I shot Penelope a glance. Her eyes had narrowed and her lips were slightly puckered. It was just another secret she wasn’t pleased to hear.
I nudged my lawyer and he stood, moving immediately into his argument. The judge listened, but his gaze remained glued to me. And mine to Penelope. The only person who didn’t seem lost in their own agenda was Penelope’s lawyer. But then again, he cast a few glances in Penelope’s direction that made me wonder if there was more than a lawyer-client relationship going on there.
“Your Honor,” my temporary lawyer said, “my client was robbed of his only child’s infancy: his first steps, his first words, his first day of kindergarten. He was robbed of everything a parent holds dear about raising a child. It’s only fair that he be allowed to share in what is left of his son’s childhood.”
Penelope’s lawyer stood as my lawyer sat, clearing his throat before he began his own argument.
“Jonathon Tyler Monroe has been in the custody of the Monroe family since he was a day old. He has never known another family, another life. His parents entered into a contract with the boy’s biological mother with the understanding that the biological father had given up his rights. It is no fault of the Monroe family or JT himself that there was some sort of irregularity with the father’s signature. Please don’t punish this young man for the actions of people he’s never even met.”
Silence fell over the courtroom. The judge stared at me a moment longer, then his gaze shifted to Penelope.
“Why aren’t…” He consulted the papers his clerk had laid in front of him. “…Dale and Robin Monroe here in the courtroom?”
Penelope’s lawyer rose again as Penelope shot me a hateful glare.
“The Monroes were killed in a car accident three years ago, Your Honor. Ms. Monroe, their daughter, was granted custody in this court in May of that same year.”
The judge shifted his gaze back to me.
“Who do you suggest forged your signature on the adoption papers?”
My lawyer stood, but the judge waved his hand. “I’d prefer to hear from the complainant himself.”
I stood, clasping my hands in front of me in a proper show of respect.
“I was not aware any of this had taken place until several months ago. At that time, JT’s biological mother informed me that a lawyer had visited my home and gotten my signature. However, during the time period she stated this took place, I was a student at Stanford.”
“And that can be verified?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who do you think signed the paperwork in your place?”
Before I could answer, the judge gave his clerk a piece of paper that he brought to me. It was the back page of the adoption contract. Julia’s name was written in her juvenile scrawl. My name appeared above it. But it was clearly not my signature. This was neater, marked with curlicues that I recognized immediately. My heart sank, a realization I hadn’t considered sinking in.
I had so wanted to blame my father for this mess. But this…I could no longer continue to vilify my father when it was so obvious he wasn’t alone in his attempts to control the path of my life.
“Do you recognize that handwriting, Mr. Philips?” the judge asked.
I nodded slowly. “I do.”
“Could you tell me who you believe signed your name to those adoption papers?”
I set the paper down on the table and looked over at Penelope. She wasn’t the only one who’d lost something in all of this. She wasn’t the only one who would be forced to make a few difficult decisions as we continued to fight this out. She wasn’t the only victim of someone else’s lies.
“My mother.”
*****
The judge left the courtroom a few minutes later, promising to have a decision in fifteen minutes. I got up and walked to the side of the room, tugging my cellphone out of my pocket.
“Did you know?” I demanded the moment the line was answered on the other end.
“Know what?”
“I saw the papers. I saw the signature.”
“Harry…”
“Did you know it was Mom who signed my rights away?”
Libby hesitated and I felt betrayal wash over me like a heavy, oily mess. She had known.
“How long?”
“I didn’t know for sure. But when you told me about JT, I remembered something Mom had said just after Daddy’s funeral. Something about how glad she was that you didn’t have any complications, or else she and I might have been lost. It seemed odd at the time and I tried to ask her about it, but she refused to elaborate.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because there was no point. I had no proof. And you were so ready to blame Daddy—“
“You should have told me, Libby. I had a right to know.”
“And now you do. Does it change the situation? Does it make it any better or any worse for JT or his sister? It doesn’t, Harrison. The only thing it changes is that you can’t keep blaming Daddy for every little thing that went wrong in your life.”
“Fuck you, Libby.”
I disconnected the call and thought seriously about throwing the phone against the wall. I couldn’t believe my mother would do this to me. My beautiful, innocent mother. Was she ever as innocent in all of my father’s schemes as I had always assumed? Or was she the mastermind behind them all? What else had she done to control me, to change the course of my life? What else had she hidden from me?
“I want to tell him.”
I turned, bitter words on the tip of my tongue until I found myself face to face with Penelope.
“No matter how this turns out, it’s clear that you have no intention of backing off. So I want to be the one to tell JT the truth.”
“Of course,” I said.
“He doesn’t know yet. I was going to take him out of school, but I didn’t want to disrupt things any more than I had to.”
“I quit my job there. I thought it might make things easier.”
A cloud crossed her face, but she didn’t give it voice. She looked away briefly, chewing on that bottom lip in a way that made me want to pull her close to me, that made me want to replace her teeth with my own. I leaned back against the cool wall and cleared my throat, trying to clear my mind of my thoughts.
“I only want what’s best for JT,” she said softly.
“So do I.”
“Then how can you—“
She stopped before she finished her thought. She nodded a little crazily, her hair falling over her face. I slid my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching over and brushing her hair away, from freeing her beautiful face for my gaze.
“I never meant for it to go this way, Penelope. I hope you know that.”
“I don’t. But it turns out I knew very little about you.”
“We can change that.”
She shook her head. “I think it’s too late for niceties.”
A door crashed to a close, announcing the judge’s return. Penelope strode off, the tension back in her shoulders.
I walked back to the table where my lawyer waited and watched the ceremony of the court play itself out once again. We took our seats and the judge leaned forward, his eyes moving first to Penelope, then to me.
“This is a highly unusual case,” he began. “Normally when an adoption is found to be invalid, the child is immediately returned to the custody of the biological parents. However, the child in question here is fifteen. For that reason, I think it would be best to proceed with a little more caution. Therefore, I am issuing an injunction against the custody order.”
Penelope hissed, a relieved sigh slipping from her pursed lips.
“However,” the judge continued as he glanced at her, “I am ordering that the biological father be allowed visitation with the child. And I want all parties back in this courtroom next week, along with the child, so that I can get a better picture of the situation.”
Visitation. What the hell did that mean?
My lawy
er grabbed my wrist, clearly sensing my need for clarification. The judge got up and walked away as Penelope’s lawyer whispered furiously in her ear. My lawyer leaned close to do the same.
“The judge’s clerk will likely give us a visitation schedule with his order. I will push for you to be allowed a few hours, unsupervised, with JT every day until the next hearing. That will give you time to convince JT to speak favorably of you when he talks to the judge.”
“Excuse me?” I said, glaring at him. “Are you suggesting I attempt to ask my son to lie?”
“Of course not. But the kid’s testimony will weigh heavily with the judge. It would be in our best interest that he says the right thing.”
I stood in a rush, nearly knocking over my chair. “You’re fired.”
Chapter 11
Penelope
I walked out of the courtroom with the intention of running to my car as quickly as I could. But Jack grabbed my arm and pulled me into a small room the sported a small table and a handful of chairs.
“This is a victory, Penny,” he said.
“No, it’s not. They’re going to let him spend time with JT. And the judge is going to make JT choose which of us he wants to live with. Do you really think JT will choose me when he has the chance to live with a billionaire?”
“Don’t panic. JT knows where he belongs.”
“Does he? Sometimes I wonder.”
I moved away from Jack, crossing the room to stand near the small window that overlooked the busy street below. Tears were threatening again, but I managed to hold them back. I still couldn’t wrap my head around all of this. Just this morning I woke with the warm memories of the night before—I still couldn’t stop thinking of the way it felt when he touched me—and now I was fighting for everything that mattered to me. What would happen to me if I lost JT? What point would there be to my life? Everything I’d given up to come back here would have been for nothing. And JT? What would happen to him if he was ripped away from the only home he’d ever known? From all his friends, his neighbors? The life he’d built for himself these last fifteen years?
I couldn’t let this happen.
“We can still fight this. We have time.”
“We have a week. And then he’ll bring his high-power lawyers from…wherever he’s from…”
“Oregon.”
I shot a look at Jack. “You know who he is?”
“I’ve read about him, just like the judge.”
“I had no clue. I thought he was just a high school teacher.”
“We can use that against him, you know. Argue that he lied to you about his identity. Maybe that would mar his character enough that the judge might consider home surveys and interviews with social workers. That would take time, give you more time with JT.”
I shook my head as I turned back to the window.
“How am I supposed to win this if even my lawyer has already accepted that JT going with this man is inevitable?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Jack came up behind me and touched my shoulder. I didn’t want his touch. I didn’t want to be consoled. I wanted to go home and pack a handful of belongings and take JT a long way away from here.
I remember hearing my mom talk about this when they first brought JT home from the hospital. For the first six months of his life, his biological mother had the right to come and take him back. One night I couldn’t sleep and I went to my parents’ bedroom to ask if I could sleep between them, but then I heard my mom crying and I stopped outside the door where they couldn’t hear me.
What if she wants him back? What if she just shows up at the lawyer’s office and demands that we return him to her? What would we do then?
Those words haunted me. Having JT around those first few weeks was a novelty and I loved helping my mom dress him. But after I heard that, I was afraid to love him. I was afraid that if I loved him too much, they would take him away and my mom would fall back into the depression that left her lying in a dark room for weeks at a time before the adoption. I thought that it was my fault then and I was pretty sure it would be again. If I loved JT…I knew now that depression is a medical disorder. I know now that I had nothing to do with my mom’s depression. It was a chemical imbalance that was made worse by the series of miscarriages she had in the years after I was born. And I knew now that loving JT wouldn’t have caused him to leave. And that the grace period birth parents are allowed passed long ago.
But that irrational fear was still alive and well deep in my soul. And that part of me felt like this was my fault; that I was letting my mom down.
“I won’t let him take JT from me.”
I pulled away from Jack and left the room, strutting out of that courthouse like I knew what I was going to do. But I really didn’t.
I needed a new lawyer. I was already running through my finances as I rushed out of the building, trying to figure out what I’d have to do to come up with the money a decent lawyer would require. I didn’t hear him come up behind me, didn’t hear him calling my name until he grabbed my arm.
“Penny, can we talk about this?”
I spun around, my hands clutched into fists.
“I don’t know that we have anything to talk about, Mr. James. Or is it Philips?”
Much to his credit, a little bit of shame brought color to his cheeks. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“You didn’t just lie. You used me to get what you wanted. But I would guess that’s just what you do.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“I don’t know you at all.”
I turned and started to make my way down the rest of the steps in front of the courthouse. I could see his shadow as he followed me.
“I want to see him.”
I shook my head. “Not now.”
“Penny—“
“I have to tell him about this. I have to tell my fifteen-year old brother, who is still struggling with the deaths of our parents, that his English teacher is really some billionaire from Oregon who wants to rip him from the only home he has ever known because his mother lied to a lawyer sixteen years ago.” I glanced back at him. “I think that’s more than enough for one person for one night.”
Harrison inclined his head slightly. “Okay. But I want to see him soon. Tomorrow.”
“He has school.”
He grabbed my arm again. “There’s got to be a way we can work all this out. I don’t want to take him from you. I just want to be a part of his life.”
“Liar.” I jerked my arm from his grasp while moving into him, my finger pressed against his chest. “If you only wanted to be a part of his life, you would have told me who you were when you first arrived in town. You wouldn’t have taken that damn job, you wouldn’t have made threats and you wouldn’t have hidden your identity. You would have come straight to me, told me who you were, what happened all those years ago, and we would have talked about an arrangement. But you didn’t do any of that.”
“I handled it badly.”
“You lied!” I stared at him, the anger building so intensely in my chest that I could hardly catch my breath. “You lied and kept secrets and used me. Do you really think I could forgive that?”
“I thought I was doing what was right for JT.”
“What would be right for JT would be for you to disappear. The last thing he needs right now is some long-lost father coming back to turn his life upside down.”
“I don’t agree.” He leaned close to me so that he was less than a breath away from my lips. “You’re struggling, Penny. You barely have time to sleep let alone raise a fifteen year old boy. He’s unsupervised, running through town in the middle of the night, getting arrested for public intoxication, disappearing for hours at a time, sleeping through school. Do you really think that’s ideal? Do you really think you’re doing what’s best for him?”
“Do you think ripping him away from his friends, the on
ly home he’s ever known, is going to be any better?”
Harrison hesitated and that surprised me. I expected him to have a quick answer. But he didn’t.
Maybe neither of us truly knew what was best for JT. But I knew that allowing him to go off with a virtual stranger wasn’t the answer.
I walked off, leaving Harrison standing there alone on the steps. I didn’t look back, but I could feel his eyes on me. And, despite myself, I liked it. I liked that he couldn’t look away, that I’d left him wanting more. In a strange sort of way, it made me feel powerful.
But it also hurt worse than any heartbreak I think I’d ever felt. Because I also knew it was all about this mess, not about what happened between us last night. And last night was an experience I’d never known before, one that every inch of my heart wanted to experience again.
*****
I went to the house when I got back to town, but JT wasn’t there. I headed over to the bakery, overwhelmed with the guilt that I’d left Nick and Amanda to handle all the work all day. It was nearly time to close the shop, but Nick would probably still be at it for few hours more, trying to get a head start on tomorrow’s orders.
KIRKLAND: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) Page 84