He paused and looked out the window to the street lined with flower boxes of pansies. He’d been away a long time. If he didn’t know homes like the one he grew up in existed in this small town, he wouldn’t believe it.
Maybe it was time he reclaimed his past and brought it into the future, where he could make peace with what happened to him. “Look, I know I messed up with Glory—believe me, I get that. But please, give me a chance with her girls.”
Jules put her hand on his and he felt a jolt of recognition. Kindness. He’d found it in every corner of the world in one way or another. It was more than he deserved.
She drew in a long breath and smiled. “Why don’t I bring Emma and Eleanor by tonight to see the house? I know they’ll love it.”
Undeserved kindness.
He cleared his throat and nodded. “I’ll be there.”
Chapter Three
A few hours later, Jules’s bakery assistant, April, stuck her head in the door. “Hey, Garrett Cole is here for you.”
“Thanks. You can send him back here.” She checked the supply of chocolate chips, last on her list, and stepped out of the walk-in pantry just in time to see Garrett push open the door. “I think my pulse rate jumped through the roof when I heard your name.”
Garrett chuckled. “I get that a lot unfortunately.”
“So what brings you by? I assume if it was good news, you would’ve just called.”
He took a deep breath. “No easy way to say this, Jules. One of the family members filed for custody.”
Her stomach plummeted. She wanted to scream and fought to keep her violent disappointment in check. “I was so afraid Cameron was going to do something like this.”
“It’s not entirely unex—” He narrowed his eyes. “Who’s Cameron?”
“Glory’s older brother. He showed up at my house to see the girls a couple of days ago. But if he’s not the one who filed for custody, then who?”
“Victoria Porter.” Garrett pulled a sheaf of papers out of his leather case and handed them to her.
She reached for the papers with one hand and the edge of the counter with the other. “Glory’s mother.”
“Yeah. I’m so sorry. I know if the children’s grandmother had been a good plan for the children, Glory would’ve stipulated that in her will.”
“She and her mom didn’t get along. Vicky didn’t kick Glory out, like she did Cam, but she is the most selfish person I’ve ever met. If she’s filing for custody, there’s a reason, and it doesn’t have anything to do with what’s best for the girls.” Jules paused, tugged her bottom lip between her teeth. She didn’t want to say this out loud, but she had to ask, “Does—does she have a chance?”
Garrett waved the stack of papers away when she tried to hand it back. “That’s your copy. And the answer to your question is I don’t know. We got assigned Judge Walker and he’s known to prefer biological family for child placement.”
“Even if the biological family isn’t suitable? And Glory named me as guardian in the will?”
“Well, your definition of suitable and the judge’s might be a little different. Once custody becomes an issue, the parents’ wishes are considered, but aren’t always followed. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s the way it is.”
She stood and walked to the window that overlooked the street behind the bakery. “I can’t believe this.”
“You mentioned the children’s uncle? If you can get him to testify that the children would be better off with you, it might help.”
“What if he sees this as an opportunity and decides to file for custody, too? I really could lose them.” Her voice broke and she cleared her throat, desperately trying to hang onto her composure. These past few weeks had been the hardest of her life. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take.
Garrett shook his head. “I don’t know, Jules. I want to tell you everything’s going to be okay, but this case just got a whole lot more complicated. Once custody proceedings start, it’s really hard to know what the judge will do. This one prefers biological family. He also prefers married couples over singles trying to adopt. I’ve been in his courtroom a lot and he’s very unpredictable.”
She shoved her fingers into her hair, resting her palms over her eyes, willing herself not to break down in front of her lawyer. “This is horrible. Those girls have already been through so much.”
Garrett put his hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure they stay with you. In the meantime, make friends with Glory’s brother.”
Jules nodded. “We’re visiting him tonight. Hopefully, he’ll see us as a family—that the girls are meant to be with me.”
“Good. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.”
She watched through a blur of tears as Garrett walked back out through the door. The girls were her responsibility now. Glory and her brother had both suffered at the hands of a mom too interested in her own comfort to put them first. Jules would never let that happen to Eleanor and Emma—no matter what she had to do.
* * *
Cam placed the few items he’d picked up at the grocery store into his giant Sub-Zero refrigerator. He put a cartridge in his single-cup coffee brewer and looked out the window as the steaming hot liquid hissed into his mug.
It seemed impossible that he’d bought a house—not just because he was back here in his hometown, but because he was making plans to stay. But when he looked out those big windows at the stretch of green and the glimmer of water, it felt right. It felt like possibility.
The sun dipped behind the trees, sending long shadows across the pasture. He glanced at his watch. He’d expected Jules to be here by now, but she must’ve gotten held up.
He picked up his coffee and walked through the French doors onto the wide porch beyond the kitchen, fatigue settling in his shoulders. He didn’t often second-guess decisions. His success and reputation depended on a certain amount of creative bravado. Making a decision to buy this huge house? That was out of the norm, but surprisingly, he didn’t feel regret. He felt...hope.
When he’d seen his niece standing in the doorway of Juliet’s house that first night, it all clicked. It seemed so simple. Yes, he was taking a big risk moving to Alabama, but so what? He’d built a writing career out of being a risk taker. And he’d turn the world inside out if he had to, for Emma and Eleanor.
He glanced at his watch again: 5:30 p.m. and no sign of Jules. Maybe she forgot? He didn’t want the girls to go to bed without him at least hearing how their day went. He grabbed his keys off the counter.
A couple minutes later he was standing on her front porch, his hand raised to knock, when he saw water pouring out from under the closed door. Uh-oh.
He reached for the knob, pushed open the door and stepped into chaos. Water dripped from the ceiling, seeming to come from everywhere. Emma was screaming from the portable crib, her little face red and tear streaked.
Eleanor jumped up and down, making water splash, soaking her clothes and her hot-pink Mary Janes. “Hey, guess what? It’s raining in the house!”
“I see that.” He picked the damp baby up from the crib, putting her on his shoulder. Her little body curved into his, trembling and needy. He held her close, this tiny innocent sweetheart, patting her back as Jules came through the hall door with an armload of towels, her cell phone tucked next to her ear. Her hair hung in wet ropes around her shoulders, jeans rolled up to midcalf.
She came to a hard stop when she saw him. Cam froze, glancing up at the ceiling as a fat drop of cold water landed on his forehead. “So...what happened?”
She tossed towels on the hardwood floor in a haphazard pattern, words spilling out in a rush. “The water heater’s in the attic and I guess it exploded. Water just started pouring out of the ceiling. The ceiling in the entire house is soaked and dripping.”
He coul
dn’t tell if she was crying or if it was just the water tracking down her cheeks. “Oh, boy. Okay, so why don’t I get the girls out of here? I’ll take them next door and get them dry and fed. When you get things settled, come over.”
Cam could literally see the thoughts churning in her mind as she tried to figure a way out of letting him leave with the girls. He should probably be offended, but he did appreciate that she was so protective of his nieces—even when the one she was protecting them from was him. “I’ll take good care of them, Jules, I promise.”
“I know.” She looked around her ruined home with a sigh, but her fingers were still clenched into a fist. “The water mitigation team should be here within the hour.”
Cam wasn’t sure anything could be done to save the wood flooring, and the ceiling was definitely a total loss. He wasn’t an expert—by far—but it looked to him like it was going to take a while, maybe months, to fix this kind of damage. “Got it. Okay. Come over after you’re done with the workers and we can talk some more.”
“I will.”
He turned to where Eleanor was tap-dancing in a puddle on the rug. “Come on, splash princess, we’re going to my house.”
Eleanor started toward him but looked back at Jules, green eyes darkening with fear.
Juliet dropped to her knees on the watery floor in front of the three-year-old, who’d known so much loss and change in the past few weeks. She gripped one little water-pruned hand. “It’s okay, Eleanor. You go with Uncle Cam and I’ll see you in just a little while.”
Eleanor hugged Jules, arms cinching around her neck in a death grip before she let go.
Jules picked her up and followed Cam into the kitchen. She unhooked the diaper bag and Eleanor’s backpack from their place by the back door. “You’re going to need these. There’s a change of clothes for each of them and Emma’s due for a bottle at six.”
As he grasped the bags, she held on a second too long. “Cam. Take care of them—I’m trusting you.”
“Should I send my résumé over for you to check out?”
He was joking, but Jules tilted her head and smiled. “No, that’s okay. My brother Joe is the police chief here and I already had him run a background check on you.”
Cam was still laughing as he opened the front door of his new home. He’d worried, a little, about whether Juliet was the right person to raise his nieces, when he’d met her the other night. He wasn’t worried about that now.
She had grit. And there was nothing more he admired than a little grit.
* * *
Juliet tiptoed out of the nursery in Cam’s new house. It was ridiculous how perfect it was. Layers of white and pale gray and texture everywhere, from a faux fur throw on the floor to the bedside table made from a tree trunk. It was precious and both girls were sound asleep. She pulled the door almost closed and sagged against the wall next to it.
What a night. If any sense of reaching for perfection had remained before this debacle, and she would’ve guaranteed that it didn’t, it was gone now.
The ceiling had literally come crashing down.
She shivered. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be warm again after being soaked to the skin for so long, but when she walked into the great room, Cam had a roaring fire going in the fireplace and a plate of food on a tray waiting for her.
“I hope you’re okay with pad thai. It’s my go-to when I need a quick dinner.” He glanced up with a smile and her stomach did a crazy loop-de-loop.
“It’s hot and I’m hungry. Thank you.” She sat on the edge of the hearth with her back to the fire and took a bite. “Cameron, this is so good. I guess you learned to make it in Thailand.”
He laughed. “No, actually, Brooklyn. There’s a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that has the best Thai food this side of the ocean and a little Thai grandma who took a starving kid under her wing.”
After inhaling an entire plate of food, she put the tray down and leaned back into the warmth of the fire. “I’m starting to feel like a human again. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
“This house is great.” She wanted to be kind and act normal, but in her mind, she was reeling. The first blow had been the custody suit. One thing she’d had going for her was a stable home and business. Business was decent, but faltering without her daily presence.
And now her home was in a shambles for who knew how long. She had to do something to keep the girls safe and with her, even if it meant doing something drastic. And drastic was definitely the word for the germ of an idea starting to form in her mind.
“I like it even more than I thought I would,” Cam answered. “I spent all afternoon roaming through the house and the grounds and I still don’t think I’ve seen it all.”
“You decided to stay because of the girls?” Her voice quivered and she hated it, but she had to know where he was coming from. She remembered the beautiful, perfect nursery down the hall.
Was he doing all this so he could get custody, or did he have another motivation in mind?
“Yes. I’m not sure I would’ve ever come back to Red Hill Springs if they weren’t here, but they are. And now, so am I.” His face softened as he mentioned the girls, but still, she needed to know he would fight for them.
She tried to make the question light, but couldn’t pull it off. “Have you seen your mother since you’ve been in town?”
The mention of his mom was like slamming into a wall of ice. He stopped smiling. “I wouldn’t say I have a mother. So, no. Why would you ask me that?”
“She filed for custody of Emma and Eleanor. My lawyer brought me a copy of the paperwork this afternoon.”
Cam shot to his feet and walked to the wide windows. She could see his reflection, muscles tensing as he fought for control. When he turned back, his face was calm. “Glory and Sam listed you as the guardian for the girls. She can’t get them. Right?”
“Glory and Sam wanted the girls with me, yes, but the judge won’t grant me guardianship as long as there’s an open custody petition.”
“Has she even seen them since the funeral?” He walked closer and his smooth grace reminded her of a caged tiger, pent-up energy and a hint of tightly leashed rage.
“No. She’s been messed up for a long time. I’m not sure why she thinks she can raise two girls and I don’t know why the judge would believe it, but I’ve asked around. The judge we pulled is unpredictable and he favors biological family.”
“There’s gotta be a reason. She doesn’t want to raise them. She didn’t want to be a mother to her own two children. There’s gotta be a reason she’s trying to get custody.” He sat beside her on the hearth, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him.
“They have life insurance money from Glory and Sam. Quite a bit of money, actually, that hasn’t been released yet. But when it is, it will go directly into a trust for the kids, for college.”
His eyes narrowed on hers. “It will go into a trust automatically? Or that’s your plan for the money?”
“Oh, I see your point. You think she wants custody so she can get the life insurance money? That’s...” She floundered, searching for the right word. “There’s not even a word for how despicable that is.”
“Yeah, it is. Jules, what do you need? Do you need money for an attorney? Whatever it is, whatever it takes, we’ll keep them safe, I promise.” He put his hand on her shoulder and she closed her eyes, praying for guidance, praying that she wasn’t about to make a terrible mistake that would end in hurt for everyone.
When she opened her eyes, they were direct on his. She took a deep breath. “I need a husband.”
He laughed, but sobered when he realized she wasn’t joking. “Okay, you’re serious. I’m just not sure I’m following you.”
Tears stung her eyes. “I don’t need just any husband. I need you. The judge we pulled for this case is all
about biological family. And he prefers married couples over singles. If we got married...we would be both.”
“Do you know how crazy this sounds?”
“I do. I know.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “I’m not taking any chances with the safety of the girls. I can’t, Cam. I promised Glory.”
“I want to protect them, too, but getting married? My family, if you want to call it that, was not like yours. My dad split when I was a baby. My stepdad beat me and threw me out of the house when I was a teenager. I’ve bounced around the world for the past fifteen years. Trust me when I say I’m not husband material.”
She leaned forward, her eyes laser focused on his, her voice soft. “I know better than anyone what your family was like. When your stepdad decided he liked being drunk better than having a job, guess where Glory ate her meals? And guess where she stayed when he figured out that she was more fun as a punching bag than your mom, because if he hit her, both of them would cry?”
Grief was etched on his face. “I didn’t know any of that, Jules. It wasn’t like that for her before they kicked me out.”
“Glory thought you were the lucky one. Because you got away.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I know.” She took another deep breath and released it in a long pent-up stream. “None of that is your fault. But that is why I would do anything—absolutely anything—to protect them. You couldn’t protect Glory, Cam. You were just a kid. But you can protect her babies. Help me protect them.”
He grabbed her hand, gripping it in his. “I will. I promise.”
“Then marry me.” She looked down at their joined hands. “Please?”
Chapter Four
Cam sat in a chair on the stone deck behind his house, a cup of coffee in front of him. In his life of continuous travel, there’d been one constant that kept him grounded. Every morning, he read the Bible.
The Marriage Bargain Page 3