Paris or Bust!

by Kate Hoffmann

  “What?” A few clicks on the computer brought Callum to a page flashing the words: “Contest Finalists! One of These Ten Moms Will Win a Trip to Paris!”

  He scanned the finalists’ names and thumbnail descriptions with a sinking sensation. Some of the ladies were exactly the type of person he’d had in mind, including the mother of quadruplets. He had to admit, the choices looked interesting, including both married and single women.

  But why, oh why, had someone selected Jody? There was an obvious conflict of interest for Callum, since the two shared the same hometown, although whoever had pulled this stunt couldn’t have known that there was an even stronger bond between them.

  Uh-oh. There was a second finalist from his hometown, as well, a restaurant owner whose children had grown up and moved away. According to her entry, she wanted to take her pet cat to Paris.

  “This is inexcusable!” Mentally, Callum searched through the staff roster, trying to divine which of his employees might hate him, because the situation reeked of sabotage. Yet he hadn’t fired or demoted anyone. In fact, he’d given them all a large bonus a few months ago at Christmas.

  “You realize that we’re stuck,” Tisa said. “If we disfranchise any of these ladies, they could slap us with a lawsuit.”

  “Did I insult someone at a staff meeting?” Callum asked. “I know I speak without thinking sometimes.”

  “That’s because you’ve got so many ideas, you can’t keep them all inside.” The editor smiled fondly. “Nobody’s mad at you.”

  “Then who’s behind this?”

  “Let’s go down to David’s office and find out.”

  David Renault, the Web master, apologized profusely when he learned of the problem. “The advertising department e-mailed them to me,” he said. “I thought they’d been approved.” He uttered a string of colorful curses. “I had no idea. I feel terrible.”

  After reassuring David that it wasn’t his fault, he and Tisa trooped to Al’s office, which was only slightly smaller than Callum’s and had an even better view of the Los Angeles skyline. He’d been out all week, the secretary confirmed.

  “I’ve been covering for him,” chirped the young woman, whose nameplate read Sally Sinclair. Although she must be in her twenties, to Callum she seemed about eighteen. “Don’t you just love the finalists? I tried to pick people our readers would identify with. I put my own stamp on the contest, don’t you think? My mother says that’s what I need to do to get ahead in publishing, to put my own stamp on things.”

  “You picked the finalists?” Tisa asked in disbelief.

  “I was showing initiative.” Sally’s cheerful confidence began to crumble. “Wasn’t I supposed to?”

  “I asked Al to narrow down the entries, not choose the finalists and post them on the Web site,” Callum said. “Do you have any idea what a disaster this is?”

  The secretary’s lips trembled and tears sparkled in her eyes. It was enough to melt a man’s heart.

  Not a woman’s, though. “You are not the editor of this magazine. I am,” Tisa growled. “And Callum is the publisher. If you ever again presume to ‘put your stamp’ on anything without our approval, you can haul your initiative right out that door and pound the pavement with it.”

  “I’m sorry.” Sally’s contrition might have been more impressive had she not added, “But aren’t they wonderful? I especially like that woman with the cat! And I chose two finalists from your hometown, Mr. Fox! I thought you’d appreciate that.”

  The next thing Callum knew, Tisa had grabbed the collar of his designer jacket and tugged him into the corridor. “You had steam coming out of your ears,” she told him. “We’ll let Al deal with that twit when he gets back.”

  Callum spared another glance at the door to the advertising department before accepting her advice. “We’ve got to run damage control,” he said.

  “Maybe we could add a few more finalists,” Tisa suggested. “So we have more to choose from.”

  “That might only complicate matters.” They were pushing a tight deadline. The winner had to be posted on the site by the end of May, and it was already March. A write-up about her and her trip would provide a future cover story for the print edition of Family Voyager. “I’m sure we can find a suitable Mother of the Year from that list.”

  “Not the woman with the cat.” Tisa accompanied him down the hallway. “Some people may consider pets part of the family, but I doubt our advertisers do.”

  “The readers will get a charge out of her, though.” Already Callum’s brain was making the best of things.

  There was, however, one issue that he couldn’t erase from his mind: Jody Reilly and her boys. One sentence about the suitors stuck with him: They keep popping up under my nose, telling me that my four-year-old twins need a daddy.

  If Jody wasn’t married, who was the father?

  The timing looked suspicious. Five years ago, Callum and Jody had steamed up the windows of her bedroom. She’d amazed him with her unrestrained passion and he’d amazed himself with an all-night response that, he suspected, could have stretched much, much longer.

  Was it possible she’d become pregnant from their encounter? Despite Jody’s fiercely independent nature, Callum couldn’t picture her keeping such a secret. Besides, he’d used protection when they made love. Well, the first time, anyway. After that, he didn’t remember.

  No doubt she’d had plenty of other boyfriends before and since. In fact, during the days after the funeral when she helped him prepare his family’s old home for sale, he seemed to recall her mentioning that she’d recently broken up with someone. Perhaps they’d gotten back together later.

  “Anyway, I’d make a lousy father,” he said aloud.

  “What?” Tisa stopped outside the traffic department, the organizational arm of the magazine.

  “Something just started me thinking,” he explained. “It’s a good thing I’m not a father, because I’d be lousy at it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll bet lots of ladies think you’ve got potential.”

  “You know what I’m like on Take Your Kid to Work Day,” Callum said. “That’s the only day of the year when I shut my door.”

  “You and me both.”

  “I have no patience. I don’t even know how to talk to children.” Seeing the managing editor frown in confusion, he said, “Never mind. The problem is, we’ve got to get the women from my hometown to withdraw their applications.”

  “I thought you said the readers would love the one with the cat,” Tisa said.

  “Yeah, I did. But the other one…” Callum decided to be frank, because he didn’t know how to be anything else. “She’s my ex-girlfriend.”

  “I see.” A smile played around the corners of Tisa’s mouth. “Around here, she’d have to stand in line.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving.” Although Callum’s picture frequently appeared in print as he escorted models and actresses around L.A., mostly it was a mutually convenient setup in which the women landed a suitable escort while he made contacts for Family Voyager. It was true that some women had pursued him and a few times he’d pursued them, but there’d always been something missing. “Jody was the only one who counted.”

  “I can see why there’s a conflict of interest,” Tisa said.

  “Even if I disqualify myself from the selection process, there’d be the appearance of unfairness,” Callum said.

  “You should call her and offer her an inducement to drop out,” Tisa said. “She might prefer a guaranteed trip to a one-in-ten chance at the grand prize. How about a stay at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas?”

  At the mention of Vegas, an imaginary slot machine whirred into Callum’s head. A ticket pinged into place, followed by a second and then a third. They weren’t tickets to Nevada, though. They were tickets to Texas, and they were for him.

  “I’m going to have to do this in person,” he said. Even though there was only the slightest chance that those boys belonged
to him, it wasn’t the sort of situation he wanted to discuss long-distance.

  “Now? There’s so much going on.”

  “I’ll take my laptop and my modem,” he said. “Trust me, I’ll be completely plugged in.”

  “This isn’t like you,” Tisa said.

  “I’m always jumping on planes,” Callum corrected. “I’ll fly into the airport at San Angelo, hook up with a rental car and maybe scout some stories along the way. You know how I hate to waste time.”

  “So it’s a working vacation?” The editor shrugged. “You’re the boss. Just don’t stay away long.”

  “Do I ever?” It was a rhetorical question, but Tisa replied anyway.

  “I hope not,” she said. “I’m good at my job, but we all need you.”

  “Thanks.” The vote of confidence buoyed Callum.

  The trip might not be so bad. The boys’ father would turn out to be lurking in the background, Jody was going to jump at the chance of a guaranteed trip to Vegas and Callum would be back in L.A. before he knew it.

  “I KNOW ADOPTION CAN WORK. Give it a chance, Elsie.” Jody called all her cows Elsie on those occasions when she addressed them directly.

  Elsie stood glumly in her stall, trying to ignore the calf pulling at her udder. The baby, called Half-Pint like all calves on the Wandering I, had been one of a pair whose mother didn’t have enough milk for two. Since Elsie had lost her own spring calf, Jody had decided to pair her off with Half-Pint.

  Jody had a strong sympathy for babies and mothers. According to her forewoman, Gladys, it should take about two weeks for Elsie to bond.

  “You’ll thank me for this,” Jody told the cow. “On the other hand, maybe you’ll turn out to be as stubborn as I am. Lots of people gave me advice, but did I take it? No. And I’m glad I didn’t.”

  The prevailing sentiment in town had been that Jody Reilly was out of her mind to keep the twins. It had been tough enough standing up to the censure of those people who wanted to fire her from her teaching job for having loose morals.

  Complicating matters had been her refusal to name the father. Some people had suspected her ex-boyfriend, Jim, a fellow teacher who, after he and Jody drifted apart, had decided to join the Peace Corps. Others suspected a blond cowboy who’d visited the school when he was in town with a traveling rodeo. In fact, Jody had discreetly spread a rumor about him herself. As far as she was concerned, she had a right to keep her personal business private.

  Despite the gossip, she’d slowly put her life in order. Her mother had volunteered to baby-sit while Jody worked. Restaurant owner Ella Mae Nickerson had trumpeted the fact that many of the town’s other children had been born less than nine months after their parents’ weddings. Tongues had fallen silent after she threatened to post a list in her café window.

  Four years later, the kids fit seamlessly among the youngsters at Sunday school. The same people who’d scowled at first now joked about the fact that she’d named the pair after their grandfathers without realizing that, together, Ben and Jerry could open their own ice-cream stand.

  Leaving Elsie and Half-Pint in the stall, Jody strolled through the barn to a normally unused stall from which came the sound of barking. On this rainy Saturday, the boys were amusing themselves by playing with a mongrel puppy that had wandered onto the ranch a few days earlier, most likely abandoned on the highway. Jody always did her best to find homes for strays.

  “Can we keep him, Mommy?” asked Benjamin. “We’re going to call him Lassie.”

  “Lassie is a female name,” Jody said. “Besides, we’ve already got enough dogs.”

  “They’re always working,” Jeremy piped up.

  “If Lassie sticks around, he’ll have to work, too.” Animals, like people, had to earn their keep on a ranch.

  “We’ll take good care of him!” That was Benjamin.

  “Children need pets,” added his brother. “It says so on TV.”

  “Does it? Well, I’m not making any promises. Where’s Louise?” Gladys’s daughter had been baby-sitting the pair.

  “She’s getting us a drink.” There was a refrigerator in the tack room for storing animal medicines and cold drinks.

  “Well, great.” Jody leaned down and ruffled the two blond heads. Despite being twins, the pair had distinct personalities. Jeremy was stubborn like her, and Ben a smooth talker like his father.

  Oh, darn. She didn’t want to think about Callum Fox. For a long time, she’d pushed him out of her thoughts, but entering the Family Voyager contest had reawakened memories and longings. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea, although she doubted the publisher of such a fancy magazine would read the entries himself.

  She’d been surprised yesterday when Ella Mae called to report that they were both finalists. That proved Callum hadn’t done the picking, because Jody knew he never would have chosen two people from his hometown.

  He probably didn’t give his old friends a moment’s thought. Judging by the photos she’d seen of him and his many girlfriends in People and Us, his social life rivaled that of a prize bull. No wonder he hadn’t even bothered to show up for their tenth high school reunion last year.

  Her heart was safe enough. Safe from everything except her daydreams of a man with a smile to die for and a lean body that drove her crazy, even in memory.

  From outside the barn, Jody heard the swish of tires on the muddy driveway. She hoped it wasn’t one of her would-be boyfriends, racing over after the morning’s downpour to make sure her ranch hadn’t washed away. Although she always needed help, sometimes she could hardly bear to look at eager men, none of whom were the one she wanted.

  She’d loved Callum enough to let him go. Sure, she’d hoped he would come back, but she’d understood five years ago that having to take responsibility for a wife and children would destroy his dreams. He’d just been getting his magazine started and had been working a part-time job to make ends meet while he poured his energies into Family Voyager.

  If he’d married her with two kids on the way, he’d have had to work full-time. The magazine would have lost its window of opportunity. By the time Callum came up for air, someone else would have seized the chance he’d let slip.

  Although she sometimes wondered if she’d been a fool, Jody was glad she’d avoided a marriage that, under the circumstances, would have made them both miserable. She just hoped Callum would understand if he ever found out the truth.

  Shrugging off her reflections, she stepped through the barn’s double doors and blinked as a shaft of sunlight broke through the parting clouds. Who on earth could be driving that aging boat of a convertible with the top jammed half-open?

  The light must have dazzled her, because she could have sworn the man parking in front of the big house had Callum’s shaggy good looks. He bore little resemblance to his glitzy photographs, however, with his silver-blond hair hanging wetly and his clothes plastered to his body.

  Jody’s pulse speeded. This wasn’t possible. Yet-being ruthlessly honest with herself-she’d known there was a chance he might read her essay and wonder about the twins. Was that why he’d come? Suddenly she wished she’d never entered the darned contest.

  Feigning nonchalance, she strolled toward the car. Not yet aware of her, Callum got out and surveyed its sopping interior ruefully.

  No other man could match him for broad shoulders and slim hips, or for the expressiveness of his sharply defined face. Jody remembered how he’d moved when he was on top of her, and beneath her, and most especially inside her. To her dismay, her body rippled with the memory.

  “You forgot to put the top up!” she called.

  “Jody!” Bright blue eyes fixed on her and she felt the connection crackle between them. “You look great!”

  Self-consciously, she tucked her frizzy hair behind her ears. It was like trying to empty the Titanic with a teaspoon. “Oh, yeah? Says who?”

  “Says me, and I should know.” With a couple of long strides, Callum reached her. “Don’t I get a
hug?”

  Jody nearly succumbed the moment she entered his arms. He smelled like expensive indulgences and honest maleness. No, no, no. She needed to keep a protective distance between them.

  “So what brings you here?” she asked, extricating herself.

  “A couple of things,” he said. “Hey, did I get you wet? I’m sorry. I should have reserved a car farther in advance. This was all they had. The roof doesn’t work, obviously. Would you look at me?”

  Callum’s grin carried her back to their teen years, when he’d swept her off her feet by the open way he laughed at her jokes. He’d been irresistible. He still was.

  “Come inside and dry off. You look like you could use some coffee.”

  “Thanks. I’d appreciate it.” If he had any curiosity about the children, he gave no sign of it. He didn’t even look around for them.

  Most likely, Callum was heading somewhere else, Jody mused as they walked. He would dry off, chitchat for a few minutes and be on his way quickly. She quashed a sharp pang of disappointment. It was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  “Do you have some business in town?” she asked.

  “You’re my business,” he said.

  Taken aback by this statement, Jody hesitated with one foot on the front porch. “Are you visiting all the finalists personally?”

  “No,” Callum admitted. “It’s kind of a complicated situation.”

  “Complicated how?”

  “There was a mix-up.”

  “What kind of mix-up?”

  “The finalists’ names were posted without approval.” He bounded onto the porch with a litheness she’d missed more than she wanted to admit. “In fact, they got picked by an overenthusiastic secretary.”

  In spite of her resolve not to let him get close, Jody’s spirits took a dive. He hadn’t come here for any personal reason. He’d been driven purely by pragmatism.

  “So she picked your old pal as a finalist and it looks bad,” she hazarded. “You want me to withdraw, right?”

  “More or less.” Quickly, he added, “Not without compensation, of course. We would guarantee you a trip to Las Vegas.”