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  “Problems?” No doubt they involved Sheryl.

  “I got a call from her attorney this morning.”

  “Again?”

  Matt nodded, frowning. “Only this time it isn’t money Sheryl wants.” Margaret knew he worried about his daughter. Margaret did, too, but they were helpless to do anything but love and support little Hailey.

  “Sheryl wants to give us custody of Hailey. Apparently, someone called Child Protective Services on her. A neighbor, as far as I know.”

  Margaret’s first reaction was to feel elated. Then her practical nature asserted itself. “She doesn’t suspect us, does she?”

  “Oh, no,” he murmured. “Sheryl says she isn’t cut out for this motherhood business.”

  What she really meant, Margaret thought, was that using Hailey as a means of controlling Matt hadn’t worked. All her frustration and bitterness had been directed at the baby. While Margaret had never seen evidence of physical abuse, she feared Sheryl had often left her unattended. That was probably what had motivated her neighbor to call the authorities.

  “She says she’s willing to sign over all rights to us,” Matt said.

  This was what Matt and Margaret had wanted, what they’d prayed for almost from the first. “Matt, that’s wonderful news!”

  “I thought so, too, but I had to be sure two babies wasn’t going to be too much for you.”

  “Matthew Eilers, have you ever known me to walk away from a challenge?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “I can do this and will do it, with a grateful heart. A year ago, I was alone. Now I’m blessed with a husband and two beautiful children.”

  “They’re a handful. It’s like having twins. I’ll help in any way I can, but—”

  “I love Hailey,” Margaret insisted, and she did. In the beginning, she’d wondered how she’d feel about Sheryl’s daughter, but soon realized that Hailey was her husband’s daughter, too, and Margaret deeply loved Matt. Besides that, Hailey was simply Hailey. She was a person in her own right, an innocent child not to be held accountable for her parents’ sins.

  “Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?”

  Margaret had to smile. Not a day passed that Matt didn’t show his love for her in one way or another. A year earlier she’d vowed to love him, faults and all; she’d discovered that the alchemy of marriage had changed both of them, for the better.

  Raising two children, less than three months apart in age, wasn’t the way she’d expected to be introduced to motherhood, but she welcomed Hailey into her home and her heart.

  “We can do this,” Margaret assured him once more.

  “I doubt there’s anything we can’t do,” Matt said with a deep sigh.

  “Together,” Margaret added. She reached out her hand to Matt, who took it in his own, linking them.

  Hand to hand.

  Heart to heart.

  Child to child.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-1759-5

  ALWAYS DAKOTA

  Copyright © 2000 by Debbie Macomber.

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