Shocking Sapphires - Ann Omasta Page 0,51
“You can’t do this!”
Concerned about what was happening, I yelled to Avery, “Keep an eye on everyone, okay? I’m heading back to shore for a minute.”
Avery nodded agreeably, so I began trudging toward the shore. Scout started to follow me, so I bent down to say, “You can stay out here with Avery and the other kids, little man. I’ll be right back.”
“Bye-bye,” my sweet little boy said as we waved at each other.
When I got close to Grant, I could see the stress on his face. Something had him terribly upset. I squatted down in front of him and held his hand that wasn’t holding the phone up to his ear. He was staring straight out ahead of him and didn’t even acknowledge me, so I instinctively knew something awful had happened.
Eventually, he said in a seething, quiet voice, “I guess I’ll see you in court.”
After he stabbed the button to hang up, I asked, “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
His eyes turned to look at mine, then, as if he was noticing me for the first time. His tone was completely flat when he said, “Scout’s birth mother wants him back.”
The world fell out from underneath me as my heart hammered in my chest. “What? After all this time?... But she signed that paper releasing her parental rights… She can’t do this, can she?”
My breath was coming in shallow gasps as I struggled not to pass out. Tears seared in my throat, but I was too angry and frightened to cry. Instead, I wailed, “This can’t be happening.”
“I’m afraid it is happening. She’s suing me for custody of him.”
As the sob erupted from my chest, Grant steeled his gaze and said, “We’ll fight with everything we’ve got to keep our son.”
I nodded, wanting to be appeased by his words, but knowing that a birth mother’s rights were often prioritized.
Shaking from the fear icing my veins, rather than the cold, I leaned in to give Grant a hug. That’s when we heard the ice crack.
What happens next? Does someone fall through the ice? Do Grant and Molly lose custody of Scout? Will Avery find someone to love? Find out in Shaded Amethysts, the next novel in the addictive Brunswick Bay Harbor Gems. Read on for a sneak peek of the first chapter…
Shaded Amethysts Sneak Peek - Avery
I was happy that everyone else’s lives were on the right track. Really, I was. I just wished my life would find some sort of direction. My train left the station and was trying to meander through the woods… blindfolded.
Losing my job as a paralegal at Bernstein and Gray, the only law office in Brunswick Bay Harbor, hadn’t been that bad. We all knew it was because I was outspoken about my brother, Alex’s, innocence in his wife’s disappearance when everyone else believed him to be guilty.
But, of course, they couldn’t admit that was the reason for my dismissal. No, it was because they ‘didn’t have enough work to keep me busy,’ despite the fact that I had worked my ass off day and night for two years straight for that firm.
Once it was proven that Alex was indeed innocent in Claire’s disappearance, they couldn’t take me back without confessing that had been the true reason they let me go.
So, there went two years of my life down the drain. Well, not really, because now I was determined to take the final steps to become a lawyer, open a kick-ass practice right here in town, and put those jerks out of business.
I thought about taking a job unrelated to the law to make ends meet until I finish my classes and pass the bar exam, but decided I would get done quicker if I just buckled down and focused on my goal.
No job means no money for an apartment, so I tucked tail and moved back in with my parents. They are paying for my schooling, putting a roof over my head, and making sure I eat. It’s just like I’m in high school all over again, except I’m almost ten years too late.
It wouldn’t be so bad if all of my friends weren’t doing so well. They are all enjoying successful careers, getting married, having babies, and moving forward into their futures, while I keep spinning my wheels.
My love life was rather pathetic before, but now that I’ve moved back in with Mom and Dad, it has withered up and croaked. My parents mean well, but they don’t realize that having to explain to a