Home in Carolina

by Sherryl Woods

  Not that he thought Dee-Dee would do anything as stupid as trying to take him, but right now he didn’t trust anyone to do the right thing.

  How could Annie have suggested for so much as a second that Dee-Dee was in the right about anything? He knew the disdain she’d felt for the woman who’d come between them, and now she thought that same woman was fit to raise his son? It made no sense to him. All that talk about being fair and objective was nonsense. This was payback. Annie had waited a long time to get it, but, boy, had she picked the one way guaranteed to tear his heart out.

  When he walked through the door at home, his mother and Cal called out to him, but Ty merely acknowledged them both with a wave and headed upstairs. The old house that had been in the Townsend family for generations had seemed outrageously big and ostentatious when he was a kid, but now he appreciated the number of rooms that accommodated not only Cal, Maddie and Ty’s siblings, but still had room for him and Trevor to have their own suite.

  There was the soft glow of a night-light in Trevor’s room. Still scared of the dark, he wouldn’t go to sleep without it. Turning it on was part of their nighttime ritual, right along with brushing teeth and a bedtime story.

  Ty crossed the room to the bed that had been made up with Spider-Man sheets. Trevor had kicked off the covers and lay sprawled in the middle of the bed, his thumb firmly poked in his mouth. Ty’s best efforts to stop that habit had yet to succeed.

  Looking down on his boy, Ty released the sigh that had been building up ever since Helen had hit him with the news of the likelihood of a full-blown, ugly custody suit. He sat down on the floor beside the bed, pulled up his knees and rested his head against them.

  How could this be happening? He’d done everything right. Though he’d initially wanted things to turn out differently, from the moment he’d known the results of the paternity test, he’d accepted responsibility for Trevor. He’d felt a connection to him the first time he’d seen his scrunched-up little face in the hospital nursery, even though he’d been scared spitless about the prospect of being a dad, even though at that time he’d envisioned having only limited contact.

  And, from the moment he’d found his son, wrapped in a blue blanket and tucked into a portable carrier, on his hotel doorstep in Denver, Trevor had become the center of his universe. His stupidity had cost him the woman he loved, but he’d gained this, a wonderful little boy whose smile could brighten the worst day. He could have used one of those smiles right now.

  As if he sensed his dad’s presence, Trevor stirred but didn’t wake. Ty reached up and gently brushed his sun-streaked, dark brown hair from his forehead. The emotions that welled up inside him were huge, overwhelming. The only thing that had ever come close were his feelings for Annie.

  As he thought about their heated exchange earlier, the accusations he’d leveled at her made him just a little bit ashamed. Deep down, he knew better. He knew she would never take out her anger with him in the way he’d suggested. She would never side with Dee-Dee to get even with him. It simply wasn’t in her makeup to be that vindictive.

  Of course, acknowledging that forced him to also acknowledge that she might have had a point about the value of compromise, or at least about trying to see Dee-Dee’s point of view. He still believed at the very core of his being that none of this was happening because she’d suddenly decided she missed her little boy. There was more to it. He just couldn’t imagine what it might be.

  What he did know was that he had to find out and there was little time to waste. If the investigator Helen had hired didn’t hit some kind of pay dirt in a few days, Ty intended to take matters into his own hands. His teammates, more than likely, knew Dee-Dee’s friends. A lot of the women who followed the team formed an alliance of sorts. He suspected they knew one another’s secrets.

  And, for all he knew, some of the team’s other players actually knew Dee-Dee herself. He doubted he was the first professional ballplayer in her life or her last. Somebody was bound to have the insight he needed.

  Feeling more at peace now that he’d seen his son and had a plan of action to keep him from feeling powerless, he stood up, kissed Trevor’s brow and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  When he went downstairs, he found Helen in the living room with Cal and his mother. Judging from their grim, worried expressions, Helen had filled them in. She met his gaze.

  “Any second thoughts?” she asked quietly, her expression somber.

  “None,” he said at once.

  “Okay, then. I’ll move forward. I’ll send a letter to Dee-Dee’s attorney stating our position and reminding him that she has a background that won’t bode well for her in court. Maybe he can make her see reason and we’ll be able to mediate a settlement. I’m going to check with Tom Bristol, who handled your original case, and see how backed-up the courts are in Atlanta. There’s a good chance we can have the case moved over here, once Dee-Dee’s filed her papers. A lot of judges are more than happy to move a case, if it’ll get it off their docket. That would certainly simplify things.”

  Ty nodded. The wrangling over jurisdiction mattered less to him than their strategy. “I still think we’re missing something important,” he said to all of them.

  Across the room, his mother, who’d been silent up till now, said, “You mean why, after all this time, Dee-Dee surfaced, in the first place?”

  Ty regarded her with surprise. “Exactly.”

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Maddie said. She turned to Helen. “How do we find out?”

  It was Ty, not Helen, who answered. “I thought about trying to get in touch with some of her friends, or maybe asking some of my buddies on the team to ask a few questions. They know the women who hung out with Dee-Dee. Maybe she’s kept in touch.”

  “Good idea,” Cal said. “The groupies have always been tight with one another.”

  Maddie gave him a wry look. “And you know this how?”

  Cal grinned at her. “Simmer down, sweetheart. I’m all yours now.”

  Helen listened to the exchange, her expression thoughtful. Eventually, she nodded. “It’s worth a shot.”

  “Should I make the calls now, or wait until we hear from the investigator?” Ty asked.

  “Make the calls,” Helen said decisively. “The sooner we can put our case together, the better. I’m also going to want depositions from anyone and everyone who can testify to the kind of father you are.”

  “I’ll have a list for you in the morning,” Ty said.

  “How about the nanny you have in Georgia? Are you still paying her?”

  Ty nodded. “Since I’ll need her when I go back to Atlanta, we worked out an agreement.”

  “Did you do a thorough background check?”

  “Of course. She was going to be responsible for my son when I wasn’t there. I needed to know everything there was to know about her.”

  “Perfect,” Helen said, standing up. “I need to get home. Flo goes stir-crazy when I’m gone all day and in the evening, too. Sarah Beth’s good company for her, and of course the nanny and Mom’s caregiver are around, but by this time of night, she’s usually driving Mrs. Lowell nuts with her demands.”

  “How’s her hip healing?” Maddie asked.

  “Amazingly well, given her age,” Helen said. “At least that’s what the doctor says. I just know that having her back on her feet and into her own place can’t come soon enough. In some ways this has been better than I expected. In others, she can make me crazy faster than anyone else on earth.”

  “Typical mother-daughter relationship,” Maddie assured her.

  Ty thought of his visit to his grandmother and what she’d said about Cal helping her and his mom to bond. “Grandma Paula said something like that the other day, too.”

  Cal groaned. “Oh, boy.”

  Ty stared at him. “What did I say?”

  He realized then that his mother was scowling at him.

  “You talked to my mother about me?” she asked
, her annoyance plain.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Ty said at once.

  “Then she didn’t have a litany of complaints about how I’d been neglecting her?” Maddie asked.

  “No way,” he said, but clearly the damage had been done, because his mother continued to regard him with a disgruntled expression. Heaven save him from touchy women. He didn’t understand a one of them, not even the ones he knew best.

  It didn’t much surprise him when his mom walked Helen to the door and didn’t come back. He heard her go directly upstairs. He turned to Cal.

  “What did I say that was so terrible?”

  Cal laughed. “Haven’t you learned by now that the peace between your mom and Paula is fragile? It doesn’t take much to upset either one of them.”

  “All I said was…” He couldn’t even recall what he’d said.

  “You lumped the two of them in with Helen and Flo, thereby suggesting that theirs, too, is a tense mother-daughter relationship.”

  “Well, it is,” Ty said, still bewildered about why telling the truth had offended Maddie.

  “Your mother likes to think their relationship has evolved into something more mature and understanding,” Cal explained. “She knows better, of course, but she doesn’t like being reminded of it.”

  Ty shook his head. “This is way too complicated for me. I have my own incomprehensible women to worry about.”

  Cal regarded him with sympathy. “Dee-Dee?”

  “And Annie,” he admitted. “It was a helluva lot easier when we were kids. We fought. We got over it.”

  “The stakes are generally much higher once you’re adults,” Cal reminded him.

  Ty sighed. “Tell me about it.” Only his son and his entire future.

  Since she’d restricted Ty to working out every other day, Annie spent the evening after their argument at Sarah’s. She nibbled at the salad in front of her with disinterest.

  Suddenly Sarah set down her own fork and frowned at her. “Okay, what’s wrong? You’ve hardly said two words since you got here. You were just as uncommunicative at the spa earlier. You know how I hate it when you’re upset. I especially hate it when you don’t touch your food, either.”

  Annie scowled at her and deliberately forked up a chunk of grilled chicken, stuffed it in her mouth and chewed slowly. She ate a few more bites of the meal, then pushed the bowl aside.

  “You’re going to finish that before you leave the table,” Sarah said.

  Her stern tone made Annie smile, despite her sour mood. “You sounded exactly like my mom just then.”

  “Well, good,” Sarah said with a touch of defiance. “Now, either eat or talk. Those are your choices.”

  Since Annie didn’t think she could swallow another bite right at the moment, she asked, “How’s Walter?”

  Sarah shook her head at the obvious ploy. “He’s fine. How’s Ty?”

  Annie shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “You haven’t seen him today?”

  “Nope.”

  “Haven’t spoken to him?”

  “No.”

  “Is that why you’re in this black mood?”

  Annie sighed. “No, I’m in this black mood because of the fight we had.” She described how the conversation with Ty and Helen had blown up in her face the night before. “I have to fix things, but I have no idea how to do it. I don’t think an apology will cut it.”

  “It would be a good place to start,” Sarah suggested.

  “But then what?”

  They sat there in silence for several minutes before Annie turned to Sarah. “How would you feel about taking a road trip?” she ventured. An idea had formed in her head earlier in the day and while it seemed pretty outrageous, she hadn’t been able to shake it.

  Her friend regarded her with confusion. “You want to go on a vacation now? Isn’t that just running away from the problem?”

  Annie grinned. “I was thinking more along the lines of a trip to Cincinnati to track down Dee-Dee.”

  “Oh, no,” Sarah said at once. “That’s a really bad idea.”

  “Why do you say that?” she asked, wondering if Sarah’s thoughts were similar to the ones she’d come up with when the voice of reason kicked in.

  “Because I doubt Ty or Helen, for that matter, would appreciate you interfering in the situation without their permission.” She studied Annie with a penetrating look. “I assume there’s no permission involved, right?”

  “None,” Annie confirmed. She was a tiny bit daunted by Sarah’s strongly negative reaction, but she still thought the plan had merit. At least it meant taking action rather than sitting on the sidelines. “Come on. I’ll bet we could get to the bottom of why she’s so determined to take Trevor.”

  “How do you suggest we do that? I’m opposed to kidnapping and torture.”

  Annie gave her a disgusted look. “So am I,” she said. “I haven’t worked out all the details. I just think we could snoop around a little, ask some questions, maybe bump into her and become her new best friends.”

  Sarah continued to look unconvinced. “Do you happen to recall what happened the last time you decided to play Nancy Drew?”

  Annie winced. “It was not my fault that branch came down and broke Mrs. Latham’s window.”

  “You were on that branch trying to spy on Bobby Latham,” Sarah reminded her.

  “I thought he’d stolen my iPod,” Annie said. “And that branch was obviously dead. We both know I didn’t weigh much then, so clearly anything could have snapped it off. It was a disaster waiting to happen.”

  “As I recall, Mrs. Latham didn’t see it that way. My point is, you don’t have a very good track record as a detective. I think this situation is more important than your stolen iPod. You probably shouldn’t be meddling in it.”

  “But if I could figure out what Dee-Dee’s up to and give the information to Helen, Ty would see that I’m on his side,” Annie argued, even though Sarah’s objections were making more sense than she wanted to admit.

  “I still say you should just apologize and then ask Ty if there’s anything you can do to help.” Sarah gave her a pleading look. “You need to drop the idea of getting involved, Annie, at least unless you have Ty or Helen’s permission.”

  “Then you’re refusing to go to Cincinnati with me?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said.

  “Okay, then.” She was disappointed but not really surprised. She considered several alternatives, then said, “I guess I could go on my own.”

  Sarah immediately looked alarmed. “Absolutely not.”

  “Well, you said you won’t go. What choice do I have?”

  “You could stay here where you belong.”

  Annie considered it one more time, then shook her head, even though she knew her stubbornness—and her desire to do something to prove her loyalty to Ty—were overruling common sense. “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” Sarah mumbled. “When do we leave?”

  Annie worked hard to keep a satisfied smirk off her face. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. We’ll see how grateful you are when we’re both locked up.”

  “Nobody’s going to arrest a couple of women on vacation with their kids.”

  Sarah blinked at that. “You want to take Tommy and Libby along?”

  “Sure. It will be fun. And we’ll look totally innocent poking around in Dee-Dee’s neighborhood.”

  “Do you happen to know what neighborhood that is?”

  “Not exactly, but I’ll bet I can find it online.”

  “What if she’s living with her fiancé? Do you know his name?”

  “I don’t, but Helen must,” Annie admitted, beginning to see that this could be a little more complicated than she’d first envisioned. “Maybe I can get her to spill it.”

  Still acting as the voice of reason, Sarah asked, “Do you have a plan to entice Dee-Dee to talk to you, a perfect stranger, about one of the most intimate aspects of her
life, her custody battle for her child?”

  “People spill their guts to strangers all the time,” Annie said.

  “On airplanes or in train stations, maybe, but on the street?” Sarah asked, her skepticism plain. “First you’d have to get her to stop in the first place.”

  Annie grinned then. “Thus, Tommy and Libby. She won’t be able to resist them, not if she’s in this huge maternalistic phase.”

  For the first time, Sarah actually looked impressed. “You have an incredibly devious mind.”

  “I do, don’t I?” Annie said. “Who knew?”

  “I’m not sure it’s something to be proud of.”

  “Probably not, but at the moment, it’s coming in very handy, don’t you think?”

  Sarah heaved a dramatic sigh. “That remains to be seen.”

  Unfortunately there was only one way Annie could conduct her covert mission. She had to take time off from The Corner Spa, and that would require coming up with some kind of story for Maddie. And since Ty’s rehab was also at stake, it seemed unlikely Maddie would approve the impromptu vacation unless Annie took her into her confidence and told her the truth.

  The increasingly horrified expression on Maddie’s face as Annie explained her plan didn’t bode well.

  “No, no, no!” Maddie said. “Absolutely not.”

  “But it’s the only way I can think of to help and to prove to Ty that I’m on his side.”

  “Find another way,” Maddie said. “I won’t allow you to do this, Annie.”

  Annie bristled at her words. “You won’t allow me to do it?”

  “That’s exactly what I said and exactly what I meant.”

  “I’m not ten, and I’m not your child.”

  “No, but you are my employee and my friend. More important, Ty is my son, and he gets to decide how this situation is handled. I know he wants information about Dee-Dee and her motives, but he has his own plan. He also has professionals on his side.”

  “They don’t have what I have,” Annie argued. “Motivation.”

  Maddie sighed in the face of her determination. “Here’s the deal, then. You tell Ty this crazy idea of yours, and if he approves, I’ll give you the time off with my blessing. I won’t even dock your pay for missing all your appointments and having Elliott’s workload doubled.”