His Daddy's Eyes. Debra Salonen

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      CHAPTER TWO

      REN YANKED ON THE CORD of the wooden blinds with more force than the old rope could take. The handle came off in his hand and the heavy shades crashed back to the mahogany sill with an ominous thunk. He sighed and tossed the yellowed plastic piece on the sideboard.

      I’ve got to call a decorator, Ren thought. Although he seldom used the formal dining room, he knew it would be called into play more often once he and Eve were married. At present, the room reflected Babe’s favorite decorating motif: Ostentatious. The opulent crystal chandelier cast an amber glow across the Regency-style table at its eight saffron brocade chairs. Without benefit of the morning light streaming through its mullioned windows, the room’s musty gloom matched Ren’s mood.

      Ren blamed part of his foul mood on his alarm clock. If he’d remembered to set it, he would have made his weekly golf game. Instead, he’d slept in till nine-thirty. Ren pushed on the swinging door and entered his kitchen, a pristine world of black-and-white tile—the first room he’d remodeled after he moved in.

      His home had once belonged to his parents, but after his father died, Babe, wanting something smaller and more luxurious, sold the house to Ren. He loved the old beast, just as his father had, but the forty-year-old house needed work.

      “Coffee,” he mumbled, moving like a bear just out of hibernation. Ren took a deep breath, hoping to discover his coffeemaker was still warming his morning brew. His nostrils crinkled. No light beckoned from the stainless steel coffeemaker, but the smell of overcooked coffee lingered.

      Ren microwaved a mug of the tar-like liquid and carried it to the small bistro table in the glass-enclosed breakfast nook. He sat on one of the waist-high stools covered in black-and-white hound’s-tooth.

      The wall phone rang before he could take a sip of his coffee. He stretched to pick it up. “Hello.”

      “Hi, handsome, sorry about last night. I’d have called, but you wouldn’t believe how late we got out of the booth.”

      Ren had no trouble picturing his fiancée as she rattled off her apology. No doubt she was in her car, zipping through the light, Saturday-morning traffic on Interstate 80, headed back into town from her Roseville condo. Eve was ever a study in motion; she reminded him of a hummingbird with too many feeders to frequent.

      “Don’t worry about it,” he told her, finally taking a sip of coffee. The brew—a shade off espresso—made him blink. “It’s not like I was dying to go to the fund-raiser.”

      Ren heard a horn honk. Probably Eve’s. She drove fast and had little tolerance for those who got in her way. “I know, but your mother won’t be a bit happy. By the way, I went online and had a nice big basket of flowers delivered to her this morning with a note saying you’d be making a substantial donation to her cause—what was it, anyway?”

      “League of Women Voters, I believe.”

      “Oh, damn. I wish I’d remembered that. Don’t be too generous. They were particularly snotty to the media last fall.”

      Ren smiled—his first of the morning. His first since Wednesday afternoon, actually. Although he’d gone through all the motions for the past two days, his mind had been consumed by the thought of Julia. And her child.

      He missed what Eve was saying and had to ask her to repeat it.

      “Where have you been lately?” she exclaimed. “I’m serious, Ren. You always tell me I have too many irons in the fire, but at least I listen when somebody is talking to me. I asked whether Babe talked to you about setting a date for the wedding. She left a message on my machine, and it made me realize we really do need to sit down and talk about scheduling. You know what my schedule is like.”

      Ren knew. Lesson One of celebrity dating: Everybody follows the schedule but the schedule-maker. “You’re right. We do need to talk.” Ren recognized that although his affair with Julia had taken place before he and Eve started dating, she had a right to know what was happening, particularly if it turned out he’d fathered a child.

      “Okay, then,” she said. “Let’s see….”

      A loud engine noise came over the line, and Ren cringed, picturing her flipping through her thick day-planner while changing lanes. “Why don’t you call me back?” he suggested. “I may go out later, but I’ll take the cell phone.”

      There was a pause. “You hate cell phones. Ren, are you okay? You don’t sound like yourself.”

      “I didn’t sleep well,” he admitted. A guilty conscience had a way of conjuring up the worst scenarios. For instance, what if the reason Julia’s husband had driven into a rock pile was that he’d found out the child wasn’t his? What if Ren was to blame for his son’s mother’s death? Would the little boy wind up hating him when he was old enough to understand?

      “Maybe you need vitamins. Boyd did a piece on male vitality last Wednesday—did you see it?” Eve asked.

      “Nope. Missed it.”

      “Do you ever watch my show?” she asked, her voice suddenly vulnerable.

      “Yours is the only news program I watch, you know that. I just happened to be with Bo that night,” he said in partial honesty. After Bo had brought him the news about Julia and the baby, Ren had driven to the American River and walked along the jogging trail until dark. It was either that, or do something utterly stupid like visit the aunt’s bookstore and check out the kid for himself.

      Eve’s СКАЧАТЬ