It took a full fifteen seconds for everything to click into place.
“Gibson . . . Gibson . . . this is your dad?”
Wyatt gave her his fullest smile, and when his dad did the same, the similarity was striking. Both handsome, both tall, both charming . . . wow.
“You must be Melanie.”
She didn’t know what to say. “I am.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“You have?”
He winked, just like his son often did, and then his gaze moved behind her.
“And you must be Hope.”
Melanie turned to see Hope standing in the doorway of her room. The hospital gown she wore went past her knees, her slippered feet stood in place.
“Hope, sweetie, what are you doing out of bed?” Melanie took the few feet that separated them and knelt to her daughter’s level.
“I had to pee.”
Melanie took her hand. “You were told to ask for help.”
Hope kept staring at Mr. Gibson. “Are you really Uncle Wyatt’s daddy?”
Mr. Gibson laughed. “I am.”
“Did you teach Uncle Wyatt how to climb trees and build things?”
“Climb trees, yes. Build things . . .” he cringed, a fully animated expression Melanie knew was for Hope’s benefit. “Mrs. Gibson, Wyatt’s mom, hides the hammer from me. It’s embarrassing.”
Hope gave a full-tooth smile. “It can’t be that bad!”
“Yes, it can,” Wyatt said behind his father.
Hope shook loose of Melanie’s hand and grabbed Wyatt’s father’s. “I’ll show you my room. I have lots of presents.”
Melanie watched, slack-jawed, as her daughter took to a complete stranger and disappeared into her room.
“Your dad’s an attorney.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said as he draped his arm over her shoulders.
“And you called him to help.”
“Yep.”
Melanie took a step in front of him and reached both arms over his shoulders. “Thank you.” She reached for his lips with hers and sighed.
From behind her, Hope’s voice was full of sass. “Yeah, they do that a lot!”
William Gibson, otherwise known in the court and judges’ world as Wild Bill, was a tornado. There was no other way to describe how he worked. He kept most of his primary questions about Hope and her safety and security. The barely controlled anger of Nathan and his unethical way of pushing his way into Hope’s life threatened an already frightened child. At least that’s how William worded the papers he filed in order to keep Nathan away until the custody battle could be decided.
Melanie didn’t even want to acknowledge the ludicrous request for a divorce. She, Wyatt, and William were sitting in the corner of the hospital cafeteria close to the end of visiting hours. Hope was entertaining Aunt Zoe and Melanie’s brother, Mark, who had shown up a few hours before.
“It clearly states he is filing for a divorce.”
“How can he do that if we were never married?”
“No trips south of the border . . . too many drinks?” William was half joking.
“No.”
“Trips to Vegas . . . fake chapel?”
“No Vegas, chapels, or anything.”
William twisted the papers in front of her and pointed. “This date mean anything to you?”
According to the paperwork, Nathan claimed they were married a couple of weeks after Hope was born.
“Sure,” she told him. “Diapers, breastfeeding, colicky baby, sleep deprivation. I measured that first year after Hope by the milestones she reached and the hours of sleep I managed every night.”
“No wedding?”
“I’m telling you. It never happened. Nathan was pushing a lot those first few months. I didn’t feel right about it and told him we needed to wait at least a year. If we could make it that first year, I’d give in.”
William sighed. “Yet he told everyone you were married.”
“He did. At first I’d correct him, tell people we were engaged at best. But after a while, especially once it was apparent I was having a baby, it was just easier to go along with him. I regret it now.”
“Your friends thought you were married.”
“I was young, William. I was embarrassed. The lie was easier than the truth. But I promise you . . . I never married Nathan. A girl doesn’t forget that.”
William patted her hand and winked. “I understand. We’ll see what he has to say about the order to stay tomorrow. If he really wants custody, he won’t wait to strike back.”
“What I don’t understand is why. Why now? What does he have to gain by taking Hope away from me? He doesn’t want her.”
“I have to agree with Mel on this, Dad. The man’s about as sincere as a devil offering three wishes.”
“He keeps saying things like I finally found you, and now that I found you. I was never hiding. He always knew where I was, or could have gotten ahold of my friends here if he didn’t have my address.”
William jotted down a few notes on his legal pad of paper. “He’s going to try and say you hid Hope from him. That he couldn’t pay you because he didn’t know where you were. That’s simple to see coming.”
She thought as much.
“Why? I keep asking myself why?”
William put his pen down and started to tuck the notebook into his briefcase. “I don’t know. I have enough to get started on. I’ll have my people track down the alleged marriage certificate, if we can prove it fraudulent, or forged, we might be able to negate all of this. I’ve also got a team working on Nathan Stone the Third, the Second, and the First. We might find something motivating this whole movement. You need to be patient.”