DIDN’T LOOK VERY GOOD, John thought as he brought her a cup of coffee.
“You sure you don’t want to go see that doc of yours?” he asked.
She waved away his concern. “I’m fine. Just a little winded is all from the excitement last night. I just don’t know what to do about those poor babies. I don’t even know if they’ve been in school or what kind of lives they’ve been living. I’m just beside myself.”
“What about the mother? Do you know where she might be? Maybe I could place a few calls.”
Gladys made a look of distaste. “Oh, don’t waste your time with that one. I only met her once but she never made much of an impression. A little snooty and standoffish if you ask me and we never really hit it off. Not that I was close with Jason, mind you, but at least he was family. I’ve known him since he was a boy. Never had much of a character. Nothing like you and Evan. If you boys had been anything like Jason your mama would’ve lost the ranch the moment the tax man had started calling. No…I knew from the time he was a young man he wasn’t going to amount to much but I’d hoped I was wrong. There’s no satisfaction in being right in this instance.”
“So you think the mother just took off or something like Jason did?”
Gladys sighed. “I don’t know but what kind of mother would leave her babies behind? I can only imagine,” she said, her voice catching as the ghost of an old pain reappeared.
John agreed privately but allowed the quiet to dull the edge of Gladys’s long-ago loss. Even after all this time Gladys felt the agony of her stillborn son. He supposed that was a hurt that never truly healed. Not even with decades of time as a balm.
“So what do we do?”
Gladys looked at him sharply then sighed. “We? Oh, Johnny, this isn’t your problem. I’ll figure something out.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “You’re in no shape to be tending to three little kids. And frankly, I don’t care what you say, I think you need to see your doctor. That surgery might’ve taken more out of you than you realize.”
Gladys was silent for a moment and John had a feeling she was wrestling with her pride, which was no small thing. She wasn’t accustomed to being dependent on someone else and it was probably killing her. But it was a temporary thing and she realized this, too, and finally nodded in agreement.
“You might be right,” she conceded with a sigh. “And I’ve been thinking about what you said about contacting the authorities. Maybe that’s the best thing to do. I don’t think Jason or Renee were doing a great job with these girls. Chloe is most definitely going to need an antibiotic for that cough and something tells me she’s been sick for a while. The poor baby has no color to speak of. They ought to have to work to get them back. Maybe it’ll teach them a lesson in being parents.”
“So you’re saying you’re okay with me calling the sheriff?”
“Yes, on one condition…the children stay together. They need each other.”
“I’ll make the call,” he said, moving to grab the phone. “And then I’m taking Chloe to the doctor.”
RENEE PULLED TO A STOP and took a cursory glance around the ranch that bordered Gladys’s property. She’d waited two agonizing days, but by 11 a.m. the third day Renee figured she ought to start poking around. If Gladys had gone on vacation, she might’ve left instructions with a neighbor to watch the house for her. Either way, Renee might get some kind of information that might be useful in finding Jason and the kids.
She was nearly to the door when a deep voice startled her.
“Didn’t you see the sign?”
Her heart jackhammering in her chest, she stammered a bit as she turned, her gaze catching the sign he was talking about. Trespassers Will Be Shot. No Exceptions. She swallowed and got straight to the point. “I’m sorry…I’m looking for Gladys Stemming but she doesn’t seem to be home and I wondered…”
“What do you want with Gladys?”
She frowned at his tone. “I’m Renee Dolling. Uh, well, she’s my aunt, by marriage, and I—” Why was she explaining herself to this man? Renee straightened. “Has she gone on a trip? If so, do you know when she’ll be back?”
“Dolling?” He repeated, a sudden shrewd light entering the hard stare coming at her from beneath a dusty and worn baseball cap. Little ducktails of dirty blond hair too long to be fashionable stuck out from under the hat as if to clearly state he had no time for such niceties as regular haircuts. And his sun-darkened face had a boyish charm that was completely at odds with the stern expression pinching his mouth as he said again, “Did you say your name was Dolling?”
“Yes…do I know you?”
“Name’s John Murphy and, no, we’ve never met, but you’ve sure got some explaining to do.”
“Excuse me?”
“Three days ago your husband dumped your kids with a sixty-seven-year-old woman and took off without so much as a ‘see you later’ and she’d just had surgery for a triple bypass but you wouldn’t know that now, would you, because you dumped your kids before he did.”
“He’s not my husband,” she muttered yet felt heat blooming in her cheeks at his words. At least he wouldn’t be in a few months. The divorce wasn’t quite final in the eyes of the courts but as far as she was concerned Jason could take a long walk off a short pier after the hell he’d put her through. Selfish bastard. Wait a minute…“Did you just say my husband dropped the girls off with Gladys?”
“I did.”
A relieved smile broke through her annoyance at being interrogated and she exhaled loudly. “Oh, thank God. Where is she? I’ve been looking for the girls for months and I’ve been worried sick.”
Her relief was short-lived as the man continued to openly assess her, as if he were weighing something heavy in his mind, and unease fluttered in her stomach. “Is there a problem?” she asked stiffly.
“I’d say so.”
“Which is?”
“You don’t have custody any longer.”
Renee’s knees nearly snapped out from under her as she sucked in a pained gasp. “What?”
“Yesterday afternoon your girls were placed in the protective custody of their aunt Gladys as a temporary measure until things can be sorted out. No mother, no father…Gladys was their closest relative. Simple as that.”
“Well, I’m back so that won’t be necessary, now will it?”
“Doesn’t work that way. Courts are involved. Convince them you’ve decided to be a mom again and then we’ll see. But, can’t say that will be easy. Seems the courts around here don’t take lightly to parents abandoning their kids.”
She bristled at the thinly veiled disgust behind his seemingly mild statement and allowed the building anger to hold the panic at bay.
He didn’t
