Father Formula
Autor
Muriel Jensen
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19,2K
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HarlequinChapter One
Alexis Ames reclined on her side on her sister Athena’s bed, propped up on her elbow as she watched her fold clothing into a dark blue soft-sided bag. Athena, usually serious and sedate, placed a flowered bra and matching French-cut panties into the bag’s front pocket.
“Now, there’s something I never thought I’d see,” Alexis said, pointing to the scraps of silk and lace as they were tucked away. “How will you be able to keep a straight face while addressing the jury, knowing you’re wearing those?”
Athena blushed and laughed. “David bought them for me. And I won’t be in court this trip.”
Alexis was fascinated by her sister’s blush. Athena had changed in a score of subtle little ways since taking up with David Hartford.
Athena practiced law in Washington, D.C., a champion of the oppressed and the underdog. She’d always been the serious one of the Ames triplets, every detail of her life organized for the best and most efficient outcome.
Of course, their aunt’s sudden death in the crash of a light plane in Hawaii had changed all their lives. Athena had taken time off from her law practice, Alexis had left her art studio in Rome, and Augusta had arranged for a substitute teacher and had flown in from northern California for the reading of Aunt Sadie’s will at the Portland, Oregon, office of her attorney.
The news that Sadie had left Cliffside, her family’s home, to a mysterious beneficiary named David Hartford made all three sisters suspicious. Sadie had always promised the home to her nieces, and the will offered no explanation for the sudden change in plans.
When they’d learned that Hartford had already taken possession of Cliffside and had rented the guest house and the garage apartment to friends, Alexis and her sisters had rented a car and driven to Dancer’s Beach on the Oregon Coast. They invited themselves to a costume party the men were hosting in an attempt to discover, through clever subterfuge, what they didn’t seem to be able to uncover with straightforward questions.
Only things had backfired. The men had been dressed as the Three Musketeers, wigged and masked and of similar height and coloring. Each sister had attached herself to one of the men, the plan being that she could use whatever means she deemed fit to gather information.
When they’d met back at their car sometime later, Athena had been the only one who still questioned the men’s sincerity. Then Alexis and her sisters had resigned themselves to the situation and returned to their lives.
And then, just one brief week ago, Alexis had been visiting with friends at the American Club in Rome and seen a television broadcast about an unidentified young woman rescued from the Columbia River at Astoria, Oregon. The reporter said that a blow to the head had left her with amnesia.
Alexis gasped at the grainy image of the woman on a gurney being lifted into the back of an ambulance. It was one of her sisters. And she was very pregnant.
As she tried to assimilate that information she’d run closer to the television, hoping for a clue that would tell her which sister it was.
“When the victim’s sister, Athena Ames, came with a friend to Astoria to claim her,” the reporter went on, “the mystery woman had disappeared. She is five-seven, about 120 pounds, has long red hair, dark blue eyes, and may be looking for food or work since she had no purse and no identification on her when she was pulled from the river. She has now been missing eight days.”
Alexis had stared in disbelief, then tried to call Athena, only to learn that she was on leave from the office for an indefinite period of time. Then she remembered that the news story had said “by the time her sister arrived—” and realized that she must be in Oregon. She called Patrick Connelly, a private detective who often worked for Athena, who gave her an address in Dancer’s Beach.
Alexis had hung up the phone and stared at the note she’d taken. Her sister was staying at the former home of their aunt. But where was the man who now owned the home?
She recalled that the news story had said, “by the time her sister and a friend had arrived—” Could it be…? She couldn’t believe it.
But it was true.
When Athena and David Hartford met at the hospital, they’d decided to join forces in their search for Gusty, and had just decided to make the alliance permanent. Alexis and David’s friend, Trevyn McGinty, had been their witnesses just two days ago in a simple service at Faith Community Church. Athena appeared to be hopelessly in love with David.
“Writers are temperamental, you know,” Alexis said, referring to her new brother-in-law’s current profession. With one sister missing, the other changed, and with the discovery that Aunt Sadie had left David the house because she, too, had been a CIA agent code-named “Auntie,” Alexis was beginning to feel like a trespasser in someone else’s life. “You’re sure you’re doing the right thing, closing up your D.C. office to open a law office in Dancer’s Beach? I mean, you’re used to big-city doings and important cases. What’ll you find here to match that?”
Athena smiled. It was a scary look. Her usually intense sister actually appeared serene. “I’ve already found it,” Athena replied. “And it far surpasses everything I’ve known so far.”
Alexis would have found that nauseating if Athena hadn’t been so sincere.
“What if this literary agent is wrong, and the publishers he wants David to meet don’t consider him publishable after all?”
Athena shrugged. “Then he’ll find another one. It’s a good book. A great book.”
Alexis leaned over the side of the bed to catch a folded pair of socks Athena had thrown at the suitcase and overshot. She tossed them back.
“So they really were CIA agents? Our Musketeers?”
Athena nodded as she closed the lid on the suitcase. “They really were. That’s why it’s such a great book. It’s fiction, but it’s based on everything David really knows.”
Alexis sat up as Athena carried her suitcase to the door. “I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me to imagine Trevyn McGinty as a CIA agent. Maybe as a cop in Car 54, Where Are You?…”
Athena gave her a scolding look over her shoulder as she pulled a lined raincoat out of the closet. “Lex, you’re going to be here with him for at least a week helping with the boys while David’s in New York and I close up my office. You have to buff up your attitude.”
“He keeps making smart remarks to me.”
“In response to your smart remarks.” Athena grinned. “You’re just upset because he got the better of you in that little altercation when you thought he’d broken in.”
“Sure he did.” Alexis avoided her sister’s glance as she picked up her tote bag off the bed. “He’s bigger and he didn’t mind using his muscle.”
“It was dark,” Athena defended him. “He thought you were attacking him!”
Alexis had a clear memory of McGinty sprawled over her body on the kitchen floor as the frying pan she’d wielded flew through the air and crashed into the dishes on the drying rack. She remembered gasping for breath, certain her back would break.
She sighed dispiritedly. “To think I went to self-defense classes two nights a week for three months.”
Athena laughed and opened the door. “I’m sure the training Uncle Sam gave him was more heavy-duty than your class at the Rome Y. You’re sure you want us to leave the boys and the dog with you? Dotty will be gone until next Monday. You’ll have to—” Athena grinned apologetically “—you know, remember to feed them, see that the boys get to school, walk the dog.”
In acquiring David as her husband, Athena had also acquired the care of his two half brothers, Brandon, twelve, and Brady, ten. Alexis had known them just a matter of days, but she thought they were wonderful.
Equally wonderful was Ferdie, the boys’ 110-pound Great Dane and Saint Bernard mix.
Alexis rolled her eyes at her. “I think I can handle that. I can’t believe that you’ve turned from a warrior into some kind of Donna Reed and you still think of me as incompetent.”
Athena turned to her, an aggressive tilt to her chin. “I do not think you’re incompetent. It’s just that, as an artist, you sometimes forget the normal, day-to-day things.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not much of an artist at the moment.” Alexis pushed her gently out the door. “And though I know your trip east isn’t exactly for pleasure, I’m sure the two of you can use a little space after all you’ve been through since Gusty was pulled out of the water. And we can’t even continue the search for her until Holden gets an answer on the passenger lists.”
Brandon and Brady had confused Athena with a redheaded woman they’d seen at the Portland Airport while running away from their mother’s home to stay with David. It had been the first time Gusty had been seen since she’d disappeared from the hospital.
Since then, Officer Holden of the Astoria Police, who’d been handling the investigation, had been checking the passenger lists for flights arriving at the baggage carousel where the boys had seen Gusty. It was a long and tedious process.
She’d been traveling with a man the boys had described as “scary looking,” and the police were checking the identity of every passenger, presuming that they were probably traveling under assumed names, since Gusty reportedly no longer remembered hers.
Alexis wrapped her free arm around Athena’s shoulders as they walked down the hallway to the stairs. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around to help you the past couple of weeks.”
Athena dismissed her apology with a shake of her head. “My only concern was that, when I couldn’t locate you either, I wasn’t sure which one of you they’d found.”
Alexis made a scornful sound. “Like I’d ever turn up seven months pregnant.”
Athena gave her a look Alexis found unsettling—as though she had knowledge Alexis didn’t share. “Someday,” she said with a curious little smile, “you’ll meet the right man and wonder why you ever thought that.” Then Athena squared her shoulders before going down the stairs. “The boys, the dog. Holden’s number on the fridge. Is there anything I haven’t covered?”
This efficiency was a glimpse of the old Athena and Alexis frankly considered it a relief.
“No, I’ll take it from here. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll look after everything and prod Holden every day for something to go on. You just enjoy the East Coast and your new husband. Maybe we’ll even have Gusty here to welcome you back.”
At the bottom of the stairs Athena wrapped her arms around her and for a moment they held each other fiercely, trying to make up for the gap Gusty’s absence created in their lives.
“Yes,” Athena said, composed again. “Try to make that happen. I’ll call you from D.C.” She picked up her bag and started out the door toward the car.
Alexis followed with her tote bag.
“And don’t start any fights with Trevyn.”
“He’s the one who starts everything,” Alexis argued.
“Yeah, right.” Athena countered.
TREVYN MCGINTY HELPED his friend and landlord, David Hartford, pile luggage into the trunk of David’s blue sedan. “Now, if you sell your book to these guys,” Trevyn said, moving the toolbox and blankets aside to make room for David’s brown leather bags, “what’s the first thing you’re supposed to demand in your contract?”
David handed him a fat briefcase. “That my portrait on the dust cover be taken by you.”
Everything in place, Trevyn dusted off his hands and patted David on the back. “Very good. I’m glad I saved your life that time in Bangkok after all.”
“As I recall, the idol I was hiding behind saved my life.”
“Only because I arrived in time to return fire.”
“You were three minutes late.”
“And you’re still here to continually remind me of that. Where’s Bram, anyway? He can’t still be in Mexico.”
“He is. That wayward husband he was following loaded his SUV with pretty girls at the Barkley Regis and Bram followed him—into Mexico. He called me before he crossed the border. Some kind of big meeting going on, or something.”
Bram Bishop had often been the third member of their CIA team, a security expert with more than twenty years experience. He’d retired with them almost ten months ago and had opened a detective agency in downtown Dancer’s Beach. He lived in the apartment above Cliffside’s four-car garage.
Trevyn frowned. “You think it’s drugs? White slavers?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him since. I tried to call him a couple of times when Gusty was first reported missing for some advice on where to start a search, but I couldn’t get through on his cell phone.”
“How long’s it been?”
“Three weeks.”
Trevyn considered that, then dismissed it. “If it was anybody else, I’d worry.”
“I know. He’s fine.” David grinned at him as Athena and Alexis walked out of the house toward them. The boys, shooting hoops on the edge of the driveway, stopped their game, shouldered their backpacks for school and fell in behind them, the dog loping along in step. “Are you going to be okay with Lex and the boys while Dotty’s at her son’s? Or should I arrange for a nanny and police protection?”
“Funny.” Trevyn shoved him, then eyed the bags the women carried and reached into the trunk to rearrange its cargo. “The boys are great. And Alexis has the house, I’ve got the guest house and if there’s a just God, never the twain shall meet.”
From what he’d learned so far, Trevyn guessed Alexis was the evil triplet. Though as beautiful as Athena with her long dark red hair and deep blue eyes, she had none of her courtesy. She was outspoken and outrageous—and she’d tried to bean him with a frying pan. It was hard to feel kindly toward a woman like that.
“What if Holden gets some news about Gusty?” David asked.
“I’ll find her,” Trevyn assured him, “without Lex’s help.”
“But she knows her better than you do,” David argued, “even though you…”
Trevyn sighed impatiently at David’s hesitation. “Even though I got Gusty pregnant. You can say it aloud. It isn’t as though we don’t all know she’s seven and a half months along.”
“You’re sure you were with her?” David asked. “Considering how identical the girls are. I mean, with costumes and masks and just a brief glimpse of her face…”
“I made love to her,” Trevyn said firmly, lowering his voice as the women approached. “She’s the only sister who’s pregnant. It was me.”
“You’re not going to go too nuts waiting around, are you?” David asked. “I know you’d like to try to find Gusty on your own, but I’ve got Wren still looking for her and I’ll feel so much better knowing you’re here with Lex and the boys.”
Wren was an old friend of theirs from their “company” days who’d also retired and now freelanced his spook skills.
Trevyn would have preferred action, but he owed David a lot. When they weren’t on “company” business, he and David had worked together at the Chicago Tribune, David as a journalist, Trevyn as a photojournalist. He nodded. “I’m fine with it, and I’ll keep my eye on the boys. If Alexis inadvertently disappears…”
“Trev—”
“Okay, okay. I’ll watch out for her, too.”
“Thanks for making it all fit, Trevyn.” Athena beamed at him as he tucked her two bags into a tight spot. “If we’d left this to David, he’d have made me leave most of my stuff.”
“Oh, he’s always been selfish,” Trevyn teased, then closed the trunk and David locked it. “You must see something in him that’s invisible to the rest of us. There. You’re all set.”
Athena hugged each of the boys, promising that they would call, and asking what they wanted in the way of souvenirs from Washington and New York.
“A New York Yankees hat,” Brandon said, reaching up as David hugged him. He was fair-haired and spindly and very, very smart.
Brady stood back, arms folded, an uncharacteristic pout on his dark-featured face. Trevyn had spent time with the boys when they’d visited David over the past few years, and he’d never seen Brady anything but hopelessly cheerful. Trevyn suspected he was upset about David’s trip.
“When are you coming back?” Brady asked, still keeping his distance.
Trevyn noticed that David didn’t move in. He admired that about his friend. In the field, he’d always waited for the right moment.
“About a week, maybe ten days,” David replied.
“You’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“’Cause if it’s any longer, you’ll miss Parents’ Night. You get to see all my work and look at my classroom. And there’s cookies.”
“We won’t miss it. I promise. Athena put the flyer on the fridge.”
Brady eyed David.
Alexis and Athena suddenly made a production of getting Athena into the car, pretending not to notice it had become a tense guy moment.
Brandon elbowed Brady. “Don’t be a doofus,” he said under his breath.
Brady gave him a lethal look, then wrapped his arms around David’s middle. “Okay,” he said. “Have a good time.”
David held him, then drew him away and looked down into his face. “Tell me what’s on your mind,” he said.
Brady’s lips parted and there was an instant of silence, then he said quietly, “I was just worried about Parents’ Night at school. There’s goodies, you know. And you get to look in my classroom.”
“We’ll be back in time,” David assured him, then put an arm around him and led him toward the driver’s side of the car. At the door, he stopped and asked, frankly, “Brady, are you worried that your mom will send Darby after you guys again?”
David had told Trevyn that Darby was their mother’s new husband and the reason for their leaving home when he’d put Ferdie in the pound.
Brady folded his arms again. “I worry about that sometimes,” he admitted.
David leaned against the car door and put his hands on Brady’s shoulders. “Mom signed papers that make me your legal guardian, remember? They’re in our safety-deposit box. I showed them to you.”
Brady nodded. “I know.”
“Then, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah.” Brady forced a smile but it was unconvincing.
David looked up at Trevyn. “Your Uncle Trevisn’t going to let anyone take you away, or let anything happen to you while I’m gone. Right, Trev?”
Trevyn stepped forward with a shrug. “Well, unless it’s a tribe of beautiful babes, or something, and they want me, too, then of course…”
Brandon barked a laugh and Brady smiled despite himself.
David glared at Trevyn.
“No one takes them,” Trevyn said dutifully, pulling Brady into the crook of his arm, “and nothing hurts them. Got it.” He caught Brandon in his other arm and drew him back from the car. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
“Easier said than done by anyone who knows you,” David countered, opening the car door.
“I’m here to straighten out whatever he messes up,” Alexis said, coming around the car to give David a hug. “You take care of my sister, buddy, or you answer to me.”
She closed the car door as David climbed in behind the wheel.
FERDIE BARKED and tried to follow the car as it pulled away, but Brandon held him back by the collar.
Alexis stared until the car was out of sight, feeling more alone than she’d felt in a long time. Gusty was missing and Athena wasn’t really part of the triumvirate anymore. She had another life now.
And this was the story of her life, Alexis thought—never quite part of the group. Different. Lonely.
“Aren’t these guys going to be late for school?”
Trevyn’s voice interrupted her thoughts and reminded her that she wasn’t alone at all. Lonely, maybe, but hardly alone.
He was tall and broad, dark hair ruffling a little in the afternoon breeze, eyes inky black and taunting. If he was anyone else, she’d admit that he was gorgeous. But he wasn’t. He was the man who’d dropped her effortlessly to the kitchen floor and knelt astride her.
“I know the schedule, thank you,” she replied politely, then turned her attention to Brandon and Brady. “Do you want me to walk you to the bus stop?”
The boys looked at each other in horror.
She realized immediately that had been a faux pas.
Brandon looked hopefully at Trevyn. “Can you take us in the truck?”
“Sure.” Trevyn dug his keys out of his pocket as the boys raced into the open garage. Alexis caught Ferdie’s collar to prevent him from following.
Trevyn smiled at Alexis. “Don’t take it to heart. Being delivered in a truck looks better to your buddies than walking with a woman in tow. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Alexis sighed as she watched them all climb into the truck. Ruled by testosterone at ten and twelve. What a world.
They waved to her as the truck disappeared down the drive. Ferdie whined mournfully.
She walked toward the bushes that surrounded the headland rather than going back to the house, slapping her thigh in an invitation for the dog to follow. She felt edgy and strange here without her sisters. She’d lived much of her adult life without them, but when they were here at Cliffside, they were usually together.
From behind the width of the hedge, she took in the breathtaking view of bright blue sky meeting even bluer water. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep whiff of the salty fresh air. She felt it fill her body and bring back memories of her, Athena and Augusta as children playing like wild things on this lawn.
She’d had dark and selfish thoughts then, she recalled. She used to think that her mother would love her if she could just get rid of the competition. Athena was so competent and Gusty was so charming and agreeable. Alexis, unfortunately, had a gift for candor and a talent for art, neither of which was appreciated by their mother.
In her hopeful, positive moments, the young Alexis was very grateful for her sisters, realizing how bleak her life would be without them. With their mother ignoring them and wanting to claim the limelight herself, and their father taking every opportunity he could to stay away, all they had was one another and the trips to Aunt Sadie’s in Dancer’s Beach.
But when she felt hurt and resentful, she imagined life without Athena and Gusty. She pretended they had never been, and that it was just her, hand in hand with her mother.
There would be no delighted stares of passersby fascinated by three red-haired little girls dressed alike, or in three shades of the same color. No one would stop and tell her mother how beautiful her children were, how much they looked like her.
It would just be the two of them. No one would notice. They would just go shopping together and with no one else to claim her mother’s attention, Alexis would have it all. Her mother would look at her and smile.
She’d seen other mothers do that to their children. They didn’t even have to say anything. Love filled their eyes, made their smiles glow, brought about a ruffle of the child’s hair or a sudden hug.
Alexis had always waited for such a moment, but it never came.
By the time she was a teenager, she’d resigned herself to her fate and allied herself with her sisters in their struggle to find personal value and self-esteem.
Athena found it in an ability to argue clearly with anyone about anything. It was soon obvious she was headed for law school.
Augusta loved knowledge and children, and glowed when she talked about becoming a teacher.
Alexis decided to parlay her art into a life. Art, she’d learned early on, could never be simply a career.
Her talent won her a year’s study abroad in college, and she decided to remain there afterward, loving the daily contact with paintings, sculptures and buildings that had been created by Michelangelo, da Vinci, and all the other names associated with the Renaissance.
And, truth be told, it allowed her to run away. She didn’t have to watch her sisters, so sure what they wanted to do, so secure in their abilities to do it, while she floundered with a skill that was unpredictable at best.
She appreciated being able to launch her efforts thousands of miles from anyone who knew her.
She’d achieved a fair measure of success, was well accepted by the art community in Rome, and sold very well at the small but prestigious gallery that represented her in New York City.
That was far more than most artists enjoyed, Alexis reminded herself as she started back toward the house, determined to find something productive to do. She would have to prepare dinner tonight. With her limited culinary skills, that should take her most of the day to plan and prepare.
She’d just reached the driveway when Trevyn’s truck came rumbling and gasping up the hill. He drew up beside her, stopped and leaped out of the truck.
“Did you beat the bus?” she asked.
“Got there in the nick of time. Did Athena or Dave tell you how to call me from the house if you need anything?”
Alexis now enjoyed a fragile but determined sense of self that was sometimes manifested in the need to be more clever and more right than whomever she dealt with. Trevyn McGinty, however, didn’t seem to understand her need to be superior.
“Thank you,” she said politely with a quick glance at him. She wasn’t sure why, but it made her uncomfortable to look at him too long. His eyes said he knew she was a phoney. He couldn’t know, of course. She attributed that feeling to her worry about Gusty, and the weirdness of their situation. Everything seemed foreign and threatening. “But I’m not worried, and I doubt that I’ll need to call you.”
The cool reply was intended to put him off.
It failed. He grinned, hands in the pockets of a dark blue fleece jacket. “What if you get up in the early morning to make tea,” he asked with feigned innocence, “and surprise another intruder?”
She’d come out without a jacket and rubbed her arms in the thin green knit of a light sweater. Annoyance bubbled out of her politeness. “You find it impossible to be a gentleman about that, don’t you?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Only because you refuse to admit that I had every right to be there.”
“You were using a lock pick!” Her voice was rising. “Why didn’t you knock on the door like a normal person?”
“It was four-fifteen in the morning,” he replied. “Why weren’t you asleep like a normal person?”
“I was…” She’d begun to answer instinctively, then thought better of it. She’d been worried about her sister, worried about her art, worried about being twenty-nine and feeling no closer to an answer to what her life was all about. Art, certainly, but that left her pretty one-dimensional.
“I was thinking,” she finally said. “I know you’d just returned from Canada, but couldn’t you have sat in your car for a couple of hours and waited for a sign that someone was awake?”
The amusement left his eyes. “I’d just seen the news about Gusty. I needed information. I knew Dave wouldn’t mind if I let myself in.”
She could allow him that, she decided grudgingly, even if he had been foolish enough to make love to her sister on a few hours’ acquaintance. But she still wasn’t feeling friendly.
“What kind of person travels with a lock pick, anyway?”
“A former spook. I was always better at it than Dave or Bram, so I carried the pick.”
“Well, in the world of non-spooks, it’s a questionable talent.”
“Sorry. Force of habit. And I didn’t expect the house to be occupied by anyone but Dave, except maybe Dotty. How was I to know he’d picked up four other people?”
“I’d have thought the spy business would teach you to never assume anything.”
Something shifted in his eyes for an instant and she caught a glimpse of old pain.
“Yeah, well, I’m trying to unlearn a lot of old habits from those days.” He looked away for a moment, as though he realized he’d betrayed something personal. When his eyes settled on her again, they were self-deprecating. “The work teaches you to trust nothing and no one, to believe only what you see, and only if you’ve seen it from the beginning. Like lock picking, those qualities don’t help the transition to normal life.”
He leaned down to ruffle the dog’s ears, then pointed in the direction of the guest house he occupied. It looked very much like the two-story brick Colonial Revival that was Cliffside. It also had two stories, but only two windows across instead of four, and no attic gables.
It was surrounded on the back and sides by fir trees interspersed with mountain ash that were now alive with bright red berries. Soon they would attract clouds of little birds.
“I’ve got work to do,” he said, seemingly anxious suddenly to escape her. “If you do need anything, press the com line, then 2.”
“Thank you.” She tried to sound brisk and not too sincere.
He climbed back into the truck and pulled into the garage.
Ferdie loped after the truck, barking, but Alexis called him back. He returned dutifully and she leaned down to kiss his big snout. “You don’t need him,” she assured the dog quietly, aware that the wind might carry her voice. “I’m going to feed you well and take you for walks, and we’re going to keep each other company.”
Ferdie followed her to the big house, but looked longingly in Trevyn’s direction.
Alexis took hold of the old front door handle, depressed the thumb plate and pulled—and nothing happened. She stared at the locked door in surprise for an instant, then smiled reassuringly at the dog as she remembered that Athena had given her a key.
She reached into the pocket of her green-and-brown-plaid slacks and met empty fabric. The key, she remembered, was on her dresser.
“Well, damn,” she told the dog with a sigh. “I’m going to need McGinty after all.”
