"You'll hear the details around the water cooler at some point. I was approached by members of the judicial nominating committee, and I would have been one of the youngest sitting judges in the history of the state. My career seemed set. I was bound to work my way into the appellate ranks, the state supreme court, even a federal judgeship was possible if I wrote smart opinions and stayed out of trouble."

"There's a but coming."

Better that she hear it from him. "I thought the big career was what Sheila wanted for me. We met in law school, worked together on the law review. She was pretty, smart, poised, and ambitious. I was smitten."

Hannah nudged his briefcase with her stockinged toe. "Old-fashioned word, smitten."

"Knightleys are essentially old-fashioned men, James's reputation notwithstanding."

"We will talk about your baby brother later." She didn't seem mad, but neither was she intrigued with James. Neener-neener, baby brother.

"I am such an old-fashioned man that when my wife started having an affair, I told myself it would pa.s.s. We had a child together, one whom I thought we both loved to distraction."

"Then you were approached about a judgeship?"

She made it sound as if an F-5 tornado had swept into his life, which, in essence, it had. Enduring a divorce had been invaluable for understanding what domestic relations clients went through-also stinking miserable.

"Sheila was all for the judgeship. I realize now she thought it would enhance her own shot at the bench, but at the time, I loved my wife and was determined to keep her married to me."

Even then, though, he'd known he wasn't in love with Sheila.

Hannah's big toe flipped the handle of his briefcase over, then back-dexterous toes. "I can see the determined part, and yet, she's not your wife now."

"James and Mac had hatched the idea of buying this firm, but I declined. They probably knew exactly what was afoot long before I did, but they said nothing. All I could think was I'd lose Merle if Sheila and I divorced. I'd become one of those pathetic every-other-weekend dads whose kids treat him like a glorified au pair."

Hannah was frowning, and he could see her lawyer's mind putting together the facts of the Knightley case.

"So you doubled down on the parenting? Wrapped yourself around the kid, took the day care drop-off and pick-up duty, handled the pediatrician visits, and tried to make it so Sheila had all the mom creds and none of the work? All while you're trying to keep up with a busy practice?"

"The cases don't stop coming because somebody got knocked up."

"Don't use that term," Hannah snapped, scooting back onto his desk. "You and Sheila conceived a child you both had every intention of loving. That isn't knocking up your wife."

"To Sheila, it was exactly that, and she told me so before it was all over. She was more ambitious than I knew and thought the image of me as a family man would make me easier to promote. It didn't hurt her appearances either."

Hannah's stocking-clad foot started swinging. "So what happened? She fell out of love with you?"

"She had never been in love with me." The unkindest cut in a protracted duel of attrition. Most spouses enjoyed at least a few years of infatuation, but from the start, Sheila had been playing him.

"In hindsight," Hannah said, "it can often seem as if we never-"

In hindsight, the entire marriage was all pretty sad, except Trent had Merle, and that was wonderful.

"Sheila is gay," he said. "Or at least bis.e.xual. When I was stuck in the office late at night, trying to prepare for the next day's docket, she stashed Merle with the nanny and hung out online. She said she was dying in the marriage and didn't care what it cost her to get out of it. Told me I was never going to make an appellate judge, my brothers were troglodytes, and-I feel no compunction to forgive her for this-told me she had never wanted a baby."

"Geezopete, that's just plain mean. Merle was how old?"

"Toddling when the whole thing began. Sheila had me served with divorce papers between cases at the courthouse."

"Charming."

Pathetic. Or as Hannah had put it, just plain mean. "She moved out with Merle, and I about lost my mind. I wasn't humiliated, exactly, though that was part of it. I was devastated, shot right off my horse. I love my daughter, Hannah. I hadn't realized how much and how much she's a part of me. And as for her mother, I did not see the real Sheila."

Hannah's second shoe came off, landing on the first. "The real Sheila sounds like everything that ever gave lawyers, women, or exes a bad name."

"Mac and James sat me down one day as the litigation was dragging on and told me they didn't want to see their niece raised by a ruthless, manipulative barracuda when the girl had a perfectly competent and loving dad ready, willing, and able to step up. They pooled their resources and offered to lend me the money to buy Sheila out."

"They love you."

"They love me, and they love Merle, and they are not guys you want to mess with."

"My favorite kind of guy. Sheila took the money?"

"I didn't think her pride would allow it. I thought she'd want the cachet of having a little girl to raise, want the pleasures of parenthood while she set down roots somewhere else."

"Guessed wrong again?"

Yes, he had, thank a merciful G.o.d. "She lives in Sydney, which suits me fine. I offered the cash, thinking it was one of Mac's crazier strategies. No mother worth the name would turn her back on her child for money. I made the terms draconian, probably trying to sabotage the deal so Merle wouldn't lose her mother."

"What do you consider draconian?"

Trent considered this conversation encouraging, because Hannah's questions were insightful, and she had the knack of offering understanding without turning him, Merle, or Sheila into a victim.

"I am Merle's sole legal and physical custodian, and Sheila's visitation is subject to my reasonable convenience."

"You're not a jerk."

"Sheila hasn't asked for any visitation."

Hannah stared at the plain black pumps laying side by side near his left shoe. "You did the right thing, Trent. Better to be with one loving parent than forced to shuttle between that and a bewildering alternative."

"There are scholarly articles to that effect, but there's just as much literature to the contrary, saying better to know a bad parent than to have no second parent at all. When Sheila sets up a web visit, I never deny her."

Her foot twitched. "You know it's stupid to blame yourself?"

"When you have the brothers I do, you hear how stupid on a regular basis." G.o.d love 'em both.

"As if lecturing them gets anywhere?"

"Don't say that to Mac."

"He lectures because his mind works that way," she said. "He thinks in opening and closing arguments and cross- and direct examinations. Will your brothers join you for Thanksgiving?"

To shift the topic to something as mundane as weekend plans was a relief, though Trent was also relieved to have his past on the table between them. A lot of women thought a man with custody of his child was a great bet, until they tried to fit themselves into his life between the kid and his career.

"The uncles, as Merle calls them, make her a part of their every holiday. They each take her out to breakfast one Sat.u.r.day a month so I get a little time to myself, and they regularly kidnap her at odd moments when they think I'm getting overwhelmed."

"Or when their own lives feel a little too empty and meaningless?"

d.a.m.n, Hannah was quick. "If I said that to their faces-"

"Right, they'd beat you up. You're a very violent family, you Knightleys."

"Utter barbarians." Trent picked up her left shoe, took her foot in his hand, and slipped her pump back on over her sheer stockings. When she didn't protest, he put the second one on as well.

They remained in that posture, him sitting before her, her perched on the desk, and abruptly, Trent forgot the name of the client whose case he'd won not an hour earlier. He'd handled Hannah's foot.

And she'd let him.

She stood, and Trent did as well, mentally flailing for something innocuous to stuff into a silence that had all too many possibilities. "What are your plans for the weekend, Hannah?"

He should have called her Stark.

She gave his rhodie a drink from the pitcher on the credenza. "Probably a lot like yours. Some cleaning and cooking, a dead bird, a few hungry people, the cats circling in relentless hope of sc.r.a.ps."

Was that a scold or a tease or a recitation of fact? "I wish you could join us. Judge Halverston will be there."

"Merle will have you gentlemen all to herself?"

"Debbie is bringing her five-year-old, and there'll be a few more to round out the numbers."

"You invite children so Merle won't feel so isolated. That's smart."

"It's chaos," he said, pleased Hannah could grasp parental strategy. James and Mac weren't that quick on the uptake when it came to managing a kid.

Hannah put the pitcher back on its tray and moved toward the door. "You can still smile. You're looking forward to a weekend with family, and all's right with the world. I'll just wish you a happy Thanks-"