Father in the Making

As she pulled back, he looked at her curiously, humor curving his mouth. “I know he’s a serious boy, but aren’t you a little old for him?”

Bridgette didn’t care for his cocky attitude, or the way he had handled her as if she were a chair, in the way. “Is there an age requirement for friends?”

He should have worn his parka for that one, he thought, a little amused at her retort. Pure frost. Who was she?

“No, of course not.”

With a photographer’s eye, he studied her for a moment. Blaine could envision her in a half dozen layouts. If the woman didn’t model, she should. The nice thing about photographs, he mused, was that you never heard the model’s voice. This one’s was low and throaty. And accusing as hell.

“Now that you’re in my house, would you mind if I asked who you are?”

His house? The man worked fast. “I’m Bridgette Rafanelli, Mickey’s music teacher.”

Another thing he wasn’t aware of, he thought. He wondered how long Mickey had been taking lessons. He had just assumed that the piano in the living room was for show. Diane had always enjoyed putting on airs.

There were so many things about Mickey that he didn’t know, he realized, frustration gnawing away at him.

Blaine extended his hand. “I’m Mickey’s father, Blaine O’Connor.”

Bridgette had every intention of ignoring his hand, but that would have made her as boorish as she knew he was. So instead, she thrust her hand into his and shook it tersely, then pulled it away, as if it were odious to touch him.

“I know.”

By her judgmental tone, Blaine surmised that she had heard about him from Diane and that whatever she had heard was decidedly unflattering.

“That makes you one up on me.” He slid his hands into his pockets as he kept one eye on the movers. He had no intention of allowing them to manhandle his set.

Blaine saw the frown on her mouth deepen. “I take it you were also a friend of Diane’s.”

“Yes.”

Whatever Diane had said must have been horrid. Her voice fairly dripped with acrimony. Blaine felt annoyance rising at being prejudged this way. He opened his mouth to ask her what her problem was when she strode past him, her eyes on the piano.

She pointed toward it. “Are you leaving the piano?”

He came up behind her. He was almost a foot taller, he thought. “Yes.”

“Good.” She looked around. The house appeared in a state of utter chaos. And Mickey was nowhere to be seen. She turned around to look at Blaine and nearly bumped into him. Space was at a premium and somehow, he seemed to take up all of it. “May I see Mickey?”

Attitude. The lady exuded attitude. The wrong kind of attitude and he’d had just about enough of it. Blaine folded his arms before him as he studied her. He took his time answering, enjoying the fact that his drawl apparently seemed to annoy her.

“You can if you tell me why you sound as if your tongue is a sword and I’m the pumice stone you’re determined to sharpen it on.”

Diane had said he was charming and Bridgette could see it, in a rough sort of way. That only intensified her adverse reaction to him. “Diane told me a great deal about you.”

Blaine’s easy gaze narrowed. “And you’ve decided that only pure gospel passed Diane’s lips.”

“I don’t see much to contradict her.” She gestured toward the movers. They were taking out Diane’s white marble-topped table. “You’re getting rid of her things.”

He didn’t see how this was any business of hers. “Just some of them. So that I can move mine in.”

She looked at him in surprise. “You’re moving in?”

He liked the way surprise rounded her mouth. It was an interesting mouth, he decided. Under other circumstances, perhaps even a tempting mouth. “To be with my son.” He emphasized each word.

For a moment, Blaine’s statement took some of the indignant wind out of her sails. Diane had maintained that Blaine wanted to have no part of his son. This was a twist she hadn’t expected.

“Blaine, I thought I’d take Mickey and run to the store.” A gravely voice boomed out, announcing Jack Robertson’s appearance. “You mind watching this four-legged nuisance while we’re gone?”

The dog in question, a three-year-old German shepherd named Spangles that had been a gift from Blaine, barked in protest, as if knowing he was under discussion.

Jack halted abruptly when he saw that his former son-in-law had company. Didn’t take the man long, Jack thought without resentment. What Blaine and Diane had had died a long time ago. He couldn’t be faulted for getting on with his life.

And then the woman turned around and Jack grinned broadly, his tanned face dissolving into creases and lines that Nonna had confided to Bridgette were “sexy.”

He put his hands out and took both of Bridgette’s in his. “Hello, Bridgette. We missed you at the funeral.”

Uncomfortable, Bridgette lifted a shoulder and then let it fall. She resisted the temptation of dragging a hand through her hair. She supposed that there was no excuse for not attending the funeral. She had even gone so far as to get dressed in a somber navy blue dress and gotten in behind the wheel of her car.

But at the end, she couldn’t bring herself to drive to the church. She couldn’t even turn on the ignition. If she wasn’t there for the service, for the interment, then some part of her could go on believing that Diane was still alive.

“Diane knew how I felt about funerals. She would have understood.” Bridgette placed her arms around the older man. “Jack, I’m so very sorry.”

He patted her shoulder, determined not to break down. It wasn’t the way he saw himself. Tears were for private moments when he was alone.

“Me, too, Bridgette. Me, too.”

The sad moment was dissolved as a high voice squealed. “Bridgette, you’re here.”

Bridgette just had time to step away from Jack before she found her waist engulfed as Mickey threw his arms around her.

She laughed as she hugged him to her. “I sure am, sweetheart.”

Blaine could only look on in awe. It was the most emotional display he’d seen from Mickey since the accident.

His eyes met Bridgette’s over Mickey’s head. There was just a trace of a smug smile on her lips.

Chapter Two

Bridgette held Mickey against her. She ached for him when she thought of what his young heart had to endure. Death was always difficult to cope with, but it seemed so much more brutal when it invaded the life of a child. More than anything, she wished that there was something she could do for him.

Without thinking, she stroked his hair, just the way she’d seen Diane do a hundred times before.

Mickey pulled away from her with a jerk, as if something had suddenly snapped shut within him. The impression wasn’t negated when Bridgette looked down at him. The friendliness was gone, wiped away like a chalk drawing on the sidewalk in the rain. In its place there was a somber cast in his eyes which brought a chill to her heart.

“Mickey?”

Hand extended, Bridgette took a step toward him, then stopped. She had the definite feeling that she was intruding.

Never forgetting what her own childhood was like, both the good and the bad, Bridgette prided herself on being instinctively good with children. It was a gift rather than something she had to nurture. She truly enjoyed their company and they sensed it and responded to her. Especially shy children like Mickey.

This reaction was something she was entirely unprepared for.

Mickey licked his lips and shrugged, his shoulders moving independently of each other. He looked uneasy, lost. Looking down at the floor, he shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

“I got my video game on pause,” he mumbled to the rug. “I can’t keep it that way or it’ll get ruined. That’s what Mom says. Said. I gotta go.”

Mickey turned and fled. Spangles followed like a four-legged shadow.

Bridgette could have sworn she’d heard Mickey’s voice crack, though his expression had remained frozen, unemotional. It was all the motivation she needed. But as she began to follow after him, a hand fell on her shoulder, preventing her.

Just barely suppressing her annoyance, she looked up at Blaine.

He waited a moment before he dropped his hand from her shoulder. “Maybe he just needs to work this out for himself.”

That would be the path he’d take, she thought. Noninterference. Translation: Do nothing, just as he had been doing all along. The man hadn’t a clue as to what Mickey needed.

“He’s ten years old. He doesn’t know how to work this out for himself,” she shot back. “What he needs is to be held.”

With the bearing of a man who knew an altercation in the making when he saw one, Jack physically placed himself between them. “What he needs is not to hear two adults arguing over him.”

Bridgette flushed as she turned toward Jack, embarrassed at having taken the safety latch off her temper. But she was a passionate woman who took each emotion she was experiencing to the limit.

Ignoring Blaine, she placed her hand on Jack’s arm. Comfort seemed to flow from her very fingertips. “I’m sorry, Jack. I guess my emotions just got the better of me.” She knew Jack understood. She wasn’t all that different from her grandmother. “Is there anything I can do for you or Mickey?”

Jack shook his head, a bittersweet smile on his lips. Bridgette meant well, but there wasn’t anything she could do. Nothing anyone could do, really.

“You can give us time, honey.” He patted the hand on his arm, knowing that she was in need of comfort herself. She’d lost a friend she’d cared about. “That’s the only thing that’s going to help. Time. Putting one foot in front of the other and getting from here to there.”

He was right. She knew that from experience. Still, she wished there was something she could do. Something that didn’t make her feel so useless, so frustrated. Especially when it involved Mickey.

Bridgette blew out a breath. “Well, if you think of anything, I’m here.” She looked in the direction that Mickey had gone.

She really didn’t have to say it, but it was nice to hear. “I know.” Jack fought back the clawing emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. Tears, he knew, were going to be a part of his life for a long time to come. But he refused to give in to them except in his room at night. So he forced a smile to his lips for everyone’s sake, including his own. “Tell Sophia I appreciated the casseroles. I didn’t really feel like cooking.”

If anyone could help him through this, Bridgette knew her grandmother could. Zestful and vivacious even though she was well through her fifth decade, Sophia Rafanelli had the enthusiasm for life of a woman one-third her age. Nonna had seen Bridgette through the darkest parts of her life.

“You can tell her yourself. She plans to come by this evening.”

Jack nodded, visibly brightening. “Great.” Emotion threatened to take hold of him. He thought he’d be better off alone just now. Jack edged his way to the hall. “I’ll see you later.”

Nonna would help Jack, Bridgette mused as the man left the room. But who or what was going to help Mickey?

The answer was plain. She was.

Bridgette took a step toward the hall, only to feel the same hand on her shoulder, laying a bit more heavily this time. Annoyance leapt up again. She glared at his hand as if it were a disembodied limb until he removed it.

The woman had a look that could ignite wet kindling, Blaine thought as he dropped his hand to his side. “I’d rather that you didn’t go there right now.”

There was no point in playing innocent. They both knew she meant to go to Mickey’s room. “Why?”

Blaine saw no reason to give her any explanations. “He’s my son,” he answered flatly.

It amazed Bridgette that he didn’t stumble over the word. It was certainly foreign enough to him. Everything that Diane had told her about him rose up at once, crowding her mind.

“That’s not a reason, that’s a fact.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked up at him. “One that didn’t seem to trouble you before.”

Blaine had no idea what this woman was talking about, nor why he even cared. But puzzles had always drawn him in. “Excuse me?”

Didn’t he care how all this affected Mickey? Hadn’t it occurred to him that Mickey had needed him before this day? “I don’t remember seeing you coming around.”

The woman’s gall took his breath away. She certainly outdistanced Diane when it came to nerve. “I didn’t know I was supposed to check in with you.”

Bridgette saw temper flaring in his eyes. Hers rose higher. It was fueled by her feelings for Mickey and by the indignities that Diane had confided she’d suffered. Bridgette was surprised that Blaine even had the nerve to show his face after all this time. Most of all, she was surprised that Jack wasn’t making plans to ride him out on a rail. But then, Jack had always been a very kind man.

“From what I gathered, it wouldn’t have been often.” Bridgette turned on her heel. She made it all the way across the threshold before Blaine grabbed her arm and turned her around to face him.

“Just a minute. I think I’d like a word with you.” The defiant look on her face made him think of a winter storm about to break. If she thought he was going to back off because of it, she was in for a surprise. “A very long word.”

“All right.” Bridgette pulled her arm away and then folded both in front of her. “I’m listening.” Not that anything he had to say would make a difference in the way she felt, she added silently.

She was pushing buttons that brought back scenes from his marriage. But Blaine held his ground instead of ignoring her and walking away. This wasn’t Diane. This was some crazy woman who thought she had a place in his son’s life. Why, he didn’t know.

“I don’t even really know who the hell you are, lady.”

Bridgette gave a short laugh. “I’m surprised Mickey didn’t say the same thing to you when you showed up, omitting the ‘lady’ part, of course.”

The word shrew leapt to his mind. But that wasn’t unexpected, seeing as how she and Diane had been friends.

“My son knows who I am.”

“Long-term memory, no doubt.”

Blaine curbed the very real desire to take her by the arms and shake her until she made some sense. “Did you come here to go a few rounds with me for some warped reason?”

The moving men were looking at them. They’d stopped working and were obviously very entertained by what was transpiring. Taking her by the arm, he ushered her none-too-gently back into the living room as he mentally cursed himself for losing his temper like this. He was an easygoing man who hardly ever raised his voice. Diane had been the only one who had ever made him shout.

Until now.

Hanging on to what was left of her temper, Bridgette waved a dismissive hand at Blaine.

“I didn’t even know you were here. I just came by to see how Jack and Mickey were doing.” She paused for a moment as she looked him squarely in the eye. “Mickey obviously isn’t doing very well.”

Exasperation shouted for release. Just who did she think she was, coming here and passing judgment? “His mother just died, what do you expect him to be? Practicing cartwheels for a circus act?” A loud noise in the background reminded him of the movers, as well as of Jack and Mickey. With effort, he lowered his voice again. “All things considered, he’s doing rather well.”

“Oh, really?”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder. The slight action looked like a challenge from where he stood. Her hands balled into fists at her waist didn’t do anything to dispel that impression.

“And just what is your definition of ‘well’?” The man was not only heartless, he was blind to boot, Bridgette thought.

For two cents, he’d gladly clip that raised chin of hers. “Not that it’s any business of yours, Ms. Fanelli—”

“Rafanelli,” she corrected tersely.

“Ms. Rafanelli,” he echoed in the same tone she’d used, “My definition of well is the way Mickey is handling it. He’s behaving calmly, like an adult.”

There were words for dunderheads like O’Connor, but she refrained from using them. She didn’t want Mickey hearing her swear. But she had to bite her lip, physically holding back the barrage. When she finally spoke, it was in a low, barely controlled voice.

“You probably missed this piece of information in your vast travels around the globe, but Mickey is only ten. He’s not supposed to act like an adult until he’s past puberty.” Her eyes washed over Blaine. The look in them was far from flattering, even though she wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he was a very good-looking man. “Of course, for some it’s a reversed process.”

He’d had enough of her sarcasm. “Look, I really don’t have time for this—”

That had been the excuse Diane said he always used when she called him, asking him to come see his son. “Don’t have time for very much except your work, do you?”

The image of wrapping his hands around her throat seemed to spring up out of nowhere. He wasn’t a violent man by nature. Nonetheless, it was a very pleasing image.

“Not that I really care about your opinion, but just what is that supposed to mean?” Before Bridgette could respond, he added, “For that matter, what are all of your sarcastic remarks supposed to mean?” It took a great deal to keep from lashing out at her. “You don’t even know me.”

That’s where he was wrong. Bridgette set her mouth hard. Diane had told her plenty about this man, the heartache he’d caused her, the pain. “I know enough.”

There was a steely look in his eyes. His tone dropped. It was harsh, devoid of emotion, as if it had all been spent. Or kept under lock and key. “From Diane.”

Blaine saw her raise her head, as if to defend the dead woman. Diane might be gone, but it seemed that her staff had been taken up by another. Even dead she knew how to make his life difficult. “Well, did it ever occur to you that perhaps she colored things a little? Or a lot, as the case may be.”

She wouldn’t have expected him to say anything else. But Bridgette had facts at her disposal. “You were in London for Christmas.”

The statement was worded like an accusation. “What does—?”

She didn’t let him finish. “And you were in the Philippines, doing layouts for the ever famous swimsuit issue for Mickey’s tenth birthday.”

That had been unavoidable. He’d been facing an ironclad deadline. But he had managed to call Mickey and talk to him at length. Only because Jack had answered the telephone. Had it been Diane, he would have never had the opportunity to talk to the boy. He and Mickey had celebrated the day a week later. Royally.

“Yes, but—”

She ignored his attempt at a protest. Nothing he could say would negate the facts. “On Mickey’s first birthday, you were—” She looked up at him innocently. “Where was it again?”

Blaine shoved his hands into his pockets much the way Mickey had. “Canada. Quebec.” He grounded out the answer through clenched teeth. He remembered being very lonely that day. He’d missed Mickey something fierce. “Is this a trial?”

It was a rhetorical question. She had obviously already convicted him and was leading him to the gallows.

She wished Jack hadn’t left. She felt better talking to him, not arguing with this biological miscreant. “No, I’m merely substantiating my point.”

Blaine’s expression hardened, hiding the anger boiling just beneath. “Which is?”

“That what Diane told me was true.”

Leave it to Diane to skip the part about how he made it up to Mickey. How he always found a way to make it up to Mickey. The nature of his work didn’t allow him the freedom to live like most men. That was both the beauty and the burden of his career. And even if he hadn’t had that career, there’d always been Diane to act as a stumbling block.

“Yes, but—”

Her eyes dared him to deny what she was saying. “There is no ‘but’ here, O’Connor. It’s either true or it’s not and you just said it was, thereby dismissing your earlier insinuation that Diane lied about you.”

Why he was even bothering to stand here, arguing with her, within earshot of his father-in-law and the movers, was beyond him. Maybe it was the fact that he had never managed to convince Diane that he was innocent that goaded him on to make her understand.

“Look, before you pass judgment on me—”

He had told her what she wanted to know and she didn’t care to stand around, listening to him attempt to talk his way out of it.

Her eyes were cold as they appraised him. She could see why Diane had fallen for him. He was tall, muscular and had a definite sexual air about him that would have been appealing if she didn’t know what she did about him.

“I’m not passing judgment. I couldn’t care less what you do or where you go. I do, however, care a great deal about Mickey.”

“Why?” She wasn’t a relative. He saw no reason for her to be so adamant about the boy.

She debated ignoring his question, then relented. “For a lot of reasons. For one, I’m his godmother.”

It took him a moment to assimilate her words. Diane had deliberately planned Mickey’s christening to take place while he was away. As always, he hadn’t found out about the ceremony until after the fact.

“You are?”

His ignorance of the fact didn’t surprise her. Diane had said he had cut himself off from his son’s life except for the mandatory child support payments. And even they were late in coming.

“Didn’t know that, either, did you?”

The tally against this man was adding up. He was an absentee father, just like her own had been. Oh, Carlo Rafanelli had been there physically, providing a roof over her head and food for her sustenance. But emotionally, where it counted, it was as if he didn’t exist. Or she didn’t. And when he had remarried, he had moved away, leaving her in Nonna’s care. In the end, he’d gone on with his life as if he’d never had a daughter at all.

Standing here, talking to this thickheaded, thick-skinned oaf, brought it all back to her.

Well, maybe she thought she had some right to interfere in Mickey’s welfare, but not in Blaine’s book. Especially not with that attitude. “As his godmother, it would have been your obligation to look after Mickey if both his parents were gone.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that they might as well have been for all the difference he made, but she bit it back.

There, he thought with a small measure of triumph, that seemed to have managed to shut her up. “As it happens, I’m very much alive and intend to take care of Mickey on my own.”

She had no idea why he was here—possibly to ease his conscience, or maybe just to sell off Diane’s furniture. But there was no doubt in her mind that the man Diane had told her about would soon be off somewhere. Without Mickey in tow. Seeing as how he was a philandering womanizer, that would probably be all to the good.

Bridgette nodded, making no attempt to hide her skepticism. “Fine. How?”

There seemed to be no end to this woman’s audacity. “Excuse me?”

“How?” she repeated, slowly mouthing the word as if she were talking to someone with greatly diminished mental capacities. “What are your plans for him?”

He had barely gotten his head together and accepted the facts that Diane was dead and that he was a full-time father and had to change his entire life around. Restructuring Mickey’s life was something he hadn’t gotten around to, yet.

Blaine waved his hand around in frustration. “Beyond sending him to school tomorrow, I haven’t thought that out, yet.”

She was forced to step out of the way and toward him as the movers brought in a rather scarred-looking credenza. As soon as she could, she moved aside. She didn’t like standing so close to him. There was too much charged tension in the air.

“So, you plan to live here with him?”

“Yes.” He nodded, then shrugged. That, too, was up in the air. “For now.”

He made it sound tentative. Mickey needed stability. He needed a lot of things, especially a loving father, but at the very least, he needed stability. O’Connor owed him that much. If he didn’t think so, he was badly mistaken. And Bridgette would be the one to show him.