Not when we were so close.
“Daddy?” Debbie’s voice cut through my panic.
She was looking up at me with worried eyes. “Why was that lady talking about you like that? And why does she look so mad?”
I sucked in a steadying breath and turned to face her, trying to keep my voice steady. “That’s your aunt Linda, Button. She’s . . . she just wants to make sure you’re safe.”
“Why? We’re happy. We’re a good family.”
“I know we are, sweetheart. Sometimes grown-ups disagree about things, but it’s going to be okay.”
But as I held her small hand and looked into her trusting eyes, I wasn’t sure I believed that anymore.
Sarah appeared beside us, her expression grim. “Theo, we need to talk.”
Chapter 36
Jeremiah
Iwas standing outside a strip mall, juggling three packages and trying to find a pen that actually worked, when my phone rang. The ringtone was Theo’s—I’d set it to some classical piece he’d hummed one evening while cooking.
The sound made me smile.
“Hey, gorgeous,” I answered, wedging the phone between my ear and shoulder while I continued my search for functional writing implements. “How’s our dragon princess handling court? Did she charm the judge into—”
“Jer.” His voice cut through my cheerful rambling like a blade.
It was barely above a whisper, tight with panic and something else I couldn’t identify. “Jer, something’s wrong. Something’s really,reallywrong.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
The packages slipped from my hands, scattering across the sidewalk, but I didn’t move to pick them up.
“Talk to me. What happened? Are you okay? Is Debbie—”
“She’s fine. We’re okay. Jer, her aunt showed up. She just . . . she burst into the courtroom with a lawyer and . . . and . . .”
His words came in a rush, tumbling over each other in hushed panic I’d never known capable from such a put-together guy. I could hear the echo of voices in the background, the hollow acoustics of what I assumed was a courthouse hallway.
“Slow down, baby. Take a breath. Tell me what happened.”
“She’s trying to stop the adoption. She said . . . she said things about us. About you being there. About our ‘lifestyle’ and how it’s inappropriate for children and . . .”
My blood turned to ice water in my veins.
“She what?”
“The judge recessed for lunch, but, Jer, she knows about us. They all know now. Somehow she found out about us, and she’s using it against me. Against us. She’s trying to take Debbie away.”
The words were a freight train carrying a cargo load of pure terror.
Someone was trying to take Debbie.
Away from Theo.
Away from us.
And it was my fault.
