Harvest Moon (Virgin River #15)(65)

Then on the morning of December 10, the phone rang. It was Stu.

“Hey, Lief, how you doing, man?”

“Getting by. How about you, Stu?”

“Great, thanks, just great. Thanks for sending the picture, Lief. Damn, the little munchkin looks terrific, doesn’t she? And you say she’s got her schoolwork back up to where it should be?”

“That’s right, Stu. She’s been working hard.”

“Fantastic, and now that she’s straightened out, we’d like her to spend Christmas with us. We’re going to Orlando. Family vacation. I’d love it if my daughter came along. Sherry would love it, too.”

He didn’t even have to think about it. “We already made our plans, Stu. In fact, Courtney was the one who asked if we could go back to the farm, my family’s farm, for Christmas. She’s gotten real close to my mom.”

“Well,” he laughed. And he did laugh it. Well-hell-hell. “You guys might have to plan to do that next year instead. Because Sherry and I and the boys want her with us. We haven’t seen her in a long time.”

“You haven’t called her either, Stu. We haven’t heard shit from you in months. In fact, last time I talked to you—I think it was last April maybe—you said you were all done putting up with Courtney and she was all mine. And Stu—I took you up on that.”

“Well-hell-hell, that isn’t going to cut it, pal, because I have custody. I’m the custodial parent. Remember that little detail? So break it to her, sonny. I want her here by the eighteenth. We head for Orlando on the twentieth. She’ll have a great time.”

“I don’t think so, Stu. Courtney isn’t going to want to do that. And you and Sherry pretty much chewed her up and spit her out already. She’s had enough.”

“Here’s the deal, Lief. You can do this my way or you can flat out refuse, in which case we’re talking custodial interference and I let the law take over. After that, I guess she lives with us permanently.”

Lief felt like the wind was knocked out of him. “Please don’t do this, Stu. Please. It’s taken so much work to get Courtney back on track. I don’t think she can take any more uncertainty or confusion. Please, Stu.”

“Then I guess it makes sense to have her here by the eighteenth. It’s just Christmas. Make her return reservations for January second. Then she can go back to the mountains. Or…? You don’t want to fight this out, do you, Lief, old pal?”

His voice came in a mere scratchy breath. “Please, Stu… Come on…”

“Nah, this is what it is. The eighteenth. Let me know when to pick her up.”

Stu hung up. And for the first time since his wife died, Lief wanted to break down in a bone-deep cry.

Lief called his lawyer before doing anything else. When Lana died, though it only compounded his grief, he knew he’d have to let Courtney go to Stu if that’s what Stu wanted. Fortunately, Stu had a second marriage and family and it wasn’t that important to him, so Courtney went back and forth for a while. Stu was agreeable to a joint custody arrangement with Lief, but Stu remained the primary guardian.

Then came that awful day Stu had said he’d had enough of Courtney. It should have been the best day, but the agony it caused his little girl had pushed Lief over the edge. Lief’s fatal mistake had been in not taking legal action to ensure his custody of Courtney right then. What he’d done instead was pull Courtney in, told her she didn’t have to go back to Stu’s house, not even for a weekend visit, and begun at once looking for a place out of the city. A place away from the noise, confusion and Stu.

Today when he called the lawyer, he was informed that Lief would not only be breaking the law by refusing to let Stu see his daughter for the holiday, but it might make Lief’s petition for custody more difficult. “As I see it,” the lawyer said, “Courtney is close enough to an age of responsibility that a judge would hear her preference on where she’d like to live and with whom. If you cooperate now, that will go down easier. Hard as it might be to go along with this, it’s probably in your best interests, both yours and Courtney’s.”

“She’s not going to see it that way,” Lief said.

On instinct, he drove out to see Kelly. One look at his angry face and she said, “Uh-oh. What’s wrong?”

“Do you have a little time to talk? I have to talk to someone. I’m going to drive to Grace Valley and talk to the counselor, but I have to sort it out first.”

“It’s Courtney, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “No. But it’s going to be, I know that. It’s her father.”

Kelly frowned. “You’ve so rarely mentioned him, I didn’t think he was a factor.” She pointed to a stool at the work island and poured him a cup of coffee. “What’s happening?”

“I should never have turned my back,” Lief said. “I know this will be hard for you to envision, but before Lana died, Courtney was the sweetest, kindest, most loveable child. There was almost never a problem. Discipline was easy with her. But then her mother died and her life became hell. Not only was the poor kid a puddle of grief, but she started living with Stu, her surviving parent, and visiting me every other weekend. And at her father’s house, she was treated worse than a dog.”