Page 52 of Her Summer Hope

There were too many lies stacked up. He’d have no choice but to kick her out the door and then where would she be?

She prepared the meal in silence, making sure that she didn’t let her mood affect her meticulous attention to the food.

She was making a triple batch of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn on the cob, and homemade biscuits. It was simple enough, and her mind kept going back to that damned paperwork.

Her in-laws were suing for partial custody and visitation.

She had a very short period of time to figure out what to do next. She had to file papers with the court. There was probably a fee of some kind that she couldn’t afford. She had no way to pay a lawyer and Helen had been just as clueless about the legal proceedings as she was.

She had searched the internet and what she’d found had been alternately reassuring and upsetting.

The whole legal process was going to take up time and money that she couldn’t spare. She was also deathly afraid that her poverty and status as a widowed single mother were going to sway the judge in their favor. It wouldn’t be hard for them to paint her in a negative light. She could see it now.

They would tell the court that she was always working, abandoning her children with a neighbor. They would tell the court that she was neglecting their education by homeschooling them, even though she wasn’t. They were bright kids and she knew they were ahead of the public school.

They would say that she couldn’t afford to feed them properly, which was almost the truth. She could feed them properly, but only at the expense of herself.

It was starting to catch up to her too. Too many skipped meals had finally gotten the scale moving in a nice direction, but she felt a bit shaky sometimes. Perhaps she just needed to give her body time to adjust.

Her milk supply hadn’t suffered at least, not that she could tell anyway. Emmie was still gaining weight and the last checkup had been perfect.

The whole thing threatened to send her over the edge, especially at the thought that maybe the judge would side with them, and then her children would be forcibly made to visit them as often as they’d asked for.

Not only did the thought give her horrible anxiety, but the lack of control over the situation made her frustrated and nervous.

Pam and Don wanted the children alone every weekend, including Emmie. They’d also asked for visitation rights on every other major holiday, including Christmas and Thanksgiving.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d only shown a modicum of real affection and interest in them instead of trying to win the Grandparents of the Year award with their friends.

It sickened her, and now that Rob was no longer around to be a barrier between them, their real feelings had begun to show.

They had never liked her and she couldn’t be sure, but she knew they were the type of people to try to whisper poison in the children’s ears when she wasn’t around. Rob had told her stories throughout the years.

The very thought terrified her. The kids were all she had left and now they were being threatened.

The meal was ready before she knew it and she found herself reluctant to serve it. They’d taken to loitering around the living room in the evenings while waiting for the food. She hoped they had decided to do something else this evening. She didn’t want the men to see the pain on her face.

She pushed the chimes and took a deep breath, about to go through to the dining room. If she was lucky, maybe nobody was there yet.

“Who hurt you?” a bass voice growled near her ear.

She shrieked and jumped at least a foot into the air, possibly even two.

“Wh…what?” she asked, spinning around and clutching her heart.

She wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if it was still in her chest, though the beating was too fast to count.

“Who. Hurt. You?” Murdock repeated.

She opened her mouth to deny it, but he cut her off.

“Don’t lie to me. I can see the anxiety on your face and I can smell your fear.”

He could smell her fear?

“You know that’s weird and creepy right?”

He rolled his eyes but crossed his massive arms and stood his ground. “Did your husband hurt you?”

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