Fathers and Sons (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Carolyn McSparren

  After five rings, the machine clicked on. David’s voice did the standard machine number. The machine beeped.

  As the voice began to speak, Kate gaped.

  “David, dear, this is Mrs. H. How is Kate?”

  Kate dived at the telephone, picked it up and held it to her ear. “Mother?”

  She heard the sharp intake of breath at the other end. “Uh. Good morning, dear.”

  “What are you doing calling David at eight-thirty in the morning? Or any time, for that matter.”

  “Um.” Silence.

  “Well?”

  “I wanted to tell him how sorry I am about his trouble.”

  “Mother,” Kate growled. “You’re lying through your teeth.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  Kate felt her blood pressure top two hundred. “How often do you two have these little chats?”

  “My friends are my own business, young lady. He didn’t divorce me! I managed to forgive him. Took some time, but he was persistent. He never meant to hurt you. He’s very different from your father, even if you refuse to believe it.”

  Kate sank into the wing chair beside the telephone and dropped her head into the hand not holding the receiver. “How nice. I can’t believe this. You never considered telling me you knew where David was and what he was doing?”

  Now her mother sounded huffy. “You made it quite clear you wanted nothing to do with him. But the way he suffered without you—well, I started feeling sorry for him. I always liked him. You know I wanted you to talk to him—try to work things out between you.”

  “So you went behind my back and formed this little ‘fool Kate club.’”

  “We knew what your reaction would be.”

  “No wonder he knew Alec was dead and where to find me. Is there anything about my life he doesn’t know?”

  “There’s plenty I don’t know.”

  Kate groaned. “But what you know he knows. Oh, Mother, how could you?”

  “Kate, David was very helpful to me after your father died. In fact, he’s the one who encouraged me to sell the house and move down here.” She waited a moment, then rushed on. “You were so busy.”

  Kate felt a wave of guilt. “You told me you didn’t need any help from me. But now answer me this. Are you the reason I’m here?”

  This time her mother sounded guilty. “I did suggest it might be a good idea. But I’m sure he would have come to the same conclusion eventually. He’s very proud of what you’ve done, Kate.”

  “And what the hell right has he to be proud of me?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. He’s still crazy about you. Stop acting like such a...”

  Kate heard her mother searching for a word.

  “Such a...such a...lox!”

  That did it. Kate burst out laughing. In a moment her mother joined her.

  Kate sputtered to silence. Her mother waited. “All right, Mother,” she said. “What’s done cannot be undone. But will you please, please, please keep your mouth shut about my business from here on? That is, if you expect me to confide anything at all to you.”

  “Very well, Katherine.”

  “Mother?” Kate asked. “What are you doing for Christmas?”

  Instantly her mother sounded happy and girlish. “I’m going on a cruise! I’ve never been on a cruise before. We’re going to Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. It’s going to be glorious.” She paused, then asked, “Why? Where are you going this year?”

  Kate hoped she sounded as happy as her mother did. “Haven’t decided. Maybe Saint Moritz.”

  “Oh, dear, it’s your first year without Alec. What was I thinking? It’s not too late to cancel the cruise. You and I will go somewhere. Or you could join me.”

  Kate shook her head as though her mother could see her.

  “No, darling. Go, have a blast. And think of me sliding down the side of a mountain on two very thin pieces of Fiberglas.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. I love you.”

  “And I love you.”

  As Kate lowered the telephone, she heard her mother’s voice.

  “So does he.”

  DAVID SAW that Jason had driven his car home and parked haphazardly with one wheel buried deep in the azalea beds. Neva would have a fit. He climbed out of his truck as the front door opened, and Dub strode out to meet him. He brandished the rolled-up Athena newspaper in front of him like a club.

  “Is this true?” Dub snapped.

  David brushed by him. “Talk to me later. At the moment I need to find Jason. He in his room?”

  “Dammit, you’ll talk to me now!” Dub reached for David’s shoulder, but missed.

  David raced up the staircase two steps at a time, knocked on Jason’s door and opened it without waiting for an acknowledgment.

  Jason was working at his computer, and when he saw his father, he stood up so quickly the desk chair fell over backward.

  “David! Come back here!” Dub’s shout came up the stairs. David ignored it, reached behind him and flipped the latch on the door.

  “I didn’t kill her,” he said without preamble.

  “Oh, God, I told her not to talk to you.” Jason backed up against the wall.

  David went to him, but Jason kept the desk between them. David leaned on it so that his face was less than a foot away from his son’s. “I didn’t sleep with her. She was not pregnant with my child. None of it is true.”

  Jason caught his breath. “Why should I believe you? Why would she lie?”

  “To hurt you. I can’t think of any other reason. Good Lord, son, do you actually think I’d seduce a girl I’ve known since she was three years old?”

  Jason’s face turned sulky. “Somebody sure as hell did.” “Well, it wasn’t me.”

  “Then where were you?” Jason wailed. “It was way after midnight when I came looking for you.”

  David turned away and shoved his hands through his hair. “Driving all over Athena County. I went looking for you at that party, and when I didn’t find you, I just took off.”

  “Alone?”

  David walked across and sat on the bed with his forearms on his knees. “I’ve done the same thing for years, Jason. You never knew because you were asleep, or sleeping over at some friend’s house.” He pointed at the door. “Ask Dub. He knows.”

  “He thinks you go to other women.”

  “What other women? In Athena? I don’t know a lot of unmarried women over the age of twenty-five who live here.”

  “After Momma died, every woman this side of Jackson started going after you,” Jason said. “That’s why you built that house, wasn’t it?”

  “No. I built the house for us—you and me.” He sighed.

  “Maybe I should have forced you to move in with me, but you were so adamant about not leaving Long Pond. Adults make mistakes, son, and I’ve made more than my share, but seducing Waneath Talley was not one of them.”

  “How about getting your ex-wife to defend me?” The sneer was obvious, both on Jason’s face and in his voice.

  “Now, that was not a mistake—it’s the best thing I could have done for you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Jason, she’s one of the best lawyers in this part of the country, and she has a national reputation for defending clients she believes in. If you were a jury, what would you think? That even the woman who has the least reason in the world to want to help my son has come all the way from Atlanta to Athena, Mississippi, to put her career on the line for him.”

  Jason’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” David realized he’d hit the right note. That Kate had not come to Athena for that reason was something he didn’t need to tell Jason right now.

  “She does say she believes me.”

  “She does. She told me so in no uncertain terms. And believe me, son, that woman fights like a tiger for the things she believes in.” He grinned ruefully. “I’ve got the scars to prove it.”

  Jason picke
d up his chair and sank into it. For a moment he stared at his father without speaking, then he said, “Was she the great passion of your life?”

  David caught his breath. After only a moment’s hesitation, he said, “Yes.”

  “You still feel the same way about her?”

  “Yes.” He shrugged. “I have no idea how she feels about me. She’s spent twenty years hating me.”

  Jason grinned. “Heck, she sure jumped in to defend you quick. Told me you didn’t kill Waneath, and even if you did, you wouldn’t let me take the blame for it for a minute. Man, she was tough.”

  David felt his heart lift. “How do you feel about that, son?”

  Jason shook his head. “I don’t know. Momma’s been dead three years, and I guess you’ve got a right to go on with your life, but...”

  “But you still feel disloyal.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s it. I just wish it was somebody else.”

  “You’d feel the same way no matter who it was.”

  “Maybe,” Jason said. “You think she’ll get me off?” David hesitated. Again, this was not the time for complete honesty. “Yes,” he said simply.

  Jason sighed deeply. “Okay.”

  “You believe me about Waneath?”

  “I guess.” He frowned. “But if it wasn’t you, then who was it?”

  “Probably somebody she met at college. We’re trying to find out.” He stood, walked over to his son and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t freak out yet.”

  Jason grinned up at him. “You’ll tell me when to freak, right?”

  “I promise. Now, how about you shave off that stubble, take a shower, open the window to clear the fug out of this room and straighten up.”

  “Oh, Dad.”

  “And then come on downstairs, have something to eat with your grandfather.”

  “I’ve got an editing project I’m working on,” Jason said.

  “Designing credits for a TV movie.”

  “Fine. But do it after you’re clean, fed, and this room is straight. Smells like you’ve been keeping goats in here.”

  “Oh, Dad,” he said again.

  “I mean it. You can’t expect Neva to dig out this pigsty.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  David squeezed Jason’s shoulder and walked to the door. Jason followed him. “Dad?”

  David turned and found himself wrapped in his son’s muscular arms. He felt tears start and hugged the boy back. He couldn’t remember the last time Jason had touched him, much less hugged him. David held him for a long moment before Jason released him and turned quickly away.

  David let his hand linger on Jason’s shoulder a moment, then unlocked the door and shut it gently behind him. He stood for a moment in the hall with his shoulder against the wall, his eyes closed. Twenty-year-old secrets and lies were being revealed before his eyes. Maybe exposure would lead to healing.

  He started down the stairs. Before he reached the bottom step, Dub came out of his study, still holding the folded newspaper.

  “That woman sat across from me at lunch and let me make a total jackass of myself,” Dub said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That ex-wife of yours!” He turned on his heel and stormed back into his study, evidently expecting David to follow.

  David strolled after him.

  Dub threw the paper down on his desk. “Sat right there while I went on about Melba snatching you from your poor little dumb wife who didn’t have brains enough to hold on to you!”

  David leaned against the door frame. “Oh, boy.”

  “Did not say a single word about who she was. Just talked about how hurt the girl must have been. You made a pure-D fool of me, David.”

  “You handled that pretty well all by yourself, I’d say.”

  Dub’s face was dangerously red. “What the Sam Hill possessed you? Hiring that woman, bringing her here and pretending she was a stranger?”

  “She’s good at what she does. I knew that if anyone could get Jason out of this, she could.”

  “Out of what? Some little scrape should a’ been handled long before it got this far?” He slapped the paper. “Instead we got us a humongous scandal gonna make Long Pond the laughingstock of the county.”

  “Relax, Dub, before you blow a gasket. Sit down.”

  Suddenly Dub deflated, felt his way around the desk and sank into his chair.

  David rushed to him. “Dub?”

  “Let me have a glass of water.”

  David rushed to the bar and brought him one. Dub drank greedily.

  “Let me call a doctor.”

  “No.” Dub waved him away. “I’m fine.” He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. “Can’t believe that woman let me go on that way.”

  So that was the real problem. Dub hating to look like a fool.

  Dub opened his eyes. “Get rid of her.”

  “No.”

  “I mean it. We’ll hire somebody from Jackson. Don’t want her or that Selig at Long Pond again.”

  David stood over him. The old man seemed to be breathing normally, and his color had dropped to his normal farmer’s tan. “Dub, this is my choice, not yours. I’m paying her. Jason is my son. This is not negotiable.”

  He expected an immediate explosion. Instead, Dub simply waved him away with a sigh. “What the hell does it matter anyway. Damage is done.”

  “I’m sure Kate won’t hold your remarks about Melba against you. She knows you were looking at it strictly from your own point of view.”

  “Should have told me,” he grumbled.

  “Probably, but I didn’t think anyone would connect her with me, and I’m sure she didn’t either. She went back to her maiden name 20 years ago. Then she married Mulholland.” He touched Dub’s shoulder. “Let it go. We’ve got worse problems than a little wounded vanity.”

  Dub looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “Yeah. Like Jason moving to Hollywood and you moving to China.”

  David walked to the bar and opened a soda from the small refrigerator. “I’m not leaving tomorrow. Maybe not at all.”

  “Should be me.”

  David wasn’t certain he’d heard correctly. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You ever wonder why I got my degree in political science?”

  “Good basic degree.”

  Dub shook his head, pulled himself erect and walked over to stare up at the portrait of his wife and daughter that hung over the fireplace. His rage seemed to have been replaced with a mood that was almost wistful.

  “I passed the foreign-service exam first try,” Dub said. He stuck his hands in his pockets and turned his head to look at David. “You got any idea how tough that is? Most people—even if they have advanced degrees—take two, three times to pass.” He poked a finger at his chest. “I damn near maxed the thing.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah. Going into the foreign service. Wanted to see the world, work in embassies, maybe even get to be an ambassador someday.” His voice had grown stronger, but suddenly the strength seemed to go out of it. “Then my daddy had his stroke. I came home to Long Pond. Married Melba’s momma. Went to farming. Never did get to join the foreign service.” He shook his head. “Ought to be me going to China.”

  “I’m sorry,” David said. “I didn’t know.”

  Dub sighed and shrugged. Then he turned a savage face to David. “Jason has to come home to Long Pond. Maybe if you and Melba’d had a bunch of boys, one of ’em could have played Hollywood, but you didn’t. You had Jason. You take over from me, he takes over from you. That’s the way it’s always been and it’s the way it’s gonna be.”

  “We’re not serfs,” David said quietly.

  “Hell, yes, we are!” Dub snarled. “We’re bound to the land every bit as much as some damn Russian peasant under the czars and don’t you ever forget it!”

  “No.” David said quietly. “I love Long Pond. I’ll stay as long as you need me, even if I have to fight you tooth and nail for
every innovation I want to make. That’s my choice—for now. But Jason’s free to make his choices, and if that means Hollywood, then so be it.”

  “I won’t have it!” Dub shouted. “If I have to, I’ll get married again and have me another son, and I’ll damn well live to be a hundred so I can pass Long Pond on to him and Jason can starve.”

  “Dub?” It was Neva Hardin’s voice. She stood in the doorway, her hands wrapped in her apron, an expression of concern on her face. “You come on to lunch now. It’s getting cold.”

  Dub turned blank eyes to her. Suddenly he seemed like a very old man. “We’re coming.”

  “You will stay?” Neva asked David. Her eyes pleaded. He glanced from her to Dub and nodded. “So long as we don’t talk business. I’ll give Jason a holler.” As he passed Neva, she touched his hand. At the foot of the stairs he turned back to Dub. “You and I can discuss this later. Jason doesn’t need any more problems at the moment. Agreed?”

  For a moment he thought Dub would refuse. Then the older man’s face caved in and his shoulders sagged. He nodded. A moment later he pasted a social grin on his face and walked off behind Neva to the dining room.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I REALLY NEED to talk to Coral Anne Talley,” Kate told Arnold Selig over his fourth cup of coffee at the small coffee shop across the street from the Paradise Motel. When he gave her an uncomprehending stare, she continued, “Waneath’s little sister?”

  “Good luck.” He looked up from the Athena newspaper in his hand. “I see District Attorney James Roy Allenby’s fine Italian hand in this news story,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Our boy James Roy is no country rube. I get the feeling he could give any big-city spin doctor a run for his money as a media manipulator. Have you read this article?”

  Kate shook her head. “Only the headline.”

  “The gist of it is that the May-Canfield clan plans to use its money to buy Jason a slap on the wrist for killing Waneath, and that you and I are a pair of legal shysters who will use any trick in the book to get the kid off. You’ll be interested to know that you have just extorted a fortune in California from a poor, harried female doctor for a greedy, money-grubbing woman named Sunny Borland.”