“Linx is partially at fault, too,” Cait said, wrinkling her nose. “She played games with Grady when we met her lastChristmas.”
“If she really cared, she would have contacted us. We would have helped her.” Connor put his arm around his wife possessively. “That baby was aHart.”
“She also kept his dog,” Brian added. “What kind of woman doesthat?”
“A fragile woman who’s insecure. Her mother hates her and said she was the worst kid.” Grady’s fist tightened over his knee. “She left them because she couldn’t standLinx.”
“Oh, my stars,” Grady’s mother exclaimed. “Then we must love her even more. The poorchild.”
“You’re not upset she gave away your first grandchild?” Connor tugged his wife even closer as she held their daughter, Amelia, the first official Hartgrandchild.
“Mistakes were made by everyone,” Father said. “Question now is what do we do aboutit?”
“I want what’s best for Jessie,” Grady said. “She should be with her realparents.”
His mother glanced at his father and then at Cait who tightened her lips in afrown.
“Some might say the Pattersons are her real parents,” Nadine, Connor’s wife, said in a soft voice. “They’re the only ones sheknows.”
“I was never given a chance to know her.” Anger rolled through Grady’sgut.
“That’s not the Pattersons’ fault,” Nadine said. “They took Jessie when no one wantedher.”
Nadine was an artist, and the product of an affair between her father, who was married to another woman, and her mother, who was the side piece, and she had a sensitivesoul.
She had a point, although the sooner Jessie knew the truth, the more time she would have to adjust toit.
Grady swallowed a lump in his throat and blinked. “I don’t want to hurt Jessie or the Pattersons, but I have myrights.”
“It comes down to Linx signing away her parental rights.” Connor’s voice boomed a little too loud, and several other patrons turned towardthem.
Everyone in the small town knew who they were, and Grady cringed when he recognized two of the rescue center volunteers and theirparents.
“Let’s not discuss this here,” Grady said. “Linx asked her lawyer sister to dinner tonight, and we can get advice fromher.”
“I looked up the law on the internet,” Cait chimed in, always eager to upstage her siblings. “You might be out of luck because you didn’t claim your paternity before the adoption wasfinalized.”
“How could I when I had no clue?” Grady slapped the menu onto thetable.
Cait shrugged. “That’s all I know from thewebsite.”
“I looked also,” Grady grumbled. “They said the father had to be notified. Linx never notified me, and the courts never tried to track medown.”
“Then you have a case,” his father said. “The court made a mistake when they took her word that the father wasunknown.”
“Still, it’s been almost six years.” Mother wrung her hands, always the worrywart. “They might ask why you didn’t come back once Jessie was born and take a paternitytest.”
“Because Linx told me she was never pregnant. That she didn’t have a baby.” Grady threw up his hands and growled. “How was I supposed to know that scar on her abdomen was a C-section scar? I thought she had her appendix taken out orsomething.”
The entire diner went silent, and Grady wished he could sink into a big hole. His family knew how to push his buttons, and they discussed things to death. It was no wonder he wanted to leave and never comeback.
“I hope you won’t hate Linx if you can’t get custody.” Cait had the knack for saying the exact wrong thing. “I think she really wants to work it out withyou.”
“Sure, because she has a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting custody of Jessie except through me.” Grady shoved himself from the table. “I need someair.”
* * *
Linx leanedwith her father against the white three-rail fence of the horse corral. He squinted in the sun at the trainers exercising his show horses and nodded as Linx told him about Grady and their bigmisunderstanding.
