His Real Father (Harlequin Super Romance)

  It’s just Joe

  Lisa hated the nervous flutter that she felt when she watched Joe walk toward her. She needed to remember who he was. Her deceased fiancé’s twin brother. Her son’s uncle.

  At one time, Joe had also been Lisa’s best friend—the shoulder she’d cried on when his brother was being a jerk. But then graduation night had happened. Opportunity had awakened desire, which had led to passion. A choice with ramifications that Lisa had only just discovered.

  She pushed the thought aside. She needed to deal with Joe in a businesslike manner because Maureen had warned her Joe had been asking questions about the sale of the bar.

  Once Lisa had negotiations out of the way, she could bring up the possibility that for seventeen years she’d been living a lie.

  Dear Reader,

  Twins fascinate me. So alike, and yet often so different. Growing up, Joe Kelly and his brother, Patrick, appeared to be polar opposites—the sensitive, insightful artist versus the gregarious, self-assured athlete. But the two shared one common trait—they both loved the girl next door.

  Lisa Malden lost her heart to Joe the first moment she met him—in seventh grade—but it was Patrick who pursued her and, ultimately, when Lisa discovered she was pregnant, convinced her that, despite her one, impulsive night of lovemaking with Joe, the baby had to be his. Patrick begged her to marry him. Unfortunately, he lost his battle with alcohol before they could say their vows. Grief and recriminations drove Lisa and Joe down different paths—a single mother who never left town and a celebrated filmmaker following his dream in Hollywood.

  Now, seventeen years later, both Lisa and Joe have reached a crossroads. There are hard decisions to make. Truths to tell. And a teenage boy at risk of following in the footsteps of the man he thinks of as his father. But what if his real father is Joe?

  In researching a book, I’m often given the opportunity to learn about new professions. I thank Daniel Heiss for walking me through the world of moviemaking and giving me a glimpse at the creative genius behind visual storytelling.

  I’m thrilled to announce two upcoming releases for Harlequin’s Signature Select line this fall: Window to Yesterday, in October, and Betting on Grace, in November. To find out more, visit my Web site at www.debrasalonen.com, where I have an ongoing blog about the writing life and a new contest every month. You’ll also find me at www.superauthors.com and on the “Let’s Talk Superromance” thread at eHarlequin.com. Or write to me at P.O. Box 322, Cathey’s Valley, CA, 95306.

  Happy reading,

  Debra Salonen

  His Real Father

  Debra Salonen

  This one is for Ruth—for giving me two wonderful gifts:

  undistracted days in which to write and my reward

  when I’m done for the day, Malte.

  Books by Debra Salonen

  HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

  910—THAT COWBOY’S KIDS

  934—HIS DADDY’S EYES

  986—BACK IN KANSAS

  1003—SOMETHING ABOUT EVE

  1061—WONDERS NEVER CEASE

  1098—MY HUSBAND, MY BABIES

  1104—WITHOUT A PAST

  1110—THE COMEBACK GIRL

  1196—A COWBOY SUMMER

  1238—CALEB’S CHRISTMAS WISH

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  “JOE’S PLACE. Name your poison.”

  Joe Kelly frowned. The youthful voice on the other end of the phone undoubtedly belonged to his nephew, Brandon, but what was a sixteen—or rather, recently turned seventeen-year-old doing behind a bar?

  “Brandon? Is that you?”

  “Uncle Joe.” The boy’s shout made Joe’s eardrum ring. “Are you at the airport? Mom just called all p.o.ed because she couldn’t find you.”

  He’d missed Lisa? Damn.

  Joe stacked his bags and gear in a pile to keep from tripping other passengers who were exiting the Modesto airport. He looked longingly toward the parking lot where a fleet of rental cars was neatly lined up.

  “The plane was late leaving LAX. A huge downpour. In mid-May. Can you believe it? I told your grandmother I should rent a car instead of bothering Lisa.”

  “Well, you know Grams,” Brandon said sagely.

  Did he?

  Joe wasn’t sure. Nothing in his thirty-five years of being Maureen Kelly’s son had prepared him for the bombshell she’d dropped when he’d called her on Mother’s Day. “Well, darlin’ boy, I’ve decided to sell the bar. And I’m getting married.”

  Sell Joe’s Place? Joe had been too shocked to even register the other half of her announcement.

  Joe’s Place was a fixture in Worthington, the small, agriculture-based community in central California where Joe had grown up. His parents had owned the combination bar and grill since before Joe and his twin brother Patrick were born, and he’d never thought they’d sell it—much as he’d wanted him to. The bar had become a huge point of contention when Patrick died in an alcohol-related traffic accident the summer after the twins’ high-school graduation. Joe had demanded his parents get rid of the place. His father had flatly refused.

  Joe remembered their argument all too clearly. Many times since, he’d wished he could take back his hurtful words, but apologies didn’t come easy to the men in his family. And, now, with his father gone two years earlier from a heart attack, there’d be no reconciliation.

  “The bar was your dad’s dream,” his mother had added when Joe failed to comment. “I kept it going after he died because everybody said not to rush into any big changes. But when Gunny asked me to marry him I thought why not? What’s keeping me here? Lisa graduates from college in a few weeks. Brandon only has one year of high school left. Everyone’s life is changing, but mine.”

  “Marry?” Joe had managed to choke out.

  “The good thing about having cancer is that you get your priorities straight,” she’d said in a slightly defensive tone. “I’m tired of being alone.”

  Maureen had been a widow for a little over a year when she’d discovered a lump in her breast. Surgery and aggressive treatment seemed to have eliminated the disease. Joe was grateful, but he hadn’t expected her recovery to lead to this. But because he hadn’t really “been there” for his mother, he didn’t know what to say, except, “Umm…congratulations.”

  Later, after the shock had worn off, Joe had given her announcement some serious thought and realized he wanted to make a movie about the bar.

  Just speaking the words seemed to trigger memories. His father dispensing wisdom to a host of regulars. His mother stirring a huge vat of chili. He and his brother doing their homework on top of cases of beer.

  The bar had been the center of Joe’s universe for over half his life, but like every small-town watering hole he’d ever seen or heard about, it also served as a hub of social exchange, where one could take the pulse of the economy, trace the changes in societal mores and track the life—or death—of a community. Joe knew he couldn’t let Joe’s Place pass into other hands without documenting its history—the good and the bad.

  He hadn’t mentioned this aspect of his visit to his mother when he called to tell her he was coming home. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure she�
��d approve, given his vocal antipathy toward the place. And he had no idea what to expect from the new owner since Maureen had been reluctant to share any details of the sale. “We’re still negotiating,” she’d told him.

  Joe figured if he couldn’t get her to postpone the sale for a month or two, he’d at least have a few weeks to film on-site before escrow closed. If he needed to come back to pick up any extra footage, he couldn’t imagine why the new owner would object. Free publicity was free publicity, even if the movie flopped.

  Documentaries were odd ducks. Some flew to mass distribution, some never got off the ground. Joe tried not to think that far ahead. At the moment, he just knew that he had to make this film. Which was why he’d brought a camera with him.

  Bending down, Joe checked the locks on the silver case, which was about the size of a microwave oven. He’d shipped his tripod, portable mixing deck and laptop, which he would use to process raw footage. The hard-core post-production work would be done when he returned to L.A.

  “So, is your mom coming back for me?” he asked, refocusing his attention on the present.

  Lisa Malden, Brandon’s mother, was Joe’s “almost” sister-in-law. Unfortunately, Patrick had died before they could tie the knot.

  She was part of the reason Joe didn’t come back to Worthington more often. It was never easy to look your living, breathing conscience in the face.

  “Yeah,” Brandon said, “she was just pissed because she has so much to do before graduation.”

  “That’s right. Mom mentioned that Lisa was graduating.”

  “Next Saturday,” Brandon said. “’Bout time, huh?”

  Lisa was the only person Joe had ever known who’d managed to drag out her college experience for nearly ten years. Although privately Joe had rolled his eyes every time his mother had mentioned Lisa’s newest major, he didn’t approve of the slightly deprecating tone he heard in Brandon’s question.

  “Well, she beat me to a degree. I dropped out of film school my final year, you know.”

  “So you could make movies and get rich and famous.”

  “Not exactly.” Although that had been his intention at the time. Cocky, brash, certain he was the next Spielberg, Joe had let the small amount of fame that came from the release of his student film Dead Drunk lure him from the path he’d started on the first time he picked up a camera.

  “Anyway, I’m here now, if she checks in with you,” he said, reluctant to discuss his mistakes with a young man he barely knew. He’d made plenty over the years. Both personal and professional.

  “Cool,” the boy said. Brandon was a junior in high school. Joe wondered how these impending changes would affect his nephew. “Grams says you’re supposed to come here for dinner. Martin is going to watch the bar while we eat.”

  Martin Franks. The seemingly ageless bartender who had been around for as long as Joe could remember. Maureen had told him Martin had stepped in to help run the place during her illness and recovery. Was he the mysterious buyer?

  Joe had asked the buyer’s name, but his mother had answered, “I’d rather not say. I don’t want to jinx this.”

  “Great. I’m starved. Is Gunny going to be there?”

  Gunner Bjorgensen, his mother’s fiancé, was a man Maureen had first met in grief therapy. Since his wife had suffered from breast cancer, too, he’d been able to help Maureen negotiate some of the hurdles, both financial and emotional. Joe didn’t have anything against the man, but he was worried about the timing of Gunny’s proposal. Joe hoped she wouldn’t regret this decision.

  A honking horn startled him out of his musings.

  “That could be her, Brandon. I’m hanging up.”

  “Wait. Did you remember my poster?”

  Joe smiled. Brandon might sound grown up on the phone, but his interest in young starlets was that of a teen. “I got it.”

  “Cool,” his nephew said.

  Joe pocketed the cell phone then looked at his mountain of luggage. At first glance, one might think he was moving.

  “Do you think this pilgrimage will let you set things right in your wayward past?” Modamu Davies, a composer who’d scored two of Joe’s movies, had asked him last night.

  “I doubt it,” Joe had answered. “But Joe’s Place is where my passion for filmmaking began. One of the first things I ever shot was a checkers tournament. I can still picture those grizzled old coots—cigarette in one hand and glass of beer in the other—hunched over a table that had a backgammon board on one side and a checkerboard on the other. None of them knew how to play backgammon. They called it ‘that furin game.’”

  Both men had laughed, then Joe added, “I know this movie idea sounds crazy.”

  “Particularly given the fact that you’ve avoided Worthington for so many years,” Mo had interjected.

  “And highly unprofitable,” Joe had finished, ignoring the all-too-true comment. “But, at least I won’t look back some day and wish I’d made the effort.”

  “Traveling down memory lane can get you in trouble, my friend,” Mo had warned. “Every director I know is a control freak who spends days upon days playing with color, lighting, background and sound because this medium gives him the illusion of control.

  “If you return to the source of your neurosis, you might fix what made you crazy in the first place and then where would you be?”

  “Sane? Healthy? Gainfully employed?” Joe had answered, laughing.

  Mo, being a true friend, hadn’t mentioned Joe’s recent string of bad movies, but Joe was a realist. His first film had garnered awards and been picked up for distribution by a major player. For a short time, he’d been Hollywood’s golden boy. Unfortunately, his next two productions—neither scripts of his choosing—had reviewed well but hadn’t done much at the box office. His contract hadn’t been renewed, so he’d started his own production company, where he learned the pitfalls of business, the cutthroat nature of competition and, above all else, humility.

  Returning to the present, he hoisted the strap of his garment bag over one shoulder, picked up his camera case and grabbed the handle of his rolling suitcase. The pneumatic doors opened as he approached. The parking lot was tiny by L.A. standards but pretty much filled.

  Lisa, behind the wheel of a sunshine-yellow convertible Bug, had pulled to a stop in the loading zone and was arguing with a woman in a black uniform.

  He paused. Although just six months younger than Joe, she looked twentysomething. Her long, reddish-blond hair was pulled through the back of a white baseball cap. Joe couldn’t read the logo above the brim, but the symbol was hot pink, which matched her tank top. Over that she wore an unbuttoned white shirt with the sleeves rolled up almost to her elbows.

  She pointed animatedly at her watch then nodded toward the terminal. He knew the moment she spotted him because she rose up on one knee and waved, her other hand resting on the neon-pink faux-fur steering-wheel cover.

  He couldn’t see her eyes because of the tortoise-shell sunglasses she was wearing. But her smile was all Lisa. A sudden lifting sensation in his chest made him miss a step. He honestly couldn’t tell if that was something good…or bad.

  “SEE?” LISA SAID to the parking matron who’d tried to make her leave the curbside loading zone, even though she’d only just arrived. For the second time. “There he is.”

  The woman, who was probably ten or fifteen years older than Lisa, stared slack-jawed at the smiling man walking toward them. Some things never change, Lisa thought ruefully. That infamous Kelly charm still works.

  The security guard smiled back at Joe before strolling off.

  Lisa took a deep breath and wiped her hands on her denim skirt. She hated the nervous flutter in her chest. Stop it, she scolded herself. This is Joe. Her deceased fiancé’s twin brother. Her son’s uncle. Her old friend.

  But he was also a wild card that could ruin her plans. What if he shot down her idea of buying the bar from his mother? Just the thought made her a little ill.

 
; She’d rehearsed her spiel on the way to the airport, only to be disappointed when she’d found out his flight had been delayed. With graduation looming and a wedding to help plan, she had no time for late planes.

  Lisa got out and walked to the front of the car to open the trunk. Thankfully, Modesto’s airport was located on the edge of town. Instead of wasting time, she’d backtracked to a service station to fill up.

  “Hi, Lisa,” Joe hailed. “Sorry about the delay.”

  Just over six feet tall, Joe moved gracefully for a man burdened with several suitcases and a bulky silver box. His hair was the same ash blond she remembered from high school, but the style a little shaggier than she’d expected. Cargo pants, a camp shirt that needed ironing and loafers without socks completed his “rumpled artist” look.

  At one time, Joe had been Lisa’s best friend—the shoulder she’d cried on when his brother was being a jerk. But then graduation night had happened. Opportunity had awakened desire, which led to a choice with ramifications that Lisa had just recently discovered.

  She pushed the thought aside. She needed to deal with Joe in a businesslike manner because Maureen had warned her Joe had been asking questions about the sale. Once Lisa had negotiations out of the way, she could bring up the possibility that for seventeen years she’d been living a lie.

  “Brandon said you were here earlier.”

  Smile. Pretend everything is normal. She had too much to do. The question of her son’s paternity would have to wait. Besides, as an uncle, Joe had left a lot to be desired. He probably wouldn’t be any better as Brandon’s father.

  “No problem,” she called, pushing her gym bag and running shoes out of the way to make room for his stuff.

  She watched him look over her car, a 1975 VW Bug. Lisa had helped restore the car’s engine during her three semesters as an automotive major. The body work and paint had been redone by a guy her mother had once dated. Lisa had unapologetically added the paisley seat covers and frivolous accessories just for the fun of it.