Kate Hoffmann - Paris or Bust!

But why, oh why, had someone selected Jody? There was an obvious conflict of interest for Callum, since the two shared the same hometown, although whoever had pulled this stunt couldn’t have known that there was an even stronger bond between them.

Uh-oh. There was a second finalist from his hometown, as well, a restaurant owner whose children had grown up and moved away. According to her entry, she wanted to take her pet cat to Paris.

“This is inexcusable!” Mentally, Callum searched through the staff roster, trying to divine which of his employees might hate him, because the situation reeked of sabotage. Yet he hadn’t fired or demoted anyone. In fact, he’d given them all a large bonus a few months ago at Christmas.

“You realize that we’re stuck,” Tisa said. “If we disfranchise any of these ladies, they could slap us with a lawsuit.”

“Did I insult someone at a staff meeting?” Callum asked. “I know I speak without thinking sometimes.”

“That’s because you’ve got so many ideas, you can’t keep them all inside.” The editor smiled fondly. “Nobody’s mad at you.”

“Then who’s behind this?”

“Let’s go down to David’s office and find out.”

David Renault, the Web master, apologized profusely when he learned of the problem. “The advertising department e-mailed them to me,” he said. “I thought they’d been approved.” He uttered a string of colorful curses. “I had no idea. I feel terrible.”

After reassuring David that it wasn’t his fault, he and Tisa trooped to Al’s office, which was only slightly smaller than Callum’s and had an even better view of the Los Angeles skyline. He’d been out all week, the secretary confirmed.

“I’ve been covering for him,” chirped the young woman, whose nameplate read Sally Sinclair. Although she must be in her twenties, to Callum she seemed about eighteen. “Don’t you just love the finalists? I tried to pick people our readers would identify with. I put my own stamp on the contest, don’t you think? My mother says that’s what I need to do to get ahead in publishing, to put my own stamp on things.”

“ You picked the finalists?” Tisa asked in disbelief.

“I was showing initiative.” Sally’s cheerful confidence began to crumble. “Wasn’t I supposed to?”

“I asked Al to narrow down the entries, not choose the finalists and post them on the Web site,” Callum said. “Do you have any idea what a disaster this is?”

The secretary’s lips trembled and tears sparkled in her eyes. It was enough to melt a man’s heart.

Not a woman’s, though. “You are not the editor of this magazine. I am,” Tisa growled. “And Callum is the publisher. If you ever again presume to ‘put your stamp’ on anything without our approval, you can haul your initiative right out that door and pound the pavement with it.”

“I’m sorry.” Sally’s contrition might have been more impressive had she not added, “But aren’t they wonderful? I especially like that woman with the cat! And I chose two finalists from your hometown, Mr. Fox! I thought you’d appreciate that.”

The next thing Callum knew, Tisa had grabbed the collar of his designer jacket and tugged him into the corridor. “You had steam coming out of your ears,” she told him. “We’ll let Al deal with that twit when he gets back.”

Callum spared another glance at the door to the advertising department before accepting her advice. “We’ve got to run damage control,” he said.

“Maybe we could add a few more finalists,” Tisa suggested. “So we have more to choose from.”

“That might only complicate matters.” They were pushing a tight deadline. The winner had to be posted on the site by the end of May, and it was already March. A write-up about her and her trip would provide a future cover story for the print edition of Family Voyager. “I’m sure we can find a suitable Mother of the Year from that list.”

“ Not the woman with the cat.” Tisa accompanied him down the hallway. “Some people may consider pets part of the family, but I doubt our advertisers do.”

“The readers will get a charge out of her, though.” Already Callum’s brain was making the best of things.

There was, however, one issue that he couldn’t erase from his mind: Jody Reilly and her boys. One sentence about the suitors stuck with him: They keep popping up under my nose, telling me that my four-year-old twins need a daddy.

If Jody wasn’t married, who was the father?

The timing looked suspicious. Five years ago, Callum and Jody had steamed up the windows of her bedroom. She’d amazed him with her unrestrained passion and he’d amazed himself with an all-night response that, he suspected, could have stretched much, much longer.

Was it possible she’d become pregnant from their encounter? Despite Jody’s fiercely independent nature, Callum couldn’t picture her keeping such a secret. Besides, he’d used protection when they made love. Well, the first time, anyway. After that, he didn’t remember.

No doubt she’d had plenty of other boyfriends before and since. In fact, during the days after the funeral when she helped him prepare his family’s old home for sale, he seemed to recall her mentioning that she’d recently broken up with someone. Perhaps they’d gotten back together later.

“Anyway, I’d make a lousy father,” he said aloud.

“What?” Tisa stopped outside the traffic department, the organizational arm of the magazine.

“Something just started me thinking,” he explained. “It’s a good thing I’m not a father, because I’d be lousy at it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll bet lots of ladies think you’ve got potential.”

“You know what I’m like on Take Your Kid to Work Day,” Callum said. “That’s the only day of the year when I shut my door.”

“You and me both.”

“I have no patience. I don’t even know how to talk to children.” Seeing the managing editor frown in confusion, he said, “Never mind. The problem is, we’ve got to get the women from my hometown to withdraw their applications.”

“I thought you said the readers would love the one with the cat,” Tisa said.

“Yeah, I did. But the other one…” Callum decided to be frank, because he didn’t know how to be anything else. “She’s my ex-girlfriend.”

“I see.” A smile played around the corners of Tisa’s mouth. “Around here, she’d have to stand in line.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.” Although Callum’s picture frequently appeared in print as he escorted models and actresses around L.A., mostly it was a mutually convenient setup in which the women landed a suitable escort while he made contacts for Family Voyager. It was true that some women had pursued him and a few times he’d pursued them, but there’d always been something missing. “Jody was the only one who counted.”

“I can see why there’s a conflict of interest,” Tisa said.

“Even if I disqualify myself from the selection process, there’d be the appearance of unfairness,” Callum said.

“You should call her and offer her an inducement to drop out,” Tisa said. “She might prefer a guaranteed trip to a one-in-ten chance at the grand prize. How about a stay at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas?”

At the mention of Vegas, an imaginary slot machine whirred into Callum’s head. A ticket pinged into place, followed by a second and then a third. They weren’t tickets to Nevada, though. They were tickets to Texas, and they were for him.

“I’m going to have to do this in person,” he said. Even though there was only the slightest chance that those boys belonged to him, it wasn’t the sort of situation he wanted to discuss long-distance.