Huntington Family Series Read online

  “A chinchilla.”

  “Very pretty.”

  “Expensive, too,” he said. “And these are guinea pigs—they really are the most calm. See? They don’t need a lid. The frogs go over there. I used to have the ferrets inside, but they were kind of stinky, and they made the other animals nervous. They’re in the garage now.”

  Cory stopped in front of the fish tank, staring at the brilliant blues, pinks, yellows, and striped hues. “This reminds me of a place where I swim in the Amazon,” she murmured. “The fish are the most vibrant colors. It’s really incredible.”

  “Is the water warm?” Mitch asked. During his mission, he hadn’t ever made it much past the borders of the rain forest. Not that he would have gone swimming, of course.

  “Very—at least at this particular place.”

  He could sense the yearning in her voice and again felt envious of the opportunities she enjoyed. What he wouldn’t give to be so close to those exotic animals.

  “I served a mission to Brazil, you know,” he told her. “I spent most of my two years southeast of the Amazon River, more or less near Belém.”

  “Oh, that’s right. That’s how you knew AshDee’s husband.” Her tone made it clear she wished he’d never set foot in the country. “I guess you know the language then?”

  “Yeah. It’s easy. Not like English that has a hundred exceptions for every rule.”

  “You can say that again. Every time I try to write something, it comes out all wrong.”

  “It helps knowing a foreign language. Especially with conditional tenses. I write a lot for my job, and I’ve never had any complaints.”

  She turned away from the fish. “I don’t even know what conditional tenses are.” Her face was angry now, though he sensed the emotion wasn’t directed toward him.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Not really. I was just thinking of a friend of mine. Or rather, someone I thought was a friend. He turned out to be a big jerk.”

  Obviously, there was much she wasn’t saying about this so-called friend. Mitch felt a surge of unreasonable jealousy. This man must have wounded her deeply to cause such bitterness to creep into her voice. Previously, he’d heard that only when she talked about her sister, or during their fights over Emily Jane.

  “Why don’t we have lunch?” he suggested. “We could have a barbecue.”

  “You don’t have to feed me. There’s a restaurant near my motel.”

  “But it’s Sunday. Even lapsed Baptists don’t eat out on Sunday. Or do they?”

  She shrugged. “A person’s got to eat.”

  “Well, you can do it here. Besides, it looks like Emily Jane is ready to get down and explore. If you don’t mind, you can try feeding her a jar of applesauce, while I get the chicken ready.”

  “Okay. But I don’t eat meat. Well, unless it’s fish.”

  “I make a mean grilled trout. I’m sure I have some in the freezer. It’ll thaw fast.” He felt pleased Cory had agreed to stay. Not that he was enjoying her company or anything. He simply wanted to get a sense of who she was for Emily Jane’s sake.

  Stepping over the turtle, who was camped out near the door, Mitch set the high chair outside on the patio. Muffin the Mutt shivered with excitement at their arrival, running up to Cory and giving her a thorough sniffing. “I can’t let him inside while I’m gone until he gets used to the turtle,” he explained. “He’s really good around the animals, but once he almost loved one of my rabbits into shock.”

  Cory glanced around. “Rabbits?”

  “By the shed out there.” He motioned to the far side of the yard. “They’re too messy for inside, but their waste makes great fertilizer for my sisters’ gardens. One of them had babies not too long ago, and in a minute I’ll get one for you to see.”

  While speaking, he had removed Emily Jane’s shoes and tights and placed her in the high chair. Now he tied the bib around her neck. After making sure she was secured by the safety belt, he turned toward the house. The last thing he saw before he went inside was Emily Jane giggling as Muffin licked her toes.

  Moments later, Mitch was back on the patio, trying to light the charcoal on his ancient barbecue grill. “Looks like I’m going to need a bit of lighter fluid.”

  Cory shot a pointed glance at his new gas grill that sat against the house. “Isn’t your gas one working?”

  Mitch groaned. He’d hoped she wouldn’t notice that grill. “Well, you see,” he began, “I bought that at the end of May because I was planning on having a lot of barbecues this summer. But, well . . .”

  “It broke? Take it back.” She shook her curls, which glinted fire in the sun.

  “Actually, it has occupants.”

  She arched a brow. “Occupants?”

  “A family of robins moved in.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” She practically ran over to the grill, and Mitch was glad he’d wired it shut.

  “Sorry, you can’t see in,” he said. “At least not for another few weeks. The babies should be flying by then.”

  “There’s babies?”

  He nodded. “If I time it right, I’ll hurry and clean out their nest as soon as these babies are on their own.”

  “I can’t believe it.” She came back to the high chair and gave Emily Jane another bite of applesauce. “You buy a new grill, and you can’t even use it?”

  He sighed. She must think him a total idiot. A pansy. A mama’s boy.

  “I wonder,” she said.

  “Wonder what?”

  “I bet we could get a tiny camera to hook up to the computer. It’d be really neat to peek at what’s going on in there. Might even be able to get some good photographs.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing for weeks, but I never got around to figuring out how.” Mitch was so involved in their conversation that he allowed the match he was holding to burn down too low. “Ouch!” He dropped the match and shook his fingers.

  She watched him with an amused smile that made his heart feel . . . well, quite happy and odd all at once. A part of him wondered at how differently he might have felt toward Cory if she and Ashley hadn’t been estranged. If maybe she had joined the Church with her sister.

  “I’ll get some lighter fluid.” He gestured in the direction of his garage.

  When he returned, Cory was letting Emily Jane out of her chair. The baby immediately toddled to the corner of the patio where Muffin rested in the shade. Babbling a flurry of words, she sat down on the dog and tugged at his fur. Muffin endured the abuse with barely more than a flick of his tail.

  A short time later, the grilled fish was on the patio table, accompanied by a fresh green salad with ranch dressing. Emily Jane refused to eat from her own plate or to sit in the high chair but came up often to beg for bites.

  When they finished eating, Cory reminded Mitch about the baby rabbits, and after securing Muffin to his chain again, he brought out two white ones for her to see.

  “Oh, they’re adorable!” Cory exclaimed. “I have to get some pictures of EmJay with the babies.” She dug in her purse for a camera, slipped off her sandals, and squatted on the grass.

  Emily Jane seemed to know what a camera was and stopped to give Cory a large grin whenever she asked. Cory didn’t ask more than a few times, obviously preferring the more natural approach to photography. Mitch was amazed at her patience. She didn’t try to pose the rabbits or Emily Jane but simply waited until the perfect shot presented itself. Neither did she seem concerned about her dress getting dirty as she sat in the grass; in fact, Mitch guessed he thought about it more than she did.

  Mitch went to get his own cameras. He took pictures of Cory, Emily Jane, and the bunnies, and then he turned on the video recorder, focusing it first on Emily Jane, looking cute with her red-orange curls and freckles, and then on Cory snapping pictures.

  After a while, Cory put aside her camera and picked up a bunny, running her hand over its soft fur. Emily Jane walked over to her and babbled something th
at sounded important. “Oh, yeah?” Cory asked. “I think so, too. They’re very soft, a good pet for a young lady like yourself.”

  Pleased, Emily Jane babbled something that sounded foreign, with rolling letters and soft sibilants. Mitch kept the video recorder on the pair, marveling at how alike they were. He tried not to think about Lane and Ashley, except to wonder if they were feeling as peaceful as he did at that moment. He picked up his 35mm camera to take another shot.

  After a while, Cory noticed him and came over. She briefly looked at his camera while Mitch turned off the video recorder. “This reminds me,” he said. “Ashley’s lawyer sent some boxes with pictures and videos. They were only married a few years, but there seems to be a lot of them. I thought—well, would you like to see them?”

  “I would.”

  “Keep an eye on the rabbits, would you?” He glanced to where Emily Jane sat by the rabbits, who were nibbling grass.

  He retrieved the box with the picture albums from the closet where he’d stuffed them, saving the framed pictures and the videos for another day. He planned to keep all these things for Emily Jane, but if Cory wanted copies, she could make them.

  The first album out of the box was full of pictures from Ashley’s youth. Cory flipped through them eagerly. “I didn’t know she’d kept all these. These photos are my first works of art.”

  “Is that your father?” Mitch pointed to a wiry, stern-looking man reading a newspaper.

  She studied the photograph. “Yeah, but he didn’t always look that way.”

  Mitch wondered what that meant, but he didn’t feel it was his place to ask.

  The next book was more recent, showing Ashley’s wedding and the birth of Emily Jane. Mitch was surprised to see his own face staring out at him from more than a few photographs. He remembered in particular the one at the hospital the night Emily Jane was born. He’d sat in the waiting room for hours, pacing until Lane had finally come to take him to see Ashley and the new baby. There he was, holding Emily Jane, not even thirty minutes old—and suddenly he remembered how deeply he’d felt for the baby that day. How terribly he had wanted her to be his own. He blinked his eyes and swallowed hard, hoping Cory wouldn’t look over and see his emotion. How could he have known then what would happen? In the picture Ashley was watching him from her hospital bed, a knowing smile on her face. She knew how I felt, he thought, when I didn’t even know it myself.

  He looked up to see Emily Jane trailing the bunnies as they hopped across the grass. “I’d better get them back in their pen,” he said, grateful for the chance to collect his thoughts.

  To his surprise, Cory followed him. “It’s funny, you having all these animals.”

  “My first memory as a child was bringing home a baby bird to my mom that had fallen from its nest.”

  “Did it live?”

  He shrugged. “My dad put it back in the nest, so I believed it did at the time.”

  “Ah, then that was what was important.”

  “Exactly.” Other baby birds he’d found hadn’t been so lucky, but that first successful experience had inspired him to continue trying to make a difference.

  “Maybe I should have been a vet instead of a zoologist.” He opened the rabbit hutch and returned the babies to their nest. “I’m good at fixing up animals, and at least I would have seen more of them than I do now.”

  “Yeah, but not many unusual ones.” Cory reached in to pet the mother rabbit, who was sniffing Mitch’s hand in the hopes of a carrot or other treat.

  He sighed. “I know. That’s why I ended up in zoology. I may have spent the last year of my life studying the territorial habits of wolves, but at least they’re more interesting to me than, well, say, a cow.” He picked a few long grass stems from the base of the cage and gave them to Cory for the mother rabbit.

  A comfortable silence fell between them as they walked back to the patio. Emily Jane was lagging behind, so Mitch lifted her onto his shoulders. She grasped his hair and hung on. “What pets do you have?” he asked Cory.

  “None. Unless you count Meeko. He’s this little dwarf cebus who sort of follows me around the jungle. Sleeps in my tent, even.”

  “A monkey?” he asked.

  She grinned. “I considered him more a friend than a pet. I have pictures of him somewhere.”

  “I’d think a wildlife photographer would have at least a few pets, even in the Amazon. Maybe a dog? A bird? A turtle? I know they have turtles there.”

  “I guess I’m never in one place long enough. I always thought one day that I’d move near AshDee, but now . . .” She trailed off. She began studying the photo album once more, her fingers occasionally resting on the plastic covering her sister’s face.

  “You’d need at least a few roots if you were going to raise a baby,” Mitch said.

  She bristled immediately, and the goodwill between them shattered. “I know. I can do that.” Her words were rimmed in iron. “I’m still going to fight you for custody. Whatever happens, I’m going to be a part of EmJay’s life.”

  Chapter Twelve

  On Tuesday afternoon, the day after she moved into the rented house on Mitch’s street, Cory went to see Mr. Howry, the attorney Vikki had recommended. He was good-looking enough as men went, but his appearance was overshadowed by an arrogance that bordered on bad manners.

  He was just the man for the job.

  He had utterly ignored her since the moment he sat down, a sandwich in one hand, her papers in the other. The only indication she had that he knew anyone else was in the room was the firm shaking of his head at various intervals.

  At last he looked up from the papers. “These are the tightest custody documents I’ve ever seen. The will, too.”

  “So there’s nothing you can do?” Despair filled her heart.

  He gave a little sneer. “Oh, there’s plenty I could do, but it would take a lot of money, and unless his attorney is a total idiot or he’s unfit—which seems doubtful—we simply couldn’t win. Your sister and her husband were direct and thorough in their requests and preparations. The only way . . .” He rubbed his chin, picked up the papers again, and followed a particular passage with his finger.

  Cory leapt on his hesitation. “What?”

  He leaned back in his brown leather chair. “The will and custody papers reiterate several times that the main reason your sister and her husband felt Mr. Huntington was the right person to raise their daughter is that he’s a member of their church. They also state briefly that if Ashley’s family became members, she and her husband reserved the right to change the document in the future. The addition is odd because of course they have that right. It leads me to believe that your sister hoped you’d become a member at some point in the future, and if that happened, she might choose you as guardian of her daughter instead. So if you became a member of the Church, we could use this argument to sue for custody.”

  She gaped at him. “Is this a conspiracy? What kind of a state is this that everyone can refer to a religious organization as The Church”—she lowered her voice to mimic him—“and everyone understands what church it is?”

  The first sign of a smile flickered over his well-defined mouth. “A state founded by Mormons. Or more correctly, by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

  “Good grief.” She gripped the armrests on her chair. “You’re one of them!”

  Mr. Howry shook his head. “Not me. My sister and her husband are. I get to hear about it at family gatherings.”

  Cory relaxed and took a deep breath. “You’re saying if I became a member of this church that I would have a better chance at custody?”

  “No, I said it was your only chance. However, I must caution you. Mr. Huntington could certainly challenge the reason for your membership.”

  “You mean he could argue that I did it only to gain custody?”

  “Exactly. You would have to convince him—or perhaps a judge.” Checking his watch, Mr. Howry leaned forward, gathered her papers, and h
anded them to her. “Of course, if you could convince Mr. Huntington to give up his claim voluntarily, you could get custody that way, too—whether or not you joined his church.”

  Cory flicked a piece of shredded lettuce from her documents. “They wouldn’t simply find another member to take care of her?”

  “No. The guardian has full rights and can act as he sees fit.”

  “I see. Well, thank you for your time.”

  He nodded. “Please contact me if you wish me to pursue further action.”

  They shook hands, and Cory couldn’t help but compare his soft grip to Mitch’s firm, slightly callused one. She didn’t have to guess which one would be better on a nature hike through the Amazon forest.

  Did Mitch ever plan to return to Brazil? Given the longing way he listened to her stories of the Amazon, she was surprised he hadn’t gone already. What could be holding him back?

  When she climbed into her rented silver Camry, she checked her phone messages and found that her agent had asked her to call back. She dialed the number, and Vikki picked up on the first ring. “Hi, dear,” she said. “How’d the visit with the attorney go?”

  “Worse than I’d hoped. He says the only real chance I have is to convince Mitch to give up custody—or to join their church.”

  “Mitch?”

  “That’s the man who has custody.”

  “You’re on a first-name basis with him?”

  “Well, I’ve been trying to spend as much time as I can with EmJay. Unfortunately, he comes along with the deal.”

  “Afraid you’ll take off with her, I’ll bet.”

  “Something like that.”

  “So what’s he like?”

  Cory gave a mirthless laugh. “Nice, actually. Just your average guy. Tall, sort of skinny. You know, active. Has nice blue eyes, but his hair is probably his best feature. It’s short in the back, but the front is longer and parted in the middle. Sort of pushed back on each side. He really likes animals—he’s a zoologist.”

  “My, my,” Vikki said. “A simple ‘he’s nice’ would have sufficed. What’s he like as a guardian?”

  “He’s good with EmJay,” Cory admitted reluctantly, “though I guess it could be an act. She’s extremely attached to him.”