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"Oh baby, look at you."
Scottlyn blinked back tears as the woman's hands cupped her chin and turned her head from side to side.
"You grew up without me. You're so beautiful."
The words were a warm balm over Scottlyn's troubled heart. "Mom?"
"It's me baby."
Scottlyn allowed herself to be pulled into an embrace.
"I'm here, and I'm never going away again."
Harold Cole harrumphed. "We need to take this tender reunion out of the doorway and away from the public." He motioned to a closed door. "Grant, see if anyone is in the den."
Grant stepped away, looked inside, and waved them forward. "It's empty."
Scottlyn trailed behind the group, unable to take her eyes off her mother. She watched her every move, seriously afraid that if she so much as blinked, the woman might disappear again. I'm not alone. Thank You, Jesus! In the annals of answered prayers, this had to be a record. She allowed Grant to lead her to a seat. He took a position behind her, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders.
Jocelyn...Mom...took the loveseat while Harold closed the door and leaned against it. Maybe he, too, was afraid she'd vanish. Scottlyn's estimation of the situation changed when the lawyer crossed his arms and nailed her mother with a cold stare.
"What are you doing here?"
She blinked. "I came to see my daughter." The brightness of tears filled her eyes. "I came to say good-bye to the only man I ever loved."
Harold's snort bordered on rude. "Love? You don't know the meaning of the word. I'm surprised God doesn't strike you where you sit. You walked out the front door of this house seventeen years ago and never looked back. It's a little late to claim love now."
Her long-lost mother wrung her hands in her lap, meeting the irate lawyer's gaze head on. "But I can explain. None of that was my fault."
"You—"
"Stop!" Scottlyn rubbed at her temples. "I just buried my father. I don't need an argument piled on top of that." She frowned at the lawyer. "Is this woman my mother?"
Harold nodded.
"Then let her talk." The tears pressing Scottlyn's eyes for the last five minutes overflowed. "I have a right to hear what she has to say."
His brows gathered low over his eyes, but he made a gesture for her mother to continue.
Scottlyn tilted her head at the smug look that flitted across Jocelyn's face. Her moment of uneasiness melted away the second her mom's gaze came back to hers. Our eyes are so identical...the way she holds her head. It's like looking in a mirror.
"Thank you, sweetheart. I have so much to tell you, and it's difficult enough without arguments."
Scottlyn closed her eyes and listened to her mother's voice. She had no memories from when her mother had left. She'd only been eighteen months old. If she concentrated, maybe her voice would spark a memory.
"Scottlyn."
Her eyes snapped open.
"Baby, look at me. You're the only one in this room who deserves an explanation. There's no way to bring back the years we've lost, but I think I can explain, if you're willing to hear me out."
Scottlyn didn't trust her voice.
She simply nodded.
***
JOCELYN SMILED AND hoped that it appeared less predatory than it felt. Kid's so desperate, I could tell her I'd been asleep in a castle, waiting for Prince Charming's kiss, and she'd lap it up. Good news was that she was too young to remember anything that actually happened. She leaned forward, her eyes steady on Scottlyn's face.
"You were the best thing that ever happened to me. The day you were born, the first time I held you, I knew what my life was all about." Some of the tension between her shoulders relaxed as the story flowed exactly as she'd rehearsed. The rapt expression on Scottlyn's face didn't hurt either. "You have a baby. You know how that is?"
Scottlyn smiled. "I do. Mercie changed my life in ways I never imagined. I can't wait for you to meet her."
A kid to impress, oh joy! "I can't believe I'm a grandma."
"Can we move this along?" The disgruntled question came from the lawyer still leaning against the door.
Jocelyn spared him a quick glance. Uncomplicate my life and drop dead, would you? She directed her words to Scottlyn. "I need to tell the whole story for you to understand what happened."
Scottlyn pressed her lips together and glanced at the lawyer. "Harold, please?"
The old lawyer threw his hands up in obvious disgust. "Whatever."
"Anyway," Jocelyn continued, "you were the light of my life. But, as much as I loved you, that first year was one of the most difficult I'd ever experienced. I know now that I was a victim of severe postpartum depression. I couldn't shake it. William couldn't understand that it was my hormones making me crazy, not you." She forced an anguished sigh into the room. "I had to take a break or lose my mind."
"Oh, Mom."
"I know...it was a selfish decision, but I convinced myself that I was weighing the long-term benefits against the pain of a short-term separation. I only intended to be gone a few days...a week at the most, and you would never remember."
"Then why did you stay gone?" Scottlyn crossed her arms and turned slightly away.
Jocelyn recognized agitation in Scottlyn's posture. Jocelyn hadn't lost her, but she needed to tread carefully. She needed the girl's sympathy back in her court sooner rather than later.
"I got tossed into a stinking Mexican jail and sentenced to seventeen years for drug trafficking."
"What?"
The question came from the young man standing behind Scottlyn. Boyfriend? Jocelyn studied him and his incredulous expression. He wasn't buying her story. How much influence did he have over Scottlyn? She caught a glint of light and focused on the engagement ring on Scottlyn's left hand. Ahh..."And you are...?"
"I'm sorry, Mom, I should have introduced you right away." Scottlyn turned to smile up at the young man. "This is my fiancé, Grant Weber. Someone else you'll need to get to know."
Careful...flies and honey. She pasted a smile on her face. "Grant, thank you."
Grant's brows rose, lines of confusion etched around his eyes. "For...?"
"For being here for my baby this week. It's obvious that you love her very much. I'm so glad Scottlyn has someone strong to lean on right now."
"Hmm." His gaze bored into hers as if determined to pick through her thoughts. "You're welcome. Jail?"
His abrupt response flustered her. A bead of sweat traced a path between her breasts, and she fidgeted at the sensation. She risked a second glance at his stony countenance and hurried back to her story. "When I left here, I flew to Cozumel. I took long walks on the beach. Watched the sunset."
Scottlyn cocked her head at the words. "Sounds like you had a good time." The sarcasm in her words was unmistakable.
"Baby, I'm sorry if parts of my story hurt. I owe you honesty."
She shook free of Grant's hands and stood to stare down at Jocelyn. "Did Daddy know where you went?"
Jocelyn shook her head. "He never would have let me go. He took you to the park for a Saturday picnic. I made sure I was gone before you got home."
"No note, no explanation, no goodbyes? Just"—she snapped her fingers—"poof, you were gone?"
"I know how selfish it must sound." Her eyes filled with fresh tears. "But I missed you every day."
Scottlyn's hand shook when she ran it through her hair. Jocelyn heard her mutter, "Few days."
She sat back down. "OK, so you only planned to be gone for a few days. What happened?"
Jocelyn took a deep breath and prepared to launch into the meat of her story. "I was betrayed."
She looked around the room. Three sets of eyes looked back, each shining with a different emotion. Disapproval from the lawyer, distrust from the fiancé, but in Scottlyn's eyes she saw a spark of hope. Jocelyn focused on the one who needed to believe her. "While I was at the resort, I met another woman. Her name was Lizzie. We were close to the same age and both traveling alone, so we hung out a little bit, did some sightseeing together. She's the one who told me about the postpartum thing. Her sister suffered from it. Knowing my problem had a name and a cure gave me such hope. I knew things would be better once I got home." She cleared her throat, waiting for some response. She continued when her audience remained silent.
"Anyway, we were booked on the same flight back to the States. We went to the airport together, and when it came time for me to board the plane, they found cocaine in my bag."
"Oh, dear Lord!" The lawyer finally left his place at the door to stride around the room. He ran a hand across his baldhead. "You tried to smuggle drugs into the country?"
"No, Harold. I promise. It wasn't me. It was Lizzie!"
Harold glared. "How...?"
"I don't know. The only time that bag was out of my sight was when I went to the restroom. It was crowded, and I asked Lizzie to watch it for me. The next thing I knew, I was being carted out of the airport in handcuffs. It had to be her."
The story flowed faster as Jocelyn warmed to her subject. "They took me to jail, confiscated all my luggage and paperwork, and sentenced me to seventeen years."
Grant leaned forward. "And in seventeen years, you never found the chance to let someone know where you were?'
She nodded and allowed her expression to harden. "You people have no idea. A Mexican prison isn't like an American one. You don't get a phone call. There are no privileges, at least not in the hole I was in. Three barely edible meals a day, a cot with a one-inch mattress, and ten hours of labor a day." Jocelyn smudged a tear from under her eye.
"I just got out a month ago. I didn't have a driver's license or my birth certificate, much less a passport—"
Grant shook his head. "You could have called—"
"Hi, you don't know me, but this is Jocelyn Rich. I'm stranded in Mexico, and I need your help to get home." She shook her head. "Sounds like an email scheme I've heard about. I went straight to the embassy to see what I needed to do to get home. It took three weeks to get everything in order. I got back a week ago, and I was looking for a way to reach out to my husband and daughter. I wanted a chance to know the woman my daughter had become. I wanted to tell William that I was sorry." She bent forward and put her face in her hands. Her voice rose in a howl of grief. "And now, I'll never get that chance."
***
"OH, MOM." SCOTTLYN left her seat and knelt on the floor in front of Jocelyn. She wrapped the woman in her arms and rocked. "Don't cry. It's OK. We'll figure this out together."
Grant frowned as his fiancé and a stranger bonded over their grief. He looked over at Harold, caught the lawyer's nod toward the door, and followed the older man out.
With the door shut behind them, Harold looked Grant in the eye. "Did you buy any of that?"
"Not a single word," Grant assured him. "I was raised by one of the best lawyers in this part of the country. I learned to read body language while I studied my ABCs."
Harold nodded.
"You're sure this woman is Scottlyn's mother?"
Harold's stare threatened to bore a hole through the wood of the door. "I knew her back then. I'd have to say yes. But the story she just told." He shook his head. "She's lying."
"Agreed. If she's only been back a week, how did she know Scottlyn has a daughter? And that thing with the email scheme? If you've been locked away for fifteen years, where would you see that? I'm no judge, but she looks pretty healthy for someone so starved and overworked."
"Exactly." Harold picked at his bottom lip. "Knowing she's lying and proving it are two different things. Her story can be checked out, but it'll take some time."
Grant's answer was a whispered groan. "And proving to my fiancée that the woman who claims to be her mother is a liar?" Oh, Scottie. "That's a tightrope I'm not looking forward to walking."