“She’s trying to intimidate you. Make you look bad,” Miller said as we walked into the lawyer’s office we had an appointment with.
As if we didn’t have enough to deal with, with some random murder of a man I saw for no more than three minutes, tops. I was then served. Twice.
Once telling me that the bank loan had been called up on my business and house. But another one stating that Linda was filing for partial custody of my child upon his or her arrival. A child that was not even eight weeks in gestation. A child that I hadn’t even seen at the doctor yet, because my first appointment wasn’t until next week.
I took a seat while he went to sign us in, and was instantly disgusted by what I saw on the table.
“Well, she fucking succeeded. Stupid, crazy bitch,” I growled, staring at the woman that had nearly ruined my life.
It was a picture of Linda in the city’s newspaper. A ‘heartfelt story’ that was ‘sure to capture your heart.’
Or so I’d read.
I was livid once I’d managed to force myself through the entire article.
When Miller sat down next to me, I handed the paper over.
He took it as if I’d handed him a brown paper bag of live snakes, tipping his sunglasses to rise on top of his head, and flipping it open out of the crumpled mass, and started reading.
His shoulders started to shake as he got to the part about her being ‘kicked out of her family home by her murdered son’s abusive wife.’
“Mrs. Moose pleads with the public to please help her. She further explains that it was all colossal misunderstanding that her son, Mitch Moose, 32, was shot earlier this year in a SWAT rescue,” Miller read the caption under the main picture.
It was shot in front of the ‘family home,’ and Linda was holding a picture of Mitch.
I tasted bile inside of my mouth, but chose not to look at the picture again.
“Mercy Shepherd. Miller Spurlock. Mr. Masterson will see you now,” I heard said from somewhere in front of me.
I looked up and smiled at the woman.
She was very pretty, even what I would call youthful, though she was in her fifties.
She had long blonde hair that was pulled back in a chignon at her nape, and her eyes were a very expressive green.
I stood and started following the woman.
She was dressed casually in light tan slacks and a simple black cotton shirt.
She smiled back at me as we walked. “You look really familiar.”
I winced. “Yeah, that’s because I was the center of attention a few weeks ago. I was raped and the media filmed the whole thing while it happened.”
I tried to make my voice appear uncaring, but the emotion I felt refused to be bottled up.
It wasn’t Miller’s arm around me that had me starting, though. It was the woman’s.
“Although I’m sorry to hear that that happened to you, I’ve never been one to watch the news. I did hear about it, though, and I’m greatly sorry for what happened to you. I was thinking you were a friend of my daughter’s. Do you know Cheyenne Mackenzie?” She asked.
My brows furrowed. Although the name sounded vaguely familiar, I wasn’t placing a face with the name.
“You’re James’ mom?” Miller asked.
The woman smiled. “That’s me!”
“Daina,” a male’s deep voice said from the doorway we were heading to. “Is there a reason you have to talk everyone’s ear off before they come back here? If I’d known you were such a talker, I would’ve never agreed to have you here as my secretary.”
The woman blushed, and I thought for sure there was something more in those words than what I’d heard.
Miller must’ve agreed, because he gave me wide eyes before we walked into the lawyer’s office.***Miller
“Can you tell me why you’re here?” The hard-ass lawyer asked.
He was built like a motherfuckin’ bull, and he could easily rival any man I knew size wise. I knew he was in the military, I was just unsure what branch he’d been in.
He could easily have been a Navy SEAL.
Mercy leaned forward and handed over her stack of papers, starting first with the one that was most important to us.
The baby’s custody.
“You do know there’s an easy way to settle this if what you’re being adamant about is true, right?” The lawyer, Todd Masterson, asked slowly.
We both looked at him. “What?”
“A DNA test,” he said simply.
“No!” We both exploded at once.
He shook his head. “That really would be the easiest way. This could all be that easily rectified. No court battle, no court costs, no lawyer costs. All over that easily.”
He snapped his finger, startling Mercy.
I shook my head. “It isn’t fucking happening. Find another way.”
He looked at me, making sure he had a good read on me before he nodded in agreement. “Okay, that’s fine. I won’t force you to do it. There are other ways, of course, but there’s still a chance that the judge will require you to do it anyway.”
I shook my head. “No one’s touching my kid. They’re not getting anywhere near her.”
Mercy leaned her head against my bicep, her arm curled protectively around her barely there belly, as she silently thanked me for the support.
“Then the first thing I would suggest is marriage,” Todd said slowly.
We both gaped.
It wasn’t that I’d never thought about marriage with Mercy.
In fact, I’d thought about it a lot. Especially in Vegas over the past week.
However, I didn’t want her to think I was moving too fast. I was giving her time to come to terms to what we were. It was more than obvious to me that she wasn’t ready.
She’d reacted on instinct to what my parents had said, what her thoughts were on me and our relationship.
Her first instinct had been to run away, and until I could get her to come to terms that there was an us, there wasn’t going to be any change in our relationship status.
But then she shocked the shit out of me by saying, “Okay, if we do this, what will that help?”