And why was she defending the brother who had actively made her childhood miserable?
“Charged?” Matt snorted. “What’s he claiming?
That she crawled under the coffee table and banged her head on it?”
“Under?” Her confusion must have been plain, because after a minute he straightened the chair and sat.
“You haven’t heard the whole story?”
“No.”
“Her skull was shattered. The hair and tissue weren’t on the top edge of the table, where they would have been if she’d fallen. They were on the lower edge.” He slid a hand along the table in demonstration. “The bastard picked it up and slammed it into her head.”
“Oh, God,” Linnea whispered. “Mom doesn’t know that.”
His expression hardened. “Or does and won’t admit it.”
“He’s her son …” No more convincing than her own defense of Finn. And the very words made her ache. I’m her daughter, too. Why do I matter so much less?
Matt rose to his feet again, looking down at her. “Frankly, I don’t want Hanna to have any contact with your parents. That’s one reason I don’t want her staying with you.”
“But—she’s happy with me.” Linnea stood, too, although being on her feet didn’t help much with him towering over her.
His tone softened slightly as he made the grudging admission, “You seem like a nice woman. You’re obviously well-intentioned, and Hanna is fond of you. But I can’t imagine you defying either your parents or your brother. No.” He shook his head. “I won’t risk it. I’m asking for custody.”
She felt sick as she stared at him, hating the way he’d dismissed her in a few words. You’re a weakling. Maybe she was, but in defense of Hanna she’d do anything.
“She’s scared of you.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Did you ever stop to think it might be yours?” she cried. “How is a child supposed to feel attachment to someone who’s no more than an occasional visitor in her life?”
She thought her accusation had struck home from the way his eyes darkened. But then he shook her words—her—off with a flat, “We’ll be changing that. I rented a house yesterday. I’m moving in this weekend. We’ll start with a few overnights.”
Linnea took a deep breath, clutched for all her courage and said, “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean, given your hostility to me and to her grandparents, to the family Hanna knows and loves, no. I don’t have to let her go with you. I don’t have to let her see you.”
“You’re threatening me?”
“I’m saying no. That’s all.” She swallowed. “Go to court. Until a judge orders me to let her see you again, I’m going to keep saying no.”
He leaned forward, menace in every line of his body. “Why, you little …”
She was shaking, but stood her ground. “Please leave now.”
“For God’s sake …”
“Now. Don’t make me call the police.”
Along with the anger, his face held shock and disbelief. He swore, swung on his heel, and stalked out. An instant later, the front door opened and slammed shut.
Linnea’s knees gave out and she collapsed in her chair at the kitchen table. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “What have I done?”
But she knew: she’d whipped out a red cape and waved it in front of an angry, wounded bull. Encouraged him to attack. Not so smart, given that she had no sword.
Gazing at her hands, laid flat on the table and still visibly trembling, she thought, He drove me to it. It was almost as if he wanted to dislike her. Or as if she was nothing, merely an obstacle to what he wanted.
Linnea had discovered in the past week how very tired she was of being dismissed. She’d never been willing to fight back for her own sake, but for Hanna … Oh, that was different.
Still, she quailed at the idea of what he’d do now. She hoped and prayed that, in making an enemy, she hadn’t been very foolish.
PACING HIS HOTEL ROOM, Matt muttered an obscenity. Stupid, he thought. He’d lost his temper. He never did that.
He’d needed Linnea’s cooperation, and now he’d blown it.
How long would it take to force a family-court hearing? Days? Weeks? He could have been building a relationship with Hanna in the meantime. Instead, he would become an ogre in her mind. She’d probably heard the raised voices in the kitchen and quailed, remembering Mommy and Daddy’s fights and the terrible outcome of them.
God. He stopped, flattened his hands on the desk and bowed his head. He was breathing as if he’d come in from a run.
Had he misjudged Linnea entirely? Was Finn’s quiet sister very capable of defending Hanna from anyone and anything? She’d become a lioness today. She hadn’t relented at all, even though he’d been able to tell she was afraid of him.
And, damn, he hated knowing that. He could be a hard-ass at work, but women didn’t quake at the sight of him. He couldn’t remember ever feeling the blinding anger he had since the early-morning phone call that had him on the plane for the U.S. within hours.
Rocked by a tsunami of grief, he thought, Tess. For a moment, he saw her face. She was … what? Eighteen, twenty? In college, for sure. He couldn’t remember what he’d said or done, but she was laughing at him. She was going through a stage with her hair short, spiked and dyed hot pink. He remembered thinking it suited her. She was five foot ten inches tall, slim but strong, a star basketball player in high school and college both. His baby sister, Tess, was also beautiful, with spectacular cheekbones, eyes a deep, navy blue, her mouth wide and sensuous and always flapping. As a kid, he swore she never shut up. The loss of their parents had tempered her, made her more thoughtful, given her a layer of sadness beneath the joie de vivre. He carried the memory of that laugh, of all the other laughs, of the way her eyes sparkled, the way she would fly into his arms and hug him as hard as he hugged her, even in front of her college friends. She was never too cool for her brother, Matt.
And now she was gone.
He was stunned to realize tears poured down his face and dripped onto his hands. He was paralyzed by this grief that ran like acid through his veins, damaging his heart as it went.
“Tess,” he whispered. “Tess, no. No.”
It had to be fifteen minutes before the tears spent themselves; the pain washed away and left him nearly numb. Matt staggered into the bathroom and turned on the taps, bending to splash first hot and then cold water over his face. He toweled his head dry, then went to the bed and sat on the edge of it, his elbows on his knees.
