The Next Right Thing (Harlequin Superromance)

by Collins, Colleen

  A few minutes later, they stood in Delilah’s crafts room. Workbenches strewn with fabrics, and bookshelves stuffed with boxes, lined the walls. Swatches of cloths lay strewn over a chair. A wall-mounted spice cabinet held jars of glitter.

  Trazy lay stretched in a window, asleep, warming in the sun.

  “This is her room, and she loves that window.”

  “She looks fat and happy.”

  “Like her great-auntie Delilah.”

  “Now, Del, you’re gorgeous and you know it.” Cammie looked at a computer attached to a device she didn’t recognize. “What’s that?”

  “A sewing machine.”

  “Duh.”

  “It’s all right, dear, I wouldn’t know a GPS device if you planted it on my rump.” She gestured to the computer. “It reads a CD-ROM of patterns and translates them into thread.”

  Cammie blinked in surprise. “Cool.”

  “I might dress like the seventies, but I’m definitely a state-of-the-art kinda gal.”

  “You’d probably rule the world if you had a smartphone.”

  “I’ve been thinking of getting one of those. Now, let’s look at your to-die-for dress.” Delilah opened a closet. “Mr. Bergstrom is a bit proprietary with his gowns, but he gave me the go-ahead to make any last-minute adjustments.” She pulled out the red dress that Cammie had tried on at the bridal salon what seemed a lifetime ago. “Isn’t this just divine!”

  With some help, Cammie slinked into the dress. At the salon, it had been spray-on tight. Today, it felt even tighter around her middle, to the point that breathing was a sketchy activity. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror, turning this way and that. The wedding was nine days away—her tummy wouldn’t grow that much between now and then, right?

  As Delilah fussed with a shoulder strap, Cammie looked at herself in the mirror, wondered if others saw the uncertainty in her green eyes. These past few days, her emotions had bounced from worry to fear to bursts of hey-maybe-I-can-do-this giddiness—bursts of feelings that had to be by-products of her thrashing hormones. But when the feelings subsided, her rational self accepted that motherhood wasn’t in the cards. After she attended the parole hearing next week, then the wedding a few days after, she’d talk to her doctor about options for terminating the pregnancy.

  “What is it, dear?”

  Cammie shifted her gaze to Delilah’s, who stared at her in the mirror.

  “Nothing.”

  Delilah waited a beat. “I believe that about as much as the moon is made of Roquefort.”

  “Just having...thoughts.”

  Delilah nodded. “Care to share any of them?”

  “No.”

  As Delilah continued arranging the strap, she asked casually, “Are you interested in living with us?”

  “At Frankie’s home?”

  “Yes. You could keep your room. You have your own bathroom. We love having you around.”

  Actually, with other worries crowding her mind, she hadn’t thought about where she’d be living. “What about Trazy?”

  “We’ve discussed that. We could put a door in the hallway so that Trazy could romp between your bedroom, the bathroom and that little room that Frankie uses for odds ’n’ ends. With that area closed off, his allergies would never know the cat’s there.”

  “I’ll, uh, think about it.”

  Delilah checked a seam along the side of the dress. “Or you could live here, rent free, until you get on your feet.”

  “That’s awfully generous.”

  “We’re family. I want to help you out, dear, while you figure out what you’re doing next.”

  “If Eddie’s idea pans out, I might be a P.I. again very soon.”

  “Eddie’s a wonderful lawyer, isn’t he?” Delilah commented, checking the stitching around the waist. “I suppose wherever you live,” she said quietly, “depends on your career and the baby.”

  Cammie froze. “How—how’d you guess?”

  Delilah met her gaze again in the mirror again. “I’ve done a lot of living, Cammie, and, well, some things started adding up.”

  “They’re that obvious?” She winced. “Does Uncle Frankie know?”

  “No, and I seriously doubt anyone else has noticed. I see you all the time, plus I recognize the symptoms. You’re more tired than usual, last week you complained of nausea, and this dress fits you a little differently than it did when we were at the bridal salon.”

  Cammie welled up. “And I’m more emotional.” She swiped at the corner of her eye.

  “Maybe that’s a good thing. Now let’s take this dress off, eat some of the best homemade chicken soup you’ve ever tasted and talk about you.”

  Dressed in her jeans and T-shirt again, Cammie sat at Delilah’s kitchen counter. A pot of soup bubbled on the stove. Delilah set a glass of cranberry juice and apple slices in front of Cammie.

  “Back in Denver, I never ate this healthily.” Cammie took a sip of the juice.

  “Imagine if Emily lived here.” Delilah ladled some soup into a bowl. “We’d all be vegetarians.”

  “Or vegans.”

  “I never understood what they eat or why.”

  “Don’t ask me. I didn’t know that object in the other room was a sewing machine.”

  Delilah laughed. “Darling Emily. She’ll probably live to a riper old age than any of us will.” She set a steaming bowl of soup in front of Cammie.

  “Smells wonderful.”

  “Nothing like chicken soup to fix what ails you.” Delilah brought over her bowl and sat opposite Cammie at the counter.

  After a few minutes of eating, Delilah said, “What do you want to do?”

  Cammie sighed. “I’m not ready to be a mother.”

  “Many women have thought that, at first.”

  “But most women didn’t grow up being a parent to their own.”

  “That wasn’t easy for you, Cammie, certainly. On the other hand, maybe it makes you a wiser, more compassionate parent because you’ve learned the value of children being children.”

  “So you think I should have the baby.”

  Delilah paused. “I’m not judging, or thinking, what you should do one way or the other. I’m here to be your sounding board so you don’t feel like you’re handling this all by yourself. I’ve been there, alone with grief and worries, and it’s so much better to have someone to talk things over with.” She took a sip of her juice, set down the glass. “Have you told Val?”

  “No.”

  “You’re heading out to Denver next week—planning on telling Marc?”

  “No!” Cammie felt herself sag. “Didn’t mean to be so emphatic, it’s just that he’s been through a lot lately. That woman he was engaged to, the whack-case I served the papers to, had told someone she was pregnant and Marc got his hopes up that...”

  Delilah nodded thoughtfully, stirring her spoon in her soup. “He’s a family man.”

  “Without a family. There’s Emily, but he only sees her once or twice a year. Hopefully, his father will be paroled, but that’s still a big if.”

  “Your uncle’s a family man, too. He and Regina so wanted to have a child. I think you fill that slot for him.”

  Cammie smiled. “Did you and your husband have kids?”

  “One. After we had Peter, we wanted more but it didn’t turn out that way.” An emotion flickered across Delilah’s face. “I lost Peter in 1991 in the Gulf War. Twenty-two years old, an army sergeant. I’m a child of the sixties, so imagine my surprise that my son wanted to make the military his career! But it was his dream and, despite our trepidations, his father and I supported him. Peter...died shielding another soldier’s body with his own during a raid.”

  “I’m so sorry, Delilah.” Cammie reached across the tab
le and held her hand.

  “Me, too, dear. Before that, I thought I knew what grief was like. But I had no idea that losing a child would be an all-consuming impairment of my body, mind, spirit. Walter, my husband, wasn’t one to talk about his feelings—what men are?—so I felt very alone with my craziness for months. Eventually, I learned to let go of the bitterness—it was difficult enough to handle the grief—but I still thought I’d never be the same again. Then one day I woke up and realized that I wanted to honor Peter with how I lived life, not how I was letting it beat me down. Now I wear clothes I enjoy, hang out with people I like, love wearing gold jewelry—” she shook her free wrist so the gold bracelets jingled softly “—and I don’t judge people. Here’s my one rule about life—there are no rules, except those of the heart.”

  Cammie blinked. “You’re amazing.”

  “I prefer to think of myself as well marinated. I’ve absorbed life’s lessons and I’m the better for it.”

  They resumed eating their lunch.

  “I’m afraid to be a single mother,” Cammie finally said, breaking the silence.

  Delilah looked up and smiled. “You’d have Frankie and me.”

  “If Marc were to know, he’d insist on marrying me. I don’t want to rush into that kind of bond because of an unplanned baby.”

  “He might want to live together instead.”

  Cammie picked up a slice of apple and bit into it, the fruit sweet and tangy as she chewed thoughtfully.

  “He’d want to live in Denver,” she said.

  “Probably.”

  “But Val and I have talked about our agency being located in Las Vegas.”

  Delilah’s brow compressed as she mulled that over. “Maybe you and Marc could have a bicoastal relationship without the coasts.”

  “I’ve always wondered if such long-distance relationships really work.”

  “I suppose if the two people are extraordinarily independent, they could.”

  Cammie ran her finger along the pattern in the granite countertop. “I’ve made an appointment with my doctor to discuss...other things.” She looked at Delilah. “Would you go with me?”

  “Absolutely, darling.”

  Cammie looked past the woman into the kitchen. Above the stove, a single light burned, its glow fading to nothing by the time it reached the cabinets, the floor.

  “I’m scared. I don’t want to do the wrong thing.”

  “Listen to your heart, dear. It’s telling you the answer.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  MARC SET DOWN HIS BRIEFCASE on the large oak table and sat next to his father. In contrast to Marc’s upscale navy blue double-breasted jacket and pants, Harlan wore a prison-issued orange jumpsuit. They’d both waited for this day, June 6, to appear in the Denver District Courtroom. What happened over the next hour or so meant Marc’s father would again enjoy freedom or remain incarcerated.

  It meant they’d have a chance to be a family or not.

  “Want a glass of water, Dad?”

  His father nodded, the overhead lights gleaming off his shiny dome. “I tried a lot of cases here in my day,” he murmured, surveying the ornately carved wood around the jury box, the marble floors, the brass light fixtures. “Did you know Raymond Burr filmed that old TV show Ironside here?”

  “Yes, we used to talk about that, remember?” Marc picked up the plastic pitcher and poured water into a foam cup.

  “I used to raise hell if my paralegal didn’t bring my crystal glass to court, remember that?” Harlan said, lifting his shackled hands to accept the cup.

  “I still have that glass.” Marc noticed his father’s hands were shaking as he drank. “It’s in a bookcase at home.”

  His father finished drinking, struggled to set the cup on the table. “What good does it do there?”

  “Saving it for the Smithsonian.”

  His father half choked a laugh. “I’m not that pompous guy anymore.”

  “Pompous, no. Brilliant lawyer in your day, yes.”

  “What about that former bookkeeper of yours—she still in jail?”

  “Got arrested at the deposition, judge set bail at a half mil.”

  Harlan flexed his eyebrows. “Hefty.”

  “Judge viewed her as a flight risk. She’ll probably be sitting in that cell for several more months until her trial.” He glanced over at the prosecutor’s table. “I’ll be right back, Dad.”

  Marc crossed to the table opposite his, where Deputy D.A. Berto Martinez sat, scrolling through his smartphone. In the past few years, Marc noticed that Berto had grown fond of his sun lamp, which gave him a tan just a shade shy of orange. But on the Channel 7 news, where Berto liked to pontificate about the current state of justice, he looked perennially robust and healthy.

  Some of those Channel 7 reporters were here today, sitting with other media types and tagalongs in the corners behind both attorney tables.

  Marc halted before Berto. Standing over him, he had a bird’s-eye view of a comb-over job that reminded him of strings on a guitar. He wondered if anyone had ever told Berto that a dab of cologne went a long way.

  “Good morning, Counsel.”

  Berto looked up, feigned surprise. “Hello, Counselor. I see it’s father-son day in Denver District Court.” He glanced at his vintage wristwatch, a black-dial Ulysse Nardin that had probably set him back a grand. “I have a fund-raiser at eleven, so can we wrap this up by ten-thirty?”

  “Never knew a judge to rule by a stopwatch, Berto. And, yes, it’s father-son day because this is about my father, Harlan Hamilton, a rehabilitated man, a family man, a man who desperately needs medical care that he can’t get in prison.”

  Berto snorted a laugh. “Save your pitch for the judge and keep it short.”

  “Funny, I remembered when you cared more about justice than your fifteen seconds of fame on late-night news.”

  Marc headed to his side and sat.

  Harlan leaned over. “What was that about?” he asked under his breath.

  “Just courthouse pleasantries, Dad.”

  Harlan turned to the deputy sheriff sitting behind him. “Can I talk to my granddaughter? She flew from back East to be here today.”

  “You’ll have to keep it short, Mr. Hamilton, but feel free.”

  Harlan turned in his seat and admired Emily, who sat in the front row of the gallery. She was layered in blue—cobalt dress, denim jacket—which set off her eyes. Her shiny blond hair fell loosely around her face.

  He puckered a kiss to her. “You’re more beautiful in real life than in pictures, sweetheart.”

  She blew him back a kiss. “I love you, Granddad.”

  A man and a woman in casual business attire walked out of the judge’s chambers and sat in chairs on either side of a large leather chair. A few moments later, the bailiff stood.

  “All rise. The honorable Judge Jack Benning presiding.”

  A fortyish man with a defiant step crossed to the leather chair in a swirl of black robes. After sitting, he adjusted his wire-rim glasses and said into the microphone, “You may be seated.”

  He opened a file, quickly perused it, then said, “The petitioner’s, Harlan Hamilton’s, request for parole will now be heard. Seated with me are Richard Castro and Sharon Brown, who are parole-board members. They will also participate in considering Mr. Hamilton’s petition today.” He scanned the courtroom over the top of his glasses. “All parties keep in mind that today’s proceedings are digitally recorded, so do not leave the microphone at the table or at the witness stand. Petitioner’s counsel has the burden of proving to the court and the board that this petition should be granted. I will hear your opening statement first, the younger Mr. Hamilton. You may proceed.”

  Marc stood, his case binder in hand, and glanced at Emily, who
smiled and made a show of looking over her shoulder. He followed her line of vision and saw Cammie several rows back, dressed in a tailored charcoal pants suit with a soft green blouse. Her raven hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail. Cammie had always called it her L.A. Law look and wore it whenever she went to court, whether as a spectator or witness.

  He was surprised, yet relieved to see her. As his investigator, she’d always had his back. Maybe she came here on her own or maybe a young eco-activist implored her. Whatever the reason, he was glad.

  He nodded in acknowledgement to Cammie and continued to the podium.

  After opening his binder, he leaned toward the microphone. “If it pleases the court...”

  The judge nodded.

  He glanced at Berto Martinez. “...and counsel...”

  Berto glanced at his watch then to Marc.

  “...I will provide my opening statement.”

  He paused and looked directly at the judge. In the silence could be heard the shuffle of feet and a murmured conversation.

  “Your Honor, this is a case about a man who has cultivated his inner goodness through hard experience. In the distant past, he was calloused and arrogant and dishonest. So much so, that he deprived—yes, stole—thousands of dollars from his own clients. But today he is a changed man. Similar to Paul on the road to Damascus, Harlan Hamilton has undergone a moral transformation in his journey from selfish to sharing. The evidence, your Honor, will establish beyond any doubt that Harlan Hamilton has been rehabilitated, shows remorse and has made full restitution to his victims. He also has community support, a place to live and a plan for counseling upon release.” He turned to his father. “I call Mr. Harlan Hamilton to the stand.”