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“You’d have done what any of us would have. Only we would have called in and explained the situation.” She chuckled. “We’re not just the people who take kids away, Posey. We’re also the ones who help families find solutions to their problems. Remember, our job is to help facilitate the best outcome always. Sometimes, like with the Millers, we have to take the drastic steps to save the children.”
I scrubbed my face. “I feel... Lost. Rudderless. Almost as if any decision I make will be the wrong one.”
Darcy nodded. “I’ve been there, and I have the shirt to prove it.”
“So, what do I do?” I sagged into the couch, more confused now than when my mom walked in the door.
My mom shrugged. “Ask yourself whether you’re this angry because Hunter accepted a child who wasn’t his? Or is your anger more directed at Hunter because he didn’t hesitate to help a child in need, but no one did the same for you at Destiny’s age?”
“Are you saying I’m jealous of a baby?” I couldn’t believe what she said. I’d never begrudge a child a home. I understood what it was like to go without. Destiny deserved the world. Still, Hunter wasn’t her father, and he shouldn’t be the one to care for her, no matter what his intentions are.
“I’m saying you have tons of resentment built up inside of you. You’ve spent years trying to acknowledge your issues and figure out solutions. Posey, you’ve never really dealt with your fears of abandonment. You’re so focused on fixing other people’s problems, you haven’t even seen the elephant in the room,” she said.
“Are you saying the elephant in the room is Hunter’s taking care of Destiny, and I’m trying to rip her away and give her to someone who might not want her?” I wish my mom would tell me what the hell she meant. If anything, I was more confused now than when she walked through the door.
“I’m saying you’re the elephant,” Darcy said. “You don’t like liars, but you lied to us. You don’t believe Hunter should be with a child who isn’t his, but you can’t find any family for her. You were all set to be a mom to a little girl you adore, and Hunter adores, but you overheard a conversation you shouldn’t have and now you’re having second thoughts.”
“It’s my job to second guess everything,” I snapped. “How can I protect Destiny if I only have half-truths? How can I make sure her life is better without exploring every avenue? What if I allow Hunter to continue to be Destiny’s father, and ten years from now or twenty, her actual family steps forward and tries to claim her?”
“But you just said neither of you has found any family, or was I mistaken?” Darcy hedged. “Are you afraid whoever you find would snatch her away, and you’d never see her again?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. I didn’t have those answers. If what Hunter said had been correct, there wasn’t any family for Destiny, only him and his siblings—me, too. Had I not screwed everything up? Then what?
“Baby,” my mother said, “I can’t tell you what the correct path is for this situation you’ve stumbled into. Perhaps you need to find the answers for yourself before you make rash decisions. Hunter has to be sick with worry. If half of what you’ve said is what Hunter is going through, they have piled his plate high for longer than he knew you existed. Sounds like he’s a good man with a big heart. Doesn’t his deeds have some baring on how you treat him?”
“So, I should just brush aside the lies and forgive him?” I tilted my head. “Chalk it up to him wanting to protect a baby, so it’s okay?”
“I’m not saying you have to. What I am saying is this: you don’t know what he went through while he was undercover. He said he had a good reason to want to keep Destiny, and he was trying to save her mother. Sometimes, even the wrong choices in life are the right ones in certain situations. This is one of those situations.”
I grabbed a nap after my mom left and slept the day away. By the time I cracked my eyes back open, it was late, and I still needed to eat dinner.
Instead of helping me heal or telling me what I wanted to hear, she made me think about everything. Right or wrong didn’t matter with Hunter and Destiny. My feelings also didn’t matter. The crux of the situation was a little girl who, as far as everyone was concerned, including me, didn’t have any family. I didn’t doubt for a minute Hunter wasn’t looking. If he didn’t think she had any, nor did Mack’s PI, well, taking her away from Hunter would make her a permanent ward of the state. Destiny, like me, would bounce from foster house to foster house.
As much as I wanted to believe all babies were adopted quickly, with her history of having drug-addicted parents and being left as she’d been, people shied away from children like her... Like us. Did I honestly want to see Destiny go through the same things I’d gone through over the years and hope someone would adopt a battered sixteen-year-old?
The best place for her was with Hunter.
As I lay there in bed, tossing and turning, trying to come up with a solution for Destiny’s future, I sent a text to Gail to cancel everything. Hunter was Destiny’s father. He could have done so many different things when I first showed up, instead he stepped up and became the father of a child in need.
However, Hunter and me... I couldn’t say what the right thing to do was. I’d lashed out at him. Hurt him. I said things that, though they were true, could cut even the biggest man down to the quick. There might not be an “us” anymore, but I hoped in time he would accept my apology for being so damn hardheaded. So straight and narrow, I couldn’t see his gray. Because in this situation, Hunter was the middle of the line gray.
Once I set my alarm, I put my phone on silent. I needed tonight to recharge. Tomorrow was a new day. I had to see Tiffany and plan for her children. I couldn’t do that if I was a walking zombie or if my thoughts were elsewhere.
Still, I also couldn’t stop thinking of Hunter. I hoped when all this was behind us, we’d could be friends. Like he said, the right person. Wrong time. After what we’d both had been through, we deserved a little happiness.
And love.
Chapter 18
Hunter
Two weeks and counting since I fucked up my life and Destiny’s. I’d picked up my phone so many times, wanting to apologize again and talk to Posey. So many more times I put the device down and walked away. I knew the ramifications of Posey finding out the truth. I also realized, too late, I should have been up front about Destiny’s paternity from the beginning. Sure, I could assuage my guilt by saying Destiny was better off with me than with no one. Or plied myself with pep talks of how Posey would just make me prove I wasn’t Destiny’s father, which would only cause more heartache.
In the end, it didn’t matter.
I fucked up.
After putting Destiny down for her nap, I grabbed the monitor in the living room and went down to the basement for a lift session. Since Destiny had come into my life, I spent less time down here and more time with her. Right now, I needed to work out some of this pent-up frustration. I figured I’d start slow and build toward the hundred and ninety-five pounds I used to press. No sense in killing myself out the gate.
