Michael's Father. Melinda Curtis
consumed with fear when she couldn’t remember the last time she’d visited the doctor, Cori could only stare blankly at her mother. When she blinked, her memory returned.
Last summer. She’d been to the doctor last summer and everything was okay. And then came the awful thought: Who would take care of Michael if something happened to me?
“Honesty is important, too. I wish I had been honest with your father. Maybe then he’d have stayed with me. You don’t ever see your father, do you?”
“No.” Cori drew back. John Sinclair wasn’t discussed in the Messina household. He didn’t call or send birthday cards. He’d walked out of their lives about twenty years ago and never looked back. Did her mother know that Salvatore had paid John Sinclair to marry her? And most likely paid him to leave?
“It’s too bad that you don’t see your father. I’ve always regretted losing touch. A child needs a father. You should tell him, for Michael’s sake.”
Struggling to follow her mother’s logic, Cori asked, “Tell John Sinclair?”
“No. Tell Blake he has a son.”
Cori forced herself to breathe normally. She couldn’t read her mother’s expression; her eyes were closed again. Cori peeked at Luke to make sure he still slept. Finally, she asked, “How long have you known?”
“I suspected all along, but couldn’t really see it until today. Michael looks less like a baby and more like a little Austin.” Sophia moved her head listlessly as if trying to get comfortable. “Blake’s a good man. He deserves to know the truth no matter what your reasons for keeping it from him.”
Cori wanted—at times needed—to tell Blake, but she doubted Blake would want to keep his fatherhood a secret. He was a proud, honorable man who’d want Michael to call him Dad. In which case, Cori didn’t think she could protect Blake from her grandfather.
“WELL, IF IT ISN’T Sleeping Beauty,” Blake greeted Cori with sarcasm at the door to Sophia’s bedroom the next morning. He checked his watch. “Nine o’clock. Kind of early for you, isn’t it?” He slouched farther in the flowery chair, stretching his jean-clad legs toward Sophia’s bed frame. He should be out in the vineyards. But not wanting Sophia to be alone, he’d waited for Cori to appear.
Sophia either didn’t catch or ignored the dig in Blake’s greeting. “She certainly looks lovely today.” From Sophia’s smile, it seemed the sight of Cori made her happy—while it confused, irritated and hurt Blake.
“I’ve been working since five. Got to pay the bills,” Cori replied mildly, with a quick glance at Blake’s bootless feet, enveloped in dingy socks.
What had she expected from a workingman? Socks in pristine condition? Self-consciously, Blake pulled his feet back to the edge of the chair. He often left his boots at the back door when he’d been traversing a particularly muddy patch of vineyard.
Tugging her short, clingy blue sweater over her khaki walking shorts, Cori moved to her mother’s side. The kid dragged his feet behind her, one hand clutching the bottom of the long-sleeved denim shirt she wore over the sweater.
Ignoring her excuse, flimsy as it was, Blake’s eyes surveyed Cori’s legs and bare feet. It was less dangerous than looking at her curves in that skimpy sweater. “It’s a bit chilly out for shorts,” he found himself saying.
“If the sun’s out, Southern Californians wear shorts,” Cori replied, her words as brisk as the weather. Cori stepped between Blake and Sophia, presenting him with her backside.
Blake swallowed and wet his lips, finding it hard to have Cori so near and untouchable. The kid popped free to lurk on the far side of the bed, a welcome distraction to Blake at this point.
“There’s nothing like a little sun to give a woman that glow,” Sophia conceded, obviously missing the subtext of the conversation.
“A little sunshine would do you good,” Blake said to Sophia, leaning to one side so he could see her face, trying not to look at Cori’s slender figure. She’d left him. He shouldn’t be reacting to her this way now, with interest as inappropriate now as it had been years ago.
“Not today.” Sophia rolled her head. She smiled wanly at Michael, who ducked behind the bed out of sight. “I must look frightening.”
“Nonsense.” Cori’s hand gently encompassed her mother’s. “If that’s a hint, I’ll style your hair.”
“That would be heaven.”
The kid chose that moment to jump onto Sophia’s bed.
“Grandma, we’re going to change the pink room to blue.” The kid’s thin voice rang out as he hopped, jolting Sophia’s limp body with each bounce.
“Michael, don’t—” Cori reached for her son, but Blake reacted faster.
“Can’t you control him?” Blake snatched the boy off the bed with two hands on his little waist, holding him none too gently in the air, inches from his face. “Don’t ever do that again.”
The brat’s dark eyes rounded as they stared at Blake. His mouth puckered tremulously.
Immediately, Blake knew he’d overreacted from stress and lack of sleep, and some other dark reason he was reluctant to acknowledge. Resentment.
I should have been this boy’s father.
Air escaped Blake’s lungs, taking his strength with him. Suddenly, the kid felt as if he weighed a hundred pounds.
“Put him down.” Cori spoke with the unchecked fury of a mother protecting her young. She held out her arms for her son.
Blake met her gaze squarely before setting the kid down. Holding the boy’s sticklike arms, Blake knelt to his level. “I want you to promise me you won’t do that again. You could have hurt your grandmother.” Blake may not have been his father, but he could still be a positive influence on the child. “Are you all right, Sophia?”
“Yes. More startled than anything,” she answered breathlessly.
Cori stood between her mother and her son, seemingly torn as to which needed her the most.
“Promise?” Blake prompted, returning his full attention to the boy. Blake had forgotten how frail a little kid’s emotions were. The boy was small, yet not as fragile as Sophia was.
When the kid nodded, his face full of fear, Blake released him. In the blink of an eye, Cori’s son fled the room. Blake stood, his stomach clenching from what he’d done, not blaming the kid one bit for his hasty retreat.
“That was uncalled for.” Cori’s voice shook, her eyes still focused on the floor where the boy had stood.
Blake shrugged, not backing down, even when he knew only a parent had the right to punish, even when he loathed his own actions. “You want the kid to behave, start setting some rules.”
“Rules—” Cori sputtered, eyes narrowing.
Blake cut her off before she could gather steam. “I have to go. Maria’s downstairs, but I told her you’d stay close to Sophia today. Do you think you can handle that?”
CHAPTER THREE
HOW COULD HE NOT SEE that Michael was his son?
Looking down upon the heads of her son and his father, she’d noted the same swirling pattern of brown hair on each crown. She’d vacillated between anger at Blake for tossing Michael around like a sack of potatoes and disappointment that he couldn’t see the similarities between himself and his son. Yet, should she expect Blake to recognize what she’d tried so hard to hide?
Crash! Tinkle, tinkle.
Cori froze as she slid the last hairpin into her mother’s lifeless hair.
“Michael?” she asked, just as her