“Well, that’s water under the bridge,” Helen said pragmatically. “We’ll all work together to fix this now.”
Dana Sue closed her eyes and tried to imagine Ronnie’s shock when he saw Annie for the first time in two years. Somehow she’d gotten used to seeing the thin shadow of the girl Annie had once been. Ronnie only had memories of an exuberant, healthy teenager with glowing skin, shiny hair and the first hint of a woman’s curves.
“What?” Helen asked, studying her worriedly.
“Ronnie’s going to be furious when he sees her,” Dana Sue said. “He’s going to wonder how on earth I let something like this happen to our daughter without trying to fix it. He’s going to want to talk to teachers and counselors about why they didn’t see it and intervene.”
“It’s not as if he was here to do his part,” Helen said heatedly. “So of course he’ll want to spread the blame around.”
Dana Sue regarded her with a wry expression. “He wasn’t here because that’s how I wanted it, remember? I was the one who insisted on limited visitation and then secretly rejoiced when Annie refused to see him at all.”
There was a faint flash of guilt in Helen’s eyes, but she continued her defense of Dana Sue’s actions. “Come on, hon. Don’t you dare let him off the hook and take all the blame on yourself.”
“I had full custody,” Dana Sue reminded her. “You fought for it and got it.”
“There wasn’t much of a fight,” Helen scoffed. “Ronnie was anxious to leave and get on with his life. He was only too eager to send support checks and forget all about her.”
Dana Sue didn’t usually cut Ronnie a lot of slack, but now she did. “You know better than that, Helen. Whatever his issues were with me, he loved Annie. He only agreed to limited visitation because you convinced him it would be best if Annie wasn’t pulled in two different directions. In the beginning he called almost every night, but Annie hung up on him. He invited her to visit him over and over again, but she turned him down. She told me. Lately, though, they’ve been in touch, probably even more than I know.”
“Maddie mentioned that,” Helen said. “Why are you defending him all of a sudden?”
“I’m not defending him. I’m just trying to prepare myself for how he’s going to react when he gets here.” She shuddered. “Something tells me all hell is going to break loose.”
In fact, there was a very good chance that Ronnie would take one look at his daughter and head straight for the courthouse to argue for a new custody arrangement, one that would give him the day-to-day responsibility for his daughter. Given tonight’s events, Dana Sue wasn’t sure she had the strength—or the right—to fight him.
* * *
Ronnie spotted Maddie the minute he walked into the hospital. She was in the midst of half a dozen teenage girls, but her gaze immediately clashed with his. To his surprise, her eyes held warmth and compassion.
She stood up and crossed the waiting room to where he stood uncertainly just inside the door. Places like this freaked him out under the best of conditions. He’d been a wreck the night Annie was born, and her birth had gone smoothly enough. Based on what Dana Sue had told him, it was anything but certain that tonight would turn out as happily.
“Ronnie, it’s good to see you,” Maddie said, surprising him again. “I just wish it were under different circumstances.”
“Me, too,” he said, risking a kiss on her cheek that would have come naturally a few years back. She’d always been his champion with Dana Sue, at least until he’d betrayed his wife. Then she’d turned into a protective best friend with little good to say to or about him. But she, at least, had apparently mellowed, even more than he’d dared to hope.
“How’s Annie? Is Dana Sue with her?”
Maddie shook her head. “We don’t know anything yet. Dana Sue’s in the chapel with Helen. Maybe you should go in there. Let her know you’ve arrived.”
“I think I’ll wait here,” he said, dreading this first meeting almost as much as he desired it. “Is she holding up okay? She was a mess when she called me.”
“She still is, unless the visit to the chapel has helped. Helen’s just as bad. She doesn’t often let anyone see her soft side, but she loves Annie as if she were her own.”
“She certainly fought like a mother hen to keep her away from me,” Ronnie said bitterly, then shrugged. “I was lucky to win visitation rights. Little did I know that Annie was so mad at me that she wouldn’t even speak to me for the better part of a year, much less come to visit.”
Maddie smiled. “Well, that’s in the past. She’s forgiven you, hasn’t she?”
“She’s speaking to me, at least,” he responded. “That’s something. I probably should have stayed right here in town so Annie couldn’t avoid me, but I thought maybe if I left the way Dana Sue wanted, both of them would start to miss me, maybe give me another chance.”
“How’d that work for you?” Maddie inquired dryly.
He smiled grimly. “You know the answer to that.”
Just then he spotted Dana Sue and Helen coming down the hall. His heart seemed to stop in his chest. Damn, she looked good, even with her hair a tangled mess, her Carolina Panthers T-shirt—no, his T-shirt, he realized with a pang—wrinkled and way too big, her feet jammed into an old pair of sneakers. Her complexion was too pale and her incredible deep-green eyes were shadowed by fear.
Ronnie started to go to her, but stopped himself and waited for her to come to him.
“Old patterns might not be the best on a night like this,” Maddie said in an undertone. “Reach out to her, Ronnie. She needs you. Whatever else has happened, that child in there belongs to both of you.”
It was all
