Single Dad Sheriff (Harlequin American Romance) by LISA CHILDS Read Free Book Online

crumpled bills and stacked coins. “Can you take me to Smith’s Sporting Goods?”
    â€œIt doesn’t open for a few hours yet,” she pointed out. “And I doubt you need another glove already.” He wasn’t growing that fast, not fast enough to have outgrown the one she’d bought him two Christmases ago.
    â€œBut I gotta have two.”
    â€œWhy?” she asked.
    He lowered his gaze to the pile of coins. “I just do…” His mouth tightened into that little stubborn line she knew so well. Asking him any other questions would be pointless.
    â€œAfter breakfast,” she said, “we’ll go into town and check out the sales at Smith’s.” If she could afford it, she tried to give Tommy what he asked for, especially since he usually asked for so little. Except the one thing she couldn’t risk giving him…
    Â 
    â€œD O I NEED TO COME to Chicago?” Chance asked as he paced the sidewalk outside the storefronts on Main Street.
    â€œWe don’t have a hearing with the judge yet,” Trenton Sanders replied. “All the meetings have been between your ex’s lawyer, me and the mediator.”
    â€œMaybe that’s the problem,” Chance said. “Maybe I just need to talk to Robyn myself.”
    â€œShe refuses to talk to you or let you speak with the boy anymore,” the lawyer reminded him, his voice rough with the same impatience that tore Chance up inside.
    When he’d filed for full custody, Robyn had cut off all communication between him and Matthew. At least when he was in Afghanistan, he’d been able to talk to his son through letters and e-mails when he’d had Internet access.
    â€œShe’s being unreasonable.” He never would have believed the smart, funny woman he’d married so many years ago could be so bitter and spiteful. Especially when he’d done nothing to deserve her anger. Like he’d promised his son, he’d come home from Afghanistan without a scratch. He glanced down at the ridges of healing skin on his arm. All those years as a police officer and then a detective in Chicago, he’d never been hurt, either. Until a damn cat took him out in sleepy Forest Glen.
    â€œThe mediator has told her lawyer that she’s being unreasonable and that’s what she’ll report to the judge. Then we’ll get a custody hearing scheduled, and you’ll need to come to Chicago for that.”
    Chance expelled a ragged sigh of relief. “Good. When will all this happen?”
    A sigh rattled through the phone, echoing his. “Her lawyer asked for the chance to confer with her client and then meet with the mediator one last time before it’s turned over to the judge.”
    â€œIt’s just another delaying tactic,” Chance argued. “Robyn and her lawyer have been dragging this out for months now—months I’m losing of my son’s life.”
    â€œI know. I’m sorry.”
    â€œReally?” he challenged Trenton. He couldn’t unleash his temper on the person he was actually angry with, since she refused to talk to him. “All these delays are adding hours to my bill. Hell, I should go. Every minute I talk to you is costing me.”
    â€œDamn it, Chance, that’s not fair, and you know it,” his former platoon sergeant and long-time friend reminded him. “Hell, I don’t even want to bill you. You’re the one insisting on paying me.”
    â€œYeah,” Chance said, glancing into the window of the store as he paced in front of it. His attention was drawn to the bright red hair of the only two customers. “I don’t want to owe you.”
    â€œHey, I’m the one who owes you, and I’ll never be able to pay you back.”
    â€œTry,” he urged his friend. “Get my son back for me, and we’ll be even.” He clicked off the cell phone without another word, just as Jessie Phillips