His Real Father (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Salonen, Debra

  “FINE.”

  “You know I hate that word, Lisa Janine,” Constance Malden snapped.

  Lisa forced herself not to roll her eyes, another bad habit her mother hated. “How does ‘okay’ work for you?”

  Her mother’s coffee cup made a cracking sound when it hit the countertop. “What’s wrong with you this morning? Your classes are over and you’re just two exams away from finishing college. You should be celebrating,” Constance said.

  Lisa stifled a sigh. Two women living under one roof was at times…challenging, to say the least. It helped that her mother had her own wing, complete with a separate entrance, but they still shared a kitchen. Some mornings the arrangement was enough to drive Lisa running from the house screaming.

  “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t sleep well. Brandon was late coming in. I was afraid he was out partying, but then I found out he was next door the whole time listening to music with Joe.”

  Constance took a sip of coffee. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  Lisa shrugged.

  “How is Joe? Is he planning to stay a while this time?”

  The harmless question made Lisa turn around sharply to look at her mother. Was she interested in Joe? No. Don’t be ridiculous, Lisa scolded herself. She was being neurotic.

  Of course, she’d thought that before and had found out the hard way just how needy her mother was when it came to vying for the attention of attractive young men.

  “Turns out he’s here on a mission,” Lisa said. “He plans to make some kind of movie about Joe’s Place.”

  Constance’s jaw dropped. “Really? What does that mean to your plans?”

  Lisa rubbed her temple, hoping to relieve the sharp pain she felt there. “I don’t know. Which is another reason I’m grouchy this morning.”

  Constance walked to the stove where Lisa was standing. She looped an arm supportively around Lisa’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, honey. Do you want me to talk to him for you? Get him to back off?”

  It took every ounce of self-control Lisa had not to scream, “No. Stay away from him.” Instead, she shook her head and said, “I plan to sit down with him today and talk this over.”

  Her mother poured the dregs of her coffee in the sink and placed the cup on the counter. “Well, I hope he changes his mind. You’ve been so happy and excited over this idea. A lovely change from the dour looks I’ve seen the past few months.” She sighed as she walked to the door. “I know the last semester of college is a rough one, but gads, girl, you’d think someone died.”

  After checking her lipstick in a little mirror, Constance snapped her purse closed. “What else are you doing today?”

  “Wash my car then study till it’s time for Maureen’s barbecue. You were invited, remember?”

  “Oh, right. Did you tell Maureen I had plans? Jerry’s taking me to a Celtic festival in Livermore. I swear he’s the first man I ever dated who likes to do things in public.” She gave a little giggle. “Well, you know what I mean. He’s fun. I like him.” She knocked on the wooden door trim as if for good luck, then left.

  Once she was gone, Lisa took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s a wonder I’m not crazier than I am.”

  She grinned, recalling a time when she’d said those words to Joe and Patrick. The three of them had been headed somewhere in Joe Sr.’s old truck. Joe behind the wheel and Lisa on Patrick’s lap, sharing a seat belt.

  Patrick had chortled and said, “Babe, you are crazy, especially in bed. Just the way I like you to be.”

  Lisa had buried her head in his shoulder in embarrassment, but when she peeked at Joe, she’d seen him blushing, too. She didn’t know why that reaction had touched her so much. Joe was the sensitive one. He felt other people’s pain in a way Patrick couldn’t imagine.

  Would that empathy help when it came to haggling over his parents’ bar? She certainly hoped so. Because if her current plan fell through, Lisa had no idea what she was going to do. She had a stack of job applications sitting on her desk. She’d participated in several hiring fairs. Two out-of-state schools had expressed an interest in hiring her to teach at the elementary level, but Lisa couldn’t bring herself to respond.

  Why? She had her reasons. One of her favorites was that she didn’t want to pull Brandon out of school his senior year. That made her a good mother, not a coward. Right?

  JOE AWOKE TO THE SOUND of a car door. He managed to ignore it and go back to sleep, but he still heard the sound of water splashing and soon he dreamed he was frolicking on a Slip ’n’ Slide with Lisa. In the buff.

  When his body alerted him to the impact of such a dream, he opened his eyes, groaning. “Cripes, I haven’t been home twenty-four hours and I’ve got a hard-on over Lisa? Pat would have gotten a laugh over that.”

  Not one to waste a good fantasy, Joe closed his eyes and let his imagination run. The relief was temporary, but the distraction was nice.

  After a long shower and quick shave in the adjoining bathroom, Joe returned to his room and looked outside to see what the weather had in store. Shorts? Or jeans, he wondered, opening the curtain.

  What he saw was his morning fantasy alive and well, which was enough to make the towel he’d tucked around his waist flutter to life. Lisa washing her car. In cutoff shorts and a sloppy white T-shirt that showed her bra. Even at a distance, he could see her nipples. “There ought to be a law against this,” he muttered.

  “Against what?” a voice said from the doorway.

  Mortified, Joe angled his body toward the window. “Nothing.”

  Maureen eyed him intently with an all-knowing look then backed up. “When you’re dressed, there’s fruit and bagels on the counter and fresh coffee,” she called. “I was just heading off on my morning walk and thought I’d see if you wanted to join me. But since you’re busy ogling Lisa, I’ll let you be.”

  Ogling Lisa? Joe stifled a groan. His erection disappeared. He tried to tell himself he was a grown man and didn’t need to apologize for a natural reaction to seeing a gorgeous woman scrubbing a fender, but he gave up. A man is just a boy with big feet when his mother was in the picture, he decided.

  Fifteen minutes later, armed with an oversize mug of green tea instead of coffee—another of his doctor’s recommendations—he walked around the side of his parents’ house and across the Greenbergs’ front lawn to reach the Maldens’ driveway.

  He was in luck. The sound of water spraying against metal meant Lisa was still at work. He slowed to a stroll, trying to come up with a clever opening remark. Since the Greenbergs’ hedge had filled in over the years, he had to detour slightly to get around it. As he approached, he was hidden from view but close enough to hear Brandon speaking to his mother.

  “I’m outta here.”

  “Wait,” she squawked. “Where are you going? Didn’t you promise your grandmother you’d clean out her garage?”

  Joe remembered hearing that last night.

  “Later. When I come back.”

  “From where?”

  “From where I’m going. What is this? The third degree?”

  Joe bit back a smile. The boy’s defensive tone reminded Joe of Patrick.

  With more patience than Maureen had ever shown her sons, Lisa said, “No. It’s Sunday morning. You have family obligations this afternoon, and you made a commitment to do some work for your grandmother. I let you sleep in and now you’re repaying that favor by being snippy and rude.”

  “Whatever,” Brandon groused. “Joe gave me this new CD last night, and I want to show it to Rory. Is that a crime?”

  “Not if you come right back.”

  “Fine,” he snarled.

  A car door slammed.

  Joe waited until Brandon’s engine was just a muffled hum in the distance before joining her. Not because he was a coward, but because he didn’t want Lisa to feel embarrassed. He’d once been privy to an argument between his ex-girlfriend and her daughter and both had treated him strangely for days.

  “Hi,”
he said, calling over the sound of water being sprayed against a hubcap. Joe had a feeling the VW’s tires were getting extra attention as Lisa worked off her frustration.

  She spun around in surprise. The barrel of the nozzle followed. Joe had to leap to one side to avoid getting doused.

  “Oh, dang, I’m sorry,” she cried, dropping her aim. “You startled me. I was thinking about my bratty son.”

  Joe brushed a few stray drops of water from his yellow polo shirt. “No problem. It’s only water. Where’s the kid?”

  She pointed down the street. “He went to his friend’s house. I’m hoping he’ll be back soon. He has chores to do.”

  “Chores on a Sunday?”

  “Gas money. His grandmother is more generous than I am. Around here he works for food and clothing. The money he makes cleaning Joe’s Place goes straight for insurance, but Maureen takes pity on him and hires him to help out at her house any time he asks. She pays him in advance, too. Which is fine as long as he lives up to his part of the bargain.”

  “You’re a good mother, aren’t you?”

  A blush claimed her cheeks and she turned around to pick up a bucket of soapy water. “I try to be consistent. Kids need that.”

  “Too bad more people don’t. My ex had three daughters. There were many times that the eleven-year-old seemed more responsible than her mother.”

  “Was that Paula?” Lisa asked. “Your mother thought you were serious about her.”

  “Paulette,” he corrected. “We broke up last fall. Neither of us wanted to pretend through the holidays.”

  “Pretend what?”

  “That we were more than two people who liked the same restaurants.”

  “That’s all you had in common?”

  Joe took a drink of his tea. “Pretty much.”

  Lisa shook her head. “Wow. It took you quite a while to figure that out, didn’t it?”

  Joe didn’t like to think about Paulette. He’d known for a long time that she wasn’t the right woman for him, and he’d been certain she’d felt the same, but somehow neither had got around to ending things. “Three years.”

  He couldn’t read Lisa’s expression but still felt compelled to explain. “She’s the daughter of a well-known Hollywood producer. At one time he was under the mistaken belief I was some kind of wunderkind with a camera. He and Paulette were going to coproduce one of my movies.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That must have been disappointing.”

  Joe shrugged. “It’s a crazy business, what can I say?”

  She moved to another tire. “Is that the real reason behind this visit? You’re tired of Hollywood?”

  He wasn’t ready to talk about his motives, especially since he hadn’t pinned down the focus of his movie completely. “They say timing is everything and since I found myself with a little window of opportunity, I thought this was a perfect chance to spend some time with Mom before some guy whisks her away in an RV.”

  Lisa didn’t say anything. Changing the subject, he asked, “What other kinds of chores does Brandon do?”

  “He does the laundry every other week, and we all three take turns cooking, although lately Mom’s been gone a lot. And since I hate grocery shopping, he and Connie share that duty.”

  “Wow. He sounds pretty self-reliant.”

  She glanced up. “I don’t know about that, but some of his friends couldn’t even tell you how to turn on a dishwasher.”

  When she bent over to apply the soapy sponge to the tires, her shirt rode up, exposing a sweet inch of bare skin. Joe had always loved the color of her skin—a warm beige that turned berry brown in the summer. The urge to touch her made his fingers tingle.

  As if sensing his inappropriate intentions, she shifted to a squat and tugged down her frayed T-shirt. “What about Paulette’s daughters? Didn’t Maureen tell me one lives at home? Were you close?”

  “Not really. The oldest is studying entertainment law at Yale. The middle girl is Brandon’s age, but she’s been in boarding school since before I met her mother. She’s graduating early to go to Harvard. And Minnie, the youngest, is eleven. She wants to be a Laker Girl.”

  Lisa rocked back on her heels and laughed. “Good for her. The first two sound intensely determined not to follow in their mother’s footsteps.”

  Like you? “That’s probably their father’s influence. They spend their summers with him in Italy. He’s a successful actor, although he’s never worked in Hollywood.”

  “Did they approve of you?”

  Joe shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t think they cared. Does Brandon like the men you date?”

  Her left eyebrow rose in a questioning arch. “I’ve been too busy to have much of a social life.” Joe wanted to ask why men weren’t asking her out every weekend, but she didn’t let him. “Raising children is a tough job. I’m sure your friend did the best she could with her daughters, but there comes a time when you have to admit you’ve lost any control you thought you had.”

  Her sigh competed with the sound of the hose rinsing the tire. “Brandon and I used to be pals, but there are times…like this morning…when I’m suddenly the archenemy sent to ruin his life.”

  Joe wondered if he should mention that he’d overheard, but Lisa distracted him by asking, “So, does Little Miss Laker Girl spend her summers in Italy, too?”

  “Different father. Paulette claims he was a one-night stand on a stopover in the middle of the Pacific.”

  Lisa stopped scrubbing to look at him.

  “I know. It sounds improbable, right? But Paulette insists that’s what happened. Too many mai tais and nine months later, she has Minnie to show for it. The stranger in paradise is long gone.”

  An odd look of distress crossed Lisa’s face. Assuming she was concerned for Minnie’s sake, he added, “But Min doesn’t seem the worse for it. Her grandparents spoil her rotten, and she visits her sisters every summer.

  “She’s a cool kid. Her accidental father doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

  Lisa spun around abruptly and applied all her attention to scrubbing one pristine hubcap. Joe felt a tension that hadn’t existed before. To lighten the moment, he said, “I took Minnie to dinner to explain that her mother and I were breaking up. She said she wasn’t surprised. I believe her exact words were, ‘You’re a nice man, Joe, but too self-absorbed to be a husband and a full-time dad.’”

  Lisa’s head snapped up. “She’s eleven? Yikes. That had to hurt.”

  More than he wanted to admit. “As a friend, you’re supposed to say something like, ‘What do kids know?’”

  “Oh, sorry,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m really lousy at faking sympathy.”

  “I know. I remember one time when I told you I thought you’d make a good nurse and you slugged me.”

  “I did?”

  “It was the night Patrick blacked out on the football field and they took him away in an ambulance, remember?”

  She seemed to ponder the question for a moment. “Sorta. You and I hung out in the waiting room while your mom was with Patrick, right?”

  Joe nodded. He could picture the moment as clearly as if he’d filmed it. Probably because he had. I wonder if that tape is still around? “You were giving me a hard time because I wouldn’t do the twin thing and try to contact Pat telepathically.”

  An aha look crossed her face. “And you were doing that annoying ‘cub reporter’ thing that used to drive me crazy.” She held the hose nozzle up to her lips and said in a deep voice, “So tell me, Miss Malden, when did you first learn that you carried the mysterious kiss-of-life gene? Is it true that by pressing your lips to my brother’s you could bring him back from the brink of death?”

  Joe let out a gruff hoot. “Damn fine impersonation. I really was an ass, wasn’t I?”

  She smiled saucily. “The only reason I didn’t deck you that night was that I knew joking around was your way of hiding how scared you really were.”r />
  “Hmmm,” he said taking a sip of the now tepid tea. “What other deep, dark secrets do you know about me?”

  Although he’d been speaking rhetorically, her cheeks turned crimson and she stammered, “N-nothing.”

  Turning her back to him, she emptied the wash bucket on the pavement then picked up the hose to rinse off the bubbles.

  Odd, Joe thought, watching her. They’d both had secrets back then, although his unrequited feelings were pretty obvious. He’d loved her, but she’d picked Patrick. For six years, being with Lisa had not been an option—until graduation. A memory Joe still felt guilty about. Was that the source of her embarrassment, too?

  He’d tried to talk to her about the incident last night and she’d shut him down. He wasn’t going to waste the effort this morning. “So,” he said, once she turned off the water, “tell me about my new stepfather-to-be.”

  Lisa let out a small sigh. For a moment she’d been afraid Joe was going to ask her something she didn’t want to answer. They needed to talk…and soon, but she didn’t see how waiting until after Maureen’s wedding—and the sale of Joe’s Place—could hurt. Joe’s mother deserved some happiness, and Lisa intended to see that her nuptials went smoothly.

  “You’ve met Gunny, haven’t you?” Lisa asked, wringing out her chamois.

  She noticed that his gaze seemed fixed on her arms. His attention made her glad she’d worked out regularly at the gym all through college.

  “Uh-huh. A couple of times, but I never thought they acted like two people who were madly in love. You know what I mean? I thought they were just friends.”

  Love? Was Maureen in love with Gunny? Lisa didn’t think so. The couple’s relationship seemed more about mutual loneliness and friendship than great passion. When she’d been younger, Lisa couldn’t have fathomed such a thing, but now she was glad for any happiness Maureen could grab.

  “What do you want to know? He’s a few years younger than your mom. He retired early after selling his computer business. He has bundles of money and he treats her like a queen.”