by Annie Jones
Shelby mulled that over as they drove in tense silence through the darkness toward both Amanda and Courtney’s last known address. It wasn’t until they turned onto the street and Shelby noticed Sheriff Andy’s official car parked a few houses away that she finally spoke up again. “I wish Sheriff Denby didn’t have to be in on this. Won’t it send the message she’s in trouble?”
“She is in trouble, Shelby.” Jax pulled into the center of the driveway. “If she left the baby or did any of this, or knew about it and did not turn her stepsister in, there are plenty of ways she could be very much in trouble.”
Suddenly Shelby realized that Jax, and even Sheriff Andy, saw this so differently from how she did. The sheriff had parked out of sight to avoid tipping anyone off. Jax had parked in a way that would keep anyone from getting a car out of the garage and taking off.
“I get that Mandie is also a very troubled girl.” He pressed a button to lower the truck’s window as Sheriff Andy came up the walk. Clearly he planned to talk with the man without the telltale sound of the truck doors closing to signal their arrival. “That doesn’t change the fact that she abandoned a baby, or that there’s some connection to Courtney, who at the very least is accused of stealing a car.”
What she had told Jax about loving people and doing what the Lord expected weighed heavily on her heart. “If I could just talk to her...”
“The law is not devoid of mercy, Shelby, especially in Andy Denby’s hands,” he reminded her.
“I know.”
“By seeing this through the proper way, Mandie can get what she needs—counseling, medical aid, legal advice,” Sheriff Andy chimed in as he reached down and quietly opened her door. “Keep that in mind when you talk to her.”
“Shelby? You want to send Shelby in first? Alone?” Jax shifted in the seat with enough pent-up energy to rock the whole truck gently.
Sheriff Andy stepped back to swing the door open. “Shelby is with us because Shelby needs to be with us, not just for her own interests, son.”
Jax gripped the steering wheel. He didn’t offer further objections, but he didn’t have to—his concern about her involvement created a palpable prickle in the air around them.
“It will be okay.” Shelby reached out and gave his arm a squeeze. “You’re going to be right here if I need you.”
The strain in his posture eased. He leaned over in the seat to put his mouth near her ear, saying with conviction, “Count on it.”
“I want to,” she murmured.
For just that moment in the darkened closeness of the truck’s cab, Shelby wanted him to know that even though she understood it couldn’t last, she believed with all her heart she could count on him.
He leaned closer still, close enough for a sweet stolen kiss.
Shelby shut her eyes in anticipation.
“Aren’t you two getting a bit ahead of yourselves?” Sheriff Andy barked from the drive.
They moved apart.
“I guess I’d better...”
“Yeah. Go.” Jax cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. “I’ll watch for trouble from here.”
Sheriff Andy made a sweeping motion, like a footman escorting Cinderella from her coach. “We don’t even know if either of the girls still lives here, or if either is home, you know.”
Shelby nodded. She took a deep breath.
Jax opened his door and stepped out of the truck. She didn’t even hear his boot steps on the driveway. Then he was simply at her side, his hand on her back. “I know you’re scared, Shelby. Not of Mandie, but of what might happen once you confront this whole tangled-up mess of a situation.”
“I can do this. I know what I want, Jax.” She kept her attention fixed on the door, and on the most important thing in all of this. “I want whatever is best for baby Amanda, no matter what the cost to me.”
Jax folded her into an impulsive hug. “Mandie made a good choice when she decided to leave her baby in your care.”
Buoyed by his confidence and closeness, Shelby went up on tiptoe, placed a kiss on the man’s cheek, then turned and hurried up the drive and onto the porch. She flexed her hand, shook out the stiffness in her reluctant fingers and rang the bell.
It felt like minutes before she heard the shuffling of feet and a woman’s voice call out, “This had better not be who I think it is, because I meant it when I said I’d call the cops if I ever saw—”
The door swung open. A young woman with the blackest hair Shelby had ever seen stood in the doorway. Shelby thought she whispered the woman’s name, but in the intensity of the moment, she wasn’t sure she even remembered her own name. From this second forward, nothing in her life could ever be as it was before baby Amanda came into her life. Even if Mandie had no connection to the child, which seemed wildly unlikely, Shelby knew she would never rest until she had found the child’s mother and set things right.
In the measure of a heartbeat, the young woman’s expression went from dark as thunder to bright excitement. “Miss Shelby? I can’t believe it! I’m so happy to see you.”
Mandie Holden threw herself at Shelby with so much force that it carried Shelby staggering backward a step or two before she found her footing and returned the joyous embrace. “Mandie! It is you. You do still live here, and you look...” Shelby wriggled away to take a good long study. “You look so grown-up!”
“Twenty-one last month!” The young woman beamed.
“Twenty-one? How is that possible?” Shelby counted back all those years and realized that seven years was a bigger gap when Mandie was twelve and Shelby was nineteen. Now, instead of thinking of Amanda’s birth mom as a child, she viewed her more as a contemporary. That thought empowered her more than she expected.
“We need to talk, Mandie.” She was not dealing with a young girl in trouble, with no life experience, who had made a hasty emotional choice, but with someone old enough to have made better choices. Someone old enough to have asked about the baby she’d left. Those would have been the first words out of Shelby’s mouth. “Can we come in?”
“We?” Mandie flipped her long black hair over her shoulder and peered out into the yard.
Shelby motioned to Sheriff Andy and Jax.
The men came forward.
“A sheriff? Oh, no, what now?” Mandie put her hand to her forehead, as if suddenly hit with a pounding headache. “Is Courtney in trouble again?”
Sheriff Andy and Jax slowed the pace of their approach as they exchanged a look that Shelby could only think meant they didn’t quite buy Mandie’s surprise.
“So, you still have contact with your stepsister, Courtney?” Shelby took Mandie by the arm to turn her away from the scrutiny of the two lawmen. Yes, it was a protective gesture that had good ol’ softhearted Shelby written all over it. Shelby didn’t care what it looked like. She cared only about Mandie and Amanda and getting all this sorted out. “Does Courtney live here with you? When did you last see her?”
“Yes. That is, she did live here until about a week ago, when she took off.” She moved ahead of them into the small house.
The furniture was a bit on the shabby side, but no more so than most people her age just starting out would have. Shelby saw no sign of extravagance that might have been bought with other people’s money. She also saw no sign of a baby having lived in the home. Not even a photograph.
It tugged at her heart. “Mandie, I—”
“I don’t know where Courtney is, y’all.” She whirled around to face them, meeting Sheriff Andy, then Jax, then Shelby squarely in the eye as she said, “But you could probably find her if you could find that guy she’s been hanging around with—”
“You know that guy’s name?” Jax stepped forward to ask.
Mandie shook her head. “She said he gave her a car, and the next thing I know, the cops showed up saying h
e reported it stolen.”
“Mitch,” Shelby muttered, closing her eyes to keep from having to face Jax and from feeling like a foolhardy girl for having taken Mitch back into her life time and time again. Shelby sighed. “Look, Mandie, we didn’t come here about that.”
“Not just about that,” Sheriff Andy corrected.
Shelby opened her mouth, trusting somehow that she would find the right words for what she had to ask, but no sound came.
Jax moved in behind her, taking her tense shoulders in his big, gentle hands. He literally and figuratively had her back. “Mandie, Miss Shelby brought us all the way over from Sunnyside tonight because she needs to know... Why did you leave the baby, and what can we do to help you deal with all this?”
“The baby?” A crease formed between Mandie’s dark eyebrows, even as she let out a perplexed sort of laugh at Jax’s phrasing. “You mean Amanda?”
“I thought you were Amanda.” Sheriff Andy shifted his weight. The silence of the small room amplified the creak of his black uniform shoes and gun holster.
“I am. But so is the baby Shelby is adopting. That is, that’s what Courtney named her. I made her a blanket with her name on it. I kind of hoped you’d keep it—the name, not the blanket—well, also the blanket, but if you wanted to call her something else...”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down here.” Jax threw his hands up in a gesture so calming and sure that everyone seemed to pause and take a breath.
“Courtney named her?” Jax tipped his head, leaning one ear in Mandie’s direction, as if to say he wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “Aren’t you the baby’s mother?”
“Me?” Mandie put both hands to her chest and stepped backward so quickly, she knocked over a plant stand with a withered cactus on it. She didn’t even care when the whole thing toppled to the floor with a dull thud. She just rallied and put her fists on her hips as she asked, “Did Courtney tell you that?”
“None of us have ever even met Courtney.” Shelby bent down, scooped up the poor undernourished plant, set the stand upright and put the pot back where it belonged. “All we’ve had to go on is a blanket with the name Amanda on it and a secondhand report of someone with the blackest hair she’d ever seen at the Crosspoint Café the night we found an abandoned baby there.”
“Oh, no! Abandoned?” The younger woman looked genuinely pained at that news. She put her hand over her mouth. Her face went pale. She shook her head and sank into a nearby chair. “I should have known something was wrong. She lies about everything, you know. Of course she’d lie about this.”
This time when Shelby did a visual check of the sheriff’s and Jax’s expressions, she saw concern.
“Abandon Amanda?” Mandie looked up at Shelby, her eyes imploring. “I just don’t get why she would do that.”
“We can’t help you figure it out until we hear the whole story.” Jax moved closer.
“Start with Courtney and the baby.” The sheriff got out a pad and pen to take notes.
Mandie nodded to acknowledge their request, waited for everyone to take a seat in the small room and then began to unfurl a vivid story about her younger stepsister’s many struggles after Mandie’s father and Courtney’s mother split. For years the family and those who wanted to help had dealt with Courtney skipping school, shoplifting, staying out late. When Courtney’s mother had moved to get a fresh start, she had even allowed Mandie and Courtney to rent the family home from her in hopes it would give them some stability.
Just a couple of years out of high school, Courtney had become pregnant. At first it seemed like just the thing to get the girl on the right path. She took care of her health, stopped drinking and smoking and went to church with Mandie a few times. The baby’s father had promised they’d marry as soon as he got a job and had some money saved up.
“The baby’s father? Mitch?” Jax asked.
“No. A boy she went to school with. He hung around as long as his folks paid the rent and Courtney’s bills, but then after they had the baby, neither of them seemed able to take care of Amanda. Or really wanted to.” Mandie looked down at the floor, her shoulders slumped. “I’d have done it, but look around here. I’m not ready for that kind of responsibility. I couldn’t give the baby what she needed.”
“But you thought of someone who could,” Jax prompted, stealing a glance at Shelby.
Shelby pressed her lips together, fighting the urge to burst into tears at the whole story.
“I remembered how good you were with kids, Miss Shelby. How much your daddy loved you, how much everyone in town loved you. And I told Courtney about you.” Mandie gave Shelby a big smile. “Courtney didn’t meet this Mitch until a few weeks ago, when she started going over to Sunnyside every few days—which she told me was to meet with you about adopting Amanda.”
Jax leaned forward in his chair. “Let me guess. She also told you that Shelby was giving her money to help out with her expenses.”
“Yes.” She nodded, paused, then fiddled with her hair and added, “Don’t tell me that wasn’t true, either.”
“She got my bank information and stole about a thousand dollars before I even knew it, Mandie,” Shelby said.
“Oh, Miss Shelby!” Mandie shot up from her chair and came over to where Shelby was sitting on the couch. She knelt on the floor and folded her arms over Shelby’s knees. “I must have asked her a million times if I could talk to you on her behalf or join your meetings, and she told me she wanted to do it herself, to stand on her own. It seemed like such a positive step, taking responsibility, that I... Can you ever forgive me?”
Shelby reached out and took the younger woman’s hand in hers. “Forgive you? You did nothing wrong.”
Mandie’s inky black hair shimmied from side to side as she shook her head vehemently. “I feel so guilty that I couldn’t get Courtney to straighten up, the way you did for me.”
“I didn’t do anything but spend time with you, Mandie.”
“I know. You spent time on me when nobody else seemed to have any to spare for me. Now I work full-time. I’m taking some college courses. And I teach Sunday school—preschool, but it’s a start.”
“It’s a wonderful start, Mandie!” Shelby stood and gave the young woman a hug.
“All thanks to you, Miss Shelby.” Mandie hugged her right back, and it seemed clear the meeting was winding down.
“Do you have a way to contact your stepsister?” Sheriff Andy asked, pen poised over paper. “Any idea when you might see her again?”
“Well, since this guy reported her stealing his car, and she knows people are onto her for hacking their debit and credit card accounts, it’s a pretty safe bet she’ll show up here before too long.”
Sheriff Andy asked for a photograph of Courtney, and when Mandie found one, Shelby captured the image on her phone. Then Sheriff Andy wrapped up his part in it all and left to go coordinate what he had learned with the Westmoreland Police Department.
“Night, Miss Mandie.” Sheriff Andy tipped his head to the young woman seated at Shelby’s side. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
He placed his hat on his head, gave Jax a look that Shelby couldn’t quite decipher and let himself out.
Jax, sitting on the edge of the chair across from the couch, looking ready to spring into action at any moment, turned toward them. For the first time since he’d rushed to the aid of what he had thought were kittens in a basket on the Crosspoint’s deck, he seemed uncertain about what to do next.
He slapped his hands against his denim-clad legs. He started to speak, then refrained. He appeared genuinely pleased when his phone chimed out his no-nonsense ringtone, and he tugged it from his pocket. “I should probably see who this is.”
As the picture of the building in Miami spread across the small screen, he frowned. His forehead creased and his eyes went almost squinty, as i
f he thought he could intimidate the object into silence.
“It’s okay. We’re pretty much done here. Answer it if you need to.” Need to. Not want to. Shelby had chosen her words purposefully. If Jax wanted to get back to his real life, the life he was on the path to creating when he took the detour into Sunnyside almost two weeks ago, Shelby did not want to know. But doing what a person needed to do—that she understood, and she would do nothing to interfere.
His hesitation did that job for him as the call went to voice mail, indicated by a buzz and a different kind of chime.
Jax let the phone rest on the arm of the chair for a moment. He sat back in the seat, kicked his right boot up to rest on his left knee, then adjusted his position and did the opposite. Finally, his large hand hovering just above the cluster of icons on the screen, he picked up the phone.
“Ladies, if you’ll excuse me?” He stood. “I’ve got something to take care of before we get back on the road, Shelby.”
Shelby watched until he completely disappeared out the front door before she turned to Mandie again. So many things she longed to say, so many messages she wanted to give to both this young woman and to baby Amanda’s birth mother. She just didn’t know where to start. “I want you to know that I have loved every second of having baby Amanda in my life, and I don’t know what I will do if—”
“Oh, Miss Shelby, don’t even imagine that Amanda will be taken from you. The baby’s father gave up his rights, and his parents were happy to have Amanda go to you.”
“So Courtney has everyone believing she went through the proper channels?” The whole story saddened Shelby, but this news gave her a ray of hope. If Courtney had made her intentions to choose Shelby to raise Amanda clear, and the father and paternal grandparents had agreed to that, then in all likelihood the adoption would go through smoothly.