"Give me the facts of the case." Where any legal brief was supposed to start. While Hannah marshaled those facts, Trent noted that her tea was no longer steaming, and five stems of lavender gladiolus enjoyed pride of place on her credenza.

Because he'd collected her effects from the pavement yesterday morning, he knew she used lavender lip balm. Would her kisses taste like lavender?

"Rory Cavanaugh has medical proof he cannot be the child's father," she recited, "but because he felt sorry for the mom, he started paying when the kid was born. He's been paying for eight years, but now that he's out of remission the State is seeking an increase."

"This does not sit well with you?" Trent settled into a chair and prepared to have a lawyer's version of fun.

"Since when did paternity mean the obligation to pay for children you're not related to? You're a guy, doesn't that bother you?"

"Since when did being a kid mean you had no need for food, clothing, and shelter?"

She slammed the file shut, the way a p.i.s.sed-off judge might whack a gavel to bring the courtroom to order.

"The State can and does provide necessities for children in need, regularly," she said. "In this case, the State has abdicated its responsibility to the child in favor of having old Rory foot the bills."

"So all this righteous indignation is for your new best friend Rory?" Trent kept his tone goading, because this was the first sign of a legal vocation he'd seen in Hannah Stark.

"Don't be an a.s.s." She rose and put her hands on her hips. "My indignation is for the child. What good does tapping Rory out financially do the child when she needs to know her medical history, and half her family tree is a lie or unavailable to her because of the State's moral complaisance? What good will Rory's money be when she needs a bone marrow or kidney transplant and half her probable donors are a mystery, because the State never had a long talk with Mom about who the real dad is?"

She was pacing now, tearing into a fine Court of Appeals closing argument.

"And what does it signal to the child that half of her ident.i.ty, half of who she is, doesn't matter to the society she's raised in? How would you like to be told the ident.i.ty of your father means nothing, and shouldn't mean anything to you? How do you think every kid feels whose fate was sealed by a private adoption? She waits eighteen years to look on the adoption registries-now that we finally have adoption registries-and of all the children in all the families in all the world, she's the one without a dad."

"But illegitimacy is stigmatizing..." Trent began, only to be cut off with a slice of Hannah's hand-no nail polish, and she didn't bite her nails either.

"Mom wasn't married to Rory. Even if the State were clinging to the old-fashioned doctrine that it can protect a fiction of legitimacy at the cost of truth, that fig leaf wouldn't fit here."

"So what will you do, counselor? Your client has been wronged, the law needs to be changed or enforced differently, and you feel strongly about the outcome. And yet, you also know that the child's father could be a mother's worst nightmare-a criminal, a child abuser, a disgrace to his gender, a threat to the child. Will you decide the girl needs to make his acquaintance in the name of your almighty truth?"

At Trent's rhetorical question, Hannah collapsed into the other guest chair like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Something skipped across her features. Chagrin, maybe, or bewilderment.

This argument was personal to her, or to somebody close to her. Family law was like that. Hypotheticals had a way of ending up sitting next to your daughter in art cla.s.s or dating your brother.

"Every case is different," Hannah said wearily, "though your point about a father who's a danger to the child is valid. I'll discuss the matter-I would discuss the matter-thoroughly with my client, if he were my client, and then craft a litigation strategy consistent with his goal."

"You'll hate it if he tells you to accept what the State offers."

She turned big brown eyes on him, troubled eyes. "I will hate it to smithereens. If he loves that kid, he ought to try to establish the truth for her, provided the real dad's not a horror."

Trent agreed, and nearly told her so.

"That truth could come at the cost of the kid's material needs, if it creates bad feeling between Rory and Mom. Insisting on the truth could mean Rory never gets to see the kid again, when she could be enjoying Rory's last years and building happy memories of him."

Hannah peered into her cup of cold tea. The mug was plain, white, st.u.r.dy, and out of place somehow in her office.

"This isn't a game to me, Trent. I can't enjoy it as a game."

Trent. He liked that part. "You're not supposed to." And because she looked so dejected and bewildered, he patted her shoulder. The last of the fight went out of her posture at the contact, and she didn't draw away.

"You get the bra.s.s ring, Hannah. You advocate zealously for your client within the bounds of the law. Repeat that mantra, and you'll keep your balance."

"I'll keep my balance," she said, gaze going to the stack of pink-and-blue child support files, "but I might lose my mind." She ran a hand over her hair, patting the tidy bun at the back, where literally not a hair was out of place. "I left you a draft of the Loomis memo to file."

As changes of subject went, it wasn't smooth, but Trent understood the need for breathing room.

"You write well, Stark, as well as most lawyers wish they could."

"But?"

"But nothing. That was a compliment. Com-pli-ment. C-o-m-p-"

"I understand the term. Thank you."

Her thank-yous bore an interesting hint of that No Trespa.s.sing quality. "Have you considered a career as a writer?"

Her eyebrows went up, and Trent was pleased to think he'd distracted her from her frustration with Rory Cavanaugh's situation, the State of Maryland, and the law.

And possibly, her frustration with her boss.

"Not seriously, though writing has always been easy for me and even enjoyable-any writing. Too bad there's the small matter of needing to eat regularly."

"Hmm." He resisted the urge to lawyer her, or tried to.

"What, hmm?" She tidied the stack of files. "Just say it."

"You and the State of Maryland would both seem to place a certain emphasis on the importance of meeting basic needs, on the bottom line, so to speak, even at the cost of higher values."

Her jaw dropped then snapped shut. She pointed at the door.

"Out," she said, getting to her feet. "You, out of this office right now, before I do something a lady would regret but a lawyer would find tremendously gratifying."

He got to his feet s-l-o-w-l-y, put his hands in his pockets, and sauntered out.

Chapter 4.

"Good morning, Hannah-bofanna-banana-baby." Gerald Matthews strolled into Hannah's office, and her temper, barely cooled from the last exchange with her boss, rocketed right back up.

Hannah remained at her desk, when what she wanted to do was put a toilet seat protector down on her guest chairs before Gerald got comfortable.

"How about we go over these files in your office?" Hannah asked, rising and pretending to make sure her flowers had water. Why did she have the sense Gerald was checking out her a.s.s? "Give me a minute to wash out my cup. I'll be along directly."

He left at that suggestion, while Hannah's foul mood stayed with her.

She did wash out her cup, then grabbed the files and made her way to Gerald's office. Trent Knightley would have carried the files for her or taken at least half on general principles, whether he was meeting with her or Gerald. The contrast wasn't lost on Hannah, but she was soon listening to Gerald's end of a telephone conversation.

"I pity you, buddy," he said. "If they'd spring me here, I could jump in for you on that DUI." Why would Gerald want to deal with cases other than the ones Hartman and Whitney gave him? "See you at the gym."

He hung up and grinned at Hannah.

"Solo practice has its challenges, apparently." He eyed the stack of files. "We have Judge Linker on Friday. You want to take the docket?"

Baby? His question was a little power play, a dare, a taunt-also a failure, because Trent would not allow Gerald to rea.s.sign cases for which the firm was responsible.

"I am by no means ready or able to competently handle an entire docket of child support cases. My job Friday is to learn from your expert example."

Hannah crossed her arms over her chest, which he'd been ogling-of course.

"Let's get to it, shall we?" Gerald shifted again, putting his feet up on the desk as if he were a partner, not the last new hire before Hannah.

He rattled off the factual posture of each case as Hannah jotted down whatever she hadn't noticed on her perusal of the file. Gerald was in constant motion, getting up and down, blowing his nose, mutilating paper clips, playing wastebasket basketball with balled-up printer paper.

"The kid isn't his," Gerald said when they'd reached the last case, "but Callahan will end up paying because he was stupid enough to feel sorry for the randy b.i.t.c.h eight years ago."

An odd dart of grat.i.tude deflated some of Hannah's distaste, because Gerald Matthews was what she never wanted to become-cold, self-centered, and probably terrified by the misery and disorder of his clients' lives. His example would provide Hannah a benchmark of how not to practice law, and clear guidelines were good to have.

"I believe the client's name is Cavanaugh," she said, "and the kid is named Marlena."

Gerald started clicking some silver-barreled designer pen repeatedly.

"He's a client. I'll do a good job for him, but I am not his friend, nor do I want to be. I mean this as kindly as I ever mean anything: if you don't adopt a businesslike att.i.tude in your legal practice, you won't have a life. You'll be like all the other a.s.sociates around here, obsessing on cases and taking all this 'pro bono publico' s.h.i.t for free because your bleeding heart can't turn anybody down."

He bounced to his feet, tossing the pen onto his desk blotter and checking his appearance in a mirror hanging on the back of his door.

"Don't do it, Hannah. Not for poor old Cavanaugh, who was free, white, and twenty-two when he dropped trou with the tramp. Don't do it for him, not for points in the partner poker stakes, not for anybody. Look out for Number One, or there won't be anything left of you in five years."

He would have lasted about two weeks in foster care before the group homes got hold of him. Gerald was vain and arrogant, and neither the vain ones nor the arrogant ones fared well in the tough placements.

"So what will you do for the client?" she asked, because somewhere in even Gerald's hierarchy, client satisfaction was part of keeping Number One in fancy 100 percent all-beef designer pens.

Hannah was spared the tedium of Gerald's reply by a soft rap on the closed door. Trent Knightley did not wait to be permitted entrance.

"Hannah, if you're through here," he said, "I'd like to introduce you to someone."

Rescue. Hannah was on her feet the next instant, only to see Gerald bristling behind a fixed smile. Note to self: meet with Gerald only in the conference room, which had a gla.s.s wall visible from the reception area and the main corridor.

"We were on our last case," Hannah said. "I've discussed it in some detail with you, so Gerald and I would likely be covering the same ground."

The paper clip Gerald had been torturing snapped in two. "Don't let me hold you up, Hannah."

Peachy. The guy responsible for showing her the ropes was now in a Warp Nine pout.

"My thanks for your time, Gerald. I look forward to seeing you in action on Friday." Hannah followed Trent to his office, nearly running into him when he paused outside the door.

"I forget you are mine for only a few months," he said, regarding her with a slight frown. "I hope you aren't bored to tears by the child support guidelines."

Hannah had lost the habit of crying years ago.

"I like the idea of helping people with real, significant problems. I'm not so keen on those problems being as personal as they are in family law." Gerald's point was valid, if self-serving and overstated.

"When you handle your family law cases well, you help me with a real, significant problem, and the clients and entire firm benefit. Thank you for that."

Well, h.e.l.l. Hannah had apparently not lost the habit of appreciating a sincere thank-you.

Trent opened his office door, and behind his desk, a tall, white-haired gentleman closed a book of what looked like Supreme Court opinions and set it near the rhododendron.

Hannah tried to put out of her mind Trent's earlier words: You are mine for only a few months. She'd been a sister or a daughter in some fashion for a few months over and over again, and she still-seven years into the mommy gig-expected Grace to be s.n.a.t.c.hed away with no notice.

"Hannah, I'd like you to meet Judge Daniel Halverston," Trent said, "absent without leave from his post on the appellate bench. Judge, Miss Hannah Stark, our newest family law a.s.sociate."

"Hannah." The judge struck Hannah as an affable old polar bear, but a keen light in his blue eyes warned her she'd best stay on her toes.

"Judge Halverston." She stuck out her hand, because this guy was probably old enough he would wait for a lady to make the first overture.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Hannah Stark. You don't come across that name often in this area, but I could swear I've met you before." He kept her hand in his callused paw another moment.

The legal profession apparently boasted unsuspected reserves of men who were touchers.

"I'm an only child. My family's not from around here." For all Hannah knew, it was the truth.

He relinquished her hand. "So why do you want to practice family law?"

"I don't, actually," she said, shooting a look at her boss. Trent was smiling as he leaned against his desk, which told her nothing. "I'm headed for the slot in corporate in the spring, but domestic was shorthanded, so I'm doing a tour here first."

"You don't like all the drama and excitement of families in disarray?"

She wished now she'd given the judge some smarmy plat.i.tude about Why She Loved Family Law, except Trent was standing right there, and lying in front of him-even a socially acceptable lie-didn't sit well.

"I probably have as many zealous advocacy genes as the next lawyer, Judge, but I don't like being an undertaker to anybody's relationships. If a family is in court, then the family has pretty much given up on itself in its natural form. In corporate law, you have a chance to do a lot of preventive lawyering, and the worst thing someone suffers is a money judgment."

"You're right," Halverston said. "Corporations don't fall in love or get each other with child, at least not quite like people do."

Hannah did not lapse into a panegyric over the populated joint venture, lest some buffoon leaning against the desk snort unprofessionally.

"n.o.body in law school warns you it isn't enough to be smart, prepared, and knowledgeable," Hannah went on. "You also have to keep your balance, and even in my first few days here, I'm seeing that's the greater challenge."

Take that, Ye Smirking Boss.

"You should be clerking for us down in Annapolis," Halverston said. "You ever want to make that contribution, you let Trent know, and he'll probably spring you for the duration."

"It won't be my call," Trent said, pushing off his desk. "Hannah is technically James's employee, but he's not the jealous type."