Just for Now (Sea Breeze #4)(61)

“You okay?” Marcus asked from the doorway of my room.

“She was junkie, Marcus. It was bound to happen. I just need to get to the kids. They’re probably scared.”

The tightness in my chest surprised me. I wouldn’t grieve for this woman. She’d done nothing for me in my life. I swallowed the weak emotion from the little boy deep inside who had wanted his mother to love him. Even a little. I’d figured out long ago she never would. I wouldn’t shed a tear for her now.

“The kids are fine. Amanda has all three of them. They’re getting ice cream, then going to the park. She sent me to find you. There are custody issues you have to deal with.”

Amanda had the kids? How? Why? No matter how much they liked her, they would have called me first.

“How did Amanda know to get the kids?”

“Your younger brother called her. Told her your mom hadn’t woken up in two days, and Amanda left school and rushed over there. She also had him call 911 while he waited on her to arrive. They couldn’t reach you, so they called her.”

Brent had called Amanda. My chest hurt. All three kids had been upset when I’d had to tell them I wouldn’t be bringing Amanda around anymore. Daisy had even cried. But they’d known they could count on her when they couldn’t get me on the phone. A lump formed in my throat, and I grabbed my keys and headed for the door.

“I know she left you for the Stone guy, and I’m sorry about that, man.”

So that was what she had told him. She’d left me for Jason Stone. Was she even dating him, or had it just been her way to cover up the truth?

“You were right. I wasn’t good enough for her. She finally wised up and saw it too.” I opened the door and headed down the stairs. I couldn’t talk about this with Marcus. Not right now.

“For what it’s worth, she still cares about you. She was really upset about this, and she was worried sick over those kids.”

“The kids love her” was the only reply I had.

“But you don’t?”

I stopped and looked back at him. I’d told enough lies. I wasn’t going to keep on telling them just to make everyone feel better. “I’ll always love her. Always.” I jerked open the door to my Jeep and jumped inside. “Where am I going?” I asked.

“DHR is waiting on you at the trailer.”

I shifted into drive and took off.

I wouldn’t have to fight Momma for the kids now. She’d made it easy. I wasn’t exactly the best option as a parent, but anything was better than her. And I didn’t want them separated. I couldn’t let them go. I’d figure this out somehow.

Amanda



I held Daisy’s cotton candy ice-cream cone while she ran over to the slide to go down it another time. She alternated between taking a lick of her ice cream and sliding. The ice cream wasn’t going to last too much longer. The sun was getting the best of it.

“Has Preston called you yet?” Jimmy asked, taking the seat beside me.

“No, but my brother did find him, and he is at the trailer talking to the people who determine where you go. He’s an adult and your closest relative, so he should have no problem getting custody,” I assured him. Brent and Daisy were too young to think about the legal issues. But it was bothering Jimmy. He understood the courts had rules.

“What if he doesn’t want us full-time?” Jimmy asked.

“He will.”

“He never tried to take us from Mom.”

“Because she would have fought him on it, and he’d have lost. He was also afraid that he’d draw attention to the situation and they’d take all of you away from him and each other.”

Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, he explained that to me. I’m just worried that they will do it now.”

. My daddy was buddies with two of the three judges who could possibly hear this case. They played golf every Saturday morning and had since I was a little girl. If I had to go to my daddy and beg and plead with him for their help, I would.

“I promise you this will be okay.”

Jimmy sighed. “I hope so. You know, Daisy really misses you.”

“I miss her too. I’ve missed all three of you.”

Daisy came running back to me with a big grin on her face to take another few licks of her melting ice cream.

“You better stop and eat it, Daisy, before it just melts away,” Jimmy told her.

“It gives me headaches if I eat it too fast,” she replied.

Jimmy just smiled and kicked at a rock down by his feet.

“Amanda, is my momma in heaven?” Daisy asked.

I looked down at her little face. She was the first one to say anything about her momma’s death. The boys had acted like nothing important had happened. Brent was swinging by himself, and I was giving him his space. But he hadn’t brought up the fact that his mother was dead.

“I don’t know a lot about heaven, Daisy. I’d like to think that because she brought such amazing kids into this world, there was someplace nice she got to go once her life was over.”

I was pretty sure the woman was rotting in hell, but I wasn’t about to tell that to her seven-year-old daughter.

“I don’t know much about heaven eithaw. I just been to Sunday school a few times with my next-dowah neighbow.”