Michael's Father (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Melinda Curtis

  “I’m worried about Sophia, too.” Blake took a guess that this latest mood swing hung on Sophia’s failing health. “I could use a hug about now, Jenny Lou.” It was his final bit of ammo. Jenny Lou. Their mother’s version of Jennifer’s given name, Jennifer Louise. Blake had begun calling her that eight years ago after Kevin and Mary Austin were killed in a car crash on Interstate 80. Blake had been twenty-two, just starting his junior year at the university in Davis. Jennifer had been only four years old.

  After hearing the devastating news of their deaths, Blake rushed home to find a neighbor cooking a truckload of vegetable casseroles in his parents’ kitchen and Jen hiding in her bedroom.

  Blake pushed past the woman, then barreled into Jen’s bedroom, scooping up his sprite of a half sister and taking her outside. The Indian-summer sun had already warmed the late-morning air. Blake sought the old oak tree behind the farmhouse, and settled down on the sparse, brown, wild grass beneath the oak’s thick, spreading branches, with Jen in his lap.

  Looking down, he saw Jen’s eyes tightly shut and her thumb planted firmly in her mouth. Rather than pull it out as he’d done on numerous other occasions, Blake allowed the little girl the luxury of whatever comfort she could claim. They sat together under that tree until the sun had set. Neither spoke for a long while. The only sound was the gentle smack of her lips against her thumb and the brush of cornstalks stroked by the wind.

  “I’m never leaving you, Jenny Lou.” Blake never knew if it was the endearment that his mother used or if any words would have reached her, but Jennifer turned her small body into his and started to cry.

  He’d been calling her Jenny Lou in times of upheaval ever since.

  Now Jennifer flew down the stairs into Blake’s arms, practically knocking him over, chasing away the cobwebs of the past, making Blake wish this truce between them would last.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IGNORING THE NERVOUS flutter in her stomach, Cori entered the empty Messina dining room with Michael in tow. Would her grandfather welcome her back? Or order her to go? She squared her shoulders. There was no way she’d leave when Mama had asked her to come home.

  Cori pulled Michael back as he extended a small hand toward an antique Japanese tea set on the sideboard. The last thing she needed on her first day home was one of Michael’s accidents.

  The opulent room, with its dark, heavy wood furniture, deep burgundy and bronze decor and crystal chandelier felt familiar. Her mind panned through dinners with congressmen, winemakers and her family. Back then, her mother and grandfather were nearly always laughing at some story her brother had retold or some joke her grandfather had pulled on Cori.

  Cori sighed. She’d lived here in another lifetime, one she couldn’t relate to now. The long, formal dining table sparkled with expensive china—a sharp contrast to the serviceable Chinette set they used in their little apartment in Los Angeles. A portrait of Cori’s grandmother gazed down upon them, the only warmth in an otherwise impersonal room.

  The ornate grandfather clock in the hallway chimed the hour—seven o’clock. Late for dinner by Michael’s standards but early for the Messinas, who usually ate after a full day of work.

  “There’s my favorite rug rat,” came a voice behind her.

  Cori turned to greet Luke with a warm smile. Cori suspected her brother was wearing the same faded jeans, scuffed work boots and dark flannel shirt he’d worn the last time she’d been home. Five years her senior, Luke Sinclair was becoming a seasoned winemaker. Like Cori, he had the dark complexion and eyes of their Italian ancestors. But there the similarities between the siblings ended. Luke stood over six feet tall, with jet-black hair and a smile that dazzled women from birth to sixty.

  “You didn’t dress for dinner?” Cori asked. Not that dinner in the household was a formal affair, but the only time jeans were ever allowed was during the fall harvest season. Cori still had her red dress on and had finally changed Michael’s shirt.

  “I don’t do that anymore,” Luke responded cryptically.

  Michael squealed with delight as Luke picked him up, then spun him around in a dizzying circle, sending grubby shoelaces flying like streamers around the room.

  “Watch out,” Cori warned.

  “We’re fine.” Smiling, Luke lowered Michael carefully to the thick oriental carpet, keeping a steadying hand on the boy until he stood without swaying.

  “Have you seen Blake and Jen?” he asked.

  Cori met her brother’s inquisitive gaze with a quick nod. All afternoon, she’d battled her emotions for Blake. She always knew she’d have to tell Blake he was a father. Except, if Blake couldn’t recognize his own son, did he deserve to know? Or was that just a coward’s excuse to not tell him?

  Blake wasn’t making things easier for her. He’d been so sarcastic toward Cori when he’d first seen her, then he’d turned coolly distant, throwing her off balance. Just before she’d come downstairs, she’d watched Blake help her grandfather out of a car, noting his patience despite her grandfather’s gruffness. The gesture had melted her heart.

  No matter what she decided, the attraction was still there. She’d lived with the memory of the man she’d fallen in love with for almost five years. That image was hard to tear down in just one afternoon.

  Michael giggled and staggered dramatically, bringing Cori back to the present. Obviously, Luke’s charm didn’t end with women.

  “Thanks for coming, Sis. Things have been incredibly difficult without you here.”

  She blinked back tears at his admission, for her family rarely expressed feelings aloud. “I wish someone had told me earlier.”

  “There was hope earlier.” Luke’s expression turned grim and he looked down at Michael, who tugged on his long leg as if looking for a wrestling match.

  The sliver of hope Cori had been carrying for her mother was rapidly disintigrating. Even though a part of her knew this was the end, Cori refused to believe her mother couldn’t beat the cancer again.

  “Michael, behave like a gentleman,” Cori admonished, making sure she caught her son’s attention before turning back to Luke. “How’ve you managed to spend time with Mama and keep up with your work?”

  Luke scratched the back of his neck, not looking directly at Cori. “You know how it is around here. We’re going from first thing in the morning until dinner, sometimes later. But I stop by to visit her every night.” He shot a look toward the hallway, then back at Cori, a smile on his face. “We’ve got some catching up to do. I want to tell you about—”

  Luke clamped his mouth shut as Salvatore Messina strode rigidly into the room wearing his usual dark wool suit, silencing further conversation. Hard, black eyes took in Cori’s short red dress with a frown. Cori wasn’t sure what would have been worse—dressing down like her brother or keeping the dress, her symbol of independence. With effort, Cori kept her hands from knotting nervously in front of her. This was the moment she’d been waiting for.

  Salvatore’s frown deepened, showing lines etched more severely than she remembered. He finally broke the silence.

  “So, Corinne. It takes death to bring you home. I wondered when you’d remember your obligations.”

  Luke shook his head, shooting a look of disapproval at their grandfather.

  Along with disappointment, guilt washed over Cori at her grandfather’s words. She’d been raised to believe the family came before any personal obligations or dreams she might have. It took her a moment to remind herself that she would’ve come home if she’d been allowed to do so on her terms.

  Cori lifted her chin. She’d done nothing wrong. Her grandfather was the one who’d shut her out. But there were fences that needed to be mended, even if he wasn’t letting her come home to stay.

  “Michael, this is your great-grandfather.” Cori bent to gently urge her son forward. “Shake his hand.”

  Her pride and joy cast a glance at Luke, who smiled and nodded reassuringly. Raising his small hand solemnly, Michael hesitated, then step
ped forward to meet Salvatore Messina.

  Time hung on Michael’s extended arm. No one moved. No one spoke.

  “Playing at royalty, are we?” Salvatore finally said brusquely, glaring at Cori. “It won’t work. He gets nothing from either me or your mother.”

  Michael smashed into Cori’s leg at record speed, then pivoted behind her, little arms wrapping around her bare leg. Luke looked uncomfortable but said nothing.

  “Don’t.” Cori had known seeing her grandfather would be awkward, but was shocked at his icy reception toward her, and especially toward Michael.

  “Maria, what’s for dinner?” Salvatore bellowed, dismissing them as he moved to the head of the elegant table.

  Luke sat to his right, leaving Cori and Michael to sit to his left. After standing indecisively for a few moments, Cori dragged out two heavy straight-back chairs and tried to settle Michael into the place farthest from her grandfather—but Michael was having none of it.

  “Michael, I need you to sit in your chair.” Cori kept her voice low while trying to guide Michael’s little body into his seat, hating that her grandfather observed their struggle.

  “No.” The high pitch of his young voice was adamant. He stared up at his great-grandfather with untrusting eyes, chin tucked into his chest.

  Ignoring the clash over seating, Maria served lamb chops, asparagus, sweet potatoes and sourdough rolls. This seemed to be the last straw for Michael, who had wriggled halfway into Cori’s lap.

  “Not that,” he wailed, his little finger pointing to the asparagus and sweet potatoes. “I want McDonald’s.”

  “He’s a mama’s boy,” her grandfather noted, not bothering to look up from his meal.

  Years of training at the Messina dinner table, where opinions were expressed hotly but rebuttals against her grandfather were not allowed, kept Cori silent, even as her body heated with the need to defend herself and her son. Michael’s warm presence in Cori’s lap didn’t help. Any minute now, she feared she’d break out in a sweat.

  “We took you everywhere when you were a child,” Salvatore Messina continued. “You ate everything. You never hung on your mother’s skirts.”

  They’d joked so much back then, she and her grandfather, each trying to put one over on the other. It was hard to believe this man, or the man in her dorm room that fateful day, was the grandfather who had doted on her during her childhood.

  “He’s only four,” Luke said, receiving a cool stare from Salvatore Messina for his defense.

  “I didn’t have any freedom,” Cori declared, thinking of the one thing she’d been lacking in her highly structured childhood, the one thing she’d longed for.

  Her grandfather scoffed. “You had family. And you were confident of yourself.”

  Had she been confident? Cori didn’t think so. She’d traveled so much until she was eighteen, she’d perfected the veneer of sophistication. Her insecurities were kept hidden behind an arsenal of good manners and a smile that eased her out of most difficulties. She’d reveled in her independence in college and started making close friends, finally telling her grandfather she couldn’t travel or help him entertain during the school year because it interfered with her studies. She’d dutifully returned for spring break, summer vacation and the holidays, finding comfort in the familiar bustle of activity, and the sense of belonging home and family offered.

  And then she’d met Blake, so proudly self-sufficient, so staunchly convinced that he could make it on his own. Little had she known that Blake would be her role model in the years to come.

  “But I guess we didn’t teach you any morals, since you decided to be just another unwed mother, bringing another unwanted child into the world.”

  “He isn’t unwanted.” Cori strove to keep her voice calm, uncomfortably conscious of Michael on her lap.

  Salvatore raised one bushy, silver brow and leaned toward Cori and her son. “You said his father didn’t want you. Maybe because he had a wife?”

  Cori almost refuted his spiteful words, but caught herself. What her grandfather believed didn’t matter.

  “Or maybe it was because you didn’t know who the father was.” Her grandfather flung the words at her.

  Cori’s stomach sank to her toes.

  “Grandpa! That’s enough.” Luke growled at Salvatore Messina.

  “How dare you?” Cori managed to push the heavy chair back from the table and lift Michael from her lap and into her arms, attempting escape before her grandfather said anything worse.

  “I’ll tell you how I dare.” Unrelenting, Salvatore shouted at her back. “It says unknown on that boy’s birth certificate. That means he’s a bastard. When I find out who fathered him, I’ll make sure he knows what a coward he’s been and make him pay.”

  She spun on her grandfather with an outraged gasp, Michael clinging silently to her chest. “It doesn’t matter what his birth certificate says in this day and age. If you ever call him that again, you’ll be sorry.”

  “Idle threat.” Everything about her grandfather was as tight as steel, from the set of his shoulders to the taut lines framing his eyes.

  Cori struggled to keep her body from shaking. How could he be so horrible? How would they manage to stay in the same house together? There was only one person who could make him behave. And then, only when he wanted to behave. So Cori drew on the only defense she had left.

  “I’ll tell Mama. About the choice you gave me.” Cori caught Luke’s frown and ignored him. She’d never told Mama or Luke why she hadn’t come home. Mama had attempted to talk about Michael’s father once, but Cori deftly changed the subject and Mama had never tried again. Cori hadn’t wanted to tell her mother and brother, risking them taking sides and dividing the family just as her grandfather had predicted.

  Cori waited for her words to sink in before she turned away from her grandfather. She noticed his expression sag into something resembling regret. If her grandfather felt any remorse, he had a strange way of showing it.

  Cori stumbled up the stairs and into her room. Completely drained, she sank onto the bed with Michael still clinging to her, his head tucked into her neck. Somewhere, in the farthest corner of Cori’s mind, she’d hoped that things had changed, that her grandfather would accept Michael without knowing who his father was. But Salvatore Messina’s feelings on the matter were clear.

  She fought her tears, not even slightly appeased to know she had a bargaining chip with her grandfather—her silence.

  Cori could never let her grandfather know the truth about Michael. She didn’t understand why he’d kept alive his desire to punish both Cori and Michael’s father for their unplanned pregnancy. His animosity was overwhelming. Worse, Salvatore Messina still had the power to destroy Blake, to fire him, kick him out of his home and attempt to make sure he wouldn’t find work in the wine industry again.

  “He’s mean, Mommy.”

  Reflexively, Cori’s hands stroked a soothing pattern on his back.

  “Yes, he can be, Peanut.”

  “He’s loud. He yelled about daddies.” Michael snuffled and wiped his nose on her dress. “And I don’t have one.”

  This was a phrase Michael used often. Cori’s heart ached over her son’s desire for a father.

  “No. Your father doesn’t live with us.” Recalling Blake’s disapproving scowl, Cori didn’t expect that to change.

  “I want him to.” Michael pulled back so that she could see his little brow furrowed in a serious expression. “Everybody has dads but me.”

  “Lots of kids only have mommies.” Cori smoothed his soft brown hair away from his forehead. “We’ve talked about this before.”

  “It’s not fair. I want a daddy.” Michael threw himself dramatically at Cori, nearly knocking her backward onto the bed. “I want to go home.”

  Cori didn’t blame him. Leaving would be the least painful way out of this. She’d been happy in this house once. Her family would never understand the choices she’d made—the choices she’d been forc
ed to make.

  “We can’t go home until…” She almost said until Grandma goes to heaven, but she stopped herself. She still had hope. “We have to take care of Grandma.”

  “I want to go home now.” Michael flopped onto the bed, sending pink ruffles rippling. “Nobody’s nice. And this room is pink.” He kicked at the bed.

  Cori looked around the room with all her dolls and feminine memorabilia still displayed as if she’d just left for college, as if she’d never grown up and made her own decisions. The pink room held no appeal for her anymore. Why should it offer any comfort to a little boy?

  “How about if you and I decorate this room while we help Grandma get well?” She could pack away the dolls and other childhood treasures she’d never missed in more than four years.

  “Orange?”

  Cori suffered an eye-blinding vision of orange against pink walls.

  “Purple?” she proposed hopefully. Purple could be mixed with pink without too much trouble.

  “Blue,” he announced with finality. “Can I look at my book, Mommy?”

  “I’m sorry, honey. We left your baby book at home.” Michael used his baby book to comfort himself. Having memorized much of it, Michael could tell Cori when he’d cut his first tooth and how tall he was.

  “No, Mommy. You forgot but I packed it,” Michael said, hopping off the bed and running to his backpack.

  She hadn’t wanted to bring the book here. Michael’s baby book was the one place she’d been honest about Michael’s parentage. She’d written Blake’s name on the inside cover where it said “Father.” She’d planned to tell Michael about his father someday, sometime after he started to read and before he graduated from college. Or maybe when Blake was no longer working for her grandfather.

  Cori’s pulse quickened as she realized how dangerous the book could be. If Michael left his baby book anywhere he shouldn’t, if someone picked it up and flipped to the first page, they’d know the truth.