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Blaine O’Connor on Fatherhood…

Dear Mickey,

I guess you could say I became your father twice—once when you were born, and once when you turned ten and your mother died. Those first ten years, I was more your friend than your dad. I got to see you so rarely that I wanted to make the very most of those precious times we shared. I didn’t want to mar those visits by telling you when to go to bed or to pick up your clothes. I just wanted to enjoy you and make you happy.

But suddenly you were mine, and I was your dad twenty-four hours a day. It became my responsibility to see to it that you grew up to be a fine young man. I don’t mind telling you that I really had my doubts about handling the job so well.

It didn’t help when your godmother came butting in, doing everything right, making me feel even more lost in this vast wonderland called fatherhood. But don’t worry, Mickey—I’ll figure this whole thing out. No bossy lady is going to tell me how to raise my kid. Who needs her, anyway?

From now on, it’ll be just us guys. Won’t that be great?

Love,

Dad

Father in the Making
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARIE FERRARELLA

This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA^® Award-winning author has written more than 150 novels for Silhouette Books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her Web site at www.marieferrarella.com.

To Adrienne Macintosh and

brand-new relationships.

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 One

He had no idea how to be a father. The very thought brought a nervous ripple to his digestive tract, though his smile remained fixed for Mickey’s benefit.

He knew all about being a friend. Over the years, he had pretty well perfected the part and derived a great deal of pleasure from it. As had Mickey. Mickey was all that mattered. He always had been.

But he hadn’t a clue how to be a father. Though his son was now ten years old, until this week Blaine O’Connor had never had to don the sober, heavy robes of fatherhood.

They were thrust on him without ceremony, without a whisper of a warning. They were pushed upon him as suddenly as they had been pulled out of his hands eleven years ago.

Then he hadn’t even been able to try them on for size. He’d found out sheerly by accident after the divorce papers had been filed that Diane was pregnant. Once he knew, Blaine had wanted to give the floundering marriage another try for the sake of the unborn child they had created. But Diane had refused to listen.

It gave her, he thought, a special sense of satisfaction to deny him that reconciliation. Almost as much satisfaction as when she refused to let him be present at his son’s birth. He’d been robbed of the joy of seeing his only child come into the world.

All because Diane had had no idea what the word trust meant.

Angry, hurt, Diane had attempted to completely force him out of Mickey’s world. Blaine hadn’t been allowed to make any decisions affecting the boy. And so, he’d had no training as a father, not even a dress rehearsal.

Blaine stepped out of a moving man’s way. The small-built, deceptively strong man lifted his end of the bed frame with its heavy oak headboard and carried it into the house with his partner. The house, with furniture coming and going, looked as if it had been hit by a hurricane.

Just like his life, Blaine thought.

It could have been a great deal worse. He looked toward his son sitting at the kitchen table. There couldn’t have been a more sweet-tempered boy on the face of God’s earth, Blaine thought. Mickey was methodically working his way around the peanut butter-and-jam sandwich his grandfather Jack—Blaine’s father-in-law—had made for him. He was biting off the crust before getting down to the heart of it.

Blaine crossed his arms before his chest as he watched Mickey. He could feel his heart swelling. His son. His. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Not that he had ever entertained negative thoughts about fatherhood. Just insecure ones. But Mickey was a good kid.

How hard could it be? he mused. After all, he’d been a boy himself once.

Blaine’s mouth curved. According to his mother, sister and any neighbor within a five-mile radius of his old home, he’d been a hellion for the first fourteen years of his life. Even later, as he matured, he’d gotten away with a great deal because of his looks.

Not that he had been bad, either, Blaine thought, just…lively.

Blaine grinned to himself.

The bottom line was that he had been nothing at all like Mickey.

Who was he kidding? Blaine thought as he crossed to the counter and poured a cup of coffee. Smiling at Mickey, he seated himself at the table opposite his son. He didn’t know the first thing about being a father. He didn’t understand Mickey’s needs or anything that was required in raising a sensitive little boy.

Those issues had been left in Diane’s hands. By Diane’s mandate. He’d bristled at the idea to begin with, but later he’d been relieved. The idea of disciplining, of ever having to say no to Mickey, made Blaine think of being the heavy. He was much better suited to the role of being the friend.

Diane had inadvertently done them a disservice, both him and Mickey. By taking complete control, she had left Blaine woefully unprepared for this unexpected turn of events.

She’d shut him out, Blaine knew, to get even with him. To pay him back for imagined wrongs that she was constantly conjuring up in a mind consumed with jealousy. Like the frightened child who saw ghosts in every darkened corner of her room, Diane saw indiscretions everywhere. She was positive of their existence, convicting Blaine because of his looks and his profession.

Diane had been pretty, like a wildflower growing in the meadow. But she had felt outclassed by the women who populated Blaine’s world. As a magazine photographer, Blaine had immortalized some of the world’s most beautiful women on the covers of popular magazines.

When they had first met, Diane had thought that his career was exciting, romantic and wondrously glamorous, even though he was only an apprentice at the time. By the time they divorced, she had considered it a sinful way of life that surrounded Blaine with temptation he was too weak to resist. She’d resented his work the way women resented their husband’s mistresses.

He had tried to reassure her every time a bout of insecurity seized her. But her tantrums had only grown worse and worse and the air would grow thick with the accusations of infidelity she would hurl at him.

And then the ultimatum had come. He could either have her, or his career. He couldn’t have both.

Blaine had never been one to be backed into a corner. Angry at her lack of trust, at the shallow view she had taken of his moral character, Blaine had chosen his career over his jealous wife.

He’d told himself he was better off without her, even though he still loved her. He couldn’t continue to endure the daily fights, the vile recriminations. Or the scenes when they were out in public.

But despite all of that, when he discovered from his father-in-law that Diane was carrying his baby, Blaine was willing to give his marriage one last try. He’d even entertained the idea of finding another career if that was what it took to reassure her.

He could have saved his breath. Diane had taken great delight in telling him what he could do with his “last try.”

He’d given her time, hoping she would change her mind. He had hoped all the way up to the moment the final divorce papers had arrived. It had been Jack who had called him from the hospital telling him he was the father of an eight-pound baby boy.

Blaine had been more than generous in the divorce settlement, making certain that his son would want for nothing. But his easygoing manner had changed when it came to visitation rights. Then he had hung on like a junkyard dog with the only bone in town, threatening to take Diane to court if necessary. She hadn’t wanted him to have any rights at all.

Once again, it had been Jack who had won her over and gotten Diane to acquiesce. Jack had argued that a boy needed to see his father, to have his father in his life, however cursorily.

Blaine had always gotten along with Jack. He’d always managed to get along with almost everyone. Except, it seemed, Diane. Diane, who saw nubile, scantily clad women in every closet, under every bed.

Diane, who had ruined what could have been a beautiful marriage. At least, beautiful was the way Blaine had once envisioned his marriage to be.

But now he knew better. He wasn’t destined for marriage.

Maybe the breakup had been half his fault, he thought now with a posthumous wave of guilt. Maybe he had been too friendly with his models, too outgoing, too enthusiastic about his work. For whatever reason, Diane had misconstrued, misunderstood and misread until the tiny fissures in their marriage had become major faults that brought about an earthquake.

There was no use going over old ground again. There would be no mending of any fences with Diane now. A cross-country trucker who had fallen asleep at the wheel had seen to that.

Blaine hadn’t been here for the news. Or the funeral. He’d come home three days ago from a shoot abroad and pressed the Play button on his answering machine, then gone numb at the knees as he listened. He had melted into a chair, staring in disbelief at the machine. He’d sat there a long time, staring.

Diane had been killed instantly.

All Blaine could think of, over and over again, was thank God Mickey hadn’t been with her. It was only later, after his brain had thawed out and after he’d called Jack to offer his condolences, that he’d wondered: What was he going to do now?

He had known once, or, in his naiveté, had thought he’d known. Ten years ago, Blaine had been all set to be a father, even though he had felt a little shaky at the prospect.

But since then he’d had a great deal of time to become more set in his ways, more entrenched in a bachelor life that was, by definition, solitary. He came and went as he pleased and thought nothing of picking up and going off on a shoot for weeks at a time. There wasn’t a plant in his apartment that needed watering, or a lonesome puppy to hand over to a helpful neighbor. There were no strings, no attachments in his life, save Mickey. And Diane had been responsible for him. Like the wind, Blaine could rustle in and out, leaving behind only a ripple.

But that was all changed now. The wind didn’t have a ten-year-old son to take care of.

Blaine looked over his steaming cup of coffee at Mickey. They hadn’t really talked very much since he had returned to Bedford. He’d held him and hugged him, but they hadn’t really talked. Not even today. There was something forebodingly solemn about Mickey that had Blaine at a loss as to what to say.

Blaine had been here all morning, directing the moving men who were bringing in his possessions and removing some of the pieces that Diane had bought after the divorce. Diane had left everything to Mickey, including the house. Though he would have preferred to remain on his own terrain, Blaine was moving into his son’s life rather than vice versa. He and Jack had discussed it and agreed that this way would be less unsettling than having Mickey move into his apartment, transferring schools and giving up friends at a time when he needed to be surrounded with the familiar.

What was going on in that little head? Blaine wondered. Mickey wasn’t what could be termed an outgoing boy by nature, but Diane’s death had made him so withdrawn, Blaine was concerned.

He studied the small, round face closely. “You okay?”

Mickey looked up at his father with rounded dark eyes that reminded Blaine of two shiny black marbles. His feet swung back and forth beneath the table like unsyncopated windshield wiper blades. One thin shoulder rose and fell as he continued to slowly chew his sandwich, as if he were thinking each bite through to its conclusion before taking the next.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

This wasn’t easy for Blaine. Laughter had always been the hallmark of the times he and Mickey spent together. Deep-seated, darker emotions were part of a place Blaine had never ventured into with his son.

“Because if you’re not okay—” Blaine stumbled over his tongue, searching for the right words like a jeweler searching for the perfect stone. Blaine tried again, “If you want to talk about it, we can.”

There was just the tiniest hint of a cleft in the chin that Mickey raised, his eyes innocently puzzled. “It?” Mickey echoed quietly.

Blaine licked his lips, fervently wishing he was better at this. His talent was in framing photographs, not paragraphs.

He and Diane had gone from being lovers to being antagonists, but he had made certain that none of the animosity spilled over on Mickey. He’d never made derogatory statements about Diane when Mickey was with him. There had been no veiled vilifications or recriminations, no soft underhanded attempt to make Mickey choose sides. Mickey was too precious to taint with what had gone down between Diane and him. As far as Mickey knew, Blaine was as upset about his mother’s death as he was.

“Your mom’s—” Blaine searched for a euphemism, something he could use in place of that horrid five-letter word. But there was only one way to approach the issue. Honesty. “Death.”

Mickey’s black lashes swept his cheek as he looked down at his feet. He laid the remainder of his sandwich down on the plate. A small crescent was left.

“No,” Mickey said quietly. “I’m okay.”

The hell he was, Blaine thought. But all he could do was be here for him.

And love him, he thought.

Blaine reached across the table and squeezed his son’s hand. Mickey looked up, a faint, sad smile on his lips. There was love in the boy’s eyes, love granted without reservation, without qualifications.

God, he hoped he was up to this. He’d never had a responsibility before that even came close to equaling this.

“Hey, buddy,” the shorter of the two moving men called to Blaine from the hall. His biceps bulged as they strained to keep up his end of the bureau. As he stopped, he tilted it so that it was leaning into him. The burly man nodded at the piece of furniture, which appeared to be cradled against him like a sleeping child on his mother’s bosom. “You want this in the same place as the other piece?”

Blaine nodded vaguely. “Yes, put it in the master bedroom.” His mind wasn’t on his furniture. It was on his son.

They’d made this arrangement, he and Jack, because they both thought it best for Mickey. Jack, a retired police officer, was going to remain with them for at least a month to help out. But Jack had been more than willing to take the boy to his house if a transition period was needed. Mickey, when consulted, had opted to remain here. Little boys were known to change their minds, though.

Blaine leaned toward Mickey, creating an air of confidentiality. “Are you sure you didn’t want to stay with Grandpa for a while?”

Mickey wrapped his hands around the glass of milk before him, but he made no move to drink.

“You.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “I want to stay with you.” He swallowed before raising his eyes to his father’s face. Hope and fear chose their battleground there. “Unless you don’t want me.”

Blaine’s mug met the table surface with a thud as he rose from the chair. He circumvented the table to Mickey’s side. Leaning against the table, he placed his hands on the small shoulders.

“Don’t you ever, ever think that.”

His tone was far harsher than he believed himself capable of with Mickey. Harsh and choked with emotion. What sort of trash had Diane filled his son’s head with? he wondered angrily. Had she told the little boy his father didn’t care in order to make him choose sides? He might have refrained from making references about Diane in the boy’s presence, but Blaine knew that the arrangement had not been reciprocated by the small things the boy would occasionally let drop.

“I want you.” His eyes held his son’s. “I have always wanted you. I will always want you.” His voice softened. “Understand?”

Mickey blinked, then, slowly, the solemn expression on his face faded in intensity as he nodded. “Yes, I understand.”

Blaine released his son’s shoulders, aware that he might have been holding him a little too tightly.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Blaine said after a moment.

Easy? God, it was going to be downright hard, he thought, but he could manage it. He’d already taken the first major step. He’d moved back into the house. A house full of memories, not only for Mickey, but for him. It was here where he and Diane had begun their marriage. And here where it had died that awful, rainy Thursday night, when he had walked out for the last time.

She’d kept the house after the divorce for the same reason she had kept him away from Mickey as much as possible. To spite him because he had cared about it.

“But we’re going to manage,” Blaine promised Mickey now, with a great deal more certainty than he felt. “He—ck.” At the last moment, he switched the word that had naturally sprung to his lips. He was going to have to curb his language now, he thought. Another change. But Mickey was worth it. The boy was worth everything. “With Grandpa here to help out,” Blaine continued, “we’ll be just like the family on ‘My Three Sons.’” He laughed and amended, “Minus a couple of sons, of course.”

“Huh?” Mickey’s expression told Blaine that he had lost his way.

It took Blaine a moment to remember that Diane hadn’t allowed the boy to watch television. She’d called it a waste of time. Mickey had never had the opportunity to catch the classic sixties program in reruns.

“Never mind, that’ll be part of your education,” he promised. Between classic cartoons in syndication and selected other programs Blaine had already mentally earmarked for Mickey, the boy had a lot of catching up to do.

He cupped the boy’s cheek, the wonder of his new situation not fully registering, yet. He had a son depending on him now. Full time. It still took his breath away when he thought about it.

Blaine dropped his hand and straightened. As he took Mickey’s dish and his own drained coffee mug to the sink, he heard an unsettling thud coming from the general direction of the master bedroom. He winced and wondered if wood glue could rectify whatever had just happened.

He looked down at Mickey, who was shadowing his every step. “So, you’re sure you don’t want to talk about, uh, anything?”

“Sure,” Mickey echoed. He underlined his statement with a nod of his head.

Blaine wasn’t convinced. Mickey couldn’t be as calm as he appeared. Could he?

Having rinsed the plate without looking, Blaine placed it on the rack. “Well, I’m here for you if you do decide that you want to talk or—something.”

Blaine shoved his hands into his pockets as he went out to see how the movers were faring. God, he was going to make a mess of it, he thought with a wave of anxiety. He just knew it.

But Blaine knew that all he could do was place one foot in front of the other and pray that he didn’t step on anything.

She hated funerals, absolutely hated them.

Bridgette Rafanelli knew that it had been cowardly of her. But she hadn’t been able to make herself attend the funeral, even though Diane had been a friend.

No, Bridgette amended fiercely, because Diane had been a friend. There was something altogether spirit-shredding about listening to final words being said about a person who had been alive and vibrant only a few days ago.

She couldn’t go.

Funerals reminded her of when she had lost her mother. Then she had been forced to stand between her father and Nonna, listening to a white-haired priest saying words about someone she would never see again. Nonna had held on to her hand tightly, silently offering her a wealth of comfort. It hadn’t been enough. Bridgette remembered the church growing smaller and then disappearing. She had woken up on a cold, cracked leather sofa in the rectory, with her grandmother hovering over her.

Bridgette let out a long breath as she guided her car into a residential development. She might be short on courage when it came to standing and listening to eulogies, but she was long on compassion and love. Right now, Mickey O’Connor needed both.

There was a very special place in her heart for Mickey. With his dark, heart-melting looks and soulful black eyes, he looked exactly like photographs she’d seen of her uncle Gino when he was that age. Gino had only been two years older than Mickey when her father had left her with Nonna and him. That had been a year after Mama had died. Gino had been more like a big brother to her than an uncle. He’d brought a great deal of comfort and laughter into her life, as had Nonna.

It was time to pass on the favor.

She brought her white convertible to a stop at the curb. The driveway was blocked by a huge moving van. As she watched, two men in beige coveralls came out of the house, struggling with Diane’s four-poster bed.

Was Mickey moving away?

Her mouth hardened as she remembered things Diane had told her about her ex-husband. The rat probably couldn’t wait to sell her things and rent out the house. She thought of Mickey. He was so painfully shy. How was he going to adjust to so many changes?

By the time she approached the opened door and knocked on the jamb, Bridgette had accused, tried and convicted Blaine O’Connor of emotional child abuse.

Bridgette knocked again, fully expecting to look into Jack Robertson’s weathered face. Nonna had attended the funeral to lend her emotional support to Jack. She’d been seeing Jack socially for almost a year now, thanks to Bridgette’s introduction. Her grandmother had told her that Diane’s father was going to be staying with Mickey until some sort of final arrangements could be made.

Obviously they’d been made faster than either one of them had anticipated.

Nonna hadn’t mentioned that anyone else would be staying with Mickey. She certainly hadn’t mentioned a tall, broad-shouldered man in a faded blue shirt and even more faded blue jeans. He had silky dark hair and troubled green eyes as he looked down at her.

She knew who he was immediately.

He looked like Mickey, except for the eyes. And except for the fact that innocence that was so blatantly stamped on Mickey’s face had been chiseled out of Blaine’s.

Bridgette attempted to swallow the animosity that instantly sprang up to seize her by the throat as fragments of things Diane had told her swam through her mind. She succeeded only marginally.

If she was selling something, Blaine thought, this raven-haired woman was going about it all wrong. The scowl on her face would have a lesser man quaking in his shoes, even if he was innocent.

But Blaine was well versed in accusing looks. Diane had been a master at them.

“Yes?”

Bridgette squared her shoulders as she unconsciously ran a hand through her hair. It was a nervous habit Nonna chided her for.

“I’m here to see Mickey.”

The movers were approaching the house with Blaine’s fifty-inch television set. Instinctively, he grasped the unknown woman by the shoulders and maneuvered her out of the way. He managed to draw her momentarily into the house.

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.