Sweetest Kisses: A Single Kiss Part 8

Judges were political creatures, and appellate judges were shrewd political creatures. Hannah did not for a moment believe Halverston was making an overture-to her.

"Before you leave the profession in disgust," the judge said, "you call me, Hannah. I'd hate to see you turn into a real estate agent or insurance broker because the Knightley boys didn't take good care of you."

He peered at her again, and Hannah knew he was still convinced he'd seen her before. She didn't think he'd ever heard her foster care case. She recalled the judges who'd asked her their few perfunctory questions: "Anything you want to tell me, young lady?"

"Everything going fine in your foster home?"

"How are you doing in school?"

The questions, though no doubt intended to make her feel included in the legal process, had hurt like dull knives. She'd answered with courtroom honesty, not with honesty of the heart.

"Good morning, Your Honor." My name is not young lady.

"Everything in the foster home is fine, sir." Nothing goes right in my foster homes for very long.

"School is OK. I should make honor roll again this marking period." School is lonely and grueling but it helps me forget, though I'm never in any one school long enough to be anything more than the foster kid.

The judges who didn't talk to her, who didn't meet her eyes, were even more painful. Hannah had hated going to her hearings, but had decided by the time she was ten years old she wouldn't give the social workers, judges, or attorneys the relief of not having to acknowledge her.

So she went to her hearings and looked them all in the eye every time.

Just as Judge Halverston was still regarding her directly.

"I have a good memory for faces," Halverston said, "much to the dismay of some of my criminal defendants, who prefer to travel under a nom de guerre. I have either seen you before or met your double-and I hope to see you again."

Trent looped an arm across Hannah's shoulders and walked her to his conversational grouping. She'd smiled at the judge, really, truly smiled, and the older man had been charmed.

Trent had too.

"Talk to me, Stark. I introduce all of my a.s.sociates to any judges I b.u.mp into, and Dan's a good egg."

She plopped down in one of the comfortable chairs, her expression puzzled. Maybe she wondered how a good egg could enforce the death penalty, though Maryland at least had stepped back from capital punishment.

"I don't expect a judge to be such a nice guy," she said. "Judges should be tough enough to make life and death decisions, and to have everybody second-guess them, including the appellate courts. You can't do that if you're a wimp."

Oh, to be so innocent. "The h.e.l.l you can't, and please recall, I clerked for a circuit court judge at one point. Wimps are impersonating judges in every state of the union. It's the wimpy guys and gals who put on those black robes and think they're somehow infallible as a result. The nice guys and gals-the real judges-do their jobs because they genuinely care about the people in their courtrooms and the society they're part of."

"I know," Hannah said, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. "You can tell the judges who are human from the ones who are scared to be human."

Something in the remoteness of Hannah's voice caught Trent's ear. She was away again, focused inwardly, parsing some profundity known only to her. With her eyes closed she looked younger than when she was in her usual cannon-at-the-ready mode. She was, in fact, a pretty woman, particularly in her more contemplative moods.

Also hopelessly honest, which might not be a good thing.

"You think Halverston is a nice guy?" Trent prompted.

"I think he is a wise, kind guy, and I've had that same impression upon meeting someone, that I know them from somewhere." She opened her eyes and directed a frown at Trent. "I had it when I first saw you, but you're a stranger to me. I think Judge Halverston has seen a lot of grief, personal as well as from the bench, but he's keeping on as best he can anyway."

"Why do you say that?"

"The look in his eyes, maybe. Just a feeling. I get them sometimes-stronger than a hunch. Intuition, I suppose."

Or keen insight. "His wife died a year and a half ago. She was quite a bit younger than he, and they'd been trying to have a child for years. She got pregnant just about when they realized she was ill, the cancer went on for years, and this is not common knowledge."

"And the baby?" Hannah studied her hands.

Not every lawyer would have asked. "No baby, not with all the chemo and radiation and G.o.d knows what else. I don't know what hurt the judge worse, losing his wife or not having a child to remember her by."

"Sad," Hannah said, rising and rolling her shoulders.

"Hannah?" Trent remained sitting, and did not take her slender, graceful wrist to prevent her from leaving. "I have a serious question."

She glanced down at him, her expression unreadable. "Ask."

"What do you think of Gerald?"

She wrinkled her nose and took a few steps to lean against Trent's desk, arms crossed-the same posture he often took when he, Mac, and James were arguing their way through some partners.h.i.+p decision.

"That is a trick question," Hannah said. "One of those, 'when did you stop beating your wife?' questions. If I find fault with a coworker, then I am petty and conniving. If I ignore fault in a coworker, then I am superficial and dishonest."

Lawyers. "This isn't moot court, Hannah. Help me decide whether to give Gerald the Loomis case." Because something had to be done about Gerald. Either he rose to the challenges before him and found the work meaningful, or he'd be consigned to the ranks of the ambulance chasers eking out a living in solo practice.

"Why are you asking me?"

"Maybe because you intuitively scoped out Halverston's life story so easily, maybe because I am thinking of teaming you with Gerald on the case."

Maybe because Trent liked simply looking at her, watching her mind pa.r.s.e through a problem, and that was...that was not entirely a bad thing.

"I just got here, Trent. Gerald's ego would not take kindly to my getting a taste of a contested case the first week on the job, while he's had to toil away with deadbeat dads for months. You're the attorney Mrs. Loomis trusts, and you know the case best. What is your real agenda?"

His brothers might have gotten around to asking that question-eventually.

And he probably should not be discussing one employee with another in any other terms than, "How well could you work with...?"

"Gerald may be hard to take sometimes-good litigators often are, to wit, my brothers Mac and James-but Gerald has done a yeoman's job with the support cases for months. The clients don't complain, the judges don't complain, and in fairness to Gerald, he'll be more valuable to the company if he branches out. We'll lose him otherwise."

To wit? Since when did he make closing arguments to his employees?

"You really worry about losing an employee, don't you?"

Hannah inspected his shelves, which bore the usual collection of textbooks, casebooks, and dated photos of various Knightleys signing the bar registry.

"It's my job to check on the chickens and keep them happy," Trent said. "Turnover is expensive and bad for client relations." Because she was studying a sunflower drawing Merle had done in first grade, Trent tossed out another question he shouldn't be asking. "Why are you so set on going to corporate in the spring, Hannah? James will let me keep you, if that's the problem."

He hoped James would let him keep her. For all James wasn't the least bit possessive, he could be protective, and James had a healthy disgust of family law despite his stance of casual generosity a few days earlier.

She studied the sunflowers-yellow with purple, green, and red centers, then set the drawing down a few inches to the left of where Trent had positioned it.

"Why do you want me in family law, Trent? You've had me less than week, and I have no relevant experience. All of my temping was in corporate. I am not pawing and snorting to be in any courtroom. I am not looking to make partner in five years. I don't care to bill eighty hours a week. I'm too lazy for family law. I think it can take too much out of you."

"Have you been through a bad divorce?" His question was a shot in the dark, but Hannah's objection to his field was personal.

She scooted back onto his desk, exposing a length of shapely thigh. "I have not been through a bad divorce. Why do you ask?"

"Maybe because I have been through a bad divorce?" He hadn't meant to disclose that, but his admission stopped Hannah from twitching at her hem. She wore purple well.

"I'm sorry, Trent. Is there such a thing as a good divorce?"

Trent settled in beside her, shoulder to shoulder, though the desk creaked, and should anybody-say a nosy brother or two-come through the door, Trent's proximity might inspire Hannah to more blushes.

"I stay with family law because it can also give back a lot more than other kinds of law," he said. "You can look after kids and old people, help a family get reorganized, settle questions that are tearing a family apart."

She let the heel of one shoe dangle loose, so her black pump hung by her toes.

"Right, you're just a bootleg member of the helping professions with an extra row of teeth."

She had cute knees.

While Trent had a problem, the like of which hadn't plagued him since before he'd been married. "That sounds like Gerald Matthews talking."

Her shoe came off, and she shoved off the desk to wiggle her foot back into it.

"That's why you won't put Gerald on the Loomis divorce. Mrs. Loomis needs someone who can think about her son, and about her best interests while listening to her immediate desires. Gerald would be better off with a divorce that involves a lot of property, no kids, and maybe some sticky pension issues. He'd do better with clients who honestly want a predatory attorney."

Trent tugged her back to the desk by the wrist. She frowned from her perch beside him, looking like Merle when Dad was being dense about something obvious to any seven-year-old.

"The judge was right, Hannah Stark, Esq. You have a lot of skills that will make you a very good attorney. I know what I'll do with Gerald, and it won't be the Loomis case."

She'd solved a puzzle for him, even as she herself remained one.

"You're coming halfway undone," she said, dipping her head and swinging the right shoe again, a bashful posture, and charming.

Did she mean his fly was...?

"I mean your tie. You're coming loose." She hopped off the desk and unknotted his tie. Merle liked the tie, one of about ten she'd given him with horses on it. Trent did not like it, because it came undone, which was doubtless why Mac and James had helped Merle buy it.

Hannah measured the ends against each other and deftly re-knotted a plain Windsor.

When she was through, she brushed his hair back over his left ear, a thoroughly maternal gesture. "You are blessed with thick hair, but it's also fine."

"From my mother, who was rumored to have some Cherokee genes." He enjoyed the feel of a woman's hands in his hair, even though the moment should have been mundane. Hannah's touch was feminine and yet competent to the point of disinterested.

"There," she said, patting his shoulder. "You're presentable."

"And you're blus.h.i.+ng." He resisted the urge to make some kind of fuss about the first time she'd put her hands on him. His heart rate was making a fuss, though, and so was the retired soldier in his briefs.

"You know, Hannah Stark, if you really want to go to corporate, I will be the first to boost you into that pumpkin patch, come spring. But you're right about family law, it takes special people to do it well, and you're a special person. I would be proud to have you working with us on whatever terms it takes to get you to join us, and you wouldn't be coping by yourself. I'd be responsible for making sure the job never got to be too much for you."

Hannah's expression shuttered. She gave his tie one more pat and headed for the door.

Scared her off. Or maybe she'd scared herself off. She stopped at the door and kept her back to him as he followed her across the room.

"I'll think about what you're offering, Trent, but don't pressure me. I need to make the decision for myself."

"Of course you do." She startled so slightly, Trent could feel it but not see it when he put his hand on her shoulder. "You think about what I've said-what I've promised-and next week over lunch we'll talk again. For now, keep an eye on Gerald, get up to speed on paternity and support law, and consider your options."

She left his office and closed his door behind her, which was fortunate, because Trent had liked the look of her at ease on his desk all too much. A rap on the door a few moments later signaled the appearance of his brother Mac, who sported a bemused expression.

"Tell me what case you were discussing with Hannah Stark, because it put the oddest smile on the woman's face."

Mac went to the window, beyond which the wind swirled a dusting of snow across sidewalks and pavement.

"We talked about my stealing her from James," Trent said, careful to keep his poker face in place. This was Mac, after all.

"You want to steal her already?" Mac nudged Merle's sunflower drawing back to its former location. "She's brilliant, then? G.o.d's gift to deadbeat dads and jilted moms?"

"She's smart enough. More to the point she has integrity to go with her brains, and will do her best for each client."

"Unlike that idiot Matthews."

"He does an adequate job," Trent said, crossing his arms. "You try six months of wheedling and cajoling with the Support Enforcement Office, see what it does to your microscopic store of joie de vivre."

"I have plenty of joie de vivre," Mac said in tones that invited Trent to go best out of three falls. Mac was a seriously good-looking man, but his seriously grouchy att.i.tude usually made the stronger impression. "I save it for what matters, like my niece."

"She loves you too."

"C'mon, Trent. Christmas is coming. Deal."

Comprehension had Trent grinning. "You don't know what to get Merle for Christmas."

"Clearly, I got all the brains in this family, and James got the looks. You, however, got Merle, so we'll consider you adequately compensated for your short suits."

"Talk like that will get you a free trip to the toy store," Trent said, "where you will wander in lonely bewilderment until some single mother of five takes pity on you."

"I can still beat you up, and I will take Merle shopping for your birthday if you don't see the light of sweet reason."

Visions of Winnie the Pooh boxers danced in Trent's head.

"Anything to do with horses or unicorns or zebras or donkeys," Trent said. "Anything equine, anything at all, provided it's not another G.o.dd.a.m.ned tie for me." Or a bathrobe or bath towel or shower curtain or bath mat. Trent heard the pounding of little hooves every time he took a shower.

"I thought horses were a phase, like weddings in second grade."

That Mac knew second grade was a year p.r.o.ne to playground weddings surprised Trent, but then, Mac took being an uncle as seriously as he took everything else.

"She draws horses on all her book covers, has horses as her screen saver and cell phone wallpaper, collects stuffed horses and model horses. It's getting worse, not better."

"Don't you dare tell James," Mac said, his expression fierce. "I asked first."