It was five after nine. She’d sent Sammie to bed half an hour before. “I don’t know,” she said. “I want to be fine. I want to believe that I’m going to walk into court tomorrow, be myself, tell the truth and walk out with full custody of my son. It’s possible the judge won’t even make a determination tomorrow, but he can if he decides it’s in Sammie’s best interests. If he’s convinced Sammie isn’t safe with me.”
“So you’re ready?” Julie asked softly, her voice filled with compassion.
Morgan looked at the massive array of “evidence” she’d gathered to support her fitness as a mother. Would the judge really be swayed by the scrapbooks she’d made? “Does it matter that I’ve got every single thing Sammie ever created or wrote?” she asked.
Turning a page in one of the leather-clad volumes, she looked at the scrap of notepaper with a couple of inked squiggly lines on it. Sammie’s first attempt with a pen. He’d been less than a year old. She’d been studying for a freshman psych class that she’d later had to drop because she couldn’t work, raise her baby and get enough sleep to allow her to stay awake in class. She’d waited until Sammie was a little older, and she was a little more experienced at motherhood, before she’d enrolled in college again.
“Of course it matters,” Julie said.
“You think I should bring the scrapbooks, then?”
“I think you should bring anything you want to bring.”
“Even his first baseball glove?” It was tiny enough to fit two-year-old fingers. Plastic and ripped.
“Okay, probably not that.” Julie chuckled. “Seriously, Morgan, report cards, inoculation records, his scouting achievement awards, that Great Reader certificate he got from the summer library program—those are the kinds of things you could have with you, just to show, if you need to, that Sammie is doing fine.”
“He achieves,” Morgan said, finding each of the items Julie mentioned among the menagerie on the table. “But none of that means he’s emotionally healthy or mentally well adjusted.”
“And if he’s not, it doesn’t mean you aren’t a good mother. It only means he needs help. We have a lot of kids in school that come from well-rounded two-parent families and still struggle. Sometimes because of disorders like ADHD, but other times the behavioral problems aren’t easily defined or explained. I’ve seen it more than once where you’ll have a couple of siblings from a family turn out fine and have a third that’s a problem.”
Morgan listened intently. Taking heart. Allowing Julie’s words to soothe the panic rising inside of her.
“Thank you.”
“I want to come with you tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to do that. It’s a closed hearing so you’d have to wait out in the hall, anyway.”
“So I’ll sit in the hall. I’d already requested a half-day vacation in case you needed me to testify.”
“So treat yourself to a rare morning off with no kids.”
Julie’s girls were at day camp all summer while she worked.
“Look, you don’t have to do this on your own.”
Lord knew, for once she wasn’t sure she could.
“What if the judge takes him away from me, Jules? What if tonight is the last night I have my boy sleeping here at home with me?”
“Don’t, Morgan. Don’t do that to yourself. You have to believe everything is going to be fine.”
“I want to believe that.” She had to hang on to hope. “I can’t imagine mornings without his little face frowning at me for one reason or another. Or his kissing me goodbye each day…” She choked up. Morgan swallowed and then said, “He still kisses me every single morning.”
“I’m not surprised. He loves you.”
“Not tonight he doesn’t. It’s probably a good thing he’s not going to be there tomorrow. I’m afraid he’d tell the judge that he didn’t want to live with me.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Oh, I’ve been irritable all night. I snapped at him for chewing with his mouth open, and again when he put his glass down with too much force and splashed milk on the table. And he had the television turned up too loud. The poor little guy couldn’t get anything right.”
“You’re human, Morgan. And on edge. No one expects you to be perfect.”
Her father did. And tomorrow she had to be up to his standards.
“I sent Sammie to bed early. He threw a fit. Started in on the whole ‘babying him too much’ thing. He wouldn’t say his prayers in front of me.” Her eyes blurred with tears.
“And this time tomorrow everything will be better. Keep your chin up.”
“I’m trying.” But there was a very real possibility that things would not be better.
“Sammie needs that from you.”
And if Sammie needed it, she’d find a way. She always had.
“What time do you have to be in court?”
“Nine.”
“I’ll be ready at eight.”
She wanted to be strong enough to show up alone. To show them she could. To let her father know that he didn’t scare her. “Okay.”
“You got any wine in the house?”
“Yeah.”
“Drink some. And then lie down and get some rest.”
Morgan poured herself half a glass of wine. She took a few sips, staring at the dining room table. She’d expected her mother to call. To care enough to touch base, if only to beg Morgan to do as her father wanted.
The phone didn’t ring.
Dumping the rest of the wine down the sink, Morgan took Julie’s advice and went to lie down.
On the floor of Sammie’s room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE WINE WAS GOOD. So was the company. Cal grilled the steaks. He talked to Kelsey about France. He’d been there once, during college. She’d studied in Paris for a couple of years. They’d frequented the same quaint little coffeehouse on a street just off the Champs-Élysées.
He wondered how Morgan was holding up, the night before court. If she’d given him any encouragement at all that morning, he’d have called her to find out. As it was, the barriers she’d erected had been very clear and he had to honor them. She had to handle things in her own way.
“See, we’re kindred spirits.” Kelsey smiled at him over the wrought iron table by the pool in her very private backyard. Her red hair was down and flowing wildly around her shoulders, the curls as sexy and bold as the woman herself. “With all of the places to drink coffee in a two-mile radius, we both chose the same one.”
“Either that or we share an uncanny ability to find the best coffee around.” He smiled back at her. Her eyes were a cross between green and blue and sparkling with pleasure. Life. He could almost feel the energy she exuded. “And enough of an addiction to have to go back once we find it.”
“I think we share more than that,” she told him. Their plates were empty. Her wineglass was not.
“You do, huh?” His smile was slow, telling her about the kind of warmth he’d like to share with her.
“I think we share a need for independence while recognizing and appreciating our deeply sensual natures.”
She got all that from a staff meeting and a few dates? He chased the thought away with another—she was probably going to be his next relationship. Yet oddly, he wasn’t all that thrilled with the prospect.
“You’re a passionate guy, Cal. You’re always looking for deeper meaning, in literature and in life. I like that.”
She wa
sn’t wrong about that.
“And I study art for the same reasons. To find the heart of people. To understand the communication that is too deep for words.”
Cal moved in his seat. Adjusting his weight. Repositioning his backside. Hearts weren’t something he discussed. Mostly because to discuss others’ hearts would mean he’d have to discuss his own and he didn’t do that. Even with himself.
She took a sip of wine, studying him, as though she knew what he was thinking. And then she stood.
“What do you say we go swimming?” She reached for his hand and he allowed her to pull him to his feet. This was what he wanted.
“I study romance in literature,” he told her, because he felt he had to. He still had a hold of her hand. “But I don’t do romance.”
“No hurt feelings or expectations,” she said, as though she’d read his mind. Or his life.
“Right.”
“I know.” She nodded and the glow in her eyes didn’t change at all. “Me, neither. So, you want to swim?”
He did. His body had been humming with need for days. And he found her immensely attractive. More so now that they’d established their relationship would only go as deep as six feet of chlorinated water.
“The water’s lovely,” she said. “I swim every night.” She unfastened her top, revealing bare shoulders and cleavage. She wasn’t wearing a bra and didn’t appear the least bit shy showing him that fact. Her blouse landed on the cool decking.
“Naked?” he asked her, liking this conversation a whole lot better. He was at home here. Knew exactly what to say. What to do.
“Of course. You ever swim naked, Professor?” She reached for his belt buckle.
“Every chance I get,” he answered, looking her straight in the eye. He could feel her fingers slide his belt out of the loop, and then the slight tug as the leather unfastened from the hinge. He looked down at her breasts. Thought of the water lapping against their bodies.
And when her hand reached for the button at the waistband of his pants, he covered her fingers with his own.
Her question was wordless, but plain as she met his gaze.
“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t believe he’d said the words. “I don’t think this is going to work.”
He couldn’t go through with it. He wanted to. He should. But he couldn’t. Morgan’s features kept appearing in his mind’s eye. As he’d seen her in class—vibrant, engaged. And at home—eyes shadowed with worry and fear. She’d be afraid tonight. The night before her first day of court.
Classy woman that she was, Kelsey didn’t pressure him for answers. “Then I’m sorry, too,” she said softly. “You’re welcome to stay. Pour a second glass of wine. Or you’re welcome to show yourself out.” She didn’t wait for his decision. Turning, she stripped out of her skirt, slid her panties down perfect, long, tanned legs, left them in a puddle by her blouse and dove into the pool.
Cal let himself out.
* * *
SOMETHING WAS WRONG with him. Deeply wrong with him. No woman had ever infiltrated his mind as Morgan Lowen had. Cal fretted all the way home and then, without stopping for a glass of whiskey, went straight into his office. His father’s door was shut, but it wouldn’t have mattered either way. He needed time alone, time to focus on real life.
Cal opened his book, started at Chapter One and began to read.
Miller had the pages in his possession. Cal had to take a new look at them, from the perspective of a police detective rabid to take his father down. For the next couple of hours he refused to let his mind wander.
* * *
“YOUR HONOR, I AM NOT a heartless man. To the contrary, I stand before you with a very full heart this morning as I do one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done in my life. I am here today as a parent, doing what is best for my child and my grandchild in spite of the fact that in order to do what’s best I must hurt those who I am trying to help.”
Morgan almost broke her promise to herself and turned her head to look at the man who was seated with her mother and their attorney at the table across the aisle from her. She’d been in the courthouse for half an hour and didn’t even know what her parents were wearing.
Her father, as the plaintiff, had been given the opportunity to be heard first. Morgan was shocked that he was speaking for himself.
But then maybe, like her, he’d been counseled that he’d be better suited to speak his heart to the judge rather than rely on legalities put forth by a paid professional.
He’d also obviously been thoroughly coached on how to present himself and what to say. Because her father would never have admitted out loud that he had a full heart. It just wasn’t his way.
Dressed in a navy linen suit with matching leather pumps, she sat alone at her table. Julie, the only member of the audience in the otherwise closed court room, sat right behind her. She wasn’t allowed to speak, but when her father had offered no objections, the judge had allowed Julie in the room.
Leslie was not there. She’d sent her report in electronically.
“Your Honor, I have two serious issues to bring for your consideration in my request to grant my wife and me full custody of our grandson, Samuel Elias Lowen. I will speak to the most recent tragedy, Samuel’s disappearance, first, as it is what brought my grandson to the court’s attention.
“Samuel is searching for his place as a man in this world. His mother gives him neither the responsibility nor the freedom to know what he needs. Samuel has tried repeatedly to discuss this situation with his mother, but she cannot see him as anything other than her little boy. The boy had been growing increasingly angry. He was afraid of the negative feelings he was having toward his mother. And so, in desperation, he ran away to show her he needed to be given the chance to grow up.”
Morgan could hardly bear to listen. But she hung on to every word. Had her father really talked to Sammie? Had her son confided in him?
She didn’t believe it. And yet, George sounded so convincing. The judge certainly looked like he was believing every word.
Part of what her father said was right; she hadn’t been able to hear what Sammie was telling her. She’d let him down.
And he’d run away to teach her a lesson.
And then she’d made things worse with that stupid monitor. Had Sammie told her mother about that? Had her mother told her dad? Was her poor judgment, her bad choice, in Leslie’s report, as well?
Staring straight ahead, Morgan felt a cold calm come over her. She would get through this hearing.
Julie cleared her throat. Morgan reached out a mental hand to clasp the one she knew Julie would be holding out to her if she could.
“The day my grandson was born, life changed for me, Your Honor. I think of him all the time as I make everyday decisions that could someday affect him. He is heir to everything I build. He will have to live with the legacy I leave. To that end, I watch every step I take, every single word I say, so that I do not, in any way, leave my grandson to face hardship or shame.”
Even Morgan heard the truth in this part of her father’s testimony. He wasn’t an evil man. Just a calculating one. He analyzed and added up every move that was made. By himself, and others.
And only a man with George’s ego would live every moment of the day based on the legacy he would leave behind. Most people wouldn’t think themselves so important as to believe that every move they made would influence those around them.
The courtroom was deathly
quiet as her father’s voice finally faded away. Morgan wondered if she’d even get a chance to speak. She didn’t know what she could add that would in any way mean anything to Judge Marks.
And then she heard her father’s voice again. “As with everything else I do, I did not take this step lightly, Your Honor, but, rather, after much introspection and many deep conversations with my wife. We have met with professionals, spoken with our daughter and grandson and sought counsel on the decision to appear before you today. After our scare of two weeks ago, our fear for Samuel’s welfare has grown to the point where we feel we have no choice but to protect him in this way.”
Was her father speaking for her mother because that was what he did, or was her mother really in on this? Had they really had deep conversations about it? Conversations that went beyond her father telling her mother what had to happen and why?
Certainly they’d had no family conversations as his words implied. No family counseling, either. Her father wouldn’t hear of that. Morgan knew that firsthand, too, because she’d asked for them to go to counseling before she’d married Todd.
“The second issue I bring for your consideration, Your Honor, is longer reaching. My daughter, Morgan Elise Lowen, is a woman who bets on the underdog every single time. She sees the best in people, Your Honor, and while that is an admirable trait, it is also a very dangerous one. My daughter trusts unconditionally—and in so doing, she puts herself, and consequently her son, in precarious positions.”
He was really doing it. As much as Morgan had known that her father would win at all costs, she’d still held out hope. He was her father. Privy to her most private failures. The man who was supposed to protect her. And he was crucifying her.
Her father had always been hard on her. But he’d never stabbed her in the back before.
“My daughter has refused the help of our security team,” her father continued. “She believes that she and Samuel can live what she calls ‘normal’ lives. Without security supervision, Samuel was able to walk out of his school, board a public bus and walk for miles, and all of that time he was exposed to any number of people in this city who would not find it unpalatable to kidnap or kill him for a piece of my fortune. Samuel is not an ordinary child. He is heir to the Lowen fortune, Your Honor, which makes him prey to a lot of immoral people. And yet his mother refuses to protect him from them.”
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