LITMIR.BIZ

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      Lilli turned her attention to the next carton. She struck out again. “And he’s going to take the case.”

      Anne shifted around so that she could see her daughter’s face. “And?”

      Third time was the charm. With a triumphant sigh, Lilli removed the dark gray metal box from the last carton she’d opened. In the background, she heard the familiar, soothing theme song of one of Jonathan’s favorite afternoon programs, an imaginative show where a robot given to self-repairing took his viewers through the vivid pages of history.

      As she opened the metal box, Lilli glanced at her mother.

      “And?” she echoed, unclear as to what her mother was driving at. She took a guess. “And he told me he thinks we have a good chance to win even though the woman is—” she dropped her voice and came closer to her mother, not wanting to take a chance that Jonathan might overhear her “—the first known recorded case of a barracuda without fins.”

      Despite the fact that the woman was making her life a living hell, Lilli was not about to bad-mouth Elizabeth—or the man who had, through no desire of his own, been his father. Jonathan deserved better than that. She wanted her son to grow up exposed to as little hatred as was humanly possible. God knew there would be time enough for him to see what the world could be like when he became an adult.

      Her mother continued to eye her. Lilli got the distinct impression that she was waiting for something more.

      And then she asked, “Didn’t you say that you once dated him?”

      Caught completely off guard when her mother had produced Kullen’s name out of the blue, saying that she had a referral from a reliable source that Kullen Manetti was an excellent lawyer, Lilli had been forced to explain why she’d appeared so stunned. She had fallen back on a half truth. She’d admitted that she’d known him in college and that they’d gone out a couple of times. She had deliberately avoided telling her mother that Kullen had proposed to her and that she’d left town right after that.

      She had left not because she’d discovered that she was pregnant, but because she had been afraid that she would allow her fears to get the better of her and would say yes to Kullen. And then she would have had to tell him that the baby wasn’t his. To have allowed him to think that he was the father would have been the very height of deception. She’d had no doubt that Kullen would have always wondered if she’d married him because she’d loved him, or as a matter of convenience. That would be no way to run a marriage.

      So she’d left. Left without telling him anything because it was too hard to share the shame of what had happened. Or worse, for him to have insisted on going through with the wedding and marrying her out of pity.

      She knew logically that none of this had been her fault, but somehow, she still felt as if it was.

      Until she held Jonathan in her arms.

      The moment she looked down into his small, perfect little face, the love that welled up within her drove out everything—guilt, shame, anger. All that remained was love.

      And that love was fiercely protective. No way in hell was she going to allow Elizabeth Dalton to get her grasping, perfectly manicured hands on Jonathan.

      “Yes,” she admitted, “I did say that.” She was in no mood for a chorus of “Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me A Match.” “Mother,” she said pointedly, “I’m up to my neck in the fight of my life. This is no time to play the dating game.”

      Never one to push, Anne nodded. “I’m sorry, dear, you’re right. I was just looking for a way to divert you and alleviate your tension.”

      Having retrieved Jonathan’s birth certificate, Lilli took out several other legal documents and began to feed them into the scanner. She wasn’t about to take a chance on losing anything.

      “What would really alleviate my tension,” she told her mother, “is if that woman would disappear from the face of the earth.”

      “You know,” Anne began thoughtfully, “my cousin Sal knows a few people who—”

      Dear God, her mother wasn’t taking her seriously, was she? “Mother!” Lilli cried sharply.

      “Just kidding,” Anne countered. “Sadly, the only people my cousin Sal knows are gambling addicts. They wouldn’t be any help in a situation like this.” She watched as Lilli scanned another document. In less than a minute, the printer spit out a perfect copy. “What is it you’re doing?” she asked.

      “I told Kullen that I’d bring by these documents he wanted tonight.”

      A note of concern entered Anne’s voice. “You’re going to his office at night?” While Bedford had been deemed one of the safest cities in the country with a population of over one hundred thousand for several years in a row now, Anne was never one to tempt fate.

      Lilli briefly thought of just nodding and letting the matter go, allowing her mother to think that she was going back to meet with Kullen in his office. But that would be lying, if only by omission, and she didn’t believe in lying. The most she ever did was keep her own counsel, refraining from going into detail. Even her mother didn’t know the full story surrounding Jonathan’s conception. Mercifully, her mother respected her privacy. She couldn’t pay her back by letting her believe what wasn’t true.

      “I’m bringing these over to his house.” Another sheet emerged from the printer and she added it to the others.

      “Oh.”

      Lilli’s head shot up. The two-letter word sounded far more pregnant than she had ever been. “Not oh, Mom. It’s just more convenient that way, that’s all.”

      Anne nodded, a knowing smile curving her mouth. “Yes, I know.”

      No, you don’t. “Kullen needs to get up to speed as fast as possible.”

      Anne seemed to struggle to keep the grin from taking over her entire face. “And can he? Get up to speed fast?”

      All that was missing was a nudge-nudge, wink-wink comment. “Mother, if you’re asking me if I ever slept with Kullen Manetti, no, I never slept with him.”

      Anne held up her hands as if to innocently fend off another volley of words. “I didn’t ask.”

      “Not in so many words,” Lilli allowed, “but, yes, you did.”

      Anne sighed, shaking her head. It was obvious her mother’s heart literally ached to see her look so upset.

      She sighed. “Too bad that you and Erik weren’t able to work things out. Then, even though he died in that accident, maybe all this could have been avoided.”

      She’d never told her mother the circumstances involved in her getting pregnant. The words rose up now, scratching her throat, trying to get free. But if her mother knew the truth, it would only cause her anguish. And although Lilli would feel better finally telling someone, finally getting it all out in the open, she couldn’t do it at the price of wounding her mother.

      So she kept her peace and nodded. “Yes, too bad. But all that’s water under the bridge, as Grandma used to say. And who knows, Mrs. Dalton might have still wanted to fight me for Jonathan’s custody. She lost her only son and she seems to think that you can replace one person with another as long as the gene pool is basically the same.”

      Slightly shorter than her daughter, Anne ran her hand over her daughter’s blond hair, an endless font of love evident in the simple gesture.

      “Sure you don’t want me to go over there and have a talk with her?” she offered. “I’m more than willing to do it.”

      Lilli laughed, shaking her head. “No thanks, Mom. One battle in court is about all I can handle at a time. There’s no telling what you might do. I saw you get angry once,” she recalled. “Not a pretty sight.”

      “Offer’s

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