His Child Or Hers?

The adoption was final. Of course! There was the key fact. Why hadn’t he realized that immediately?

Looking over at Natalie once more, he said, “Let’s be sure we both understand something here. Even if you are Robbie’s birth mother, my wife and I adopted him under New Jersey state law. And at this point I have sole custody. So, legally speaking, he’s my son.”

She coughed an anxious little cough, then said, “Well, the thing is, I’ve already consulted a lawyer. One in Trenton. And, legally speaking, it’s not actually clear whose son he is.”

ACCORDING TO RODGER SPICER’S report, Hank Ballantyne was an intelligent, rational man.

With that in mind, Natalie had told herself a million times that if they just remained reasonable, they should be able to work out a solution to their problem.

Not that she was anywhere near convinced they’d manage it, but they had to try. Aside from anything else, it would be a whole lot easier on Benjamin if they could simply come to an agreement themselves.

So even though she had the feeling Hank was tuning in and out while she went over what the lawyer had told her, she pressed on.

“Basically, his opinion is that we’re looking at a legal nightmare,” she said. “You believed you were adopting an orphan, but…”

She caught herself before she said “Benjamin” aloud. She had to start thinking of her son as Robbie. After all, that was the name he knew, so it was what she’d have to call him.

“But because I was actually alive,” she explained, “and didn’t know what was happening, let alone agree to give up my baby…

“Well, apparently, there’s almost no relevant case law in the entire country, let alone in the state of New Jersey. So if we can’t agree on how to handle this, if we have to resort to the courts, it would be a precedent-setting case—which I gather could easily drag on for years. Plus cost a fortune in legal fees.”

“And while it was dragging on?” Hank said. “Where would Robbie be?”

“With one of us.”

“Which one?”

“We wouldn’t be sure about that until…If we can’t work things out on our own,” she continued, desperately trying not to sound as though she was threatening him, “I’d have to apply for interim custody.”

“You’d have to,” he repeated, eyeing her so coldly she looked away.

Obviously, she had sounded threatening. But she’d just wanted him to realize what her only alternative would be.

Not that it would necessarily do her any good. Her lawyer had made that clear.

She might be the birth parent, but Hank was the one Benjamin…Robbie knew. The one he loved and had lived with for as long as he could remember.

That meant most judges probably wouldn’t let her take him back to Guatemala until after a final decision had been reached. Far more likely, the ruling would be that he should stay right where he was for the time being. With Hank.

And if that was the end result of the first round of legal wrangling, a competent lawyer could probably manage to drag the court proceedings on until Robbie was ready for college. So resolving the problem themselves…

She said, “Hank, the most important factor in this is Robbie’s well-being, right?”

“Of course.”

“And I realize that my walking in here and trying to take him away from you would not be in his best interest, so it isn’t what I’m trying to do.

“It really isn’t,” she added when he looked as if he wasn’t buying that for a second. “But I’ve been working on finding him since the day I went to that orphanage and learned…

“If we just come up with a compromise that we can both live with…Hank, I know how awful this must be for you, but he is my son.”

“And he’s been my son since he was six months old. Do you think I don’t love him?”

“I know you do,” she whispered, her throat tight. “Now that I’m here…now that we’ve met, I can tell—”

“Let’s get back to what your lawyer said,” he interrupted. “What did he figure would happen if you did apply for interim custody?”

She thought about what to say for a few seconds, deciding there was no point in trying to make her case sound stronger than it actually was. Not when Hank would undoubtedly talk to a lawyer of his own.

“He basically told me,” she finally said, “that how the hearing went would depend on the legal arguments and the particular judge.”

She watched Hank shake his head when she finished speaking, trying not to feel sorry for him but finding it impossible.

There was no trick at all to putting herself in his shoes when they were pretty much identical to her own. They loved the same child, but he couldn’t be with both of them at once. And the problem was no more Hank’s fault than hers.

“All right,” he finally said. “You’ve had a lot more time to consider this than me. How do you see us resolving it?”

Nervously she licked her lips. In her dreams, she simply whisked her son back to Guatemala with her. But she knew she couldn’t do that in reality. Aside from anything else, it would be too horribly traumatic for him.

As far as he was concerned, Hank was his father. While she was…it hurt to even think about. At this point, she was nothing to him.

“You have come up with some ideas, haven’t you?” Hank said.

“Not specifically detailed ones. But I thought we could consider some sort of shared custody arrangement.”

Hank eyed her, his expression unreadable.

“I realize we’d have to take this slowly. That Robbie would have to get to know me, feel comfortable with me, before we could even consider anything more long term.

“So, for the moment, I was just hoping you’d let me spend some time with him. I’m staying at the Whispering Winds Motel, only a few miles from here.”

He nodded that he knew where it was.

“We could take things step by step, give ourselves the chance to really consider our options—”

Before she completed the sentence she heard a door open. Seconds later, a whirlwind of a little boy charged into the living room.

“We had ice cream,” he said, throwing himself at Hank. “’Cuz I was good.”

Natalie’s heart flooded with emotion. After all this time, her son was right here before her—alive and well and the most beautiful child she’d ever seen.

She desperately wanted to gather him up in her arms and never let him go. But he was already in Hank’s arms.

And to his mind that’s where he belongs, an imaginary voice whispered.

Taking a long, deep breath, she told herself she was not going to cry.

Yet even though she’d realized that when she found him he’d have no idea who she was, contemplating that in the abstract and coming face-to-face with the reality were two completely different things.

Watching him hug Hank, without even glancing her way, tore at her far more than she’d ever have imagined.

“Oh, you’ve got company,” a woman said from the hallway.

Looking over, Natalie forced a smile as Hank said, “Audrey, this is Natalie Lawson. Audrey Chevalier, my housekeeper.

“Of course, you’ve already guessed that,” he added quietly to Natalie, nodding toward the report lying on the coffee table between them.

“Yes,” she murmured, thinking that both Hank and Audrey were far different from what she’d been expecting.

Learning he was a homicide detective had made her leap to some conclusions she’d already realized weren’t accurate.

Oh, not all of them were wrong. Being a big-city police officer was far from the safest job in the world. That was an undeniable fact. And to her mind, at least, it hardly made cops ideal father material.

But she’d been imagining Hank as a man who was much too involved in his work to really have time for a child—especially since he’d only adopted at his ex-wife’s insistence. Yet that wasn’t the impression she was getting now.

She gazed at him cuddling her son for another moment, a dull ache around her heart, then glanced toward the hallway once more.

She’d pictured Audrey as a stern woman too old to be caring for an active little boy. In reality, she seemed like a very pleasant, very young fifty-eight-year-old.

When Natalie focused on Robbie once more, he was watching her, his big brown eyes full of curiosity and a dried smudge of chocolate ice cream on his cheek.

He looked like Carlos.

She hadn’t been certain, just from seeing those photographs, but he did. And that sent a fresh rush of emotion through her. Getting him back would be getting back a part of her husband, as well.

She continued to gaze at the little boy snuggled in Hank’s lap, and realized that anyone who didn’t know better would never suspect the man wasn’t his natural father.

Hank didn’t actually resemble Carlos very much, but there were similarities. Regular yet rugged features. Hair that was almost ebony and eyes the color of black coffee. The sort of dark good looks that had always appealed to her.

Not that Hank Ballantyne appealed to her. Lord, no. He was the man standing between her and her son.

Focusing on Benjamin…Robbie, once more, she softly said, “Hi.”

The instant she spoke, he hid his face against Hank’s chest.

“We’re in a playing-shy-with-strangers phase,” he said.

Strangers. Nodding again, she tried not to let the remark sting. It did, though. Hard.

“Would you like me to make lemonade or anything?” Audrey asked.

“No, thanks,” Hank said quickly. “In fact, we’re going out for a while. We’ve got some things to discuss.”

CHAPTER TWO

HANK HAD DRIVEN Robbie to the lab in Englewood first thing, and Natalie had said she’d go as well. That meant, come tomorrow, they’d know for sure whether she was his mother.

However, the chance she wasn’t seemed so tiny that Hank hadn’t waited to consult a lawyer of his own.

By calling in a favor, he’d gotten a last-minute appointment with Doris Wagner—whom he’d known only by reputation until he’d walked into her office half an hour ago.

He eyed her as she sat gazing at her computer screen. A small, middle-aged woman, she looked as timid as a sparrow. However, she had a reputation as a veritable tigress in the courtroom, and was acknowledged to be one of the best lawyers around when it came to custody battles.

Not that he wanted to find himself in the midst of one. But he loved his son more than anything else on earth and there was no way he was letting Natalie Lawson take Robbie out of his life.

For the thousandth time, he recollected her words. “I realize that my walking in here and trying to take him away from you would not be in his best interest, so it isn’t what I’m trying to do.”

He mentally shook his head. How could she have said that in one breath and raised the idea of shared custody in the next?

Shared custody. Did she honestly believe that was even a possibility?

He suspected she didn’t. Because by the time they’d finished talking, he’d realized that the prospect of coming to any mutually acceptable compromise was virtually unimaginable.

Maybe, if there wasn’t such a major geographic obstacle, some sort of sharing would be feasible. But saying she didn’t live nearby was the understatement of the year.

He’d been surprised when she’d told him she was a doctor, and a quantum leap beyond surprised when she’d said she still lived in Guatemala.

She ran a clinic in Villa Rosa, a little town there, she’d explained. And…

He turned his thoughts back to the moment as Doris Wagner swiveled the computer screen away from herself and looked across the desk at him.

“Whoever Dr. Lawson consulted was right,” she said. “There’s virtually no relevant case law. Which means that even if a judge found in your favor an appeals court could easily find in hers. So I suggest you explore her proposal of a joint custody agreement very thoroughly before you reject it.”

“But I just can’t see any way one could work. Not with her in a different country.”

“Did you ask if she’d be willing to move back to the U.S.?”

“I didn’t come right out and ask, but I got the distinct impression it’s not an option. She told me how important the clinic and the people down there are to her. And if that’s where she sees her future, it makes her suggestion…”

The word on the tip of his tongue was ludicrous, but instead of saying it, he merely shrugged.

“She didn’t get any more specific about what she has in mind?” Doris asked. “Nothing more than you’ve already told me? Didn’t say how much time she wants?”

“No.”

“Then maybe things aren’t as bad as you think. She’s a single woman with a demanding career. And she knows as well as you do that nothing like Robbie alternating a week with her, a week with you, is possible. So she could be thinking more along the lines of a month or two a year.”

“I doubt it, although I could live with that. I wouldn’t like it, but…”

He paused, shaking his head. With Doris basically suggesting that he was probably looking at some sort of joint custody, what he’d like or wouldn’t like didn’t really matter.

“I have the sense that she wants him at least half the time,” he continued. “And once he starts school he’ll have to be in one place or the other for that, which throws even half-and-half out the window. School’s ten months a year, not six.”

After pausing again, he added, “I doubt there’s a hope in hell that she’d settle for only summer vacations. Not even summer vacations and Christmas.”

And he wouldn’t voluntarily agree to so little, either, which made it seem obvious that they had an insurmountable stumbling block.

“Guatemala’s a poor country,” Doris said. “She’ll be aware the education system here is far superior, and she undoubtedly wants the best for her child.”

“I’ve thought about that, and I’ll certainly use it as an argument. Even if I convince her, though…maybe she’d agree to only a little time at first. But what if that turned out to just be the proverbial thin edge of the wedge? What if she pushed for more and more until I eventually lost him entirely?”

“It could happen,” Doris said gently. “The problem is, you haven’t really got a choice.

“She’s already warned you that if you don’t work something out with her, she’ll apply for interim custody. And if she was awarded it—”

“Wait!” he interrupted, feeling a sudden pounding in his chest.

When Natalie had raised that possibility, he’d assumed it was highly unlikely. But if Doris thought…

“Do you figure she would be?” he made himself ask.

“I doubt the odds are high, but she certainly might be. Regardless of that, though, consider the final result if you go to court.

“Instead of an agreement the two of you arrive at, a third party will impose the rules. And keep in mind that, under the circumstances, there’s absolutely no doubt a judge would grant her some amount of access to Robbie. The only question is how much.”

“How much would you guess?”

Doris shook her head. “Since there aren’t any real precedents, it would be pretty well up to the particular judge. Worst-case scenario, she’d be named the permanent primary guardian.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m afraid I am. I don’t believe in deluding my clients, Hank. If this ends up in a courtroom, there’ll be the risk of your losing custody. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Until you have the results of the DNA testing…”

“They’re only going to confirm what I already know,” he said, the pounding in his chest even harder now. “I went through that report very carefully last night, and Rodger Spicer did a thorough job. I’d say the chance that Robbie isn’t Natalie’s son is about one in a million.”

“Then let’s consider how this might play out in a courtroom. Even assuming she is his mother, you have several things going for you. You’ve been the single constant in the boy’s life since he was six months old. And despite your divorce and shift work, you’ve managed to provide a stable home environment.

“Judges are reluctant to order custody changes when things are going smoothly. So, assuming your relationship with Robbie is as good as you claim—”

“It is,” he assured her. “And he adores Audrey Chevalier.”

“Then, if this was an ordinary instance of a birth mother trying to reclaim her child, Natalie Lawson wouldn’t have a prayer.”

“But it’s not ordinary at all.”

“Exactly. You only have him because those nuns made a mistake. And as soon as Natalie learned about it she hired a private detective to locate him. Plus she’s a professional woman who can support him and provide a loving home.”

“In a village in Guatemala,” Hank muttered.

Doris nodded again. “That’s something else you have on your side. If she was awarded custody, she’d take him to a foreign country. He’d be totally uprooted, living in Spanish-speaking surroundings, and you’d rarely be able to see him.

“Yet if she is his birth mother, and never even considered giving him up for adoption…Some judges would find that awfully hard to get past.”

Hank stared at the floor, thinking that if this ended up in court it sure wouldn’t be the sort of legal proceeding he was used to.

As a detective, he dealt with facts that added up to either guilty or innocent. But this case wasn’t merely a question of facts.

Considerable weight would be given to extenuating circumstances. And one particular judge’s mind-set would be critical.

The subjectiveness of that made him very, very anxious.

Focusing on Doris again, he said, “So what do I do?”

“Absolutely nothing until you get those lab results. But if they do prove she’s his mother, here’s what I’d suggest.”

IT WAS THE HEIGHT of the afternoon rush hour when Hank’s meeting with Doris Wagner ended, and heading through the parking garage, he decided there wasn’t much point in starting for New Jersey just yet. The commute to his place took a minimum of forty-five minutes when the traffic was light.

Besides, he could do with a little extra time to think—and someone to bounce things around with—before he got home and had to face Audrey’s questions. She was so worried about the possibility of losing Robbie that she’d have a million of them.

He reached his Blazer and climbed in, then took his phone from his pocket and pressed the speed dial for Travis Quinn’s cellular.

Travis and he were the best of buddies, as well as partners, and Travis had a knack for seeing situations clearly. Unless the situation involved Celeste, of course.

Last fall, Celeste had been the prime suspect in a homicide they’d investigated. Yet the moment Travis had laid eyes on her something had short-circuited in his brain, making him absolutely refuse to even consider the possibility she could be guilty.

Fortunately, it had turned out she wasn’t. Because they were getting married in June and the C.O. would have a heart attack if one of his detectives married a murderer.

“Quinn,” he answered on the fourth ring.

“It’s Hank. Where are you?”

“At Celeste’s. What’s up?”

“I’ve got a problem.”

“A serious one?”

“Yeah. And I’m only a few blocks away, so I thought if you weren’t in the middle of anything…”

“No, come on over.”

“Thanks, I’ll be there in five.”

The city was practically in gridlock, making his trip to the West 74th brownstone actually take a lot longer—but he finally got there.

Once he’d buzzed Celeste’s apartment and she released the lock, he headed up the stairs to the third floor. He’d barely started down the hall before Travis opened the door.

Celeste’s cat, Snoops, peered warily out from behind his ankles, making Hank think about how badly his son wanted a pet.

It was something he’d been holding off on until Robbie was older. But the way things stood now, he might be living in Guatemala before he was much older.

As Travis gestured him inside, he told himself not to be a pessimist. One way or another, he’d insure that things turned out okay. But telling himself that and feeling confident of it were two different things.

When they reached the living room, Celeste took one look at him and disappeared into the kitchen—to emerge a minute later with a couple of beers. She handed one to him and one to Travis, saying, “Is this problem just a guy thing? I’ve got some work I can go do if—”

“No, I’d like your thoughts, too.”

She smiled and he managed to smile back. He’d grown to like her after he’d realized the idea of her being a killer was ridiculous. And it was easy to understand why Travis had fallen so hard for her. Aside from being a terrific person, she was great-looking—even though she wasn’t Hank’s type.

He’d never gone for blondes. Dark-haired women were the ones who always caught his eye.

Women like Natalie, he thought, an unexpected image of her taking him by surprise.

Women like Natalie, maybe, he silently repeated. But not her, specifically.

Oh, he might initially have figured she was good-looking, but he sure didn’t think so at this stage of the game.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He was objective enough to realize she hadn’t suddenly turned from a beautiful woman into a toad. His attraction to her, though, had done an instantaneous fizzle when he’d learned what she wanted.

He focused on Celeste once more, as she perched on the end of the couch next to Travis and automatically reached for his hand.

Seeing that made him feel a little…envious? Was that it?

Probably, he admitted.

If any woman had ever been as crazy about him as Celeste was about Travis, it had been a long, long time ago. And facing the risk of losing his son had made him very aware of how alone he’d be if that happened.

“So?” Travis said. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s about Robbie,” he began. Neither Travis nor Celeste interrupted as he told them how Natalie Lawson had shown up and dropped her little bombshell.

When he was finished, Travis slowly shook his head, saying, “Talk about a shocker. But something doesn’t ring quite true. Why would her baby have ended up in an orphanage? Wasn’t there anyone who could have looked after him? No relatives or—”

“Uh-uh. She mentioned she has virtually no relatives here, let alone in Guatemala.”

“Here?” Celeste said.

“In the U.S., I mean. She’s originally from Detroit. Did her medical degree at the University of Michigan.”

“Then how did she end up in Guatemala?”

“She got involved with…I think she said it’s called American Physicians Abroad—one of those organizations that provides health care in foreign countries.

“At any rate, neither she nor her husband had any relatives down there. He was from Spain, an archaeologist working on a site near the town where her clinic is.

“But getting back to how Robbie ended up in an orphanage, the quake literally devastated the area. Half the population was either killed or injured, so a lot of people were left without anyone to care for them. And with Natalie in the hospital…I guess it made sense, given the situation.”

“Oh, Hank,” Celeste said, “this is really awful. What are you going to do?”

“Well, I’ve just been to see a lawyer. That’s why I’m in the city. Natalie had already gotten legal advice, so I figured I’d better do the same.”

“And?” Travis prompted.

Briefly he filled them in on what Doris had told him. “Her final advice,” he concluded, “was to play things cool, to wait until Natalie comes right out and tells me exactly what she wants—then use that as the starting position to negotiate her down.”

“I don’t believe this,” Celeste said, shaking her head. “You’re being forced to negotiate because a judge might rule in her favor? Even though you’ve had Robbie since he was a baby?”

He shrugged, doubting the casual gesture would fool either of them for a second. They were like family; Robbie even called them Uncle Travis and Aunt Celeste. So they certainly knew how much his son meant to him.

“Oh, man,” Travis muttered. “And we complain about the criminal justice system.”