Almost a Family

by Roxanne Rustand

  “I don’t want you to leave right now, Erin.”

  She froze, her hand halfway to his breakfast plate. “Why?”

  “I think you know why.” He bit out the words, one by one, but took no satisfaction at the shocked realization dawning in her eyes. “I’d stake my medical license on the fact that Lily is Stephanie’s daughter—and I’d like to know why the hell no one ever bothered to tell me.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  ERIN FELT THE BLOOD DRAIN from her face as she reached blindly for the back of a chair to support herself. “I—I planned to tell you.”

  Anger flashed in his eyes, coupled with disbelief. “Oh, yes. I’m sure you did.” He glanced at a calendar on the wall. “You’ve been here, what—a month? We’ve run into each other almost every day at the hospital. At Ollie’s twice. At your place, here and on the road. You never said a word.”

  “I thought about it.” She gripped the chair until her knuckles turned white. “Last night.”

  He gave a low, derisive laugh. “Convenient. And you’d planned to discuss it this very morning, no doubt.”

  “I did.” She took a deep breath. “Though I’m sure you don’t believe me.”

  A muscle ticked along the side of his jaw. His eyes narrowed. “Lily is eight years old. Isn’t that just a little late?”

  “Look, until moving here, I’ve seen you exactly once since college—and that was at Stephanie’s funeral. I barely know you, really, and she didn’t tell me about Lily until we ran into each other just a few months before she died. With Stephanie’s blessing, I started looking into the adoption.”

  “You didn’t think to say anything about this to me at her funeral?” His voice was raw, hoarse. “You didn’t think I’d want to know that she had a child?”

  “I think you should look a little closer to home before passing judgment.”

  He blinked at that. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Think about it, Mr. Perfect. You made your choice a long time ago. Maybe you’ve had a change of heart, but it’s a little late.” Erin glared at him as she strode to the kitchen counter, grabbed her purse and stalked to the door of the family room. “Lily—it’s time to leave, honey. Let’s get your coat.”

  “But this is a good show!” Lily burrowed deeper under her afghan. “Can’t we stay just another ten minutes? It’s almost over.”

  “Yes, Mom—stay a little longer.” Connor had followed her. “We need to talk.”

  Erin wavered. Lily rarely asked for much of anything. Yet with every passing minute Erin spent talking to Connor, it would be harder to rein in her rising temper. On the other hand, running would only delay the inevitable. “Ten minutes, Lily. No more—and no more arguments. Deal?”

  At Lily’s vigorous nod, Erin pivoted and paced to the farthest point in the kitchen, by the dining room table. “I repeat,” she said firmly, “that it’s rather late to change your mind, don’t you think?”

  “Change my mind about something—or someone—I never knew existed?” He shook his head in obvious disgust. “If I hadn’t noticed a family resemblance, I might never have suspected.”

  “Then maybe you should’ve been a more loving and responsible guy.” She could see that he was thinking, sorting through past history—as if anyone could forget. “Stephanie told me she was six weeks pregnant when you broke up with her in college. Some boyfriend you were, dumping her and telling her to get an abortion.”

  “I…” His voice trailed off in stunned disbelief.

  “Oh, come on, Reynolds.” Erin threw up her hands in disgust. “No one could’ve forgotten that.”

  “Forgotten something that never happened?”

  “Right.” Erin gave him a narrow look. “But then she couldn’t go through with the abortion…and she didn’t tell anyone in her family about the baby. She made sure they never knew.”

  “But when she and I got together again a few years later…”

  Unless the man was a consummate actor, he couldn’t possibly be showing such a range of emotions—anger, bitterness, a soul-deep sense of loss. Had Stephanie lied?

  Frowning, Erin studied his expression. “She said she told you about Lily being in foster care, and having lots of medical problems. She said you were furious, and refused to have anything to do with the child—it was either you or Lily. And Stephanie loved you too much to let you go a second time.”

  “Either that,” he said bitterly, “or she was just afraid she might lose her chance at being a doctor’s wife, so she let my daughter languish in foster care. Status and money were all that mattered to her, in the long run.”

  “She couldn’t have done that—she wouldn’t.” But even as Erin defended her cousin, she had only to remember the shallow person Stephanie had been in college, or to recall her wealthy and influential parents, who’d snubbed Erin’s own family for years.

  “Ironic—something she said once made me think that maybe she’d had a child with some other guy after we broke up, but she flatly denied it.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “She struggled with major depression, true…but she was also diagnosed with a personality disorder, and I was still fool enough to believe her. I just never guessed that she’d go so far as to deny her own daughter a home.”

  “Lily was in foster care from the day she was born. Stephanie never went to see her, but never signed the papers to release her for adoption, either. Then Lily needed surgeries and had long convalescence periods, she grew older, and no one wanted to adopt her.”

  He swore under his breath. “And you knew this all along?”

  “I found out about Lily two years ago—just months before Stephanie died, Connor. When I mentioned Sam and I were considering adoption, she begged me to take Lily, too. Believe me, I was more than willing.”

  His gaze narrowed and his jaw hardened, and Erin felt an uneasy chill.

  “Then why didn’t she finally tell me? Why didn’t you?”

  “She said she was afraid you’d leave her. And she made me promise that I’d never tell anyone—especially you—because you’d supposedly demanded that abortion in the first place. But now…well, she’s gone, and her parents are gone….”

  “So Lily spent years in foster care, because no one in your family seems to have more than a passing acquaintance with the truth.” His mouth flattened to a grim line. “You can bet this won’t be the end of our discussion. I’m contacting my lawyer.”

  BEFORE, ERIN HAD SAVORED each step of their bedtime ritual as she tucked Lily in at night. Breathing in the wonderful little-girl scents of the child’s shampoo and bath powder, she’d assumed that the routine would go on through countless weeks and months and years ahead, until Lily was grown. The thought had filled her with peace and contentment.

  Even now, sitting at her desk at the hospital, Erin felt her eyes burn when she thought about Lily’s sweet prayers and their traditional big hug and kiss at bedtime.

  Life had been easier when Erin still thought of Connor as the cold, selfish, insensitive jerk who’d denied the existence of his beautiful daughter. But there was no denying his stunned response at finding that he was Lily’s father—he’d clearly never known about her, and Erin could hardly fault him for being shocked and angry.

  Now, she couldn’t help but think of him as an innocent victim in all of this, and her sense of impending loss grew with every passing day. Could he still stake a claim? Take Lily away?

  The threat was there—looming like an ominous mass of storm clouds on the horizon—and she found herself jumping with every ring of the phone, whether she was at home or at work.

  The fact that she hadn’t seen Connor since Sunday made it worse. For the past three days he’d either been taking care of his hospital rounds earlier or dropping in much later, so she hadn’t encountered him at work, and she hadn’t met his car on the road.

  If they could just talk it over, so she knew where he stood on the issue, maybe she wouldn’t need to worry so much. But he hadn’t returned her phone calls
, either. Just to be safe, she’d checked around for a good lawyer.

  “Hi. Are you ready for him?” Dr. Jill Edwards stood in the doorway, a tall handsome man dressed in a navy blazer and khaki slacks at her side. “This is my husband, Grant.”

  With his thick, dark blond hair and lean good looks, it was no surprise that Erin had heard the second shift nurses sighing over him one evening. He’d handled one of their divorces, and was known around town as a straight shooter who worked hard and treated his clients well.

  “I’m so glad you could stop by.” Erin stood and motioned toward the round table and chairs at one side of her office. “I certainly wasn’t expecting you to come here, though.”

  Charming laugh lines deepened at the corners of his eyes when he smiled. “No problem. I needed to have some blood work done at the lab for my annual physical, so this works well for both of us.”

  Jill lingered at the door. “I have to do rounds and get back to my office, so I’ll let you two talk. Honey, do you want to pick up something for supper on your way home tonight?”

  With a wave of his hand, Grant stopped at the table and started riffling through his briefcase. “Maybe you’d better do it, because I’m not sure when I’ll get home. Just leave some leftovers in the fridge if I’m late.”

  “Okay.” Jill’s smile wavered. “Well…drive safe, then.”

  After she disappeared down the hall, he moved over to shut the door, then returned to the table and dropped into one of the chairs. He settled a pair of reading glasses on his nose and briefly glanced at a page of notes. “From our phone call, I understand that you’re concerned about the possibility of a contested adoption, is that correct?”

  Erin sat down across from him and folded her arms on the table. “My late cousin encouraged me to adopt her daughter, Lily. Stephanie was young when she got pregnant—just a college student—and couldn’t bear to release the baby for adoption for the first couple years. After that, with Lily’s medical problems, she was just too hard to place, I guess. Wisconsin law allows a child to be adopted by relatives without a court order, so that’s what we did.”

  “The father wasn’t named on the birth certificate?”

  “No.”

  “Was he notified of the impending adoption?”

  “Stephanie said that when the baby was born, she found an elderly lawyer in a distant town so there’d be less chance of any rumors starting.” Erin managed a weak smile. “She figured that a lawyer might respect her privacy, but she wasn’t so sure about a secretarial pool.”

  “And this lawyer said…”

  “That as long as the father wasn’t named on the birth certificate and was unknown, she didn’t have to worry.”

  “Really.” Grant looked at her over the rim of his glasses and lifted a brow.

  “A public notice had to be put in the newspaper, so the lawyer ran it in his own town, and after that, the state of Wisconsin terminated the paternal rights.”

  “But that wasn’t the father’s hometown, where the conception took place or where he’d been known to live?”

  “No…but Stephanie told this lawyer that she didn’t have any information on him. She said it was a one-night stand.”

  Grant sighed heavily.

  “She told a lot of stories, I’m afraid. She told me that the father knew about the pregnancy and told her to have an abortion, and that later on, he refused to have anything to do with the child.” A cold knot formed in Erin’s stomach. “I discovered last weekend that this wasn’t true. He was her boyfriend at the time, but they’d just broken up. He didn’t know she’d gotten pregnant until he saw Lily recently, and recognized some strong family characteristics.”

  “You’ve been in touch with him since then?”

  “I’m afraid so. He definitely wasn’t happy—he’s upset over not being told in the first place, and he threatened to seek legal advice.” Erin tightened her grip on her arms and leaned forward. “But the adoption is legal, isn’t it? We followed every step, as blood relatives.”

  “But you said that there’s been no actual DNA testing, correct?”

  “Correct, though Stephanie once told me that he was indeed Lily’s father.”

  Grant gave her a wry smile. “With all due respect to the deceased, I wouldn’t worry too much until there’s conclusive DNA proof. This man cannot pursue any sort of custody action without a report from a licensed lab.”

  “I…we are scheduled at the lab tomorrow. Lily thinks it’s just part of her annual physical. We didn’t want to upset or confuse her, just in case the results weren’t a match.” She took a steadying breath. “I don’t even know what to hope for. He would be a good father, yet I’m half afraid to answer the phone, for fear it’s his lawyer wanting to start a custody battle. How irrational is that?”

  “If this man is her father, I can offer good news and bad.” Grant settled back in his chair and slipped his glasses into his coat pocket. “The good news is that you are educated and well-employed. The court would likely see you as a fit mother who can provide well for her children. You are also the child’s biological relative, as well as her adoptive mother, and blood ties certainly carry weight in a court of law. Also, it was the custodial parent’s wish that this child be placed with you.”

  “But…”

  “But the child’s biological father—if that is what he is—wasn’t legally notified. Thus, he never intentionally relinquished his rights as her parent.”

  “But I adopted her. She’s my daughter now. No one could love her any more than I do.”

  Grant shook his head. “You’ve probably read about many such cases in the newspapers over the years. A birth mother gives up her baby for adoption, a fine family takes the child and ties every possible legal knot to keep it. Then one day, the biological father turns up demanding his parental rights. After a long, expensive and very messy court battle, the father often ends up winning and the adoption is overturned. The child is taken away from the only family he or she has ever known. You think that could happen here?”

  “He could file for custody, or shared custody,” Erin answered. “He could request visitation rights…or he could decide that it’s in the child’s best interest to just relinquish his rights. I don’t know him well enough to say.”

  “I see.” Grant rocked back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a while. “Well, just so you know, my wife told me that you were looking for legal counsel, but she doesn’t know the reason why, and I will not share any of our conversations with her. Your confidentiality will be preserved unless this ends up in open court.”

  “So what do you think? Is it hopeless? Am I going to lose her?”

  “I’ll do my best to see that doesn’t happen.”

  “There’s one other thing.” Erin tried for a smile. “My ex-husband and I lost a lot of money a few years ago, when the stock market took a downturn. After paying for our divorce and our outstanding bills, neither of us got much.” Weariness washed through her. “I’m not sure I can afford another lawyer.”

  He rocked forward and planted all four chair legs on the floor, and the disarming laugh lines appeared again at the corners of his eyes. “This is a small town. I stayed here because of family and friends and the quality of life, not because I planned to retire a millionaire. You can afford me—we’ll work it out.”

  He quoted her a reasonable retainer fee, and an hourly rate beyond that, if the need arose. Relieved, she followed him to the door of her office.

  “You might not need me at all,” he added. “But if you do, just give me a call and I’ll be sure to work you in as soon as possible.”

  She offered him her hand. “I appreciate this, Grant.”

  His handshake was warm, reassuring, though his eyes were grave. “My wife tells me you’re a great asset to the hospital, so I’m more than happy to help in any way I can. I just hope it will be enough.”

  AFTER A QUICK CALL HOME to check in on Haley and the kids, Erin downed a stale sandwich and
lukewarm coffee from the machines in the lounge. Show-time, she muttered to herself as she walked to the hospital’s meeting room at the end of the administrative wing.

  Tonight’s meeting promised to be bigger than most because of the efforts of the auxiliary and community leaders who had been working with Erin on raising funds, and who were likely to attend.

  Hopefully, everyone there would be enthusiastic about seeing the hospital move into the twenty-first century, with a revitalized business plan and enough money to make it happen.

  But there were always those for whom change was threatening, or totally unnecessary—Leo Crupper, the middle-aged owner of the local grocery store, came to mind. He often walked the streets of town with his massive dog, Burt, during his lunch break and after work, and he’d stopped her several times already to rail against the new proposals. With a little luck, he might be working late tonight and wouldn’t arrive in time to share his critical views.

  He met her at the doorway of the meeting room, though, with a smug smile. “Are we ready for a good presentation tonight, Mrs. Lang?”

  We? “Oh, so you’re speaking, too? How nice.” She gave him a nod and moved past him into the room. Nearly every chair was filled—a good fifty people were present, with some standing along the walls, though she searched for Connor and couldn’t see him in the crowd.

  She eased past them, and found a chair at the front of the room. Paul Benson, the board president, nodded to her and called the meeting to order.

  Swallowing hard, she took her notes to the podium. “As you know, we’ve seen declining revenues and skyrocketing costs. I’ve been working on these issues, looking for ways to revitalize Blackberry Hill Memorial Hospital, preserve jobs and provide better patient services. Through the purchase of updated equipment and the scheduling of more specialty clinics, I believe we can utilize our space more efficiently and ultimately generate greater income. Correcting our current overstaffing, with its unnecessarily high staff-per-patient ratio, will generate significant savings—especially when you factor in the benefit package costs. If you could look at your handouts, please…”