Charles and Philip Barnett have settled down to raise their children, but their domesticity is disrupted when Philip's nephew Steve is delivered to their doorstep early one morning after being beaten senseless by his homophobic father.<br><br>So the family grows, but of course, that's the easy part. A rabidly fundamentalist sheriff and a gay-bashing incident leave Steve and his new boyfriend in legal hot water and at the mercy of the deputies' harassment, and Charles must once again take up the fight for justice for his loved ones.

Triumph

“It was arranged through a clinic in Boston with surrogate mothers,” Charles said.


“The two of you must have wanted children very badly. I have a pretty good idea how much that must have cost, not to mention what an impact four small children will have on your lives.”


“As you may recall from my trial, I lost an unborn child when my wife was murdered. When Charles and I were shot last year, we gave a lot of thought to the future and our desire for posterity. In the end, we decided that we needed to have a family of our own.”


“We could both have been killed, and that gave us a sense of urgency, so we sort of speeded up the process,” Charles said. “Besides, having decided to have children, we decided that we wanted to see them grown and out of college before we retired.”


“How do you folks feel about the chance that the defendant might get out of prison early?” she said.


Chapter 42