Heated

F O U R ~ H O M E

J A C K S O N

~ ~ ~

"Jackson!" My heart warmed at the excited squeal that greeted me when I opened the door. "You missed out. Noah has been telling me stories and they are hilarious."

I walked over to the babbling girl and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. She had become so much more outspoken in the last couple of days and I couldn't be more proud.

She'd taken an extreme liking to Dr. Francis, or Noah as she calls him, and it worked out great for me because I've had to leave her much more than I would've liked to in the last few days.

This entire foster parent situation was a lot more complicated than I'd thought it would be and I've seen the inside of a courtroom more than I ever thought I would in only four days.

The good news is that the process was drawing to a close. Noah was right, they were desperate to dump Nerida somewhere. So they didn't care much about the logistics of the situation. Immoral yes, but it worked out in my favour. The fact that my lawyer was so persistent definitely helped too.

Michael was the best in the game.

All that was left to do now was for a social worker to visit my condo in order to ensure that the environment was ideal for a child. The intelligent part of me knew that my apartment was good enough for a seventeen year old but I still went a little overboard.

I wanted to ensure that things were absolutely perfect for Nerida, so I bit the bullet and brought my sister down to New York for a day.

Juliette was my younger sister and we had a good relationship, all things considered. She was the only family member that I was still in contact with. I tried to fly her in as often as I could so we could spend time together. However, I've recently been blowing her off. It wasn't anything personal, I've just been so busy with work and the stress was starting to get to me.

I didn't want to start snapping at her for no reason and put strain on our already fragile relationship. I started distancing myself.

So, she was quite surprised when I reached out and obviously couldn't shut up with the questions about the 'mystery woman' who was 'changing' me.

She's a smart girl and quickly realized that she wasn't getting jack shit out of me. I gave her full control over my credit card and we spent the entire day yesterday shopping for Nerida. She helped me prepare my guest room, as well as stocking up on groceries. We also bought some clothes and shoes to suffice until I can take Nerida out shopping for herself.

The social worker came this morning and whilst I was sweating bullets for this evaluation, she just came in, checked my fridge, checked where Nerida would be sleeping, tried to flirt with me and then left.

So I guess it went well?

Now my only concern was getting Nerida out of this hospital and into the safety of my home as soon as possible.

"I hope you had a fun time pumpkin," I said, taking my seat at the side of her bed.

"I did Jackie but I missed you," she pouted and grabbed my hand, placing it against her chest.