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The two put their heads together and started whispering.
Kelly tuned them out. Michael had always had a fine, deep voice and beautiful eyes. Most people hadn’t noticed, back then. They saw a skinny, withdrawn teenager and never looked beyond that.
So was that more proof that she’d found him, at last?
Wait, the voice of caution warned. Get a look at him. You’ll know soon enough.
It was warm in the hall and her nerves weren’t helping her cool down any. She wiggled out of her winter coat and draped it over the back of her chair.
By the time she faced front again, the lights were dimming over the seats—and getting brighter on the stage, brightest of all on the podium, center stage. A man came striding out of the wings: tall, thin, gray hair…
Not Michael. Or even the man she suspected might be Michael.
The gray-haired man stepped up to the podium to polite applause. He introduced himself as the head of the sociology department and then launched into a glowing introduction of the evening’s guest speaker.
Most of it had been in the paper that morning.
“Mitch Valentine is living, breathing proof that the American Dream really can come true. At nineteen, he designed his first video game. How many of you ever played DeathKnot or Midnight Destroyer?” Hands went up all over the hall. The professor smiled. “From there, he moved into software development, then created a job-search engine for students. Many of you here tonight have or will use FirstJob.com before you send out those resumes. From there, Mitch moved into desktop publishing. Now, at twenty-eight, he owns two publicly traded companies with headquarters in Dallas and in Los Angeles. And he’s written a book about how he did it.”
Her heart was beating too fast again. Michael would be twenty-eight now….
And the video games. They hadn’t mentioned the video games in the paper, had they?
The department head was still talking. About how Mitch Valentine had started from nothing, lived on the streets of Dallas, turned his life around. How he had no formal education beyond a high-school diploma, and yet…look at the man today.
And then, at last, he said, “And now, it’s with great pleasure and sincere admiration that I introduce to you…Mitch Valentine.”
There was a roar. It was partly the applause and it was partly the blood spurting so fast through her veins, it made a rushing in her ears.
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit with a snow-white shirt and a lustrous blue tie strode confidently across the stage. She thought, Chestnut-brown hair, like Michael’s…
He stepped up to the podium under the hard gleam of the spotlight. And he spoke.
“Thank you, Dr. Benson. I’ll do my best to live up to that glowing introduction….”
He spoke.
She’d known for certain in her mind when he faced the audience, but when he spoke, she knew in her heart.
The final shreds of her doubt unraveled and dropped away.
Kelly knew.
He was Michael. She had found her daughter’s father, at last.
Chapter Two
Mitch Valentine, who had once been Michael Vakulic, talked for over an hour, without notes. He rarely stood still. Instead, he paced back and forth in front of the podium, pausing now and then to turn his arresting gaze on the audience as he emphasized a certain point. He wore one of those little portable mikes that hooked over his right ear, with a thin mouthpiece curving over his cheek, so his voice was crystal clear even though he spoke in a conversational tone.
He talked about starting from nothing. About never giving up. About making the impossible into the possible. About translating dreams into reality, about goals, about what gets in the way of getting what we want.
He was funny and he was brilliant and he was inspiring. And he had that audience in the palm of his hand. Even Kelly, though hardly in a receptive frame of mind, was impressed. Hey, she just might have learned something under different circumstances.
That night, though, she sat there wide-eyed, her heart in her throat, images of the Michael she had known back then popping in and out of her stunned mind, warring with the reality of Mitch Valentine now.
Up on the stage, the broad-shouldered man in the designer suit said, “Set yourself up in opposition, and where does all your energy go? Exactly. Into the fight—into opposing. But set yourself up in cooperation, and something altogether different occurs….”
In her mind’s eye, she saw Michael, her Michael, in a cheap white T-shirt and battered, sagging jeans, his arms like two sticks, his hair shoulder length and stringy. His dark, hazel eyes were shining and his thin face seemed to glow from within.
He said, “I love you, Kelly. You’re everything to me. I’ll always take care of you. It’s you and me against the rest of them….”
Mitch Valentine said, “Ultimatums? I believe they’re the simplest way to sabotage yourself, to make certain you get the short end of the stick instead of what you want….”
And she remembered Michael the day he made her choose. “Me and you, Kelly. Don’t you remember? It was supposed to be me and you, always. If you leave with him, it’s over. So make a choice. Him. Or me.”
“But Michael, he’s my brother….”
“Him or me, damn you. Just make a choice.”
And so it went the whole time Mitch Valentine spoke.
She tried to put aside her fears as to how finding Michael would change her life—and her daughter’s life—irrevocably. She tried to focus her attention on the man Michael had become. And then that man would say something else to send her spinning back in time.
Past. Present. Future: what had happened, what was happening this moment, what might happen next…
The present was unbearable, the past so hard to face. And the unknowable future? It seemed to bear down on her like an avalanche, like an asteroid on a collision course with the world she had created for herself and her child….
When the speech ended, Mitch Valentine took questions.
That went on for half an hour.
Finally, he thanked everyone and said he’d be signing his new book at the campus bookstore the next day, between three and five. The applause was protracted and enthusiastic. The house lights got brighter as the stage lights dimmed. Most of the audience headed for the exits, but fifty or sixty of them rushed onstage.
Another twenty minutes dragged by as Michael—correction: Mitch—accepted praise and shook hands. Kelly waited in her seat until only a few students remained.
When all but those last stragglers had headed for the doors, she made herself rise and put on her coat. Her heart hammering in her ears as it had been doing for most of the night, she slid out into the aisle and strode purposefully down front. There were stairs leading up to the stage on either side. She took the set to the left.
Once up there, she hung back, until the final student had finished gushing and shaking the speaker’s hand.
The student turned to go. The man who had once been Michael glanced toward Kelly where she hovered on the edge of the stage. He smiled.
Her heart stopped racing. It seemed to expand in her chest. A shiver went through her at the same time as heat bloomed in her midsection. This was really happening, the impossible moment was upon her, at last.
He asked, “Kelly?”
Sweet relief poured through her. It mattered a whole lot, that he remembered. That he recognized her. She gulped and nodded.
He started toward her, so big and strong and…imposing. Imagine. Her Michael had grown up to be imposing.
He stood in front of her. She looked up into those velvety eyes that looked deep brown in some lights, and in others, showed glints of green: Michael’s eyes. He said, “I have to admit, I kind of wondered if you might be here, if you might have come back to Sacramento….”
When they split up, she’d moved to Fresno, where Tanner was living and working when he finally got their mother to admit he had a sister. Tanner was twenty-one at the time and the court allowed him custody, once Kelly stood up before a judge and declared that she wanted to live with her brother.
She gulped in air and made herself explain. “My mom got sick again, a year after Tanner came for me. She needed us. And I wanted to go to Sac State anyway….”
He smiled again. He had the most beautiful smile. But then, so had Michael, though his smiles were rare. “Let me guess. You got a full scholarship?”
“That’s right.”
“I knew you would. And you’ve been here in Sacramento ever since?”
“Yes, I…have a house. A job I love. An old black dog.” And a daughter. Your daughter…
“Mitch. Ready?” said a voice from behind her. A glance over her shoulder showed her that the gray-haired professor waited in the wings.
Mitch gave him the high sign. “Be right there, Robert.”
She faced Mitch again. “I guess you have to go, but…” What to say next? It seemed all wrong to just dump the news on him without preamble, right there on that darkened stage.
“Listen.” He looked at her so intently, scanning her face in a way that seemed both eager and hungry at once. A funny thrill skittered through her. And the warmth in her stomach seemed to expand outward, to radiate all through her.
My God. I’m attracted to him—and he feels it,too….
After all these years. Who knew? He’d changed so much. And then there was DeDe. God. What would he do when she told him about DeDe?
He said, “I believe in keeping it simple and direct.”
“Oh. Yes. I prefer that, too.” But obviously not that direct. Or she would have told him already that he was a dad.
No. Really. Bad idea, to just blurt it out, out of nowhere, with that professor lurking behind them, waiting to lead Mitch off to who knew where.
Mitch asked, “Are you married? Engaged? With someone special?”
A short burst of surprised laughter escaped her. “Well, that was simple and direct. And the answers are no, no. And no.”
“Perfect.”
She actually found herself teasing him. “Which no do you mean?”
“All of them.” The air seemed to crackle around them. With energy. With…heat. He said, “I’ve got this faculty party I have to be at right now, but I’m in town ’til Thursday morning. How about dinner tomorrow night?”
Tomorrow was Valentine’s Day. How weird was that? To go out with her child’s father, whose name was now Valentine…on Valentine’s Day?
Weirdness aside, though, dinner would work. Just the two of them, sharing a table in a quiet restaurant. It would be a good opportunity—if there was such a thing—to break the news.
He said, “You’re taking too long to answer. I’m getting worried you’ll say no again—this time to me.”
Her cheeks felt too warm. She couldn’t resist. “No.” She paused just long enough for him to look disappointed. Then she added, “I’m not saying no.”
He laughed, then. “Seven?”
“Fine.” She hurried right on, before he could suggest that he would pick her up. “I’ll meet you at the restaurant, if that’s all right?”
“However you want it.”
She’d put a business card in her pocket, ready for this moment. “Here’s my work number and my cell, just in case…” Their fingers touched in the space between them. So strange. After all these years, the two of them, standing here. Breathing the same air, his hand brushing hers…
His skin was warm. Dry. And only slightly rougher than her own.
He produced a card and handed it over. It was thick vellum, green with black lettering, a personal card, just his name and a couple of phone numbers.
“If you need to call, use the first number,” he said. “It’s my cell.”
“All right.”
“Shall I ask around, get some recommendations for the right restaurant, or do you know where you’d like to eat?”
She named a place in midtown, on 28th Street. “It’s quiet there,” she said. “And the food’s good.”
“I remember it,” he said. “A Sacramento landmark. Though we never could afford to eat there, back when…” The place wasn’t terribly expensive, but for two kids with no money, it had seemed so—And Dr. Benson must be getting impatient, because Mitch was glancing over her shoulder and nodding. “Right there…”
She stepped back. “I’ll let you go then.”
“Until tomorrow…”
“Seven. I’ll be there.”
Tanner was stretched out on the couch in the family room at the back of the house, channel-surfing, when Kelly got home. He turned off the TV and reached over to set the remote on the coffee table when she came in through the dining room.
He didn’t get up right away, but braced his right arm behind his head and regarded her through lazy, dark brown eyes. “You’re late. I was practically asleep.”
“At twenty after ten? You know you never went to sleep this early in your life.”
He sat up then, kind of stiffly. He’d been in a car accident six weeks before and had only gotten the casts off his left arm and leg a few days ago. A week or two more, his doctors said, and even the residual stiffness should disappear. He yawned. “Good speech?”
“Excellent.”
“What was that name again?”
“Mitch Valentine.”
He shrugged. “Never heard of him.”
She only smiled. She’d made up her mind on the drive home not to tell Tanner that she’d found Michael at last until after she’d managed to tell Mitch about DeDe. It seemed right that she should come clean with Mitch, first and foremost.
But she and her brother were very close. Guilt nagged her, to hold out on him this way.
He was frowning. “Okay, what’s going on?”
