“Nat?”

I turned back to find that Izzy hadn’t made any attempt to get out of the car. She faced forward, but when I looked closely at her, I saw tears welling in her eyes. I pulled my car door shut.

“Talk to me, sweetheart. It’s normal that you’re upset after what happened today.”

A fat tear streaked down her cheek, and her bottom lip quivered. Seeing her pain when she turned to face me choked my throat with my own tears.

“What rights does Dad have?” she croaked with a shaky voice.

At first I didn’t understand the question, but then I remembered the last thing I’d said was that he had every right to know if a man was hanging around her. I thought that’s what she was referring to.

“Well, he’s your father, so I guess I feel like he has a right to know you’re safe and well protected. No matter what happened between me and him, or what he’s done wrong, I would feel wrong letting him worry about your safety.”

She shook her head vigorously. “No. What right does he have to me?”

“You mean legally?”

She nodded.

We’d never discussed the legal aspect of how things were decided by the court. All she knew was she lived with me and visited her grandmother and father. “Well, right now I have full physical custody of you. So no one else has the right to have you live with them. You go to visit your grandmother once a month because that’s what I arranged with her. I think it’s important to keep in touch with her, and she loves you very much. She wanted to have physical custody of you, but she’s seventy-two, and you’d never lived with her before, so the court agreed that you should live with me.”

I waited until she looked up at me and made sure she heard the next part loud and clear. “And I wanted you to live with me because I love you.”

She smiled through her tears and nodded, so I continued.

“But there are two types of rights people have over minors—physical custody and legal custody. Your dad and I share legal custody of you.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that your dad and I both get a say in the important decisions about you—like schooling, medical care, and that type of stuff.”

“Even though he’s in jail?”

“Yes. I didn’t try to fight him for full legal custody. He’s always made good decisions for your well-being, and he does love you. I didn’t want him to feel like I was trying to steal you from him. He made mistakes. Big ones. But he’s still your father.”

I thought I’d done a good job explaining it, but when I finished, she looked even more devastated than when I started. Tears streamed down her face.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Was that too much information?” I leaned over and pulled her into my arms. “Come here. Talk to me. What part upset you?”

She sobbed on my shoulder for a few minutes, and I couldn’t hold back my own tears. It hurt so damn much to see her in pain. Kids shouldn’t have to hurt because of the actions of adults who were supposed to protect them. Yet it happened every day.

I never thought I’d long for angry, pissed-off Izzy to appear. After a while, the sobbing slowed, and she sniffled before lifting her head from my shoulder. Her eyes were puffy and red.

“You’re going to send me back to live with him, aren’t you?”

The question caught me off guard. It had never occurred to me that Izzy might not want to live with her dad when he got out in a few months. It was only in the last few months that she’d started to open up to me, and I’d started to see that she really didn’t hate me—she just hated the circumstances surrounding why she had to live with me, and I was the only person around to blame.

I searched her face. “You don’t want to live with your dad?”

She shook her head.

“You’re upset with him now. I don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind to think about things like this.”

“He’s not a girl. He wouldn’t get stuff. Can’t I just stay with you and visit him on the weekends or something?”

Jesus, I was not ready to answer that question. Even more so, I wasn’t sure I could answer that question. Garrett would certainly want custody of his daughter when he got out, wouldn’t he?

“Izzy, I...I don’t think that decision is up to me, or you, alone.”

Her hopeful face fell. “It’s up to Dad?”

“I guess if you and I decided it would be in your best interest to stay with me, and your dad disagreed, a judge would have to decide.”

She looked down, seeming to think that answer over for a minute. Then she hit me point blank, staring straight into my eyes. “Would you want me to live with you, if that’s what I wanted?”

The answer fell from my lips before I could even contemplate it. “Yes.”

But I did not have a good feeling that things would go smoothly if it turned out this was what Izzy wanted.

Chapter 22

Natalia

I was a jittery, nervous wreck.

Somehow I’d managed to keep busy this week and hadn’t wasted much time dwelling on my upcoming date, or rather upcoming weekend, with Hunter, until now. It was two in the afternoon on Friday, and I’d already finished all of my appointments and written up all of my case notes. Hoping to relax and unwind, I’d drawn a bath and tossed in a sweet pea bath bomb I’d picked up on the way home yesterday.

Like the rest of my apartment, the bathroom was small, so it steamed up just from filling the tub with hot water. Since Izzy wasn’t home, I left the door open to let out some of the steam and shed my clothes before settling into the hot water. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and inhaled the amazing scent of my grandmother’s garden. Totally what I needed.

My phone buzzed from the sink, interrupting my peace, and my eyes fluttered open. Finding a penetrating eye staring at me from the corner of the tub, I jumped from the water, sloshed half the bath all over the floor, and nearly slipped on the wet tile.

The cat.

The damn cat.

You’d think the presence of only one eye would have given me a clue.

Catpernicus had strolled in through the open door and perched himself up on the edge of the tub, nearly scaring the life out of me. With the way he continued to eye me (no pun intended), I grabbed the towel from the rack to cover myself.

Seriously? I was on edge today.

I took a few deep breaths and went to grab my phone, the buzzing of which had been the catalyst to my near disaster, and suddenly realized my cell was no longer on the sink. Dread settled into my stomach, but I looked around everywhere, leaving what I feared most for last.

Not on the floor.

Didn’t fall into the sink.

No miraculous leap into the nearby garbage can.

My eyes dropped to the tub.

Shit.

There sat my phone—on the bottom of the half-full bath.

In my frenzied scramble to get out, I’d grabbed the sink and must’ve knocked it into the water. I scooped it up, but of course, it was too late. The phone was dead, and I couldn’t imagine there would be a resurrection.

Though I was aggravated with myself, there was really nothing I could do about it at the moment, so I patted my phone dry and attempted to settle back into the tub. Finding it impossible to relax, I decided to finish my grooming. I shaved every piece of hair from my legs and armpits, and then scrutinized the Brazilian wax job I’d had done yesterday to make sure it looked just right. Catpernicus sat dutifully on the edge of the tub, licking and cleaning his paws. I’d arranged for my neighbor, Mrs. Whitman, who also had a cat, to take him for the weekend. I wondered if perhaps Catpernicus was getting ready for his own date.

Packing my bag was a challenge of its own. I picked out my laciest lingerie, but wasn’t sure what, if anything, I’d be wearing beyond that. Which resulted in overpacking—something to lounge around in, something to go out, jeans and a T-shirt…what if it rained? I imagined the look on Hunter’s face if I showed up with rain gear and two suitcases. The poor man would probably have a heart attack, thinking I was moving in.

Butterflies took up residence in my belly for the rest of the afternoon. We’d texted a few times this week and decided that rather than him picking me up, I’d go to his place right after dropping off Izzy. Hunter lived pretty close to Garrett’s mother’s house. I’d be taking Izzy straight from practice, and I didn’t want her to see the suitcase, so I stashed it in the trunk. I needed to be careful with the example I set, especially now that she was almost sixteen and interested in boys. Teenagers listen to your actions, not what you tell them is right or wrong.