“How plain?”
“No sauce,” the boy said. “Just cheese.”
Galvanized into action, Callum transferred the pasta to a glazed bowl and poured the tomato sauce into a separate container. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll serve the sauce on the side and you can suit yourselves. Do they eat salad?”
“Surprisingly, yes.” Jody wasn’t sure how she’d been lucky enough to get children who liked vegetables. “As long as it has ranch dressing.”
They gathered around the table. Callum and the boys bowed their heads while Jody said a prayer, and she was pleased to see her sons minding their manners as they ate. That didn’t prevent a fair amount of tomato sauce from spattering across Ben’s shirt, but since it was already bound for the laundry, she didn’t care.
As the twins chattered about the new puppy, Callum stared from one boy to the other, wearing a puzzled half smile. Jody admired the way he’d kept his poise after being hit with a revelation that would have sent many men into either a towering rage or a mad scramble for the exit.
“Freddy asked Gladys whose car was in front of the house,” Ben said between mouthfuls of salad. “She told him Mommy had a handsome visitor.”
“Who’s Freddy?” Callum had mastered the art of twirling his pasta smoothly around his fork, while Jody’s spaghetti kept slipping off her utensils. Finally she gave up and chopped it into pieces.
“Freddy Fallon is our full-time assistant,” she answered. “He lives in the bunkhouse next to Gladys’s place, past the machine shop.” Because of the unpredictable hours and the distance from town, it was customary for full-time employees to live on the property. “He’s one of those fellows I mentioned in my essay.”
“One of your admirers?” Callum’s jaw jutted forward.
“You could call him that. We went square dancing once.” Jody had agreed in hopes of pacifying the man, who’d been tagging after her like a lovesick hound. It hadn’t worked.
“He’s got a brother,” Jerry said. “Frank works on Mr. Widcomb’s ranch.”
“Frank likes Mommy, too.” Ben helped himself to more spaghetti from the bowl, trailing a few strands across the table. When he reached for the sauce, Jody grabbed it first and ladled it onto his plate.
“Who else likes your mommy?” Callum asked.
“Everybody likes Mommy,” Jeremy said.
“Mr. Landers from the newspaper brings her flowers,” Ben said.
Callum’s eyebrows shot up. “Old Mr. Landers? He must be nearly seventy.”
“No, his son, Bo,” Jody said. “Don’t you remember him? He was a year behind us in high school.”
“That’s right, he worked on the school paper.” Callum drummed his fingers on the table. “Skinny kid with braces, wasn’t he?”
Bo had improved with age, Jody reflected. Although his gangly lope and gee-whiz style of talking were no match for Callum’s smoothness, he was the most interesting single man in Everett Landing, and he clearly cared about her. Sometimes she’d wondered if that might be enough.
“He took over the newspaper after his dad retired,” she said. “He’s a good friend.”
“Who else?” Callum asked.
“Who else what?”
“Who else is after you?” He’d stopped making any effort to eat.
“Mr. Lamont invited Mommy to one of his parties,” Ben piped up.
Jody felt her cheeks grow hot. Andy Lamont, a pretentious newcomer from the East Coast who’d sold his high-tech stocks at the right moment, was known for strutting around his ranch in glitzy cowboy gear and throwing wild parties for out-of-town friends. “I didn’t go.”
“Gladys said it was going to be an or-gee,” Jerry added. “What’s an or-gee? She wouldn’t tell us.”
“Who is this guy?” Callum’s tone took on a harder edge.
“He’s nobody,” Jody said. “Believe me.”
“An or-gee is a party with lots of food,” Jerry said.
“How do you figure that?” she asked, grateful for the distraction.
“People offer you two pies. You go, ‘Oh, gee, I can’t pick,”’ her son explained.
Ben wrinkled his nose. “I’d say, ‘Or, gee, I’ll have both.”’
Callum’s expression mellowed. “I like their style! Speaking of pie, what’s for dessert?”
Jody was tempted to deny having any, just to tease, but she couldn’t bear to crush the three hopeful looks beaming her way from around the table. “Cookies.”
“What kind?” Callum asked.
“Chocolate chip with pecans.”
“I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
“This isn’t heaven,” Jerry said solemnly. “Heaven’s where Grandma and Grandpa went.” He pointed toward the ceiling.
“You’re right.” Callum didn’t say much after that, letting the boys’ chatter eddy around him as they finished dessert. He kept watching them, as if fascinated. Or shell-shocked, perhaps.
Once the pair began yawning, Jody excused herself to bathe them and put them to bed. “Mommy?” Jeremy asked sleepily as she tucked him into the lower bunk. “Who’s Callum?”
She stroked his hair and slipped her free arm around Ben, who nestled beside her. “Remember when you asked me if you had a father, and I said you did but he was far away?” Two tousled heads bobbed in accord. “You asked when he was coming home and I said some daddies don’t ever come home.”
“Like Joey’s,” Ben said. A Sunday school friend, Joey lived with his divorced mother and never saw his father.
“Kind of,” she agreed. “Well, Callum’s your father.”
“Really?” Ben said. “That’s why he looks like us?”
“That’s why,” she confirmed.
Both boys started shifting around, as if they couldn’t find the words to express themselves and needed to move. Then they pelted her with questions. Why had their daddy been gone so long? Was he going to live here now?
She answered as best she could. “He’s here for a visit. Then he’s going back to Los Angeles. That’s where he works and he has to live there. He’s been really, really busy until now. I hope we’ll see him more often now, but he can’t move to the ranch.”
Surely they’d stay in touch, now that Callum knew the truth. At least, she hoped so.
“I like him,” Ben told her. “I always wanted a daddy.”
“He’s okay, I guess,” Jerry said. “But we’re your little men, aren’t we, Mommy?”
“You sure are.” She hugged them both. “Forever and ever.”
When they were both under the covers, Jody turned out the lights and paced toward the living room. She wasn’t looking forward to facing Callum’s questions, not one little bit.
CHAPTER THREE
HE WAS A FATHER. It was amazing. Wonderful. Scary.
Alone on the couch, Callum tried to sort out how he felt. His first reaction had been an indescribable thrill as he gazed down at those two little fellows who could have posed for his own childhood photos.
Over the years, Callum had considered it irritating when a friend brought a child to dinner because he spent the meal getting interrupted, peppered with nonsensical questions and kicked in the shins. Yet tonight, he’d enjoyed the boys’ liveliness and the twists and turns of their thinking. Was it because they belonged to him? Or were they simply, as he suspected, exceptional human beings?
He wished he’d seen them as babies. Leaning back, he tried in vain to picture the two of them as newborns. His mind just couldn’t shoehorn all that alertness and those full-blown personalities into such tiny packages.
Imagining the future proved easier. He could see the three of them rollerblading at the beach, weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic on the promenade. They’d enjoy Disneyland, and when they were older he could take them to the Page Museum to see the prehistoric beasts from the La Brea Tar Pits.
The details of how he and Jody were going to arrange things remained fuzzy. As a father, he knew he ought to take charge of the situati
on, but he wasn’t quite clear yet on what the situation was. Callum decided to play this one by ear.
Even with his eyes closed, he felt Jody’s nearness the moment she entered the kitchen from the bedroom wing. When he opened his lids, the air shimmered as she eased into an upholstered chair across from him.
“So how angry are you that I kept them a secret?” she asked. “On a scale from one to ten?”
“I’m not angry.” Callum realized it was true. He supposed he ought to feel cheated because he hadn’t been here for the twins’ infancy. He had no illusions about his own unreadiness for parenthood when he was twenty-four, however. He’d have done his best, but he was honest enough to acknowledge that he might not have been able to provide as much stability as the elder Reillys. “You’ve done a great job under difficult circumstances.”
“Would you have preferred it if I’d gone on keeping them a secret?” She twisted her hands together.
“No, of course not.” He wished she were sitting closer so he could take her hands to reassure her. They were cute hands, with plump fingers and short, clear nails.
She crossed her denim-clad legs. “They asked about you just now. I explained that not all daddies live with their children and that we might see you occasionally. Was that all right?”
“Of course you’ll see me.” He had no hesitation on that point. “I’ll be paying my share of their expenses, too.”
“We don’t need your money!” She squared her shoulders.
Callum understood about pride. He’d grown up on a tight budget, helping out at his parents’ store and earning extra money with odd jobs. “Maybe not, but I’d like to provide them with extras. Kids grow fast, or so I hear, and there must be a lot they’ll need once they start school. Don’t forget about college, either.”
“I haven’t given it any thought,” Jody admitted. “I’ve been taking life one day at a time since they were born.” She waved one hand. “That isn’t a criticism.”
“You mean you’re not complaining about the fact that I got you pregnant and hijacked the course of your life?”
“You didn’t do it on purpose,” Jody said. “Besides, I could have told you.”
That brought them to the sticking point. “Why didn’t you?” Callum asked.
“It would have killed you to come back here and give up your dreams.”
He supposed she was right. It wouldn’t have had to happen that way, though. “I invited you to California.”
“We’d have ended up hating each other,” Jody said. “Besides, I don’t belong in California.”
She belonged there as much as anyone he’d ever met! “Do you think there’s a panel of judges that rates people who want to move to the Golden State?” Callum asked in amusement.
“Don’t make fun of me!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” The hurt in her eyes filled him with remorse. “Please tell me why you don’t think you’d fit in L.A.”
“I’m not glamorous.” A narrowing of her eyes warned him not to interrupt. “I neither know nor care what the latest styles are, and neither do my kids. They’ve got lots of learning opportunities here, and a lot of emotional ties. Besides, I have a responsibility to the ranch.”
“Surely your parents never meant to chain you to it,” Callum said. “If you want to come with me, you should.”
“You’re asking me to join you now?”
“Sure.” He hadn’t known he was going to say that or considered the consequences, but it made sense. Besides, he was a father now. He had responsibilities.
“What happens then?” Jody demanded. “If I go to California, what’s our relationship going to be?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead.” Flying by the seat of his pants had always been in Callum’s nature. If he’d stopped to weigh every possible angle, he might never have launched Family Voyager. “We’ll work it out. Trust me, Jody. I won’t let you down.”
Her long hair whipped through the air as she shook her head. “I took charge of my fate five years ago and I’m sticking with what I know. You’re a great guy, Callum, but I need someone down to earth, more of a homebody. Like one of the guys I mentioned in my entry.”
Wait a minute. She wasn’t seriously considering marrying one of those fellows, was she? “I thought they were a pain in the neck.”
“Sometimes,” Jody admitted. “But people can grow on each other.”
“I could be a pain in the neck if that’s what appeals to you,” he teased.
“You already are!” At least she smiled when she said it.
“You have to give me a chance,” Callum said. “Remember, I just learned I’ve got two sons. It may take me a while to formulate a plan.”
“I don’t want anybody making plans for me,” Jody answered fiercely. “I’ll make my own plans. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve had a long day and I’ve got some paperwork to do. I’ll show you where you can bunk.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. “You’re not sticking me out in the machine shop with Gladys, are you?”
Her laughter flowed around him in a warm current. “Gladys doesn’t sleep in the machine shop! She has her own house. And no, I meant you could use the spare bedroom.”
After being shown to a small bedroom off the hallway, Callum unpacked his suitcase and set up his laptop. Jody had explained that he would share a bathroom with the boys, while the master bedroom and her office were located off the living room. Although that was too far away for Callum’s taste, at least he got to be near his sons.
Fortunately, there was a phone line in the room, which meant he could read his e-mail and hook up with the Internet while talking on his cell phone. Eight o’clock in Texas was six in California. Tisa might still be in her office.
In a few minutes, Callum was immersed in work as if he’d never left.
“WOW. DO YOU HAVE any good games on your computer?” The little boy stood in the doorway, blond hair rumpled, blue eyes wide. His pajamas had cartoon robots printed on them.
Tearing himself away from his editing, Callum searched for a clue to the twin’s identity. At dinner, the boys’ different-colored shirts had made it easy to tell them apart, but which… Aha! The robots were red.
“There’s a few games, Ben, but I use the computer mainly for working,” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?”
The four-year-old climbed onto Callum’s lap as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do. “I’m not sleepy.”
He closed his file. He’d been working for two hours and deserved a break, anyway. “Let’s see what we can find.” A few clicks later, a Roman centurion appeared on the screen. “My goodness. Where did he come from?” he joked.
His son felt warm and solid on Callum’s lap as he snatched the mouse. “I want to play!”
“Do you know this game?”
“Yeah.” The little boy worked the mouse eagerly. Although it soon became apparent that he had no idea of either the rules or the strategy, he had good aim. “Yay! I wiped him out!” he crowed as a hairy Visigoth bit the dust.
“You sure did.” It occurred to Callum that Jody might not appreciate his encouraging Ben to commit mayhem. “I think that’s enough for one night.”
“Okay.” His son gave him the mouse.
“Are you always this cooperative?”
“Mostly. Jerry’s not.” Ben nestled against Callum’s chest. “He doesn’t like you.”
This was news. “Why not?” he asked. “I’m such a likable guy.”
A sigh greeted this blatant play for sympathy. “He says he can take care of Mommy. I want a daddy.”
Callum wrapped his arms around the boy. He didn’t want to make promises, not yet. Having barged into his family’s lives without warning, he had no right to try to change everything to suit himself.
Although he hadn’t deliberately abandoned them, five years ago he’d been so absorbed in trying to make a go of his Web site that he’d only called Jody once after
he got home, and hadn’t pressed to make sure she felt all right about what had happened between them. Maybe if he had, she’d have told him the truth. At the very least, he didn’t want to upset the delicate balance she’d achieved in his absence.
“You do have a daddy,” he told Ben. “I’m him, and from now on I’m going to see you as often as I can. But my magazine is based in Los Angeles, which is a long ways from here.”
“You can take a plane,” said his son.
“You mean commute long-distance? It’s a bit far,” Callum said.
The child yawned and snuggled closer. “We need a daddy who lives around here.”
Callum frowned. “Anyone in particular?”
Ben didn’t answer. Apparently he’d fallen asleep between one breath and another.
As Callum carried his son across the hallway and tucked him into the top bunk, his mood darkened. He’d only just discovered that he had a family. He wasn’t about to lose them to some Johnny-on-the-spot.
The key was to get rid of those other guys before Jody foolishly married one of them. All he lacked was a plan.
By morning, he intended to come up with one.
JODY AROSE EARLY, downed a bowlful of cereal and went about tending the animals with Freddy’s help. Usually Louise came by to fix breakfast and watch the boys, but Jody had given the girl the day off, assuming Callum would want to fill that role.
In their stall, Elsie and Half-Pint had settled into wary mutual toleration, she was pleased to note. At least one relationship was on track around here.
It was several hours later before Jody returned to the big house. In the play yard, Ben dug in the sandbox while Jerry swung as high as he could on the swing set.
Gladys, taking a break from her own chores, sat on the side patio sharing a cup of coffee with Callum. Designer jeans and a denim jacket highlighted his lithe body and, in the bright sunlight, he seemed to glow from within.
Usually, the forewoman treated male visitors the way she treated stray dogs, with casual tolerance punctuated by the occasional sharp command. It surprised Jody to hear her laughing freely.
Tall, with her light-brown hair pulled into a ponytail, Gladys looked like what she was: a woman who’d grown up on a ranch. The daughter of a foreman, she’d married a man who owned a small spread and treated her little better than a hired hand. When they split up, she’d taken their daughter and set out on her own.
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