“One of your admirers?” Callum’s jaw jutted forward.
“You could call him that. We went square dancing once.” Jody had agreed in hopes of pacifying the man, who’d been tagging after her like a lovesick hound. It hadn’t worked.
“He’s got a brother,” Jerry said. “Frank works on Mr. Widcomb’s ranch.”
“Frank likes Mommy, too.” Ben helped himself to more spaghetti from the bowl, trailing a few strands across the table. When he reached for the sauce, Jody grabbed it first and ladled it onto his plate.
“Who else likes your mommy?” Callum asked.
“Everybody likes Mommy,” Jeremy said.
“Mr. Landers from the newspaper brings her flowers,” Ben said.
Callum’s eyebrows shot up. “Old Mr. Landers? He must be nearly seventy.”
“No, his son, Bo,” Jody said. “Don’t you remember him? He was a year behind us in high school.”
“That’s right, he worked on the school paper.” Callum drummed his fingers on the table. “Skinny kid with braces, wasn’t he?”
Bo had improved with age, Jody reflected. Although his gangly lope and gee-whiz style of talking were no match for Callum’s smoothness, he was the most interesting single man in Everett Landing, and he clearly cared about her. Sometimes she’d wondered if that might be enough.
“He took over the newspaper after his dad retired,” she said. “He’s a good friend.”
“Who else?” Callum asked.
“Who else what?”
“Who else is after you?” He’d stopped making any effort to eat.
“Mr. Lamont invited Mommy to one of his parties,” Ben piped up.
Jody felt her cheeks grow hot. Andy Lamont, a pretentious newcomer from the East Coast who’d sold his high-tech stocks at the right moment, was known for strutting around his ranch in glitzy cowboy gear and throwing wild parties for out-of-town friends. “I didn’t go.”
“Gladys said it was going to be an or-gee,” Jerry added. “What’s an or-gee? She wouldn’t tell us.”
“Who is this guy?” Callum’s tone took on a harder edge.
“He’s nobody,” Jody said. “Believe me.”
“An or-gee is a party with lots of food,” Jerry said.
“How do you figure that?” she asked, grateful for the distraction.
“People offer you two pies. You go, ‘Oh, gee, I can’t pick,”’ her son explained.
Ben wrinkled his nose. “I’d say, ‘Or, gee, I’ll have both.”’
Callum’s expression mellowed. “I like their style! Speaking of pie, what’s for dessert?”
Jody was tempted to deny having any, just to tease, but she couldn’t bear to crush the three hopeful looks beaming her way from around the table. “Cookies.”
“What kind?” Callum asked.
“Chocolate chip with pecans.”
“I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
“This isn’t heaven,” Jerry said solemnly. “Heaven’s where Grandma and Grandpa went.” He pointed toward the ceiling.
“You’re right.” Callum didn’t say much after that, letting the boys’ chatter eddy around him as they finished dessert. He kept watching them, as if fascinated. Or shell-shocked, perhaps.
Once the pair began yawning, Jody excused herself to bathe them and put them to bed. “Mommy?” Jeremy asked sleepily as she tucked him into the lower bunk. “Who’s Callum?”
She stroked his hair and slipped her free arm around Ben, who nestled beside her. “Remember when you asked me if you had a father, and I said you did but he was far away?” Two tousled heads bobbed in accord. “You asked when he was coming home and I said some daddies don’t ever come home.”
“Like Joey’s,” Ben said. A Sunday school friend, Joey lived with his divorced mother and never saw his father.
“Kind of,” she agreed. “Well, Callum’s your father.”
“Really?” Ben said. “That’s why he looks like us?”
“That’s why,” she confirmed.
Both boys started shifting around, as if they couldn’t find the words to express themselves and needed to move. Then they pelted her with questions. Why had their daddy been gone so long? Was he going to live here now?
She answered as best she could. “He’s here for a visit. Then he’s going back to Los Angeles. That’s where he works and he has to live there. He’s been really, really busy until now. I hope we’ll see him more often now, but he can’t move to the ranch.”
Surely they’d stay in touch, now that Callum knew the truth. At least, she hoped so.
“I like him,” Ben told her. “I always wanted a daddy.”
“He’s okay, I guess,” Jerry said. “But we’re your little men, aren’t we, Mommy?”
“You sure are.” She hugged them both. “Forever and ever.”
When they were both under the covers, Jody turned out the lights and paced toward the living room. She wasn’t looking forward to facing Callum’s questions, not one little bit.
CHAPTER THREE
HE WAS A FATHER. It was amazing. Wonderful. Scary.
Alone on the couch, Callum tried to sort out how he felt. His first reaction had been an indescribable thrill as he gazed down at those two little fellows who could have posed for his own childhood photos.
Over the years, Callum had considered it irritating when a friend brought a child to dinner because he spent the meal getting interrupted, peppered with nonsensical questions and kicked in the shins. Yet tonight, he’d enjoyed the boys’ liveliness and the twists and turns of their thinking. Was it because they belonged to him? Or were they simply, as he suspected, exceptional human beings?
He wished he’d seen them as babies. Leaning back, he tried in vain to picture the two of them as newborns. His mind just couldn’t shoehorn all that alertness and those full-blown personalities into such tiny packages.
Imagining the future proved easier. He could see the three of them rollerblading at the beach, weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic on the promenade. They’d enjoy Disneyland, and when they were older he could take them to the Page Museum to see the prehistoric beasts from the La Brea Tar Pits.
The details of how he and Jody were going to arrange things remained fuzzy. As a father, he knew he ought to take charge of the situation, but he wasn’t quite clear yet on what the situation was. Callum decided to play this one by ear.
Even with his eyes closed, he felt Jody’s nearness the moment she entered the kitchen from the bedroom wing. When he opened his lids, the air shimmered as she eased into an upholstered chair across from him.
“So how angry are you that I kept them a secret?” she asked. “On a scale from one to ten?”
“I’m not angry.” Callum realized it was true. He supposed he ought to feel cheated because he hadn’t been here for the twins’ infancy. He had no illusions about his own unreadiness for parenthood when he was twenty-four, however. He’d have done his best, but he was honest enough to acknowledge that he might not have been able to provide as much stability as the elder Reillys. “You’ve done a great job under difficult circumstances.”
“Would you have preferred it if I’d gone on keeping them a secret?” She twisted her hands together.
“No, of course not.” He wished she were sitting closer so he could take her hands to reassure her. They were cute hands, with plump fingers and short, clear nails.
She crossed her denim-clad legs. “They asked about you just now. I explained that not all daddies live with their children and that we might see you occasionally. Was that all right?”
“Of course you’ll see me.” He had no hesitation on that point. “I’ll be paying my share of their expenses, too.”
“We don’t need your money!” She squared her shoulders.
Callum understood about pride. He’d grown up on a tight budget, helping out at his parents’ store and earning extra money with odd jobs. “Maybe not, but I’d like to provide them with extras. Kids grow fast, or so I hear, and there must be a lot they’ll need once they start school. Don’t forget about college, either.”