Loe raamatut: «A Father For The Twins»

CHAPTER ONE

Fourteen years later...

A KNOCK SOUNDED on Adam’s office door and he looked up to see Nicole George, one of his three business partners.

“Hey, Nicole, you seem excited.”

She grinned. “I just learned that a new TV movie is going to be shot here in the Seattle area. They’re hoping the network will like it enough to turn it into a series. The casting director saw Doria Atchison in the clip we posted online and was impressed enough that he’s emailing a list of what they’re looking for. Auditions won’t be for a little while, but it sounds promising.”

“Excellent.”

When he and his friends had bought the Moonlight Ventures talent agency, one of their concerns had been that Seattle wasn’t at the heart of the fashion or entertainment industry. Local business was fine, but they also wanted broader exposure for their clients.

Their concerns had proved unfounded, though. Several of their models had already gotten television ads for national campaigns and they’d placed actors with two movies being filmed locally, as well as guest and extras spots with a network series based in the region.

“I’ll forward the list as soon as I get it,” Nicole assured. She was an exceptionally beautiful woman, but ever since she’d gotten engaged, her face possessed a special glow. If she hadn’t quit modeling, it would be easy to pick up the phone and get her a dozen top contracts.

Adam almost chuckled at the thought; after just a few weeks on the job, he was already thinking more like an agent than a model. Nicole had run Moonlight Ventures by herself for months, though he and their other partners, Logan Kensington and Rachel Clarion, had flown in regularly and teleconferenced with her. Now that his own modeling contracts had been satisfied, he’d started working at the agency full time.

“How is the writing going?” he asked. The previous owner of the agency had put out a quarterly trade newsletter, but they were working toward converting it to a general circulation publication. For the launch issue Adam wanted a feature piece by Nicole about “lessons learned” from her years as a supermodel.

She scrunched her nose at him. “Slowly.”

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

“You can tell me you’ve changed your mind about having me write it.”

“Afraid I can’t.”

Actually, Adam felt bad that they’d asked her to be “the story” again, as Nicole put it. Ironically, it was when PostModern magazine had asked to do a series of articles about her transition from supermodel to agent that she’d met her fiancé.

Technically she’d simply met Jordan again, having known him as a kid. Jordan had still written the articles, telling readers that while he was now engaged to the subject of his interviews, he’d tried to be unbiased—but might have failed. In response, the articles had been well received, which had been good for the agency.

In turn, Nicole had penned a piece for the agency’s blog about Jordan and the process of being interviewed. The popularity of the blog site had convinced them it was worth giving their own magazine a shot.

“I had to try,” she said. With another grin and a flip of her hand, she rushed out again.

Adam rubbed the back of his neck, thinking about the years he’d known Nicole. He’d watched her go from being hopeful about falling in love to being convinced it could never happen for her. Now she’d come full circle, deeply in love and full of plans for a future with Jordan.

He was glad she was happy.

He’d like to find that kind of happiness himself again, but it wasn’t easy. He’d been engaged for a brief, wonderful time to a woman he’d met while still at UCLA and wouldn’t settle for second best.

Isabelle had charged at life with enthusiasm and laughter, unconcerned by his growing success as a model. He’d always known where he was with her—first when they were just friends, and later when they were falling in love and deciding to get married. But a brain aneurism had changed everything in the blink of an eye.

Renewed grief went through Adam at the memory. One minute Isabelle had been there, the next she was gone.

It had taken a long time to be ready for another serious relationship, and then the frequent travel and the less-than-kind scrutiny of the press had played havoc with his dating life—lots of first and second dates, few beyond that. Maybe it would be different now. He’d like to find someone confident and outgoing, who shared his interests and could be a real partner.

Not like his parents.

Adam sighed, knowing he was being unfair. His parents had a good marriage, but it had always seemed as if his mother’s needs came second, at least until her heart problems developed. As for shared interests? Hardly. Dad was interested in construction, period. Mom was a science fiction and fantasy buff. She loved to write and had wanted to earn a place among authors like Arthur C. Clarke and J.R.R. Tolkien. Instead she’d slogged away at a dull teleservice job because it was secure and helped earn money for her children’s educations.

Adam got up and moved restlessly around his office, pausing to look out the window at the trees that softened his view of the street.

He felt bad that his parents hadn’t pursued their own dreams instead of ones for their children. It wasn’t just his mother—his father’s plan to become a contractor had been deemed too great a risk to the family’s financial security, so Dermott had done construction for someone else and taken jobs as a handyman in his spare hours.

Just then Adam’s personal line rang, breaking into his musings. The caller ID displayed his sister’s number.

“Hey, Sophie.” He could hear his nephew and niece in the background, shrieking and giggling. Bobby and Lila were great, but like most kids they could be loud. “What’s up?”

“The twins had friends over this weekend and now I want to speak with someone closer to my own age.”

He grinned. “How bad was it?”

“We had a serious outbreak of video games, Star Wars battles and The Lone Ranger.”

“The Lone Ranger?”

“I made the mistake of bringing out my classic TV DVDs and the next thing I knew they were all running around with pretend six-shooters, trying to catch pretend bank robbers and cattle rustlers. Mom retreated to my bedroom along with the cat.”

Adam sat back in his chair. He was proud of his kid sister for making a tough situation work. She’d gotten pregnant at seventeen and married her boyfriend, only to have him leave before the twins were born.

Now Sophie had a brisk mail-order business selling New Mexico–themed Christmas ornaments and decorations she made herself. That way she’d avoided childcare costs for the twins—which would have outstripped any income from a minimum-wage job—and was still able to make a decent living using her artistic talents. To Adam’s frustration, she’d even insisted on repaying the checks he’d sent after her brief marriage fell apart, though they’d been a gift.

“How is Mom adjusting to them both being retired?” he asked.

“Pretty good. But I should warn you, I think the folks are planning a trip to Seattle this summer to see you.”

Gripping the phone, Adam counted to ten. “Any special reason? I was home two months ago and expect to come for Christmas as usual.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Surely they don’t think I’m going to change my mind about becoming a lawyer. They must know it isn’t in the cards.” Even when he and his friends were buying Moonlight Ventures, his father had suggested it wasn’t too late for graduate school, unable to resist trying to resurrect the remnants of his old ambition.

“I think they’re getting resigned to your new career, especially since it means you won’t be gazing back at them from magazine covers in the grocery checkout line. You know how stuffy Dad can be. Seeing you in those swimsuit editions used to really get him going.”

Adam rubbed the back of his neck. He was sorry it bothered his parents that he didn’t have the career they’d chosen for him, but he had the right to live as he saw fit. Nevertheless, maybe the agency’s success would alleviate their vague sense of failure since “our son is a businessman” must sound more respectable to them. While he didn’t crave their approval, he wanted them to be happy.

“But get this,” Sophie added, “remember when Dad cut his hand and Lila kept helping change the bandage?”

“Yeah.”

“Now he thinks she should become a doctor.”

Adam instinctively tensed. “But she’s only eight years old.” He understood where his worry came from. It had taken him long enough to shake off family expectations.

“I know.” A crash reverberated through the phone and she sighed. “Sorry, I’d better go see what happened.”

“Tell the little terrors ‘hi’ for me.”

They said goodbye and Adam started going through the seemingly bottomless stack of photographs and videos received each day at Moonlight Ventures. Few of the submissions possessed the special something they wanted as a signature aspect of the agency, but occasionally they found someone in the pile who stood out.

A couple of the pictures were interesting and he put them aside to ask Nicole’s opinion. It might have been useful to have his other partners take a look as well, but it wasn’t practical. Rachel wouldn’t be on board for several weeks, and Logan still had a few months left on his photography contracts. They didn’t have time to agree on every decision.

At length, Adam turned to the picture of the prospective client he was meeting with at 1:00 p.m. Her aunt would be there as well. Tiffany Bryant was thirteen, with an engaging smile and energy that seemed to leap out of her photograph.

Standing, he decided to go for a walk to clear his head. He had been thinking a lot about the past, probably because he’d made another big change in his life. It wasn’t that he had to work any longer—with his savings and investments he could have a life of leisure, doing whatever suited his fancy. That might be fine for some people, but he wanted to accomplish something, not just play. A talent agency had seemed the right place to use his experience and find a new way to succeed.

* * *

CASSIE BRYANT DROVE toward the Moonlight Ventures talent agency with her niece and nephew, still filled with doubts. She wasn’t convinced that a modeling career was the right thing for her niece, but it also didn’t seem fair to discourage Tiffany’s dreams.

Hopefully this agency wasn’t like the one where a friend of hers had first gone. They’d required Phoebe to take expensive modeling and acting classes conducted by the agency and then charged costly fees to create a formal portfolio. But they never called her for a job and she’d learned they made most of their income from such practices. After a while, Phoebe had tried other agencies, who’d said that they didn’t think it would be worthwhile for her to pursue modeling.

Cassie figured genuine talent agencies were the most common, but she still wanted to be wary.

Sighing, she pushed the thought away.

From what she’d been able to determine, Moonlight Ventures operated on the straight and level. So the immediate concern was not wanting Tiffany to get her hopes too high only to have them dashed.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Cassie saw her nephew, Glen, playing a video game. In the front passenger seat, Tiffany finished the milk Cassie had insisted she drink. Nervous about the interview and worried about her weight, she hadn’t wanted to eat anything, but Cassie couldn’t let her niece abandon proper nutrition to reach a size zero. She’d also argued that being hungry wouldn’t help her make a good impression, so Tiffany had agreed on low-fat milk. Now she was anxiously tidying her hair again.

“Don’t you think I should wear makeup?” she asked. “Just a little?”

“The instructions said everyday clothes and no makeup.”

“I want them to see me at my best.”

“Then they’ll have to wait, like, years or something,” Glen told her with typical brotherly boredom. He’d eaten his sister’s chicken sandwich and french fries, along with his own, and was probably wondering what came after the hors d’oeuvres. He was an insatiable eating machine...called a teenager.

Twisting around, Tiffany stuck out her tongue at him.

“Yeah, nice look,” he told her. “That’s the face they want on a magazine.”

Deciding not to intervene in the minor dispute, Cassie pulled into the talent agency lot and parked the car. “We’re here,” she announced.

Glen unbuckled his seat belt, but Tiffany sat frozen.

“Come on, Tiff,” Cassie urged.

“I—I can’t.”

Cassie understood her fear, the sense that when it came down to it, you’d almost rather not try than fail. But she didn’t want her niece’s life to be full of regrets about what she’d missed because she hadn’t been willing to take a risk.

“Sure you can,” Cassie urged. “You’re just nervous. That’s natural. You’ll get over it.”

“Good grief, Tiff-Niff,” Glen muttered, “you dragged us here, at least you can go inside.”

“Will you go with me?”

He rolled his eyes but slid from the car.

Swallowing a lump of emotion in her throat, Cassie opened her door. For all the sniping between her niece and nephew, they shared a special bond, born from the struggle to survive once their mother had become an alcoholic.

The previous summer, Marie had been declared unfit. With her parents unable to take the twins due to her father’s health problems, Cassie had filed for custody. Even after nearly a year, she still felt like a novice when it came to parenting. It was possible anyone raising teens felt that way when they encountered a new challenge—and with the twins, there always seemed to be something new. On the other hand, most parents had all the years between babyhood and adolescence to figure things out—she’d started right in the middle.

The question about Tiffany modeling was a first-class parental conundrum. Tiff had an interest in the sciences, and the same as her brother, she was getting top marks in her classes. She also wanted to be accepted at school, so the modeling interest might be an attempt to prove to her fellow students that she wasn’t a nerd. At the same time, Tiffany enjoyed clothes and performing, so maybe she truly wanted to be a model.

Moonlight Ventures was located in an interesting building—probably converted industrial space—with several shops and other businesses in the center atrium section. The agency fronted on the parking lot.

Inside they were greeted by a receptionist who seemed close to Cassie’s age. “Hello, I’m Chelsea Masters. May I help you?”

“We have an appointment with Adam Wilding,” Cassie explained. “I’m Cassie Bryant and this is my niece, Tiffany, along with her brother, Glen.”