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"Dead?"
Scottlyn cringed at Marie's reaction to her news. She looked around the crowded library and motioned for her friend to lower her voice. "Yep, almost four months ago."
"Oh wow...How?"
"There was a fight at the prison. The news reports make it sound like he tried to break it up and got stabbed in the process. Bled out before help could get there." Scottlyn shrugged. "I haven't really paid a lot of attention." She had plenty to occupy her mind. Taking care of a one-year-old, volunteering at the shelter. She looked at the stack of books on the table. College in the fall. "I stay pretty busy."
"I bet you're glad, though."
Scottlyn sat back and looked at her friend with wide eyes. "Marie, that's a horrible thing to say."
"Bradley Nelson raped you. Seems to me that would generate a bit of hate for the person—and glee for the corpse."
Scottlyn stared at her companion. Marie was one of her best friends from Saber High, just back from her first year of college, and obviously out of touch with reality. "He gave me Mercie."
"Well yeah, but—"
"Scottlyn Rich?"
Scottlyn tucked her long blonde hair behind her ear and looked into the face of a stranger. The man was scarecrow skinny. His black suit hung from his shoulders, his white shirt gapped around a scrawny chicken neck. "Yes."
He stretched out his hand, offering her a packet of neatly folded paperwork. Without thought, her hand came up to grasp them. "What...?"
"You've been served."
"Served...what...?"
"You'll find everything you need to know inside," Chicken Neck replied.
The man turned without further explanation, cutting a path around the reading tables and racks of books. The library door slid shut behind him.
"That was weird," Marie said.
Scottlyn nodded. "Way." She unfolded the papers while Marie looked over her shoulder.
"Those look like legal papers."
Scottlyn motioned for her friend to be quiet, reading the top sheet in a whisper. "In the matter of Gabe and Penny Nelson, plaintiffs, versus Scottlyn Denise Rich, defendant. We the plaintiffs wish to petition the court regarding custody of the minor child, Mercie Delynn Rich." The rest of the words blurred beneath nerves and fury. Scottlyn's hands shook as she folded the papers.
"What is it?"
Scottlyn pushed aside the books she'd been studying before Marie's visit interrupted her. She shoved the papers into her bag. Her legs trembled when she stood. "I have to go."
"What...?"
"I'll call you." Scottlyn followed the path of Chicken Neck's exit and rushed across the parking lot for her red Rav4. Her hands were trembling so badly she had trouble getting the key inserted into the ignition. Her mind refused to take in what she'd read. And what she had read...surely she'd misunderstood. The five miles between the library and home passed in a haze. She jerked the vehicle to a stop in the driveway, raced up the walk, and barreled through the front door. "Diana!"
***
DIANA KENSINGTON, HIGH school teacher, surrogate mother, and honorary grandmother, fastened the tape tabs on a fresh diaper and leaned down to blow a noisy raspberry on Mercie's chubby, bare belly. The baby's laughter bounced off the walls of the room and filled Diana's heart with contentment she'd never known, a level of joy she never expected to be hers.
"You're a chunky monkey."
The baby's cornflower blue eyes sparkled with joy as her little hands lifted. "Up, Gam."
She gathered the child into her arms and sent up a prayer of thanksgiving. Thank You for giving me such joy. "I love you, Miss Mercie. This is going to be the best summer break ever, getting to spend every day at home with you!" She looked up when the front door slammed. Scottlyn's urgent call sent her scurrying down the hall with the baby balanced on her hip. One look at the seventeen-year-old's rigid stance and distraught expression brought her up short. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?"
Diana frowned at the tears glistening in the depths of her blue eyes.
"Scottlyn?" The teen's gaze zeroed in on her daughter.
Mercie bounced on Diana's hip, tiny hands outstretched. "Ma...ma...ma..."
Scottlyn exhaled a deep breath, swiped the moisture from her eyes, and retrieved a bundle of papers from the bag hanging on her shoulder. She held them out. "Trade you." She handed the papers to Diana and reached for Mercie with trembling hands. "Come to Mama, baby girl." Scottlyn bundled the child close and paced to the window overlooking the front yard.
Diana watched as Scottlyn buried her head in Mercie's blonde, Shirley Temple curls, and a tell-tale sniff echoed above the baby's excited welcome home jabbering. She sat and unfolded the papers, spreading them out on her knees. Her own agitation grew with each word she read. When she reached the end of the two page document, she folded the sheets neatly and sat back. The nerve of these people. No wonder Scottlyn was an emotional mess. She studied her adopted daughter. Hadn't the Nelson family brought enough grief into Scottlyn's life? Now they want to take the baby from her? Diana's heart did a free fall to her toes. And me? Jesus, come bring some comfort to this place. "Where did you get these?"
Scottlyn stared out the window, her answer weary. "I was studying at the library, trying to get a head start on some of my college courses. Marie came in, and we were visiting. This guy came up to the table and asked if I was Scottlyn Rich. When I said yes, he handed me those papers and left." A sigh shuddered from her lungs. "Do they say what I think they say?"
Diana studied Scottlyn's back. Bringing the pregnant teen into her home seventeen months ago had done more than fill the empty rooms of her house. Scottlyn's presence, and now Mercie's, had given Diana something to focus on other than the grief of her husband's death. The months of adjustment had seen a hiccup or two, but the two girls fulfilled Diana's abandoned dreams of a family of her own and gave her a new respect for mothers everywhere. She glanced back down at the legal documents in her hand and welcomed herself to another difficult slice of motherhood. "I don't think there's much to misunderstand here."
Scottlyn whirled from the window. "Bradley's parents want custody of Mercie? The same people who denied that their son ever laid a finger on me want to claim my daughter as their own?" Her chest heaved, and the baby struggled against the steel bands of her mother's arms. "Over my dead body."
"You need to calm down."
"Calm down?" Scottlyn's voice was tight with anxiety. "They want—"
Diana forced the suggested composure into her own voice. "What they want and what they get are two different things." She stood and crossed the room. "Let me have the baby before you squish her. It's past her nap time, and I was just about to lay her down. While I do that, why don't you fix a couple of sodas? We'll sit down and see if we can't figure this out."
***
HOW COULD THEY...Scottlyn couldn't even finish the thought. She pulled glasses from the cabinet, filled them with ice from the door dispenser, and poured soda over the cubes. When the warm liquid hit the frozen cubes, their shiny surfaces fractured in a series of spider web cracks. That was her heart. Full of pits and crevices, mostly caused by people she'd trusted. A mother she couldn't remember, a boy out for his own pleasure, classmates who'd turned their backs, the father who'd raised her and tossed her out. Now this. Why couldn't people just leave her alone to raise her daughter?
Scottlyn heard Diana coming down the hall and turned to set the glasses on the table. Her conscience pricked over her maudlin thoughts. Here was someone she could trust. Someone who'd made sacrifices in her own life to ensure that Scottlyn had everything she needed to provide the kind of home Mercie deserved. Someone who'd taught...and shown...her more about love and trust in the last year and a half than she'd experienced in her whole life.
Diana entered the room, and Scottlyn threw herself into the arms of the only mother she'd ever known. She couldn't stop the tears. Diana would never ask her to. Wrapped in Diana's embrace, Scottlyn staked a claim on a small island of peace in the storm raging through her heart.
"Diana, can they—?"
"Shh..." With a final squeeze, the older woman took a step back and lifted Scottlyn's chin. "Look at me."
Scottlyn blinked away the tears and looked into blue eyes that were so similar to her own, they could have been related by blood.
"Life is full of cliffs, honey, and people all too willing to give you a push. Let's not give them any more control than we need to." Diana turned her to the table. "Sit down. Let's talk."
Scottlyn allowed Diana to lead her to a chair. "How can you be so calm?"
"Not as calm as you might think. Part of what you're seeing as calm is experience. I've lived a lot more life than you. I've learned to look at things from all the angles before I let them upset me." She stopped to sip her soda. "This is a disturbing and unexpected fork in the road, but I think you're overlooking two very important things."
"Like?"
"When you were pregnant with Mercie and your father made noises about having the baby taken from you by force, my friend Lynette hooked us up with a paralegal buddy of hers. Do you remember what he told you?"
Scottlyn twisted a strand of hair around a finger while she thought about the conversation more than a year ago. She looked up at Diana, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. "That I didn't have anything to worry about as long as I took care of my daughter, provided for her needs, and kept myself out of any trouble that could be used to prove me unfit."
"And that's exactly what you've done." Diana took in the room with a wave. "You both have a secure home here for as long as you want it. Mercie doesn't need a thing she doesn't have, and you graduated with a 4.0 grade point average. Plus you've been accepted at Oklahoma University. Pretty impressive work."
Scottlyn pushed away from the table, nervous energy driving her to her feet. "But this is different. Dad didn't want Mercie, he just didn't want me to have her. These are grandparents who obviously do want her. Dad never pursued his threat of legal action." She motioned to the papers on the table. "Bradley's parents have. What if they can prove to a judge that they can make a better life for Mercie than I can?"
"You're determined to inch closer and closer to the edge of that cliff, aren't you? You're forgetting the second thing."
Scottlyn stopped and leaned on the back of the chair she'd just vacated. She stared at Diana, waiting to hear something in her favor besides good grades.
Diana sat back and crossed her arms. "Did you dedicate your life to Jesus a few months ago?"
Scottlyn nodded.
"Are you living your life for Him now?"
"I'm trying."
"And trying is all He asks of any of us." She motioned to the chair. "Sit down. Keeping my eye on you while you pace around the room is putting a crick in my neck."
Scottlyn slid back into her seat.
"Sweetheart, do you really think God brought us together, reworked my life and yours, and molded us into a family, just to tear that apart a year and a half later?"
Scottlyn shrugged. "I don't know what to think. I just want to be left in peace to raise my daughter." New tears pressed against the backs of her eyes, and she blinked them away. "Her beginning was brutal and painful. I want to put the bad things behind us and focus on our future."
"And I'd bet money that's what God wants too. But you might have to fight for it. Sometimes God allows these lessons into our lives so we can grow. But you don't have to let fear or worry set the boundaries for the battle." She reached across the table and covered Scottlyn's hand with her own. "God's got this. Regardless of how either of us feels right now, He wasn't taken by surprise by what happened this afternoon." She leaned forward. "Did you say you saw Marie at the library?"
She continued when Scottlyn nodded. "Then Grant should be home from his school in Missouri soon as well, right?"
Scottlyn took a deep breath, calmed by Diana's reassurances and shared faith, warmed by the mention of the journalism student she'd met at church over Christmas break. If you looked up tall, dark, and handsome in a reference book, there was no definition, just a picture of Grant Weber.
Scottlyn took some time over her answer, not wanting to sound too excited about a relationship that still didn't quite deserve the term. But the mental image of Grant's cleft chin, crooked smile, and black fringed dark eyes left her all mushy on the inside. "Yeah."
Diana smiled from across the table. "Just yeah?"
The speculative look in Diana's eyes caused heat to flood Scottlyn's face in spite of the upsets of the day. "We're just friends."
"Um hum." Diana held up a hand and counted points off on her fingers. "Friends who've been skyping two or three times a week for five months. He took you and Mercie to his parent's house for their Christmas Eve party. A New Year's date followed, and I believe his parents are on the guest list for Mercie's birthday party in a couple of weeks." She shared a grin. "But we'll go with friends, if that's what you want."
Caught in the net of her own happily-ever-after fantasy, Scottlyn shrugged. She tapped the papers laying in the middle of the table. "What does Grant coming home have to do with keeping Bradley Nelson's parents away from my child?"
Diana sat back and crossed her arms. "What does Grant's father do for a living?"
Scottlyn tilted her head in thought, and a smile spread across her face. "He's a family court lawyer."
"Bingo." Diana pushed the papers a bit closer to Scottlyn. "Why don't you give Grant a call and see when he's going to be home."