Michael's Father (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Melinda Curtis

  “It’s a good day.” Blake wished he could tell her Sophia was getting better. “You’re doing your homework with her, right?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  Too late, Blake realized that Cori was here to keep Sophia company and might consider Jen an intruder. Well, too bad. Jennifer was just as much a part of Sophia’s family as Cori was. Sophia and Jennifer shared a special relationship.

  “Don’t put me down!”

  The shrill plea cut through the air, shuddering along Blake’s nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. It was the kid. Whining again. Brush concealed the part of the driveway where Cori’s car was parked, but the boy’s voice definitely came from there.

  “I need to get our suitcases out, Peanut. I can’t do that with one hand.”

  “Houseguests,” Blake warned Jennifer as they rounded the curve of the driveway, hoping his expression communicated that she should behave.

  Jennifer frowned.

  “Can we help you with those?” Blake offered, watching the kid squirm in Cori’s arms. Her dress hiked up again, and he forced his eyes to stay on her face.

  “Mommy, I want to go home,” wailed the kid.

  Cori looked as if she’d rather accept help from her worst enemy than from Blake, but after a moment’s consideration, she nodded.

  “You remember Cori, don’t you, Jen?” Blake asked as he approached, trying to lay the foundation of peace.

  “No. Who are you?” Jen asked sweetly, when Blake knew full well that his sister remembered who Cori was.

  Blake gave his sister a stern glance before looking into Cori’s trunk. He was surprised at what he found. Only two medium, black wheelie-bags—not even an expensive brand but the cheap kind that you got at a discount store—a computer satchel, a sleeping bag and one well-worn, stained backpack.

  Cori introduced herself and the kid to Jennifer. The back of the boy’s head nestled against Cori’s neck, his chin rested on her shoulder. Short, spindly legs dangled on either side of Cori’s hips. From his size, Blake guessed him to be around three. The kid eyed Jennifer suspiciously, earning a bit of reluctant respect from Blake. Lately, his sister rode an emotional pendulum from heated disdain to cool affection. An unsuspecting little boy would be an easy mark for her derision.

  Blake handed the laptop to Cori and passed the backpack to Jen, who held it out as if it had germs. He carried the sleeping bag and two wheelies into the house.

  “Where to?” Blake asked as he headed upstairs.

  “My old room.”

  Blake heard Jen huff in outrage behind him. She’d been sleeping in Cori’s bedroom when she stayed with Sophia and had become rather proprietary about it, even going so far as to refer to it as “my room.” Blake hoped Jennifer decided to use good manners today so that she wouldn’t embarrass him.

  “It’s only got one single bed. Maybe you should stay in the guest room,” Blake said as they climbed the stairs, trying to avoid a blowup.

  “I’m not a guest,” Cori answered firmly, then nudged the child and added, “Besides, you like camping out on the floor, don’t you, Peanut?”

  Shouldering open the door to Cori’s room, Blake entered, glad he was accustomed to the color.

  “It’s pretty pink, isn’t it,” Cori said, with a forced laugh. “I’d forgotten how pink.”

  Everything was pink. Pink carpet, pink frilly drapes, pink satin bedspread, pink striped wallpaper and pink champagne furniture. Blake couldn’t relate to it at all. Jennifer loved it. The black suitcases seemed somber and out of place.

  “It’s a girl’s room, Mommy.”

  “I’m a girl.”

  “You’re a mommy.”

  “Give your mommy a kiss and thank Jennifer for carrying your backpack.” Cori finally managed to disengage herself from the little cling-on.

  “You’re staying in this room?” Jennifer handed over the backpack without acknowledging the kid’s thanks.

  “I’ll survive, I think. I can always wear my sunglasses.” Cori flashed a little smile in Jennifer’s direction.

  Whether Cori was deliberately misreading Jennifer’s meaning or just being polite, Blake couldn’t tell. She seemed tense. Her eyes ping-ponged from Michael to Blake. What was making her so uncomfortable?

  Jennifer crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows, giving Cori her version of the evil eye, but Cori didn’t notice as she kicked off those killer pumps, bent and pulled a suitcase across the floor.

  “Jen, why don’t you go check on Sophia and get started on your homework?” Blake suggested, trying to breathe normally as Cori showed several inches of bare thigh while leaning over. Just a little bit farther and she’d expose everything. Blake made himself look away.

  “Mama’s resting right now,” Cori said, as if she was now in charge of her mother’s well-being.

  “That’s okay,” Jennifer said with saccharine sweetness. “She’s used to me being there every day.”

  And with that direct hit, Jen flounced out of the room.

  Straightening, Cori gnawed on her lower lip, then gave Blake a worried look, brown eyes as big and soulful as a puppy’s.

  “Mama said she was going to rest while I unpacked.”

  Blake shrugged, unwilling to let her distress bother him. “Jen does her homework in there most afternoons. I think Sophia likes the company.”

  Cori turned away, but not before he noted the tears filling her eyes. Blake pulled the door closed between them before he did something stupid like pull her into his arms.

  SALVATORE MESSINA SAT in the limousine staring at the yellow Mustang in the driveway. His granddaughter had come home. For years, he’d lived without her sunny smiles, her shining diplomacy and her fierce love of the land. Messina Vineyards wasn’t as strong a presence in the wine industry without her, especially these days. And the family? Well, the family had become less talkative, less humorous and—he’d admit this only to himself—less loving. Here in the shadowy twilight of his dark car, Salvatore could admit that he had missed Corinne.

  A silly, sentimental feeling swept through him, filling Salvatore’s eyes with tears, making him uncomfortably aware of the driver sitting patiently in the front seat. He hardened his jaw, then blinked back the tears with a measured breath.

  Show no weakness.

  His car door swung open, startling Salvatore and sending a shaft of pain through his hips and a fresh wave of tears to his eyes.

  Blake Austin peered in. “Everything okay?”

  “Fine,” Salvatore replied gruffly as the pain eased, despite the fact that nothing was right. His daughter was dying, his granddaughter had never forgiven him his unfortunate ultimatum, and both his hips were giving out on him. He carried on through each day on painkillers that did nothing to numb the torment that was his life.

  The Mustang’s splashy yellow color caught Salvatore’s eye once more, causing a different pang, albeit one just as painful, not in his hips but in his heart.

  “Manny just dropped me off from the north property. Can I help you out?”

  Salvatore wouldn’t accept pity, even from an employee as loyal as Blake Austin. “Do I look helpless?” he snapped, carefully stepping out, using the car’s frame for support as unobtrusively as possible. Standing upright was excruciating, but Salvatore Messina grappled with life as staunchly as life wrestled with him.

  He bared his teeth in a smile as he straightened, swallowing a groan of agony.

  Blake observed the process, most likely not fooled but too considerate to say anything. He nodded, as if acknowledging his employer’s strength of will.

  Shame weakened Salvatore’s anger, but anger was the only thing aside from medicine that made the pain manageable, so he gave it free rein.

  “Everything’s right in the vineyards? With the crew?”

  “Everything’s great, sir.”

  As well as being a tireless worker, Blake Austin always treated Salvatore with respect. Over the past few years, Blake had become almost
one of the family, yet he still called Salvatore “sir” or “Mr. Messina.” Blake was respectful, faithful, and knew when to mind his own business. The perfect employee. Salvatore didn’t receive that kind of treatment from his own grandchildren. He glanced over his shoulder at the yellow Mustang.

  Would Corinne offer an apology as due to the head of the family? It didn’t matter who was right or wrong, the younger deferred to the elder if she wanted to make peace. He didn’t know what he’d do if she didn’t ask his forgiveness.

  Salvatore Messina bid Blake good-night and moved stiffly up the steps as the spring shadows deepened the sky.

  BLAKE STEPPED into the mudroom in his house at the back of the Messina property. Lately, it seemed that every day sapped his energy, but seeing Cori had unexpectedly drained him. Blake removed his muddy boots, grateful that the day was nearly over, grateful to be on his own turf. The small, two-story house belonged to Messina Vineyards, but Blake and Jennifer called it home.

  The steamy smells of dinner drifted out to him, taunting him with the promise of welcome. He hesitated before entering the kitchen. Out in the mudroom, it was easier for Blake to believe that he and Jennifer were still close. Prepared to tackle the final duty of the day, he took a deep breath and entered the brightly lit kitchen, stocking feet treading softly on the hardwood floor.

  Jennifer bustled about the kitchen counter while MTV blared from the small television on top of the refrigerator. Blake noticed immediately that, as dinners went, it wasn’t much—hamburger with noodles, a green salad, canned pears and wheat toast. Jen wasn’t much of a cook, but at least she made a lot of food. He washed his hands with dish soap in the sink, and then he switched the television to a channel with news and lowered the volume in the hopes that they might actually have a conversation.

  “What? No vegetables?” Blake teased as he surveyed the food Jennifer dished onto foam plates.

  “Sliced bell pepper on the salad. The sauce on the noodles is red, so it must have tomato in it.” Jen rolled her gray eyes, but didn’t smile or look at him as she carried the plates to the table. She never made eye contact with Blake anymore, unless she was angry. He wished he knew what to say or do to make her smile at him again, to share that special camaraderie he’d once taken for granted.

  “Tomato is a fruit.” Blake eyed the three slices of bell pepper she’d referred to that miraculously garnished the top of his salad, not hers, before he delivered the milk to the table.

  “So you say.” She took her place on one of the old wooden kitchen chairs. The one by the telephone. Undoubtedly, she hoped it would ring during dinner.

  That’s when Blake noticed that four pear halves graced his plate. She had one. Not only that, but barely any salad or hamburger with noodles sat on her plate. He clenched his jaw. It didn’t matter that Jen thought she knew how to take care of herself. She didn’t. At this rate, the school would be calling him to say she had an eating disorder. Maybe they weren’t as close as they’d once been, but that didn’t mean Blake wasn’t still responsible for her.

  Snatching a small bag of carrots from the refrigerator, Blake poked his finger through the plastic and tossed some onto Jen’s plate. Then he ladled another helping of hamburger mixture on top of what she’d originally taken. He couldn’t stop himself from tossing a slice of bell pepper from his own salad onto her greens, as well.

  “That ought to help balance the food groups for you.”

  Jen uttered a teenage sound of disgust.

  “And make you regular,” Blake added for good measure.

  “Gross.” She prodded her food for a moment, then sighed and started to eat.

  Disaster averted, Blake slid into his seat and picked up a fork even though he was no longer hungry. Sophia’s illness was hitting him harder than he’d expected. It was as if he were losing his parents all over again—only this time he was losing Jen, too. How many more years would it be before he came home to an empty house?

  They ate in quiet efficiency, with newscasters filling the silence between them and, for once, no telephone calls. Blake wasn’t sure anymore if Jennifer’s silence was due to teenage angst or sorrow for Sophia. He just knew he couldn’t fill it.

  As they were cleaning up, Blake asked, “Want to watch some TV?” He needed a distraction; otherwise he’d worry about things he didn’t want to, like Jen, Sophia and Cori.

  Jennifer grunted.

  “I guess that means no.” Blake tried to hide his disappointment as he took a chocolate candy bar—his cure for the blues—out of the refrigerator and trudged into the living room. Maybe when Jen went up to her room, he’d flip through one of his parenting books.

  Other than the school pictures of Jennifer on the fireplace mantel, the living room hadn’t changed since they’d moved in. There was a small television on a stand, a large green sectional sofa and two glass-topped coffee tables planted on a blue carpet—all castoffs from the last time Sophia remodeled the main house.

  Blake slouched into the couch with his remote, expecting to be alone the rest of the evening. Miraculously, Jen hung out in the doorway.

  “Star Trek? ESPN?” he offered, afraid that the tiny ray of hope welling inside him would be extinguished if he put too much faith in it.

  Jen shrugged, poised awkwardly in the hall.

  With a click of a button, ESPN’s upbeat theme song filled the room. Then an announcer launched into the day’s sports scores. Sports were easy. You played within the rules and won or lost. Not like parenting. The rules of parenting changed as the child aged.

  “We had a substitute teacher in English today. Man, was she messed up.” Jen warmed to her story and relaxed her shoulders against the wall, her face lighting up. “Some of the kids switched seats and pretended to be someone else.”

  Blake noticed all of this out of the corner of his eye. Caution kept him from looking directly at her until he deciphered her mood.

  “By the end of the period, she didn’t know who was who.”

  Blake’s eyes landed on Jen’s face in a blink. She was smiling. Her demeanor fairly shouted for approval. Blake passed the remote control from one hand to the other.

  Let it go. Jennifer was reaching out to him. He should just smile, pat the couch next to him and share in her harmless little prank. But Blake remembered what it was like to be twelve, had once been on the path to becoming a destructive, unchecked teen himself. That had been in junior high school, while his mom struggled to keep them off welfare. Too tired each night to do much more than ask her wayward son about his day, Blake had become something of a campus hellion. When she finally found out the truth about what a bully Blake had become, through a visit to the principal’s office the day he was suspended, the sorrow and disappointment in her tears combined with a transfer to a new school helped straighten him out.

  “Did you go along with it?” His words came out in a low growl and his chin dropped until it almost touched his chest, his eyes on his sister.

  Jen’s expression crumbled. She sniffed, then drew belligerence around her like a cloak. “So what if I did? There’s no harm done.”

  “That’s not an answer. I think you know how I expect you to behave.”

  Hostile eyes stared right back at him. That was new. She hadn’t been able to hold his stern gaze before. The realization that he was losing control of her ignited his temper.

  “Jennifer Louise,” he warned, sitting up straighter.

  “You expect better from me, don’t you.” Her eyes flashed.

  Blake’s eyes widened. A frontal attack. This, too, was new.

  “You know I do.” Blake realized he should leave her alone, but he couldn’t. “Like today. You were rude to Cori Sinclair and that boy.” Blake uttered the last word distastefully.

  “As if they care about me.” Arms crossed guardedly over her chest.

  Why did she have to take everything so personally? As if the world were out to get her?

  “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you treat
people with respect.” He stood, trying to regain some control over the situation. Over her. “Especially to those in the Messina household.”

  “You act like we’re second-class citizens. Everything is about the Messinas. Like they’re royalty or something.”

  “Look at all they’ve done for us.” He spread his arms and gestured around the room. “How they opened up their home to us.”

  “We’ll never be allowed in the house again after Sophia dies.” Jen’s brows pulled disdainfully low.

  Blake eyed her in disbelief. “Is that what this is about? Your room? She’s dying, Jen. How much more selfish can you be?”

  “I must be such a disappointment to you.” Her face reddened while her arms clutched herself tighter. “If it wasn’t for me, you would’ve finished college. And you’d be somewhere…else.”

  For a moment, two pairs of gray eyes clashed. It was true. Blake resented the fact that responsibility for his sister had been thrust upon him, and still felt inferior working in a world where everyone had a degree except him.

  But none of it was her fault.

  In a blink, Jen spun, escaping to the stairs, her footfalls beating sharply on each step, trampling his heart.

  “Jen, wait.” Moving just as quickly, Blake reached the foot of the stairs.

  Jen stopped but didn’t turn, her thin shoulders hunched. One hand clutched the railing, the other covered her face. She was crying.

  Blake’s heart cracked. He couldn’t find his voice, trapped as it was behind his fear. Fear of losing Jen. Fear for Sophia and the pain they were all going through. And he’d accused Cori of not being strong enough today.

  “You’re the most important person in the world to me.” He managed to push the words past the lump in his throat. “I’ve got your picture in my wallet. Yours, Mom’s and Dad’s. Do you want to see?” It was the olive branch he used with Jen. He’d been using it a lot more frequently lately. Sometimes Blake wondered if he’d ever reach a point where it wouldn’t work anymore.

  Slowly, Jen turned, showing him her pale, tear-streaked face. Yet she remained on the steps. The tears just about killed him. Gone were the thoughts that Jen was becoming a pain in the ass. How could he be so insensitive as to make his little sister cry?