Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Max relaxed and chuckled to himself. “There are about as many deadbeat dads out there trying to elude their paternity as there are fighting for their custodial rights. You don’t need a role model, you just have to decide if you achieve that best working with Molina, or against her. You’re in a position to go either way.”

“Which means I have two ways to lose, as much as win.”

Max nodded. “Life”—he looked at the dead-in-the-water ship—“and death, are like that. Before any early-bird maintenance crew shows up we need to inspect that figurehead and keel until we know how, if not why, it was turned into a killing machine.”

Rafi checked his watch with a sour expression. “I could lose my job if we’re caught, and I don’t want to dive overboard for a dip in cove. At least it’s bathwater warm this time of year.”

“If we raise any alarms, we can cast off and catch the ship when it’s next at anchor, me hearty.”

Chapter 27

Brothers, Where Art Thou?

The landmark lunch was over. Matt stepped behind Temple, reaching to pull her chair out when the waiter whisked it away much more authoritatively.

Suddenly standing, Temple jerked around to address the overly solicitous waiter.

He was a white-haired man with beetling black brows wearing a costly suit with a subtle four-figure sheen.

“I can’t let you two leave Chicago,” he said, “without laying my cards on the table.”

“Philip,” Jon said, standing in surprise himself. Obviously, he was the younger brother.

“I assume this young man is my nephew.”

By then Matt had Temple’s back and a protective left hand on her shoulder. He extended a right hand past her to the newcomer. “Matt Devine of Las Vegas. This is my fiancée, Temple Barr. I believe we know who you are.”

The brothers glared at each other briefly across the table.

Then Philip smiled broadly at Temple and Matt. “I’d like to buy you all a drink in the bar. It’s pretty deserted during the busy lunch hours and I’ll make sure we get a quiet corner.”

Somehow his light guiding touch on their shoulders had turned Matt and Temple, Philip easing them through the tables like the friendliest of hosts.

“This must be a whirlwind trip for you two,” Philip said. “I know Matt has a date with syndicated radio five days a week. What about you, Miss Temple?”

“I’m self-employed, so I don’t answer to anyone for my schedule but me.”

“Smart woman.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Matt said. “She’s a dynamo and will move the world to make her public relations clients happy.”

“And you too, I bet.”

The chitchat covered their relocation to the bar, where a waiting hostess escorted the party to a charming banquette with high, enclosing leather upholstery that ensured privacy. Philip, Temple saw, was a dynamo himself, but a charming one, far more outgoing than his brother. Then again, he hadn’t had a secret love gnawing at him for more than thirty years.

The brothers bracketed them in the banquette, which was a teensy bit uncomfortable. Matt squeezed Temple’s hand on the seat between them. She saw his eyes sizing up the fact that the brothers faced each other across the white linen, and a faint smile touched his lips.

Matt was a born negotiator, and he was really liking this turn of events.

Temple relaxed, swinging her heels against the banquette bottom. Her feet didn’t reach the floor, as usual, but in this situation, nobody could see that. She slipped her hose-clad feet out of the heels. Hated pantyhose! However, important meal dates at fancy restaurants in a habitually colder climate like Chicago required sacrifice.

She could see Matt looked more like his father, but he thought more like his uncle.

When the waiter arrived, Philip cut to the chase, ordering Tia Marias and coffee for everyone, with a raise of his prominent eyebrows for any order modifications. All nodded cooperatively, and Matt’s faint smile expanded.

“Sorry to bust in on you folks, and Jon. I figure you were discussing Mira, and that’s one topic I can’t leave to others, even if she can pretty much leave me hanging in limbo.”

Matt leaned forward. “How did you figure out you two had my mother in common?”

Jon spoke first. “Philip isn’t one to hold back. When he started seeing Mira, he brought a photo of them taken at the Polandia restaurant where they met to a family gathering. I recognized her from the time you tried to have us meet at a Chicago bar … Matt.”

Temple saw Jon was still unsure how to relate to his long-lost son.

“So you told Philip?” Matt asked his dad.

“No. It looked like a friendly dinner, nothing more.”

“But, Jon,” Temple asked, “if you were keeping Philip in the dark, how did Mira discover you two were related?”

“Oh, boy.” Philip leaned back as the coffee cups and tiny liqueur glasses were presented. After the clinking and stirring subsided, he said. “The children’s charity fund we … I sponsor a big fund-raiser. Got five seconds on the local nightly news, Jon and I center-screen with Angelina Jolie. Everybody recognized us on the street after that.”

Matt got the picture too. “So my mother did a meltdown and simply refused to see you anymore.”

Philip nodded. His white hair was thick but receding, unlike Jon’s blond thatch. Oddly, that gave Philip’s face a thinner, more youthful look.

“Not right away,” Philip said. “It’s the darnest thing. If I look back, I can see she became a bit more … guarded after that event. But she didn’t cut me off at the knees and refuse to see me or take my calls until a few days after that. A delayed reaction, maybe. She’d had time to think about the ramifications, which are damn awkward, but that’s no way to live when you’ve been around as long as we three. Not many second chances going to be dealt us at our age.”

Matt exchanged a significant look with Temple. He leaned even farther forward. “What are your intentions toward my mother?’

“Why, to marry her, you impudent pup,” Philip said with a laugh. “This is sounding like a Victorian novel.”

“Then,” Matt said, “I have no objection and it’s basically only between you three. It’s not that I don’t understand ‘modern’ living-together arrangements, Philip, especially between older couples and maybe with big money in the family, but marriage means a lot to my mother. I think you two guys are uniquely liable to understand why, and why she deserves it. Period.”

In the silence, the brothers looked down and nodded their heads.

“Good,” Matt said. “There’s no need for you to share what happened thirty-five years ago with any of your family members. Or,” he told Jon, “to mess with family inheritances out of a sense of guilt. Money never makes things better, it just buys lawyers boats. Mira is a widow with a son from a previous marriage. I even have a different surname. Book closed. If Mom does marry Philip, she’ll be well provided for without Jon having anything to do with it.”

Jon’s head was still lowered, but now he shook it. Not in disagreement, Temple saw, but with both gratitude and regret for Matt’s generous dismissal of the past and all its pain.

“I’d be proud,” Jon mumbled, “to introduce you as my son.”

“But you don’t need to,” Matt said, “and I don’t need that either. The best gift we could give my mother is a discreet, happy ending. Now,” he added, “if the brothers Winslow will allow Temple and me to escape to have some time to anticipate another stressful dinner date with network executives, I’ll leave you two with a three-step program.

“Jon and Philip. Talk it all out until you’re sick of your own memories, grief, uncertainty, and guilt. Then, Philip, call my mother. Her withdrawal had thirty percent to do with the brothers thing and seventy percent with a ‘hidden planet’ in her life even I didn’t know about. Let that go. Last, she needs to meet with Jon so all of you can be sure that her love for Philip is unshakable.”