Back In The Saddle: Bachelor Auction - Book 2

against the wall outside the bathroom to wait.
He came out a minute later. “As your lawyer, I’m telling you you’ve got a problem with Mandy. She’s not going away, and based on the phone call from her lawyer that accompanied the letter in my briefcase, she’s batshit crazy. I guess he’s been paid so far in cash but is doing this for the big payout when she wins.”
I had no idea what he’d done in the crapper, but he came out all business, even if he walked back to the gurney at the pace of an eighty-year-old. I didn’t like anything he said. Mandy had been crazy enough to lie to me because she wanted my cash and was now back. That meant she was probably crazier than ever.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Claire.”
“Mandy’s her mom, and she’s threatening to exercise that right. She wants custody.”
Like that was ever going to fucking happen.
I’d met Mandy when I was in Helena at the police academy. I’d been twenty-four, and she’d lived in the same crappy apartment building. She’d been a hot fucking mess, to put it nicely. Drugs. Random men. Shouting matches with them at all hours of the day and night. It had been annoying, but I’d been angry and dealing with having to walk away from Sarah. If I wasn’t at the academy, I drank. Often I’d pass out. Black out even.
One morning she’d been in my kitchen making me eggs. Said we’d fucked. I hadn’t remembered a thing, but with how out of control I’d been, it hadn’t been all that surprising. Horrible and a stupid fucking mistake since Sarah had been the only one I’d wanted. The fact that I’d been one of Mandy’s random hookups had been the wake-up call I’d needed for the way I’d dealt with a broken heart. I’d dumped all the whiskey down the drain, carted the empties to the recycling, and gotten tested for any and all STDs. I’d been clean, but three weeks later Mandy had knocked on my door and told me she was pregnant. With my kid.
It had taken a while—a fucking understatement—to come to terms with the fact that I was going to have a baby, and not with Sarah as I’d always imagined. I’d broken up with Sarah because I’d had to, but it hadn’t gone down easy. And then I’d fucked it up even more.
Mandy hadn’t been the model pregnant woman. She hadn’t changed her ways at all. Partying. Men. When her actions had endangered my unborn kid, I’d stepped in. She’d lost her shit, and I knew if I was going to get her out of the picture, I needed to use every bit of what I’d learned at the academy to my advantage. I took pictures. Video of her less-than-motherly behavior.
She’d had the baby without ever having called me. I’d shown up at the hospital and overheard her tell a friend I wasn’t the father and she’d been playing me all along. We hadn’t even fucked like she’d said. It was then I pulled out my evidence, called Kale, and forced her to terminate her rights and give me full custody. Fifty thousand also sweetened the pot. She’d walked out of that hospital less than twenty-four hours after having Claire, paperwork signed, and never looked back.
I became a daddy to a baby that wasn’t mine, officially confirmed later by a paternity test. But one look at newborn Claire and there had been no going back. I hadn’t cared whose DNA she carried. I’d thought she was mine for months, and I was keeping her.
I’d finished the academy and returned to The Bend with a newborn. My child.
Five years later Claire thrived on the ranch. I might not have been the sperm donor, but I was her father. Only Kale, my brothers Sawyer and Thatcher, and Alice, our housekeeper, knew the truth.
I hadn’t heard from Mandy in all this time. “She’s not here for custody. She never wanted Claire. Hasn’t been involved in her life one fucking bit. Why now?”
He looked to me, shifted, and winced. “Cash, probably.”
I sighed, ran a hand over the back of my neck. It was the Manning money she was after. The family ranch was huge. Me and my brothers were set for life between the land and the inheritance from our parents. But we worked for a living. Mannings were never idle.
“If she knows where to find me, even through you, she knows I’m chief of police. Not the best person to extort.”
He dropped his head back on the stiff pillow. “I didn’t say she was smart, but she does have Claire’s DNA.”
“I’ll pay her if it keeps Claire safe and happy.”
Kale shifted. “Yeah, well. You did that once and she’s back. Her lawyer sent papers that outlined that you’re not Claire’s biological father and she’ll fight for custody.”
“Unless…”
“Unless you pay her more. Child support.”
“How does she have money for a lawyer?” I wondered.
His head rocked back and forth in a pseudo-headshake. That made him close his eyes for a second. “She doesn’t. Like I said, he wrote a letter, nothing more. Maybe a hundred bucks. The real payout’s from you.”
I laughed and ripped the curtain back a little more. “I’m the one supporting the child. Jesus,” I muttered. Claire was mine. She deserved a life without Mandy in it. She’d only ruin her. I couldn’t even imagine my sweet blonde-haired child with that crazy bitch. I thanked God often I’d gotten her away from that woman. Claire was off to kindergarten in the fall. Smart as a whip. My little cowgirl. The only thing she might be missing in her life was a front tooth and a mama.
I ran a hand over my face. Sighed. “I’ll call Mandy. Go see her tonight and make it clear she has no case.”
“The bachelor auction’s tonight,” he reminded me. “Not sure whose wrath is worse, Mandy or Alice.”
It was my turn to grimace at how my housekeeper