Blame it on Cupid Read Free Page B

When Charlie’s dad died, he inherited a bundle. Which I suspect you knew.”
    â€œNo, I didn’t, actually,” she said evenly. “I never asked Charlie about money. It was never my business.”
    â€œUh-huh.” Oxford put down his pen. “I’m not trying to yank your chain, Merry. I wouldn’t take on a kid either, unless there was something in it for me. But if there hadn’t been that kind of money, the child would undoubtedly have been popped into foster care from the start. And if blood relatives do show up, you’d better believe they’ll fight for a chance at that size of pot.”
    She felt a little like a goldfish stolen from a tank. Her mouth kept opening. She just couldn’t temporarily get any words out. She’d never take on a child for money’s sake, couldn’t imagine anyone who would. Bruising her even more, though, was that the attorney seemed to believe she was like him, now that they’d put some honesty on the table. At least his version of honesty.
    â€œYou need to understand though, Merry, that Charlie made that trust iron-tight. Or I should say I made the trust tight. No one gets their hands on that money, without verifying that any and all expenses are for the child.”
    â€œWhich is the way it should be,” Merry got in.
    â€œYeah, right. Naturally, there’s an allowance for the guardian.” He named a sum that almost knocked her off her chair. “But typical of such situations, there was an immediate guardian ad litem appointed by the court.”
    â€œYou used that term on the phone, but I don’t really know what it means.”
    â€œBasically the court appoints a guardian ad litem, who functions as an impartial voice in decisions involving a minor or incapacitated person. In this case, obviously, the child. I have control over matters involving the trust and finances—but I have no power over custody details. She’ll check on Charlene’s progress with you. Evaluate how the relationship is working. She has the right to make home visits, to interview Charlene’s doctor or teachers or other people who know the child. And you need to understand that she can petition the court to have you removed from the guardian role if she feels Charlene isn’t thriving in your care…but she will have to prove it.”
    â€œAll that sounds like good sense. Fine.” Merry found herself wrapping her arms tight around her chest. A lump kept clogging her throat. These were facts she needed to know, no question. It was just that the attorney hadn’t said a single personal thing about the child. There was no hint he’d ever even met her. Maybe she was being oversensitive, but he kept striking her as having a heart colder than the Arctic. “Mr. Oxford—”
    â€œLee. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other. No reason to stand on formality.”
    How ironic, she thought thickly. Because she never stood on formality with anyone in her life. But this was one person she wished she could. “If you don’t mind my asking…how did you happen to be Charlie’s attorney?”
    He smiled, leaned back and cocked his alligator shoe against a drawer. “Actually, I was originally his father’s attorney, not Charlie’s. When Bartholomew and his wife died—unexpectedly, in a boating accident—I believe Charlie recognized right off that I’d done a good job of protecting his parents’ assets. I think he also readily realized that he wasn’t good with money himself. He used to say that he didn’t need to have a cutthroat bone because he knew I had plenty of them.”
    Maybe she was supposed to laugh, but all she could think was that now she got it. How and why Charlie had tied up with such a cold-blooded machine.
    â€œAnyhow…” Lee glanced at his watch and zoomed back to business. “The guardian ad litem’ s name is June Innes.