Match Made in Court

“Do you think so?”

For God’s sake, wasn’t that what he’d just said? He reached up and kneaded the back of his neck, where tension had gathered. “Yeah. I do.” He paused. “I’d like to see her.”

“I assumed you would.” He could all but feel her gathering herself. “I’m going to ask you not to … to say anything negative about her father. Not right now. I … haven’t even told her he’s been arrested.”

“How the hell are you explaining his absence, then?” Oh, shit. “She isn’t seeing him, is she?”

“No.” The single word was firm enough that he momentarily pulled the phone away from his ear and gazed at it in surprise. Interesting. Maybe Delaney was right that she didn’t much like her big brother. “Finn hasn’t even called,” she said. “Mom tells me he’s out on bail. He must know he isn’t in any state right now to be comforting Hanna.”

Uh-huh. What father wouldn’t want to be the one to explain to his small daughter what happened to Mommy? To hold her and dry her tears and do his damnedest to make her world feel safe again? Matt couldn’t imagine that not being his first priority.

“Maybe,” he suggested, every word dropping with a distinct clunk, “the bastard has enough conscience that he can’t look Hanna in the eye.”

Crap, he thought immediately. That wasn’t the way to assure Linnea’s cooperation.

But after a very long silence, she said only, “I doubt he’s figured out what to say to her.”

Huh. Did that mean she believed her brother was guilty?

“Have you had dinner yet?” he asked. “Can I take you and Hanna out?”

The offer was an impulse; he wanted to spend time with Hanna, not Linnea. But it made sense. His niece hadn’t seen him in almost a year. Despite their e-mails and phone calls, they always had to ease into their friendship. Besides … he found himself more curious than he’d expected to be about this sister he’d scarcely noticed in the past. What was the saying? Still waters run deep. Did hers, or was she the mouse he’d guessed her to be?

After another discernible pause, she said stiffly, “Yes, if you mean it. I haven’t started dinner yet, and I know Hanna would love to see you.”

“Have you told her I called last night?”

“No, I wanted to talk to you first.”

Tone silky, Matt said, “To make sure I wouldn’t rant about her daddy.”

“Um … something like that.” She sounded embarrassed, but had enough spine to add, “I don’t really know you.”

“No. We never bothered, did we?”

“You didn’t seem very interested.”

So. She had teeth. Maybe saying we never bothered wasn’t quite accurate. He’d automatically extended his dislike of Finn to Finn’s family. So no—he hadn’t bothered.

“You may have guessed that your brother and I didn’t much care for each other.”

She didn’t comment.

After a moment, Matt said, “Is this too early? Can I come by now?”

“Now is fine. We eat early. Um … do you need directions?”

“I got them off the Internet last night.” He couldn’t even remember why he’d had her address. Presumably Tess had given it to him, God knew why.

“All right,” Linnea said. “We’ll be ready.”

The drive took him longer than he expected. It was interesting, he thought, that she’d chosen to live so far from either her brother or parents, without having actually left Seattle. Maybe deliberate, maybe a job had determined where she rented or bought. He knew from what Tess had said that she worked at a library. Obviously, from her phone message, she had some kind of petsitting service, too.

Her house turned out to be a tiny, midcentury bungalow in a blue-collar neighborhood in West Seattle. It was on a fairly steep side street, the single-car garage essentially in the basement beneath the house. He pulled to the curb, cranked the wheels and set the emergency brake before turning off the engine. He got out and surveyed Linnea Sorensen’s tidy home. Rented, he presumed, but she did maintain it. Leaves on the Japanese maple in front had mostly fallen and been raked up. Grass was sodden but carefully mowed. The house had been painted a warm chestnut-brown and trimmed with deep rose, a surprisingly warm and cheerful combination. The front door was seafoam-green.

No doorbell, he discovered, but a shiny brass knocker made a deep thudding sound when he lifted and dropped it.

The door opened immediately and he had a moment of sharp surprise. His first sight of the woman who’d answered the door disconcerted and unsettled him; funny, she didn’t look like he remembered. It hadn’t been that long since he’d seen her.

On the heels of his surprise came disappointment because Hanna was hovering shyly behind her aunt, peeking out at him as if he were a stranger.

He smiled at her. “Hanna Banana.”

She whispered, “Uncle Matt? I thought … Mom said …” That made her look stricken. “You were coming for Christmas.”

Keeping his gaze on her small, distressed face, he said gently, “When I heard about your mom, I came right away. You and she are my only family, you know.”

Not are—were. Now he had only Hanna. He wanted to hug her. To lift her up into his arms and take her away.

“Oh,” she breathed, sounding alarmed, and buried her face in her aunt’s leg.

Ease into her life, he reminded himself, tamping down his frustration.

He lifted his gaze to Finn’s sister, ready to figure out why he’d felt that odd shift inside at first sight. Damn it, he’d remembered her as colorless, washed-out, her hair and skin pale, her eyes—who knew?—her body so slight she could fade into the woodwork.

Either she’d changed, or he hadn’t looked at her before. Or, hell, she had been cast into shadow by her brother and his sister, both vivid personalities, both larger than life and impossible to ignore. Even so, he liked to think of himself as observant, which meant there was no way he should have failed to see that Finn’s sister was beautiful.

Because what he saw now was a lovely woman. Slight, yes, but in a leggy, slim-hipped way. She could have been a dancer or a runner. Although her breasts, he was jolted to realize, were generous enough to have been a nuisance for either. How had he escaped noticing breasts so lush and perfectly sized to fit a man’s hands?

Her hair was a pale, ash blond—moonlight where her brother had rich gold hair. Straight instead of wavy like his. His eyes were bright blue, hers a softer blue-gray. Her features were fine, even delicate, as was her bone structure in general. The hand that squeezed her niece’s shoulder was long-fingered and slender. With deft use of makeup and the right clothes, she could be stunning.

Feeling stupefied, he was also angry at himself. What was he doing, evaluating her as a woman? She was Finn’s sister. Enough said.

Frowning slightly, he realized that she was assessing him in turn. Had she ever really looked at him before, either? He couldn’t help wondering. Or, in her case, was this more of a review?

“Ready for dinner?” he said. “You’ll have to suggest a place. Anything from pizza to gourmet French is fine by me. Except—” he smiled at his niece again “—I seem to remember that Hanna Banana was a little bit picky the last time I saw her.”

She squeezed tighter onto Linnea’s leg. Linnea laughed. “Well … definitely nothing gourmet. All six-year-olds are picky.”

Finn, of course, had been irritated by her refusal to eat mushrooms, broccoli, anything new, anything too mixed together to separate into components. Tess had laughed and said pretty much the same thing Linnea had.

“Then how about that pizza?”

Now Linnea smiled at him, lighting her face. “I take it somebody wants pizza.”

A soft, sympathetic smile didn’t change anything. Except—damn, he was pretty sure he’d never seen her smile before.

He heard himself admitting, “Yeah, it’s the one food I miss when I’m abroad. I can find it, but it’s never quite the same.”