Wife, Mother...Lover? Page 9

  And she’d convinced Mitch to let her stay.

  It was the right thing to do. Leanne was sure of it. And she felt good waking up in this house to the sound of the boys’ laughter, knowing that they had the entire day—no, a month of days—to play and explore and learn about one another.

  Leanne wouldn’t leave until Mitch had made whatever arrangements he needed to ensure that the boys would be safe and well taken care of. And maybe in that time, she would find her way back to her family.

  Pulling in a deep breath and turning to see sunshine flowing through the window blinds, she realized she felt better this morning than she had in a long, long time. She was glad she wouldn’t be spending this day alone with her camera and a pack of film, maybe with some wild animals and a few people who spoke only the most rudimentary English.

  Grabbing her robe, she headed for the bathroom for a quick shower, then couldn’t resist glancing into Mitch’s room, where he and the boys were wrestling on the bed again. She saw a tangle of arms and legs and smiles. It took a few moments before any of them noticed her. Finally, Teddy did. He gave her one of his most precious and shy smiles, then muttered something she took to mean that he was wresting with “Tee” and his papa.

  “I know.” She smiled brightly at him. “It looks like fun.”

  Timmy saw her then and said something that sounded like “Oooh wettle?”

  “What?” Leanne had a long way to go before she spoke their language.

  “I think he wants to know if you’d like to wrestle with us this morning,” Mitch said as he hauled his sons to his sides and held them still for a minute.

  Leanne had been trying not to look at him, but he’d left her with no choice. She should have been better prepared this morning for what she’d find, but maybe there were no adequate preparations for the sight of Mitch McCarthy, his hair mussed, his jaw dark and rough looking, his torso shirtless so that every muscle in his chest and his arms was on display, as he sat in the middle of a rumpled bed.

  Leanne felt as if she owed her sister an apology just for looking.

  With a mumbled excuse, she left the doorway and went into the bathroom. She rushed into the shower, then dressed and went downstairs. There she found coffee waiting for her.

  She hadn’t expected the boys to pitch a fit when Mitch left for work. After all, they’d spent the entire day before with her, and they’d been quite happy. But still, they fussed and clung to their father as he made his way out the door.

  Mitch swore that it was normal, that it took them time to get used to new people. He predicted they had another three or four days of this before the boys settled down.

  Leanne wanted to cry with Timmy and Teddy, who sobbed as though their father were abandoning them to the worst of fates. “I thought you liked me,” she said to them as she dried their tears. “I thought we had fun together yesterday.”

  Timmy looked sullen and said nothing. Teddy, his bottom lip sticking out and his eyes swimming in tears, looked more receptive to what she had to say.

  “It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day. We could go to the park again, maybe with Hannah and Will,” she suggested as she took them by the hand and led them into the kitchen so she could make them some breakfast. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Teddy gave her his lost-puppy look. Timmy put on a big frown, one that seemed to say he was no pushover and he would not be comforted or bribed.

  Leanne had an idea. “Hey, you know what? I need a camera.” She’d been itching for one ever since she’d first seen the two of them together, and as unbelievable as it was, she’d been so upset when she’d left New York she hadn’t packed a single camera. “Maybe we could go buy a camera, and you two could be my models. What do you think, Teddy? Want to be in my pictures?”

  Teddy wasn’t certain, but he had stopped crying so pitifully. Leanne thought she was making progress.

  She chatted all through the breakfast preparations, handing them sip cups filled with juice, which they managed to sprinkle across the floor despite the tops specially made to prevent spills. Every time she turned her back, they turned the cups upside down and shook them until something came out. They thought they were fooling her, too. Giggling and smiling at each other, they delighted in their mischief making. Leanne let them have their fun because she realized she would do just about anything to see them happy.

  They’d finished their breakfast of juice, toast and oatmeal and were just heading upstairs so she could dress them, when the doorbell rang. Odd, Leanne thought as she checked her watch. It was barely eight o’clock.

  Bracing herself, afraid she was going to come face-to-face with Rena, she went to the door, with the boys trailing after her. There she found a middle-aged, no-nonsense-looking woman in a severely cut tweed suit.

  “Is Mr. McCarthy in?” she inquired.

  “No. He’s already left for work,” Leanne replied, feeling uneasy all of a sudden and gathering the boys closer to her. “Who are you?”

  “Margaret Adams.” She pulled some sort of identification from her purse and showed it to Leanne. “Children and Family Services. I’ll need to come inside.”

  “What?” Leanne didn’t remember stepping aside, but the next thing she knew Ms. Adams was standing on the threshold, taking stock of the room.

  Children and Family Services? That sounded like some sort of social services agency, and the ID had been issued by the state of Illinois.

  “Are you the new sitter?” Ms. Adams asked, eyeing the three of them, concentrating on Timmy’s battered-looking face.

  “No, I’m Leanne Hathaway, Mr. McCarthy’s sister-in-law. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here on behalf of the state to evaluate the boys’ living conditions.”

  With the boys huddled against her legs, Leanne managed to ask, “Why?”

  “We’ve had a report that there may be some problems with the care the boys are receiving.”

  Leanne felt a chill envelop her entire body.

  She knew what this woman was saying—she had come to see if this was a fit home for the boys. There was only one person who could have made this complaint about the boys’ care.

  “Rena sent you, didn’t she?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say who made the complaint, Ms. Hathaway.”

  “I know it was her. It’s just like something she would do.”

  Ms. Adams stood her ground. “If you’d like to call Mr. McCarthy, I’ll explain things to him.”

  This couldn’t be happening, Leanne thought. This woman couldn’t seriously imagine the boys were in any danger that necessitated the state stepping in.

  But Rena lied so well. And she was so convincing. And ruthless. Rena could do it. Leanne was afraid her stepmother could do just about anything. She felt sick inside at the realization that Rena must want the boys desperately for her to sink to this level.

  “Wee-Ann?” Teddy said as he tugged on her pant leg.

  He looked a little weepy again and a little afraid. Leanne scooped him up into her arms because she wanted to hold him close right then. “It’s all right, Teddy.” She tried to soothe him, then reached for Timmy’s hand. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”

  She had to let go of Timmy’s hand to pick up the phone. After consulting the list of numbers posted by the phone, Leanne dialed Mitch’s number at work and waited for what seemed like forever for him to come on the line. The man who answered didn’t want to put her through right away, but Leanne insisted, telling him it was an emergency.

  She tried hard not to let her panic come through in her voice because she didn’t want to frighten the boys any more than she already had. But when she heard Mitch’s voice, she wanted to weep.

  “It’s Leanne,” she said. “I think you’d better come home.”

  Chapter 7

  Mitch made it to the house in fifteen minutes flat and barely managed not to take the steps at an all-out run and plow through the front door like a madman.

&nbs
p; That kind of performance wouldn’t win him any points with social services. Neither would flying off the handle, though he was sorely tempted.

  Who in the hell did this woman think she was to imply that he wasn’t fit to take care of his own sons?

  Leanne was sure Rena was behind this, but Mitch found that difficult to believe. Of course, he found it hard to believe that anyone would sic social services on him.

  He opened the door, trying hard not to slam it behind him. Leanne was on the rug in the corner, with the boys sitting solemnly beside her. Toys from the box beside them were scattered over the rug, but the boys weren’t playing. They must have picked up on the tension in the room, because they looked a little scared.

  Damn them, Mitch thought. These people had scared his sons.

  “Hi, guys.” He forced a big smile, then went down on his knees as the boys ran into his arms.

  “Papa!” they shouted, their anxiety forgotten for a moment.

  Mitch hugged them tight, but he was watching Leanne as she got to her feet and went to sit on the sofa. Mitch stood up, the boys in his arms, and went to sit beside her.

  “Tell me again. Slowly this time,” he said, seeing the strain of the morning showing in her paper-white face. She was wearing that look he’d always taken as a signal of a coldness that ran to the core of her. He wasn’t fooled by it anymore.

  “She just appeared up at the house, showed me some ID and said she’d come to evaluate the boys’ living conditions, that there’d been some sort of complaint about the care they were receiving. And she wouldn’t tell me any more. Then she started snooping around the house and asking questions.”

  “It’s all right.” He put his hand over hers for a second and found that she was cold to the touch. “You called me. That was the important thing.”

  “Can she do this? Just barge into the house and start snooping around?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” Mitch said. He’d been working homicide for years, and the few times he’d had to call in social services it was usually to take children away because their parents had either been killed or arrested. He wasn’t sure what the agency could do when the children’s parents were very much alive.

  “I was so upset and so shocked I didn’t even try to stop her: Mitch, do you think I should have stopped her?”

  “No. We’ll let her look. After all, there’s nothing for her to find.”

  Mitch hoped he was right about that.

  Surely there was nothing for social services to be concerned about here. Surely they wouldn’t try to take his sons away from him.

  Ms. Adams was there for hours, taking all sorts of notes, asking Mitch all sorts of questions. She seemed particularly interested in the six nannies they’d gone through, in Timmy’s injury and in Mitch’s lack of a regular sitter for the boys.

  He figured out right away that she was there to ask the questions, not to answer his. And with difficulty, he held his temper and answered them.

  The worst of it was when Ms. Adams used his own words against him. He’d talked about being unable to properly care for the boys, hadn’t he? He’d mentioned giving them up? Did he truly want them at all?

  Once, on the job, Mitch had been stabbed with a switchblade. It hadn’t hurt as much as hearing his own words come back to him this way.

  After he finally showed Ms. Adams the door, he walked around the house and into the backyard. The boys were digging in that mud hole in the corner with their plastic shovels and rakes. They were giggling and covered from head to toe in mud, and Mitch thought they were the very picture of happiness.

  Then Timmy turned his head, and Mitch caught sight of the bruised eye and the bandage, stark white against his son’s little face. Had the accident truly been serious? Mitch told himself no, that nothing was going to come of this. But inside, he was shaking.

  He had no idea what his rights were, but he had to find out. And then he had to find out who had done this to him. And why.

  Mitch sat down on one of the patio chairs next to Leanne. “The woman’s gone,” he said.

  “What did she say?”

  “That she had a lot of people to speak to, and she’d be in touch.”

  “Mitch, what are you going to do?”

  He glanced at his watch, saw that it was almost twelve-thirty. He had to be calm, he told himself. He could handle this if he kept his head. “I’m going to put the boys down for their nap and then I’m going to find a lawyer, someone who knows the social services system inside and out.”

  “Do you know someone like that?”

  “No, but I’m sure I know someone who does.”

  It was one of the longest days of Mitch’s life. And one of the worst. He waited for what seemed like forever to see a woman named Jane Gray, someone three different cops had said performed miracles in dealing with social services. A children’s advocate and a crusader, she more often than not worked to get children removed from dangerous circumstances involving their parents or guardians. But she knew the system, and she was reputed to be a real barracuda when it came to fighting for what she believed was in the best interest of the child.

  She had to believe it was in the best interests of his boys to remain with him before she’d agree to take on his case. That meant she wanted to talk to the social worker, read the report from the physician who had treated Timmy and speak with three or four of Mitch’s friends and colleagues. Mitch admired her thoroughness and her ethics, but was impatient to get her on the case.

  She did offer him a basic rundown of what social services could and couldn’t do, and said that on the face of it, he shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

  So why was he so worried?

  Heading home that night, he felt as if he’d been beaten to a pulp. Whatever was left in his stomach was churning around, and he was as weary as he’d been during those first mind-numbing weeks following Kelly’s death.

  “Mitch?” Leanne called as he closed and locked the front door behind him.

  “It’s me,” he said, turning to find her standing on the landing of the steps. “The boys all right?”

  She nodded. Walking down the remaining steps, she paused a good five feet away from him. “They were so cranky and out of sorts I put them down to sleep early. I just checked on them, and they’re both out. Sorry. I knew you’d probably want to see them before they went to sleep, but I wasn’t sure how long you’d be.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll catch them in the morning.”

  Mitch decided she looked as bewildered and as worried as he was, and he had a sudden urge to pour out all his troubles to her. It would be nice to have someone to talk to, someone who understood his problems, someone who loved the boys, as well.

  Mitch didn’t think he’d realized until this moment just how much he missed simply having someone to talk to after the boys went to bed at night.

  “Did anything else happen here today?” he asked, bracing himself.

  “Amy called. Rena told her about Timmy’s accident, and she wanted to see how he was doing. She didn’t mention anything about social services, and I didn’t tell her. That was it. Will you tell me what you found out?”

  “Sure,” he said, wondering what she would do if he revealed how scared he was, if he asked if he could hold her for just a minute because sometimes he felt so alone he ached. He settled for saying, “Come and sit down.”

  She took the chair in the corner, and Mitch sat on the sofa. “I found a lawyer,” he said. “A real tiger, I’m told. And she says if everything I told her about the situation is true, I shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Social services barely has the time or the resources to go after the kids who are in serious danger, much less come after someone like me.”

  “But they did,” Leanne said.

  Mitch shook his head. “They’re just checking out a complaint, which they’re required by law to do. The whole thing should be dropped within a month. It’s probably going to take that long to process
the paperwork. At least, that’s what my lawyer thinks.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  Mitch took a deep breath and tried to figure out why nothing Jane had said made him feel any better. “I believe Jane told me the truth—that she doesn’t think anything will come of this. But in my gut...I think there has to be something else going on here.”

  “It’s Rena. Mitch, I know it is.”

  Mitch couldn’t imagine that it had been anyone else. “Why would she do it, Leanne? If there’s no way social services is going to take the boys away from me, what does she have to gain? Except to antagonize me.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never understood why she does the things she does.”

  Mitch looked at his sister-in-law, at the frightened expression in her eyes and the tense set of her shoulders. He remembered how she’d appeared her first day back, when she’d stared through the emergency room doors at Rena. Even though they hadn’t been in the same room, Leanne had been so scared.

  He wondered if that was the problem now, or if it was something else.

  “You feel it, too?” Mitch asked.

  “Feel what?”

  Mitch let the words come tumbling out of him, hating to say them but needing to know whether it was just him, whether he was letting his imagination run away with him. “Sick inside?” he asked. “And scared? As if this is just the beginning of something terrible.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, her eyes growing big and round with fear. “That’s exactly how I feel.”

  Mitch caught her hand in his and held on tight to it. Surprised by his need to reach out and touch her, yet comforted by the contact, he just sat there and tried not to imagine his life without the boys.

  It occurred to him that he was even more dependent upon Leanne now than before, that she had to stay until he found the right person to take care of the boys. And it scared him to be that dependent upon her, because she hadn’t stayed in town for more than a few days in years.