Page 100 of Life, Love and the Pursuit of Happiness

She shook her head. “Not now.”

“Okay, tell me what happened today that has you so upset.”

She did. Haltingly. Stopping to answer questions when he didn’t understand.

“Let me help you.”

She nodded, bending forward so that he could shampoo her hair.

That’s not what he meant, but he figured he could explain later.

When she was clean and wrapped in a towel, he wet-combed her hair, then carried her into his bed and crawled into the bed behind her, still fully dressed, though wet from his ministering to her. She was asleep before he even pulled the blankets up over them both, spooned together.

He lay like that for a long time, thinking. Merrill’s high I.Q. came in handy at times like this. His brain worked like a computer, and he soon had a plan. Getting out of bed, carefully, so as not to wake Delilah, he pulled out his computer and set it on his lap while he sat on a chair with his feet crossed on the end of the bed.

He needed a plan to protect Delilah and Maggie. If her daughter got into the system, it would be hell to get her back out. So, number one, get the kid in a secure location until the legalities could be ironed out. And he couldn’t send her anywhere alone. That meant that the grandmother would have to be with her.

He checked his watch. It was ten o’clock. Going into the bathroom, he closed the door and called his father. “Dad, I need a favor,” he said, the minute his father answered. He’d forgotten to say “father,” rather than “dad.”

But apparently it didn’t matter because his father answered, “What do you need, son?”

Without going into too many details, he explained that his fiancée’s daughter and grandmother needed a place to stay for a few days. He hoped to make that little lie about a fiancée become the truth shortly.

“Bring them here,” his father said, without question. “There’s plenty of room.”

Good thing Vanessa was gone by now. She’d have a bird on meeting Salome Jones. Merrill wasn’t sure that his mother wouldn’t react the same way. He couldn’t worry about that now.

Next, he checked North Carolina marriage laws and found out that there was no waiting period, not even a requirement for blood tests. Just get a marriage license at the courthouse and find someone to perform the ceremony. Easy-peasy. He figured that marriage was the safest way to protect Delilah. Convincing her—now that was another story.

After that, he looked into adoption procedures, but that would take much longer. A good lawyer should be able to protect Delilah’s rights in the meantime. If she was protected, and if there was one thing Merrill Good had learned as a Navy SEAL it was protection. Whether country or person, that was his specialty.

Some of these government employees liked to wield their power, though, and he wasn’t taking any chances of Delilah or Maggie staying here in the open like sitting ducks.

Now, convincing Delilah that all these things needed to be done—that would be a challenge. Merrill smiled. There was nothing he liked better than a challenge. And planning—hell, he was an expert planner, whether battle plans or plans to fight government bureaucrats, he was in his zone.

Leaving the motel unit quietly, he went next door and told K-4 what he needed to do and asked for his assistance with a few details. Next, he walked over to the apartment behind the motel office. There was still a light on, and he could see through the sliding door that Delilah’s grandmother was sitting at the kitchen table with some kind of green crap on her face that looked like hardened concrete. She was painting her fingernails yellow, of all things. He assumed Maggie was asleep in the bedroom. A radio on the counter was playing some oldies but goodies music.

He knocked lightly and was waved in.

“Salome, I need your help,” he said right off.

He sat down at the table opposite her, and after he’d explained the situation, she asked, “And it’s all right with your parents if Maggie and I go stay with them at their place?”

“It’s just a summer place they’re renting, and only my dad would be there. My mother is in the hospital.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is it serious?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Her heart.”

“Oh, my goodness. Listen, dear, my face is cracking. I need to go wash this stuff off. Wait here. Have a soda or something. We don’t have any beer left, or alcohol of any kind.”

“That’s okay. I need to keep my brain sharp,” he said to her back, although he probably could use some caffeine. Maybe later. He couldn’t help but notice as Salome walked away that she was wearing some kind of sleep outfit that looked like it would fit in a harem. He wondered idly what Delilah would look like in one of those.

When she got back from the bathroom, her face scrubbed clean and showing every one of her sixty-some years, she said, “I could always stay at the Patterson house.”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure that Maggie could be hidden there, and, besides, it would put them in a touchy legal situation if they lied about the child in the event authorities came for her.”

Salome put a hand to her chest. “Do you think it’s possible that they would actually do that? Take her from me, or her mother?”