If you were to suddenly find yourself having to care for a
young child due to a tragedy that tore that child's life
apart would you be willing to uproot your life and fight
everyone and anyone in your path for custody of
her....especially if you only knew that child from spending a
week here and there with her over the child's short life span.
This is the situation that Matt Laughlin finds himself in
when his sister is brutally murdered at the hands of her
husband, who happens to be the brother to Linnea Sinclair.
Since Matt lives and works out of the country Linnea is the
one who has temporary custody Hanna, but Matt believes that
Hanna would be better of with him, and is willing to do what
it takes to get custody.
Thus the battle begins, but in the end will it truly be a
battle over where Hanna should live, or will it be a battle
of Matt and Linnea finding out that they have true feelings
for one another, and want to share not only custody of
Hanna, but of their lives as well?
MATCH MADE IN COURT by Janice Kay Johnson takes a very
serious look at domestic violence and how it affects not
only the immediate members of the household, but those who
have to pick up the pieces of the destruction after the
fact. Both Matt and Linnea struggle with their feelings
towards not only Linnea's brother, Finn, but with the
unrelenting belief from Linnea's parents that Finn couldn't
have possibly murdered his wife Tess, either intentionally
or accidentally.
While the issues presented in MATCH MADE IN COURT are hard
to deal with, Ms. Johnson told a story succinctly and did in
my opinion an excellent job of showing how two children
raised together could turn out so differently.
I've only recently rediscovered how much I enjoy the
SuperRomance Line, and now I know that when I see a title
from Janice Kay Johnson, I will be in for a read that I will
be unable to put down until the last page is turned.
Matt Laughlin will do anything for his six-year-old niece.
Hanna is his only relative, and he knows he can help her
deal with their recent tragedy.
Getting custody of her,
however, means challenging her aunt, Linnea Sorenson—a woman
far more enticing than he remembers. This attraction makes
it all too easy for him to consider dropping his bid for
guardianship…something he can't let himself do. Seems as
though court is his only option.
But joint custody is not
the outcome Matt expects. Yet, surprisingly, it could be the
best thing that's happened to him. Because being with Linnea
and Hanna together feels right and good…and they just might
be the family he's always wanted.
Excerpt
Linnea Sorensen hated being interrupted by phone calls
during dinnertime.
This was why she not only had
caller ID, she had an answering machine instead of voice
mail. She could not only tell who was calling, she
could find out what that person wanted before she decided
whether to answer.
This morning, she'd put chicken
paprika to cook in her slow cooker. Thank goodness because
she was starved. She'd worked a full day at the library,
then on her way home had had to walk the Millers' two Irish
setters, rain or no rain. Having been bored all day, they
were thrilled to go outside, which meant they bounded and
dove into the neighbor's shrubbery and got tangled with each
other. Her shoulders ached from the dogs' straining against
their leashes. Of course, she had to go back before bedtime,
but this time she could stand on the stoop and let them out
in the tiny yard for a last chance to pee.
Wet, tired
and chilled as she was, Linnea showered the minute she got
home. She reluctantly put on a sweatshirt and jeans instead
of her pajamas, dried her hair and then gratefully dished up
dinner. She was just inhaling the glorious aroma and picking
up her fork when the damn phone rang.
Of course it
was her parents' number that appeared. She was not
talking to her mother right this minute.
Except
that the distraught voice she heard hardly sounded like her
mother.
"Linnea? Are you home? Something terrible has
happened. Finn just called and—" She made a ragged sound
that might have been a sob. "He says Tess is dead. That—that
she fell and hit her head and…"
Linnea dropped the
fork and grabbed the phone. "Mom?"
"Oh, thank
goodness! You are there!"
"Tess is dead?"
Honestly, Linnea liked her sister-in-law, Tess, better
than she did her own brother.
"Surely he's wrong,
but…he was dreadfully upset. He says the police are there,
and he wanted me to come and get Hanna. Your father isn't
feeling well. Can you possibly take her home with you
tonight, Linnea? Until we know what's
happening?"
"Well, of course I can. He'd already
picked her up from after-school care?"
"He said she's
there. I pray he's kept her in her room so she doesn't know
what's going on. Will you go now?"
"I'm on my way.
I'll call you when I know something." Hands shaking, Linnea
dumped the food back in the slow cooker and put the lid on.
She slipped her feet into rubber clogs, grabbed her coat and
purse and went out the door again.
Although she and
Finn both lived in Seattle, it might as well have been in
different worlds. His four-thousand-square-foot faux-Tudor
home, which boasted a media room and five bathrooms, was in
upscale Laurelhurst; her own two-bedroom cottage was in a
blue-collar neighborhood in West Seattle. With the dark
night and wet streets, the drive to Finn's took her over
half an hour. The entire way, her anxiety kept her hands
tight on the wheel and her thoughts bouncing off each other,
never settling.
Could Tess really be dead? Just from
stumbling and hitting her head? What had she hit it on? A
corner of the kitchen counter? Or their raised slate
fireplace hearth? Mom had worried so about that hearth when
Hanna was little. But people didn't die that foolishly
and…meaning-lessly. Did they? And why were the police there?
Did they always come when the death wasn't something obvious
and expected, like an eighty-year-old with coronary disease
having a heart attack?
Poor Hanna! Linnea adored her
six-year-old niece, who—she sometimes swore—took after her
more than either her mother or father. Not that Hanna was
timid, exactly, but she was quiet and thoughtful. She often
daydreamed, which annoyed her father no end. Finn was
brilliant and ambitious, impatient with woolgathering and
anyone whom he deemed "dense." Tess, a successful interior
designer, was creative but also tempestuous. In her own way,
she had as strong a personality as Finn did. Hanna, it often
seemed to Linnea, was a bit of a changeling.
Linnea
saw the flashing lights when she was still a couple of
blocks away from her brother's house. The street was blocked
at the corner, although officers were removing the barricade
to let a fire truck lumber out. As she hesitated, the lights
atop an ambulance went off, and it, too, started up and
followed the fire truck.
Her heart constricted. Was
Tess in the ambulance? But it definitely wasn't speeding
toward a hospital, which must mean Finn had been right. By
the time he got home, it must have been too late to save
her. Linnea hated the idea that he and Hanna had walked in
the door and found Tess on the floor. She had a heartrending
image of the little girl crying, "Mommy!" and running to her
mother's still, prone body.
People gathered in
clusters on the sidewalks, all staring as if hypnotized
toward Finn's house. Neighbors? They were weirdly lit,
seemingly by strobe lights—red, blue, white. Blink, blink,
blink.
Linnea stopped at the barricade and rolled
down her window when the uniformed officer walked up to her
car.
"Ma'am, do you live on this street?"
"No,
I'm Linnea Sorensen. That's my brother's house? Finn? He
called me…well, really he called my mother…" He doesn't
care. More strongly, she finished, "I'm here to pick up
my six-year-old niece. She shouldn't be here with…with
whatever's happened."
"One moment, Ms. Sorensen." He
stepped away and murmured into a walkie-talkie. When he came
back, he said, "I'm going to let you through."
She
gave a jerky nod and rolled up her window. When he pulled
the barricade aside, she drove through the opening. People's
heads turned as her car inched forward until she stopped
behind one of—oh, God—five police cars. Why would
there be so many, just because Tess tripped and hit her
head?
With trepidation Linnea got out and went toward
the house. Almost immediately, another uniformed officer
stopped her, then passed her forward. She was walking up the
driveway when the front door opened and her brother
appeared, police officers on each side and behind him. With
shock she realized that he was handcuffed.
Finn
Sorensen was a big, fit, handsome man, his dark blond hair
sun-streaked. He had such charisma other people tended to
disappear in his presence.
Linnea most of
all.
Still wearing dark dress pants and a white
shirt, he'd shed the tie and suitcoat, probably when he got
home earlier. He was in a towering rage, she saw, storming
down the front steps as if he were dragging the two officers
behind. In comparison, they were stolid and uninteresting,
their faces very nearly expressionless.
Finn was
halfway to the street when he saw Linnea. He stopped, his
angry gaze making her feel about two feet tall.
"As
you can see," he said in an icy voice, "these idiots have
jumped to conclusions. Tell Mom and Dad I'll call Nunley as
soon as I get to the jail. They don't need to worry about
it. I'll be out before morning and filing a lawsuit against
these cretins before they start chowing down their noon
fries and burgers." His tone was scathing, dismissive. The
two men listened with no apparent reaction.
"Is—is
Tess really dead?" Linnea asked.
"Yes. She fell." His
lips drew back in a snarl. "As I keep trying to
explain."
"I'm so sorry, Finn."
"You'll take
care of Hanna," he snapped, as if her obedience was a given,
and walked past her with the two men each gripping one of
his elbows.
Oh, Lord! Had Hanna seen her father
arrested on top of the awful discovery of her mother's body?
Linnea rushed up the steps, stopped inside by a plainclothes
officer. He wore a rumpled brown suit, his badge clipped to
his belt. She could see that he had a gun in a black holster
at his side, too.
"Ms. Sorensen?"
"Yes. I'm
here for Hanna."
"Your niece is upstairs in her
bedroom. A female officer is with her."
Hanna must be
terrified.
She bit her lip. "It's true? My
sister-in-law is dead?"
"I'm afraid so," he said,
with surprising gentleness.
"She hit her
head?"
"In the course of an argument with your
brother. Did they fight often, Ms.—I'm afraid I didn't catch
your first name."
"Linnea," she told him. "And it's
true that Finn and Tess had arguments, but that's all they
were. They yelled, then made up. Finn never hit her or
anything like that." At least, she thought privately, that
she knew about.
"I'm afraid they won't be making up
this time."
She went very still. "Is she—her body,
um, has she been taken away yet?"
He shook his head,
his eyes uncomfortably watchful. "No, but if you go straight
upstairs, you won't see her."
A shuddery breath
escaped her. "All right." She hesitated. "Do you know…Did
Hanna see her?"
"We don't think so. She says that she
heard Mommy and Daddy yelling and she doesn't like to
listen."
Linnea actually shuddered at the image that
conjured. How often had Hanna huddled in her room trying not
to listen to her parents screaming at each other? At the
same time, Linnea was hugely relieved to know that Hanna
hadn't seen any of the final, violent scene.
"Does
she know?"
"That her mother's dead? Yes, insofar as a
child her age can understand."
"Okay." She closed her
eyes for a moment, girded herself, then started up the
stairs.
At the top, she could see into the master
suite at the end of the hall. She could make out a corner of
the bed, smoothly made. It might be that neither Tess nor
Finn had gotten this far; both were workaholics who rarely
walked in the door before six or seven in the evening. They
might have started arguing the minute they got
home.
Hanna's door was closed. Linnea rapped lightly,
then opened it. A uniformed woman sat on the bed. The
six-year-old was on the floor, back to the bed, her knees
drawn up and her arms hugging her legs
tightly.
"Pumpkin?"
Her niece leaped to her
feet and flung herself at Linnea. "Aunt Linnie! They said
Grandma was coming, but I wanted you!"
They hugged
tightly, Hanna's arms around Linnea's waist. "I was so
scared," she mumbled.
"I know, honey. I
know."
It was several minutes before Hanna drew back,
face wet. Linnea crouched to be at eye level.
Hanna
sniffed. "Officer Bab—Bab—"
"Babayan," the
dark-haired young woman supplied.
"She says Mommy is
dead."
Grief clogged Linnea's throat. She had to
swallow twice before she could say, "That's what they told
me, too."
"That means…she won't ever come home
again?"
Linnea hated having to be the one to make her
beloved niece understand how final death was. "No. You
remember when Confetti died."
Hanna bit her lip and
nodded. The family's tortoise-shell cat had been twenty-one
when she'd failed to wake up one morning.
"You saw
her."
Another nod.
"Whatever made her Confetti
wasn't there anymore. She'd left her body behind and…"
Linnea hesitated only very briefly. She had doubts about
what happened after death, but she wouldn't share them with
Hannah. "She'd gone to heaven. Well, your mom has gone now,
too. It wouldn't surprise me if Confetti was waiting there
to get on her lap."
"I want Mommy here!" Hanna
wailed. "I don't want her to be in heaven!"
Linnea
pulled her into another embrace. "I know," she whispered. "I
know. Oh, honey, I love you."
Eventually Hanna
recovered enough to ask where her daddy was. Linnea
explained that he was having to talk to the police about
what happened. Hanna only nodded. Linnea had noticed before
that she didn't go to her father with the uncomplicated
trust she ought to feel for a parent. Finn loved his
daughter, Linnea didn't doubt that, but he lacked the
patience to be unfailingly gentle even for her
sake.
"You're going to spend the night with me," she
told Hanna. "Let's pack your suitcase right now. Just in
case, why don't we take enough for you to stay for a couple
of days?"
The police officer gave her a small nod of
approval.
Hanna's small suitcase, thank goodness, was
on the top shelf in her closet. Linnea packed enough clothes
for three or four days, while her niece gathered favorite
toys and games. Then while Linnea collected her toothbrush
from the bathroom, Hanna put on her shoes.
"I'm
ready," she said stoutly, looking very slight and terribly
young. Her twin ponytails sagged, one lower than the other,
strands of blond hair escaping to cling to her damp
cheeks.
Ignoring the wrench at her heart, Linnea
smiled at her. "Good. We'll have fun."
Officer
Babayan followed them downstairs. Linnea steered Hanna
straight for the front door, pausing only long enough to
collect her pink coat from the closet in the entry. She
noticed that the female police officer had very casually
moved to block any view that Hanna might have of the great
room where the Sorensens mainly lived.
Where Tess
must have died.
Hanna almost gulped. Maybe she
had hit her head on that sharp-edged
hearth.
On the front porch, Hanna stopped in her
tracks. "Why are there so many police cars
here?"
"When they get a call saying someone is hurt,
any officers who are near come rushing to find out if
there's anything they can do. I guess there must have been a
bunch of them this time."
Holding Hanna's hand,
carrying a duffel bag of toys while Hanna pulled the pink
wheeled suitcase, Linnea hurried her down the rainy walk and
past several of those squad cars to her small compact. She
put everything in the trunk, helped her niece buckle in and
started the engine. She didn't like the fixed way Hanna
stared toward those flashing lights and the open front door
of her house with people going in and out.
As she
backed out and drove up the block, Hanna's head swiveled so
she could keep looking back. Linnea hated that she saw the
neighbors clustered, staring.
Then the same officer
pulled a sawhorse away to let Linnea's car through, and she
was able to accelerate up the street until the flashing
lights vanished from her rearview mirror.
Matthew
Laughlin had barely risen from bed and was padding barefoot
and shirtless to the small kitchen in his rented Kuwait City
house when his phone rang.
Damn it, there had to be a
problem on the job site; the offices weren't open yet, and
it was currently late evening in the U.S.
He picked
up the phone. "Laughlin."
The hollow quality of the
long silence told him this call was originating in the
United States after all. He relaxed; Tess did sometimes call
at this god-awful hour. She was a night owl, and knew when
to catch him at home.
But it was a man's voice he
heard. "Mr. Laughlin? My name is Neal Delaney. I'm a
detective with the Seattle Police Department."
Matt
groped behind him for a stool and sank onto it. His hand
tightened on the phone until the plastic creaked. "Tess?
Tell me my sister is all right. And Hanna." God, Hanna. Had
they been in a car accident?
Waiting out the silence
stripped his nerves raw.
"I'm afraid I have bad news.
Your sister is dead."
"How?" he asked in a hard
voice. "What about Hanna?"
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