His Daddy's Eyes

by Debra Salonen

  Bo looked up and grinned. “I doubt if Kee’s even a blip on his radar screen compared to Babe and Eve—now, those two have fire power.”

  Sara wanted to ask about Ren’s fiancée, but managed to fight the temptation. Instead, she watched as Bo helped Brady bait his hook and cast his line into the water. Its bright red-and-white plastic bobber fell close enough to the platform for Brady to cheer triumphantly.

  Sara savored the moment. In the distance, jet skis and powerboats raced on the river’s main thoroughfare—the noise a mere mosquito buzz in her ears. The sun made her drowsy; her eyes closed.

  “You haven’t heard from Ren’s mother, have you?” Bo asked.

  Something about his tone made her stomach clench. She sat up straighter. “Should I have? Ren said she was less than thrilled about the news—but who could blame her? Why? Is something wrong?”

  As if sensing her disquiet, Bo frowned. “Babe Bishop is a battle-ax—I mean, ship. I can’t see her letting this thing go without a skirmish.”

  “What could she do?”

  “Make trouble between you and Ren.”

  “You make it sound like we have a relationship. We’re just opposing sides in a custody battle. I’d expect Babe to be in Ren’s corner.”

  Bo ruffled Brady’s curls. “It’s too damn—I mean darn—bad you two can’t work this out without going to court. I’m not saying this for Ren’s benefit, but I’ve been thinking about it from Brady’s point of view, and I think he’d want to know the truth—I know I would. After that, if Ren is his daddy, then you could work out what’s fair for the three of you.”

  “What about Eve? As Ren’s fiancée, wouldn’t she have a say?”

  Bo’s broad shoulders rose and fell. “Frankly, I think Eve’s a long shot at this point, but that’s just my opinion.”

  Sara would have asked what he meant, but Brady’s sudden cry of joy made her lunge for her camera to record her son’s first catch.

  Although it was a long way from a keeper, Bo made a big deal about the wonderful prize, then he solemnly explained how to release the fish back into the water. Brady wavered, his bottom lip quivering, but after some coaxing leaned over the water and let it go. Sara watched for several heart-stopping seconds until the fish got a second wind and sped away. Brady cheered, ran to her and gave her a big hug.

  When Sara looked at Bo, she was surprised at the tender look on his face. For a man who usually kept his emotions hidden, he couldn’t conceal how he felt about children. Before she could ask why he wasn’t married, though, Bo said, “Who wants to water-ski?”

  A GLANCE AT THE SPEEDOMETER made Ren ease his foot off the gas. He purposely relaxed his fingers on the steering wheel and filled his lungs with a deep, calming breath. His stomach still churned from the mixture of political rhetoric, rich food and poisoned glances courtesy of his mother and fiancée. Babe had been outraged that he planned to cut out early from the lavish affair he’d paid royally to attend, but Ren didn’t care. The only place he wanted to be at the moment was on Bo’s houseboat.

  He exited the freeway, thankful for the twenty or so miles of country highway that would give him time to decompress after the rarefied atmosphere he’d just left. Although he and Eve had put on a good front, he was sure he’d seen a few raised brows, no doubt a result of the gossip column revelation that Eve was up for a network job.

  Ren, too, wondered where he stood with his fiancée, but her frantic schedule since her return from New York had inhibited any face-to-face discussion. His one chance to see her alone at dinner the previous evening had been sabotaged by her pager.

  “Sorry, honey,” she’d told him, gathering up her purse and cell phone. “I know we were supposed to talk, but I’ll see you at the fund-raiser tomorrow. I took the night off, so maybe we can go to my place afterwards.”

  When he’d mentioned Bo’s fish fry, Eve’s eyes had narrowed angrily. “Naturally Bo takes precedence over our plans for the future.”

  “It’s not Bo. Sara is going to be there, and she’s bringing Brady. I’ve been keeping my distance to give Sara time to think, but I want her to get to know me, so she’ll see I’m not some kind of ogre just out to steal her kid.”

  “Sara,” she’d hissed, pettishly. “The woman you’ve never made love to but whose child you covet.”

  Ren, who’d already spent a week dealing with his mother’s chastisement, had answered with a sigh. “This has more to do with Brady than Sara, but she’s his guardian. I have to go through her to get him.”

  Eve had leaned close and said, “I talked to Marcella about this when I was in New York, and she said the child’s actually not such a bad idea. If it turns out he is your son, then you won’t need me to take time out of my career to give birth. Right away, I mean. I’d like to have a child of my own some day, but not anytime soon. I have too much to accomplish career-wise.”

  After she’d left, Ren had digested her words instead of dinner. He’d even contemplated going to her place so they could try to work things out. He and Eve had good history together—but he couldn’t help wondering if they had a future.

  Ultimately, he’d chosen to go home instead, where he’d surfed the Internet, learning about paternity issues and DNA testing kits. He learned that no DNA test devised could prove with one-hundred-percent accuracy if a man was a child’s father, but it could prove with a 99.6-percent accuracy rate if he wasn’t.

  Ren glanced down and adjusted his speed once more. The profusion of trees and advent of levees told him he was getting close. Biofeedback told him his heartbeat was speeding up, but it didn’t worry him. He was looking forward to seeing Brady and Sara.

  He’d talked with her several times by phone but hadn’t seen her or Brady since that Friday night when he kissed her. He’d stopped by her bookstore the day after the disastrous lunch with his mother. As Sara had told him, Claudie was in the store on her own. Ren had hoped to use the opportunity to mend a few fences with Sara’s friends, but it proved a bigger challenge than he’d imagined.

  As he drove down the winding country road, he pictured the exchange.

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” Claudie had said, plunking a cup of coffee in front of him. “I don’t trust you and I don’t like you.”

  She’d paced back and forth behind the coffee bar agitatedly, then stopped across from him and added, “You mighta scared me into shuttin’ up when I was working’ the streets, but I been done with that for a couple of months, so you can’t do nothing to me. I know it’s against the law to threaten a judge, but you better believe, if you do anything to hurt Sara, I’ll…”

  Ren had saved her the trouble of naming a torture. “I have no intention of doing anything to hurt Sara.”

  “Taking away her baby don’t hurt?” she’d shouted. Resuming her pacing, she’d orated with all the power and passion of a senator. “What is it with you men? Maybe you think you know about being a mother because you had one, but it ain’t the same for men as it is for women. Nature planned it that way—she gave us more hormones and a bigger heart. You could never know what it’s like to lose a baby.”

  Ren had felt castigated by the young woman’s words. “You’re right. I don’t know what Sara is feeling. I only know what I’ve felt ever since I first learned about Brady. Wonder. Hope. Anticipation. Like I might have won the lottery but I’m waiting for that last number to appear. It’s scary and exciting at the same time.”

  She’d studied him a long time before saying, with a sigh, “Why can’t you just go away?”

  “Because if—and that’s the big word here—if I’m Brady’s father, then he deserves me as much as I deserve him.” Ren had had to blink against the sudden moisture that filled his eyes. “This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, Claudie. I know I can add to his life. I have money put away that could pay for his college education. I could teach him yoga—show him how to golf, how to ski.” Her sudden frown had made him bite his tongue. “Maybe not skiing.”

  Her lips had
flattened as if trying not to smile, and Ren had decided to leave while he was slightly ahead.

  Before he could reach the door, Claudie had called, “Sara called a few minutes ago. She said the car fairy had washed, waxed and vacuumed out the inside of her car while it was parked at your house.”

  Ren had shrugged nonchalantly. “Imagine that.”

  “She sounded happy. Real happy,” Claudie had added, her tone remarkably free of rancor.

  He’d smiled, gratified to know his small act of kindness meant that much to Sara, but it also made him realize how alone she was and what a heavy burden she carried.

  Three gaudy flags, weathered almost beyond recognition, alerted Ren to the location of Bo’s dockside residence. Ren liked to give his friend a hard time about his floating hovel, but in truth Ren envied Bo. Ren’s house was too big and austere; despite his renovations, it was still a long way from his dream home. Bo’s little home was cozy and personal.

  Ren parked, grabbed his gym bag from the seat and hurried toward the houseboat. A quick scan told him Bo and his guests were out on the water in the speedboat, so Ren stripped off the layers of the outside world, pulled on a pair of navy swim trunks, then dashed to Bo’s fishing platform and dove into the water.

  “Ren.” He heard a voice call as soon as he surfaced. A sleek ski boat—Bo’s pride and joy—trolled toward him. Bo killed the inboard engine, and the boat coasted to within an arm’s length. Ren grabbed the chrome railing at the rear of the boat and hauled himself aboard, shaking the water from his hair. Brady squealed with laughter.

  Sara handed him a towel, which he accepted with a smile. The appreciative look in her eyes surprised him and warmed him. She liked his body.

  “So how was your snooty party?” Bo asked, once Ren was sitting down. He gave the throttle a nudge and the boat surged forward, heading for the main channel.

  “Predictably elegant, lavish and boring,” he said, smiling at Brady who was hanging over the side, his hand trailing in the water. Sara, Ren noticed, had a firm grip on the child’s life vest. “The only halfway entertaining part was when Mandy Hightower’s boyfriend stumbled over Edith Sherwood’s walker and sent a table full of crab puffs airborne. I caught one in midair,” Ren said, winking at Sara.

  He helped himself to a beer from Bo’s cooler. The speedboat was one of the newer models that offered wraparound seating. Sara and Brady were directly across from Ren; her bare feet were almost touching his.

  “Did Eve accept her award on behalf of all the little people she had to step on—I mean over?” Bo asked.

  Ren shrugged, his attention fixed on the way Sara’s hair glistened in the sunlight. “I don’t know. I left before that.”

  Bo choked on the soda he held to his lips. “You left? Holy sh—Sheryl Crow, I bet Babe liked that.”

  Ren’s focus was drawn to the way Sara’s slim body filled out her swimsuit. Swigging his beer, he moved to the copilot’s seat beside Bo. “I lucked out. Neither Babe nor Eve is speaking to me. So I have no idea how they feel.”

  Bo gave a hoot, then looked over his shoulder and called, “Hang on tight, Sara, I’m gonna open her up.”

  Sara pulled Brady back and settled him on her lap. Now Ren could appreciate the way her swimsuit displayed her curves. He realized, suddenly, that he liked her body, too.

  “WOULD IT HAVE HURT HER to act a little curious, Bo? My God, we’re talking a possible grandchild—her own flesh and blood. All she cared about was how I’ve jeopardized my future. ‘What will this mean to your judgeship?’ she kept asking. My political viability.”

  Ren’s voice penetrated the houseboat’s thin walls to the room where Sara was trying to get Brady to nap. After their exciting ride in the speedboat—with Ren and Bo taking turns water-skiing—Sara had sensed Brady’s fatigue. Naturally the little boy didn’t want to miss a minute of fun with his big friends, but she’d finally calmed him by lying down beside him. She’d been on the verge of dozing herself, when Ren’s voice had seeped into her consciousness.

  “She asked me why I couldn’t have a normal middle-age breakdown like other men. ‘Buy a sports car,’ she said. ‘Get your ear pierced like Harrison Ford.’”

  “Did she ask for names?” Bo asked.

  Sara’s breath caught in her throat.

  “Of course. I’m sure she thought if I’d dallied with someone famous, she could make that work in my favor.”

  Bo snorted. “You didn’t tell her about Sara, did you?”

  “God, no. Sara has enough on her plate without dealing with Babe.”

  His tone made Sara shiver. She’d heard enough. She rose, walked to the adjoining bathroom and splashed water on her face.

  Her head throbbed from too much sun. She found some aspirin in her purse and took two, then closed her eyes and leaned forward to rest her forehead on the cool mirror. Too much sun, too much fun, too much Ren, she thought, picturing the incredible jackknife dive he’d made into the water—clean and elegant like an Olympian. As she’d deduced from their encounter the previous Friday, Ren Bishop was built with broad shoulders, narrow waist and long, well-muscled legs.

  I have to stop thinking of him, she told herself. Just remember that he has his own agenda and I have mine. Julia left Brady to me—he’s my responsibility. Period.

  “Where’s Bo?” Sara said a short while later, opening the screen door to the rear patio area. She’d changed out of her swimsuit into shorts, T-shirt and sandals.

  Ren was alone, sprawled in a chaise longue. He started, and she realized she’d awakened him.

  “Oh, sorry I woke you.”

  He hid a yawn behind his hand. “No problem. Bo ran to the store. I was just relaxing. That’s the problem with a desk job. If you play too hard on the weekend, you pay for it all week.”

  “You ski well. Jumping wakes—pretty impressive.”

  He’d put on a gray tank top over his swimsuit. He shrugged one shoulder. “I like the water. How come you didn’t try it?”

  Sara walked to the railing and looked at Bo’s speedboat moored a few feet away. Julia died in a boat like that. “My brother-in-law tried to teach me, but I just couldn’t get it. Maybe I’m dyslexic when it comes to skiing. Hulger wouldn’t give up—’round and ’round he’d go trying to get me up. But I couldn’t do it. After a while I just quit going out with them. When Brady was born, I had the perfect excuse—baby-sitter.”

  Ren was silent a long time. “Did it bother you to be in the boat today? It hadn’t occurred to me…”

  She turned to face him. “I had a great time. Brady was ecstatic. He loves the water, and I haven’t made much of an effort to take him swimming or anything. There are a couple of lakes at Rancho Carmel and a nice big pool, but there never seems to be enough time to do everything.”

  Sara bit her lip. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea admitting her shortcomings as a parent to the person who wanted to be Brady’s other parent.

  “He doesn’t strike me as deprived,” Ren said, smiling warmly. “He’s inquisitive, spontaneous, fearless, willful, kind…He really is a great kid, Sara.”

  She couldn’t believe how good his praise made her feel. She smiled back. “Well, just don’t let me forget to wake him. If he sleeps too long he’ll be a bear to get to bed tonight.”

  “Brady?” he said with staged disbelief.

  “He’s going to be two in November. He’s a little boy. Need I say more?”

  Ren’s chuckle strummed a chord deep inside her. She flattened her hand against her tummy, trying to place it.

  “Are you hungry?” Ren asked, leaning forward to push a basket of chips her way. “Bo’s picking up steaks. He said the only good-size fish they caught was Brady’s, and you made them put it back.”

  Sara laughed. She held up her hand, spreading her index finger and thumb about four inches apart to show him the size of the fish. His throaty chuckle made Sara think of rich chocolate sauce. Decadent.

  Still smiling, she walked to the chaise adjacent to his a
nd sat down. She nibbled on a chip and stared at the play of shadows on the water. “Ren, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I overheard you talking with Bo about your mother. Maybe she’s right to worry about what effect this could have on your career.”

  He inhaled deeply, then sighed. “To tell you the truth, Sara, my career is not my career. I’ve heard people say you should wait a year after the loss of a loved one to make big, encompassing changes in your life. My dad died, and a month later I was up for appointment to his seat. I don’t really remember ever making a conscious decision that this is what I wanted to do with my life.”

  Sara was intrigued. She’d assumed every lawyer wanted to be a judge. “What about the money? The power?”

  He sat up and faced her, his feet on the floor between them. “Superior Court judges in California earn $120,000 a year—$10,000 a month. That’s not chicken feed, but—” he looked her squarely in the eye “—I learned the fine art of investing from my father. It got to be kind of a competitive game between us—to see whose companies did best. I like to win at games. So frankly, I don’t need the money.”

  Sara stared at him, mute. Her budget was so bare bones that some months she didn’t think there’d be anything left over.

  He went on. “As for the power…some people might enjoy holding a person’s life in their hands—I don’t. Sometimes I don’t know whether or not I’ve made the right decision. I’m just thankful there’s an appellate court that can correct my mistakes if I’ve made any.”

  His intensity made Sara’s heart expand in her chest.

  “My father didn’t become a judge until he was fifty-nine years old. I’m forty-two. Maybe if I had another seventeen years of experience…”

  Sara felt oddly moved by his revelation. “What would you do if you weren’t a judge?” she asked.

  Ren rose and walked to the railing where she’d been standing. The sun was beginning to set, and his face was shaded. Just as well, Sara thought. I can’t look in his eyes without remembering our kiss.

  “I used to think about teaching. I do a little tutoring a couple of nights a week at the jail. It feels good when a person connects with what you’re teaching him.”