Michael's Father

“I’ve been working since five. Got to pay the bills,” Cori replied mildly, with a quick glance at Blake’s bootless feet, enveloped in dingy socks.

What had she expected from a workingman? Socks in pristine condition? Self-consciously, Blake pulled his feet back to the edge of the chair. He often left his boots at the back door when he’d been traversing a particularly muddy patch of vineyard.

Tugging her short, clingy blue sweater over her khaki walking shorts, Cori moved to her mother’s side. The kid dragged his feet behind her, one hand clutching the bottom of the long-sleeved denim shirt she wore over the sweater.

Ignoring her excuse, flimsy as it was, Blake’s eyes surveyed Cori’s legs and bare feet. It was less dangerous than looking at her curves in that skimpy sweater. “It’s a bit chilly out for shorts,” he found himself saying.

“If the sun’s out, Southern Californians wear shorts,” Cori replied, her words as brisk as the weather. Cori stepped between Blake and Sophia, presenting him with her backside.

Blake swallowed and wet his lips, finding it hard to have Cori so near and untouchable. The kid popped free to lurk on the far side of the bed, a welcome distraction to Blake at this point.

“There’s nothing like a little sun to give a woman that glow,” Sophia conceded, obviously missing the subtext of the conversation.

“A little sunshine would do you good,” Blake said to Sophia, leaning to one side so he could see her face, trying not to look at Cori’s slender figure. She’d left him. He shouldn’t be reacting to her this way now, with interest as inappropriate now as it had been years ago.

“Not today.” Sophia rolled her head. She smiled wanly at Michael, who ducked behind the bed out of sight. “I must look frightening.”

“Nonsense.” Cori’s hand gently encompassed her mother’s. “If that’s a hint, I’ll style your hair.”

“That would be heaven.”

The kid chose that moment to jump onto Sophia’s bed.

“Grandma, we’re going to change the pink room to blue.” The kid’s thin voice rang out as he hopped, jolting Sophia’s limp body with each bounce.

“Michael, don’t—” Cori reached for her son, but Blake reacted faster.

“Can’t you control him?” Blake snatched the boy off the bed with two hands on his little waist, holding him none too gently in the air, inches from his face. “Don’t ever do that again.”

The brat’s dark eyes rounded as they stared at Blake. His mouth puckered tremulously.

Immediately, Blake knew he’d overreacted from stress and lack of sleep, and some other dark reason he was reluctant to acknowledge. Resentment.

I should have been this boy’s father.

Air escaped Blake’s lungs, taking his strength with him. Suddenly, the kid felt as if he weighed a hundred pounds.

“Put him down.” Cori spoke with the unchecked fury of a mother protecting her young. She held out her arms for her son.

Blake met her gaze squarely before setting the kid down. Holding the boy’s sticklike arms, Blake knelt to his level. “I want you to promise me you won’t do that again. You could have hurt your grandmother.” Blake may not have been his father, but he could still be a positive influence on the child. “Are you all right, Sophia?”

“Yes. More startled than anything,” she answered breathlessly.

Cori stood between her mother and her son, seemingly torn as to which needed her the most.

“Promise?” Blake prompted, returning his full attention to the boy. Blake had forgotten how frail a little kid’s emotions were. The boy was small, yet not as fragile as Sophia was.

When the kid nodded, his face full of fear, Blake released him. In the blink of an eye, Cori’s son fled the room. Blake stood, his stomach clenching from what he’d done, not blaming the kid one bit for his hasty retreat.

“That was uncalled for.” Cori’s voice shook, her eyes still focused on the floor where the boy had stood.

Blake shrugged, not backing down, even when he knew only a parent had the right to punish, even when he loathed his own actions. “You want the kid to behave, start setting some rules.”

“Rules—” Cori sputtered, eyes narrowing.

Blake cut her off before she could gather steam. “I have to go. Maria’s downstairs, but I told her you’d stay close to Sophia today. Do you think you can handle that?”

CHAPTER THREE

HOW COULD HE NOT SEE that Michael was his son?

Looking down upon the heads of her son and his father, she’d noted the same swirling pattern of brown hair on each crown. She’d vacillated between anger at Blake for tossing Michael around like a sack of potatoes and disappointment that he couldn’t see the similarities between himself and his son. Yet, should she expect Blake to recognize what she’d tried so hard to hide?

Crash! Tinkle, tinkle.

Cori froze as she slid the last hairpin into her mother’s lifeless hair.

“Michael?” she asked, just as her cell phone rang in her shorts pocket.

“It wasn’t me!” Michael called from the hallway.

“It’s probably that crystal vase,” Sophia observed calmly.

“The one that good-looking actor gave you?” Cori asked, trying to keep her tone light as she reached for her phone.

“Ronald Reagan was our president,” Sophia replied with mock dignity.

Ever since Ronald Reagan had given the vase to Sophia, Luke and Cori had teased her about her crush on him. Cori hoped she wouldn’t find that vase in pieces in the hall.

As Cori answered the telephone, she went in search of her son. His fast-retreating footsteps on the hardwood floor, punctuated with a door slam, signaled his escape to the pink room.

“Cori, I need some PR angles for Nightshade, pronto,” Sidney Collins, Cori’s boss, trilled in her ear. “They liked what you proposed last week, but they want to hear some other ideas from you, just to be sure the first one is the best.”

Cori sighed heavily, as much in response to Sidney’s request as at the sight of Ronald Reagan’s vase in pieces scattered across the floor.

“Not again.” Cori peered into the bedroom at Michael, shaking a finger at him when he looked up from his cartoons.

“I didn’t do it,” he whispered.

“Yes, again.” Sidney didn’t sound happy, either. “Just because they’re so forward thinking they can’t recognize brilliance when it’s right in front of them doesn’t mean we don’t jump through the hoop when they snap their fingers.”

“Tell them we’re out of recommendations. Tell them that was our best idea and the others were so bad we won’t even show them.” Cori stomped down the back stairs in search of a broom.

“No way. Bell-Diva’s new vice president of marketing was talking to the Parker Agency, just testing the waters, he said, but we’ll lose the account if we don’t shine, and shine brightly, in the next few months.”

“I did shine. That last press release was picked up for a segment on the Today Show. Let Adam Parker deliver that.” Collins & Co. was taking off, creating great buzz for their clients, who told others of their success. They were so busy that Cori was starting to wonder if she had any fresh ideas left. The pace had become grueling. If Sidney hadn’t taken a chance on Cori right out of college and stuck with her through the pregnancy, Cori would have moved on by now to someplace where she could be in the spotlight less and with her son more.

“I’m sure Adam Parker will promise them everything. You know him. He’d sell his mother the Brooklyn Bridge if he thought he could make a buck. Seriously, Cori, Bell-Diva is half our billings right now.”