His Real Father (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Salonen, Debra

  “Oh, God…” she murmured. “How come I don’t remember this?”

  “There’s more. It might come back to you.”

  He adjusted the controls to play the footage in real time. The camera went sideways. The recording continued. Obviously, Joe had reacted by dumping his camera on what appeared to be a picnic bench. He came into view, racing down the incline to the dock.

  He dove into the water and splashed toward Lisa. Patrick stopped laughing when Joe helped Lisa toward the shallow boat launch. Words were exchanged, but the camera only picked up the sound of the wind blowing. To this harsh orchestration, Patrick jumped to his feet, tossing his bottle angrily. He tore off his sunglasses and hopped into the waist-deep water.

  Once Lisa was safely surrounded by her friends, Joe attacked Patrick with a fury that made Lisa sit back sharply. “Oh, no…oh, Joe,” she cried, grabbing his shoulder as if to stop the altercation.

  She winced when Patrick landed a solid blow to Joe’s cheekbone. Joe’s feet went out from under him and he fell backward into the water. Patrick, obviously seeing his chance, pounced on his brother, holding Joe’s torso under water. Three male friends pulled Patrick off.

  “Why did he go off like that? All you did was help.”

  Joe sighed. “Because I called him a stupid son of a bitch. Pat couldn’t stand to have someone correct him or point out that he’d done something wrong. Especially if that someone was me.”

  Joe turned off the unit then swiveled his chair to face hers. “Patrick was my brother and I loved him, but at times he could be an arrogant, self-centered bastard. I never wanted to admit that. And when I watched this, I realized something important.”

  He paused until she looked him in the eye. “I let his needs take precedence over yours, and for that I’m eternally sorry. I always knew you were the best thing he had going for him.” He touched her face. “But when I saw this tape, I realized that he didn’t deserve you.”

  Her bottom lip disappeared beneath her top teeth. Unshed tears glistened in her eyes. Emboldened by the look of compassion and love he read in her eyes, Joe moved closer. “Maybe I don’t deserve you, either. I wasn’t there for you—or Brandon,” he added, gesturing with his chin toward the front of the house, “when you needed me. I was never honest with myself or with you about how I felt. But, Lisa, I want to change that. I can’t imagine a future without you in it.”

  The raw vulnerability in Joe’s face was something Lisa had never witnessed before. His honesty touched her deeply, but she wasn’t sure how to express the turbulent emotions bouncing through her brain.

  She’d been shaken by the video. She recalled the little drama all too clearly now. Just before summer break. She hadn’t spoken to Patrick for two weeks after that, but he’d apologized with tears in his eyes. And she’d forgiven him. Just like she had after other, equally distressing, incidents.

  Had she erased those bad memories to build up Patrick for her son’s sake? Or because remembering meant admitting that she’d chosen the wrong brother for the wrong reason—security. Joe, the boy most likely to leave Worthington. Patrick, the one most likely to take over Joe’s Place.

  Even now, Lisa thought, Joe wasn’t a safe bet. His work could easily take him far away. But she wasn’t an insecure young girl anymore. She was a woman in love, and home would never be home without Joe.

  She placed her hand along his cheek. He pulled it to his lips and kissed her palm.

  “Let’s go get Brandon,” she told him. “We need to talk about what happens next…as a family.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  BRANDON FELT LIKE CRAP. The inside of his mouth was dry and sticky, like one of his friends had stuffed it full of cotton balls while he’d been passed out. And his head felt like someone was beating on a drum inside his brain. There was a good chance he might throw up, too, but none of that seemed to matter to the four adults sitting around the table.

  “I said I was sorry. What more do you want?” he asked, giving his mother a look he knew she’d understand. He’d probably never be able to forget seeing her and Joe going at it on the pool table.

  His stomach heaved, and he swallowed hard.

  “We want to talk about what happened this afternoon,” she said.

  “Well, I don’t. It sucked finding you like that, you know? It was…gross.” He couldn’t even look at Joe without feeling like he should punch him out or something.

  And the worst part was he liked Joe. Had liked him. Having Joe around was kinda like having a dad. Only now that was screwed up, too.

  “It was unfortunate timing on both our parts,” Joe said. “You weren’t prepared to see us that way because Lisa and I weren’t prepared to talk about how we feel about each other. But we are now.”

  “I don’t wanna hear it.”

  His mother made a sad noise. Brandon couldn’t look at her so he glanced at his grandmother. “It’s never easy for a child to admit that his mother is more than just a mother,” she said. “Ask Joe. All I had to do was tell him I was getting married and he came racing back home.” She looked at her son, who was sitting very close to Brandon’s mother, and winked.

  “But you broke up with Gunny. Didn’t you?” Brandon asked. So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours, he wasn’t sure he even knew what day it was.

  Grams took his hand. “Yes, dear, that’s over. Gunny’s son and daughter-in-law are moving him to Napa. Where there are more eligible women to pick from.”

  Her smile said she wasn’t too sad about the whole thing. Then she looked over her shoulder at Martin, and Brandon got the feeling he was missing something. “What?”

  She squeezed his hand. “Later,” she said softly. “First, let’s get this settled between you and Joe and your mother.”

  Brandon was tired of worrying about his mother. He wanted her to be happy and get off his case. If Joe was the guy who could make her happy, then did it really matter if he was Brandon’s uncle? Rory and Winston thought the idea was kinda twisted, but what did they know?

  He let out a heartfelt sigh and said, “Why can’t my family be normal? Just once.”

  Joe sat forward. “Define normal. I grew up in a home with two parents who loved each other—and their twin sons. My brother and I had a great childhood, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have problems. Patrick drank. I hid behind a camera.”

  Brandon looked up, drawn to his uncle’s brutally honest tone. “You have a choice, Brandon. You can blame your future decisions on your childhood, which from the photos and home movies I’ve been looking at appeared to be pretty darn happy,” he said. “Or you can take responsibility for your life and face these kinds of issues head-on.”

  The serious look in Joe’s eyes never wavered as he added, “But either way, your mother and I love each other. We always have. That doesn’t mean we didn’t love Patrick. My feelings for him will never change. He’s my brother. But I need Lisa in my life. And if you’ll let me, I’d like to be a part of your life, too.”

  Brandon looked at his mother. He could tell she was waiting for him to say something.

  “Are you guys gonna…like…get married?”

  She kinda gasped, but then she smiled and looked at Joe. “Yes,” she said. “We are. There’s a lot of that going around at the moment.”

  Brandon didn’t know what she was talking about but Joe apparently did. He let out a gruff laugh and kissed her. A long, full-on-the-mouth kiss.

  Brandon dropped his head to his arms. “Oh, sick. Can I go now?”

  His grandmother stood up, put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Come on. Martin and I will walk you home.”

  “Grams, I know the way.”

  “Of course, you do, but I want to tell you a little story.”

  He tried not to groan, but one got past him. Martin laughed and took Brandon’s elbow, the same way he had when he’d shown up at the lake. Brandon didn’t even try to resist. Who knew the old man was so strong?

  “Listen to your gran
dmother, boy. It’s a story I think you’ll like.”

  Brandon stumbled to his feet. He gave his mother a pleading look, but she was staring at Joe, who had his arms wrapped around her. Oh, man…

  “It’s the story of two brothers who loved the same woman,” Grams said, her loud voice echoing off his hungover brain cells. But when she added, “It has a very happy ending,” he gave in and listened. Maybe Martin was right. Maybe this was one story he wanted to hear.

  JOE FELT LISA LET OUT a long, heartfelt sigh as his mother, Brandon and Martin left the room. A few seconds later, the sound of the door closing made her relax against him.

  “Wow. Talk about drama. Is this day ever going to end?” she asked, snuggling against his chest.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Although upstairs in my bed would probably be pushing my luck.”

  She shook her head and looked up at him. “Always the joker.”

  Tears sparkled in her eyes. He kissed her—just a soft, quick peck meant to reassure her that things would get better. “Sorry. Conditioned reflex, but I was serious when I proposed to you. Did you mean it when you said you’d marry me?”

  “Of course,” she murmured, drawing his head down so their lips were touching. She kissed him until the background noise faded to black, then added, on a whisper, “You heard your mother. How else could we live happily ever after?”

  EPILOGUE

  LISA CLOSED HER EYES and tried to seal every image into her memory. The vivid pink and orange gerbera daisies on the tables inside the banquet hall. The dramatic, windswept cypress trees framing the ocean vista beyond the knoll where her mother and Jerry were standing. The harpist. The minister, who had been a childhood friend of Jerry’s, had flown in from Boston for the ceremony.

  And although she couldn’t see them, Lisa knew Martin’s nephew’s salsa band was setting up nearby.

  When the minister cleared her throat and said, “Friends, welcome to this joyous occasion,” Joe took Lisa’s hand in his and gave a gentle squeeze. She looked into his beautiful eyes that reminded her so much of Brandon’s, then leaned across the small distance between them and said, “We’re next, you know.”

  His lips curved upward, ushering in the notorious Kelly dimple. “October can’t come soon enough.”

  They’d given themselves three months to recuperate from this wedding, but they both knew the time would fly. Look how much had happened in the month since their engagement.

  Constance and Jerry had returned from the East Coast and promptly moved in together. Since both wanted an outdoor wedding—and given the heat of the summer in the Central Valley, they’d started looking for a spot on the coast. A cancellation had opened up at Seascape in Aptos and they’d grabbed it.

  Since Jerry had hired a professional wedding planner, Lisa had had time to help Joe put his house in L.A. on the market and arrange for a mover to pack up his belongings, which would stay in storage until they could move into the new home they’d just bought—from Gunny of all people.

  Once the dear man got over his disappointment of not marrying Maureen, he’d given Joe and Lisa an excellent price on his lakeside home. After signing the papers, the first thing Lisa, Joe and Brandon had done was rush down to the dock and pose for a picture.

  A gift for the bride and groom, who now stood facing each other. A tearfully blushing Constance in a lovely, demure, white tea-length gown and her silver-haired prince, Jerry. Maureen and Martin were the only attendants.

  Maureen and Martin were talking marriage as well, but both had assured Joe and Lisa they weren’t rushing into anything. They’d decided to give living together a shot first. As Maureen jokingly told Lisa, “With your mother dropping out of the gossip-generating business, someone has to give our customers something to talk about.”

  Although she’d given Maureen the option of buying back a share of Joe’s Place, both Maureen and Martin insisted they were content to be “extremely” silent partners, but promised to help out any time Joe and Lisa needed a break.

  After all, once Joe got his office moved, he’d need time to finish his movie, which was turning out to be a very moving tribute to a man and his dream. Lisa had a feeling Joe’s Place was going to touch a chord with anybody who fondly remembered a neighborhood hangout. He might even have another hit on his hands.

  Lisa was busy, too. Still remodeling. It kept her from worrying about Brandon. He wasn’t drinking anymore, but he was in love.

  She leaned forward to sneak a peek at her son. His date for the wedding, Nikki Jean Cho, was quite vocal about her belief that alcohol and drugs killed artistic vision. Lisa wasn’t sure how her son had managed to snag this amazing, black-haired goddess, but according to Jen-Jen, who had just given birth to a new baby daughter, the actress Mandy Moore played some role in the courtship. Lisa believed the attraction stemmed more from Brandon’s rapidly escalating skill behind the camera.

  Joe whispered, “What are you thinking?”

  “How strange it is the way everything worked out. Did you know Michael and Christine are here?” she said, nodding toward the Bjorgensens. “I thought Gunny was in Holland.”

  “He is,” Joe said. “Mike told me they didn’t want there to be any hard feelings between our families.”

  He craned his neck to look around. “Nice turnout, but I think most of the other guests are hospital staff. Now would not be a good time to get sick in Worthington.”

  Thinking about doctors reminded her of the talk she and Joe had had with Brandon a few weeks earlier. Joe had left the decision of whether or not to tell Brandon about the uncertainty surrounding his paternity to her. And after a great deal of soul-searching, Lisa had decided she didn’t like keeping secrets from her son.

  They’d sat him down and laid out the brutal facts. Brandon took the news with surprising maturity. He and Joe discussed their options at length and even did some research online. Finally, Brandon announced their mutual decision. “We ordered a paternity test kit, Mom. Identical twins share the same DNA, but Joe and Patrick were fraternal. Joe and I both think it’s better to know the truth than always wonder.”

  They didn’t have the results, yet. But Lisa sensed the experience had brought both of her men closer. Which made her extremely happy considering her news.

  She’d intended to tell Joe later, when they were alone, but the serenity of the moment called to her. She motioned him closer and put her lips to his ear. “I took the test this morning,” she whispered. “We’re pregnant.”

  Lisa could only see half of Joe’s face. The side with the infamous Kelly dimple. So she knew he was smiling. A smile that made her heart turn over. When he looked at her, there were tears in his eyes. He mouthed the words I love you, as her mother and Jerry exchanged their simple, heartfelt vows.

  Lisa kissed him, then rested her head on his shoulder. He moved his hand to touch her belly tenderly. They’d talked about this possibility, but neither had expected it to happen so fast. Blinking back tears of her own, Lisa smiled. She knew that some things—the best things—were meant to be.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-2445-2

  HIS REAL FATHER

  Copyright © 2005 by Debra Salonen.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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