The Marriage Conspiracy

Joleen had done her best to pick up the slack, to be there for her sisters, to offer attention and to provide discipline. She’d taken a lot of flack from both DeDe and Niki for her pains. They’d acted out their resentments on her; they’d fought her every time she tried to rein them in.

But recently things had started looking up. Niki had left the bad crowd behind. She took school seriously, was getting As and Bs rather than Ds and Fs. And DeDe had really settled down, as well. Joleen had dared to let herself think that the worst part of raising her own sisters was behind her.

Not that the reform of the Tilly girls would matter one damn bit to a self-righteous bastard like Robert Atwood.

“Oh, I cannot believe this is happening.” Joleen pulled away from Dekker’s grip and sank to one of the faded easy chairs. For a moment, she stared down at her lap, slim shoulders drooping. Then she pulled herself up straight again. “When I asked him how he knew those things about my sisters and my mother, he said he had his sources. Dekker, that man has had someone snooping around in our lives.” She said it as if it were some sort of surprise. “Why, I would not put it past him to have hired someone, some private detective…”

“You mean someone like me?”

She let out a small, guilty-sounding groan. “Oh, Dekker, no. I didn’t mean it that way….”

“It’s okay. I did. I’m damn good at what I do. When I dig up the dirt on someone for a client, I get it all. I’m sure whoever Robert Atwood hired has done the same.”

She put up a hand to swipe a shiny golden-brown curl back from her forehead. “Dekker, it won’t work, will it? He couldn’t get Sam by claiming that my mother and sisters are unfit. Could he?”

Dekker wished he didn’t have to answer that one.

Joleen picked up his reluctance. “You think it could work, don’t you?” Her shoulders drooped again. “Oh, God…”

He dropped to a crouch at her feet. “Look. I’m only saying it might work. Your sisters and your mother all pitch in, to take care of Sam when you can’t.”

“So? Good child care costs plenty. If I had to hire someone, I couldn’t come close to affording the kind of care I can get from my family for free.” She leaned toward him in the chair, intent on convincing him of how right she was—though somewhere in the back of her mind, she had to realize she was preaching to the choir. “They are good with him, Dekker, you know that they are. And as for Niki and DeDe, it’s been a long time since there’s been any trouble from either of them. And Mama—well, all right. She likes men and she loves to go out. Is that a crime? I don’t know all her secrets, but I know she is not having affairs with all of them. She is no bed hopper. She loves the romance of it, that’s all. She loves getting flowers and going dancing. But then, after way too little time with each guy, she can’t pretend anymore. She admits to herself that the latest man is not my father. So she moves on to the next one—and what in the world does that have to do with how she is with Sam?”

“It’s got nothing to do with how she is with Sam. The truth is, Camilla is a fine grandma. You know it and I know it. But I’m trying to get you to see that it’s not the truth that matters here.”

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.”