Читать книгу Michael's Father - Melinda Curtis - Страница 9

IGNORING THE NERVOUS flutter in her stomach, Cori entered the empty Messina dining room with Michael in tow. Would her grandfather welcome her back? Or order her to go? She squared her shoulders. There was no way she’d leave when Mama had asked her to come home.

Cori pulled Michael back as he extended a small hand toward an antique Japanese tea set on the sideboard. The last thing she needed on her first day home was one of Michael’s accidents.

The opulent room, with its dark, heavy wood furniture, deep burgundy and bronze decor and crystal chandelier felt familiar. Her mind panned through dinners with congressmen, winemakers and her family. Back then, her mother and grandfather were nearly always laughing at some story her brother had retold or some joke her grandfather had pulled on Cori.

Cori sighed. She’d lived here in another lifetime, one she couldn’t relate to now. The long, formal dining table sparkled with expensive china—a sharp contrast to the serviceable Chinette set they used in their little apartment in Los Angeles. A portrait of Cori’s grandmother gazed down upon them, the only warmth in an otherwise impersonal room.

The ornate grandfather clock in the hallway chimed the hour—seven o’clock. Late for dinner by Michael’s standards but early for the Messinas, who usually ate after a full day of work.

“There’s my favorite rug rat,” came a voice behind her.

Cori turned to greet Luke with a warm smile. Cori suspected her brother was wearing the same faded jeans, scuffed work boots and dark flannel shirt he’d worn the last time she’d been home. Five years her senior, Luke Sinclair was becoming a seasoned winemaker. Like Cori, he had the dark complexion and eyes of their Italian ancestors. But there the similarities between the siblings ended. Luke stood over six feet tall, with jet-black hair and a smile that dazzled women from birth to sixty.

“You didn’t dress for dinner?” Cori asked. Not that dinner in the household was a formal affair, but the only time jeans were ever allowed was during the fall harvest season. Cori still had her red dress on and had finally changed Michael’s shirt.

“I don’t do that anymore,” Luke responded cryptically.

Michael squealed with delight as Luke picked him up, then spun him around in a dizzying circle, sending grubby shoelaces flying like streamers around the room.

“Watch out,” Cori warned.

“We’re fine.” Smiling, Luke lowered Michael carefully to the thick oriental carpet, keeping a steadying hand on the boy until he stood without swaying.

“Have you seen Blake and Jen?” he asked.

Cori met her brother’s inquisitive gaze with a quick nod. All afternoon, she’d battled her emotions for Blake. She always knew she’d have to tell Blake he was a father. Except, if Blake couldn’t recognize his own son, did he deserve to know? Or was that just a coward’s excuse to not tell him?

Blake wasn’t making things easier for her. He’d been so sarcastic toward Cori when he’d first seen her, then he’d turned coolly distant, throwing her off balance. Just before she’d come downstairs, she’d watched Blake help her grandfather out of a car, noting his patience despite her grandfather’s gruffness. The gesture had melted her heart.

No matter what she decided, the attraction was still there. She’d lived with the memory of the man she’d fallen in love with for almost five years. That image was hard to tear down in just one afternoon.

Michael giggled and staggered dramatically, bringing Cori back to the present. Obviously, Luke’s charm didn’t end with women.

“Thanks for coming, Sis. Things have been incredibly difficult without you here.”

She blinked back tears at his admission, for her family rarely expressed feelings aloud. “I wish someone had told me earlier.”

“There was hope earlier.” Luke’s expression turned grim and he looked down at Michael, who tugged on his long leg as if looking for a wrestling match.

The sliver of hope Cori had been carrying for her mother was rapidly disintigrating. Even though a part of her knew this was the end, Cori refused to believe her mother couldn’t beat the cancer again.

“Michael, behave like a gentleman,” Cori admonished, making sure she caught her son’s attention before turning back to Luke. “How’ve you managed to spend time with Mama and keep up with your work?”

Luke scratched the back of his neck, not looking directly at Cori. “You know how it is around here. We’re going from first thing in the morning until dinner, sometimes later. But I stop by to visit her every night.” He shot a look toward the hallway, then back at Cori, a smile on his face. “We’ve got some catching up to do. I want to tell you about—”

Luke clamped his mouth shut as Salvatore Messina strode rigidly into the room wearing his usual dark wool suit, silencing further conversation. Hard, black eyes took in Cori’s short red dress with a frown. Cori wasn’t sure what would have been worse—dressing down like her brother or keeping the dress, her symbol of independence. With effort, Cori kept her hands from knotting nervously in front of her. This was the moment she’d been waiting for.

Salvatore’s frown deepened, showing lines etched more severely than she remembered. He finally broke the silence.

“So, Corinne. It takes death to bring you home. I wondered when you’d remember your obligations.”

Luke shook his head, shooting a look of disapproval at their grandfather.

Along with disappointment, guilt washed over Cori at her grandfather’s words. She’d been raised to believe the family came before any personal obligations or dreams she might have. It took her a moment to remind herself that she would’ve come home if she’d been allowed to do so on her terms.

Cori lifted her chin. She’d done nothing wrong. Her grandfather was the one who’d shut her out. But there were fences that needed to be mended, even if he wasn’t letting her come home to stay.

“Michael, this is your great-grandfather.” Cori bent to gently urge her son forward. “Shake his hand.”

Her pride and joy cast a glance at Luke, who smiled and nodded reassuringly. Raising his small hand solemnly, Michael hesitated, then stepped forward to meet Salvatore Messina.

Time hung on Michael’s extended arm. No one moved. No one spoke.

“Playing at royalty, are we?” Salvatore finally said brusquely, glaring at Cori. “It won’t work. He gets nothing from either me or your mother.”

Michael smashed into Cori’s leg at record speed, then pivoted behind her, little arms wrapping around her bare leg. Luke looked uncomfortable but said nothing.

“Don’t.” Cori had known seeing her grandfather would be awkward, but was shocked at his icy reception toward her, and especially toward Michael.

“Maria, what’s for dinner?” Salvatore bellowed, dismissing them as he moved to the head of the elegant table.

Luke sat to his right, leaving Cori and Michael to sit to his left. After standing indecisively for a few moments, Cori dragged out two heavy straight-back chairs and tried to settle Michael into the place farthest from her grandfather—but Michael was having none of it.

“Michael, I need you to sit in your chair.” Cori kept her voice low while trying to guide Michael’s little body into his seat, hating that her grandfather observed their struggle.

“No.” The high pitch of his young voice was adamant. He stared up at his great-grandfather with untrusting eyes, chin tucked into his chest.

Ignoring the clash over seating, Maria served lamb chops, asparagus, sweet potatoes and sourdough rolls. This seemed to be the last straw for Michael, who had wriggled halfway into Cori’s lap.

“Not that,” he wailed, his little finger pointing to the asparagus and sweet potatoes. “I want McDonald’s.”

“He’s a mama’s boy,” her grandfather noted, not bothering to look up from his meal.

Years of training at the Messina dinner table, where opinions were expressed hotly but rebuttals against her grandfather were not allowed, kept Cori silent, even as her body heated with the need to defend herself and her son. Michael’s warm presence in Cori’s lap didn’t help. Any minute now, she feared she’d break out in a sweat.

“We took you everywhere when you were a child,” Salvatore Messina continued. “You ate everything. You never hung on your mother’s skirts.”

They’d joked so much back then, she and her grandfather, each trying to put one over on the other. It was hard to believe this man, or the man in her dorm room that fateful day, was the grandfather who had doted on her during her childhood.

“He’s only four,” Luke said, receiving a cool stare from Salvatore Messina for his defense.

“I didn’t have any freedom,” Cori declared, thinking of the one thing she’d been lacking in her highly structured childhood, the one thing she’d longed for.

Her grandfather scoffed. “You had family. And you were confident of yourself.”

Had she been confident? Cori didn’t think so. She’d traveled so much until she was eighteen, she’d perfected the veneer of sophistication. Her insecurities were kept hidden behind an arsenal of good manners and a smile that eased her out of most difficulties. She’d reveled in her independence in college and started making close friends, finally telling her grandfather she couldn’t travel or help him entertain during the school year because it interfered with her studies. She’d dutifully returned for spring break, summer vacation and the holidays, finding comfort in the familiar bustle of activity, and the sense of belonging home and family offered.

And then she’d met Blake, so proudly self-sufficient, so staunchly convinced that he could make it on his own. Little had she known that Blake would be her role model in the years to come.

“But I guess we didn’t teach you any morals, since you decided to be just another unwed mother, bringing another unwanted child into the world.”

“He isn’t unwanted.” Cori strove to keep her voice calm, uncomfortably conscious of Michael on her lap.

Salvatore raised one bushy, silver brow and leaned toward Cori and her son. “You said his father didn’t want you. Maybe because he had a wife?”

Cori almost refuted his spiteful words, but caught herself. What her grandfather believed didn’t matter.

“Or maybe it was because you didn’t know who the father was.” Her grandfather flung the words at her.

Cori’s stomach sank to her toes.

“Grandpa! That’s enough.” Luke growled at Salvatore Messina.

“How dare you?” Cori managed to push the heavy chair back from the table and lift Michael from her lap and into her arms, attempting escape before her grandfather said anything worse.

“I’ll tell you how I dare.” Unrelenting, Salvatore shouted at her back. “It says unknown on that boy’s birth certificate. That means he’s a bastard. When I find out who fathered him, I’ll make sure he knows what a coward he’s been and make him pay.”

She spun on her grandfather with an outraged gasp, Michael clinging silently to her chest. “It doesn’t matter what his birth certificate says in this day and age. If you ever call him that again, you’ll be sorry.”

“Idle threat.” Everything about her grandfather was as tight as steel, from the set of his shoulders to the taut lines framing his eyes.

Cori struggled to keep her body from shaking. How could he be so horrible? How would they manage to stay in the same house together? There was only one person who could make him behave. And then, only when he wanted to behave. So Cori drew on the only defense she had left.

“I’ll tell Mama. About the choice you gave me.” Cori caught Luke’s frown and ignored him. She’d never told Mama or Luke why she hadn’t come home. Mama had attempted to talk about Michael’s father once, but Cori deftly changed the subject and Mama had never tried again. Cori hadn’t wanted to tell her mother and brother, risking them taking sides and dividing the family just as her grandfather had predicted.

Cori waited for her words to sink in before she turned away from her grandfather. She noticed his expression sag into something resembling regret. If her grandfather felt any remorse, he had a strange way of showing it.

Cori stumbled up the stairs and into her room. Completely drained, she sank onto the bed with Michael still clinging to her, his head tucked into her neck. Somewhere, in the farthest corner of Cori’s mind, she’d hoped that things had changed, that her grandfather would accept Michael without knowing who his father was. But Salvatore Messina’s feelings on the matter were clear.

She fought her tears, not even slightly appeased to know she had a bargaining chip with her grandfather—her silence.

Cori could never let her grandfather know the truth about Michael. She didn’t understand why he’d kept alive his desire to punish both Cori and Michael’s father for their unplanned pregnancy. His animosity was overwhelming. Worse, Salvatore Messina still had the power to destroy Blake, to fire him, kick him out of his home and attempt to make sure he wouldn’t find work in the wine industry again.

“He’s mean, Mommy.”

Reflexively, Cori’s hands stroked a soothing pattern on his back.

“Yes, he can be, Peanut.”

“He’s loud. He yelled about daddies.” Michael snuffled and wiped his nose on her dress. “And I don’t have one.”

This was a phrase Michael used often. Cori’s heart ached over her son’s desire for a father.

“No. Your father doesn’t live with us.” Recalling Blake’s disapproving scowl, Cori didn’t expect that to change.

“I want him to.” Michael pulled back so that she could see his little brow furrowed in a serious expression. “Everybody has dads but me.”

“Lots of kids only have mommies.” Cori smoothed his soft brown hair away from his forehead. “We’ve talked about this before.”

“It’s not fair. I want a daddy.” Michael threw himself dramatically at Cori, nearly knocking her backward onto the bed. “I want to go home.”

Cori didn’t blame him. Leaving would be the least painful way out of this. She’d been happy in this house once. Her family would never understand the choices she’d made—the choices she’d been forced to make.

“We can’t go home until…” She almost said until Grandma goes to heaven, but she stopped herself. She still had hope. “We have to take care of Grandma.”

“I want to go home now.” Michael flopped onto the bed, sending pink ruffles rippling. “Nobody’s nice. And this room is pink.” He kicked at the bed.

Cori looked around the room with all her dolls and feminine memorabilia still displayed as if she’d just left for college, as if she’d never grown up and made her own decisions. The pink room held no appeal for her anymore. Why should it offer any comfort to a little boy?

“How about if you and I decorate this room while we help Grandma get well?” She could pack away the dolls and other childhood treasures she’d never missed in more than four years.

“Orange?”

Cori suffered an eye-blinding vision of orange against pink walls.

“Purple?” she proposed hopefully. Purple could be mixed with pink without too much trouble.

“Blue,” he announced with finality. “Can I look at my book, Mommy?”

“I’m sorry, honey. We left your baby book at home.” Michael used his baby book to comfort himself. Having memorized much of it, Michael could tell Cori when he’d cut his first tooth and how tall he was.

“No, Mommy. You forgot but I packed it,” Michael said, hopping off the bed and running to his backpack.

She hadn’t wanted to bring the book here. Michael’s baby book was the one place she’d been honest about Michael’s parentage. She’d written Blake’s name on the inside cover where it said “Father.” She’d planned to tell Michael about his father someday, sometime after he started to read and before he graduated from college. Or maybe when Blake was no longer working for her grandfather.

Cori’s pulse quickened as she realized how dangerous the book could be. If Michael left his baby book anywhere he shouldn’t, if someone picked it up and flipped to the first page, they’d know the truth.

Oblivious to her turmoil, Michael retrieved the book from his backpack, then climbed back up on the bed. He wriggled into her lap, turning to the first page.

“This is all about me,” he said proudly, the night’s drama temporarily forgotten.

BLAKE SAT ON THE BANK of the Russian River in the darkness, letting the fog envelop him in its chilly embrace. Behind him, hidden by the thick mist, acres of grapevines separated the Messina mansion from the river. Before him, the river flowed silently by, accented by the night symphony of crickets and an occasional plaintive cry from a frog or owl. Obscured by the fog, Blake’s old truck was parked a few feet away, next to a tangle of blackberry bushes.

He’d said good-night to Jen and checked on Sophia long ago, but he’d avoided going to bed. Blake knew he’d be plagued with thoughts of Cori Sinclair that would keep him from sleep. Instead, like a sentimental fool, he’d ended up here, where he and Cori used to meet, reliving thoughts he had no right to think in the first place.

It wasn’t as if he was staying and waiting for her to show up. He knew that wasn’t going to happen. For so many years, this had been his spot.

I loved her. The thought rippled through Blake, eliciting more anguish than he’d felt in years. But Blake’s love hadn’t been good enough for Salvatore Messina’s granddaughter.

Something stumbled in the night. In one smooth motion, Blake shot up and swung the beam of his flashlight in the direction of the noise. It wasn’t uncommon for a puma or a vagabond to wander through the area, and Blake wanted to recapture the element of surprise.

An arm came up against the light. A female voice cursed.

She looked like a vision stepped out of the past. Worn blue denim clung to her legs. A faded red Stanford sweatshirt covered her other curves. Drops of water from the fog were sprinkled on the hair around her forehead, glowing like a halo in the beam of his flashlight.

“Damn it, Cori. What are you doing here?” He’d said something similar years ago, the first time he’d found her down by the river after dark. Blake’s heart beat just as rapidly now as it had then.

“Could you shine the light on my feet instead of in my eyes?”

He readjusted the beam toward her sneakers, incredibly white despite the soft, muddy ground she’d hiked through to get this far.

“Thanks.”

She was always so polite. Too damn polite. Even that one precious night they were together and they’d argued, she’d said thank you as she’d left him alone in bed. “You don’t always have to thank me.”

“I needed some air,” she said, as if explaining why she was here in this place. Their place.

“Where’s the kid?”

“Michael,” she reiterated gently. “Asleep. He’s a good sleeper. Always has been. Even when he was a baby.”

She was babbling, but Blake didn’t care. Part of him was fascinated by the idea that she’d tackled motherhood on her own. Another part of him—the stupid part—was jealous that she’d let some other man touch her as intimately as he had.

“And the boy’s father?” he found himself asking, even as he kicked himself for letting his curiosity fall between them. “Forget it. I don’t need to know.” Wishing she’d go, Blake turned back toward the river, flicking off the flashlight and plunging the area into a darkness that was only dimly lit by the distant lights from the mansion.

Her footsteps carried her closer. Blake’s pulse picked up a notch when he imagined he could smell her flowery perfume.

“We were a burden he didn’t need.” Her voice carried a note of sadness.

Fool. Blake wished he could wrap his hands around the bastard’s neck and make him regret causing Cori pain. Had they argued? Or had Cori just accepted the jerk’s excuses when he left her?

Blake swore under his breath and wiped a hand over his face.

“Looks like you’ve done well with Jen.”

“She’s a handful for only being twelve,” Blake admitted. No sense telling Cori Sinclair about his problems.

“No boy trouble yet?”

“No, thank God.” Her question sent his mind back to the first time he’d kissed Cori.

“She’s going to be a knockout. You’ll be fighting them off.”

Her words brought back the memory of what had crumbled Blake’s guard against his feelings for Cori. By the end of that first summer, Blake had fallen into the habit of tucking Jennifer into bed, then waiting up for Cori, reluctant to slip into his empty bed until she made it safely back within the Messina compound. His instincts told him Cori would find herself in trouble eventually. She was beautiful, and the Messinas didn’t seem to mind that she dressed like a woman of the world.

He knew that they couldn’t be anything more than friends. But he enjoyed their late-night private conversations, her brilliant smiles and the knowledge that she was home safe.

Blake had been waiting for Cori to come home from some function the Messinas had required her to attend. She’d gone to the event in a sleek little sports car with a young, blond, next-in-line-to-be-a-millionaire college boy.

The new British convertible had pulled up, and with a heavy heart, Blake realized the driver was going to kiss Cori. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. Then, just as the boy’s lips neared Cori’s, Blake heard her say “No.”

Blake snapped. He sprang into action. Ran to the car. Yanked the guy out and threw him to the driveway.

“Don’t touch her!” He went cold just remembering that primitive territorial note of warning in his voice.

Cori was at Blake’s side in an instant. Holding her trembling body against his, Blake never wanted to let go. Moments later, when her soft lips touched his, he knew he was lost.

He loved her.

She was everything he wasn’t—well educated, wealthy, someone important. None of that mattered when they were together. Or so he’d thought.

Blake fought the memory of the feel of Cori’s body against his. Luckily, the physical memory was overshadowed by the burning need to know what had been happening to Cori all these years.

“What kind of man were you involved with, that wouldn’t want to marry the mother of his child?”

Cori sat down on the far end of the steep riverbank, several feet away from Blake, choosing her words as carefully as she had chosen her seat.

“We wanted different things.”

“Obviously you wanted the same thing at least once. You created a child together.” She created a child with someone else. The thought burned in his belly, worse than the jealousy he’d carried all these years imagining her in a happy relationship with someone else—someone who was good for her, as Sophia put it.

Cori didn’t answer. Blake peered through the fog but couldn’t make out her features without turning on the flashlight. “Were you the one who decided you wanted different things?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Déjà vu. That’s what you said to me the last time I saw you.” He’d confessed his love and plans for the future. Hell, he’d done everything but propose marriage. She’d practically tripped over herself in her haste to flee.

“I needed to make it on my own first, remember?” The words spilled out bitterly from the shadows.

Blake didn’t remember it that way. He only remembered the rejection. For a moment, he wondered if he’d mistaken her meaning years ago. But he’d never had the chance to find out. She’d eventually fallen into the arms of another man.

“You never came back.”

“No.” The word signaled the end of the conversation. “I had Michael and that’s all that mattered.”

That’s all that mattered to her. She didn’t seem to care about how her actions affected others, saddened them or ripped them apart inside.

“You don’t come home for the holidays.” Having his family torn from him left Blake with this need to set down and foster roots, kept him here with the Messinas, who’d become a second family to him and Jennifer. Blake would do anything for them.

“I let them down.”

How could she have disappointed the Messinas? She’d been the dutiful granddaughter—once—until she met somebody who changed her mind. Someone other than Blake.

“And you’ve been raising him alone?” He’d have bet money Cori would have come right back to the family’s money and security. He knew firsthand that raising a child was too difficult to do alone if you didn’t have to.

“Yes. Is that so hard to believe? That I could make it on my own without my family?” She laughed but the sound lacked humor. “You must really think I’m something special.” She stood up, her face still unreadable in the gray shadows. “Sleep well, Blake.”

But Blake knew sleep would elude him.

CORI SLIPPED INTO HER mother’s room and lowered herself carefully onto the bed. Soft light from the hallway crept across the thick carpet, casting her mother’s gaunt face in shadow. Luke dozed on the sofa on the far side of the room, his stocking feet dangling over the edge of the sofa’s arm. Gently, Cori drew the covers on the bed up around Mama’s thin shoulders, tucking her in, in much the same way she did Michael every night. Seeing her mother asleep and unmoving, Cori was sure she was losing her battle with cancer.

Cori smoothed the blankets along the edge of the bed, unwilling to leave her mother’s side. She could still hear Blake’s tone, full of condemnation, his words ripe with disbelief. After her confrontation with her grandfather, Cori had needed some reassurance that she’d done the right thing by keeping Blake’s fatherhood from him. For years, the secret had chipped away at her conscience. Irrationally, she’d wanted some sign from Blake that her decision had been for the best, that she should continue to guard her secret. So, she’d walked down to the Russian River in the foggy darkness.

Her conversation with Blake had been much like their talks that first summer. The intimacy of the night. Questions asked that one wouldn’t dare ask in the daylight. She’d wanted to tell him about Michael, had even started to gather her courage. Then, sensing Blake’s disappointment in her, the fragile mood between them collapsed. Just as her world seemed to be.

“You’re worried about something.” Sophia spoke softly, her eyes still closed as if she lacked the strength to open them. “I could always tell when you were worried, by how carefully you paid attention to what you were doing.”

“I’m a mother. I worry about everything.” Cori hoped her voice sounded lighter than she felt.

“I’m here if you want to talk.”

How long will you be here? The question paralyzed Cori’s thoughts, and she fell silent. She wouldn’t accept her mother was dying, despite the evidence in front of her.

Sophia sighed, then opened her eyes. “You’re wondering why I’m not in a hospital.”

Cori’s hand slipped under the blanket and found her mother’s. It was such a small, fragile hand. “Ye-es.” Cori’s thin acknowledgment cracked, the word as brittle as her fears.

“There comes a time when you have to decide, Cori. And I realized it was my time to stop fighting.”

Closing her eyes, Cori turned her head toward the hallway, away from this reality. “The doctors can’t do anything for you?”

“The doctors can ease my pain or they can continue to attack the cancer. Either way is a losing battle.”

Cori bit her lip, trying to hold herself together. “Why don’t you have a nurse?” They could afford an army of nurses.

“No nurses. No doctors. No tubes or shots. Just my family and my home.” Mama squeezed Cori’s hand.

“How long?” Cori closed her eyes against her tears. “How long have you known?”

“I found out the cancer metastasized right after Christmas.”

It was now late February. Her mother had kept the illness hidden from her for nearly two months. The guilt was almost as debilitating as the truth she wouldn’t accept. Cori’s hand crept to her throat. She had to know more.

“When did you decide to…?” Die. Cori couldn’t say the word aloud. To do so was to admit defeat. “To stop fighting?”

“When I asked you to come home and you said yes. They took all the tubes out of me after I hung up. Blake brought me home from the hospital that same day.”

How was Cori supposed to deal with that? Her mother had given up because Cori had agreed to come home. In need of a distraction, she opened her eyes and focused on her mother’s last words.

“Blake took you home?”

“Blake and Jennifer are so supportive. They spent quite a bit of time with me at the hospital. Blake has some spare time until bud break.”

Spare time? Every month was busy in the vineyard. January and February were filled with pruning and replanting damaged stock. February sometimes offered a few weeks of respite until the warmer weather coaxed buds to open on the vine. Maybe Blake relied on the other staff to cover for him while he helped Sophia.

No. Cori doubted Blake had much, if any, spare time.

“What about Luke and Grandpa?” Cori cast a glance back at her sleeping brother, snoring softly on the couch.

“Lucas and Father have been focusing on the business. We’re introducing internationally, you know.” Sophia’s voice sounded drowsy.

“I didn’t know,” Cori murmured. She couldn’t do anything about her grandfather’s absence from Sophia’s life, but she was going to take Luke to task for having his priorities screwed up. His saving grace was the fact that he guarded Mama through the night.

“Do you have regular checkups, Corinne?” Sophia’s eyes opened and fixed wearily on Cori. “That’s very important.”

Momentarily 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?”