“On their way back to the castle. It’s dark out, you know. Everybody’s been out looking all day. Aiden and I came to work on the dining room and heard the wailing before we hit the dock.”
Harmony adjusted her hoodie to cover her Orgasm Donor shirt. “What made you think to look here?”
she asked.
“We didn’t think of it right away,” Aiden said, “but King tried to get in when we were kids. I was with him a couple of times, but his nanny was strict, and she kept him in tow.”
King closed his eyes as Harmony rounded on him. “You had a nanny?”
“Don’t go there.”
“But I thought you went to a military summer camp.”
“He did, but even his nanny was military,” Aiden said, “with a regime that could kill a normal kid. King got sentenced to two weeks with her here every summer, but he loved it.”
“Will you shut up?” King snapped. “You gossip worse than a woman.”
“I beg your pardon,” Harmony said. “I’m a woman, and I’ve kept a hell of a lot more secrets than you have.”
“Don’t bet on it, Hellcat.”
“You bared your soul to me down there.”
“Wrong. My soul’s a lot darker than you’ll ever know.”
“So much for friendship.” Harmony walked to the castle in a huff.
“I don’t think you’ve ever kept a female friend so long,” Aiden said, and King decked him.
In the castle kitchen, he found Harmony talking to a teenager who was chewing her hair, staring at the floor, and giving one-word answers.
“What’s going on here?” King asked, and the teen jumped.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Did your boat run aground?”
“I’m looking for somebody,” the kid mumbled.
“Somebody here?”
She nodded.
King rolled his eyes. It had been a long day, his butt cheek ached, and his fuse was short, but Harmony put her hand on his arm, and he calmed. Damn, she was using that peace maneuver again, and he wished to hell he didn’t like it so much.
He sighed and tried to look into the teen’s face. “What’s your name?”
“Reggie,” she said.
“Reggie? That’s no name for a girl—Regina?”
She raised her head just enough to meet his eyes. “Daddy?”
Light-headed, King tried to make sense of the rag-bag teen when a little boy, tiny, dark as Regina, peeked around her torn skirt.
“Are you my grampa?”
Chapter Twenty-four
“TAKE them to the formal parlor so you can talk in private,” Harmony said, becoming his voice of reason. “I’ll ask Gilda to make you a snack.”
“This way,” King told the girl, who picked up the little boy he hadn’t answered yet, because frankly, he didn’t know the answer. He didn’t know what his own daughter looked like. “What happened to your mother?”
“She kicked me out when I came home pregnant.”
“Wait, I need to know your last name.”
She stopped. “Paxton. Reggie—Regina Paxton. Are you my father?”
“Your mother’s full name?”
“Belinda Brewer Paxton,” the girl said, handing him her son’s birth certificate with her name, Regina Paxton, as his mother.
King reeled from the knowledge, which seemed nothing compared to what this girl must have gone through. “Yes,” he said. “I am your father.”
“Why did you stay away?”
He took her arm as they skirted the fallen chandelier. “Before you were born, your mother got a court order to keep me away.”
“Figures.”
The girl—his daughter—sat on the sofa, and the boy climbed into her lap.
King sat opposite them. “What’s the boy’s name?”
“Jake. Jake Paxton.”
“And his father is?”
“A senior in high school this coming fall.”
“Jake is what, two? So you got pregnant around . . . ninth grade?”
The girl shrank into herself.
“I thought Belinda would do a better job.” King got up to pace.
Harmony brought in quartered sandwiches and chocolate cookies.
Regina and Jake looked at him—for permission to eat, King supposed, and his heart about broke. “Eat, eat,” he said. “They need milk.” He turned to Harmony, who was pouring a glass. “Good. Thank you.”
He handed it to his daughter.
She gave her son a sip and put the rest aside. He guessed, by her skeletal size, she fed the boy and went without.
Harmony gave him a second glass before he asked. He stood before his daughter. “This one’s for you.”
“Thank you,” she whispered and set it aside.
“Drink it. There’s more where that came from. We won’t run out.”
“Harmony, please stay,” King said when she turned to go.
She sat on the sofa beside Regina and took Jake on her lap.
“Oh, no,” Regina said. “I think he needs changing.” She slipped a bag off her shoulder and took out a plastic diaper thingy, and right there, his baby girl changed her baby boy.
King swallowed the very big lump in his throat and wondered how he’d screwed up so badly. “Where have you been since your mother threw you out?”
“Looking for you.”
As if he’d been struck, King wilted against the chair back. “I didn’t know.”
“For three years?” Harmony asked.
“She crossed the country,” King said. “Belinda lives in Malibu.” A pregnant teen crossing the country looking for her useless father, who could have picked her up in his blasted helicopter in a few hours. “Did you try to call me?”
“Every big city I hit, I’d look you up,” Regina said, “but I didn’t know where you were, and the castle isn’t listed. One of Mom’s former friends took me in until Jake was nearly a year old. She took good care of us, even got a midwife to deliver Jake. She was like a mother to me. A nice lady. But her son came home to live, and well, he wasn’t a nice man, so we left.”
“Smart girl,” King said, an undeserved paternal pride swelling his chest.
“I concentrated on taking care of Jake. Sometimes people took us in. Some good people. Some not.
Most of the time, I lied about my age and stayed in shelters. I look older than I am, and I’m very responsible, so nobody questioned me. ‘Who wants more kids in the system anyway?’ I heard somebody say that, once. I think she was talking about me.”
“Maybe the system would have found me for you,” King said.
“Not before it took Jake away from me.” Her son moved back to her lap, proving how wrong that
would have been. King hated himself for abandoning his daughter to the mercies of a system, overworked on its best days. “How did you manage?”
“Sometimes I’d wait tables, if I found an owner who didn’t mind Jake in the back room. He was a good baby.” She combed his hair with her fingers. “Always quiet. I think he knew he had to be, didn’t you, pup?”
“I was good so Mama could work,” the boy said.
Regina tapped him on the nose with a finger. “I put every dime into feeding him, keeping him warm and safe. I made good choices and bad, but we made it. I knew about your island because Mom had a thing about the castle. She was really mad she couldn’t take it away from you, by the way. So I headed for the only place you ever called home: Paxton Castle.”
“Your mother threw you out on the street and didn’t call me?”
“Evidently.”
“My company phone number is on every check I send her. You should have asked her for it.”
“I asked. She said she didn’t have it.”
The bitch, King thought.
Jake got off the sofa and came to stand in front of him, a familiar hungry-for-love look in his eyes. King knew it well. He took the boy on his
lap. “You got a question, buddy?”
“Are you my grampa?”
“I am.”
Jake looked at Regina. “I don’t have to be afraid of my grampa, right?”
“No, pup. No strangers on the island, just family and friends we haven’t met yet.”
Jake nodded. “Good.”
“How old are you?” King asked him.
“Two.” Jake held up two fingers. “But I’m gonna be free soon. I saw a tractor in your garden. Bunnies live in gardens. My favorite color is blue. I can write my name. Wanna see?”
“No baby, we don’t have any paper right now,” Regina said. “Later maybe.” Her expression questioned his plans for them.
“Oh, you’re staying ,” King said, emotion forcing him to clear his throat. “We have to get the law on our side, but I’ll take up that fight with gusto and with every resource at my disposal, a considerable arsenal, I might add.”
Ignoring the misty sheen in Harmony’s eyes, King ruffled his grandson’s hair, and when the boy’s little head rested on his chest, something in King broke, and he had to swallow hard. “How come this one’s so smart? I didn’t think kids this small talked like him.” King bounced his . . . grandson—wow, did that put life into perspective. “Have you been home-schooling him on the road, Regina?”
“Reggie. He’s eager to learn. At my last job, they called him Baby Einstein.”
“How old are you, Reggie?” Harmony asked.
“Seventeen. Almost eighteen.”
Harmony turned his way in shock, and King shrugged. “Yep, it runs in the family. I was a junior in high school when Regina was born.”
“Reggie,” she said.
“That’s when I changed high schools,” he told Harmony. He didn’t want Regina to know that her imminent arrival had cost him a military school graduation.
His daughter, finally, with him after all these years. He wished he’d hugged her right away. Now he’d missed his chance, and he didn’t know how to get it back. Regret threatened to choke him.
Harmony took Regina’s hand, tugged her off the sofa, and brought her to him, so King got up with Jake and faced her.
Harmony stole Jake with a chocolate cookie, then she shoved Regina his way. King’s arms went around that girl so fast and hard, he was afraid he’d break her, but she didn’t seem to mind, because she held him in a bone crusher. At first she cried silently, then she all-out sobbed in his arms; his little girl, who’d lived though hell while he became a rich playboy with a sailboat and helicopter for toys. He was such a shit.
Through a mist, he watched Harmony carry Jake—his little head on her shoulder—from the formal parlor.
King picked up his daughter and carried her back to the sofa, where he sat with her on his lap, her face in his neck, and he let her cry her heart out. His own tears wet his face, no stopping them. He blamed Harmony for that. But maybe, for Regina’s sake, it was a good thing Harmony had taken a can opener to his ramparts.
He was a first-class jerk. Back when he’d screwed up, he’d been glad Belinda wanted a divorce. Glad to be rid of her. And his daughter? Well, he’d managed to put her out of his mind most of the time, except when he signed the monthly child support checks. Son of a bitch. He’d paid child support for three years while Regina supported herself. Belinda was a shit, too. “You sure didn’t luck out in the parent department,” King said.
“I always imagined sitting on your lap,” Regina said. “I dreamed about it for years, but maybe I’m too old now?”
“Your choice, but we could pretend this is the day you were born, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen you—because it is—and I could hold you for a bit, just for today.”
She stayed where she was. “You never saw me?”
“I went to the hospital the day you were born, but your mother had me arrested before I saw you.
Disobeying a no-contact order can do that to a guy. I came back to Salem when I got out of jail.”
“How long were you and mom married?”
“Long enough to give you my name and to give her the right to a great deal of my money. About two weeks.”
“Wow, you got off easy.”
King chuckled. “No kidding.”
Chapter Twenty-five
KING figured that he and Regina sat on that sofa for a couple of hours at least—her beside him, after his leg cramped—his arm around her, catching up on the years he’d missed: the horror of being potty trained by a maniac, her first day of nursery school—the only kid without a mother in tow. The pigtail years, her first visit from the tooth fairy, the year she stopped believing in Santa Claus, her first crush, her last . . .
and the brutal end of her childhood.
King sighed. “Regina, I’m gonna tell you something.”
“Reggie,” she said.
“Right. This is the thing. You mistook sex for love, and for a love-starved teen, that’s really easy to do. I know, because I made the same mistake. But as of this minute, we’re going to put our mistakes, all of them, behind us, okay? But we’re not going to forget that a lot of good came from them. You, for one, and Jake for another.”
“You’re like the best dad ever.”
“I’m like the worst dad ever, but I’ll change, I promise. I need you to forgive me, Regina.”
“Reggie. And there’s nothing to forgive.”
“Are you kidding me? At the least, I should have sicced my lawyers on the case, once I hired lawyers. At the most, when my company took off, I should have stormed Malibu to prove I could be a good father. I deserved visitation rights.”
“Well, when you put it that way . . . I forgive you.”
King stroked her hair the way she’d stroked Jake’s, loving her little-girl head on his shoulder. “I’ll see my lawyer tomorrow,” he said. “Make us a legal family and tie us up in a big blue bow.” No spells or rituals required, he thought.
She smiled. “Speaking of blue, I need to make sure Jake’s all right.” She got up, and King did, too, but as they left the formal parlor, he put an arm around her shoulder. “Harmony’s taking good care of him, I’m sure.”
“Is she your . . . significant other?”
“No, she works here. Kind of a girl Friday, pain in the neck type.”
“But you’re friends?”
“Yes, we are.”
“Just friends?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. Guess I’m not as mature as you.” He winked.
Regina laughed, a great sound. He’d make it happen often. By God, he would.
They found Harmony and Jake asleep on Harmony’s bed, both with a fresh-washed look and wearing literal-statement tees. God knew what notions the hellcat had already put in the boy’s head. He only hoped she hadn’t read him his shirt. Harmony slept facing Jake, three kittens between them.
“Do you have luggage?” he asked Regina.
She shook her head. “The clothes on our backs and a diaper bag.”
“No problem.” King rummaged through Harmony’s dresser for a pair of shorts and a tee. “Candy Fixes Everything,” he read before handing her the shirt. “I think that’s Harmony’s mantra. Bathroom’s that way. The tub has jets, and Harmony came with a whole suitcase of scented bath stuff; I kid you not. Use whatever you find. There’s a box of new toothbrushes in the closet.”
“I’ve gone to heaven.”
“Hardly. We sleep dorm-style, but I’ll fix that. For tonight, climb in with Harmony and Jake. It’s an extraordinarily comfortable king-sized bed. If you need anything, I’ve got the next cot over. Do you think you’ll be all right in a strange place?”
“Dad, you don’t know from strange, and this won’t be the first time I share a bed with a woman I don’t know, but it’ll be the nicest bed and the nicest woman.” She patted his arm as if to console him .
“This place,” she said. “It’s a castle. Paxton Castle.” She grinned. “My imaginary home at the e
nd of the rainbow . . . come true. I feel as if I’ve clicked my ruby heels and made it back from Oz.”
While Regina was in the bathroom, King sat on a chair and watched Harmony and Jake sleep. He had new priorities: a family. Hadn’t the witch spelled them a family this afternoon? Nonsense. Regina had been traveling for a year.
Wow, he had a daughter and a grandson. A bright grandson . . . who would not be going off to some boarding school for gifted children. They’d find a school near home. Well, Regina would. He was only the grandfather. Her call, but she didn’t seem to have Belinda’s overpriced Holly-wood ideas, thank God, so they should get along fine.
Regina came out of the bathroom looking like a little girl, kissed him on the cheek, a moment he’d cherish, and she climbed into bed. Jake turned into her arms. “Mama,” he sighed. No sooner had Regina fallen asleep than Harmony climbed out of bed, took his hand, and led him to the musty sitting room next door.
On a Victorian sofa that had seen better days, she curled into him. “Tell me what happened, Grampa.”
“I’m kinda tired, Hellcat.”
“I’m kinda freaked, Frosty.”
King sighed, bowing to the inevitable. His walls were cracked anyway. “To start with, you have to understand that at military school, I was taught control and discipline, and I ate it up.”
“Because control was safer than getting kicked in the emotions?”
He looked down at her and put his chin on her head. “Smart-mouth witch. You’re too wise for you lemon bikinis.”
“Focus, Paxton.”
“Okay. Discipline and control: I got straight A’s for that, if for nothing else. But my control slipped once.
Junior year. I got a gold-digging military-school groupie pregnant—a spoiled princess, it turned out, who wanted her own castle. The consequences, however, were permanent. I got expelled and became a lousy husband. Two weeks later, we split. In the divorce, I lost my unborn child and a lifetime of visitation rights, not to mention half my trust fund, and enough monthly support for an army.”
Sex and the Psychic Witch Page 14