Page 8 of Seeking Happily Ever After

Char felt an instant shot of guilt. She didn’t know Harriet had lost her husband. Then again, how would she know? She hadn’t really kept up with much in Glacier Falls beyond her own family. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Harriet. I had no idea.”

“Time passes.” Harriet shrugged. “Do you remember Brett Bryant? I think you two were about the same age in school.”

Char grinned. “Of course I remember Brett. He was a few years older than me, but he was—”

“Always trying to get you to go out with me?”

“Brett!”

Without hesitation, Charlotte threw her arms around her old friend. “I had no idea you were still in town.”

She was starting to say that a lot, and it was starting to get more than a little embarrassing that she hadn’t paid any attention to her hometown after she left.

“I was in the city for a while,” he said. “I took some construction classes and got a diploma in business management. But there’s something about Glacier Falls.” He shrugged, his green eyes sparkling.

He’d always been handsome, but he’d really grown into his looks since high school. Charlotte still couldn’t begin to imagine thinking of him as anything besides the boy who would tease her relentlessly for hanging out in the hardware shop where he’d worked, but even she could admit he was a good-looking man. One who clearly had a heart of gold, considering the way he put his arm around Harriet and pulled her close.

“Besides, when I heard that Harriet needed help…well, it seemed like a good time to come home. Been back a few years now.”

“He’s been a lifesaver,” Harriet said. “I never would have been able to keep the doors open without him.” Her smile dropped. “It’s not like my Zoe would ever set foot through the doors, and well…”

She drifted off, and judging by the look of warning that Brett shot her, it was obviously a sensitive subject. Zoe Howard was a few years older than Char in school as well, and she didn’t know her well at all except that she’d been a bit of a handful for her parents back then, too.

“Anyway,” Harriet’s smile returned, “I see you looking at the paint chips, Charlotte. Are you working on another project?”

She didn’t want to say anything yet, especially because she didn’t officially have the job and was only there to pull together some ideas to show Stephanie. So all she said was, “It’s been so long since I’ve looked, I was curious about the season’s new colors.”

It turned out to be the right thing to say, because Harriet came alive and immediately began pulling paint cards to show her. “You inspired me all those years ago, Charlotte. Ever since, I’ve been sure to bring in all the new trendy colors.”

For the next thirty minutes, a sense of peace, happiness, and purpose washed over her as Charlotte and Harriet pored over the colors and Char started to piece together some ideas to present to Stephanie Starz. By the time she walked out the doors, her mind was bursting with ideas, and she couldn’t wait to get home to start putting them all together.

“She what?”

Despiteknowingin his gut that it wouldn’t be easy, Nick still wasn’t prepared for what his lawyer relayed to him.

“She didn’t sign the papers?”

“No,” Chris confirmed for the third time. “And she informed my team that she would be—”

“Seeking custody.” Just saying the words out loud made Nick want to throw up. He glanced behind him at the guest house where his baby girl was still sleeping. He could take her and run. He had the resources that no one would ever find them. They could go off the—no.

That was crazy. A life on the run would be almost as bad as a life with an addict, unfit mother. And if Jessica was making changes, that wouldn’t be the life at all.

IfJessica was making changes. It was a bigif. And the even biggerifwas if she could maintain those changes.

How many times had Nick’s own mother said she was going to change and maybe even changed for a little bit before falling back into old habits? He’d lost count.

Maybe it wasn’t fair to presume Jessica would do the same. Plenty of addicts turned their lives around. It happened all the time. But sometimes it didn’t, and it was a pretty big gamble to take with his daughter’s future. Andyes,Amelia was his daughter. He couldn’t think of her in any other way. Ever.

“So what do I do?” He interrupted Chris, who was going on about the law and parental rights and all kinds of other things. He needed the nitty-gritty. Details. Facts. What he could do to make sure they couldn’t take Amelia away from him.

“To be clear,” Chris started, “Jessica hasn’t made any formal declaration for custody. And she never actually said that.”

“You just said…”

“You didn’t let me finish. She told the team she’d be contacting you. It could be as simple as just wanting to know how the child is doing. She could be calling to explain herself. The fact is, we don’t know yet if custody is something she’s interested in.”

It was. How could it not be? How could she walk away from her child and not want her back?

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