"She's not here. I'm baby-sitting Magda."
Gray stifled a useless punch of disappointment. He would see her soon. He wasn't letting her get away this time.
"Where is she?"
The phone crackled in the silence.
"Julia?"
"She's up at the courthouse. Today's the hearing date for Magda's custody."
"Oh, well I'm sure she'll be glad to have the official paperwork all tied up."
"Didn't she tell you? The couple that backed out on taking Magda changed their mind. They want her."
A roar of denial echoed in Gray's brain. He couldn't have heard right. Lori was Magda's mother. How dare anyone threaten that?
"Listen, Gray, I've got to go. Magda's trying to pour her own juice. I'll have Lori call you. Okay? Bye."
The humming phone weighed in his hand like a brick of guilt. His family needed him, and he wasn't there for them. He and Lori may not have said formal vows, but that woman was still his wife, the only woman he'd ever loved. Lori might not be pregnant with his baby, but she still carried his daughter in her arms.
Sharing a last name didn't make a family. Seeing Lori and Magda together should have taught him that. In his heart, Lori and Magda were already his family. He just needed to wage the fight of his life to win them back.
Battle mind-set in place as surely as if he'd slipped on his combat gear, Gray punched in another phone number.
Time to call in the reinforcements.
Chapter 17
Lori sat in the courtroom and prayed. Hard. She stared at the scales of justice behind the judge's bench and prayed the balance would tip her way. Lori swiped her sweaty palms along her linen skirt—again.
She'd presented her case, offered references, cited her training and psychologist's reports, but it still might not be enough. She lacked the one thing that the other petitioner for custody didn't.
A spouse.
And just her luck, she'd drawn Judge Tradd, a hard-liner, hotshot young judge, infamous for her decisions in favor of more traditional placements. Lori could only hope her countersuit petition to adopt would relay her serious intent to be a mother to Magda. Forever.
Lori's head throbbed. Crying her eyes out all night over losing Gray, possibly losing Magda as well, hadn't helped.
The husband and wife in turn droned on in their rebuttal about their Barbie dollhouse perfect world, complete with a little brother or sister on the way. Lori wanted to grab the guy by his Ralph Lauren tie and shake him until his shiny, capped teeth rattled.
Where had they been when Magda had needed them weeks ago? They hadn't been putting stickers on a Big Wheel. No bandanna waited in that man's pocket for a shorn little head. The woman hadn't held that same tiny head and bathed Magda's brow while she'd been sick.
But in the eyes of the court they were a real family. And Lori wasn't.
Should she have accepted Gray's offer, for Magda's sake? Lori shoved aside the absurd notion. Magda deserved the best home life, not parents in a sham marriage destined to fail.
Lori had always prided herself on managing. She could handle anything. Except this. She needed help, yet had set up her life with very little in the way of a personal support system. Through her friendship with Julia, she felt she'd made a step in the right direction, but it could be too little too late for Magda.
Please, God. She hoped Magda wouldn't pay the price for someone else's mistakes. Lori started praying again as the judge listened to final arguments from the attorneys.
Why didn't some guard or bailiff quiet those people in the hall? The paneled walls bounced every grating noise Lori's way.
Commotion from the hall swelled, like the throbbing in her head, increased like the frown on the judge's face. Lori shot a look over her shoulder just as the door cracked open enough for the bailiff to poke his head in.
"Judge, we've got a situation out here."
Judge Tradd waved her hands, robes fluttering like bat wings. "Then handle it."