The man behind me was the exact opposite in every way. He’d shared his whole life with me. He’d given me love like I’d never known, even if he wasn’t ready to say the words yet. And the idea that a skeleton from my past was trying to get revenge on me by jeopardizing this fine man’s chances of gaining custody of Marigold made me want to cry… and possibly vomit.
Marigold pushed at my chest uncertainly, and I hefted her higher in my arms, inhaling the comforting scent of baby wipes and oatmeal as I tried not to cry.
“This is ridiculous.” Diesel managed to sound bored to tears and ready to commit homicide at the same time. “I’m well aware of my husband’s history, and there may be a couple facts that seem similar, but the cases are not the same at all.”
“Husband?” Terry’s head tilted to one side, and he looked back and forth between us. “Really?”
“As of eight days ago,” Diesel confirmed, a note of pride in his voice. “You can check the records at city hall in Nashville.”
“There was nothing about this in the paper.” Hunt Kensington made it sound like anything you couldn’t find in The Tennessean couldn’t be true.
“To be honest, we’ve been distracted by this custody case, and it felt wrong to be announcing our marriage when the rest of our family was in limbo.” Diesel bent to press a kiss to Marigold’s head. “We’ll celebrate once we can announce our daughter’s adoption at the same time. Parrish’s aunt Marnie is planning some kind of thing—” Diesel poked me slightly. “What’s it called, baby?”
“A Happily Ever After party,” I supplied. I swallowed and forced myself out of my shocked stupor. “She and my mom created a Pinterest board of ideas, and Marnie’s already working on the guest list.” I gave Terry a smile and explained, “Marnie loves throwing parties, and Diesel and I are homebodies, so we told her to have at it.”
Payne’s eyes narrowed. “She never threw a party for our engagement.”
“Duh.” I rolled my eyes. “Because she never liked you.” I told Terry, “To be fair, Marnie never said that at the time. It wasn’t until after Payne cheated on me and broke up with me that Marnie let loose and said he was an arrogant, scheming son of a… gun, and that men like him always got their comeuppance in this life or the next. While we were together, she tried to be supportive.”
“Ah,” Terry said faintly. He cleared his throat again. “Well! None of this is going to be decided today, Mr. Church, and I am not the judge in this case anyway. Thank the good Lord,” he added under his breath. “For right now, I have to do my due diligence and conduct a home inspection because of a complaint we received.”
“From us,” Brenda said unnecessarily.
Terry shot her a look, then turned back to Diesel with a sigh. “If I could come inside, it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. No one else needs to be allowed inside. In fact—” He gave Brenda another look. “No one was supposed to come with me today.”
Brenda pursed her lips mulishly and folded her arms over her chest.
“Now’s not a good time. Both of us have work,” I protested. “And the house is messy. Diesel hasn’t cleaned up from breakfast yet, and I haven’t made the bed, and there’s toys—”
“Oh, sweet Jesus, he admits my granddaughter is living in squalor!” Brenda exclaimed, throwing her hands up to the sky. “Hunt? Hunt, I will not allow them to steal custody of my beautiful Elizabeth’s only child and let her grow up in filth.”
“Beth,” Diesel said quietly.
“Excuse me?” Brenda’s voice was loud enough to make Marigold bury her face in my shirt.
“Not Elizabeth. Beth. Full stop. It was our grandmother’s name, and Beth was proud of it. She kept it, even after she went to live with you. And I’m not stealing custody, Ms. Kensington. Beth asked me to raise her daughter, remember? She chose me. She trusted me. She wanted her baby raised the way our parents raised us, with lots of love and some dirty dishes in the sink. So if you loved Beth like you say you do, I wish you’d try to respect that choice. That way Marigold can have her grandparents in her life as well as me and Parrish.” He set a hand on my shoulder.
For the first time all morning, Brenda Kensington looked uncertain. She blinked at Diesel, with his quiet dignity, then down at Marigold safe in my arms, and then she looked at me and her face firmed into resolve.
“I’m certain Beth would not want a person of dubious morals in her daughter’s life.”
I curled in on myself slightly at the sharp, sudden pain of those words. Suddenly, I was the dubious influence? I wasn’t the slam-dunk, home-run, ace-in-the-hole, or any other sportsy analogy—I was the thing that could cost Diesel his family.