“Of course, the judge will consider Melanie’s wishes before a final decision is reached—”
“She was terrified of the man, Barbara. Tell me that counts for something.”
“Of course her claims of abuse will be weighed carefully.” Barbara clasped her hands atop the folders in her lap. “But if you want your sister’s allegations to carry much weight with the court, you’re going to have to come up with something more than what you heard her say. Daniel will need to make a statement about the physical abuse. And you should start preparing him for the reality of seeing his father again.”
Josh sat beside her on the couch, the total breakdown of communication between him and his nephew hitting home. “He won’t talk to me. He won’t talk to anyone. When he finds out Curtis Jenkins is coming here, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”
“That’s why I’m giving you a heads-up before his father arrives. So you’ll have time to prepare your nephew. Maybe this will be the incentive Daniel needs to open up to you.”
Josh could only stare.
Daniel needed someone he could connect with. Someone he could trust. And all he knew about Josh was that he was one more person who’d let his mother down.
“You know I’m on your side,” Barbara continued. “I’ve sent the judge weekly briefs on how hard you’re trying to make this work. There are positive signs that Daniel’s bonding with you, even if the child’s room looks like he trashes it on a daily basis just to irritate you.”
“Thank you…I think,” Josh replied, uneasy with her backhanded praise.
“And I assure you,” she continued, “if there’s any evidence whatsoever that Daniel’s father is the kind of threat your sister claimed, it will be my personal mission to make sure Curtis Jenkins never gains custody of his son.”
The fierceness of both Barbara’s expression and her statement should have looked comical on such a tiny, unassuming person. But she was dead serious. She was the one ace up Josh’s sleeve, but even she couldn’t manufacture miracles. Daniel’s cooperation was the wild card, and Josh had never had a stomach for gambling.
“When do you expect this Jenkins man to show up?” he asked.
“Within the week. That’s the best I could tell from our conversation. You have the right to request a paternity test, and I strongly advise that you do. You’ll also want to bring your lawyer up to speed, in case he has any other sugges—”
The peal of a cell phone interrupted her.
They glanced across the room to find an otherwise silent Amy Loar standing in the doorway, a shocked, guilty expression on her face. It was clear as day why.
She’d been caught eavesdropping.
And who knew how much of his family’s dirty laundry she’d managed to overhear.
* * *
AMY WANTED TO DIE. Drop to the floor, slither out of the house and back to her car, and die.
Mortified, at a total loss to explain why she’d been listening in on Josh’s very private conversation about his sister, she turned around and made herself move into the hallway.
Melanie White had been abused. Her son, too, if Josh and the social worker’s suspicions were correct. What Amy wouldn’t give to forget every single word she’d just heard, for her sake as well as for Josh’s. She hurried toward the front door and answered her phone, if for no other reason than to stop the infernal ringing.
“Hello?” she mumbled, her hand shaking as she lifted the phone to her ear.
“Hello…Amy?” her mother replied. “I can barely hear you, dear.”
“What is it, Mama?” she whispered, hoping her voice wouldn’t carry into the next room. “I can’t talk right now—”
“Becky’s gone, honey. Is she there with you by any chance?”
“What? No, of course she’s not here.” Amy checked her watch. “She was in her room when I left. Does she usually go outside to play this time of day?”
“She never plays outside. Hasn’t made any friends to play with. She usually sits around the house all afternoon, reading.”
“Then where could she have gone?” An avalanche of worst-case scenarios tortured Amy. “You don’t think she’d really run away?”
“I don’t know, honey. Is there any place she might have gone? Maybe somewhere you’ve told her about around here?”
“No, I don’t think so. Have you—”
“I’ll check my calendar at the office.” The social worker stepped around Amy and opened the front door. Her cool glance conveyed her displeasure at Amy’s earlier intrusion.
“I’ll need to see Daniel within the next week,” she said to Josh. “My report is due to Judge Hardy.”
“I’ll bring him by your office.” Josh glowered at Amy, making her long to follow the other woman out the door.
The social worker left with a brief nod and another stern look in Amy’s direction.
“Are you there, dear?” Gwen was asking. “Amy?”
“I’ll call you right back.” Amy ended the call and made herself face Josh.
“What do you think you were doing?” His complexion took on a reddish hue beneath the late-day stubble of his beard. “You had no business listening to anything that was going on in that room.”
“I know.” She clasped her hands and fought the emotion shredding her voice. “And I didn’t mean to intrude, really. One minute I heard you yelling, and the next…there I was in the doorway.”
Her feeble excuse sounded so lame.
Because it is!
“And then I heard what Melanie and her son went through, and I—”
“And you couldn’t wait to hear more, is that it?” Josh dug his hands into his pockets, the motion so savage it was a wonder the seams didn’t give way. Yet somehow his combative stance made him appear more sad than angry. “Just like everyone else in town, you had to know all the details about my sister’s sordid mistakes, how it felt—”
“Trust me,” Amy said over his tirade, shamed to the soles of her feet. “I didn’t have to eavesdrop to know exactly how Melanie felt.”
The silence resonating through the room screamed that she’d revealed way more than she’d ever intended. She smoothed the front of her silk suit jacket and swallowed what little air her throat would allow in. She fought to ignore the echoes of all she herself was still running from.
“You have to know, Josh…” She gazed up at his shocked expression. “I’d be the last person to judge Melanie for what happened to her and Daniel. For doing whatever she had to do to protect her son and raise him on her own.”
Josh reached a hand toward her, his anger melting away. His brow furrowed when she edged out of his reach.
“Amy. I—”
Her phone jingled again.
“Becky!” She flipped open the phone. “Mama, is she back?”
“No, dear.” Her mother sounded worried, but not yet panicking. “I’m going to walk through the neighborhood and ask if anyone’s seen her. Is there anywhere you think she might have gone?”
“No. I can’t think of a single place in Sweetbrook I’ve talked with her about. She’s been so upset at the move, she didn’t want to hear anything from me.” Amy gave a start as Josh’s hand settled on her arm.
Comfort radiated from his touch, from the concern warming his pale blue eyes. Just like when they were kids, and she’d instinctively known he was the one person in town she could trust more than all the others. She shied away, the voice inside her she never quite managed to
silence warning that she couldn’t trust anyone anymore.
“Wait, Mama. There is one place. I used to tell her about the tree house. The one by the Millers’ pond. She knows that’s where I went when I wanted to be alone.”
Well, not quite alone. Recollection flickered across Josh’s features. He remembered their secret hideout, too.
“When she was a baby, I’d tell her bedtime stories about daydreaming up there. You don’t think…”
“It’s possible. Her bus passes the Miller place on the way to and from school.”
“I’m heading over there now.” Amy ended the call and turned to leave.
“Becky’s missing,” she explained over her shoulder. “I’ve got to find her.”
Josh stepped around her and opened the front door. With a raised eyebrow, he waited for her to move outside, then he followed, shutting the door behind them.
“You said you thought Becky might be at the Millers’ pond.” He checked his watch and waved for her to precede him down the winding walkway. “I’ve got at least an hour before Daniel turns up for dinner. Let’s go find your daughter.”
* * *
AS JOSH PULLED his SUV away from the house and headed across town to the Miller farm, he glanced toward his passenger. The composed businesswoman who’d rung his doorbell was gone. In her place was a parent terrified for her child.
He’d offered to drive his car, not really expecting her to accept after their confrontation in the foyer. But Amy had acquiesced without a word. She’d even allowed him to help her step into the Range Rover, her focus clearly on Becky, her defenses momentarily down in a way that made it impossible for him not to do whatever he could to help, no matter how badly they’d gotten off on the wrong foot. She looked so small and miserable huddling beside him, the strength he’d always admired in her weakened by her fear for Becky. Maybe fear of even more.
She’d said she knew exactly how Melanie had felt. The empathy in Amy’s eyes as she’d spoken… Something told Josh she wasn’t just talking about her failed marriage or her own struggles as a single mom. His sister had survived an abusive relationship. Josh’s fists clenched around the steering wheel at the thought of Amy living through the same kind of hell.
He hadn’t liked Richard Reese and his slick, big-city indifference. But the man had seemed to care for Amy in his own way. He hadn’t seemed like the type to—
“Becky was so angry at me before I left my mother’s,” Amy muttered more to herself than to him. Her fingers were fiddling nonstop with the heart-shaped pendant suspended from a chain around her neck. “Nothing I do, nothing I say, seems to make a dent anymore.”
“We’ll find her.” He kept both hands on the wheel, remembering how Amy had skirted out of his reach when he’d tried to comfort her before. The lady wore her hands-off policy like a bulletproof vest.
“Sometimes kids need their space,” he offered. “Daniel had just stormed away from me before you and Barbara arrived this afternoon.”
“Daniel?” Amy’s not-quite-focused gaze met his.
“My nephew.” Josh took the left fork before Hudson’s Bridge. “The last place he seems to want to be these days is in the house with me. Most afternoons, he takes off for parts unknown. Turns up for dinner every night, though. Becky will, too. Don’t worry. Sweetbrook’s still a fairly safe place.”
“She said she’d run away if I didn’t take her back to Atlanta with me.”
“Kids say a lot of things.”
“Yeah, but what if she meant it?” Amy gazed out the window at the passing farmland. “I haven’t been home for more than a few hours, and my daughter can’t wait to get away from me.”
“She’s an angry little girl,” he agreed with a nod. He’d give anything to ease Amy’s anxiety, but where would that get Becky? “How long has she been acting out like this?”
Amy stiffened beside him.
“You said you wanted to discuss her issues at school,” he reminded her.
Her eyes narrowing, she sat straighter in the seat.
“It all started when she began to notice the…the problems between her father and me. I think she was seven or eight. By the time I divorced him, she’d graduated to hating him and blaming me for everything.”
“Because you left her father?”
“Because I didn’t leave him sooner.” Amy stared at the dashboard, as if it was vital that she memorize every dial and display. “It seems you were right about Richard, after all.”
“Where’s he now?” Josh asked, as if he understood. Meanwhile his list of questions was growing by the second.
“Out of the picture.”
Her statement was determined. Almost menacing.
Josh recognized the tone. He’d heard it before, the few times Melanie had talked about Curtis Jenkins. As if the man was dead and buried.
Okay, no more questions about the ex.
“Was Becky getting into fights at school before she moved in with Gwen?” he asked. “Was she picking on the other kids in her class?”
Blue eyes that had always been darker than his widened.
“No.” Amy’s lips trembled as she spoke. “Becky’s always been so sweet, so open and friendly with everyone. That’s part of what makes this so hard.”
Amy’s attention shifted back to the windshield, though he doubted she actually saw the pastureland rolling by as they left the town behind.
“Becky’s changed over the last few years,” she continued. “Since she realized things weren’t right between her father and me. Her behavior grew even worse after the divorce was finalized, and I had to start supporting us entirely on my own.”
“Gwen said you work a lot of long hours.” More disappointment than he’d intended made its way into his voice.
Amy’s expression hardened. “Most single working mothers do, Josh.”
She shook her head, as if he were about the stupidest man she’d ever stumbled across.
“To the point where their kids have to move to another state to live with relatives?” He sounded like a judgmental jerk. It wasn’t his place to critique her life choices now, any more than it had been twelve years ago. But what else could he say in response to her circular logic? Amy was too smart to really believe that her success at work justified the damage she was doing to her relationship with her daughter.
“Don’t you dare criticize me,” she spat. “You don’t have the first clue what you’re talking about.”
“Then explain it to me. ’Cause I can hear the guilt in your voice. You’re blaming yourself for all of this, just as much as you say Becky is. But you talk like you don’t have a choice. Like you really believe this job of yours is more important than keeping your daughter with you. You couldn’t possibly need the money that badly.”
“Spoken like someone who’s been swimming in his inheritance his entire life. My job is the only thing standing between my family and our only other option. I either make this work on my own, or we go back to depending on Becky’s father.” She shivered at the thought, then pulled herself together right before Josh’s eyes. “And if you were walking in my shoes, you and your moral certainty would compromise every last principle you had to make sure that didn’t happen. Besides, if you’re such an expert on raising kids, where’s your family? Last I heard, you’d married your all-American girl straight out of college. Now you’re living in your parents’ house, raising your sister’s child alone.”
Josh took his turn staring
out the windshield at nothing in particular. He deserved the question, after jumping down her throat. And if the fear in her voice was any indication, Richard Reese deserved to be beaten within an inch of his life for doing whatever he’d done to leave her literally shaking at the thought of going back to him.
“I never had kids,” Josh said simply, hoping that would be enough. Which of course it wasn’t.
“You and your wife…?”
“Lisa and I couldn’t conceive naturally.” His jaw clenched as he spoke his ex’s name. “Before we could try other methods, she… We divorced. Turns out we both wanted something else more than we wanted each other. She wanted a new life in a more exciting place, and I wanted a family here in Sweetbrook. It wasn’t a recipe for a happy marriage.”
“Ah. The career woman spurning the wealthy, small-town boy.” Amy turned to look out her window. “That explains a lot.”
Her sarcasm goaded him, as he was certain she’d intended. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that she was the one who didn’t know what she was talking about. But then again, maybe she did.
The Miller farm came into view. The pond fronted the property, set back about a quarter of a mile from the road. The enormous oak that harbored the tree house held court at the water’s edge. Josh swallowed the angry words he’d been about to sling at his passenger, and concentrated on leaving the asphalt behind and navigating the dirt path that would take them closer to the water.
“There it is.” Amy pointed to the tree. “It looks exactly the same.”
She shook her head in disbelief, reminding him that it had been ages since she’d been back. Her attention zeroed in on the tree fort.
“Do you see anyone in it? Please tell me she’s up there.”
Anxiety and guilt turned her simple plea into a prayer, reaffirming what Josh had pretty much figured out already. Amy Loar might be a woman sorely in need of a priority adjustment when it came to her child’s needs, but he’d been way off base thinking she’d dumped Becky in Sweetbrook just to get the kid out of her hair. Amy didn’t need him on her back about her decisions. She was already raking herself over the coals.
A Sweetbrook Family (You, Me & the Kids) Page 7
