Never Again Good-Bye (7 page)

A deep chasm of sadness ached inside Laney, and she closed her eyes. It wasn’t fair, she thought. Life was so cruel. The flicker of fear and dormant despair in Amy’s wide eyes the night they’d told her came back to her. If the child had slashed a knife right through her heart, Laney couldn’t have felt worse pain. She opened her eyes again and sought out her daughter drawing in the dirt with a stick. Why couldn’t it have turned out differently? And why had the cold warning in Wes’s voice when he’d made her leave been haunting her ever since? Why did the misery in his eyes keep her awake at night? Because he was a good man and she liked him, she told herself, and hurting him was the last thing she wanted.

“What am I going to do?” she whispered, not letting herself cry. If Wes wasn’t a gentle, caring father, if he wasn’t so capable, if the only happiness she’d seen in him hadn’t been tied up in that little girl, she would have been in court in a flash. If that sparkle of vulnerability, that guarded hurt-me-but-not-my-daughter look, that expectation of pain for both of them didn’t shine so apparently in his eyes, she might have been able to decide what to do. Why wouldn’t he take her calls? Why couldn’t they at least discuss it?

She watched as Amy’s teacher strolled out toward the playing children and sat down on a bench. Amy ran to her and tugged on her sleeve. Her teacher, a good-natured, older woman, put her arm around Amy’s shoulders as the girl chattered up at her.

A woman’s touch. Laney was glad she was getting it somewhere. But who would Amy turn to once school was out?

She wondered if Wes really did have what it took to raise her alone. Laney’s own father certainly hadn’t. She had learned very young that tears were only tolerated in the privacy of her bedroom with the door closed. She’d gotten random hugs from housekeepers and neighbors, and, like Amy, from teachers. But it was far from enough.

Amy needed a mother. And no matter how nurturing and caring Wes could be, at times all the good intentions in the world fell short. Times when the girl would cry out in the night for a mother, perhaps not even knowing herself that that was what she cried for. Laney wanted to be there when she did and hold her and comfort her the way she had so needed to be comforted as a child. She wanted her daughter to know where she could always go for a woman’s hug.

Laney watched the children being called back into the school building, and she started her engine, the noise grating across her consciousness like a chain saw. She and Wes had known destruction, and they both knew the dark, drastic feeling of loneliness. It had to end somewhere, she thought. She had no intention of taking Amy away from Wes. But if she had to use the court system to get regular visitation, she might as well try for what she knew would be better for her child. She knew that a custody battle would rip Wes apart. She even knew that it might hurt Amy—in the short run. But in the long run, she convinced herself, it would be for the best. In the long run, Amy needed to have both a father—
and
a mother. That way, they could both be there for Amy.

One of them would have to take the chance to make them all winners in a situation that spelled loss by its very nature. One of them would have to look ahead instead of behind. And someday they would all stop hurting.

Chapter Six

T
wo months later—two months that had crept by with a new kind of cruelty—Laney finally sat in the courtroom, staring down at her clenched hands on the table in front of her. Though she had seen Amy often from a distance over the last several weeks, she hadn’t seen Wes. Now she could see the toll this was taking on him. He had lost weight, the lines in his face were more pronounced, and he moved like a man with a hundred pounds of dread weighing his shoulders down. Since he had walked in, Wes had not looked at her. His eyes were dull and fixed on the table in front of him, as if he could keep his control only if he kept his eyes steady. He looked tired, and the lines branching out from his eyes seemed more deeply etched than they had before. He wore creased black pants and a gray jacket that fit his tall frame well. The missing button on the jacket told her it was not new, however.

Absently she smoothed back her sleek chignon and straightened her beige blazer. It was hot in the room, even though a ceiling fan buzzed overhead. Like Wes, she had to sit there and listen as her lawyer presented all the evidence they had—indisputable evidence in the form of documents, blood tests, and photographs—proving she was the child’s mother. And then, just as she’d expected, Wes’s lawyer presented his documents showing that Amy had been legally adopted, presenting Laney’s signature on the papers with great emphasis.

The room grew hotter, and tiny beads of sweat glistened on Wes’s forehead. Laney watched her lawyer pace across the room as he drilled Wes’s character witnesses: his sister, his best friend, his neighbor. With great interest her lawyer dwelt on the fact that Amy had not been taken for either her sixor seven-year checkups. The man was shrewd and missed nothing. That was why her father had used him for all his business. They had the same impenetrable temperament, the same go-for-the-throat strategy, the same conviction that the end always justified the means. He was the same lawyer who had drawn up Amy’s adoption papers, the same man who had told Laney where to sign on the dotted line, who had patted her hand and praised her for her “mature” decision. But he had known that the decision was not Laney’s. And that was why she had hired him to represent her. Perhaps his guilt would make him try harder, she thought. Perhaps his shrewdness would give them an edge. Perhaps his experience with this judge would weigh in their favor.

When the last of the character witnesses was dismissed, John LaRoux, her attorney, clasped his hands behind his back. “Your honor, I’d like to call Wesley Grayson to the stand.”

She watched Wes’s throat convulse as he stood up and started to button his coat, then remembered the missing button and let it go. His shoulders stiffened as he took the stand, and his alert eyes narrowed against LaRoux’s missilelike questions.

The missiles were expertly aimed and just as destructive. Laney listened with disbelief as her attorney drilled him in a mocking voice about his financial state, about the fact that he’d declared a loss on his income taxes for the preceding year, about the judgments against his home and his business, about the bills that Wes still hadn’t been able to pay off.

“I’m self-employed,” Wes said in a shaky voice, trying desperately to restrain his anger. “My health insurance costs a fortune, and it doesn’t cover much. When my wife got sick …” His voice cracked, and he stopped and steadied himself. Swallowing, he started again. “There were a lot of expenses, and my insurance didn’t cover much at all. I had to pay for most of it. It set me back a little.”

“A little?” LaRoux echoed. “Exactly how much do you still owe, Mr. Grayson?”

Wes glanced at his lawyer. The man gave him a nod, telling him to go ahead.

“Somewhere around thirty-five thousand dollars,” he said quietly.

“Do you have any hope of paying that off, Mr. Grayson?” LaRoux asked.

Wes looked at the judge, then at Laney. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“And does your ‘best’ include possible bankruptcy?”

Wes took a beat too long to answer. “I don’t know.” He took a deep breath and tried to explain. “I have several bids out, and I’m working on one for the new amusement park project. I might be able—”

“But no contracts?”

“Not at the moment. We just finished a project, but it was over budget because of some problems that came up—”

“Thank you, Mr. Grayson,” LaRoux said, cutting him off. The attorney smiled and turned to the judge, but Laney’s eyes remained on Wes. His jaw tensed as he stared at the floor, bracing himself for what he knew was to come. His eyes were opaque, but behind the dullness was fear so great that it made Laney shiver. The man had lost more than his wife. He had almost lost his business and his home, he had gone into debt so great that he had little hope of ever getting out from under it, he faced the prospect of losing his daughter, and now he was losing his dignity as well.

Her eyes darted to her lawyer’s, and she wondered where he’d gotten his information and what bearing he thought it had on this case. Surely he didn’t think that a lack of money made Wes a poor father. That wasn’t what she’d wanted to prove. All she wanted was to have her own place in Amy’s life, without hurting Wes in the process.

“Your honor,” LaRoux went on in a bored voice. “It’s apparent that this man is under a great deal of stress, financially and otherwise. He hasn’t even had the money to take his child for her checkups—”

“I take her to the doctor when she’s sick!” Wes blurted, his face reddening.

“Your honor,” the attorney went on, as if Wes’s outburst was irrelevant, “a man in this much debt has to cut corners. Where does he cut them? With the child’s clothing, food, medicine?”

“I object!” Wes’s lawyer said, and Laney breathed a sigh of relief.

Laney wanted to object as well. She hadn’t done this to humiliate Wes Grayson and strip him of his dignity. She’d never said he neglected Amy! She half rose in her chair, trying to get her attorney’s attention and stop him, make him take back what he’d said on her behalf, make him give Wes back his pride. When her attorney ignored her furious eyes she sank back down.

What had she done?

The objection was sustained, but LaRoux had other aces up his sleeve. “We’re talking about a little girl. A little girl in a home with a man who can hardly support her, a man who may not even be able to keep a roof over her head, a man with a failing business to run, a man who isn’t even her natural father.”

Wes’s eyes snapped to Laney’s and locked with them.
How could you do this to us?
they asked.

She arched her brows helplessly and shook her head. Had she really paid that man to drive a wedge between her and her daughter’s father, to ruin any chance of her ever being friends with him, to drive out the last remnants of his self-respect?

The nightmare would not end until it was played out. “On the other hand,” her attorney went on, “we have my client, a woman wealthy from her father’s inheritance, a woman who cared so much for the child once already that she made the decision to put it up for adoption in hopes that the adoptive parents could give it a better life than she could have at eighteen.”

His daughter was not an “it”! Wes wanted to scream. He bit his lips to keep the words back, and his nostrils flared.

“How could she have known that the adoptive mother would die and that the child would be left with a man with so many problems that …”

Wes’s hand coiled into a fist in his lap, and his face was tinged with scarlet. This wasn’t happening, he told himself. The judge was smarter than that. He would realize Amy was the most important thing on earth to him.

Laney dropped her face into her trembling hands.
Leave him alone!
she mentally railed.

But LaRoux would not be cut short.

“ … is only asking for a joint custody agreement. My client doesn’t wish to traumatize the child by taking her from her father, nor does she wish …”

He was losing, Wes thought, a smothering wave of panic washing over him. Strangers were making a decision that was going to change Amy’s life.

Laney stood up, her chair scraping on the cold tile floor. The judge’s attention left the attorney, still in the midst of his diatribe, and went to her. Wes looked up. LaRoux wheeled around.

“Your honor, I apologize for interrupting, but may I please have a word with my attorney?” she asked tersely.

LaRoux’s eyes were glinty beads of steel as he stepped toward her, warning her that he wouldn’t tolerate such behavior. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked in a whisper.

“I’m stopping you,” she hissed. “You’ve gone far enough. We could have made our point without ruining Wes Grayson. He’s a good father and a kind man, and I won’t sit here and pay you to kick him in the teeth.”

LaRoux’s spine stiffened. “Exactly what would you like me to do?”

“Dismiss him from the stand,” she said. “And leave him alone.”

As LaRoux turned slowly back to the judge, Laney tried to steady her furious, heaving breaths. Her eyes went back to Wes’s, and she noted that they were a little softer in their reproach. Had he realized what she was telling her attorney?

She watched as Wes was dismissed, and the judge slipped to his chambers for a few minutes. It would take only a few minutes, she thought miserably. A few minutes to give her back her daughter—and possibly destroy Wes Grayson.

When LaRoux walked back to the table his eyes glowered. “You’ve got it in the bag,” he said as he stuffed papers into his briefcase, “despite your efforts to go on being a loser.”

“No one had to lose!” she whispered. “I could have gotten joint custody without attacking him. I had enough of an argument, and you know it. I wanted it to be fair.”

“It’s only fair if you win,” he said.

“You don’t care who gets hurt, do you? You don’t see this as affecting human lives or hurting decent people.”

“Do you?” the cold attorney asked. “If I recall, you said that the child hadn’t even welcomed you into her life.” He uttered a dry, brittle laugh. “You hired me to hurt those decent people, so don’t give me the self-righteous routine now that I’ve gotten you what you wanted.”

Laney stared at him as he lowered to his seat, and slowly her angry, guilty eyes drifted to Wes. For a moment she wished she could take it all back, start over, and find some other way. Their eyes met for a split second before he turned away, and she felt colder than she’d ever felt in her life.

T
he judge returned to the courtroom ten minutes later, his judicial robe brushing the floor as he walked to the bench. Making a production of shuffling the papers on his desk and adjusting his glasses, he prepared to give his answer.

“After reviewing this case thoroughly …”

Wes clasped his hands in front of his mouth and closed his eyes.
Please, God
, he prayed.
Prove that there’s still justice in this world …

Laney coiled her fingers in her lap and set her eyes on the judge.

Both held their breath. Both sweated. Both died a little inside as the judge grew long-winded, recounting both sides of the issue.

And then he finally said, “And for that reason, I award Ms. Fields joint custody of her daughter.”

Laney caught her breath in a sob, momentarily forgetting all the pain and sorrow it would cause the man at the table across from her.

Wes drew in an agonizing breath and wondered why he felt surprised, why he felt cheated, why he felt betrayed when he had expected it. He dropped his forehead into his hands. How was he going to tell Amy? He looked up, his green eyes indicting as they met Laney’s anxious ones. Her joy instantly faded, and guilt flashed through them.

The judge finished his statement, and court was adjourned. Laney pushed past the attorneys and made her way toward him, trying—and failing—to look as if she understood what he was going through.

“Wes,” she said before he could rebuke her. “Please. I didn’t mean for any of those things to come out. I didn’t know them myself.”

Wes started out of the courtroom, his brisk pace making her trot to keep up.

“My attorney was cruel,” she said, “and you know I don’t believe you’ve neglected Amy in any way. That wasn’t the point—”

“Then what
was
the point?” he asked, swiveling abruptly, almost making her run into him.

“I just wanted to have a part in her life. You wouldn’t let me see her.”

His nostrils flared, and for a moment she thought he might break down before her. But when his words came out they were steady and calculated. “I won’t force her to go with you,” he warned in a deadly quiet voice. “Before I’ll let you destroy her, I’ll take her so far away you’ll never see her again. I’d tread lightly if I were you.”

Tears sprang to Laney’s eyes. “Wes, please give me a chance,” she whispered.

He turned and walked away.