"Bruised knuckles, bruised ego. Did you really think I was about to wallop my only chance of covering my caseload for the next six months?"

Whose idea was it to turn this guy loose with the questions? "I startle easily, and badly."

"You do." He eyed his hand, then extended it down to her. "Let's get you out of this cold before Gail pulls up and accuses me of committing actionable torts in the parking lot."

A nanosecond of awkwardness blossomed. Hannah was supposed to put her hand in his. The term "poorly socialized" jumped from Hannah's past into her present. She gave Trent her hand, because poorly socialized did not mean entirely clueless.

Trent's grasp was wonderfully warm, at variance with his expression. He drew her to her feet and treated her to an even closer perusal. "You all right, Stark?"

"I'm fine. Mortified, but fine." Mortification should be an actionable tort, the scent of his aftershave and the warmth of his hand the required rest.i.tution.

"Mortified is part of the profession," he said, lifting the strap of her purse from her elbow to her shoulder. "No land-speed records if you please."

"In deference to the trauma you've experienced?"

"You catch on, Stark. You startle easily, but you do catch on. You also smell good."

After that peculiar complaint-for he was griping about lily of the valley-scented moisturizer, clearly-he walked her to her office in blessed silence. Hannah's headache still crouched at the base of her skull, but something in this b.u.mpy start to her day was nice.

Nice was not always bad, though it was seldom long term, and yet, Hannah liked that her boss could cluck and fuss-and pout.

"Stay right here," he said when they reached her office. "No, don't get your knickers in a twist. I'm your boss, not your playground buddy, and occasionally when I give an order, I'm ent.i.tled to be humored."

He disappeared after depositing Hannah's personal effects on her desk. She'd just changed from sneakers to pumps-what would Trenton Knightley know about playground buddies?-when he came back.

"I can send Gino out for something more substantial." He put a folded napkin down before her and a steaming cup of tea. "Strike that. I will send Gino out for something more substantial if you don't eat every cookie."

He was a little too attached to that peremptory tone, but Hannah brought the teacup to her nose. More spices, cinnamon, clove, citrus, scents of comfort.

"Thank you."

"I keep the shortbread in my credenza, right side. It's a communal stash, from The Sweetest Things down on Frederick Dougla.s.s Drive. The tea is in the kitchen."

"Decaf?" The taste was too good to be decaf.

"Decaf, though I debated. You get migraines?"

Hannah hadn't had a true migraine since finishing law school. "What makes you ask?"

"You have the same prescription James does."

"James?"

Trent settled a hip on the corner of her desk. "My brother James, the guy you're supposed to go work for when you desert me like a low-down, faithless traitor this spring." He was teasing, or maybe still pouting.

"The tea is quite good."

And like a slow, happy sunrise, Trent smiled. The smile started with his lips, a gentle, sweet curving of humor, then spread to the grooves on either side of his mouth, and up to his eyes, to finish out with crow's-feet.

"Atta girl, Stark. The tea is very good. Mac picks it out, and he doesn't let me push him around either. I'm on to you tea-drinking types."

Still teasing. Hannah longed to return his smile. She took another sip of warm, spicy heaven. "When do we leave for the deposition?"

"When you've eaten your breakfast and I've had a few minutes to glance over my notes from yesterday's festivities. We'll take my car."

Hannah munched a cookie in silence-a rich, b.u.t.tery cookie such as would earn a bossy-boss a modic.u.m more tolerance for his tendency to use the imperative voice.

"I won't fit in that glorified lawn mower you drive," he said, heading for her door, "and I like my heated seats, Stark. We can take separate cars, if you'd rather, but that's bad for your carbon footprint, and there is no explaining how to find a parking s.p.a.ce within two blocks of the courthouse, not even if you're admitted to practice before the Sue-preme Court."

He was gone with a wiggle of his dark eyebrows and a piratical smile, and all Hannah could think about-despite the fact that he'd seen her female unmentionables-was his smile, his scent, and his warm hands.

Trent made his way to the Human Resources suite while trying to recall the last time he'd been intimate with a woman.

After some corporate Fourth of July picnic two...no, three...maybe four years ago, though the name of his patriotic moment escaped him, not that he could recall fireworks of any variety accompanying it either.

He pushed the memory aside and attributed the flare of interest he'd felt in Hannah Stark to protracted deprivation. As a younger man, he'd expected inconvenient and harmless commentary from his mating urges with cheerful frequency. Somewhere between pa.s.sing his thirtieth birthday, enduring a divorce, and acquiring sole legal and physical custody of a child, those comments had slowed to a trickle, then gone silent.

Until this morning.

Until he'd had a lithe, fragrant female momentarily warm and pliant in his arms.

Until Hannah's hair had tickled his nose, and her blush had warmed his soul.

He hadn't known women still blushed over something as simple as feminine hygiene products.

Mercy.

He sat at Gail Russo's desk and found Hannah's file sitting on the right-hand corner, a file he was obligated to review as her immediate superior. The file was like the lady: it raised more questions than it answered. Her age was right where he'd estimated it, twenty-eight, and yet the form had blanks in peculiar places-like marital status.

Who left that blank? Under Maryland law, n.o.body could compel that information on a job application, but why conceal it? Her insurance forms listed benefits for self plus dependents, but the person to notify in case of emergency was Eliza Moser.

A married sister, perhaps?

And the life insurance beneficiary was L. Grace Stark. The relation given was "relative." Very funny.

A mother? An unmarried sister? Trent had six months to find out. Between his own cross-examination skills, the magic of shared pizza, and private investigators kept on retainer, Trent would unearth those answers sooner or later.

Though the more interesting inquiry was why he'd want to.

Hannah's law school curriculum had missed a few cla.s.ses, like Chitchat 101, though Hannah probably would have flunked that one. Her boss wanted to gently grill her, and all she wanted was to let his magic heated car seat soothe away her headache.

Where did she go to law school? A patently stupid question when he would have read her application line by line.

How about undergraduate?

Did she follow the Ravens or the Orioles, or-"Say it ain't so, Stark"-the Pirates?

Did she have any team at all?

And then, blast him, he slipped in a CD and turned the volume down low. He'd chosen the Brahms clarinet sonatas, as lush, lyrical, and gorgeous a pair of works as Hannah had ever fallen asleep to time after time in college.

"Hope you don't mind a dash of something cla.s.sical," he said, turning the volume down even further. "Helps me change gears on the way home, usually."

His expression was a study in handsome innocence-if there were such a thing-but Hannah had the sense it was a test.

"I don't think Brahms wrote anything ugly, ever," she said. "He is proof of romance in the German soul."

"As if Bach and Beethoven weren't?"

"Bach was more of a pa.s.sionate mathematician..." Hannah caught herself. "What should I expect from this morning's deposition?"

"Uncomfortable chairs," Trent said, adopting ominous tones. "Terrible coffee. Elvin Gregory is old school, which means this is all very serious business. He doesn't break role, and he's always got one eye on the clock."

"He's in a hurry?"

"If it's billable work, he's never in a hurry. How's your head?"

"The tea and cookies helped, thank you for asking." Nice try, Boss. "What are the issues?"

Trent glanced over at her, his expression amused. Nice try, Stark?

"One child, so custody is the big issue, and where there is a custody battle, there will also be tussling over use and possession of the family home, and child support. If you need a chocolate energy bar, they're in my briefcase."

Points for tenacity and chocolate energy bars. "Alimony?"

"Now that is a fine line. Mister wants to prove Missus is right next door to an incompetent parent, but somehow, she's completely capable of supporting herself."

"Is she?"

"She hasn't during the marriage, but she held some jobs out of college."

"College doesn't go as far as it used to. How does Mister expect to prove she's a bad parent?"

"She has bipolar disorder. Had to go off the meds to get pregnant, and has some inpatient history."

"Yikes."

"You're familiar with the condition?" Trent was driving now, no longer chatting up the help, thank G.o.d.

"Bipolar disorder can mean a family history of suicides and addiction, because it wasn't a well-understood malady years ago. That diagnosis is no cakewalk."

"Still isn't, according to Mrs. Loomis, but she seems together enough to me."

Hannah asked the only question that would ever matter to her. "What does the kid want?"

"He loves both parents, but wants to live with mom."

Because Hannah was with her boss, who expected her to have her lawyer-head in the game that was never a game, she asked the next question: "What do we want?"

"We want our client to win," Trent said, smiling as he turned the car into a cobbled alley near the courthouse. "We always want our client to win."

Hannah kept further questions to herself, such as how the kid was supposed to cope if mom's condition didn't respond to treatment, and why custody was an either-or question in this case.

Hannah followed Trent into a handsome old brick row house converted to office s.p.a.ce. The hallways were narrow, the ceilings high, and the hardwood floors uneven, creaky, and springy.

Old money for Damson County, such as it was.

Trent introduced Hannah as his a.s.sociate, sitting second chair on the case. Mr. Elvin Gregory, counsel for Husband, did not shake Hannah's hand and did not appear pleased. But then, his saturnine features looked like smiling was a biennial event, coinciding with the near occasion of intestinal regularity.

The morning was interesting. Trent's style was less like an interrogator and more like an investigator soliciting a.s.sistance from the opposing spouse. Several times, Gregory interrupted and tried to amend what his client had answered, and each time, Trent let Gregory ramble at length.

Mrs. Loomis, however, became increasingly agitated as the morning wore on, trying to correct her spouse's answers or answer for him.

Trent asked the court stenographer to go off the record, then turned to his client.

"I have only a few more questions for Mr. Loomis, but we've been at this for nearly three hours. If you'd like, Hannah can take you down to the courthouse cafe and get you a cup of coffee."

He was up to something.

"I did park at the courthouse garage," Mrs. Loomis said, "and it has been a long morning." She shot a gratuitously cranky look at her spouse, whose great offenses had been to sit in his chair and answer questions Trent had put to him.

Trent glanced at Hannah, a pa.s.sing nothing of a glance. "If you'd be so kind?"

She was being dismissed, and more particularly, the client was being dismissed into her keeping.

"I'm happy to stretch my legs," she said. "Mr. Loomis, Mr. Gregory, my thanks for allowing me to observe."

She was happy to stretch her legs, happy to escape the cramped pretentiousness of Gregory's law offices, happy to breathe the cold autumn air.

"So tell me, dear," Mrs. Loomis said as she trundled along beside Hannah. "What ever made you want to practice family law?"

An hour later, Hannah was on her third cup of weak decaf tea and wondering when in the name of G.o.d Almighty her boss would rescue her from the client's clutches.

"And this is Dubbie when he was just two." Mrs. Loomis pushed another color print across the table. "I made that costume myself. I have an old Touch and Sew that was my mother's-she made all my clothes growing up. Did your mother sew? No? So few women do anymore, though we have the best fabric shop out by the high school, right next to the bakery. Where do you suppose Mr. Knightley has got off to?"

Answering the pet.i.te brunette wasn't necessary. She babbled along like a human white-noise generator, her speech gaining momentum when it should have been winding down.

"h.e.l.lo, ladies." Trent sauntered into the courthouse cafe-The Lunch Bar-and sat at their table. "My apologies if I kept you waiting. I think the depositions went well."

"Do you?" Mrs. Loomis paused for two nanoseconds. "I'm not sure I agree, Mr. Knightley. That man has a way of twisting his words to hide the truth, and it just makes me so mad. He never raises his voice, but he can have me shouting in no time, he's so annoying."

Trent jumped in smoothly. "He'd better not twist his words. All those answers this morning were under oath. If he doesn't give me the same responses when he's on the witness stand, he'll look like a liar."