Michael's Father (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Melinda Curtis

  His child had grown inside that belly.

  Cori lowered her eyes and disappeared into the bathroom, taunting him with a strip of bare skin at the small of her back. She didn’t close the door. He could hear her moving things around, setting things down on the counter and pulling out drawers.

  “Good morning, Blake.” Sophia smiled in welcome.

  Blake felt anything but welcome. With leaden feet, he moved to stand next to Sophia, the guilty defendant prepared to receive his sentence.

  “Ready for your morning break?” His voice sounded coarse to his ears. Sophia knew what he’d done. Bless her heart, she hadn’t held it against him, although she had every right to. Did Sophia know Blake had been kept in the dark all this time? He wanted desperately to ask her.

  Cori pulled out another bathroom drawer. He wondered what she was looking for.

  “I’ve already visited the rest room.” Sophia’s eyes twinkled. She raised her shoulders in delight. “Corinne and I managed.”

  An irrational pang of jealousy froze Blake in place. The only way he could pay Sophia back for all she’d done for him was to help her through this. Hard as it was on him, he should be happy someone she loved was here for her. Yet, this was usually his time alone with Sophia and he couldn’t help resenting how Cori had so quickly replaced him.

  Blake swung his head toward the bathroom in time to catch Cori framed in the doorway. Barefoot, the Barbie-pink of her nail polish was all the testimonial he needed to cement the frown on his face. Any chance of asking Sophia about the situation with Cori vanished.

  If she thought he’d accept her declaration at face value, she could think again. He’d demand a blood test, ears be damned. Any kid could have big ears.

  Cori worked her fingers nervously across the comb in her hands. The need to deny her claim bubbled dangerously close to the surface. Feeling as if he’d shatter if he held it in any longer, Blake turned to go.

  “You can read the newspaper to me,” Sophia offered. “If you have time.”

  Time. If he believed Cori, Blake had been robbed of time with his son. He tried to slow the quick, angry rhythm of his breathing, refusing to look at Cori. Time was something Sophia had little of. Her eyesight had weakened lately. She still liked to hear about the local news and have someone read to her. And he still cherished Sophia’s company.

  With a curt nod, Blake walked woodenly to the chair next to Sophia’s bed, then sat, the flowery fabric cool and unwelcoming beneath him.

  “You’d better finish my hair before that rascal of yours wakes up.”

  Blake stiffened, trying not to watch Cori walk around to the other side of the bed. She climbed up on the mattress and sat next to her mother, legs folded beneath her.

  Blake spent a few minutes trying to read the Healdsburg Tribune. His eyes scanned the words but nothing made sense. Finally, his brain recognized a headline.

  “They found another sharpshooter in Napa.”

  Sophia made a sympathetic noise.

  The glassy-winged sharpshooter was a large variation of grasshopper that was spreading Pierce’s Disease through the vineyards, orchards and forests of California. The disease dehydrated plants, such that, once infected, essentially they died of thirst. Sharpshooters carrying the disease through California’s Central Coast region had already destroyed billions of dollars worth of grapevines. There’d been some infestation in the Napa Valley, but none had yet been spotted in the Sonoma area. It was every grape grower’s worst nightmare.

  “Which winery?” Sophia asked.

  “Heart’s Glen.”

  “Tom Potiglia’s place,” Cori added, intent on brushing her mother’s hair with delicate strokes. “Down by the river. They like water.”

  The unspoken thought being that Messina Vineyards was in danger, positioned as it was, close to the water. It was Blake’s job to make sure that didn’t happen.

  “Any news on whether or not the wasps made it through the winter?” Sophia asked.

  “No,” Blake answered.

  Tiny wasps had been released in several high-risk vineyards last spring, including the Messina property. The wasps ate the sharpshooter eggs, but scientists weren’t convinced the wasps were hardy enough to make it through the brisk Northern California winter. Blake hadn’t seen any since their release last year.

  Silence crept through the room while Blake looked for other news that would interest Sophia.

  “Says here Elizabeth Hurley stayed at the Madrona Manor last weekend.”

  “Pretty woman. Bad luck with men,” Sophia commented with her eyes closed.

  “She has too many responsibilities to make a relationship work.” Cori didn’t look up from her task.

  “That’s no excuse,” Blake blurted.

  “It’s not an excuse. It’s reality.”

  “Maybe she has all these men bedazzled.” He’d never seen that movie of Ms. Hurley’s, but he’d heard about her devil role from Jennifer.

  “Maybe every man sees only what he wants to see,” Cori replied.

  Sophia frowned and opened her eyes. “Is there something going on here that I don’t know about?”

  “No,” Blake and Cori both denied emphatically.

  Sophia looked doubtful, so Blake raised the newspaper between them. A soft sound at the door caught Blake’s attention.

  The kid—his son?—wandered sleepily into the room. If Blake’s calculations were correct, he’d be about four, not three as he’d originally assumed. Wearing character pajama bottoms that didn’t match the pajama top, the boy walked over to Sophia’s bed and stood next to it, resting his head on the mattress.

  “Come on up with Grandma.” Sophia patted the bed invitingly.

  The kid climbed up, then stretched out next to Sophia on his side and closed his eyes again, slipping his thumb into his mouth. His right ear jutted away from his head and pointed toward the ceiling. Lots of kids had big ears. Lots of kids sucked their thumb. Blake and Jennifer both had.

  He’s always been a good sleeper. Hadn’t Cori said that to him a few days ago? Jennifer had been a good sleeper, too.

  Cori reached across her mother and gently rubbed the kid’s back. Her eyes met Blake’s, and he glowered at her because he knew.

  The minute he acknowledged the kid as his own, he’d have to abandon the relationship he had with the Messinas, perhaps even find another job. He could just imagine Mr. Messina’s outrage and feel Luke’s disappointment. They’d all side with Cori, blaming him for her predicament, for surely he was the reason she’d stayed away, although he hadn’t known a thing. Damn, if he wasn’t a fool who deserved what he got. Booted out of a job, banned from this family he’d come to love.

  With Jen clawing for independence, he’d be alone once more.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “DO YOU EVER LOOK BACK on your life and wonder where it all went wrong?” Cori asked, sitting on the floor in the dark next to Luke, who sprawled across Mama’s couch. They were whispering so as not to disturb Mama, and had been doing so since eleven. The clock downstairs had long since struck midnight. As best Cori could recall, it was the longest conversation the two siblings had ever shared.

  “You’re twenty-five, not eighty-five. Get a grip, Cori.”

  “Spoken like a man who hasn’t had children.”

  “At least, none that I know of,” Luke replied with a yawn.

  Cori straightened. It was a perfect opening for a discussion about the decisions she’d made. “Would you want to know if you had a child?” She held her breath as she waited for his answer.

  Luke continued to stare at the ceiling. “I don’t know. I never thought about it before. Part of me is like, eh, I’m not that protective of my genes, so I don’t need to know I made a little Tom or Susie as long as someone loves the kid. And then this other part—and this may come from living in this house too long—the other part of me says I’ve got to marry the woman and provide my kid with a real home.” He yawned again and rolled onto his side, his sle
epy gaze resting on Cori’s face. “You know, that’s not a question I can answer. Maybe you can answer it for me. How did Michael’s dad feel about knowing he created a little rug rat?”

  “I didn’t tell him until recently.” Cori tried not to squirm. The words sounded like an admission of guilt.

  “Why? Did he beat you or something?” Luke sat up, suddenly alert, immediately ready to defend her.

  “Why does everyone assume that?”

  “Well, hell, maybe because the kid is dying for some male attention and as far as I know he never gets a visit from his own father. When you look at it that way, it seems like you should have a good reason for not telling the guy he’s a father. I don’t know of any other reason not to come clean.”

  Cori bit her lip. The only way to be judged fairly was to tell Luke the truth.

  So she did.

  “You really know how to screw yourself, don’t you,” Luke commented later in true brotherly fashion.

  “Oh, that’s very helpful.” She hadn’t told Luke so that she could be made fun of.

  “Okay, okay. Blake’s as good of a guy as they come. You did the right thing by protecting him and Jen. But if I were him, I’d be ticked that you took the decision out of my hands.”

  “He is upset about that,” Cori grimaced.

  “Does Grandpop know?”

  “Not yet, but he will.” Cori dreaded telling him yet knew she’d have to someday.

  “You know, I feel for you, Cori. It hasn’t been easy on you and it’s not going to get any easier. I wish you had told me sooner.”

  “Thank you. I don’t think it would have made much difference in where I ended up.” She was in this alone.

  “Maybe. Still, I’m glad you told me.” Luke pushed her shoulder, then lay back on the sofa, pulling a blanket over much of his body. “Much as I love playing Dear Abby, it’s after one and I need to get up early tomorrow. Go to bed.”

  JEN HURRIED across Healdsburg Junior High’s nearly deserted campus. She hadn’t gotten on the first bus after school because Devon Hamlisch had asked her to meet him out by the track. The earrings had worked. Fast.

  Take that, Ronnie.

  Jen straightened as Devon’s dark head appeared at the corner of the building that housed both the gym and the band room. Heart pounding with excitement such that she barely paid attention to her upset stomach, Jen jogged the last twenty feet to the corner, her backpack bouncing on her back.

  It was just like in the movies. Propped against the wall of the building, Devon looked so cool in his baggy jeans and Nike T-shirt. His dark hair was spiked and he wore a shell necklace. Despite the earrings glittering in her ears, Jen would have felt most uncool in her jeans and thin sweater untucked over her hips, if she hadn’t been the one Devon had asked to meet.

  He crooked his finger toward her and Jen thought she’d faint.

  “Hi, Devon,” Jen whispered in her best breathy imitation of Britney Spears, daring a glance up into Devon’s face as she stepped within three feet of him. This was the closest she’d been to him since they’d been in the same reading group in fifth grade.

  “Hi, back.”

  His dark eyes slid over her body, making her all jiggly inside, despite the fact that she didn’t have anything to jiggle. He likes me, she thought, mirroring his relaxed position against the wall.

  “Do you wanna make out?”

  Jen almost fell over. “With you?”

  He laughed, taking a step closer. He was a few inches taller than she was, so her eyes stared directly at his mouth. His lips were beautifully shaped and they moved. It took her a moment to register what he’d said.

  “With me.” He took another step closer and entwined his fingers with hers.

  A jolt of electricity shot through her. Devon Hamlisch was going to kiss her. He was holding her hand. He wanted her to be his girlfriend. With the warm sun on her back, life had never been so good.

  He leaned forward and, after a moment of hesitation, she tilted her head up. Jen closed her eyes as his hot lips covered hers. His hand nearest the wall settled on her hip. His head moved from side to side, just like in the movies. She let out a tense breath and stepped closer. His tongue pushed into her mouth.

  Eeww, weird. Jen almost pulled away. She hadn’t expected to feel the bumpy texture of his tongue. He’d been eating potato chips and she tasted them, too. If she could tell all that about him, there was no way she was putting her tongue in his mouth.

  Then she was distracted by his hand creeping up underneath her sweater, fingers splayed across her skin and edging toward her white training bra. And there was nothing for him to find in her bra. She should tell him to stop. Now. But his tongue was practically down her throat. How could she say anything?

  She put her free hand over his and gently tried to push it away. Devon emitted a noise deep in his throat that vibrated against her mouth. He kept moving his head from side to side and polishing her teeth with his tongue. His hand moved upward again, resisting her subtle message.

  “No.” Jen managed to break free of his suction lips. His saliva lined the outside of her mouth and she longed to wipe it away, but didn’t dare let go of him. “I’m…I’m not ready for that.”

  His beautiful mouth curved into a sneer. “Then, why’d you come?”

  “I thought you wanted me to be your girlfriend.”

  Devon laughed, not such a friendly sound this time, and Jen felt like a loser.

  “We’re here to have some fun.”

  Jen’s heart fell through her toes, taking the power of speech with it.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” Ronnie shrieked, rounding the corner with Kitty.

  Skyler followed a few steps behind them.

  “Oh God.” Jen jumped behind Devon and discreetly wiped all traces of him from her mouth. She could hear them descending upon her, their footsteps a cadence of doom. “Say something,” she hissed at Devon.

  “We were just talking,” Devon said, but he was clearly not serious.

  “You don’t talk to her.” Ronnie ran past Devon and pushed Jen hard.

  Jen’s head bounced once against the stucco wall. Stars momentarily blinded her.

  “Don’t.”

  Someone moved next to her, almost on her toes. It didn’t sound like Devon.

  Jen’s vision cleared. All she could see was Skyler’s back.

  “Run,” he whispered over his shoulder.

  Jen didn’t wait for a second invitation. She exploded from behind Skyler and raced all the way to the bus stop, ignoring the shouts behind her, waving her arms at the bus driver so that the woman wouldn’t drive away without her. Jen leaped up the steps without daring a backward glance. Then she sank into a seat on the far side of the bus so that Ronnie and Kitty wouldn’t see her, even if they had followed her all the way across campus.

  “I WAS LULLED into thinking I was safe. I don’t remember ever being blindsided like this except by your father.”

  Cori, who’d been playing checkers on the floor with Michael, looked up at Mama’s words. Since their talk the previous afternoon, they’d been more relaxed and candid with each other. Nevertheless, no one in the Messina household talked about John Sinclair. Just as, Cori realized, no one had probably talked about her these past few years. Here was an opportunity she’d longed for.

  “Did he sweep you off your feet?”

  “Oh, you don’t want to hear about that.”

  Mama’s cheeks seemed to have more color. Cori studied her mother more closely. Was she blushing?

  “Yes, I do,” Cori reassured her. She couldn’t count the number of times she and Luke had asked about their father and been rebuffed when they were kids. They’d speculated about him, this man they barely remembered, but soon the unanswered questions had stopped.

  Mama closed her eyes, and for a few moments, Cori thought she wasn’t going to discuss John Sinclair, after all.

  “He was a wonderful dancer. Did you know that all the women on my mother’s
side of the family fall for great dancers? Except for my poor Aunt Francesca. She died a spinster about ten years ago.”

  “I didn’t realize dancing was a criteria I needed to judge men on.”

  “It’s a weakness you should try to avoid. Good dancers don’t generally make the best of husbands.”

  Cori chuckled.

  Michael moved his checker sideways rather than diagonally and swept the last two of Cori’s red pieces off the board. “Check,” he said with a broad smile. “I win.” He wiggled onto his tummy and began to roll the checkers like wheels across the carpet.

  “John had this gorgeous blond hair that he combed back, but it had waves in it that gave me the impression that he was a little wild.”

  Cori ran her fingers through her own blond curls. “So it was love at first sight?”

  “Oh, heavens no. It was more like lust…on my part, not his. I chased him all over the college campus. It took him a year to realize he loved me.” She sighed, a smile coming over her features that lessened the toll of her illness.

  “Why didn’t it work out between you two?” Cori thought she knew the answer, but she had to ask, anyway.

  “I was young. He was young. My father wasn’t.” Mama’s smile faded. “John made me choose between him and my family. Unfortunately, he made the ultimatum when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I couldn’t leave and he couldn’t stay.”

  “You never told me that before.” Cori didn’t remember her father leaving. Her memories of him living with them were vague and fuzzy—a tall man with a loud laugh who gave her airplane rides and chocolate treats. She couldn’t recall any fights between her parents.

  “I thought it made your grandfather look bad. Papa meant well. He just didn’t understand I loved John.” Mama’s eyes drifted toward the window, making Cori wonder if her mother realized Salvatore was behind John’s leaving.

  “I want you to do something for me, Corinne.”

  Cori reached for her mother’s fragile hand. “What is it, Mama?”

  “I want you to find John for me.”