Sweetest Kisses: A Single Kiss Part 2

"You sure you have plans tonight?"

"Shoo." James gave his characteristic hand wave. "Genius thrives in solitude."

"I'm leaving, but I have a question for you as the familial authority on the fairer s.e.x."

James crossed his arms, his expression curious.

"Is it now rude to offer to escort a female employee to her car?"

James glanced out the window, as if Peahen v. Piracy Unlimited-corporate cases had the dumbest captions-was so fascinating, he hadn't realized darkness had fallen.

"Walking a woman to her car is gallant, particularly after dark on her first day. My rule of thumb is to figure how I would want somebody treating Merle when she grows up, and that's how I behave. Mostly."

"Good rule. Don't work too late."

"Said the pot to the kettle."

Trent let James have the last word, though with all the hours James had billed lately, James's legendary velocity with the ladies had to be suffering-or taking a breather. Mac's light was still on too, but Trent left his older brother undisturbed. Thanks to Mac's peculiar insights regarding Hannah, Trent's department had a prayer of making it through until spring.

Though Trent wished somebody-a devoted brother, perhaps?-had warned him his new hire was stunningly pretty. Dark auburn hair swept up on a coiled bun gave her a cla.s.sic appeal, accentuating a lovely profile, big brown eyes, and a full, mobile mouth.

A kissable mouth, if Trent were honest.

She wasn't attractive, though. Hannah Stark had No Trespa.s.sing signs posted at every property line, which was puzzling.

Trent got into his late-model Beemer, tucked a disc of Vera Winston playing Scarlatti into the CD player, and let his day's quotient of tension and drama drift away on strains of baroque beauty. As he reached his own property line, though, a question plagued him: For whom had Hannah Stark taken home that single, lonely, lovely flower?

Some nights, good enough had to be good enough, even for the most devoted single mom.

In that spirit, Hannah used eight of her ten spare minutes on the way home to hit the fast-food drive-through and pick up a kiddie meal and a tuna salad. When she got to Eliza's, she took the gladiolus from among the flotsam in the backseat and headed for Eliza's kitchen door.

"Mom! You were almost late, but not quite, Eliza said. That's a pretty flower, is it for me?" Grace slammed into Hannah, throwing her arms around her mother in a seven-year-old's version of a bear hug.

Thank G.o.d my child is safe for another day.

"It is for you. It's called a gladiolus, from the Latin word for sword, like a gladiator might use. This flower wants to bloom in a little girl's bedroom, so she can wake up and see something as wonderful as she is."

Abruptly shy, Grace mashed her nose against her mother's waist. "Thanks, Mom."

"There's a kiddie meal for you in the car, Grace. Please don't open the ketchup." Not quite a request, but a polite command.

"No fair," Eliza's oldest, Henry, moaned from the kitchen sink, where he washed his hands. "We never get kiddie meals."

"You have a dog, Henry," Grace said, shoving her arms into the sleeves of her coat. "Ginger is better than a kiddie meal." She galloped out the door, holding up her flower like an Olympic torch. "C'mon, Bronco!"

"First day go OK?" Eliza asked, pa.s.sing Henry a tea towel.

Hannah ran a finger down little Adam's cheek. He gurgled happily against his mother's shoulder and beamed a perfect baby smile at Hannah.

"Everyone was very nice, Eliza." Which had been unnerving as h.e.l.l.

"That's how first days are supposed to go. Get home, have a gla.s.s of white wine, and congratulate yourself."

"Except now they'll expect me to be nice right back, and sooner or later, I'll screw that up. I didn't get the gene for corporate pleasantries."

For any pleasantries.

At the sink, Henry ran the taps full out and started the garbage disposal.

"Henry Aaron Moser, you stop that or you'll go without supper," Eliza snapped. Henry shut off the taps and the disposal, grinned an all-boy grin, and scampered out of the kitchen. "I could argue about those genes, Hannah, but I know better than to argue with a lawyer. Do you suppose the car is covered with ketchup yet?"

"Bye, Eliza."

The G.o.ddess of commuting families had smiled, though, and Grace was sitting serenely in the pa.s.senger's seat, consuming her fries one at a time.

"Mom, do you think I'm little?"

What on earth was this about?

"Compared to what? Compared to me you are little now, but you'll likely be taller than I am before you're all grown up. You will never be as big, say, as Pedro." He'd been a source of fascination ever since he'd moved in across the lane.

"Pedro is a Brahma bull. I know I won't ever be as big as he is, but do you think I'm small?"

"I guess so, for now, for a human."

A pause ensued, lasting two whole fries. "Do you think I'm teensy?"

Hannah looked over at her daughter, searching for a clue, finding none. "I do not think you are teensy. You were not even teensy as a newborn, but you were absolutely adorable."

Also scary as h.e.l.l.

"I don't want to be teensy."

"Why not?"

Another pause, one fry in duration.

"We learned about the teensy fly in school today. It can kill you, and it's teensy. The flies in our house are really small, don't you think? Are you laughing at me?" A fry poised in the air punctuated the question.

"I am not laughing at you. Your teacher made a silly mistake, that's all." Hannah tried to explain the "mistake" to Grace, of confusing tsetse with teensy, but second-grade spelling made the translation slow. Once Grace got the joke, though, she howled.

"Mrs. Corner forgot tsetse sounds like teensy, like teensy-weensy. Gee, Mom, even I know that."

Grace bounced out of the car in great good spirits, which set the tone for a pleasant evening, so pleasant in fact, the child was in bed twenty minutes early.

The extra few minutes should have been a treat, a chance to have that gla.s.s of wine Eliza mentioned fairly frequently.

Except Hannah would never risk it.

What if she had to drive Grace to the emergency room?

What if she had to call 911 when Grace complained of a sudden severe bellyache, and the EMTs arrived to find "the mother had been drinking"?

What if the relaxation alcohol afforded became too seductive?

What if somebody made a referral to Child Protective Services, and the state's eyes and ears popped by unannounced at the end of some difficult week to find the wine bottle was the only thing in the fridge?

"That won't happen," Hannah said, putting the teakettle on. Even Child Protective Services needed a referral before they came knocking on doors in the dead of night-though that was pretty much all they needed before putting a child into foster care.

Hannah brewed up a cup of chamomile tea, dosed it with honey, and put in an old Richard GereJulia Roberts movie, a romance. The tale had once been one of her favorites, but in the past year the Pygmalion story line had seemed pathetic.

Sometimes, a lady got too empty to dream. Those times were scary, but Hannah had survived them. She might lack the nice-nice gene, but she had a blazingly good memory, an eye for detail, and an excellent grasp of the law. That was enough to sustain a dream of a good job in the field of corporate law.

And hopefully, enough to sustain Hannah for a short, uneventful detour through the legal dungeon known as family law.

Trent lay back on an old quilt under the full moon. A few yards away, horses munched deep fall gra.s.s, and one lonely cricket sang a slow aria to the crisp night air. The nip in the air, the pitch and tempo of that cricket's song, confirmed that this would be the last such outing for months.

"Daddy?" came a small voice from the other side of the blanket.

"Sweetie?"

"Is there really such a thing as a teensy fly, and can it really kill you? Do they live around here?"

Chapter 2.

Hannah dropped a smiling, bouncy Grace off at school by 7:20 a.m., and spent the commute through the western Maryland hills fretting.

What if she said something inappropriate at today's deposition? What if she failed to say something appropriate? What was appropriate? And that paternity law she was researching-was Trent Knightley unhappy she'd taken it on without his say so? Or was he unhappy with Gerald?

By the time Hannah reached the office, a tidy little headache at the base of her skull was threatening to go rogue and climb up the left side of her neck. She got out of her Prius, put on the bolero jacket that went with her A-line dress, and bent to gather up her shoulder bag, briefcase, umbrella, and thermos from the back of the car.

"Good morning, Hannah! May I carry something in for you?"

Trent Knightley's voice so startled Hannah she b.u.mped her head hard on the car's roof.

"That sounded like a pretty ferocious conk on the noggin." He reached toward her face, as if to brush her hair back and inspect the damage, and Hannah flinched away, her forearm coming up to block him.

Which knocked Trent's hand against the car door.

Which b.u.mped the car door into Hannah's elbow hard.

Which sent her belongings flying in all directions.

And dumped the contents of her purse on the blacktop at her feet.

"Oliver Wendell Holmes on a pogo stick, Stark." Trent tucked his hand under his opposite arm, much as a kid might have done at a sandlot ball game. "Ouch."

"I'm...sorry. I wasn't... I thought... You startled me."

She tried to get her breath and failed.

Knightley's eyes narrowed. "Down you go." His hands were on her shoulders, pushing her to sit sideways in her own driver's seat. "Head down, take little breaths, like the air is too cold to breathe easily."

She popped back up. "I'm not about to..."

Her ears started to roar from standing too quickly, from rapping her head, from being surprised, from...him, standing too close, and handling her.

"Spare me your motion to dismiss." His tone was grouchy as his arms came around her and eased her back down onto her car seat. "You're pale as a blank page, and this qualifies as a workplace injury."

Did not.

Hannah couldn't correct him, because she was not quite steady on her pins and his voice sounded far away. As she struggled for breath, she caught a strong whiff of sandalwood and spices-from him, from the wonderfully soft wool of his jacket.

That scent, that softness, calmed her.

"I'm fine," she said, meaning to sound authoritative and failing spectacularly.

"You're stubborn as h.e.l.l," he retorted, worry in his voice blending with exasperation. "How about you please don't squander your breath arguing with me?"

"You made it a question." The car prevented her from scooting any farther away, and he-d.a.m.n him to the lawyers' special reserved section of h.e.l.l-did not step back. He hung over her in the open car door, his expression disgruntled.

"Did you skip breakfast? That's two questions."

She did not admit she'd skipped breakfast and had eaten only a few bites of last night's tuna salad. Yesterday had been all smiles and new job protocol; today the lawyering began.

"Your color's better," Trent said, still hovering like a mother cat. "Catch your breath, and I'll retrieve"-he went down on one knee and reached under Hannah's car-"your worldly goods."

Hannah watched in sheer mortification as he stashed her birth control pills, tampon holder, moisturizer, headache prescription, wallet, lavender lip balm, and brush back into her purse, then set the thing in her lap.

"You carry this. I will carry the rest of your plunder, and you will allow me to escort you to your office without a peep of protest."

"But-" When was the last time anybody had fussed at her this way, part scold, part concern, and more than a little dear?

"That meets the legal definition of a peep. No peeps, Hannah Stark. I need to recover from my ordeal." He braced himself with one hand on the roof of the car, while Hannah tried not to laugh.

"Your ordeal?"