Family Treasures

“He is over eighteen,” Dawn argued.

“But he didn’t enter the contest.”

“An insignificant detail.”

“There is no such thing as an insignificant detail,” Caitlin felt the need to point out.

Dawn stared at her for a moment and then dropped into the leather chair opposite Caitlin’s desk. Caitlin waited, knowing from past experience that Dawn wasn’t admitting defeat. She was plotting her next move.

“My senior editor posted the stats on the last issue, and I have to admit they’re pretty dismal.” Dawn’s smile was strained. “Subscription sales have declined ever since our competition decided to publish a cheaper version of the magazine. Jillian is hoping the annual makeover edition will turn things around. In fact, she’s hinted if that happens, she’ll think about making the contest a monthly feature.”

“With you in charge.”

“Possibly.” Dawn shrugged but couldn’t hide the ambitious gleam in her eyes. “But might I remind you, if there’s no increase in sales, there’s no makeover feature. And if there’s no makeover feature, there’s no need for a style editor.”

“I see your dilemma,” Caitlin said dryly.

“You can’t deny how much buzz this could create,” Dawn continued. “A man featured in our contest. The entry sent in by his twelve-year-old daughter. It’s fresh. It’s intriguing.”

“It has…potential.”

Dawn’s eyes sparkled. “And you have to admit, this guy…Devon Walsh…is mega-handsome. A diamond in the rough.”

Caitlin frowned. A diamond in the rough? Had she missed something?

“You see it, don’t you?” Dawn held up the photo. “He looks like an aging rock star. Silky dark hair. Mysterious eyes. Bad-boy stubble…”

Bad-boy stubble? Oh, please.

She’d definitely missed something.

“…unless you aren’t sure you could improve on this.” Dawn shrugged.

“Believe me, a shave would be an improvement,” Caitlin shot back, aware of her friend’s tactics but still a little offended that Dawn would question her ability.

“You’ve been hoping to increase your male clientele for the past few years. Who knows? If you can transform this particular frog into a prince, execs will be lining up around the block to schedule an appointment at IMAGEine.”

Caitlin thought the frog/prince analogy wasn’t exactly a fair one. Devon Walsh might be on the scruffy side but he did have great cheekbones. And she couldn’t deny that one of her goals included expanding her client base to include more men. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if the whole thing wasn’t a setup.

“Are you sure about this? For all we know, Devon Walsh is a wannabe actor or model who put his daughter up to this, knowing we’d take the bait.”

Hook, line and show-me-the-rise-in-subscriptions sinker.

“Your cynicism is showing, my friend, but if it makes you feel better, pay Jennifer Walsh and her dad a visit to make sure this is legit before we sign on the dotted line. If it isn’t, we’ll go with your top pick. Plain and simple.”

Plain and simple.

It sounded good in theory. So why did Caitlin have the uneasy feeling that her life was about to get complicated?

Just before lunch, Devon Walsh noticed that an eerie silence had descended over the house.

An eerie silence could only mean one thing. His children were studying instead of playing.

He pushed his chair away from the desk and stalked toward the door as he formulated a slight variation of the lecture he’d been serving up like spaghetti over the past few months. A lecture he’d guarantee couldn’t be found in one of the numerous parenting books he’d been reading. The ones that gave advice on how to give children roots, wings and make them mind without losing his.

Devon was beginning to think the reason he hadn’t discovered a fool-proof parenting technique was because his children didn’t exactly fit the typical “kid” mold….

Sure, blame them. It’s not like you’re the poster child for Father of the Year….

Not that he wasn’t trying.

It’s just that three out of the four Walshes in the house weren’t cooperating.

He decided to track down Josh and Brady, his nine-year-old twins, first. Just the fact there were two of them doubled the volume and usually made them easier to locate. Jenny was the tough one. Shy and introspective, she could make herself practically invisible when she wanted to be. And she wanted to be. A lot.

Coaxing Jenny out of her shell was a challenge Devon didn’t feel prepared for.

Who was he kidding? Parenting was a challenge he didn’t feel prepared for.

Strength for the moment, right, Lord?

It had become his mantra over the past six months.

“Brady? Josh?” Devon veered to the right when he reached the foot of the stairs, assuming he’d find the boys in the parlor—a quaint, old-fashioned term for a drafty room with scuffed hardwood floors, uncomfortable furniture covered in itchy, burgundy velvet and heavy drapes that blocked out the light with the efficiency of an eclipse. For reasons Devon couldn’t begin to explain, it had become his children’s favorite room in the house.

He’d only taken a few steps in that direction when the twins materialized in front of him.

“Hi, Dad,” Josh said cheerfully.

Too cheerfully, in Devon’s opinion. And even if the chapter on “pushing boundaries” he’d read the night before wasn’t still fresh in his mind, he would have been suspicious.

Brady pulled his ever-present stopwatch out of his pants pocket and flipped open the cover. “You’ve got thirty-five minutes left to write, Dad. What’s up?”

“I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

“Ah…nothing much. Just hanging around.” Josh casually tossed a miniature football into the air and scrambled to catch it again. He missed and it bounced off his shoe and hit the wall. “Playing football. You know.”

Devon’s eyes narrowed. The boys had never shown an interest in any of the sports equipment he’d purchased. A decoy toy, no doubt about it.

“Where is Jenny?” Devon took a step toward the parlor and found his path blocked by identical brown-eyed obstacles.

“She’s…somewhere.” Brady shrugged.

“Not here, though.” Josh’s ears turned red.

Devon suppressed a smile. Those ears gave him away every time. More reliable than a lie-detector test.

“Is she in the parlor?”