The Marriage Agenda: The Marriage Conspiracy / The Billionaire's Baby Plan

She blinked. “Not the truth?”

“No, Jo,” he said patiently. “It’s the way things look. The way Robert Atwood and the lawyers he gets will make things look. It’s appearances. A war of words and insinuations. Atwood’s lawyers will take what your sisters have actually done and make it look a hundred times worse. They’ll leave out any extenuating circumstances, minimize things like recent good behavior. It will be their job to make it appear that DeDe and Nicole are a pair of hardened criminals. And they’ll make your mama look like some kind of—”

Joleen put up a hand. “Don’t say it, okay? She’s not. You know she’s not.”

“That’s right. I know. But my opinion doesn’t count for squat here. You have to come to grips with that.”

She just didn’t want to get it. So she launched into a renewed defense of Camilla and the girls. “They’re great with Sam, Dekker. All three of them. He is nuts about them, and they take wonderful care of him. They—”

“Joleen. Listen. The point is not what good care they take of Sam. The point is, what is a judge going to think?” He caught her hands, chafed them between his own. “If the Atwoods hired me to work up a negative report on Camilla and your sisters, I could get enough together to make them look pretty bad.”

She swallowed again and tugged her hands free of his. “Oh, I hate this.”

Should he have left it at that? Maybe. But he had to be sure she understood the true dimensions of the problem.

“Jo.”

She made a small, unwilling noise in her throat.

He laid it on her. “There’s also the little problem of Robert Atwood’s influence in this town. He has power, Joleen. Lots of it. You have to face that. He’s contributed to a hell of a lot of big-time political causes and campaigns, and he has supported the careers of a number of local judges.”

“What are you tellin’ me? That some judge is going to give my little boy to the Atwoods as payback on some political favor?”

“It could be a factor.”

“Well, that’s just plain wrong.”

“It doesn’t matter that it’s wrong.”

“But—”

“I keep trying to make you see. Right and wrong are not the issues here. It’s money, Joleen. Money and power. You can’t underestimate what big bucks and heavy-duty influence can do.”

She swiped that cute brown curl off her forehead again. “Oh, why didn’t I listen to you? I never should have called him. I never should have—”

“But you did. And even though I thought it was a bad idea, I do know that you did it for the right reasons. For Sam’s sake. And to give the Atwoods a chance to know their grandson.”

“It was also pride, Dekker,” she said in a small voice. “I’ve got…a problem with pride. I want to do right. I want to do right so bad, I get pigheaded about it. And I, well, it’s exactly what you said earlier. I’m ashamed. I was supposed to be the one with both of my feet on the ground in this family. But look at me…”

He couldn’t help reaching out and running a finger along her soft cheek. “You look just fine.”

She caught his hand, squeezed it, let it go. “You know what I mean. I ended up with a baby and no husband, got myself ‘in trouble,’ made the oldest mistake in the book. So when I called Robert Atwood, I was hopin’…to make up for that, somehow. To be bigger than the mess I got myself into. To get past my own bad judgment in falling for Bobby by reachin’ out to his folks in their hour of need. It was pride, Dekker. You were right. Just plain old pigheaded pride.”

“And now it’s over and done with. You need to let it go and move on.”

“How can I let it go when I am so furious at myself?”

“Look at it this way. It’s very likely, even if you hadn’t told them they had a grandson, that the Atwoods would have found out about Sam eventually. We may not travel in their circles. But word does get around.”

“You really think so?”

“Yeah.” He rose to stand above her. “Now. Are you finished giving yourself hell?”

She blew out a long breath. “Oh, I guess.”

“Then we can start thinking about what to do, about how to fight what they’re going to be throwing at you. The main attack is going to be on the fitness of your child care, the way it looks now.”

She stared up at him. “What are you telling me?”

“I think you know.”

For an endless few moments, neither of them spoke. Noises from outside the study rose up to fill the quiet—a woman’s laughter beyond the high leaded-glass window that looked out on the side of the house, the music on Camilla’s stereo, something slow and bluesy and sweet.

“All right,” Joleen said at last. “I’ll find someone else to watch Sam when I’m working. It will be tight, but I’ll manage it.”

“Good.”

“And then somehow I will have to tell my mama and my sisters why they are suddenly not to be trusted with the little boy they all adore.”

“You don’t have to tell them anything tonight. You’ve got a little time to think it over. You’ll come up with a good approach.”

“It doesn’t matter what approach I take, there will be hurt feelings. There will be cryin’ and carryin’ on—and then I’ve got to get a good lawyer, right?”

“Yes. But don’t worry there. I’ll find you the right man.”

“And then I have to pay the lawyer. Oh, what a mess. There is no way around it. This is going to cost a bundle.”

Dekker knew that Joleen made an okay living, working with her mother. She supported herself and Sam and she did a decent job of it. He also knew that there wasn’t much left over once all the bills were paid. Quality child care and a good lawyer would stretch her budget way past the breaking point.

But it was okay. Money, after what had happened in Los Angeles, would be the least of their problems. Dekker wanted to tell her as much. However, that would only get her started asking questions about L.A.

Right now, they had a limited amount of time before someone would be knocking on the study door, demanding that Joleen get out there and deal with some other minor crisis. When he told her about L.A., he didn’t want to be interrupted.

“Don’t look so miserable,” he said. “We’re just getting it all out there, so we can see what we have to deal with.”

“I know.” But she didn’t know. He could see by her worried frown that the money problem was really bothering her.

He strove to ease her fears without saying too much. “The money issue can be handled.”

“I don’t see how.” She looked down at her lap and shook her head.

“Jo, I’ll help out. The bills will get paid.”

“Oh, no.” She glanced up then, her frown deeper than before. “You work hard for your money. And we both know you don’t have much more of it than I do.”

Joleen was right—or she would have been right, as of a few days ago. Before the trip to Southern California, Dekker would have had to rob a bank to be of much use to her financially. He’d gone into something of a downward spiral, right after his wife, Stacey, died. He’d quit his job and sold his house. He had not worked for several months while grief and guilt did their best to eat him alive. With Joleen’s help, he’d pulled himself out of it. But by that time he didn’t have a whole hell of a lot left.

For almost two years now he had operated a one-man detective agency in a one-room office over a coin laundry downtown. It paid the rent and put food on the table, but that was about it.