Practicing Parenthood

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Collin sighed. Here went the softhearted defense attorney, wanting to give everyone a second chance.

“I think he’s a poodle mix. Maybe a labradoodle or a golden doodle.”

“He’s a no-doodle, if you ask me.” Collin frowned at the dog.

“You’re so mean!” Madison exclaimed. “Can’t you have a heart, for once?”

“I have a heart,” he argued, a little taken aback.

“Really?” She looked skeptical and that stung.

“I’m not that bad. Only to the bad guys.”

“Look, why don’t you go back to...” Madison lost her train of thought. “...wherever you came from and I’ll take care of the dog. I can go knock on doors.”

“You? Take this disaster around and knock on strangers’ doors?” Collin was horrified. “In your condition?” He suddenly imagined a host of problems—heat stroke or an accident—or even worse, serial killers lurking behind every palm tree.

“I’m pregnant, not paralyzed,” Madison said, narrowing her eyes. “And you don’t care about this dog, so I’ll do it.”

Collin let out a sigh. He’d have to go with her. He didn’t want her wandering around the island with a dog nearly as big as she was. Puppy or not. “I’m coming with you.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” she said, lifting her chin.

“You’re getting it anyway. Can you let me put on some clothes first?”

Madison glanced uneasily at his bare chest. “I guess so.”

The yellow dog barked his approval.

CHAPTER SIX (#ud00a440a-1043-50bb-b65d-bf9de3e14c2d)

BY THE TIME they’d walked nearly a mile and asked about the dog at a dozen houses, Madison was starting to tire...and her empty stomach grumbled, reflecting her increasingly darker mood. She looked at the yellow fluffy ball of fur trotting ahead of them. So far, nobody they’d talked to owned a dog or knew of anybody who owned a dog, aside from the Ruben family and they had a German shepherd. The hot North Captiva sun hung high above them, nearly overhead, signaling that it was drawing close to lunchtime. Madison had long since burned off her breakfast of an English muffin and a cup of decaffeinated tea. Collin insisted on holding the dog’s “leash” as he fretted over her as if she were made of delicate china. She wasn’t sure whether she liked his nonstop worry or hated it. She might be pregnant, but she wasn’t some little weakling.

Although, her hungry stomach told her that if she didn’t find some food—and something to drink—soon, she might start to feel like one.

“Are we really going to knock on every door?” Collin asked her. “Why don’t we just let the dog go? He seemed fine on his own, and maybe he knows where home is.”

“No! How can you say that? He’s dying of thirst.”

“Not dying. Just thirsty,” Collin muttered. The dog bounced happily ahead of them, tail wagging as Collin held on to the rope attached to Madison’s skinny belt, which she’d looped twice around the dog’s neck.

“He’s been on his own for a while... Maybe his owners even left the island.”

“And left him behind?” Collin asked.

“Sometimes people do bad things.” Madison shrugged.

“Says the defense attorney,” Collin quipped. “Can I get that on record for the next time you’re defending one of your guilty clients?”

Madison whirled, feeling anger squeeze her throat. Plus, her empty stomach made her short-tempered. “Not all of them are guilty.”

“Uh-huh.” Collin rolled his eyes. “Are you going to tell me another sob story about a thug who just fell in with the wrong crowd?”

Madison crossed her arms as they walked side by side down the narrow sandy path.

“You don’t know everything, Mr. Prosecutor. Some clients are innocent. Like James Miller,” she said.

“James Miller? The gangbanger? Are you serious?” He stopped, and the fluffy dog stopped with him, pink tongue out as he sat on the trail, watching them argue.

“He wasn’t a gangbanger,” Madison insisted. “He was a nineteen-year-old who stole a gift for his mother. That’s all.”

“I know that’s what you told the jury, but I can’t believe you really bought that. He was best friends with one of the most notorious gangbangers in his neighborhood, and he’d been seen riding around near where a shooting took place.”

“He never shot anybody.” Madison was absolutely sure about this. “And he knew bad people, but he wasn’t in a gang. Besides, you know he didn’t shoot anybody, or you’d have been prosecuting him for it.”

“He punched the security guard, or don’t you remember that footage? It was a violent act, and he was likely going to get more violent,” Collin said.

“He made a mistake,” Madison countered. They were now standing toe to toe, but Collin was so much taller that Madison had to arch her neck to meet his eyes.

“Okay, fine...and we’re supposed to set him free so his next ‘mistake’ is killing someone? And what about Jimmy Reese?”

Madison couldn’t defend Jimmy. Well, technically, she had defended him, but he’d been a white supremacist who’d sprayed a supermarket with bullets, aiming for a black man, but killing a white girl and wounding half a dozen others.

“I tried to get him to take a plea,” Madison said. I didn’t want to defend him. “Besides, he’s in jail for...what? Twenty years?” Not that even twenty years would help the girl’s parents sleep at night. “And anyway, James isn’t Reese.”

“No? Reese also had burglary on his record. Just because James hadn’t shot up a grocery store yet and killed someone’s little girl doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have.”

“James doesn’t want to kill people just because of what they look like.” How could he equate a neo Nazi with a kid who made a mistake?

“No, but gangbangers kill innocent people all the time,” Collin countered. “Do I need to remind you how many kids were victims of gangbanger bullets last year alone?”

Madison felt her blood begin to boil. She hated this “if one’s guilty, they’re all guilty” attitude. It was why people assumed that everyone who lived in a certain zip code or looked a certain way must be a criminal.

“Maybe you’re so concerned about being right that you can’t see an obviously innocent defendant when you see one.” Madison hated the way he always put labels on people. Bad. Good. Life wasn’t that simple.

“And maybe you’re such a bleeding heart you can’t see that the guilty clients are guilty...and that this dog is just fine without us.” Collin nodded at the dog, who still sat panting in the shade.

Was this how Collin would be as a father? An authoritarian know-it-all? How would he be understanding with a child, who would inevitably make mistakes? “This is why we shouldn’t be parents,” she said, waving a hand in the air. “We’re too different.”

“What does that have to do with being parents?” Collin took a step closer, his green eyes flashing in the sunlight. He was tall, imposing, intimidating, ever the prosecutor.

“You. Me. We see the world so differently. We’d make a terrible couple, and we’d make terrible parents,” she said, taking the leash from his hands and walking ahead of him, the dog prancing out in front of her, happy to be moving again.