by Annie Jones
“Of course. Everyone in town knows that, Riley. Everyone knows how hard you and your daddy worked to keep this place going and how, after your father died, you grew it into one of the finest family-owned—”
“Family.” With that one, all-important word, he cut into whatever pretty speech he supposed she expected to make. “That’s what it’s all about, Carol. My family started this place and it was for them that I kept right on building it. Everything I have today, the big house, the big bank accounts, the Walker name and all it stands for...I owe to my family.”
“Understood.” She laid the pen and papers on the edge of his desk, where he could still see them from the corner of his eye, then reached out her hand but did not touch him. “But you have to understand, too, that family is what I’m talking about preserving.”
“By dredging up every humiliating mistake my sister ever made?” He turned to her. He could actually feel his pulse ticking along the tight cords of his neck as he poured his reined-in emotions into one more quiet question. “By tearing open old wounds just so you can point them out to everyone in town and show us all how deep and ugly they truly are?”
Carol took a step away
“We’ve made every effort to find my sister. We’ve hired detectives and posted the proper notices in major newspapers, used every kind of social media out there. All we’ve ever gotten is just enough to know that Marcia is alive, that she holds a job from time to time, that she doesn’t stay in one place very long, and that she isn’t remotely interested in coming back to Deepwoods.”
“Oh, we know one more thing, Riley.”
“What’s that?”
“We know that she hasn’t come forward to renounce her parental rights to Wendy.” The kick-in-the-gut reality of that statement hung in the air between them. “Riley, she knows that’s why you’re looking for her and she isn’t cooperating with it. That won’t make things any easier in court.”
“But when I first talked to you about this, you said—”
“When you first broached the subject of legally adopting Wendy, things were very different than they are now.”
“Momma,” he said quietly.
“You have to face the fact that when your mother fell and broke her hip last week, it changed the entire dynamic of your home life. Before she fell, your mother’s presence in your home was one of your greatest assets in showing a judge you could provide an outstanding home life for Wendy Now your mother is a liability.”
“Are you saying Momma’s injury could keep them from letting me adopt Wendy?”
“I’m saying you have to think of how it looks to a judge. You’re a workaholic man who has thus far depended on the help of his mother as primary caregiver for the child. Now his mother is incapacitated, perhaps even in need of as much or more care than the child in question.”
“Granted, it doesn’t sound good when you put it that way.” He dragged his calloused thumb down the length of his bristled jawline. “But I’ve also made some major changes. I sold the mill, freed up my own time to care for Wendy. I’m still looking to move out of Deepwoods to a better environment for her, still expecting to reinvest in a new company or even to start over. Won’t that help my position?”
“Maybe. Yes. If it were a reality. The move, the improved environment, those would help, I’m sure. But starting over? The amount of time, money, and energy that would take, not to mention the potential financial risk, would be three strikes against you, in my opinion.” She frowned. “Your priority must be to link up with an established, prospering business, like that Fulton deal provided. When you lost that, you lost out big.”
He lifted his head, sharp and quick, wishing he could refute her claim—and knowing there was nothing he could say to deny the truth of it.
“The way I see it, Riley, barring another drastic change in your circumstances your best hope is to show that, flawed though you may be, you are infinitely better able and willing to care for Wendy than your sister.” She put her hand to her temple, the strain of the moment etching worry lines between her plucked eyebrows. “We have to show them that they have no other real choice but to strip Marcia of her rights and grant those rights to you alone.”
Riley put his head in his hands. Flawed though you may be...workaholic man...you don’t have anything lined up, lost out big time...mother incapacitated...strip Marcia of her rights. The phrases went spinning through his mind faster than he could grasp their deeper implications.
“Your sister is the one who walked out on Wendy while that child was still in the hospital bassinet.” Carol did not let him take the time to sort through his jumbled thoughts. “You and your mother have raised that little girl, provided her sole support, financially, spiritually, emotionally and...and...”
She wasn’t saying a thing he didn’t already know. He narrowed his eyes and jerked his head once, quick, to the right, making his neck pop, resulting in a sound like a couple of muffled firecrackers.
She must have seen her tact failing as she suddenly cut herself off. Her whole attitude softened. She smiled and cast her eyes downward—that fine Southern belle contrivance that implied deference to a man when, in fact, manipulation was the goal.
Riley cocked his head to one side and stifled a cynical grin. No dose of Southern female charm would get to him. He’d brought up a daughter who had been born with the ability to wrap him around her finger from her very fist innocent coo. He’d watched his own sister get whatever she wanted from lovesick men with a look, a pout, and—should those fail—other things. Much as he adored the women in his family, he saw straight through their devices. That, he supposed, was one reason why he never married.
He recognized every feminine trick and felt immune to them all.
He kicked his boots up onto the corner of his desk and crossed one ankle over the other. He cared for Carol, maybe not as much as she did for him, but he did care about her feelings and opinions. It wasn’t like him to think so unkindly about anyone, least of all someone trying to help him.
All this mess...Momma’s fall, the pending adoption hearing, the harshness of Carol’s recommendation, they all colored his perception right now, he guessed. Carol’s suggestion most of all.
He glanced up to find her watching him. He sighed. “I’d have liked to have thought that you, who have been my lawyer for the last four years and my...”
A glimmer of hope shone for a moment in Carol’s eyes.
It hurt Riley that he could not justify that hope with sweet romantic assurances. “You, who have been such a close friend, would have known me well enough to understand that I would never do what you’re asking. I’d liked to think you saw me as a man with more integrity, more compassion than to stoop to that level.”
“You have to do whatever it takes to ensure that child a stable environment.” She planted her palms flat on the desk and honed in on him. “You know you’re the only father figure that child has ever had, Riley.”
Father figure. The expression hit Riley like a slap in the face. He knew she’d only thrown out the term as a tactic, but to him it was so much more.
Wendy was his daughter. She had been his since that first day when he’d lifted the tiny bundle from her cradle and realized that if he did not shelter her, nurture her, discipline her...if he did not love her, nobody on earth would. Though legalities might say otherwise, Wendy was his little girl. It always made his blood run cold whenever anyone went to great pains to remind him that she was not.
If he were in-your-face honest with himself, he’d admit that at the core of that ice-in-the-veins response was one overriding, gut-wrenching emotion: fear. What did he know about raising a little girl, after all? What if he made the wrong choices or said or did the wrong things? How easily that delicate spirit could be crushed. The responsibility was awesome some days.
He rubbed his palms together in a slow, circular motion.
How could these clumsy work-hardened hands of his be counted on to tie a hair ribbon, bandage a sc
raped knee, or wipe away the tears of that first broken heart? With Momma aging and now disabled, his decision to follow through on full, legal adoption, meant that was exactly what he was preparing to do. He would move from father figure to full-fledged father in the stroke of a judge’s pen.
He looked down at the pen on his desk and he saw in a flash of memory the tenderness the woman in Fulton’s Dominion had shown. Like Carol, she was ready to go for the throat to get what she wanted, but she had known when it was time to put aside ruthlessness and to show mercy and kindness.
There was a lesson in that he could not forsake. Scared as he was at the prospect of becoming Wendy’s father, Riley would do what he must. But not at all costs.
“No. I won’t do it, Carol.” He slashed his hand through the air. “I know you don’t like to lose, in court or...at anything. I know you would do whatever it took to keep the odds in your favor, to make sure you don’t lose. But this is going too far.”
“There is no such thing as too far. Not when so much is at stake.” The passionate fire she usually reserved for the courtroom flushed in her face and gave a hushed urgency to her words. “I’d think you would take some measure of comfort in my unwillingness to lose, seeing as how in this case, I’m fighting for the thing you value most in life.”
“It’s because of my family, Carol, that I can’t do this. You’re talking about publicly trashing not just my sister or my aging, injured Momma’s only other child, but Wendy’s mother. Your...what did you call it? Slash and burn? Your slash-and- burn attitude just won’t cut it this time.”
He glanced down at his desk to avoid eye contact with the woman, to avoid more bad blood and hurt feelings between them. Without warning, the glint of a golden frame caught his eye, and he found himself staring straight into the face of the little girl at the heart of this whole twisted matter.
Dark brown hair, pink cheeks, and a pair of sparkling green eyes so full of joy and love that it humbled him every time he looked into them. That was his Wendy. That was his little girl. As much as he loved that child, he understood Momma loved her only daughter every bit as much. And angry as he could feel toward his sister for the things she had put them all through, Riley loved her, too. He loved her for the little girl she had once been and the woman he prayed each night she would someday finally become.
How could he go into a court of law and systematically rip to shreds, degrade, and humiliate her—and in so doing, probably destroy the chance of his prayers for Marcia ever coming true? How could he make it impossible for Marcia to return, to see what a wonderful child Wendy was, to hug and hold their Momma again?
He gripped the arm of his chair until he could feel the roughened grain of the wood in his palm. His lips twitched with barely controlled emotion as he fixed his gaze on Carol. “I suggest you see if you can’t come up with a better way to solidify my position in court. Because I will not sacrifice even one person I care for in the hopes of making myself look better by contrast.”
“If you aren’t going to take my advice, Riley—”
“Yeah, yeah, world of hurt. I got it. Now let it go, would you?” He rubbed his eyelids with his crooked knuckles, giving only a moment’s relief to his dry, burning eyes.
“If you are not going to take this seriously—”
Riley stood so quickly he tipped his chair over. He did not even flinch as it bounced once on the wooden floor then skidded to a crash against the wall. “Don’t ever imply again that I am not taking my family’s welfare seriously. To my way of thinking it’s you who aren’t taking me seriously. If you were, you’d find me other options to shore up my case.”
“I’m sorry—” she held her hands up in a show of helplessness that no man who could see the fire in her eyes would believe—”but I just don’t see any.”
“Then maybe I should find someone who does.”
“Maybe you should.” She snatched up the private investigator’s form, but left her Valentine’s Day pen lying on the desk.
Riley recognized that ploy as well. Leaving the pen was a threat, a way of daring him to chose. Pick up the pen and sign the paper or leave it and lose her. With that seemingly innocent gesture, she was calling his bluff. What the lady lawyer obviously still could not understand about him was that where his family’s well-being was concerned, he never bluffed.
“Then send me the bill for the work you’ve already done.”
“Wh-what?”
The harsh jangle of the phone seemed to underscore the ragged edge of the tension between them.
“If you can’t find a better way to help me make sure I keep Wendy, I’ll just have to find someone who will.” He spoke softly, in marked contrast to the jarring ring of the phone again.
“But I...we...” Beneath the perfect tones of her makeup, her face went pale.
“I’m through playing your games, Carol. I’ve never been anything but up-front with you professionally and personally. You’re telling me that you only see one way to handle this case. Well, that way won’t do. So I guess I have to find another way without you.”
He took her by the elbow, walked her across the room, kissed her lightly on the cheek, then nudged her out of his office. “Good-bye, Carol.”
He shut and locked the door before she could so much as squeak in protest, then turned and walked across the room to answer the phone.
Chapter Five
“Heard a rumor about you—and it had better be a rumor, too—that you went plumb out of your head this evening. Up and fired Carol as your lawyer. Just like that.” Momma’s wrinkled old fingers gave a quiet snap, like someone stepping on a small twig on a dusty path. “Now, tell me that ain’t true, boy.”
“Can’t tell you that, Momma.” Riley leaned over the hospital bed and brushed a kiss over her cool cheek. “‘Cause then you’d have to hop right up off that bed and wallop me for fibbing to you, and I just know your physical therapist would have both our hides for that.”
Despite her obvious irritation with him, she granted him a smile that shone clear into the depths of her eyes. “You’re a troublement, that’s what you are, Riley Aaron Walker. A pure troublement.”
“Then I must be a figment of your imagination, dear mother of mine, because there is no such-of-a word.” He gripped the handrail just a hair’s breath away from where Momma’s frail arm rested atop the thin hospital blanket.
“Pshaw.” She rolled her eyes, and though she turned her head away for a moment, not a hair of her steel blue-gray permed hairdo moved out of place. “If I was going to make something up out of my own imagination, it’d be a sight prettier to look at than some fret-faced child of mine clomping around a hospital in raggedy work clothes and muddy boots.”
He chuckled at her gentle, teasing reprimand. “Sorry, I didn’t have time to change. I got a phone call right after...right after Carol and I parted company. At first I was too irritated to put up with the fellow’s roundabout way of getting to his point but then...well, he’s a lawyer and it looks like I need a new lawyer, so I heard him out.”
“So it is true about you and Carol?” Momma fumbled with the buttons on the control beside her pillow. The bed whirred and raised her upper body into a half-sitting slant. She flinched, shut her eyes then let out a long, slow breath.
Riley curled his fingers around the handrail, helpless to do anything to ease her discomfort.
When she opened her eyes again, she managed a sweet if not entirely convincing smile.
Riley studied her. “I think you knew it was true before you even asked, didn’t you? How’d you find out? Did Carol call her sister down in admitting and tell her so that now the whole hospital knows?”
“Something like that. I don’t know if the whole hospital knows, of course. There may be someone in isolation or ICU that hasn’t been allowed a visitor yet to share all the good gossip.”
He pulled his shoulders back, speaking loudly enough for anyone who might be lingering over their duties in the hallway to hear. “Someday,
Momma, I am going to move to the biggest city I can stand and start over where not a soul cares about who I see or don’t see or any other thing about my personal life.”
Momma gave a gentile snort. “Be easier to get yourself a wife and settle down right here or nearby so that nobody would care so much about your personal life anymore.” She gave him a nod that he supposed meant she thought this solution was the best for everyone involved.
The clatter of plastic wheels and metal containers carried in from the open door at his back. The distinct aroma of hospital food, if anything as bland as pasty mashed potatoes and green gelatin could be said to have a distinct aroma, wafted in from the hallway.
“Mmmm. Smells like its dinnertime.” He didn’t even sound convincing to himself.
Momma’s expression soured. “Smells like someone’s boiling flour and water to me. When are you going to spring me from this voodoo boardinghouse and get me home so I can whip up a real meal?”
Just the thought of Momma’s cooking made Riley’s stomach grumble. He put his hand over the flat muscles of his belly and laughed. “You have no idea how much I’d love to do that. Wendy is so sick of my cooking she’s wrangled herself invites to dinner with friends every night this week. I’ll need to go pick her up pretty soon now.”
“Not without giving me more details, you won’t.” Her eyes twinkled, but the shadow of underlying pain gave her face a gray pallor. She angled her shoulders ever so slightly in his direction and exhaled loudly at the effort. All joking faded from her expression as she brushed her fingers over his. “So, it’s a done deal with you and Carol, then? You’ve broken things off for good?”
The hint of hope in her tone told Riley she wanted to hear a retraction, to have him deny the rumor and reassure her that everything was going ahead without a hitch.
“Look, Mom, I...”
She seemed so small in that long, metal-framed bed in the stark, impersonal room. He’d never seen his mother look so small before, so fragile. She’d always been the fierce one, the go-getter, a woman of unfathomable faith in herself, her family, and her God. Now, lying there waiting for him to answer, she looked like some little old lady pleading with her eyes to hear that everything was going to work out right for her son and granddaughter.
