didn’t really want to drive home tonight. But neither did she want to spend the night in the town house with her husband, knowing as she now did that their marriage was over.
“There’s also a lot more I want to know about this adoption business,” Sean added, riding over her feeble protest. “Do you have any idea of exactly what we’re going to have to do? Has the agency given you any information on where we’re supposed to go to collect the child and a specific time frame for doing so?”
Charlotte didn’t much care for the way he phrased his rapid-fire questions—adoption business, process, collecting of a child. He made it sound so cold, so…clinical—as if becoming the parents of the precious little girl in the photograph were just another transaction to be brokered as quickly and efficiently as possible.
But she also had to admit that he had a right to know up-front all that he would be required to do.
Unfortunately, Charlotte couldn’t provide him with the information he wanted in the same concise manner he’d just requested it, though she was sure most, if not all, of it was contained in the envelope.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I haven’t had a chance to look through all of the paperwork the agency sent us.”
“All the more reason for you to spend the night here. That will give us a chance to sort through the packet together,” Sean said amenably enough, then added, “unless you’re ready to call it a night, in which case I don’t mind reading over the information on my own.”
Deftly outmaneuvered, Charlotte realized that Sean had given her two choices, neither of which would allow her to leave New Orleans that night.
Going through the adoption-agency information was going to take awhile, and according to the clock on the kitchen wall it was after ten o’clock already. She was barely alert enough to drive now, although with a little coffee she’d probably be good to go. But a couple of hours from now even coffee wouldn’t help her to stay awake during what would be a long, tedious drive in stormy weather.
The only way she could possibly get away that night would be to leave the envelope with Sean so he could review the contents on his own, and she certainly wasn’t prepared to do that.
“I suppose we might as well go over everything together,” she said at last, though not nearly as graciously as she should have.
“Would you like some coffee before we get started?” Sean offered with the benevolence of one who had triumphed.
“Yes, please.”
Charlotte sat on her stool again, making an effort to tamp down her irritation. How bad could spending one night in the guest room of the town house really be when it would also give her a chance to cement her new affiliation with her soon to be ex-husband?
Obviously, she was about to find out.
“Do you still take cream and sugar?”
“Do you still make coffee strong enough to hold a spoon upright?”
“Cream and sugar it is,” Sean acknowledged with the first hint of humor in his voice that she’d heard all evening.
Reminded of how charming he could be when he put his mind to it—as he was apt to do whenever he’d gotten his way—Charlotte was tempted to lower her guard just a little.
She was stuck in the town house with him for the night, so why not relax and enjoy the companionship Sean now seemed willing to offer her? With the rain still thundering down outside, the small kitchen, light and bright, provided a warm and cozy haven for the two of them.
Only by Sean’s choice they weren’t really a couple anymore—at least not in the same sense that they’d once been. If she allowed herself to pretend otherwise even for an evening, she knew that she would find it even more painful to face the reality awaiting her in the not-too- distant future.
Better to think of her husband as a business partner from now on, Charlotte warned herself as she took the sheaf of paperwork from the envelope and laid it out on the island countertop. A temporary partner with whom she would have dealings for only a short time before he walked out of her life for good.
“You’re looking just a mite grim all of a sudden,” Sean observed as he set two steaming mugs of café au lait on the counter, then sat on the stool across from her again. “Have you come upon something disturbing among all those papers from the adoption agency?”
“The number of forms alone that we’re supposed to complete is daunting,” Charlotte replied, glad to have something to use as a blind for her disquieting emotions.
She took a swallow of the hot, sweet, creamy coffee laced with chicory. Then she spread the various forms out in front of her, reading headings aloud as she turned them toward Sean for his perusal.
“To start, we need a written referral from the adoption agency in New Orleans, criminal background checks from the local and state police, and clearance from Immigration and Naturalization to bring the child into the country. Then we have to apply for approval from the adoption agency’s sister agency in Kazakhstan, as well as from the orphanage there. There’s also a form requesting a formal invitation from the orphanage to adopt the child and another one requesting a visa from the Kazakhstan government allowing us to travel to the city of Almaty where the orphanage is located.”
Charlotte risked a quick glance at her husband. She was afraid that the sheer volume of paperwork required to set the adoption process in motion would be enough to make him change his mind. Even with the agency’s help in assembling the necessary dossier—a service they offered that had been included in the fees she and Sean had already paid—the work involved would be time consuming.
Then they would have to spend approximately four weeks in Kazakhstan, meeting with agency and orphanage personnel and bonding with the child. Only after significant bonding between the adoptive parents and the child had occurred would their request for adoption be presented to the court and approval finally be given.
“They’re quite thorough, aren’t they?” Sean glanced at her, then focused on the forms again, adding, “That’s reassuring, at least to me.”
“Me, too,” Charlotte agreed, releasing with relief the breath she’d been holding.
Sean hadn’t sounded as if he’d been thinking about backing out of his end of the bargain they’d made…at least not yet.
“With so many checks and balances in place, once the adoption has been completed and we’re home again, there shouldn’t be any problem with anyone challenging our rights as the child’s parents,” he continued, surprising Charlotte with his use of we and our, and the plural parents.
Just a slip of the tongue, she told herself, trying hard not to get her hopes up again. But she had to admit that Sean wasn’t distancing himself nearly as much as he’d led her to believe he would earlier. Especially considering the fact that he wasn’t planning on sticking around to be a full-time, or even part-time, father once they’d finished with the business of adopting the child.
“That was one of the things that impressed me the most about the Robideaux Agency when we first began looking into the possibility of adopting a child,”
