Home in Carolina (10 page)

“Actually, I was thinking maybe I should reschedule,” Sarah told her. “I found a sitter at the last minute, but I don’t really know her. I probably shouldn’t stay.”

“Sounds like cold feet,” Helen said.

Sarah stared at her blankly. “What do you mean?”

“Just that you came in here with an excuse all ready for not going through with whatever made you set up the appointment in the first place.”

For an instant it seemed Sarah might argue, but eventually she sighed. “You caught me. Annie kind of talked me into coming to see you, and then I had second thoughts.”

“Is this about a divorce?” Helen asked, her tone a lot more gentle than it might have been a couple of years ago. Since marrying Erik, she’d discovered the dynamics of a marriage could be incredibly complex, and the prospect of ending it was never as cut-and-dried as she’d previously assumed.

Sarah nodded.

“Do you want the divorce or is it your husband’s idea?”

“That’s the thing. Nobody’s mentioned it yet, but I
just know it’s coming. I’m pretty sure Walter’s already seen a lawyer. I guess what we’re doing right now is a trial separation, though nobody called it that, either. I want to be prepared.”

“Do you want to fight it?”

“I did. When I first came home for this break to get myself together, I wanted to do whatever it took to save my marriage.” She lifted her chin and met Helen’s gaze. “Now I want to do what’s best for me and the kids. I don’t think that’s going back to Alabama and my marriage.”

“Do you want to initiate proceedings?”

Sarah looked startled by the question. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve been so busy worrying about what would happen when Walter—he’s my husband—filed and insisted on full custody of Tommy that I never for one minute thought about taking charge and going after what I want.”

“Which is?”

“I want to stay in Serenity and raise my kids right here,
both
of my kids,” she stressed.

Helen jotted down some notes. “Are you saying that you think your husband’s only going to try to get full custody of your son?”

Sarah nodded. “Pretty archaic, isn’t it? His whole family just wants to be sure there’s a son to inherit the family business.”

Helen was appalled. “You’re kidding me! He would split the children up, basically reject your daughter?”

“I can’t swear to it, but that’s what he’s been hinting at for months now. It’s like he wants to divvy up the kids the same way he’d split the china and silver between us.”

“Not going to happen,” Helen said direly. “I’ll see to that. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, the fact that he
would even consider such a request is grounds to declare him an unfit parent.”

Sarah’s expression turned hopeful. “Then we could fight him? We’d have a good case?”

“Absolutely.” She met Sarah’s worried gaze. “Sweetie, I do not want to push you into doing anything you’re not ready to do, but if you’re certain that a divorce is the next step, I would encourage you to establish residency back here again as quickly as possible, make sure all the utilities are in your name, register to vote, get the house in your name, if you can. Get a job, even if it’s part-time. Then file here, before he can file over in Alabama. You want this fight on your turf, if at all possible.”

Sarah looked a little overwhelmed by the lengthy list of instructions.

“Thank you so much, Ms. Decatur,” Sarah said. “I’ll think about everything you said. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve made a decision.”

“It’s Helen. And don’t wait too long, Sarah. Think about what you want, about what’s best. If you decide you want to fight for your marriage, there are some counselors I can recommend.”

Sarah gave her a rueful look. “As if Walter would ever agree to see anyone. He thinks I’m the only one who needs to change.”

Helen cringed. How often had she heard those exact words? And ninety percent of the time, the assessment came from the men most in need of help.

“How long is he expecting you to be away?”

“Until I’m fixed,” Sarah said, her tone wry.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m supposed to lose weight, learn how to manage the
kids and figure out how to run a household to the high standards of the Price family. I’m not sure there’s a time frame long enough for me to accomplish all that to his satisfaction.”

“Which makes divorce a near-certainty, then, doesn’t it?” Helen said.

Sarah sighed. “I suppose it does.” She shook off the hesitancy, then said, “I
know
it does.”

“Then make sure it’s on your terms,” Helen told her. “And I’ll be honest with you, from the very little bit you’ve already told me, I’d say you’ll be well rid of him.”

“Annie says the same thing.”

Helen seized on that. “Has she ever met him?”

“No, she’s just going by what I’ve said.”

“Too bad. It would be nice to have her as a witness.”

“The only people who know Walter well are in Alabama and they’ll all take his side,” Sarah said. “His family practically owns the town we live in.”

“Then all the more reason to file here.”

“I know you’re right. It’s just such a huge step, you know.”

“I do know, and only you can make the decision. Just think about the consequences of waiting around until he acts.”

Sarah stood a little taller then and a hint of resolve stole over her face. “I’ll be back tomorrow, if that’s okay.”

“Call me first thing in the morning and I’ll see that we fit you into the schedule,” Helen said, relieved that she’d apparently gotten through to her.

Over the years she’d discovered that there was an early balancing act to be done with a prospective new client. She never wanted to tip the scales in favor of divorce if
there was any chance at all of reconciliation, but she was experienced at recognizing the signs when divorce was inevitable. This was one of those times.

“It’s going to be okay, Sarah. I promise you. When I go into court, I fight to win.”

Sarah didn’t look entirely convinced, but she did look more at peace than she had when she’d first arrived.

After she’d gone, Helen sat back and thought about the conversation. For years the women—and sometimes men—she’d fought for had been her own age or older. They were, more often than not, divorces that hit as part of a midlife crisis, when one person or the other suddenly decided they needed to make a dramatic change. She’d dealt with cheaters and abusers, as well.

Sarah was the first client she’d handled from the next generation, someone still at the age when the future should have been at its brightest, the glow of marriage still incandescent.

Saddened by the meeting, she reached for her phone and dialed Erik’s cell.

“Hey you,” he said, the warmth in his tone immediately cheering her. “What’s up?”

“I just needed to hear your voice,” she admitted.

“Tough case?”

“One of Annie’s friends,” she told him. “She’s much too young to be a married mother of two, it seems to me, much less already talking about divorce.”

“Not everybody waits around till they hit forty to think about getting married the way you did,” he reminded her.

“Well, they should. I’m not sure it’s possible to understand just how rare and wonderful a good relationship is until you’re at least that old.”

“So you appreciate me,” he teased, his voice dropping. “Does that mean what I think it does?”

Helen laughed at the hopeful note in his voice. “I’ll fix Flo an extra cocktail tonight so she’ll sleep soundly. She should be out for the night by the time you get home.”

“Should I bring home some champagne?”

“No need,” she told him. “All I need is you.”

“Then isn’t it a good thing that you have me,” he said. “Always.”

Helen sighed happily. “It’s a very good thing.”

In fact, right this second she couldn’t imagine anything better.

T
y paced back and forth in Jay’s office waiting for the attorney to get off the phone. Just before the call had come in, he’d informed Ty that Dee-Dee had surfaced again, but they’d been interrupted before he could fill in the details.

By the time Jay eventually hung up, Ty had worked up a full head of steam.

“What did she want?” he demanded.

Jay regarded him blankly. “
She?
I was talking to Gus Davis,” Jay said.

“Not Gus, dammit. Dee-Dee. You said she’d been in touch again.”

“Settle down, Ty. I know this will upset you, but you have to think about what’s best for Trevor.”

“In other words, she wants to see him again,” Ty said, his heart sinking. It was exactly as he’d feared. Out of the blue, she suddenly wanted to be part of their son’s life again. If she could be counted on, maybe, just maybe, that would be okay. His greatest fear, though, was that she’d breeze in, Trevor would get attached to his mom, and Dee-Dee would lose interest. He had to prevent that at all costs.

He fought against the tide of dismay washing over him. “Why now?”

“She claims her life is more settled now. She’s engaged and expects to marry this fall. She wants a relationship with her son, and her fiancé…” He glanced down at his notes. “The fiancé’s a guy named Jim Foster and he’s backing her on this. I don’t know anything about him, but she made him sound like a pillar of the community.”

“I don’t care if he’s a candidate for sainthood—it’s too little and way too late,” Ty said heatedly. “She can’t just waltz in and turn my son’s life upside down.” He heard the hardhearted way he sounded and tried to calm down and focus on Trevor and whether or not it was time to let his mom into his life. He knew he simply couldn’t do that until he knew more.

Reining in his temper, he said, “Okay, what else? Your expression tells me there’s more.”

Jay nodded. “Look, I’m no family court lawyer, so you need to tell Tom Bristol everything I’ve told you. He’ll know best whether a judge is likely to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“But you think that’s likely, don’t you?” Ty said, the churning in his gut worsening.

“She made a compelling case to me,” Jay told him. “She says she wasn’t even twenty when she had Trevor, that she had no job and she panicked at the thought of raising him all on her own, so she gave him to you because she knew you’d be able to provide for him. Now with her life stable and a marriage coming up in a few months, she’s ready to handle the responsibilities of motherhood in a way she couldn’t back then.”

Jay met his gaze and said quietly, “I think you’d better sit down before I tell you the rest.”

Ty gave him an incredulous look and kept pacing. “Just spit it out,” he ordered, his heart thudding dully in his chest.

“She says because she’s going to be in a steady, permanent relationship and you’re not, she should be considered for full custody.”

Ty stopped in his tracks. “Over my dead body,” he said, his fury so overwhelming he could barely get the words out.

“Calm down,” Jay said. “Again, you need to go over all of this with Tom. Personally, I don’t think any judge will agree to full custody after what she did three years ago, but there’s certainly every chance she’ll be granted generous visitation rights.”

Ty tried to imagine his son slowly but surely being wooed away from him by a woman on a mission to reclaim him. It simply couldn’t happen. He loved Trevor. He’d raised him. No way was he going to allow his son to be stolen away from him. That Dee-Dee would even suggest going after full custody simply proved how selfish she was.

Of course, a voice in his head nagged, perhaps he was being no better, trying to keep his son to himself.

“Good God, what a mess,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair. “What am I supposed to do, Jay? Take my son and leave the country? I can’t let someone as irresponsible as Dee-Dee take him away from me. Visitations—preferably supervised—I suppose I can work that out, but that’s it. That’s as far as I’ll go, at least until Dee-Dee’s proved she’s trustworthy.”

“Okay, you need to focus here. A kid needs a relationship with his mother. Agreed?”

“If the circumstances are right, yes,” Ty conceded reluctantly.

“Then it won’t help anyone if you go running off and do something crazy. Right now, you have a strong case. You’ve been Trevor’s sole parent for most of his life, but if you do anything to make a judge question your parenting or your maturity, things could change in a hurry. Tom will tell you the same thing when you talk to him. I know that much.”

Trevor stuck to his guns. “There’s no way I’m going to calm down until someone proves to me that Dee-Dee has changed. Then we’ll have something to talk about.”

“I’m sure Tom has investigators who’ll be able to get you proof one way or the other. Let them do their job, Ty.” He regarded Ty with sympathy. “Look, I know how much you adore that little boy and that, in the end, you’ll do the right thing, whatever it turns out to be.”

Jay seemed to be giving him more credit than he deserved. Right now anger and fear were all twined together.

“I want to win,” Ty corrected. “I want to protect Trevor from a woman who’d abandon a tiny, defenseless baby in front of my hotel-room door.” It was an image he doubted he would ever get out of his head, no matter how much Dee-Dee had changed from the reckless, selfish woman she’d been back then.

“I have to get out of here,” he told Jay. “I need to speak to Tom and get him on this.” He stood up, ready to bolt, then turned back. “Look, I appreciate you being an intermediary with Dee-Dee. I have no idea why she called you. More than likely, it was because she knew you’d always know how to get in touch with me, but I appreciate that you’re caught in the middle now. I’ll try to take over from here on out.”

“No big deal,” Jay said. “Part of my job is to have your back, no matter what comes along. This is going to be okay, Ty.”

As he left the office, Ty wished he had Jay’s confidence. It wasn’t until he was in the elevator of the high-rise on his way down that he leaned back, closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.

This couldn’t be happening. Trevor was
his
son. Dee-Dee had given up her claim to him. She’d given up any right to call herself his mother. She might have carried him for nine months, but the second she’d realized that he didn’t come with Ty as a bonus, she’d lost interest. Surely any judge would see this sudden turnaround for the joke it was.

As soon as the elevator stopped, Ty emerged and crossed the building’s fancy marble lobby, anxious to get outside into the fresh air and sunshine. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed before he thought about what he was doing.

At the sound of Annie’s voice, he sucked in a sharp breath. He knew this call should have been to his family law attorney, but it was Annie’s voice he’d needed to hear.

“Hello?” she said again with a touch more impatience.

“Annie, it’s Ty.”

“Oh.” Her voice had gone flat.

He knew then that he couldn’t dump all of this on her. They’d barely exchanged a few dozen civilized words in weeks now. How could he suddenly tell her about Dee-Dee and a looming custody battle? What did he expect her to do? Listen? Sympathize? Offer advice?

At his silence, she asked, “Did you need something?”

“I just came out of a meeting and you were on my mind,” he said. “I shouldn’t have called.”

There was a faint hesitation, but then she said, “It’s okay. Didn’t the meeting go well?”

“It was a disaster,” he said.

“So naturally you thought of me,” she said wryly.

He chuckled. “I guess because you’re usually so good at putting things into perspective.”

“I suppose I could do that, if you want to tell me what happened.”

Surprised by her willingness, he suddenly didn’t want to spoil the rare moment of peace between them by bringing up a topic that was bound to ruin it. He backed up to the meeting he’d had earlier in the day at team headquarters.

“The team trainer was on my case about the progress I’m making, or more specifically, not making. He thinks I’d be better off doing rehab back here.” All of which was true. He’d just dismissed the idea.

“Maybe you would be,” she said.

Ty couldn’t quite tell if that was relief or disappointment he heard in her voice. She’d grown too good at hiding her emotions, at least from him.

“Come on, you know you’d miss me if I left,” he teased, keeping his tone light.

“Your mom certainly would,” she said, evading his point.

“Nice dodge,” he said. “One of these days, you’re going to let down your guard and admit you still care about me.”

“Don’t count on it,” she said.

It seemed to Ty there was less venom in her voice than usual. He took heart from that.

“I need to go,” she told him. “I have a client waiting.”

“Okay. I’ll probably see you tomorrow.”

“Bye.”

Before she could hang up, he called out to her.

“Yes?” she said.

“Thanks for taking my call.” Oddly enough, even though he’d never even mentioned why he’d originally made it, he felt better just for having heard her voice. He just wished he could count on her being by his side for this custody battle that was looming on the horizon.

Thoroughly flustered by her conversation with Ty and the unexpected lack of hostility on her part, she turned to find Maddie regarding her with curiosity.

“Was that Ty?” Maddie asked.

Annie nodded.

“I haven’t heard from him since he left town yesterday and yet he called you? Why is that?”

“I have no idea,” Annie said. “Take it up with him if he’s not checking in the way you think he should.”

Maddie chuckled. “Do you really think I care about that? I just want to know when you two started speaking again. This time yesterday you barely exchanged two words.”

“Don’t make too much of this. I have no idea why he called me. He said something about a tough meeting with the team trainer, who wants him to go back to Atlanta for rehab.”

Maddie stared at her incredulously. “Well, that’s obviously why. In his own roundabout way he was trying to get you to offer to take over his rehab. Did you agree to do it?”

“He didn’t ask.”

“Of course he didn’t ask directly,” Maddie said impatiently. “He thought you’d volunteer, or at least he hoped you would.”

“Well, I didn’t. I told him maybe he would do better in Atlanta.”

Maddie looked horrified by that. “Annie, what were you thinking? He belongs here.”

“Hold on a second, Maddie,” Annie said quietly. “I understand why you’d want that, but the resources he needs are in Atlanta. Keeping him here is selfish. We should all be thinking about what’s best for Ty and his shoulder, isn’t that right?”

For a moment, Maddie looked stunned by Annie’s reasoning. “Yes, of course,” she said at last, but there were tears in her eyes.

Annie felt awful when those tears spilled down Maddie’s cheeks. Awkwardly she gave her a hug. “I’m sorry. I should have kept my big mouth shut, especially when it doesn’t matter what I think. Ty’s determined to stay right here.”

“Really?” Maddie asked, her expression brightening.

Annie grinned and gave her a tissue. “See, you didn’t need to get all worked up. He never listens to me, anyway.”

“Oh, sweetie, that’s not true. Your opinion is probably the only one that matters.”

Annie doubted that, but she felt better for having reassured Maddie.

“Now even you can see why it’s more important than ever for you to take over his rehab,” Maddie told her. “No more excuses, Annie. Ty’s counting on you and so am I.”

Gee, pile on the guilt,
Annie thought, but deep down she knew she’d put off this decision for just about as long as she possibly could.

Rather than dwelling on the decision she needed to make, Annie opted once again to spend the evening at Sarah’s. Despite the frequently chaotic conditions, Annie had taken to hiding out there. It prevented cross-examina
tions by her mother and, for the most part, kept mentions of Ty to a minimum. Sarah had enough problems of her own without worrying too much about Annie and Ty.

And somehow they seemed to balance out each other’s issues with food. Annie kept Sarah on her diet and Sarah made sure Annie did more than simply push her meal around on her plate. Somehow she did it in a way that didn’t stir up Annie’s defenses the way nudging from Dana Sue would.

Annie had even grown used to having one or the other of the kids scrambling into her lap, smelling of talcum powder or, in Tommy’s case, the little-boy scent of sweat and grass from playing hard outside. Whenever she held Tommy and read him a bedtime story, she couldn’t help thinking of another little boy who was just a little older and wondering what it would be like to read to him, even to be a mom to him. She tried really hard not to let herself go there.

Tonight, though, it was Libby who’d reached out to her for cuddling. The pink bow in her silky blond hair was dangling askew and there was ketchup on her cheeks and on her clothes, but Annie scooped her up, anyway, as Sarah went to answer the phone.

Though they’d just been laughing, Sarah’s expression sobered at once.

“Of course your son is here,” she said. “Where else would he be? He’s two. It’s not as if he’d be out partying on his own.”

She stood there, stoically silent while her husband apparently ranted about something.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she said eventually. Whatever he said in response to that had her cheeks flaming.
“Don’t you dare speak to me that way, Walter Price. I am still your wife and the mother of your children, and you will show me some respect.” Then she slammed down the phone and stood there, trembling.

Alarmed, Annie set the baby down on the floor and went to her. “Are you okay?”

“He had the audacity to suggest that his mother should come over here and take the children home with her, since they’re too much for me.” She met Annie’s gaze. “You know what he’s doing, don’t you? He’s setting the stage for the custody battle. I just know it.”

Annie knew Sarah had seen Helen earlier, but Annie hadn’t wanted to ask questions. She’d left it to Sarah to reveal whatever she wanted Annie to know. Now, though, she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “You need to call Helen and tell her about this.”