Bo’s eyes narrowed and darted between Sloan and Gloria. “You two ain’t winnin’ this. I’m taking my boy home to Memphis. Maybe not today, but real soon. That’s a promise!” He fairly spat the words, and then stalked off between the pine trees to the far side of the gravel road and got into a massive red truck sporting monster tires and a fog light bar atop the roof of the cab. He took off, throwing gravel and breaking the graveyard’s silence.
Toby began to cry, and Cole knelt. “I don’t like that man,” Toby said.
Sloan was frightened too. What if Bo could take Toby away? What kind of life would the boy have with a father like Bo? She lifted her sunglasses to nestle on her head and looked Dawson full in the face. “Thank you.”
Lani huddled beside him, and he draped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “You’re welcome.”
They held each other’s gazes for long seconds, speaking in a code that Cole didn’t understand, but with the simple exchange, he felt a tectonic shift in something that had settled between them in the confrontation. Cole resigned himself to never knowing, and at the moment, what did it matter? They still had Toby. Cole scooped up the exhausted, sniffing boy, and Toby laid his cheek on Cole’s shoulder. “What say we go back to my house? I’ll fix us some lunch.”
“I’ll meet you there.” Gloria headed to the parked hearse and its driver, who had driven her and Toby and the casket to the cemetery for the service. Sloan had refused to get into the hearse and had ridden with Cole, but Gloria’s car was parked at the funeral home.
Lani said, “We’ll bring the flowers back to the house in Dawson’s truck.”
Customs. Rituals. Routines. Cleaning up after the dead. Dry-eyed, head high, still shaking with anger and fear for Toby, Sloan walked with Cole as he carried Toby to his truck.
“Glad that’s over.” Dawson threw off his suit coat and undid his tie, tossed them over the arm of a chair the second they stepped inside his apartment.
“Thank you for going with me. You didn’t have to, and I know how hard it was to go, but I appreciate it.” Lani rose on tiptoes and kissed him lightly. She had requested a two-day leave from her job and had driven to Windemere the day before to attend Lindsey’s funeral. “She was a special lady. She’ll be missed.”
Dawson dropped onto his sofa and, with a pat on the cushion, invited her to join him, and she did. “I go to that cemetery off and on, you know. To visit. Leave flowers.”
Lani feared he’d fall into the darkness of that cold November day from the past, that terrible day that neither of them should revisit right now. Burying Lindsey had been hard enough without facing that other time. Lani herself had barely escaped with her sanity from that day. She slipped her arm between his torso and the back sofa cushion, and settled against him lovingly. “Good thing you were there and made Toby’s awful father go away,” she said in an effort to redirect Dawson’s thoughts.
Dawson stroked her hair. “Cole would have done it if I hadn’t. I saw how attached he is to the boy.”
“True. Lindsey came to depend on him. I think she had a serious crush on Cole, but what was the point? She was dying, and he only thought of her as a friend.”
Dawson shrugged. “Well, he’s a stand-up guy and I like him. I don’t think he’s going to let anything happen to Toby if he can help it.”
Lani was hesitant to bring up Sloan’s name, but she was sure that it wasn’t just Toby whom Cole loved. Lani had seen the way Cole looked at Sloan. He was in love with her, sure as day follows night. And Sloan Quentin was a powerful lure on a man’s psyche. Lani straightened, shied away from thoughts and memories that could twist and wound. “Hey, let’s fix some lunch, and then I’ll get on the road.”
Dawson tipped her backward on the sofa and leaned over her. “Do you know that I think of you as way more than a friend?” His dark eyes held the look that spoke of a more primal hunger and never failed to make her body catch fire.
She traced his lips with the tip of one finger. “Who needs to eat lunch? Overrated meal, to my way of thinking.”
Sloan and Gloria sat at Lindsey’s kitchen table, a pot of coffee and a pile of doughnuts between them. Comfort food. They were both on their third sugary indulgence. Gloria said, “It don’t seem right…her not being here. I keep listenin’ for her little bell to ring, so I can go to find out what she needs. Mostly she wanted company, someone to sit and talk till she fell asleep.”
Cole had said the same thing that night at the pool. Had it only been April when he’d come to Sloan with his request? Tonight it felt like a lifetime ago.
During lunch Cole had been called to a house fire with injuries, and Sloan, Toby, and Gloria had returned to Lindsey’s house, where Sloan and Toby had played an endless stream of video games all afternoon, Toby flopping between mopey and angry, and by bedtime he’d been frightened and withdrawn. Toby was sound asleep in his room now, and night had pitched its black tent outside. The fridge and freezer were stuffed with enough food for an army—casseroles from neighbors and Lindsey’s church fellowship. The living mourned the dead.
Sloan reached for another doughnut, chocolate with sprinkles. Gloria wiped her eyes with a tissue long past its prime. To keep Gloria from another crying jag, Sloan said, “Tell me how you and Lindsey became friends.”
“High school, ninth grade. I was a foster child from age ten, so I moved around a lot and I was the new girl at Lindsey’s school.”
“Lindsey told me. How’d you end up there?”
Gloria looked at her shyly. “My parents left me with my grandma when I was six and disappeared. When Nannie died, I was ten, and had no place else to go except child services.”
Sloan remembered all the times LaDonna had threatened to give her to child services, how fearful she’d been of the system. Living with LaDonna had been difficult, but she’d feared the unknown even more. “What was that like?”
“Some people were real nice. Others, not so much. I stayed with an older single lady for a while, and she had a garden and we grew vegetables. That was my best home.” She smiled with the memory. “I was a shy little fat girl.” She heaved her shoulders, took a bite of her doughnut. “I did okay growing up, but it was hard to make friends. But in ninth grade, I met Lindsey, or rather she met me. She just sat down at the lunch table and started talking to me.” Gloria shifted her gaze to a spot on the table. “Girls would do that sometimes, pretend to be nice to me, then make fun of me behind my back.” Her gaze shifted to Sloan. “You were born pretty, Sloan. Person can’t help what she looks like. And boys? Don’t get me started. But Lindsey treated me nice.” Warmed by memories, Gloria’s face glowed. “Lindsey was never mean to me. She was my best friend ever. And she took real good care of me all through high school.”
Sloan felt her eyes stinging with tears. She wanted to tell Gloria that being pretty was no guarantee that other girls would be nice to you. “And you took care of her after high school.”
“But now she’s gone and left me. Gave me her home and her child. Her treasures. They’re my treasures too. And now that awful man Bo Ridley’s gonna take my sweet Toby away. How can I keep Toby from his daddy? At least you’re kin. You’re blood.”
Sloan felt a knot form in her stomach. Everyone believed Lindsey’s story. Only Cole and Terri knew there was no positive proof. At the moment Sloan felt more related to Gloria than to Lindsey, the both of them survivors of shipwrecked childhoods.
“What am I gonna do, Sloan? How can I keep Toby from his own father? Tell me, please.”
Sloan took a swallow of coffee grown cold. “I don’t know, Gloria. I haven’t a clue. But I think I know someone who might.”
Melody heard a commotion outside the door of her inner office, and her receptionist’s voice demanding, “Hey! You can’t go in without an appointment! Stop! Come back!”
Melody’s door was flung open, and she bolted to her feet. Her eyes widened when she saw her intruder. “Sloan Quentin? I—I mean, Gabriel?”
?
??In the flesh.” Sloan pulled a second woman in behind her. “And this is Gloria Harrold. Can we talk?”
From behind Sloan and Gloria the flustered receptionist said, “I told them they needed an appointment.”
“It’s all right, Celia. I’ll take over.” Celia shut the door, and Melody motioned toward chairs in front of her desk. “Please sit.”
Sloan took one chair, Gloria the other. “Sorry to make such an entrance, but I have to fly back to LA in three days, and we have to see a lawyer, and you’re the only lawyer I know in Windemere.”
Just that morning Terri had called to say that Sloan had been nominated for awards by the Country Music Association in two categories, Best New Artist, and Best Song, “Somebody’s Baby.” Nominations were in September, the awards show in November. “You need to be here, Sloan. I know you just buried your sister, and I’m holding off the media as best I can, but I can’t for much longer.”
“Give me three days, Terri…please. Something important’s come up.”
Melody put elbows on her desk and folded her fingers together. “First, some niceties. Congratulations on your career. I was out of town and missed your Windemere concert, but I wrote a check for Lindsey’s fund. I know she was your half sister. It was all over the news. You have my condolences. Lani thought the world of Lindsey.”
Sloan hadn’t meant to barge in like a bull in a china shop. She’d had little interaction with Lani’s sister while living in Windemere, meeting once at a party—another memory that she was forced to turn aside. Sloan was also certain that her history with Dawson didn’t add to her likability either. But being unsure if Melody would have taken her phone call or an appointment, barging in seemed the best tactic, because time was essential. “This is very important, so I’m sorry about the entrance.”
She launched into her story, while Gloria sat looking shell-shocked. Sloan had gotten to the part about Bo Ridley’s appearance at the funeral, demanding his son, when Melody held up her hand. “Whoa, stop. I’m an attorney, Sloan, but I do tax and real estate law, trusts and property rights. My expertise doesn’t apply to custody cases.”
Sloan felt her face drain of color, and her fisted hands went white-knuckled in her lap. “So you won’t help us.”
“I can’t help you. But,” she quickly added, “I know an attorney who probably can. She works for the Tennessee Department of Child Services. She’s busy, so it might take some time to set something up with her. When will you return from LA?”
Sloan drew a blank. She had no idea what lay ahead for her in LA. She had a touring schedule already arranged, and now the nominations could alter things too. “Maybe Gloria—”
Gloria clutched Sloan’s arm. “I need you to come with me to a meetin’! Please.”
Gloria’s brief condolence leave from her job was nearly over, and although Cole was watching Toby today, he too had a full-time job. The clock was ticking on Bo’s threat to take Toby, and Sloan feared that Bo could swoop in at anytime. “Please…beg her to meet with us as soon as possible. A child’s at risk.”
The Department of Child Services building looked industrial and forbidding from the front, but inside appeared less intimidating, merely shabby and tired. Sloan and Gloria went to the front desk and announced that they had an appointment with Marie Foley, one of the department’s child advocate attorneys—as it turned out, the only one. Moments later a heavyset black woman emerged from behind a locked door and led them into a space that resembled a wagon wheel, a secretarial desk in the center and office doors off to the sides like spokes. The woman was a secretary, shared by the office personnel. She walked them toward one door and rapped, and when a voice said, “Come in,” Sloan and Gloria did so.
The space was small and packed to overflowing with file cabinets, stacks of files and paperwork, and shelves of books. A tall woman with salt-and-pepper hair brushing her shoulders stepped from behind a messy desk and held out her hand. “I’m Marie Foley. Clear those file boxes off the chairs and take a seat. The mess is really more organized than it looks.”
They did as Marie asked. Sloan kept thinking back to when she’d been a kid and terrified of DCS. Now Toby needed its help. Ironic.
“Melody called and gave me a rough outline of your situation,” Marie said, getting right to the point. “To clarify, the boy’s mother is deceased and her wishes were that one of you should have custody of her child.” Her gaze flitted between Sloan and Gloria.
Gloria raised her hand slightly, like a child to a teacher.
“Fill me in. I want to hear the entire story.”
Sloan could almost hear Gloria’s heart thudding in the room’s silence. Realizing that nervousness held Gloria prisoner, Sloan reached over and squeezed her hand. “You know the history. You have to start, because I joined the story much later.”
“Lindsey was my best friend.” Gloria’s words were mumbled at first but grew more confident as she talked. “After high school we got an apartment together. I went to a local college to learn nursin’, and she…she met Bo Ridley. He was a silver-tongued devil, a snake, but he didn’t show that side at first, and she fell hard for him. Everything was fine when they were datin’. He brought her flowers, took her fancy places.”
“How did you react to that?” Marie asked.
“Oh, I missed her, but I wanted to see her happy. Her childhood wasn’t the best. She was a daddy’s girl, but her mama”—Gloria tapped her finger to her forehead—“she was sick in the head. Doctors couldn’t fix her, and besides, she didn’t wanna get well. Anyway, Bo talked Lindsey into marryin’ him. And then everything changed.” She straightened in the chair, raised her eyes to meet Marie’s. “As you know, a snake has a forked tongue, and Bo’s is almost cleaved in half.”
Gloria’s word picture was so vivid, Sloan thought it would make a good lyric in a country song. “Go on,” Sloan encouraged Gloria. “Tell her everything.”
“Lindsey started hearin’ rumors ’bout him seeing other women. I knew it was true ’cause I seen him myself with some of them, all lovey and cuddly.” Gloria shivered with disdain. “Then Lindsey got pregnant, which did not make Bo happy. He said she did it on purpose to trap him. And I’m thinkin’, You married her! Why if you wanted to keep datin’ and didn’t want a family?”
The more Gloria talked, the fierier her voice got. This was a Gloria that Sloan hadn’t met, but she welcomed the change, because the fight for Toby might become very difficult, and it would need Gloria’s fierce commitment. “And Lindsey had a sweet baby boy.” Gloria’s voice and expression softened. “That’s Toby. Bo strutted around braggin’, but deep down I knew it was all for show. I was visitin’ one night when Toby had one of those baby colic aches in his little tummy and wouldn’t stop cryin’. Bo picked him up and shook him! Any fool knows you don’t shake a baby ’cause it can damage the brain.”
Marie was jotting notes while Gloria talked. “Later Lindsey started confessin’ that Bo was hittin’ her. She was covering up the bruises with clothes and makeup, but once I knew, I begged her to leave and move in with me. I had my LPN license by then and a job.”
“Did she say anything to her father about the abuse?” Marie asked.
“She was too proud, and she knew he was goin’ through his own troubles. And then—” Gloria teared up. “Then Lindsey got sick. Bo wouldn’t even touch her, ’fraid he’d catch her cancer. The dumb ass.”
Sloan and Marie both suppressed smiles. “But he got meaner too, didn’t he?” Sloan had heard this much from Cole. It had made her angry then, and made her angrier now.
“He did. He liked slappin’ her, even when she was sick from chemo. Then one day he hit Toby, left bruises. Boy was only two.”
Again silence settled, the only sounds the scratching of Marie’s pen on a legal pad, the hum of the AC unit. When Marie looked up, Gloria continued. “So one day while Bo was at work, I come over, helped her pack, and drove her to her daddy’s. Bo was spittin’ mad and came after her, but Jerry Sloan had a
shotgun, and after a screamin’ fight between them, Bo crawled off like the snake he was. Lindsey got a divorce and a restraining order against him, but Bo still come around when he was drunk, and Jerry and his gun was always there to persuade Bo to leave.”
Marie lifted her head. “But he agreed to the divorce? Signed the divorce papers?”
“He sure did. Lindsey’s cancer treatment bills was adding up, and he didn’t want to have to pay ’em. Divorce papers said he’d take none of her debts.”
Gloria snorted with derision, and Sloan knew more than ever that Bo Ridley was unfit to raise his son.
“Did he pay child support?”
“Not a dime.”
“You have a copy of the restraining order?”
Gloria held up a file folder that had been tucked into her oversized purse. “I have it, along with Lindsey’s will deeding the house to me, and a notarized power of attorney to make decisions for Toby after she was gone.” Gloria’s voice cracked. “She thought of everything she could to keep Toby safe.”
“So how did you end up in Windemere?”
Gloria gave Sloan a sidelong glance, and Sloan encouraged her with a nod. “After Lindsey’s parents died, she sold their house and…and she took off. And I come with her. She picked this town ’cause it was kind of out of the way. Bo had no way of knowin’ where we were.”
“The courts don’t look kindly on parental abductions,” Marie said. “What about visitation rights? Did his father have any?”
“It’s not in her divorce papers. Bo never cared ’bout Toby. He was glad to be rid of Lindsey and Toby both. Not sure why he’s actin’ like he cares now. He don’t.”
“That’s conjecture. I have to deal with facts.” Marie said the words kindly, and Sloan could see that the attorney was sympathetic. Sloan was glad for that.
“Lindsey didn’t feel like she had a choice about leavin’ Memphis,” Gloria said, defending Lindsey’s actions. “Especially without her daddy there to protect her and Toby.”