Family Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 2)
Read Family Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 2) Online
Authors: Debra Trueman
FAMILY COUNSEL
By Debra Trueman
This is a work of fiction, and the
characters, names and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to
actual events or real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended
by the author.
Copyright © 2014 Debra
Trueman
Front Cover Design
Copyright © 2014 Olga Burger
All Rights Reserved.
Other Books by Debra
Trueman
Advice of Counsel
Back on Solid Ground
In Memory of Frank S.
Manitzas
(
“Hats and Boots”
)
Someone once told me that the way to master fatherhood is
simply to learn from your mistakes. That sounded reasonable when I first heard
it, but what the theory failed to take into account was the unlimited number of
mistakes that are out there, lying in wait, eager to be made. My take is that,
with the first kid, parenting is a trial-and-error thing. By the time the next
kid comes around, theoretically, you’ve already learned from so many mistakes
that raising the second kid should be a breeze. And following that line of
reasoning to its logical conclusion, anything after two would be nothing short
of effortless. In theory.
As an adoptive father, my problem was that I hadn’t been around
when the first two kids were babies. Consequently, when my daughter was born,
not only was I in the learn-from-your-mistake mode on the baby front, but I was
in there on the toddler and kindergartner fronts, as well. My only consolation
was that my bride, Maddie, had already chiseled her motherhood skills down to a
fine art. She made up in the motherhood realm everything I lacked in the
fatherhood realm and as a result, my shortfalls were nowhere near as apparent
as they might have been otherwise. As much as I prided myself on my leadership
skills, I didn’t mind deferring to Maddie’s judgment in matters where the kids
were concerned. In fact, I preferred it.
So it was with great apprehension that I contemplated my first
solo weekend with my three kids. And the truth was, I had no one to blame but
myself. It was one of those snap-decisions that I find myself making more
often than I care to admit - a gesture of appreciation, for lack of a better
term - that I invariably come to regret. Maddie has a way of making me do
things like that, but this was by far my worst blunder. I bought her a weekend
get-away at a health spa.
Our baby was 12 weeks old and Maddie was so tired she could
barely function. So I came up with this brilliant idea of letting her escape
from the family for an entire weekend. Had I thought it all the way through, I
would have immediately noticed the fly in the ointment; but the truth was, the
gesture was selfishly motivated in the first place: I wanted my wife back. I
didn’t realize the full consequences of the offer until it was too late.
With the weekend looming closer by the hour, I could feel my
stomach tighten at the thought of our baby screaming inconsolably in the middle
of the night. That had never happened in the 12 long weeks since Morgan’s
birth, but there was always a first, and it would be just my luck to have it
happen the one time Maddie wasn’t there.
The phone buzzed and my secretary’s voice brought me out of my
reverie.
“Felicia Armstrong is on line one, sir,” said the male voice on
the other end of the line.
I groaned. My law practice had taken off in full force about a
year earlier, when I had settled a sexual harassment case in the multi-million
dollar range. Not only did I end up with my attorney’s fees, which was no
small chunk, but I married the plaintiff, as well. With our pooled resources,
Maddie and I were up there in the higher echelon economic bracket in our little
community of Hollywood Park, a town within San Antonio with its own police and
fire department, famous for its large population of free-roaming deer. We had
been next-door neighbors when I represented her, and she served as my secretary
for a brief stint. After we got married, we combined our tracts so that we had
two acres, and we tore down both of our houses and built a sprawling 1-story rock
home in their place. The house was U-shaped, built around a courtyard in the
back, with windows lining the entire back of the house and French doors coming
off the kitchen, family room, and master suite to the back yard. The kids’ wing
made up a long section of the “U,” with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a
game room. The house was spacious without being audacious; a place that could
be our first and last home together if we chose. We sectioned off a large area
that encompassed my existing pool, with a wrought iron fence; landscaped a fair
chunk of the back yard; and left the nether regions of the property untouched.
I’d never been big on kids, but Maddie’s two boys were
different. Their dad had died the year before I moved into the Park and Oliver
and I ended up becoming pals. He was almost four years old when I first met
him and I came to love him way before Maddie and I ever got together. At five,
he looked just like me when I was his age with his blond hair and big blue
eyes, and he had a curiosity about the world that manifested itself in endless
why
and
what if
questions. I never thought that I could come to care
for another kid as much I did that one, but somehow his little brother, Max,
had swooped right in there with him.
I’d met Max under unpleasant circumstances, and it took me a
long time to get over it. The incident involved the contents of a diaper
smeared all over him and everything in sight, and for a while I was certain the
scene had scarred me for life. But eventually I came around.
At two, Max was a handful in every sense of the word. If the
kid was awake, he was in action. He tormented Oliver to no end and, all too
often, I felt more like a referee than a father. Max developed what I truly
believe were toddler curse words. He would string several together for
emphasis when he was really mad, and although I had no idea what he was saying,
there was no question that it was meant to be derogatory. So what do you do
when you suspect your Terrible Two is cussing you out but you can’t prove it?
This was the perfect example of the type of situation that I decided it was
best to let Maddie handle.
The thing with Max was that, despite his suspected cussing
streaks and the occasional temper tantrum, he was a brilliant kid in every
way. Outgoing and sociable, but always ready to hold your hand or cuddle. He
was just as good looking as his brother, but in a more rugged kind of way. His
hair was a dark blond and he had these golden brown eyes with long, thick
lashes. I was truly blessed with my ready-made family, and I doubted that I
could love them more had they been my own flesh and blood.
And then there was Morgan. Morgan was definitely a mommy’s
girl. And at 12 weeks old, she wasn’t much fun. It wasn’t like we could throw
a ball to each other, or even roll one for that matter. She couldn’t sit up,
she couldn’t crawl. Hell, she couldn’t even roll over. Sometimes she would
smile and that was cool, but in general, the baby was Maddie’s domain. This
was the main source of my anxiety over Maddie’s leaving, and the last thing I
needed right before she left was a discussion with Maddie’s cousin, Felicia
Armstrong.
I breathed out heavily to exact my irritation on my
secretary. “Who does she want to sue now?” I asked irritably.
“She didn’t say, sir,” Russ said, ignoring my nasty tone.
I punched the button for line one, cutting off my secretary
without so much as a thank you. “Samuel Collins.”
“It’s Felicia. I need you to sue someone for me.”
“Postman too slow?”
“Very funny. I was just in an accident. The guy intentionally
cut me off.”
I sat up straight in my chair. Despite the fact that she was
sue-happy, technically, she was family. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. But I’m sure he’s going to try to sue me, so I
need to beat him to the punch,” she asserted.
I was confused. “Why would he sue you if he cut you off?”
“Well, I kind of rammed my truck up the back of his Porsche.”
“Kind of, or you did?”
“I did.”
I counted to ten. “Felicia,” I said calmly. “Do you remember
what I told you about filing frivolous law suits?”
“This isn’t frivolous, Sam. It’s strategy. If we sue him
first, then he’s on the defensive.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. “Felicia, I’ve got to
be in court in 15 minutes,” I lied. “I’m going to transfer you back to Russ,
and he can take the information from you. I’ll call you on Monday.”
“What’s with the male secretary?” Felicia asked before I could
get rid of her. “Is he gay?”
“No. He’s not gay,” I said patiently.
“Are you sure?”
“He has a wife and a kid,” I said, but she made a humph sound
like I was making it up. “He’s retired Air Force,” I added, as if that would
bolster my case.
“Well, have you come right out and asked him?”
It had taken less than 60 seconds for her to piss me off, about
average where Felicia is concerned.
“No, because I don’t give a crap!”
“Well, you don’t have to be rude about it, Samuel.”
“Yes, Felicia, I do. Because you don’t get it unless I’m
rude. Now, I’m going to transfer you back to my secretary, and we’ll talk on
Monday. Goodbye, Felicia.” I hit the button before she could respond and
punched in Russ’s extension. He picked up with one ring.
“Sir!”
“Felicia’s going to give you some information. Remind me to
look at it on Monday.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Russ, you don’t have to call me sir,” I said for the
thousandth time.
“Very good, sir.”
I hung up and looked at my watch. Thirty minutes to drop-off.
Maddie had been cooking for two days and had enough frozen
dinners for me and the boys to last through the weekend. Morgan had her own stash
of breast milk in the freezer, which I hoped to God would last until Maddie got
back. There were dozens of little bags, all measured out, stuck in there next
to our dinners. It certainly looked like the supply would last for three days,
but you never knew; she seemed to eat constantly. Maddie had become a regular
dairy cow. I was sure that the only way I’d be able to pacify the baby if she
screamed was with a bottle, and since Maddie was breastfeeding, I didn’t have a
whole lot of experience even with that. I’d given Morgan a bottle a couple of
times in the middle of the night when I was half-asleep and that was it.
As the minutes ticked down, I realized how unprepared I was to
take care of a baby, my baby no less, and I wished I’d paid more attention to
all the instructions Maddie had been giving me for the last week. At one
point, she’d suggested I get someone to come in and help, and at another, she’d
offered to not go at all. I scoffed at both suggestions.
“If you can do it, I can do it,” I had asserted with a false
sense of bravado.
After that, Maddie was conspicuously quiet, and I got the
distinct feeling that I’d end up feasting on those words.
I gathered a stack of papers that needed filing and
straightened up my desk, then went out to the reception area to wait for Maddie
and the baby. The plan was simple enough. Maddie would drop Morgan off at my
office at noon on her way to the spa, then the baby and I would go straight
over to pick up the boys from preschool. From then on, there was no plan, and
it was anybody’s guess what would happen during the next two and a half days.
Penny, my office manager, was visiting with Russ when I came
out. She looked at me over her glasses and down her beak. “Well, Samuel,” she
cooed, “are you ready for your big weekend with the children?”
“Absolutely. What are you going to be doing?” I asked, trying
to sound nonchalant. Penny had kept the kids a couple of times so that Maddie
and I could go out, and I felt like I should line up reinforcements just in
case the situation got out of hand.
“I’m going to meet Sally and Janeene in Fredericksburg for the
weekend,” she said cheerfully. “You know, the wildflowers are profuse this
year.”
I stifled a groan. Fredericksburg was a German town in the
Hill Country that had become a tourist Mecca. There were scores of
bed-and-breakfast establishments, and all kinds of shops and restaurants lining
Main Street. I tried to calculate in my head how long it would take her to
get from downtown Fredericksburg to my house in an emergency. At least an
hour; probably twice that if Penny was driving.
Strike one.
I had my back to the door and the way Penny’s eyes lit up, I
knew that Maddie and the baby must be there. Penny had always shown a motherly
affection towards Maddie and it had only gotten worse since Maddie had been
pregnant with Morgan. For the last 12 weeks, she’d been practically unbearable
to be around, with her daily interrogation about Maddie’s condition. I
couldn’t be too mean to her though, because she was working for me strictly out
of the kindness of her heart. At Maddie’s suggestion, we had taken care of her
with a career-ending bonus out of the proceeds of Maddie’s settlement, and
she’d been nice enough to stick around to run my office. Maddie hadn’t been so
thoughtful; she’d high-tailed it as my secretary as soon as the settlement
check cleared. So it was with great restraint that I gave Penny a daily update
on the status of both Maddie and the baby, always mindful that I needed her
more than she needed me.
Russ had taken over Maddie’s position quite capably, although I
must confess that it took some getting used to having a male secretary. As
much as I prided myself on being in tune with the societal norms of the day, I
wasn’t exactly open-minded when it came to having a same-sex secretary. I like
to have the liberty to boss my secretary around, and I’m not comfortable doing
that with a man. Especially a man who’s older than me, which Russ was by at
least 10 years.
Penny hadn’t asked me how I felt about having a male secretary
before she hired Russ, but in fairness to her I’d simply told her to hire the
best candidate. We’d already been through a half-dozen female best candidates
that hadn’t worked out, so when I came to the office early one Monday morning
to find a stout, well-dressed, disciplined-looking man sitting at Maddie’s
desk, I decided to give the guy a chance. And as it turned out, Russ was every
bit as efficient as Maddie, although nowhere near as interesting to look at.
Which, after several weeks, I decided was a bonus in itself.