he growled under his breath.
Maybe Thorne was right. Maybe they should enlist Jamie Parsons and the firm of Jansen, Monteith and Stone to try to locate the baby’s father and to take the legal steps to ensure that J.R.’s daddy wouldn’t show up someday and demand custody. If that was even possible.
Slade just wished the lawyer assigned to their case was someone other than Jamie Parsons.
Randi settled into the chair directly across the table from Thorne. “Since the attorney’s dropping by anyway, I want to talk about changing the baby’s name legally. J.R. doesn’t cut it with me.”
“Do what you want. We needed something for the birth certificate.” Thorne glanced at his nephew. “But I think J.R. fits him just fine.”
“So do I,” Slade agreed. “Since you were in a coma, we agreed on the initials.”
“Okay, okay, so it served a purpose and now everyone is calling him J.R., but I’m going to change his name officially to Joshua Ray McCafferty.” She glanced around the room, and if she saw the questions in her brothers’ eyes, ignored them.
J.R.’s paternity was a touchy subject. With everyone. Particularly Randi, who was the only one who could name the father. But she wasn’t talking. Unmarried and, to her brothers’ knowledge, not seriously involved with anyone, she refused to name the man.
Why?
“He’s mine,” she’d say when asked about the baby. “That’s all that matters.”
But it bothered Slade. A lot. He couldn’t help but think her reticence to name the man and the attempts on her life were related.
“He’s your kid. You can name him whatever you want,” Thorne said agreeably, “but I didn’t warn the attorney that we’d have more issues than the property division.”
“He’ll handle it.” Randi adjusted the drool bib around her son’s tiny neck.
“She,” Thorne clarified. “Chuck Jansen is sending a woman associate. Jamie Parsons. She grew up around here.”
“Jamie?” Randi’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully and Slade envisioned the gears in her mind meshing and spinning and spewing out all kinds of unwanted conclusions. Yep. She glanced his way.
“She lived with her grandmother outside of town.” Thorne winced as he adjusted his bad leg on the chair next to him.
“Nita Parsons. Yes, I remember. Mom made me take piano lessons from Mrs. Parsons. Man, she was a taskmaster.”
None of the men commented. They never liked to be reminded that Randi’s mother had been the reason their parents had divorced. John Randall had fallen in love with Penelope Henley, promptly divorced Larissa, their mother, and married the much younger woman. Six months after the nuptials, Randi had come into the world. Slade hadn’t much liked his stepmother or the new baby, but over the years he’d quit blaming his half sister for his parents’ doomed union.
Randi looked up at Slade and he felt it coming—the question he didn’t want to face. “Weren’t you and Jamie an item years ago?”
“Hardly an item. We saw each other a few times. It wasn’t a big deal.” He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and hoped that was the end of it. But he knew his reporter sister better than that.
“More than a few. And, if I remember right, she was pretty gone on you.”
“Is that right?” Matt asked, a smile crawling across his beard-shadowed chin. “Hard to believe any woman would be so foolish.”
“Isn’t it?” Randi said as J.R. tried to grab her earring.
“Funny. I wouldn’t think you’d remember anything.”
Randi’s eyes flashed. “Bits and pieces, Slade. I already told you, I just remember a little of this and a little of that. More each day.”
But not the father of her child? Or what happened when she was forced off the road?
“Then you’d better focus on who wants to see you dead.”
“You were involved with the lady lawyer?” Matt asked.
Slade lifted one shoulder and felt the weight of his brothers’ gazes on him. “It was a long time ago.” He heard the whine of an engine and his muscles tightened. He turned toward the window.
Through the frosty panes he caught a glimpse of a tiny blue car chugging its way along the drive. Slade’s gut clenched. The compact slid to a stop, narrowly missing his truck. A couple of seconds later a tall woman emerged from the car. With a black briefcase swinging from her arm, she hesitated just a second as she looked at the house, then taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and strode up the front path where the snow had been broken and trampled.
Jamie Parsons in the flesh.
Great. Just…great.
She was all confidence and femininity in her severe black coat. Sunstreaked hair had been slicked away from a face that boasted high cheekbones, defined chin, and wide forehead. He couldn’t make out the color of her eyes but remembered they were hazel, shifting from green to gold in the sunlight or darkening when she got angry.
For a second he flashed upon a time when the two of them had been down by the creek, not far from the swimming hole where Thorne had almost drowned.
It had been a torridly hot summer, the wildflowers had been in bloom, the grass dry and the smell of fresh-cut hay had floated in the air along with the fluff from dandelions. He’d dared her to strip naked and jump into the clear water. And she, with the look of devilment in those incredible eyes, had done just that, exposing high, firm breasts with pink nipples and a thatch of reddish hair above long, tanned legs. He’d caught only a glimpse before she’d dashed into the water, submerged and come up tossing her wet hair from her eyes. He could still hear her laughter, melodious as a warbler’s song.
God, where had that come from? It had been eons ago. A lifetime. The bad day just got worse.
From somewhere on the front porch Harold gave up a deep “woof” just as the doorbell chimed.
“You gonna get that?” Matt asked, and Slade, frowning, headed along the hallway toward the front door.
From the kitchen Juanita, the housekeeper, was rattling pans and singing softly in Spanish, while in the living room a fire crackled and Nicole, Thorne’s wife, was playing a board game with her four-year-old twin daughters. Giggles and quiet conversation could be heard over the muted melodies of Christmas carols playing from a recently purchased CD player. At the sound of the front door chimes, two little voices erupted.
“I get it! I get it!”
“No. Me!”
Two sets of small feet scurried through the living room as Molly and Mindy, their dark ringlets flying, scrambled into the entry hall and raced for the door. Small hands vying for the handle, they managed to yank the door open and there on the front porch, looking professional, feminine and surprised as all getout at her reception, stood Jamie Parsons, Attorney-at-Law.
