Finding Glory. Sara Arden

know what I mean. I already love Greg like my own.” Maudine tried to smooth over her careless words.

      “I know that.” Helga sniffed. “So, anyone else have anything to contribute or are we ready to move on to the next item of business?”

      Maudine stood. “We can move on to Ethel’s prize-winning petunias.”

      “Actually, I think we should discuss how to get Marie’s B and B more exposure,” Ethel added. “My petunias are quite special, but they can only do so much, you know.”

       CHAPTER ONE

      A LACY COLLAR lay expertly arranged atop the judge’s black robes, like the doily positioned just so underneath the orange carnival glass bowl that held an endless supply of her grandmother’s hard, ribbon candy. The kind Gina had chipped her front tooth on when she was eight. Seeing it perched there, so crisp, so proper, caused a heavy knot to turn in on itself in her gut.

      “Sit up straight,” Maudine Townsend whispered in Gina’s ear. “Just because I’ve played pinochle with Helga Gunderson every Saturday for as long as I can remember doesn’t mean she’s going to look kindly on you. She’ll be fair.”

      “How is it fair to judge someone by their posture? Especially when I know that you two have never played pinochle. You play five-card stud and shoot whiskey,” Gina whispered back to her blue-haired grandmother. The woman’s hair was literally a light shade of blue. She’d dyed it for the street carnival two weeks back and temporary had turned out to be more permanent. But she’d accessorized nicely, striking an imposing figure in a white vintage Chanel suit circa 1963. Somehow, she’d made it work.

      Maudine raised a perfectly drawn eyebrow. “Don’t be tart.”

      “Yes, ma’am.” Gina straightened her posture. She was a grown woman, former army, and her grandmother still had the power to make her jump to. She didn’t mind it much. Her grandmother was the reason she was a fighter. Her grandmother was the reason she’d made it through high school after her mother died.

      And her grandmother was the reason that Gina believed she could be a good mother to her niece, Amanda Jane, after Crystal died a year ago.

      There’d been a lot of loss and a lot of sorrow in the past few years. It was a lot for anyone to bear, especially a six-year-old girl.

      Suddenly, her grandmother’s fingers tightened around hers, the cool metal of her mail-order costume rings digging into Gina’s palms.

      She looked up and saw him.

      Him.

      Reed Hollingsworth.

      Gina thought she’d prepared herself for this—for seeing him after all these years. For facing him and demanding he do what was right.

      No, faced with him, she felt like she’d opened the door to confront the monster in the closet and found out he was real. No, no...Reed wasn’t a monster. He was just a guy. A man like any other, even if he didn’t think so anymore.

      He smelled of money, or she could tell that he would from across the courtroom.

      Reed was ushered into the court by some shark masquerading as a man in a suit. They each had haircuts that probably cost more than all the shoes in her closet combined. Of course, that probably wasn’t saying much.

      His hair gleamed, perfect and golden under the light. Too perfect, she wanted to muss it, push her fingers through it and disturb its perfection. She wanted proof that he was still Reed underneath this shiny veneer. Still the same boy, at heart. Because if he wasn’t, how would she survive this?

      She’d survive anything, because she had to, she reassured herself.

      Gina crossed her ankles and tucked her dollar-store flats underneath her, self-conscious of her hand-me-down dress and the slightly gnawed tips of her unpolished fingernails.

      “I’m not worried about the judge, I’m worried about him. Don’t give him the satisfaction,” her best friend and lawyer, Emma Grimes, said from the seat next to her. “I don’t doubt he’s going to try to pull something here. That attack dog he’s got with him looks much too smug.”

      “Good thing you’re better than an attack dog. You’re a nuclear weapon.” Or so Gina hoped. She’d need it to stand her own.

      Gina had never been so angry as the day she found out that Reed had bought a house on Snob Hill. He had money for houses, for fancy cars, for whatever he wanted. Not just what he needed, but wanted. Any little thing—especially coming back to Glory and showing everyone he’d succeeded even when the world had been against him.

      Well, that was just lovely for him, but what about his daughter? What about Crystal?

      And what about herself?

      Gina didn’t begrudge him his success and she didn’t want a handout. She was more than happy to work for everything she had, but it wasn’t fair that she was back to waiting tables, working as an EMT and trying to get through premed, all while raising his daughter with no help from him.

      If he didn’t want to know the beautiful girl his daughter was, fine. But helping pay for her education, for her food and the clothes on her back was his responsibility, too, not Gina’s alone. She’d be damned if she’d let him waltz back into town and lord his money and success over everyone while Gina went without so Amanda Jane could have the things she needed—let alone anything she just wanted.

      It was wrong that when they went to the store Amanda Jane never asked for anything. That when she made her Christmas list she put things on it like school supplies for Gina. It was kind, yes. She had a large heart, but Amanda Jane had gotten to know nothing of being a child. Even when she played on the swings, it was done with the grim determination of a chore. Something she was supposed to do.

      All because she’d had a mother who loved her high more than her daughter and Reed couldn’t be bothered to be a father.

      That thought sat cold and false in her mind. Even though she’d seen the proof in his absence, she’d never thought he’d be that way. In fact, when she’d played pretend in her head, she was the sister he’d fallen for, and he was always a wonderful dad.

      But in those pretend schemes, he’d never been a junkie, either. Not that he was now; he was clean and sober.

      Damn him, anyway.

      Why did he have to be so handsome?

      Why did he have to come back?

      Why did he have to be Amanda Jane’s father?

      She supposed if she were going to get stuck on that endless loop, she could ask the universe a lot of questions. Why did her mother have to die... It was what it was and the only thing she had control over was the here and now.

      Sort of. She had control of her actions. That was it.

      Judge Gunderson’s voice yanked her out of her thoughts. “Before I officially hear this case—” she peered down at them meaningfully, her presence heavy in the small room “—I want to offer you both a solution that has been suggested to me by concerned parties.”

      Concerned parties? That would equal one Maudine Townsend. Gina forced herself to keep her eyes forward on the judge and not glaring at her grandmother.

      She loved the woman.

      She admired her.

      Couldn’t live without her.

      But she liked to meddle where she oughtn’t.

      “Consider giving the child the stability and permanence marriage will provide.”

      Maybe the judge was her grandmother’s best friend, but damn it.

      “I object,” Gina said.

      “Shh!”