Sweetest Kisses: A Single Kiss Part 6

This was what Trent had sought from his brother, a.n.a.lysis and reflection rather than interrogation. "She blushed."

James straightened, expression puzzled. "A grown woman admitted to the bar in the great State of Maryland, pract.i.tioner of family law, wearer of sensible shoes-all you did was not kiss her on the cheek and she blushed? Blushed?"

"Very becomingly, and gave me a Mona Lisa smile."

"Are we going to be uncles again?"

"I've known her two days, James."

"My record is about twenty minutes. Names are optional when the sap rises."

"A brain is optional with you. A pulse and an orifice will do."

James took a few practices swings, smooth, controlled, even graceful. "I'm loyal to my team too, you mustn't forget that."

"Mac swears you went through an awkward phase in college."

"Mac means I tried monogamous dating and about blew a gasket."

"I worry about you, James."

"Well, I don't worry about you. It's time you shuffled off your monk's robes and rejoined the living. There's more to life than handing hankies to jilted housewives and cheating dentists-and raising my niece."

"Yeah," Trent said, opening a drawer and finding every single paper clip and pen neatly arranged. "Like being so bored with your job you're working on your short game-your real short game-at three in the afternoon in the dead of winter."

"It's not the dead of winter."

Not yet, but outside, flurries were thickening into a squall. Trent rose, took the putter from his brother, and tapped the ball down the length of the carpet into the waiting cup.

Some people should wear signs-scarlet letters-saying, "Likes to touch and be touched."

Hannah would have worn a sign, "Do not touch." She made exceptions of course-she was affectionate with her daughter, and could be with Eliza and Eliza's boys too. The cats strutted under her radar, and Ginger the dog had a few privileges.

But now Hannah worked for a hands-on man. Driving back to the office to the soft strains of Vivaldi, Trent had remained quiet. The deposition had been both interesting and tedious.

Lunch had been interesting and not tedious. Also delicious. Maybe even-the word hardly felt like part of Hannah's vocabulary-fun.

They'd been stopped on the way to the restaurant's door by two of the waitstaff, both of whom were on hugging, cheek-kissing terms with Trent. At the table, he'd acted as if his hand brus.h.i.+ng Hannah's pa.s.sing the plates was of no moment, and when Hannah had reached for her winter coat, he'd taken it from her, held it, and then given her shoulders a pat. He held the car door for her and took her elbow when she stepped up on the curb.

Sadly judgmental of her, but she did not a.s.sociate consideration like that with such a good-looking, successful man.

With any man of her acquaintance.

She shouldn't find his old-fas.h.i.+oned manners appealing, shouldn't have found that whisper in her ear charming, but she did, which made no sense whatsoever. Lunch distracted her for the balance of the afternoon and made drafting the memo to the Loomis file more time-consuming than it should have been.

No time to lose. Her homeward itinerary called for a stop at the bank before picking Grace up from Eliza's by six. Hannah had just laced up her running shoes when a handsome blond head presented itself around her partially closed office door.

What was his name? Matthew? Micah? Something biblical.

"You weren't leaving already, were you, Hannah? We should spend some time going over the child support case files. If you're not doing anything this evening, we could grab a bite, maybe take a few of the files with us. I know some decent places to eat around here."

And then go to your place and work on the finer points of litigation strategy?

She didn't need to recall his name-Gerald Matthews, that was it-to know this guy and a hundred others like him. She'd met them in pre-law; they'd gotten worse in law school. Once in practice, they were an occupational hazard at the larger firms. They made all the really decent guy lawyers stand out in higher relief.

"How about if I look the files over first, Gerald, and only bother you with questions about the ones I don't understand? I get in early and can make a good start on them tomorrow."

He sidled into her office, smiling with more teeth than graciousness.

"You're supposed to observe court on Friday. You'll have questions after court, so dinner together would be a good idea."

"I have plans, but lunch on Friday might be an option." Particularly if Hannah was stuck at the courthouse between morning and afternoon dockets.

"Fine, then, lunch on Friday." He settled into one of her guest chairs and crossed an ankle over his knee.

"I'll look forward to having the intricacies of the case law explained to me," she said, shrugging into her coat. As she pa.s.sed him, Matthews remained sitting right where he was.

"In child support law, we refer to the ins and outs, not the intricacies, if you get my drift, Hannah."

"Inappropriate humor in a professional environment, Gerald." She kept her tone light, while Matthews's smile turned bratty. "Good night, and I'll be done with the files by midmorning."

Trent Knightley could take her arm, hold her coat, and whisper in her ear, and Hannah liked it a lot more than she should.

Gerald Matthews smiled at her, and she felt dirty.

"You want half my PBJ?" Merle made the offer hesitantly. Sharing food was against the rules, but the lunch aide was yelling at Larry Smithson for spilling his milk again.

"I have a PBJ too!" Grace said, holding up half a sandwich with a bite taken out of the soft middle. They shared a smile, delighting in yet another aspect of life they had in common. The differences were cool too, though.

"Mine's cut longways, yours is on the diagonal," Merle said, holding her half sandwich up next to Grace's. "They're both on whole wheat, though."

"Bronco likes whole wheat better than the other stuff," Grace said, which made sense. Horses loved grain. Wheat was a grain, and unicorns were related to horses. "Do you ever have cream cheese and raspberry jam?"

Blech. Merle was too new to having a friend to be that honest. "Sounds grown-up. What about fluffernut and peanut b.u.t.ter?"

Grace took another bite. She ate from the middle out, leaving the crust last. Merle ate the crust first, like doing ch.o.r.es before having fun.

"What's fluggernut?"

Merle laughed with her mouth full-and did not choke, neener-neener-and then Grace was laughing, and at the next table over, Estella Popper tried to give them the dork-repellent look, but she ended up smiling too, until Henry Moser tried to steal something from her tray.

"Fluf-fer-nut, like fluffy clouds," Merle clarified, taking a sip of her milk. "It's like marshmallows but spreadable, or almost spreadable. Have you ever toasted marshmallows?"

"The first time my mom lit the fire in the woodstove," Grace said, getting a smear of jam on her cheek. "She had a hard time getting the fire to catch, then we figured out about the things you turn at the front of the stove that let in air. We made s'mores, but I cheated and had two marshmallows without the s'more."

"S'mores are the best. My uncle James makes really good s'mores. Dad says they're messy."

"Most of the good stuff is. Does your dad make brownies?"

Eventually, all of their conversations got around to the fascinating business of comparing a mom with a dad. Merle had a mom. Uncle Mac had shown her on the globe where Australia was, because Merle hadn't wanted to ask Dad. Grace probably had a dad too.

"I don't think Dad knows how to make brownies," Merle said, "but we sometimes get a brownie from The Sweetest Things and split it." Nothing like a warm brownie and a cold gla.s.s of milk.

"So what if your dad doesn't make brownies? You have horses," Grace said, because Grace was the nicest person Merle had met, nicer even than the uncles. Horses made up for a lot, and Grace didn't have any.

"I'll ask Dad if you can come over to play. Pasha's all white because he's so old." Merle lowered her voice. "We could paint spots on his b.u.t.t so he'd look more like Bronco."

Oh, the utter glee of giggling at lunch, of galloping around the playground, of saying "b.u.t.t" out loud and having somebody to enjoy it with.

"You almost done?" Grace asked, folding her napkin up in a perfect square. Merle did likewise, though she'd never be as naturally tidy as Grace.

"Pasture time," Merle said, closing her lunch box. "I'll ask Dad to pack me some carrot sticks tomorrow so we can share them with the unicorns at recess."

Grace pa.s.sed over a carrot stick. "Mom says carrots are good for your eyes. Looks like Larry's staying in again."

Larry stayed in a lot, which was a heck of a way to avoid the fifth graders who loved to pick on the dumb kid. Larry had suffered the worst fate possible in elementary school: he'd been held back. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was already big to begin with.

"Larry needs a unicorn," Merle said. They trooped out to the hallway, retrieved coats and hats and scarves from their a.s.signed hooks, and went galloping out across the chilly playground.

Merle followed Grace, skipping because that was the closest they could come to a canter. Unicorns were wonderful, a friend was even wonderful-er, but Merle knew Grace thought about the same thing Merle did: How wonderful would it be to have both a dad and a mom?

"Hey, Mommy, I have a new friend at school. You said I would too, make some friends in second grade I didn't have in first or kindergarten. Those kindergarteners looks so shrimpy. I like to watch them on the playground. Was I ever that small?"

Thank G.o.d my child has come safely-and even happily-through another day.

Grace rummaged in the taco meal bag as she chattered away beside Hannah. Two fast food raids in the s.p.a.ce of a week used up the entire month's quota, but Hannah had become absorbed in the child support cases and lost track of time.

"You may have one," Hannah said as they tooled toward home.

"Thanks, Mom." Grace set about comparing every nacho in the bag to ensure the one she ate was the largest.

"Who's your new friend?"

"She's real, not a unicorn. Unicorns are real, but this friend is a person. She has a unicorn too, and she knew what I meant when I told her Bronco was a uniloosa, not an apicorn-she knew what an Appaloosa horse was, and said she wished she'd thought of having a spotted unicorn with wings. Should I tell you her real name, or her Unicorn Club name?"

A friend, indeed. "Either or both, if the Club rules allow it."

"You're allowed to know the Club names, Mom, as long as you don't tell anybody. My friend's name is Falcon, her unicorn is Trailclimber."

A rabbit dodged out of the headlights and into the undergrowth along the lane. "How does Bronco get along with Trailclimber?"

"We let them meet by touching noses over the fence in the Cloud Pasture. They like each another fine, and me and Falcon do too."

"Each other, honey. They like each other fine-and it's Falcon and I. First grade was a little lonely, wasn't it?"

Hannah held her breath for the reply. Grace did not express feelings often in response to a prompt. They came out, if at all, in casual asides, behaviors, or projections onto the ever-faithful Bronco.

"Mom, don't be silly. I'm never lonely when Bronco is with me." Grace held up two nachos side by side that appeared to be the exact same dimensions. "Can I have both?"

"May I. Not until we get home." Hannah's mind was not on nachos.

Was Grace a loner because her mother was so lacking in social skills? Was Grace a normally social if shy kid with a great imagination? Something in between?

Hannah's upbringing was the last yardstick she could use to get her bearings as Grace's mother. Children in foster care were either loners, h.e.l.l-raisers, or pleasers. They clung to approval or shunned it, depending on the circ.u.mstances and individual chemistry. Hannah was essentially a loner, though she gave herself points for being a fairly functional one.

But loneliness wasn't what she wanted for Grace. Safety, yes. Above all, Grace had to be kept safe from the people and events in Hannah's past that might cause harm to Grace, but did that mean Grace wasn't to have joy as well?

When Hannah pulled into her driveway, Grace exploded from the car with a happy yelp.

"C'mon, Bronco! I'll let you have two nachos if you wash your hooves before I ask you to." She held the door for her imaginary friend, then let it slam shut.

Hannah, moving more slowly, gathered her plunder-Trent Knightley's word-and followed her daughter into the house.

"We live in a door-slam house," Hannah softly quoted her daughter. The house was very old, and the doors didn't latch unless they were closed quite soundly.

Thanks to whatever deity oversaw weeknights in the households of single parents, the take-home folder in Grace's backpack was empty. The early, easy night might have contributed to Grace's gracious mood the next morning, or perhaps she looked forward to finding her new friend at the beginning of the school day.

As Hannah pulled into the office parking lot, she was pleased to see she'd beaten the estimable Mr. Trenton Knightley to work and felt some relief-not disappointment-to have avoided him first thing in the day. When she'd brewed herself a cup of Earl Grey and heated a cheese danish in the office microwave, she sat down with the child support files.

The tea was lovely, the danish was scrumptious, the child support files were miserable.

Hartman and Whitney represented both moms and dads, because either could be the noncustodial parent. The State of Maryland took on responsibility for the case, as if it were a criminal matter. The custodial parents might be witnesses for the State, but they weren't parties, and neither were the children on whose behalf the money was collected.

"Great system," Hannah muttered around a mouthful of danish. "Criminalize one parent, marginalize the other, and ignore the children."

She put her distaste for the whole business aside and plowed through the files, soon forgetting her tea and danish. One case in particular had already caught her attention: Rory Cavanaugh could doc.u.ment that he'd had a vasectomy prior to the child's conception, and had further proof that the procedure hadn't reversed itself since. He'd begun paying child support eight years ago, after he and the mom had split, because he'd felt sorry for the lady and for the baby. The State sought an increase after a routine review of the case by the Support Enforcement office, with the mom's hearty endors.e.m.e.nt.

A note in the file indicated Cavanaugh had rescheduled his appointment because he couldn't miss chemotherapy again.

Ah, geez.

Trent Knightley stood in Hannah's office doorway for a good five minutes, watching her nibble her lip, mutter, and jot down notes. She was lost to the world, utterly absorbed in her files, and that pleased him. Detachment had a place in the practice of law-and so did pa.s.sion.

"Good morning?" He rapped his knuckles on her door, but in deference to his daughter's patient tutelage, made his greeting a question. "You look fierce, Hannah Stark. What has you going nineteen to the dozen so early in the day?"

She sat back and blinked at him.

Earth to Stark.

"Why does the State of Maryland value money over truth?"