Page 62 of The Christmas Eve Delivery

“I have Briggs Priest on the line,” she announced.

“Miles,” Briggs’s voice boomed through the speaker on my desk phone. “How can I help you today?”

“You haven’t received anything back from the woman Upstate?” I asked.

“No, nothing. Why? Have you heard anything?”

I let out a long breath. “No, I was hoping you had. She should be close to her due date by now, and I’m eager to get this impending paternity suit behind me.”

“Are you sure there’s even going to be a paternity suit?” Briggs asked. “We haven’t heard anything from her for a couple of months. At this point, she may have decided to go no-contact with you.”

That wasn’t going to be acceptable. I needed to know about my child. I needed to have a way to speak with her so that I could convince her that selling me the Sweet Mountain Inn would be the best thing for her, for our child, and for the town of Brookdale.

“Maybe I should head up and see if I can have a conversation with her,” I suggested.

“Miles, help keep your ass out of trouble,” Briggs said.

“Your point?” I asked.

“Going to Brookdale and harassing this woman is going to get you into trouble. She has not come forward with a request for any kind of financial support or emotional support. She has also not come forward to sue you for any kind of damages. My best recommendation is to leave her alone.”

“Three years of Harvard Law, and your best recommendation is to tell me to drop it?”

“I didn’t need to go to law school to see that she doesn’t want to be bothered,” he said. “And yes, three years of law school. My professional, well-educated opinion is to tell you to let it go until she comes forward. You can’t rush the birth of the child, and wecannot pursue any kind of custody or counter litigation until we can access a DNA test.”

“I don’t like this,” I admitted.

“It’s a waiting game at best,” Briggs said. “And you could be making this into something when nothing will develop from it. We can’t force her to interact, and if we continue to hound her, she could easily get a restraining order against both the firm and you.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “A restraining order? What’s that going to do?”

“For one, it will keep you from bothering her. Secondly, what you said about this town. It’s tiny, right?”

“Not much more than a couple of blocks. A diner and two traffic lights,” I said.

“Well, a restraining order could keep you out of town. It could keep your entire business out of town. I was under the impression you were trying to develop some property up there. So if you need to have access to this town, leave that woman alone. She could make it so that you legally could not enter town limits.”

“How is she going to do that?” I scoffed. Lydia couldn’t keep me out of Brookdale.

“If she gets an order that says you can’t come within one hundred yards of her, and the town is as small as you say, that effectively keeps you out of that town. You would be in violation of the law if you showed up.”

That was not the kind of news I wanted to hear from him.

“I’m not going to say thanks because you really haven’t done anything,” I grumbled.

“There’s nothing to be done but wait at this point in time. As soon as you get news that the child has been born, if you want to pursue custody and parental rights, we can request a court order demanding a paternity test. That’s as good as it’s going to get if you want to be proactive in this situation. Otherwise, we sit, we wait, we react when she takes action.”

I wasn’t a sit around and react kind of guy. I didn’t like defensive strategies. Power and action spoke the loudest. Sitting and waiting was nothing more than a weak whimper. I wasn’t going to sit around and whimper like some kind of loser or kicked puppy.

Waiting for something to change was what I would expect Lydia to do. She certainly wasn’t sitting around on her backside waiting for somebody to come along and save the town. She was the one running the Historical Society committee. She was the one pursuing grants so she could have funding to fix the Sweet Mountain Inn.

She was the one bravely going forward with all odds against her, and she was the one not responding to any of my requests regarding paternity.

Maybe Briggs was right and I should leave her be. I needed to forget about her, forget about Brookdale, and find another town to develop.

“I’ll keep you posted if I learn anything,” I said before ending the call with Briggs.

I punched the intercom button to Sarah again. “Tell Diego and Harris to get their asses back in here and to bring a map.”

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