Reuniting His Family

A Father’s Promise

Rhys Maddox wants nothing more than custody of his two sons. Released from prison after a wrongful charge, the widowed dad will do anything to bring his boys home where they belong. But that doesn’t include falling for their former social worker. Now leading an outreach program for families in transition, Renee Delacroix can’t escape the tall, dark and intriguing single dad...or his adorable little boys. But Rhys is determined to go it alone. Until one incident that may cost him what he wants the most. Now it’s up to Renee to save him...if she can make him see she’s just what he needs to complete their forever family.

“Look, Dad, it’s her!”

What was Renee doing here? Filling in for another volunteer, she told him when she entered the amusement park.

So he wasn’t the only one she helped in her job.

Seeing the way Renee smiled down at his sons told him he wanted to be more than part of her job.

“Hey, Dad, can I go with my friends and our teacher?” Owen asked.

Rhys bit back the no that sprang to his lips and stifled his disappointment. His son would have more fun with his friends, and that was what this day was about.

“How about you, Dylan?” he asked his other boy. “Do you want to go with your friend?”

“No. I like being with Miss Renee. It’s kind of like being with Mommy.”

Rhys swallowed hard. In some ways, it was how things might have been for Dylan in their family if he hadn’t messed up. In other ways, it wasn’t at all the same. He and Renee... He didn’t know what their relationship was. But one thing was certain. He wanted to find out.

Dear Reader,

Thank you for choosing to read Reuniting His Family. I hope you enjoyed Rhys and Renee’s story and, if you’ve read my other Love Inspired books, returning to Paradox Lake and catching up with other residents.

We’re all shaped by our pasts. In Renee’s case, it’s having grown up the youngest in her large, loving, extended family, and her experience doing mission work in Haiti. For Rhys, it’s having been shuffled from foster family to foster family and his brushes with the law. Too often, we let preconceived notions generated by our pasts hinder the happiness our Lord wants for us. But, as Renee and Rhys show, with His help we can move beyond those notions.

To keep in touch with me, please sign up for my author newsletter at JeanCGordon.com. And feel free to email me at [e-mail] or snail mail me at PO Box 113, Selkirk, NY 12158. You can also visit me at Facebook.com/JeanCGordon.author or Tweet me @JeanCGordon.

Blessings,

Jean C. Gordon

JEAN C. GORDON’s writing is a natural extension of her love of reading. From that day in first grade when she realized t-h-e was the word the, she’s been reading everything she can put her hands on. Jean and her college-sweetheart husband share a 175-year-old farmhouse in Upstate New York with their daughter and her family. Their son lives nearby. Contact Jean at Facebook.com/jeancgordon.author or PO Box 113, Selkirk, NY 12158.

Reuniting His Family

Jean C. Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Lord takes care of those

who are as helpless as children.

When I was in great need, He saved me.

—Psalms 116:6

To my critique partners, Chris and Bonnie,

for aiding my research for this book with

their invaluable knowledge of the New York State

foster care, family court and social services system.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Rhys Maddox looked across the small room at his broken dream. The dream he’d shattered. His boys stood in the doorway with a woman who wasn’t their mother. Owen was a miniature copy of himself. Dylan had so many of his mother’s features, it made his heart bleed.

“Mr. Maddox?”

He looked at Renee Delacroix, the Essex County Child Protection Services’ worker he’d been sitting with.

“This is Suzanne Hill, Owen and Dylan’s foster mother,” she said.

Rhys strangled the shudder that began when the word foster formed on Ms. Delacroix’s lips. Those memories were behind him and would be behind his boys soon, too. He stood and offered the woman his hand, glad for the opportunity to break away from Ms. Delacroix’s scrutiny and the knowledge that she stood between him and his sons.

“Mrs. Hill,” he said, warmed by her wholesome freshness, a contrast to Ms. Delacroix’s glacial beauty. “It’s good to meet you in person.”

“Suzi, please,” she said, smiling.

“Suzi, then.”

Today’s half hour with the Child Services’ worker was his second meeting with Ms. Delacroix since he’d come to Paradox Lake to claim his sons. Yet they were still Mr. Maddox and Ms. Delacroix.

He released Suzi’s hand. “May I?” he asked, glancing from Dylan to Owen, uncertain what he was asking for.

Suzi looked over his shoulder toward the table where he’d been sitting.

Ms. Delacroix must have given the okay.

He ruffled nine-year-old Owen’s hair. “How’s it going, buddy?”

They’d both grown since he’d seen them this spring at their mother’s funeral. His gut ached. He’d missed so much the past five years.

Owen threw his arms around Rhys, almost knocking him over in excitement.

“Daddy, I’m so glad you’re home. You’re not going to have to go back again like you did after Mommy’s...” The rest of Owen’s words were muffled against Rhys’s chest.

He rested his head on his older son’s. “No.” Never.

No way was he going to let anything get between him and his responsibility to his family again. He set Owen back and looked into his face. “I’m so proud of you, helping your mom and taking care of Dylan for me. Mrs. Hill sent me your soccer game pictures and one of your winning Pinewood Derby car. And I kept all of the Bible verses that you and Dylan memorized in Sunday school and wrote out for me.”

“Coach Josh helped me with the car. I painted it like your old Charger. This year, you and me can make one and win first prize instead of second.”

Rhys’s throat clogged. “Sure thing.” He lifted his hands from Owen’s shoulders and squatted in front of his younger son. “How about you, Dylan? Want to go get some ice cream with Daddy?”

“No.” The six-and-a-half-year-old shook his head emphatically. “You’re a bad man. My friend Tyler said so. His mommy told him.”

Dylan’s words hit him harder than Owen’s near tackle. Dylan had been only a toddler when Rhys had been sent to Dannemora Correctional Facility for his part as the getaway driver in a bank robbery. The little guy didn’t remember the four of them as a family, the home they’d had in Albany. But Gwen had brought both of the boys to Dannemora to see him as often as she could manage.

“Dylan. This is Daddy. It’ll be fun.” Owen jumped to his defense, filling Rhys with regret for all of the times his older son and Gwen had had to cover for him because he hadn’t been there, due to his pride, bad choices and plain stupidity.

“No, I don’t have to go. Ms. Delacroix said so. Right, Mrs. Hill?”

Rhys followed Dylan’s gaze from him to Suzi and caught her look of pity before she hid it. He stood and spun around, glaring at Renee Delacroix. She looked barely old enough to be out of college. She was an intern, and she had the authority to keep his son from him? He fisted his hands.

Ms. Delacroix avoided his glare and fixed her gaze on his fists. “Dylan expressed some reluctance to go with you today. I assured him that he didn’t have to if he didn’t feel secure.”

Security was one of the many things he’d failed to provide his family. His anger seeped out, combating his rigid stance.

“Transitioning can be more difficult for some children,” she said.

Transitioning? Rhys worked his jaw. He was Dylan’s father. He wanted to take his sons for a soft-serve ice-cream cone, with supervision, of course. The plan had been for Mrs. Hill to take the boys and meet him at the ice-cream stand on Paradox Lake, near her home and the house he’d rented.

Ms. Delacroix pushed away from the table and walked over to stand next to Rhys, facing Dylan. A faint aroma, sweet and floral, tickled his senses. Was it her shampoo? He eyed her black hair pulled back in some kind of fancy braid with a few wispy curls escaping around her face. He knew she couldn’t be as young as she looked. When she’d introduced herself, she’d said she was a graduate student interning with the county. She’d mentioned mission work she’d done with children in Haiti before coming to work in Social Services.

“Dylan, if I go with your daddy to get ice cream, do you want to come or do you want to stay with Mrs. Hill?” Ms. Delacroix asked.

While he waited for his son to answer, Rhys followed one of her curls along the curve of her cheek. He curled his lip against the bitter tang in his mouth. What had gotten into him, besides having been incarcerated with 2,500 men for the past five years? He was here for Dylan and Owen, to make them a family again. Not to be distracted by and wonder about Renee Delacroix.

Dylan wrapped his arms around his foster mother’s leg. “I want to go home with Mrs. Hill.”

Home. With a woman Dylan had only known for a matter of months. This wasn’t the dream that had kept him going since Gwen’s death, while he was waiting for his appeal and release.

“I want to go with you, Dad.” Owen’s voice pulled him from the dark place he was headed.

“You still can,” Ms. Delacroix said. “I can come and drive you back to the Hills’ house afterward.”

“Would that be all right with you, Dad?”

“More than all right.” He’d take whatever he could get when it came to spending time with his sons.

Rhys nodded to Ms. Delacroix. “I know it’s part of your job, but thanks for going out of your way.” He scuffed the toe of his work boot on the floor. The drive from Elizabethtown, where the Social Services’ office was located, to Paradox Lake and back would take her more than an hour. “I mean, having to take Owen home afterward and coming back here.”

“It’s no problem.” A true smile spread across her face, the first the all-business lady had given him. “I live near Paradox Lake. You can wait here with Mrs. Hill while I go back to my office and wrap things up so we can go.”

“Sure.” He’d been waiting five years to be with his boys. What were a few more minutes?

* * *

“Go ahead and sit.” Renee’s hand accidentally brushed Rhys Maddox’s biceps as she motioned toward a couch and chairs near the table. The rock-hard resistance unsettled her. She rushed out into the hall. Let him think I’m hurrying to get back for the visitation, not to get away from him.

Maybe she was too much of a newbie at this work but everything about Rhys Maddox unsettled her—from his record and conviction, to his tall, dark, imposing stature, to his icy-blue eyes that had thawed only when he spoke to Owen and Dylan. Especially his eyes. They weren’t just cold. They were devoid of light.

Renee crossed her arms to counteract a shiver. She was authorized to oversee supervised visits and knew how overloaded the Maddox family’s caseworker was. It wasn’t as if she was to decide whether or not to place his children with him. But she hated taking on responsibilities she wasn’t sure she was qualified to handle, making decisions like the ones she’d had to make in Haiti because the mission had been so understaffed. A week from Monday—the start of her new job as a Building Bridges’ facilitator for the Christian Action Coalition—couldn’t come soon enough. There she’d be working primarily with kids in child care and after-school programs, helping them adjust to changed family situations—divorce, death of a parent, a parent marrying or remarrying.

Renee checked with the caseworker to see if she wanted to handle the visit herself. It was Rhys Maddox’s first visit. And receiving the “no” answer she’d expected, Renee headed to her office. She scanned her desk to make sure anything that should be secured in the file cabinets was tucked away and walked back to the visitation room.

Renee heard the rumble of Rhys’s voice as she approached the doorway, but couldn’t make out his words.

“Ready?” she asked as she stepped inside. Her cheery greeting bounced off the tense silence in the room. Owen sat next to his father, tapping his foot on the floor as if he couldn’t wait to go. Dylan had curled up on Suzi’s lap in a chair, his face buried in his foster mother’s shoulder. Their father was soldier-straight on the couch, his hands clamped on his thighs.

“I asked him how his reading was coming. Gwen...” Rhys paused to swallow. “My wife had told me how excited Dylan was about starting to recognize words, that it looked like he was going to be a reader like she was. She read everything.”

“Yeah,” Owen piped up. “Dylan’s really good at reading. I had some trouble with it at my old school, but Mrs. Bradshaw helped me last year.”

Rhys’s gaze flickered between his sons. He pinched his lower lip and released it as if he was going to say something. But he didn’t.

Renee filed a mental reminder to note in the records that, with his father gone, Owen may have adopted a protective, man-of-the-family stance with his mother and brother that he was extending to his father now. Rhys’s stony expression implied that could cause conflict between Rhys and Owen. Both her earlier interview with Rhys and talking with him today had given her the distinct impression that he was a man who would protect his own, who wouldn’t welcome outside assistance, maybe not even from his eldest son.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go for ice cream?” Suzi lifted Dylan and placed him on the floor between her legs. “I’ll come.”

The little boy shook his head. Suzi gave her and Rhys a look that said I tried.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Mrs. Hill. ’Bye, Dylan,” Renee said.

“’Bye, son.”

Rhys’s tone had no inflection, as if he were afraid the boy would detect any emotion as he spoke. Emotion that had far too much of an impact on Renee. Despite her training and all her work with disrupted families in Haiti, she still had a hard time comprehending a child wanting to shut out a parent or parent shutting out a child, even if there was a good reason. Her frame of reference always came back to her big, boisterous, loving family.

Dylan took Suzi’s hand. “’Bye,” he said, not looking at either her or Rhys.

Rhys cleared his throat. “Owen says there’s a stand on the lake that serves soft ice cream. He’d like to go there.”

“I know the one. My family and I go there all the time.”

Rhys rose and Owen hopped off the couch.

“Do you have kids, Ms. Delacroix?” Owen asked as she led them from the room toward the back door.

“No, but I have two brothers—one’s my twin—and three sisters, three nieces, a nephew and another niece or nephew on the way.”

“Wow! I have only Dylan...and my dad. But Mrs. Hill’s mother told me she would be my grandmother ’cause I don’t have any grandmas or any grandpas.”

Rhys locked his jaw and pushed the door so it swung open hard, almost banging against the brick wall of the building. He held himself back until they were out and almost down the sidewalk before exiting.

“My dad doesn’t have any parents. He had parents, but he doesn’t know them. He had foster parents like the Hills. Lots of them.”

Renee nodded. That information had been in Rhys’s records.

“My mom’s parents don’t like us.”

Rhys caught up with them.

“But we don’t care about that, do we, Dad?”

From the fire in his father’s eyes, the man might care. She knew Gwen Maddox had been estranged from her parents. Renee’s brother-in-law, Connor Donnelly, pastor at the Hazardtown Community Church, had called Gwen’s parents to inform them of her death and funeral, and they’d practically hung up on him. When he’d said the boys were being placed in temporary foster care, their grandmother had started to say something but their grandfather had cut her off, telling Connor, “Foster care was good enough for their father. It’s good enough for them.”

“I’ve got you and Dylan.” Rhys wrapped his arm around his son and squeezed his shoulder. “What more could I want?”

“Mom.”

Rhys sucked in a breath. “Your mother.”

Owen looked over the parking lot. “Which car is yours, Dad?”

“I have a pickup. For work.”

At their earlier interview, he’d said he was looking for construction or electrical work but hadn’t found anything. Had Rhys heard something since then? He hadn’t said anything today.

“Mrs. Hill’s husband has a F-350 pickup with a supercab so Dylan’s booster seat fits and we can ride with Mr. Hill in the back seat. And he has a tow truck. That’s what he does, tows cars and fixes them.”

Owen’s words made Rhys wince. “Sounds like a man I should get to know.”

“Yeah, you’d like Mr. Hill,” Owen said. “Maybe you can be friends.”

Renee followed Rhys’s gaze across the parking lot to a compact pickup with faded red paint and a missing hubcap, and understood the meaning of his comment.

“Ms. Delacroix, Mrs. Hill said I had to ride with you, but couldn’t I go with my dad? I can show him where we’re going, or you can drive first and we’ll follow.”

“No, son,” Rhys answered for her. “We have to follow the rules, so we can all live together again. I’ll follow Ms. Delacroix.”

His words shouted control, which she read as another indication he’d do whatever he had to do to have his boys. Again, she was thankful she’d be done with her internship with Social Services soon, and that this would be the extent of her getting between him and his sons. It might be a flashback to her experience in Haiti, but Rhys Maddox struck her as a complex man—a man whom, despite the draw of his obvious love and devotion to his sons, she might not want to get on the wrong side of.

* * *

The truck didn’t start with his first two turns of the key and he could see Ms. Delacroix sitting in her car in the driving lane in front of him, chalking up more demerits against him. No job. No reliable transportation. No good for Owen and Dylan. He snorted a laugh. He’d been hearing the no-good part his whole life, from everyone but Gwen and the praise ministry and his Bible study group at Dannemora. He rested his head on the steering wheel for a moment before trying a third time. The engine rattled into action.

He’d get something better once he started working and could afford payments. He was trying to spend as little as possible of the money from Gwen’s life insurance policy through the school district where she’d worked. That money was for Owen and Dylan’s future. The first and last month’s rent and security deposit on the three-bedroom house he’d rented on Hazard Cove Road had taken a sizable chunk. The house was a financial stretch, but it reminded him of the house he and Gwen had had in Albany. Their home. Another casualty of his rash actions.

Ms. Delacroix tooted her car horn to signal she was taking off. He followed close behind for the thirty-mile trip to Paradox Lake and then to the opposite side of the lake from his rental house. She pulled into a rustic, old-fashioned, ice-cream stand. A red-and-white candy-striped awning shielded the order window from the hot midafternoon sun. Several picnic tables sported matching umbrellas.

Owen was out of Ms. Delacroix’s car and over to his truck almost before he’d shut it off—with the cooperation of the engine.

“Is vanilla still your favorite, Dad? Mine’s still chocolate. Can I have my cone dipped in chocolate, too?”

“Anything you want.” This time. He’d have to watch himself to avoid indulging the boys to make up for lost time. It was a recommendation Ms. Delacroix had made that he couldn’t argue with, even though he wanted to give them the best of everything.

He stepped up to the window. “We’ll have a large chocolate-dipped.”

Owen grinned at him, warming his heart in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. Too long.

“A large vanilla-dipped and...” Rhys turned to Renee.

“You don’t have to pay for mine,” she said. “I’ll get my own.”

“No, I’m treating.”

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I can’t accept. It’s a CPS rule. We can’t take gifts.” She placed her order.

Another rule. He fingered the bills in his hand. He could accept it. The past five years had made him a master at accepting rules.

“Hey, Dad,” Owen said as they started toward an empty picnic table, “that’s my friend Alex and his dad. Can we sit with them?”

Rhys’s eyes followed Owen’s outstretched arm to a table where a dark-haired man and a boy about his son’s age sat eating burgers. He fought back a frown. This was supposed to be his time with his boys. Dylan had refused to come and now Owen wanted to be with his friend.

He took the easy out. “Ms. Delacroix?”

“It’s up to you.”

If it was up to him, he wouldn’t be here now at all. Owen and Dylan would both be living with him already.

Owen looked at him expectantly, with his mother’s eyes.

“Sure,” Rhys said.

Ms. Delacroix’s smile of approval lifted the gray mantle settling on him as much as Owen’s did.

He was pathetic, waiting for validation of everything he did.

Let go and let God. He’ll make everything right. Except Rhys’s faith was so new, he wasn’t sure he knew how to let go yet.

“Hey, Owen,” his friend Alex called.

“Hi,” Owen called back, tugging Rhys toward the table. “This is my dad,” he said as they approached the table.

Rhys’s insides went mushy at the pride in his son’s voice. He certainly hadn’t done much to make him proud in the past. But that was behind him. He wouldn’t let Owen or Dylan down again.

“Rhys Maddox.” He extended his hand over the table to Alex’s father.

“Neal Hazard.” He stood and shook hands. “Hi, Renee,” Neal said before sitting again. “Looks like you two are joining us.” He motioned to the bench beside him, where Owen was already seated next to Alex.

“Hi.” She stepped around Rhys to sit on the bench across from Neal.

Ms. Delacroix and Neal seemed friendly, even though Neal had to be ten or fifteen years older than her. Not that it mattered to him.

Rhys sat on the opposite end of the bench across from Owen.

“Just you and Alex today?” Renee glanced toward the stand.

“Yep. Anne and Sophia are having a girls’ day shopping for school clothes and Ian’s at soccer camp. I took the afternoon off so Alex wouldn’t have to go shopping with his mother and sister.”

“A fate worse than death, for sure,” Renee said.