Match Made in Court

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Was it her parents’ and brother’s opposition to their marriage? Even if her mother was a bitch, Finn an arrogant, self-centered, casually cruel son of a bitch, her father a nonentity, their anger and hurt still mattered to her. He admired her loyalty. They were her family, the only one she’d ever had, and some part of her still needed their approval. Matt did understand, even as he kept hoping the strength of the family he was making with Hanna and Linnea would become her bedrock instead.

  So far, she was choosing him, but he had a feeling the necessity of making that choice over and over again was killing her. Maybe that agony alone was making her crawl inside herself and refuse to come out. He didn’t know.

  He needed to know, but Linnea wasn’t telling him.

  Matt had taken to goading her, trying to awaken a response. Any response.

  Making her walk through the house again, despite her reluctance, had been part of his campaign to prod her into speaking out. Clearly, he was going to have to back out on the offer, even though it would mean losing the earnest money. What he needed to know was why she felt the way she did. Did she hate the house itself? The idea of committing to home ownership?

  Or—and this was the possibility that made his throat close up—the idea of committing to him?

  So, okay, maybe the house was bigger than they needed. But it had a hell of a view, and despite its size, the place was well laid out and finished with warm wood floors and moldings, wood-wrapped windows and custom cabinets. The front porch reminded him of the one that stretched across the front of the house where he’d grown up. His mom had loved to sit on that porch summer evenings. He’d never been a homeowner himself, and maybe he’d let his eyes get too big for his stomach, so to speak. He hoped he and Linnea would have kids of their own to join Hanna, which meant they’d want a place with at least four bedrooms plus an office for him, right?

  Yeah, she had made a few quiet murmurs the day they had first looked at it implying she thought the house was too big. But he’d thought she had changed her mind as they continued looking. Hanna had been excited, he’d been excited, and Linnea…Hell, he thought now, recognizing that what he’d taken for awe and agreement had really been a retreat into silence.

  At this point, he would have been relieved to see her get pissed off. Anything but this mouselike acquiescence coupled with obvious unhappiness.

  Right now, she was pretending to be asleep. In case he was wrong and she actually had dropped off, Matt set the alarm so she wouldn’t be late to get Hanna. He sure as hell couldn’t pick her up at her grandparents’ house. That would go over about as well as a brick through their front window.

  He got dressed and left, feeling even more unsettled than he had been.

  HE HAD DINNER WITH HER and Hanna on Wednesday night. Hanna chattered about the friend she’d made at school, another new girl. Polly took ice-skating lessons, and Hanna wanted to try skating, too.

  He argued briefly in favor of hockey, a sport he had to explain to Hanna. “It’s like soccer on ice. Except the players hit a puck with sticks, instead of kicking a ball.”

  “And get their front teeth knocked out,” Linnea murmured.

  “Mouth guards—”

  “I want to jump. And twirl,” Hanna said.

  Hockey was clearly a no-go. Not that he’d been serious. Hanna might end up tall like her mother, but she was fine-boned and lacked the streak of competitiveness and even aggression that had made Tess a fine basketball player.

  After dinner Hanna needed one of them to help her practice addition with flash cards. Matt cleaned the kitchen while Linnea and she disappeared into the living room. By the time he was done and went to find them, Hanna was reading to her aunt Linnie. Clearly, he wasn’t going to have a chance to talk alone with Linnea.

  She did break off to walk him to the door, where he tilted her face up and said in frustration, “Damn it, I don’t like going home. Why don’t we get married? If you’re waiting for your mother’s approval, you’re not going to get it.”

  She retreated without moving a muscle. “No. I know I’m not.”

  His jaw flexed. “Then what is it?”

  “You’re rushing me,” she said with a spurt of defiance he hadn’t heard in a long time.

  Great timing, he realized. Hanna wasn’t ten feet away, waiting for Linnea to sit back down with her.

  “I want us all to be together.”

  Her voice softened. “I know.”

  Matt swore, kissed her again and left.

  LINNEA LAY AWAKE A LONG TIME that night, mercilessly examining herself and hating what she saw.

  She shouldn’t have agreed to marry Matt. Not under the circumstances, with Finn’s trial still to come, her custody of Hanna so uncertain, her break with her parents a knot of anxiety that never left her. Most of all, not when he didn’t love her.

  She couldn’t escape the fear that her mother was right. This engagement, even the marriage, might be subterfuge on his part to get his way: custody of Hanna. Lose in court, win another way. She hated even suspecting such a thing, but she couldn’t totally make herself believe he would truly want her otherwise. And maybe none of that was the real problem.

  No, the real problem was her.

  Practically from the moment she’d said yes, she’d reverted to habit. Her way of coping with the stronger, more aggressive personalities around her was to fade from their notice. Be biddable, pleasant and the closest thing to invisible she could achieve. Linnea remembered once, at about sixteen, looking at herself in the mirror and thinking that she could hardly even see herself.

  Could Matt still see her?

  But why had accepting his proposal sent her into flight? Linnea asked herself, bewildered. She wasn’t afraid of him, even when she could see his barely suppressed frustration with her. Not the way she was of…Her eyes widened. Finn. Not the way she was of Finn. And, in a different way, of her mother.

  Mom must have hated me, almost from birth, she thought numbly. It had started so early, she’d never known anything different.

  Maybe what Finn had become wasn’t any more his fault than what she’d become was hers. No, that wasn’t right—they each bore responsibility, as everyone did, for their own choices. But they’d been shaped, even warped, from before their earliest memories. Finn to believe he was great and glorious and should, with a snap of his fingers, have everything he wanted, and her to believe she was a nonentity.

  Linnea had trembled inside when she first defied Matt, but she had been fierce when she had to be. After all, she’d had the upper hand, in a way; he needed her. He had rights, yes, but modest ones, and she could give him more. More time with Hanna, more chance of winning Hanna’s love and trust.

  But when things got personal between them, it became different. She didn’t have the upper hand anymore. He was masterful, demanding, determined, decisive. And, stupid her, she’d fallen in love with him and wanted to please him. The only way she knew to please was to defer, so she had.

  Her eyes were dry now. Her lids felt gritty, as she gained this new, bleak understanding of herself.

  Love would have made a difference, given her at least the power to hurt him. As it was she had no power at all and knew it. Her only offerings on the altar of marriage were her body and the child they both loved. But while Matt’s smile could lift her to giddy heights, he could also cut her to the quick with one sharp-edged word or a frowning glance. He could hurt her easily, because she was vulnerable to him.

  Linnea felt hollow. I can’t marry him. Believing she could, that she’d be happy in the absence of love, had been a dream. What he wanted from her was truth, and whether she liked the house or not wasn’t the truth that mattered. Her new knowledge that she couldn’t bear the kind of marriage he’d offered, that was the truth she had to tell him.

  She would hurt him, Linnea realized, even if not as much as if he had been in love with her. And she’d be hurting Hanna, too, something she’d sworn she would never do. But not even for Hanna wou
ld she go back to living this way, like a shadow, not a real person.

  “THANK YOU FOR COMING,” Linnea said gravely. “This probably isn’t convenient for you in the middle of the day, is it?”

  Matt looked at her with raised eyebrows. “I take a lunch break.”

  “Yes, but—” She visibly choked off whatever she’d been about to say.

  The day was warm enough she’d suggested they get fish and chips and take it across the street to Alki Beach. Both wore wool coats, but the weak sun did feel promisingly warm on Matt’s face when they left the hole-in-the-wall restaurant in search of an empty bench.

  They found one and laid out their lunch between them. Matt watched Linnea covertly. The sunshine found the richness of color in her pale hair, loose today—strands of gold and wheat amidst the silver blond. He hadn’t been able to get a take yet on her mood and wasn’t pushing it. She’d suggested this outing. He’d let her lead the conversation.

  “Have you met Polly yet?” he asked. “Hanna’s new friend?”

  “Yes, she’s really sweet. Petite—her mom’s barely five feet, I think. Dad’s with Boeing. They just moved here from Wichita.”

  As they ate, she talked about Hanna’s new teacher, whom Linnea wasn’t enthusiastic about. “I’m glad she’ll only have her for half the year.”

  Matt wanted to believe she wasn’t leading up to anything important, that lunch today had been an impulse on Linnea’s part. He didn’t believe it, which had the effect of stifling his appetite. Finally, he bundled what he hadn’t eaten into the bag and said, “So what inspired this?”

  Very slowly, she followed suit. “You were right that we haven’t had many chances to talk. Just the two of us.”

  Matt made a noncommittal noise.

  He saw her take a deep breath, as if to steel herself, then her eyes met his.

  All in a rush, she said, “Matt, I’m so sorry, but I can’t marry you.”

  He stared at her, her wide pleading eyes, and in disbelief replayed the exact words.

  I can’t marry you. Had she really said that?

  He was vaguely aware that he hadn’t moved. That the silence had grown uncomfortably long. He had thought he’d braced himself. He had guessed from some tone in her voice when she called that he wouldn’t like what she had to say. But, damn it. He’d expected her to say, I don’t want to buy that house. Or, We can’t have our wedding until after Finn’s trial, it’s not fair to Mom and Dad. Or even, I don’t know how it happened, but I’m pregnant.

  No, that would have been good news.

  “Why?” he asked, voice hoarse.

  “I’ve realized,” she said quietly, “that I don’t like myself very much lately. You…overwhelm me.” She raised a hand when he would have spoken. “It’s not you. It’s me. I’d end up letting you make all our decisions, and then I’d be miserable the way I’ve been about the house. I suppose there’s a reason I haven’t gotten married. It’s…complicated, but I think I don’t know how to balance with another person.”

  He reached across the crumpled remains of their food and gripped her hand. “Don’t do this. I can listen better. We can work on it.”

  Very gently, she withdrew her hand, although he saw that it was shaking before she balled it into a fist and hid it in her coat pocket. “Not without love.”

  She didn’t love him. Matt was stunned to realize he’d believed she did, even though neither of them had said the words.

  “I thought—” her voice shook now, too, and she had bowed her head “—that for Hanna, I could do this. We made her happy.” When she looked up again, her eyes were filled with anguish. “But that’s not enough reason, Matt, not for marriage. You must see that.”

  “I didn’t ask you for Hanna’s sake.” I didn’t make love to you for Hanna’s sake.

  God. Where was his pride?

  “I know you thought we could be happy. But be honest. Have you been? What was it you said the other day? If it wasn’t for this…The sex was the only part you, um, enjoyed. And maybe the fact that, when the three of us are together—”

  She didn’t finish. Didn’t have to.

  Desolation roared through him.

  “It doesn’t sound as if there’s anything else to be said. What I think doesn’t matter if you aren’t happy, and obviously you aren’t.” He felt a muscle tic in his cheek. “What do you suggest we do now?”

  “Well…” She peered uncertainly at him. “Go back to what we were doing before?”

  “Pretend we can be friendly, for Hanna?”

  “Can’t we be friends?”

  Right this minute, feeling as if he’d been gutted, he simply could not imagine it. But he nodded brusquely and said, “Shall we tell her together?”

  Linnea’s eyes widened and shied from his. “I’ll do it. This is all my fault.”

  He shook his head in continued incredulity. “Are you done eating? Shall we go?”

  She nodded and stood. Matt tossed their leftovers in the nearest garbage can and they walked back to the car in silence. During the drive, she said, her voice timid, “Would you like to take Hanna this weekend? I mean, for the whole weekend?”

  His consolation prize. Thank God she hadn’t suggested they go ahead and take Hanna sledding at Snoqualmie Pass this weekend together, the way they’d talked about. Friends.

  “All right. I’ll pick her up Saturday morning. Ten?”

  “She’ll be ready.”

  He pulled the car into the library parking lot. He didn’t look at her, although in his peripheral vision he knew she was unbuckling her seat belt and opening the door. Then she paused, said in a broken voice, “I’m sorry, Matt,” and jumped out. The door slammed, and she hurried toward the entrance, nearly breaking into a run before she reached the glass doors.

  He let out a ragged, painful sound and gripped the steering wheel. The future suddenly looked so damn empty, he didn’t want to put the car in gear, as if not moving at all would somehow save him.

  TELLING HANNA WAS EVERY bit as terrible as Linnea had imagined it would be. To her dying day, she would remember the anguished look in Hanna’s huge blue eyes and the way she’d whispered, “I thought we’d all be together.” Or, maybe worse, when she said, “But Uncle Matt makes you laugh. And he holds your hand.”

  Yes, she’d thought. Yes. But he doesn’t want to hold my heart.

  Of course, she couldn’t say that to a child, however inadequate it felt to offer the adult defense.

  “I realized that we were getting married more because we love you than because we love each other. And that’s not the right reason to promise to spend our lifetimes together.”

  Hanna had stormed to her bedroom sobbing. Linnea would have liked to do the same, but somehow held herself together, as she’d mostly managed to do since Matt dropped her off.

  Now the moment she’d dreaded had come. Saturday morning, when she had to see him again for the first time.

  This time would be the worst, she kept telling herself. Seeing him couldn’t help but get easier as time passed. Wasn’t that what people always said?

  She let Hanna answer his knock on the door, but came out from the kitchen to be polite in response to his chilly civility. She wanted nothing more than for this handoff to go quickly, for him to leave, and he’d opened the door to do exactly that when she remembered their original plans for today.

  “Wait. Matt, are you planning to take Hanna up to Snoqualmie?”

  Hanna had been watching them already, her alarmed gaze moving between her aunt’s and uncle’s faces. Now she grabbed Linnea’s hand. “But I want you to go!”

  Matt winced. “We can have fun, Banana. Just the two of us.”

  “I want Aunt Linnie, too!” Hysteria edged her voice.

  His eyes met Linnea’s. He was trying for impassive, and failing. Hurt and anger darkened the gray to charcoal. Your fault, he was telling her.

  She bent to brush her niece’s hair from her face. “Honey, we can’t always do things together.
Even if…we had gotten married, there’d be days I had to work, or Uncle Matt was away. Remember, he said he’d have to travel sometimes for his job.”

  “But now we’ll never do anything together!” Her expression was heartrending, accusatory.

  “We will.” If she could bear it.

  Hanna’s grip hadn’t lessened, and now her face was crumpling. “But you’re not working today. Why not today?”

  Grief and misery clogged her throat, but she managed to say, “I can’t. I’m sorry, Hanna. Not today.” Please, please, let them go. “I’ll go get your quilted pants. You find your winter boots.”

  “Aunt Linnie!”

  Matt, thank God, intervened and took Hanna’s other hand. “Come on, Hanna Banana, let’s find those boots. Are they in the closet?”

  Freed, Linnea hurried to her niece’s room. She fell to her knees and rifled frantically through the bottom dresser drawer, pulling out the pink quilted overalls, ignoring the other clothes now jumbled, some falling to the floor. She started toward the door, intent only on getting them out of here, then turned at the last second, some maternal instinct making her take long enough to retrieve a heavy pair of winter socks from the top drawer.

  Matt had the pink boots in his hand and had bundled Hanna into her parka. In jeans and a navy parka, he dominated her small entry, his expression again—almost—stolid.

  Hanna’s stare, in contrast, was both woeful and stormy.

  “I don’t want to spend the night. Do I have to spend the night?”

  Oh, God, Linnea thought. How did she say, Thanks to me, that’s the way it’s gonna be?

  Voice thin, she compromised with, “This time, you do.”

  Hanna began to sob. Matt effortlessly scooped her up, gave Linnea a last look that was baffled, injured and angry, and left, managing to carry both child and her possessions.

  Linnea watched until they reached the car and he deposited Hanna into her booster seat, buckled her in and went around to the driver’s side without even glancing back.

  Then Linnea locked the front door and, bent over in pain, made it to her bedroom.