Finding Happily-Ever-After

by Marie Ferrarella

  To her, that was a minor point. There weren’t that many elementary schools in Bedford. It was a very desirable place to live, but in comparison to many of the surrounding cities, it was still in its infancy. “Didn’t you say you lived nearby?”

  “Not all that nearby,” Chris confessed.

  And he had no idea if his house and his late sister’s were even in the same school district. He had a feeling that they probably weren’t. Nothing was ever simple when it came to Rita, he thought.

  He lowered his voice, as if to spare Joel from hearing this. But the boy had stopped what he was doing and placed the handheld console on the coffee table. He was very aware that he had become the topic of conversation and was intently listening to his fate being bandied about.

  “Staying here for a few days to help Joel deal with this situation is one thing,” Chris was saying, “but all my reference books, my notes for my research, all that’s over at my house.”

  Jewel didn’t see any of this as a problem. The situation was fluid. The main thing was to get the boy into a school where he could take his first steps toward a formal education.

  “All right, why don’t you use that as Joel’s address for the time being?” she suggested, then flashed the boy an encouraging smile. “When I locate his father, things can be adjusted.”

  She’d counted on support from her mother and the other two women. She’d forgotten how unpredictable they could be.

  “Uprooting the boy so much won’t be good for him,” Theresa said quietly.

  Jewel was about to protest that it wouldn’t be for that long, but Chris had already turned toward the woman and asked, “What do you suggest?”

  “Since your intent is to find the boy’s father, and he’ll likely move back in, why don’t you use this house as an address?” Cecilia suggested.

  Drawn into the discussion, Maizie temporarily shut her cell phone as she raised another point. “What if Jewel can’t find his father?”

  Cecilia frowned at the mere suggestion that could hap pen. “Jewel could find an angel’s shadow if she had to.”

  “Luckily, I don’t have to,” Jewel murmured under her breath, then turned toward Chris, covering her embarrassment with a quip. “My mother’s just the tiniest bit prejudiced.”

  Rather than agree, or laugh, Chris surprised her by saying, “Hey, enjoy it while you have it.” It earned him the approval not only of Theresa, but of all three of the women. Despite their thriving careers, all three were first and foremost mothers.

  Cecilia beamed and patted Chris on the shoulder. “I knew I liked this young man the minute I saw him.”

  But Maizie had another wrench to throw into the plans. “What if Jewel finds him and he doesn’t want to move back into this house? What if the man wants to take Joel to live with him instead of the other way around? He’s got to be living somewhere,” she pointed out.

  This was getting out of control, Jewel thought. She held up her hands as if to physically stem the flow of words.

  “Stop, stop,” she pleaded. When the growing noise level died down, she addressed her suggestion not to any of the three women, but to Chris. After all, the decision, no matter how long they debated it, was ultimately his. “For now, why don’t we just register Joel in this school district? That way, he can meet some of the kids in the neighborhood. If things change, we’ll deal with them then.”

  She realized her mistake the minute the words were out. She’d said we.

  She’d just injected herself into the mix. While she did work closely with any clients she took on and checked in with them regularly, once a case was over, so, for the most part, was the contact. In this particular case, she didn’t want to inadvertently make her mother think that there was any sort of a match being struck here in the long run—or even the short run.

  “I mean, they’ll deal with them then,” she deliberately corrected herself. She avoided looking at Culhane, afraid of what she might see in his eyes. Amusement, surprise or apprehension—none of it was something she would have moved into the “win” column.

  It was Maizie who finally broke the silence and gave Jewel’s idea the seal of approval.

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” she agreed. Holding up her still-dormant cell phone, she said, “I’ll make that phone call now.” There was a sliver of a question in her voice as she once again opened up the phone. She glanced at Chris to see if he concurred.

  Feeling somewhat at loose ends, he nodded.

  Maizie moved toward the kitchen, punching in the numbers that would connect her directly to her daughter no matter where she was.

  Looking bewildered, Joel tugged on the hem of Jewel’s blouse. “What’s happening?”

  He’d gotten overwhelmed, she thought. Welcome to the club, kid. It took effort not to get lost in the verbal back-and-forth pitches.

  “Well, it looks like the short of it is we’ll be getting you some friends,” she told him.

  Because that would be where, hopefully, this project would end: with his enrolling in kindergarten and making friends with at least a few children in the class. To her, that was more important than what address he used.

  Her words did not get the reaction she’d hoped for. Joel looked upset. “I don’t need any friends,” he told her.

  “Everyone needs friends,” she told him kindly.

  Jewel knew that the boy was probably afraid, and she could understand that. Being the “new kid” anywhere was an uncomfortable feeling. It was worse when you were a kid—even a brilliant kid.

  As she made her pronouncement, she couldn’t help glancing in Chris’s direction. She had a feeling that, despite his kneecap-melting good looks, Christopher Culhane was a bit of a loner himself.

  “Hey, wait, I do have friends,” Joel told her suddenly.

  This was a complete 180-degree change from a couple of minutes ago. She didn’t picture the boy as someone who would deliberately tell a lie—especially one that was so blatant and easily disproved.

  “You do? Who?” she wanted to know.

  Joel never hesitated. Instead, he looked very solemn as he made the revelation. “You. And the nice ladies here.”

  Damn, but he was good, she thought. This time, she gave in and affectionately ran her fingers through his hair. She was pleased that he didn’t flinch or pull back. “That’s very sweet, Joel, but we’re all adults, honey.”

  That response only confused him. “I can only be friends with kids?”

  She knew that sounded way too confining to him. Plus she had a feeling that, given his maturity level, Joel was probably currently stuck somewhere between the world of adults and the world of children. An unfortunate outsider to both. He was most likely safer among adults. They might ignore him or dismiss him, the way his mother probably had, but at least adults wouldn’t ridicule him the way kids did with someone who was different.

  Still, the longer that was put off, the harder it would be for Joel to blend in, even a little.

  “Of course not,” Chris told him firmly. “You can be friends with adults.”

  The way the man said it reaffirmed her suspicions that he had experienced the same sort of situation when he was Joel’s age.

  “Your uncle’s right. You can be friends with anyone you want,” she assured the boy.

  Joel’s eyes met hers. “So you’re my friend?”

  She saw that Chris was about to say something that would relieve her of this responsibility, but she answered faster.

  “You betcha.” She flashed him a grin and put her arm around the slight shoulders. “I’d be honored to be your friend, Joel.”

  She was rewarded with a bright, sunny smile.

  “It’s all set,” Maizie announced as she shut her cell phone and crossed back to the others. Her eyes swept over both Chris and Jewel. “Nikki can see Joel in her office tomorrow morning at ten. She’ll give him a physical and any immunizations that he hasn’t had yet.”

  The boy’s bright, sunny smile faded.

 
Chapter Six

  Jewel had no intentions of accompanying Chris and his nephew to Nikki’s office. She didn’t want either of them, especially Chris, to feel as if she were pushing her way into their inner space. But just as she was about to leave her apartment that morning to attempt to track down Ray Johnson’s former employer, her cell phone rang.

  Putting down her keys, she fished her phone out of her pocket and glanced at the caller ID. It said “Private,” which meant that it could have been anyone. The wide field ran from her mother’s landline all the way to various political volunteers begging for contributions in order to keep their party strong.

  Though the temptation to ignore the call was great, given her line of work, Jewel really didn’t have that luxury. You never knew when another client might be calling—or an anonymous tip might be coming in. She already had several feelers out regarding her present case.

  The first thing that had come to her attention was that there were over 653 Ray Johnsons in the country, with more than 220 of them in California. And those were only the ones who were listed. She was sure the number was at least double that amount.

  But only one of them was Joel’s father.

  She had her work cut out for her.

  Suppressing a sigh, Jewel flipped her phone open. “Hello?”

  “Jewel?” A deep male voice rumbled against her ear. She realized that her hold on the phone had tightened in response. “This is Christopher Culhane. I hate bothering you…”

  Ah, if you only knew… The man bothered her in ways he undoubtedly didn’t suspect, but she wasn’t about to let him know that.

  Instead, she cheerfully reminded him, “You’re the client, which means that you’re paying for the privilege of bothering me anytime you need to.” Maybe he’d remembered something that would help her locate his ex-brother-in-law. “So, what can I do for you?”

  His answer had nothing to do with finding Ray. “Joel says he doesn’t want to go to the doctor.”

  He’d struck her as a man who was in control of the situation—as long as the situation involved adults. This was something else again. He hadn’t a clue when it came to dealing with someone under five feet tall.

  Okay, she could be sympathetic, Jewel thought.

  “Kids usually don’t,” she told him. There was a pause on the other end of the line. A very pregnant pause. Like he was trying to find the right way to ask and not be blunt. Taking pity on him, she decided to bail him out. “Would you like me to go with you? I could meet you at Nikki’s office.”

  The relief she heard in the man’s voice told her she’d guessed right. But apparently he still had a problem.

  “I’m not sure he’ll believe me if I tell him you’ll be there.” He lowered his voice, leading her to assume that Joel was within earshot. “I get the feeling that my sister broke most of her promises to him. He’s not overly trusting.”

  Once shattered, trust was a hard thing to rebuild. If the most important person in his life didn’t keep her word, how could he think that anyone else would? She could see where the boy was coming from, even as she sympathized with Chris’s problem.

  “Put Joel on the phone, Chris,” she requested. “I’ll talk to him.” The next moment, she heard the sounds of the phone being shifted and handed over.

  “Hello?” a small voice said hesitantly.

  She kept her own voice cheery. “Hi, Joel. It’s Jewel. What’s this I hear about you not wanting to go to the doctor this morning?”

  “I’m okay, Jewel,” the boy insisted. “I don’t need a doctor.”

  Poor kid. He probably thinks he’s going to be tortured. “We talked about this, remember? You need to get certain shots before you can go to school. It’s to keep you from catching some pretty nasty stuff.”

  Joel had a counterargument. “I won’t catch anything if I don’t go to school.”

  That was fast. “And waste that brilliant lawyerlike mind of yours? No way. C’mon, Joel,” she coaxed. “Don’t tell me a big, strong guy like you is afraid of an itty, bitty needle.”

  “I’m not afraid of a needle,” he told her with feeling. “I’m afraid of having it stuck into me.”

  Wow, she thought. This kid could be president by the time he’s twelve. Jewel looked at her watch. It was getting late. According to Maizie, Nikki had said she’d meet the boy and his uncle at her office at ten. They needed to hit the road. Soon.

  “Tell you what. I’ll be by in a few minutes and take you and your uncle Chris to the doctor. Dr. Connors is coming in just for you, Joel,” she reminded the boy, thinking of the manners he’d displayed. She played on that. “It wouldn’t be nice if you didn’t show up. You don’t want her to come all that way on a Saturday for no reason, do you?”

  She heard the boy’s deep sigh. “No, ma’am.”

  “Atta boy,” she declared, grinning. “I’ll be right there.”

  Joel and Chris were waiting for her in the driveway when she pulled up. Chris definitely looked relieved and the moment he saw her, Joel’s face lit up like a decked-out Christmas tree.

  It didn’t take much for her to realize that although he might have needed a male role model, the boy was simply starved for female attention. That was one of the reasons he’d responded so well to her mother and her mother’s friends. With his own mother gone, Joel had no one to fill that emptiness and he was at loose ends.

  If she was given to thinking with her head instead of her heart in situations like this, she would have wondered if perhaps she was doing more harm than good, interfering with the potential bonding process between Joel and his uncle.

  But all she knew was that when the little boy’s face lit up like that just because he saw her, something reacted inside her in response, a warmth that spread all through her.

  She knew her mother would have had some comment about that being her biological alarm clock going off, but she knew it couldn’t be that. She liked kids but she’d never experienced that overwhelming desire to have any of her own. Or a husband for that matter.

  It was only human to respond to someone who looked that happy to see you, she silently argued. There was no ticking clock involved.

  “Hi!” Joel cried, running up to the car, his dark eyes dancing.

  “Hi, yourself,” she laughed as he opened the door and scrambled into the backseat.

  A child his size was supposed to ride in the rear passenger seat, but she was surprised that Joel hadn’t tried to sit up front with her. The little boy’s capacity for self-discipline, not to mention the extent of the things he seemed to know, just kept on surprising her.

  “Sorry to put you out like this,” Chris apologized as he got in on the front passenger side.

  “Just all part of the service,” she assured him cheerfully.

  “Really?” he asked. Since he’d never had the need to hire a private investigator before, he had no idea what the job description actually entailed.

  Her grin told him that she was kidding. It also, he became aware, evoked an entirely different response from him than he was prepared for. He forced his mind to focus on the business at hand: getting his nephew to the pediatrician for his immunizations.

  “I’m making this up as I go along,” Jewel admitted. “But so far, it seems to be working out,” she told him. Her foot still on the brake, she turned to look in the backseat. “All buckled up?” she asked Joel.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She nodded her approval, then glanced to her right. “You, too, Uncle Chris. We’re not moving until you have your seat belt on.”

  It had completely slipped his mind. As he reached for the seat belt, he realized that he was reaching in the wrong direction. Switching hands, he tugged on the seat belt until it was secured around him.

  “Not used to riding shotgun?” she guessed, hiding her amusement.

  “What?” The term caught him off guard for a moment. “Oh, no, no I’m not. I’m usually driving,” Chris explained.

  “Would it make you feel more com
fortable if you drove to the doctor’s office?” Foot still on the brake, she lifted her hands from the wheel to indicate that she didn’t mind letting him take over.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to say yes, but then, because she’d offered, Chris refrained. He didn’t want her to think that he was one of those macho types who needed to pound his chest every fifteen minutes or so just to prove how virile he was. Why he should care what she thought of him was something that he didn’t pause to explore. Things were complicated enough already.

  “No, that’s okay,” he told her. “I’m fine with you driving. Besides, you’re the one who knows the way.”

  They weren’t exactly traveling to a secret lair, she thought, pressing her lips together to suppress an amused grin. “It’s the medical building in Fashion Island.”

  To her surprise, Chris shook his head. “Afraid I’m not familiar with the area.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Jewel that anyone who lived in Southern California was unfamiliar with Fashion Island in Newport Beach. It had been around for years. Each year at Christmastime, the merchants outdid themselves when it came to decorating, trying to top the year before. She could remember her parents bringing her there to see it all when she was a little girl. It had become a tradition that she and her mother continued even after her father had passed away. She was extremely sentimental about the area.

  “Were you born here?” she asked, curious.

  “Here?” Chris echoed.

  “In Southern California,” she elaborated.

  He realized what she was getting at. He didn’t get around much. His work ate up his time. “I’m a native,” he told her. “But I’m afraid I never had much time for malls and those kinds of places.”

  She found that almost impossible to believe. “Even as a kid?”

  “Especially as a kid,” he countered with a dry laugh. He tried to picture his parents chauffeuring him, as he heard that parents did these days with their kids. He drew a blank. “I had no way to get there.”

  She was about to say that his parents were supposed to be the ones who brought him to the mall as a kid, but the point he was making penetrated. She was beginning to understand why his late sister had such poor self-esteem. And why she hadn’t been that much of a mother herself. Rita Johnson lacked role models. Chris and Rita’s parents obviously never spent much time with them.