Callie Endicott - A Father For The Twins

“The women in the neighborhood check on him and bring food, but he enjoys having male company, too.”

“I’ll go over later. I don’t get it, Lizzie. We finally have time to spend together and you keep trying to send me away.”

Together?

Elizabeth glared at his bent head—they weren’t spending time together, they just happened to be in the same room most of the day. Well, enough was enough. She’d been pushing him to visit Seattle, hoping they could find a way to mend fences with their son. Dermott had agreed to take a trip “sometime,” so now she’d have to find the right way to make that happen. It shouldn’t take too much...he wanted to go; he just needed the right prodding.

“Why do they have to keep calling Adam a former model and printing a picture of him in a swimsuit?” Dermott said out of the blue, slapping his hand on the table. “Can’t they just say he’s a businessman?”

Elizabeth tensed. He must be reading one of the Seattle newspapers that Adam had sent. She knew her husband didn’t mean to make her feel bad about the direction their son’s life had taken, but she did; if it hadn’t been for her getting sick, Adam would be a lawyer now.

Or would he?

Thinking back, she couldn’t honestly say Adam had been enthusiastic about studying law—not opposed, just unexcited by a legal career. And he’d used his fame as a model in good ways, including helping environmental and wildlife causes...though the videos he’d done interacting with wolves and bears had made her gulp in worry for his safety. Still, who wouldn’t take the chance of being that close to such amazing animals?

“No matter how we feel, Adam is famous,” she said finally. “I’m sure the agency gets more business when the public is reminded of who owns it.”

“Yeah, so we can see more models in bathing suits and other nonsense,” Dermott muttered.

Maybe he would have accepted Adam’s modeling better if his coworkers at the construction company hadn’t kidded him so often about his son, “the swimsuit guy.”

Sighing, Elizabeth took an aspirin for the pain starting to throb in her temples. It wasn’t just Adam she felt guilty about, it was Sophie, too. She’d been so young when her mother needed major surgery. It was as if Sophie had lost a big chunk of her childhood, taking on responsibilities and worries that a child shouldn’t have to face. No wonder she’d turned wild for a period and ended up pregnant at seventeen.

Elizabeth couldn’t regret her grandchildren, but her daughter’s teen marriage had quickly fallen apart and raising two kids alone was hard. In her own way, Sophie was just as stubborn and proud as her dad and wouldn’t accept much help from the family.

“Are you all right, Lizzie?” Dermott asked. “You took something. Is your blood pressure up?”

“It’s a headache, that’s all.”

Her husband’s concerned expression eased slightly, but Elizabeth’s own tension rose even higher. Sometimes she wanted to scream that she wasn’t going to break and for everyone to stop worrying. Okay, the doctor didn’t want her getting too stressed and the family knew it, but that didn’t mean she was fragile. Her health was pretty good for a woman her age.

She cleared her throat. “Have you thought about when you want to leave for Seattle? We’ll get a better price on plane tickets if we don’t buy them at the last minute.”

“I thought we’d drive. That way we’ll have the truck and won’t be locked in to a specific time.”

Pleasure went through Elizabeth. They’d never traveled outside of New Mexico. Their short vacations had been spent visiting Dermott’s grandparents or taking camping trips in the Sandia Mountains or around the Bosque del Apache wildlife preserve, south of Albuquerque. A road trip meant traveling through some of the most beautiful country in the United States.

“I’d love that,” she exclaimed. “And maybe we could get a little apartment and spend some real time up there.”

“Why not stay with Adam? He mentioned his place has an extra bed.”

Elizabeth winced; she couldn’t deal with her son and husband in the same enclosed space for more than a few days. Even when they weren’t arguing, their colliding expectations were hard to take. “It would be best to get an apartment,” she urged. “Not in the city—I’m sure that’s too expensive—but in one of the smaller towns.”

Dermott brightened. “That way I might be able to pick up odd jobs as a handyman.”

Elizabeth almost protested that he didn’t need to work, but maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. They could see Adam when he was available—really get to know him again—but Dermott would also have a distraction from driving his wife and son crazy.

“I suppose. I wish we could go right away,” she said wistfully. “Summer sounds lovely in Washington.”

“Maybe next month.”

“How about tomorrow?” she asked firmly. “Packing wouldn’t take much time and Sophie can check on the house while we’re gone. Please, dear. Adam says it’s mostly been cool and pleasant there and I’d love to experience the long days they have farther north in the summer. And what’s the good of us both being retired if we can’t do what we want?”

Dermott gave her an exasperated look, but he folded the newspaper and got up. “Oh, very well. You pack and I’ll do an oil change on the truck. Call Adam and tell him we’re coming.”

“Maybe it could be a surprise,” she suggested. “We’ll find a furnished apartment, get settled and then go visit him. Besides, we can’t be sure when we’ll arrive if we do any sightseeing along the way.”

“I suppose.” Dermott headed out the door and she knew he’d probably been looking for a reason to agree to her plan.

Elizabeth happily started a batch of cookies to bring on the trip. Packing was easy, even though they’d also need to bring the basics like bedding, towels and kitchen supplies for an apartment.

She could use her phone to search rental listings on the trip north. They loved Albuquerque, but doing something completely different would be good for them both.

* * *

ADAM GLANCED AT the messages Chelsea had given him and satisfaction went through him. Cassie Bryant was coming in at 11:00 a.m. to pick up the representation agreements for both Tiffany and Glen. At least she’d recognized the opportunities available to the twins. He already had several places in mind to send their pictures—photographers and advertisers looking for fresh teen images. He had a feeling both of them would be in demand.

A few hours later, Chelsea escorted Cassie to his office. This morning she wore jeans and a green T-shirt. Nice , he couldn’t help thinking, noting that she also moved gracefully, a quality he’d always found particularly attractive.

Yet Adam frowned. Her eyes were striking, but he could have sworn they were a different color.

“Is something wrong?” Cassie asked.

“No, but when we met, I thought your eyes were golden brown, now they’re almost green. You must have colored contacts.”

“I don’t wear contacts, but my eye color appears to change depending on what I wear. My old boyf—someone I used to know complained that it was confusing.”

Adam noted the cut-off reference to what must be a previous relationship, and her reluctance to refer to him that way. Perhaps while she was caring for her niece and nephew, she’d chosen to put off the idea of romance or had found the man in question wasn’t interested in sharing her responsibilities.

Not that it made any difference to Adam, but they had to establish an effective working relationship. While he and his partners didn’t want to perpetuate the way the prior owner had dealt with his clients—Kevin McClaskey had held their hands through everything—they did want to help clients learn professionalism. It was one of the reasons they’d shifted the focus of their careers to talent management; each of them had benefited from someone helping them in the past, and now they could do the same for other people in a field they understood.