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Reuniting His Family
Jean C. Gordon
A Father’s PromiseRhys Maddox wants nothing more than custody of his two sons. Released from prison after a wrongful charge, the widowed dad will do anything to bring his boys home where they belong. But that doesn't include falling for their former social worker. Now leading an outreach program for families in transition, Renee Delacroix can't escape the tall, dark and intriguing single dad…or his adorable little boys. But Rhys is determined to go at it alone. Until one incident that may cost him what he wants the most. Now it's up to Renee to save him…if she can make him see she's just what he needs to complete their forever family.
A Father’s Promise
Rhys Maddox wants nothing more than custody of his two sons. Released from prison after a wrongful charge, the widowed dad will do anything to bring his boys home where they belong. But that doesn’t include falling for their former social worker. Now leading an outreach program for families in transition, Renee Delacroix can’t escape the tall, dark and intriguing single dad...or his adorable little boys. But Rhys is determined to go it alone. Until one incident that may cost him what he wants the most. Now it’s up to Renee to save him...if she can make him see she’s just what he needs to complete their forever family.
“Look, Dad, it’s her!”
What was Renee doing here? Filling in for another volunteer, she told him when she entered the amusement park.
So he wasn’t the only one she helped in her job.
Seeing the way Renee smiled down at his sons told him he wanted to be more than part of her job.
“Hey, Dad, can I go with my friends and our teacher?” Owen asked.
Rhys bit back the no that sprang to his lips and stifled his disappointment. His son would have more fun with his friends, and that was what this day was about.
“How about you, Dylan?” he asked his other boy. “Do you want to go with your friend?”
“No. I like being with Miss Renee. It’s kind of like being with Mommy.”
Rhys swallowed hard. In some ways, it was how things might have been for Dylan in their family if he hadn’t messed up. In other ways, it wasn’t at all the same. He and Renee... He didn’t know what their relationship was. But one thing was certain. He wanted to find out.
Dear Reader (#u1f39d4e9-613b-5542-a069-9dee9628c74c),
Thank you for choosing to read Reuniting His Family. I hope you enjoyed Rhys and Renee’s story and, if you’ve read my other Love Inspired books, returning to Paradox Lake and catching up with other residents.
We’re all shaped by our pasts. In Renee’s case, it’s having grown up the youngest in her large, loving, extended family, and her experience doing mission work in Haiti. For Rhys, it’s having been shuffled from foster family to foster family and his brushes with the law. Too often, we let preconceived notions generated by our pasts hinder the happiness our Lord wants for us. But, as Renee and Rhys show, with His help we can move beyond those notions.
To keep in touch with me, please sign up for my author newsletter at JeanCGordon.com (http://jeancgordon.com/). And feel free to email me at JeanCGordon@gmail.com or snail mail me at PO Box 113, Selkirk, NY 12158. You can also visit me at Facebook.com/JeanCGordon.author (https://www.facebook.com/JeanCGordon.Author/) or Tweet me @JeanCGordon (https://twitter.com/jeancgordon).
Blessings,
Jean C. Gordon
JEAN C. GORDON’s writing is a natural extension of her love of reading. From that day in first grade when she realized t-h-e was the word the, she’s been reading everything she can put her hands on. Jean and her college-sweetheart husband share a 175-year-old farmhouse in Upstate New York with their daughter and her family. Their son lives nearby. Contact Jean at Facebook.com/jeancgordon.author (http://www.Facebook.com/jeancgordon.author) or PO Box 113, Selkirk, NY 12158.
Reuniting His Family
Jean C. Gordon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
The Lord takes care of those
who are as helpless as children.
When I was in great need, He saved me.
—Psalms 116:6
To my critique partners, Chris and Bonnie,
for aiding my research for this book with
their invaluable knowledge of the New York State
foster care, family court and social services system.
Contents
Cover (#u8dee065e-8e91-5117-8c4c-33cc1a6a207d)
Back Cover Text (#u39e863b3-addd-5fb6-8954-564aecfe40a5)
Introduction (#u26e7c21d-a96d-5426-a66f-53c2031ce216)
Dear Reader (#u0fdea159-b75e-53b2-8504-c0671d72cc30)
About the Author (#u11f88b4a-bbd1-5744-b7ec-64405b1f7f9b)
Title Page (#uce3f2702-d683-517b-bb10-6c57aa0e68fd)
Bible Verse (#u57746c95-5e6e-52c9-831b-52bb90650578)
Dedication (#ud5e822d6-5716-5e09-a251-384e1fc5fd3c)
Chapter One (#u490bd4cb-dc59-51a1-a6e1-63f1d89cb892)
Chapter Two (#u964b7264-112b-54dc-825b-73c3d0815f49)
Chapter Three (#u5cdd06c1-f9ce-5b49-9c0f-4c2f38545b20)
Chapter Four (#u1fe08518-a3a4-5894-bb7c-118bcd01a102)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u1f39d4e9-613b-5542-a069-9dee9628c74c)
Rhys Maddox looked across the small room at his broken dream. The dream he’d shattered. His boys stood in the doorway with a woman who wasn’t their mother. Owen was a miniature copy of himself. Dylan had so many of his mother’s features, it made his heart bleed.
“Mr. Maddox?”
He looked at Renee Delacroix, the Essex County Child Protection Services’ worker he’d been sitting with.
“This is Suzanne Hill, Owen and Dylan’s foster mother,” she said.
Rhys strangled the shudder that began when the word foster formed on Ms. Delacroix’s lips. Those memories were behind him and would be behind his boys soon, too. He stood and offered the woman his hand, glad for the opportunity to break away from Ms. Delacroix’s scrutiny and the knowledge that she stood between him and his sons.
“Mrs. Hill,” he said, warmed by her wholesome freshness, a contrast to Ms. Delacroix’s glacial beauty. “It’s good to meet you in person.”
“Suzi, please,” she said, smiling.
“Suzi, then.”
Today’s half hour with the Child Services’ worker was his second meeting with Ms. Delacroix since he’d come to Paradox Lake to claim his sons. Yet they were still Mr. Maddox and Ms. Delacroix.
He released Suzi’s hand. “May I?” he asked, glancing from Dylan to Owen, uncertain what he was asking for.
Suzi looked over his shoulder toward the table where he’d been sitting.
Ms. Delacroix must have given the okay.
He ruffled nine-year-old Owen’s hair. “How’s it going, buddy?”
They’d both grown since he’d seen them this spring at their mother’s funeral. His gut ached. He’d missed so much the past five years.
Owen threw his arms around Rhys, almost knocking him over in excitement.
“Daddy, I’m so glad you’re home. You’re not going to have to go back again like you did after Mommy’s...” The rest of Owen’s words were muffled against Rhys’s chest.
He rested his head on his older son’s. “No.” Never.
No way was he going to let anything get between him and his responsibility to his family again. He set Owen back and looked into his face. “I’m so proud of you, helping your mom and taking care of Dylan for me. Mrs. Hill sent me your soccer game pictures and one of your winning Pinewood Derby car. And I kept all of the Bible verses that you and Dylan memorized in Sunday school and wrote out for me.”
“Coach Josh helped me with the car. I painted it like your old Charger. This year, you and me can make one and win first prize instead of second.”
Rhys’s throat clogged. “Sure thing.” He lifted his hands from Owen’s shoulders and squatted in front of his younger son. “How about you, Dylan? Want to go get some ice cream with Daddy?”
“No.” The six-and-a-half-year-old shook his head emphatically. “You’re a bad man. My friend Tyler said so. His mommy told him.”
Dylan’s words hit him harder than Owen’s near tackle. Dylan had been only a toddler when Rhys had been sent to Dannemora Correctional Facility for his part as the getaway driver in a bank robbery. The little guy didn’t remember the four of them as a family, the home they’d had in Albany. But Gwen had brought both of the boys to Dannemora to see him as often as she could manage.
“Dylan. This is Daddy. It’ll be fun.” Owen jumped to his defense, filling Rhys with regret for all of the times his older son and Gwen had had to cover for him because he hadn’t been there, due to his pride, bad choices and plain stupidity.
“No, I don’t have to go. Ms. Delacroix said so. Right, Mrs. Hill?”
Rhys followed Dylan’s gaze from him to Suzi and caught her look of pity before she hid it. He stood and spun around, glaring at Renee Delacroix. She looked barely old enough to be out of college. She was an intern, and she had the authority to keep his son from him? He fisted his hands.
Ms. Delacroix avoided his glare and fixed her gaze on his fists. “Dylan expressed some reluctance to go with you today. I assured him that he didn’t have to if he didn’t feel secure.”
Security was one of the many things he’d failed to provide his family. His anger seeped out, combating his rigid stance.
“Transitioning can be more difficult for some children,” she said.
Transitioning? Rhys worked his jaw. He was Dylan’s father. He wanted to take his sons for a soft-serve ice-cream cone, with supervision, of course. The plan had been for Mrs. Hill to take the boys and meet him at the ice-cream stand on Paradox Lake, near her home and the house he’d rented.
Ms. Delacroix pushed away from the table and walked over to stand next to Rhys, facing Dylan. A faint aroma, sweet and floral, tickled his senses. Was it her shampoo? He eyed her black hair pulled back in some kind of fancy braid with a few wispy curls escaping around her face. He knew she couldn’t be as young as she looked. When she’d introduced herself, she’d said she was a graduate student interning with the county. She’d mentioned mission work she’d done with children in Haiti before coming to work in Social Services.
“Dylan, if I go with your daddy to get ice cream, do you want to come or do you want to stay with Mrs. Hill?” Ms. Delacroix asked.
While he waited for his son to answer, Rhys followed one of her curls along the curve of her cheek. He curled his lip against the bitter tang in his mouth. What had gotten into him, besides having been incarcerated with 2,500 men for the past five years? He was here for Dylan and Owen, to make them a family again. Not to be distracted by and wonder about Renee Delacroix.
Dylan wrapped his arms around his foster mother’s leg. “I want to go home with Mrs. Hill.”
Home. With a woman Dylan had only known for a matter of months. This wasn’t the dream that had kept him going since Gwen’s death, while he was waiting for his appeal and release.
“I want to go with you, Dad.” Owen’s voice pulled him from the dark place he was headed.
“You still can,” Ms. Delacroix said. “I can come and drive you back to the Hills’ house afterward.”
“Would that be all right with you, Dad?”
“More than all right.” He’d take whatever he could get when it came to spending time with his sons.
Rhys nodded to Ms. Delacroix. “I know it’s part of your job, but thanks for going out of your way.” He scuffed the toe of his work boot on the floor. The drive from Elizabethtown, where the Social Services’ office was located, to Paradox Lake and back would take her more than an hour. “I mean, having to take Owen home afterward and coming back here.”
“It’s no problem.” A true smile spread across her face, the first the all-business lady had given him. “I live near Paradox Lake. You can wait here with Mrs. Hill while I go back to my office and wrap things up so we can go.”
“Sure.” He’d been waiting five years to be with his boys. What were a few more minutes?
* * *
“Go ahead and sit.” Renee’s hand accidentally brushed Rhys Maddox’s biceps as she motioned toward a couch and chairs near the table. The rock-hard resistance unsettled her. She rushed out into the hall. Let him think I’m hurrying to get back for the visitation, not to get away from him.
