Impact (Suncoast Society #32)(40)

“I’ll meet you there. How long can you stay?”

“How long do you need me?”

She swallowed hard. “At least until after the hearing.”

“Then I’ll plan for a couple of weeks, at least. Hey, I get to help you decorate a nursery in the new place, don’t I?”

Tilly swallowed back tears as she laughed. “I guess you will.”

“Good. Keep your phone close. I’ll text the details when I have them. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Lor.” Tilly hung up and stared at her phone for a moment. This wasn’t fair. Loren and Ross had always wanted children, too.

Through no fault of her own, Loren had the option taken away from her, too, thanks to some drunken *s at a frat party who spiked her drink.

Cris tapped on the door and swung it open. “Is it safe?”

“Yeah.” She wiped at her eyes. “Lor’s flying out. Hopefully today.”

“Hey, great. She’s staying with us, right?”

“She better be.”

He walked over to the bed and sat next to her, pulling her into his arms. “This is the good kind of irony, for a change.”

“Loren coming to my rescue again?”

“Yeah.”

She snuggled tightly against him, now letting her tears flow. “Why am I reacting like this?”

“Because it’s an emotional time, Redbird. It’s okay to feel emotional.”

“I’m not going to want to let her go.”

“Let’s deal with that when it happens, not before. We have custody of Katie. That’s a given. Sofia understands we will not relinquish that custody until we’re positive she can care for her. Frankly, that’s going to be a while. At least a year, and even then perhaps longer depending on what happens at the hearing. She might end up in jail for a couple of years.”

“Really?” She immediately hated herself. “Sorry that sounded so hopeful.”

Cris chuckled. “We all make choices, Redbird. I get it. Uncle Gonzalo was an *. Or is one. I haven’t tried tracking them down yet. Not sure I want to. I keep going back and forth on that one. But the point is, Sofia made the choices she did. She could have left for Florida with me. She could have taken the easy out, and she chose to stay here. She made a series of bad choices that compounded each one she made.”

“Sometimes people don’t think they have choices.”

“True, but you can’t tell me there wasn’t five minutes in the hospital she couldn’t have asked a nurse for privacy during a bath or something when she couldn’t have whispered she needed help. You cannot convince me of that.”

Tilly wasn’t so sure. “It depends on how scared she was.”

“They have security in hospitals, Redbird.”

“She might not have thought they could protect her. You don’t know if the people watching her were armed or not.”

“She had a baby to think about. She knew the environment she would be taking Katie back to. You can’t convince me that was a better option than risking asking for help. It took getting the crap beaten out of her—not the first time—and the * threatening the baby to finally snap her out of it.”

“And he threatened her that if she talked, he’d hurt the baby, or tell the probation officer what was going on and she worried the baby would be taken away.”

“Maybe not the worst thing.”

That irony wasn’t lost on Tilly, that she was now trying to defend Sofia in the woman’s absence.

“Do you really feel like that, or are you just playing devil’s advocate?” she asked.

“I really feel like that. What I did to you, that was stupid. But I knew you’d be okay. What she did…” He sighed. “I love her, but honestly? I’m angry with her. She could have accepted my help years ago.”

“And maybe she wouldn’t have Katie.”

“Well, if it wasn’t for us, Katie would be destined to a pretty miserable life. We’re charmed, no doubt about it. I don’t take that good fortune for granted, and I won’t let her go through the kinds of hell you and I had to go through as kids, even if it means standing up to Fi and keeping custody of Katie.”

Tilly wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse. “Okay.” Her phone buzzed with an incoming text message.

“Loren?” he asked.

“Yeah. She’s got a flight booked already. Wow, that was fast.”

“She’s a woman on a mission to get to her best friend’s side.” He chuckled. “Thank you for not letting her and Ross take a propane torch to me.”

“I couldn’t have let them do that to you.” She fingered her fluorite pendant that was her day collar from him. “I would have felt too guilty. I’m not entirely sure Landry wouldn’t have let them.”

“He let Ross gut-punch me, so yeah, I’m betting he might have.”





Chapter Fourteen


Tilly and the men spent the day rearranging things. With Loren coming to stay for a while, they went back to converting the office to a nursery. Cris and Tilly went out to buy a dresser and changing table to fit in there while Landry stayed home with the baby.