Lief felt like the wind was knocked out of him. “Please don’t do this, Stu. Please. It’s taken so much work to get Courtney back on track. I don’t think she can take any more uncertainty or confusion. Please, Stu.”
“Then I guess it makes sense to have her here by the eighteenth. It’s just Christmas. Make her return reservations for January second. Then she can go back to the mountains. Or…? You don’t want to fight this out, do you, Lief, old pal?”
His voice came in a mere scratchy breath. “Please, Stu… Come on…”
“Nah, this is what it is. The eighteenth. Let me know when to pick her up.”
Stu hung up. And for the first time since his wife died, Lief wanted to break down in a bone-deep cry.
Lief called his lawyer before doing anything else. When Lana died, though it only compounded his grief, he knew he’d have to let Courtney go to Stu if that’s what Stu wanted. Fortunately, Stu had a second marriage and family and it wasn’t that important to him, so Courtney went back and forth for a while. Stu was agreeable to a joint custody arrangement with Lief, but Stu remained the primary guardian.
Then came that awful day Stu had said he’d had enough of Courtney. It should have been the best day, but the agony it caused his little girl had pushed Lief over the edge. Lief’s fatal mistake had been in not taking legal action to ensure his custody of Courtney right then. What he’d done instead was pull Courtney in, told her she didn’t have to go back to Stu’s house, not even for a weekend visit, and begun at once looking for a place out of the city. A place away from the noise, confusion and Stu.
Today when he called the lawyer, he was informed that Lief would not only be breaking the law by refusing to let Stu see his daughter for the holiday, but it might make Lief’s petition for custody more difficult. “As I see it,” the lawyer said, “Courtney is close enough to an age of responsibility that a judge would hear her preference on where she’d like to live and with whom. If you cooperate now, that will go down easier. Hard as it might be to go along with this, it’s probably in your best interests, both yours and Courtney’s.”
“She’s not going to see it that way,” Lief said.
On instinct, he drove out to see Kelly. One look at his angry face and she said, “Uh-oh. What’s wrong?”
“Do you have a little time to talk? I have to talk to someone. I’m going to drive to Grace Valley and talk to the counselor, but I have to sort it out first.”
“It’s Courtney, isn’t it?”
He shook his head. “No. But it’s going to be, I know that. It’s her father.”
Kelly frowned. “You’ve so rarely mentioned him, I didn’t think he was a factor.” She pointed to a stool at the work island and poured him a cup of coffee. “What’s happening?”
“I should never have turned my back,” Lief said. “I know this will be hard for you to envision, but before Lana died, Courtney was the sweetest, kindest, most loveable child. There was almost never a problem. Discipline was easy with her. But then her mother died and her life became hell. Not only was the poor kid a puddle of grief, but she started living with Stu, her surviving parent, and visiting me every other weekend. And at her father’s house, she was treated worse than a dog.”
“How, Lief?” she asked. “Was she abused?”
“Stu has a bitch for a wife and two little brats for kids. I think his boys are maybe seven and ten right now. Two years ago, at five and eight, they were horrible, undisciplined monsters. The entire household was one screaming, fighting mess. Courtney would come home for her weekend with me in tears, begging not to be forced to go back there, but my hands were tied. Once she even had a child’s bite mark on her leg! A bite bad enough that I had to take her to the doctor. The clothes in her suitcase would come back ravaged and stained—not with food but with things like marker, paint, bleach. One of the little bastards cut her hair while she was asleep. It was a nightmare.”
“Why would her father let that happen to her?”
“He was absent. He’s a producer, mediocre at best, and his hours were long or he was on the phone or computer. Sherry, the stepmother, didn’t watch the kids—just told them to go play, told Courtney she was a big girl and to stop whining. I’ve never been able to figure out why Stu wanted her around at all—he didn’t spend any time with her, didn’t protect her. I paid child support for the privilege of having her a couple of weekends a month, but surely that wasn’t enough of an incentive for big-shot Stu. And you can probably guess what happened—Courtney changed. She started to look different. She started to act out, to fight back. By the time her hair was seven different colors and she looked like a little horror flick, Stu was ready to negotiate—she could live with me most of the time, visit him once in a while. For the next year she lived with me, visited Stu, kicking and screaming the whole way.
“There were things I noticed much later, after I had her back, things I should have noticed right away, but I’m not an experienced father,” he went on. “She stopped crying about six months after her mom died, about six months after being tortured at Stu’s house. She stopped smiling, too. I regularly checked her internet hits and found she researched suicide. She didn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive and had no guilty pleasures, like ice cream or chocolate. She was failing in school. Things like that. And then one day about a year and a half after Lana died, it all came to a head. Courtney called me from her dad’s house and said to come and get her—her stepmother had told her to get the hell out and stay out or she’d put her in foster care. She said she was going to run away if I didn’t come. She was sleeping on the floor because Sherry’s mother was visiting and her head was bleeding from getting hit with a toy truck.”
Kelly gasped and covered her mouth.
“And I lost it. Lost it. I was there in thirty minutes. Courtney answered the door and I told her to show me where she was sleeping—sure enough, a sleeping bag on the toy room floor. I asked her to show me her regular room—it was a guest room made up for the grandmother, the closet and drawers and bathroom full of the grandmother’s clothes—Stu hadn’t even provided a room for his daughter. Bleeding head from a toy truck? One about big enough to ride! I heard the TV and found Sherry and her mother doing yoga to the TV in their screening room while drinking wine and giggling because they were tipsy. I told Courtney to wait by the door and I went to Stu’s home office, yanked him out of his chair by his shirt, dragged him to the toy room, to the guest room, to the screening room, to the front door to take a look at the back of Courtney’s head, which later took three stitches. And then he told me to get the little freak out of his life, he’d had it with her constant complaining. And I slammed him up against the wall, called him a lot of horrible names and threatened his life.”
Kelly was quiet for a moment. When she finally did make a sound, it was “Whew.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking down. “Big-time Hollywood producer shouldn’t mess with a farm boy. We’re raised a little scrappy out in the country.”
“My God, Lief. I had no idea how traumatized she’s been.”
“Completely. I brought her home, got her right into counseling, though I couldn’t see that it helped much. I started looking for a house out of town and found the one I’m in now. It took me five months to get in it. And believe it or not, Courtney’s come a long way since last spring.”
“Looks like she’s come a long way since I met her. At least she doesn’t ever have to go back to her father’s house.”
“Well, there’s the problem. Stu called me this morning. He wants her for Christmas…”
“Don’t!” Kelly said.
“I called my lawyer—I’m in a box. Since Stu pretty much threw her out, I knew I had her. All I wanted at the time was to get her some help, get control of the situation, and I never legally changed our custody arrangement. I should’ve done it while he was seeing her as a weird little freak who was more trouble than she was worth—he probably wouldn’t have given me any trouble. I’ll do that now, o
f course, but it’s not going to get us out of Christmas. Stu says they’re taking a family vacation to Disney World. Hopefully she can get through it. I’ll talk to him again before that—I’ll make sure I know where they are, make sure he knows I’m going to be nearby in case there’s a problem, make sure he’s not putting her on the floor in the kids’ toy room.”
“You think she’ll go?” Kelly asked.
“I’ll take her. I’m not sending her into the lion’s den. I’ll take her and stay in the same hotel…”
“Good,” she said. “I mean, bad for Christmas, but there are other Christmases ahead…”
“It’s my fault,” he said. “I’ve contacted Stu twice in the past year—mostly out of guilt from promising to kill him. I called him and told him we were moving so he wouldn’t accuse me of kidnapping, and I sent him Courtney’s recent school picture. She’s all cleaned up—no more Goth. Her smile looks real. I scribbled a note—that she was doing well and her grades were back up to As. If I’d just left it alone, left him thinking she was a wild, troublesome Goth character, I probably wouldn’t have heard from him.” He took a breath. “But like him or not, he’s her father. I thought I had a responsibility. Damn it. Damn my parents for all that responsibility talk when I was growing up!”
She smiled at him, though her blue eyes were a little liquid. “Well, good for you. And you’ll be just down the hall in the same hotel so you can rescue her if things get crazy.” She shook her head. “I had no idea.”
“There’s been these times recently that amaze me,” he said. “Like when she was showing my mother how to make a twisted French loaf, I saw the old Courtney. I love that kid, Kelly. She’s my daughter.”
Kelly straightened. “She was showing your mom a twisted French loaf?”
He nodded. “I know she learned from you…”
“Wow. I thought she pretty much hated me.”
“I think that’s just her fear and lack of confidence…”
“You realize I can’t help you with any of this, don’t you? I can sympathize and be an ear, but that’s about it. First of all, I have no experience, no insights. Second, Courtney really doesn’t want my help. She puts up with me—that’s all. But if she liked me even a little, I’d go with you. If you had any trouble from the bad people, I’d be happy to kick ass and take names.”
“I think she’d appreciate that…”
“She trusts you, Lief. If you tell her you’re going to be nearby, I’m sure she’ll be okay.”
“I’m sorry about all the melodrama. None of it is her fault, not really.”
She reached for his hand. “I know. Maybe we’ll get through it yet.”
“And I’m sorry about Christmas,”
“Not to worry. I’ll stay busy. Maybe I can help out—would you like me to take care of Spike?”
“He’s a load,” Lief said.
She smiled and squeezed his hand. “It’ll give me something to do. Maybe it’ll get me some points with Courtney.”
Once Lief left Kelly, she immediately started dragging vegetables out of the cooling drawers and refrigerator. After she had a big pile on the work island, she realized that she instinctively did this when she was at loose ends.
So much of what Lief had told her was shocking to her.
Courtney’s problems were so much bigger than hers, that was for certain. That poor kid, just not old enough to understand the dysfunction of the adults who were supposed to take care of her. And who could blame her or fault her? Kelly didn’t have to like her to realize she barely had a fighting chance.
Second, Lief’s commitment and the weight of his obligation kept growing. And yet, for the sake of a troubled young girl, she wouldn’t have it any other way. But this would definitely change things, going forward. It would be very hard for Kelly to be a part of that family. It just might not be possible.
Kelly and Lief had begun to talk a little bit about how they might see each other over Christmas. Jillian and Colin were going back east. One of the Riordan brothers was assigned to the Pentagon; it seemed Luke and Shelby would go also, leaving Shelby’s uncle Walt to check on the cabins in their absence. They had asked Kelly if she had any interest in going along, but she’d declined immediately. She had been looking forward to a rather quiet holiday, some of it with Lief. Perhaps with Lief and Courtney.
But not if they would be in Orlando.
Being a little lonely wasn’t the worst thing. She’d be busy. Perhaps she could help out with chores around the gardens in case Denny, the assistant, wanted to take some time for the holidays. She’d cook, can and bake. That’s what she did if she was lonely. If she was troubled or uncertain.
Why couldn’t she fall for a man who was free to fall for her?
“No!” Courtney said. “No, you can’t make me!”
Lief had talked to Jerry Powell, who’d encouraged him to break the news as soon as possible, not only to give Courtney time to get used to the idea but also time to talk to Jerry about her concerns at her next appointment. The minute he got her home from school that day, he broke it to her.
“I’m not going to make you, Court. I’m asking you to put up with this one last time and I’ll get my lawyer working on a change in that custody agreement so that you won’t have to do it again.”
“Please,” she said. “Please don’t send me!”
“I won’t send you,” he said. “I’ll take you myself. And I’ll find out where you’re staying in Orlando and I’ll go. I might even go on the same plane, stay at the same hotel. I won’t let him get away with anything.”
She put her hands on her hips. “I bet you’re just saying that. I bet it made your day—freed you right up to spend Christmas with your girlfriend!”
“Why would you say that? No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Why? Because I remember it made you pretty damn mad when Stu decided to stop having custody or visitation—you were pissed. You threatened to kill him for doing that to you!”
“No!” Lief said. “No, Court! I wanted to kill him for treating you that way!”
“That isn’t what it sounded like,” she said, turning abruptly to walk away from him.
He grabbed her arm and spun her back. “Is that what you think? That I was mad about getting you back full-time?”
“That’s how it looked. First thing you did after my mom died was send me to Stu. Then Stu sent me back and said, no—she’ll live with you, visit me. Then he said, ‘Just take the little freak’ and you had him up against the wall, telling him you were going to kill him. And then—all the way back to your house, you were like purple, you were so pissed! You think I’m too fucking stupid to figure out no one wanted me? That I had nowhere to go?”
Lief sank weakly to the couch in his great room. She’d been a witness to the whole thing. How could she not understand any of it? In his head he heard himself telling her she shouldn’t be saying fucking….
But she was gone. The door to her room slammed.
He felt like the bones in his body had melted. She couldn’t really have misunderstood to that degree, could she? He tried to run the film of the whole year following Lana’s death in his mind, and it was clear as yesterday, but he couldn’t see it from Courtney’s perspective. His wife had died of an aneurism while at work; he’d been called to come to the hospital, though she was already gone. He’d had to pick up Court from school and try to explain through his own choking tears. It was such a dark blur—holding his little girl, crying with her, burying her mother.
And after that—packing her off to Stu. Hating that son of a bitch as Lief only got her for a quick weekend a couple of times a month. After all, Stu hadn’t raised her; he’d never had her longer than the occasional weekend.
Finally he stood up, forced himself to lift his chin, and went to Courtney’s room. He didn’t knock. He opened the door to find her on her cell phone. “Call whoever that is back,” he said. “I need ten minutes.”
She clicked off and looked up at h
im expectantly.
“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “The worst day of my life was when your mom died. The second worst day was when your father said, ‘Well, I guess Courtney comes to live with us now.’ I had to fight him, Courtney, to get weekend visitation. I had to pay him child support to get you two weekends a month. That day you called me to come for you, the day I got violent with him, I wanted to kill him for letting you be treated that way, for talking about you the way he did, for shoving you away when he should have put his life on the line to keep you safe! To make sure you knew you were loved and wanted. I swear to God.”
She lifted her chin. “Looked like you were pissed off because he told you I was your problem from now on,” she said.
“I should have killed him for saying that. He should never have let you feel that way. He was wrong.”
“And I have to go there? To spend Christmas with him?”
“I will take you myself. I’ll stay close, my cell phone on at all times, and if things aren’t perfect, I’ll get you out of there. Please trust me.”
She looked down. “Funny you don’t just take advantage of the vacation,” she said. “You and the girlfriend.”
“And it’s funny you don’t give her a chance. She’s a good person. She wants to come along—camp out in Orlando where you are. She said one false move and she’d be happy to kick some ass.”
She widened her eyes. “She said that?”
Lief nodded. “Not that many people are like Stu and Sherry. I hope to God they’ve changed.”
“I don’t know if I can do it,” she said. Then she shuddered. “They’re awful.”
“Last time,” he promised. “The lawyer is working up some paperwork asking for custody. Permanent custody. And I’ll be close by, I promise.”
“What about Spike?”
“I’ll make sure he’s taken care of. I’ll find someone to take care of him before we go.”
“Okay,” she finally said. “But I think it’s a bad, bad idea.”