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“No!” Momma shook her head so hard, Thea worried she’d get whiplash. “I mean, that’s all right. I’ve got so much to do around here, getting Eileen’s old room ready for the baby and all.” She gave Thea an uncertain smile. “You’ve always been so good at taking care of things, I’d rather leave the birth certificate up to you.”
At least that hadn’t changed. Momma and Eileen always left their messes for her to clean up. But her mother had never turned down a trip into town, not when the shops were open and ready for business.
“Are you sure? You haven’t been out of this house since I got home. Wouldn’t you like to at least go into town with me? I heard Mr. Hice has some new material just perfect for the baby clothes you’ve talked about making.”
Momma wrinkled her nose as if the thought of a trip into town disgusted her. “The square is just so crowded with all those people from over at the bomber plant wandering around.” She shook her head again. “No, I think I’d rather stay here. That’s all right with you, isn’t it?”
Thea blinked. Momma never asked her permission for anything, had always been too busy passing out orders or barking out commands. “That’s fine, but I might be gone for most of the day. I’m going to try to catch up with Mack at his office after I spend some time looking through the county records.”
“You should have been here to take care of your sister.” Momma turned away from Thea and started down the hall. She’d almost reached the kitchen when she turned around and gave Thea a forced smile. “If you had been here, you would have talked Eileen out of going with that boy. But you weren’t, and now your sister’s dead.”
Thea closed her eyes, her muscles weighed down with the fatigue of the past few days as well as an equally heavy dose of guilt. The events of the afternoon had finally caught up with her, stripped her of all her energy. The practical part of Thea knew she shouldn’t take anything her mother said personally. Momma always lashed out when she was upset. She mourned the child she’d lost, the grandchild she’d never held. Her mother was grieving, that was all. Her fingers tightened around the edges of the scarred hall table until she thought they would break. Lord, please let it be nothing more than that. Don’t take Momma away from me just yet.
Maybe losing Eileen had been too much for her mother to handle, maybe the presence of a little one in the house was what Momma needed to find some joy in living again. Recovering her sister’s baby was the answer. Then Momma would have a reason to fight, and it would give Thea a chance to right a terrible wrong. To bring her sister’s baby back home.
This time.
* * *
Mack usually used his morning walks before the town came to life to meditate on the Scriptures or pray for the men and women who would soon be filling the streets of Marietta for another day on the job. He’d pray that no harm would come to them and that they would make wise choices. For the folks who visited their city, he prayed that they would have peaceful spirits and that he would handle those bent on making trouble with respect and honesty.
But this morning the peaceful spirit he needed in order to meditate or pray was out of his reach. His thoughts were scattered like the crimson-and-gold leaves gathered up by the harsh wind that had blown in late last night, yet his mind never strayed far from his conversation with Thea Miller yesterday. The bookish girl he’d known in high school had certainly changed. The way she’d stood her ground against him, her refusal to back down from her claim that Sarah was her niece and her plans to raise the child didn’t make him happy but he had to respect the woman’s grit. His uniform made it difficult for some folks to question his authority, but not Thea, not when it came to her family.
Was it possible Sarah was Eileen Miller’s baby?
Mack absently shook his head. A juicy secret like that would be too much for someone even as close-mouthed as Mrs. Williams to resist. Surely she’d have spread the word about delivering Eileen’s baby...wouldn’t she? The thin letter in his shirt pocket he’d spent half the night crafting felt like a heavy weight against his chest. He’d drop it in the mailbox on his way into the office this morning. Mrs. Williams could answer any questions about Sarah’s mother once and for all.
With that settled, Mack found himself thinking about Thea herself. Why had she come home after all this time? She’d missed Eileen’s funeral, though to be fair, she might not have heard the news until it was too late for her to get leave. Her mother had never had much to do with her, with either of her daughters, really. It seemed odd to him, but then he’d always been close to both his parents, particularly his father. The loss of Neil Worthington four years before had been the catalyst for Mack to settle down and attempt to find a wife. Someone he could build a life with, have the kind of marriage his parents had had, raise a family.
But all his attempts at courtship had failed, and the only female who had touched his heart was baby Sarah. Now Thea threatened to steal his hopes for the future away from him. Just like she did when she left town eight years ago.
“You must be praying mighty hard this morning, my friend.”
Mack glanced up to see Beau Daniels, his white doctor’s jacket draped over his arm, walking toward him. “Maybe I’m thinking on a certain passage of scripture. I do that sometimes.”
“A far cry from the boy who used to say his favorite verse was ‘Jesus wept.’” Beau gave him a crooked smile.
Mack couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under Beau’s eyes. “Put in the late shift last night?”
Beau nodded, stretching from one side to the other. “I want to be home when Edie wakes up. She’s been having a terrible time with morning sickness.”
“I hate to hear that.” Edie and Beau, along with the rest of the Daniels clan, had become like family over the past few years. “Is there anything you can do?”
“Her doctor has suggested a couple of medications but everything I’ve read on them just makes me more worried.” Beau stretched his back. “Sometimes, I think it would be better to live in ignorance than to know everything that could possibly go wrong.”
“Yes,” Mack agreed, his thoughts wandering toward Thea and the baby again. “Sometimes ignorance is bliss.”
“I heard about your discussion with Thea Miller. Maggie told me she dropped in on the wedding yesterday.”
Like most of the Daniels family, Beau was never one to beat around the bush, a quality Mack appreciated. “She claims that Sarah is Eileen’s baby.”
“I didn’t even know Eileen was back in town until she was killed in that wreck out on Drag Strip Road.” Beau thought for a moment. “Wasn’t that just a couple of weeks after Sarah was born?”
“I’ll have to go back and look at the accident report but I thought it was maybe a week or ten days later.” Which meant Eileen could have been home when Sarah was born. The thought made his heart tremble. “I didn’t even put the two together.”
“Well, you still don’t know if they’re related yet. It could just be a coincidence.”
Mack wasn’t buying that, not when the Miller girls, particularly Thea, had caused him so much trouble. “I’d already be Sarah’s father if Judge Wakefield hadn’t dragged out the whole adoption process. I wouldn’t have to worry about any of Thea Miller’s claims then.”
“You’d still worry, because you’re a decent man. If you thought for a moment there might be a chance what Thea is saying is true, you’d do everything you could to set the record straight.”
He might be decent, but that didn’t stop him from wanting go to Ms. Aurora’s and steal his daughter away. Hopefully Mrs. Williams would respond to his letter quickly and lay this matter to rest.
Beau glanced up at the pale blue sky. “I’d better get moving. Edie will be up soon.”
“Tell her I hope she gets to feeling better.”
“I will.” Beau clapped Mack on his back as he walked by. “You want to meet for lunch later? Maybe over at Smith’s Diner around one?”
“That works for me.” Mack watched his friend walk to the corner, then with one last wave, head toward the parking lot. Beau had turned out to be a good man, despite his father. Though Mack had heard James Daniels had changed his ways while in prison and turned to the Lord, much to his family’s delight. Beau had even visited his dad a time or two, and Mack got a sense that the hard feelings between the two had softened. Beau had a bright future in the career he loved, a beautiful wife and a baby on the way—everything Mack had wanted for himself before Thea and the accident had robbed him of his dreams.
He may not have a wife or the law degree he’d always hoped for, but he could make a home, have a family with Sarah as his daughter.
Mack walked down Cherokee Street, past the courthouse, until he came to a row of quaint little homes just outside the main town square. Brilliant violet-and-gold pansies glistened with early-morning dew as they stretched to sun themselves, and the grass was still an emerald green, even in mid-October. A bird twittered his wake-up song overhead, drawing a reluctant smile from Mack.
He’d longed for a home in this neighborhood for as far back as he could remember. The idea of adopting Sarah had finally pushed him into putting a down payment on the small three-bedroom cottage at the end of the street. Nothing fancy, just a yard big enough for a swing set and a room where she could play with her stuffed animals and dolls in the years to come. A home where they could put down roots, where Mack could give Sarah the kind of childhood his parents had given him.
But not if Thea took her away.
He wouldn’t let her, not without a fight. Sarah was his daughter, had been since the moment Mrs. Williams had placed the squirming little newborn in his arms all those months ago. One look into Sarah’s inquisitive sapphire-blue eyes and he’d lost his heart.
Blue eyes, now that he thought about it, that looked very much like Thea’s.
Lots of babies had blue eyes, he reminded himself. Mack shook off the thought as he turned up a side street toward his attorney’s office. Maybe Red would have some good news about the adoption for him.
His footsteps echoed against the brick-paved walkway that led up to Redmond McIntyre’s ranch-style home. Mack raised his fist, then hesitated. The sun had barely risen. Would Red be up yet? Well, if Mack came across as rude, so be it. The situation warranted it. His knuckles rapped against the wooden door.
A heavy bolt slid seconds before the door flew open. Red stood framed in the doorway, a coffee cup in one hand, his tie hanging loose around his unbuttoned collar. “Mack, how are you doing this morning? You don’t have one of my clients waiting down at the jail, do you?”
“I’m not here on official business.” Mack whipped his hat off and held it between clenched fingers. “I was hoping I could talk to you about Sarah for a moment.”
“Sure, come on in,” Red replied, pulling the door open wider as he stepped back. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
Mack shook his head. Truth be told, he couldn’t stomach anything right now, especially not some of Red’s strong brew. He followed the man into a small sitting room just off the hallway and settled onto one side of the sofa while Red retrieved his file from his office.
“Are you sure I can’t get you something? A glass of sweet tea, maybe?” Red strolled back into the room, a thick three-ringed folder neatly tucked under his arm.
“Nothing, thanks.” Mack settled his elbows on the chair’s arms and leaned forward. “I was hoping to talk to you yesterday at Merrliee’s wedding but I never saw you.”
“I had to go to Atlanta for a client at the last minute and didn’t make it back in time. Did I miss anything exciting?”
Nothing Mack was ready to talk about, at least not until he did some research into Thea’s claims. He shook his head. “I just want to see where we are with Judge Wakefield.”
“Pretty much the same spot we’ve been for the last month.” Red sat across from Mack, dropped the file on the coffee table and flipped it open. “As far as I’ve searched, there’s no precedent in the State of Georgia for allowing a single person to adopt a minor child.”
Red wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t already heard, but Mack refused give up, not where Sarah was concerned. “But those cases didn’t involve a child with the kind of health issues Sarah has.”
“No, but that’s because those children are usually committed to an institution.”
“Or on the streets,” Mack bit out. His stomach roiled at the thought of his daughter, or for that matter, any of Ms. Aurora’s kids, left on the curb to fend for themselves. Who would do that to any child, flesh and blood or not? It made Mack wonder how many more children were out there on their own right now, hungry, cold and afraid. “Those kids deserve a family and a place to call home just like any other kid, Red.”
Red lifted his hands up in mock surrender. “You don’t have to convince me. And it appears from my discussions with Judge Wakefield that he sides with you on that point.”
Mack nodded. The judge had never hidden his feelings about the need for adoptive parents for all children, even those with physical and mental disabilities, but he held fast to the notion that a child needed both a mother and a father. Mack could see his point, but no family would adopt a child with the type of medical issues Sarah had. Wasn’t one loving parent better than no one at all?
“You’ve got a more pressing problem at the moment.”
Mack settled back into the cushions. Had Red heard about Thea’s claim, that Sarah was Eileen’s child? “What might that be?”
Red shifted forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “Ben Holbrook cornered me at the courthouse after I got back from Atlanta yesterday afternoon. It appears the city council is bent on restructuring the police department.”
“Why haven’t I heard about this?”
Red shrugged. “They just voted on it. With all these folks from the bomber factory making Marietta their home, the council wants to add more men to the force, maybe even devote entire departments to specific crimes. And there was some mention of adding more experienced men to the sheriff’s department.”
“What you mean is now that the boys are coming home, they want law enforcement jobs to give them.” Not a bad idea. Able-bodied men with battlefield experience on the force were just what a growing town needed. “We have had an increase in petty crimes recently, mostly kids bored and getting into trouble. It would be good to have some additional help.”
Red sat back, his lips mashed into a straight line. “From what I understand, they might be evaluating your work as sheriff.”
Mack’s world shifted beneath him. “Why? Are they thinking about firing me?”
“I don’t think it’s that dire—yet.”
Mack rubbed his fingers against the raised scar high on his left cheek. “Did anybody mention where I might fit into all this restructured force?”
Red shook his head. “Not yet. I’m sure they’ll take your exceptional service to the community into consideration when the decision is made.”
Mack stretched out his legs and studied his old high school friend. “That sounds like lawyer talk for you’ve already put that information out there for them, but they didn’t bother giving you an answer.”
“Always looking out for my friends.”
For that, Mack was grateful. “How does this affect the adoption?”
Red’s smile dimmed. “With this hanging over your head, Judge Wakefield isn’t likely to budge on the adoption anytime soon.”
“What’s the man waiting on? Does he want me to jump through hoops or something?” Mack snapped, raking his fingers through his hair.
“I don’t know about him, but I’d pay good money to see you do that trick.”
Mack snorted out a chuckle. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off like that.”
“It’s understandable. You love that little girl, and you’re afraid you’re going to lose her.”
Another obvious statement but the gut-wrenching truth. Mack wouldn’t give up. He couldn’t. “So what do we do now?”
Red slid back in his chair. “Well, we’re still going to need Sarah’s birth certificate. Have you heard anything from Mrs. Williams? I figured she would have gotten back with you before now.”
Mack shook his head. “From what I understand, her family lives deep in the mountains north of Knoxville. I don’t think mail service is all that reliable out there. It could take some time to hear back from her.” He patted his shirt pocket. “I’m sending her another letter just in case the first one was lost.”
“If it were any other judge, I’d ask for the adoption to be pushed through without a record of the birth, but Judge Wakefield is a stickler about those things.”
Mack nodded. How was he going to get his next question by the lawyer without raising his suspicions? “Will Sarah’s parents be listed on the birth certificate?”
“Yes, but that information will be sealed by the court once the adoption is finalized. Then a new birth certificate with your name listed as Sarah’s father will be registered with the state.” Red studied him for a long moment. “Why do you ask?”
No sense alerting the lawyer to another possible roadblock, at least not until he had more information. “Just thought I’d ask.”
“Well, if you’re planning on asking Flossie Williams who Sarah’s parents are, good luck with that,” Red chuckled. “That woman can be as tightlipped as a Mason jar during canning season.”
Mack waited for the relief Red’s answer should have given him, but felt vaguely disappointed instead. “I wonder if Mrs. Williams would respond quicker if I sent her a telegram.”
“Does Western Union even deliver to the backwoods of Eastern Tennessee?”
Were lawyers paid to be killjoys, or was that just part of their nature? Maybe it was a good thing he never went to college and became an attorney as he’d planned. “It’s worth looking into.”
“Even if they don’t, this lull gives you time to get your job situation worked out.” Red hesitated, tipping the three-ringed folder shut. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
Red took a long sip of his coffee, as if to steel himself. “How far are you willing to go to adopt this child?”
An odd question, especially from a lawyer. “What do you mean?”
The distant song of birds waking up the neighborhood filled the seconds before Red answered. “There is another way to ensure the adoption goes through as planned.”
Mack knew what the man was going to say. “I’ve told you marriage is not a possibility at the moment.”
“Hear me out before you dismiss the idea, okay?”
Mack glared at the man but kept his seat. What other option did he have short of walking out on his friend and possibly the only lawyer in Marietta willing to take his case? “Go on.”
“If you’re so bound and determined to raise this baby, you need to consider finding a wife. It would solve the immediate problem with the judge.”
“And who would I marry, Red?”
“You’ve got to know a woman who’d love the chance to help you raise Sarah. Someone who would love that baby as much as you do.”
The image of Thea, her deep blue eyes staring up at him, drifted through his thoughts. No doubt Thea was in love with the idea of raising the baby right now, but what would happen when she learned Sarah wasn’t Eileen’s daughter? Would she up and leave town without a backward glance the way she’d done before? Mack couldn’t risk his daughter losing her heart to the woman. Or maybe it was his own heart he was worried about getting stomped on again.
