The Women in Joe Sullivan's Life

  Joe Sullivan on Fatherhood:

  Boy, talk about instant fatherhood. One day I’m a bachelor with a simple life, with no bigger decision to make than what to have for dinner. The next day I’m responsible for three little girls, with a mountain of decisions to make. Daily. I can’t say that it didn’t shake me up. Or that I was equal to it. But the funny thing is that I was equal to it. Not right away. Not by myself. I had the love, but not the ability. That took a little redirection from someone with a great deal more experience with children than I had. Maggie McGuire began as the subject of an interview and turned into a godsend who helped me find my way through this confusing wonderland called fatherhood. I couldn’t have made it without her.

  Now, looking back, I realize that the simple life I had wasn’t so much simple as it was empty. I know it’s never going to be simple or empty again. And I couldn’t be happier.

  MARIE FERRARELLA

  The Women in Joe Sullivan’s Life

  MARIE FERRARELLA

  This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written more than 150 novels for Silhouette Books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her Web site at www.marieferrarella.com.

  To Michael and Mark, who never quite believed

  that older sisters were supposed to be bossy.

  Love,

  Ma-ee-sha.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter One

  “You’re not going to believe what’s waiting in the reception area to talk to you.”

  Maggie McGuire raised her eyes from the financial report her brother had just handed her. The smile on her secretary’s normally somber face was a mixture of bemusement and bewilderment.

  “Girl Scouts selling cookies?” Maggie hazarded. It was the most outlandish thing she could think of, since this was the headquarters for both Magnificent Cookies’ offices and plant.

  “More like girls scouting for cookies.” Ada’s hazel eyes crinkled at the corners before her expression resumed its customary dour appearance.

  Maggie hadn’t the faintest idea what Ada was talking about. She exchanged looks with her brother. “Are you expecting anyone?”

  Ethan shook his head. He had no appointments scheduled until early afternoon. In any event, anyone coming to see him would have been at his office, not Maggie’s. “Not at the moment. You?”

  Maggie was about to echo Ethan’s denial, then stopped. Her stomach lurched slightly, the way it might have had she been standing in an elevator that had just dropped half a floor. She remembered. And frowned.

  “Yes, I am.” She sighed. “I promised to do an interview.”

  After twenty-six years, Ethan would have guessed that there weren’t many things Maggie could have said that would have surprised him. This was one of them.

  Two years separated them. Two years and an overwhelming wealth of responsibility. Maggie was the oldest. At age eleven, she had officially become a substitute mother to him and their two younger brothers, Adam and Richie. Eleven was when her mother, for years an alcoholic, had finally given up the will to live. Eleven was when Maggie had permanently surrendered her childhood.

  It was Maggie who had held them together when their habitually unemployed father found his solace in an amber bottle. Maggie who made them feel safe as she promised that someday the trailer parks and thrift-shop clothes would all be a blurry memory. Maggie who swore that they’d never want again.

  At times, Ethan thought with amusement, he believed that Maggie’s name should have been Scarlett. It would have been fitting.

  Maggie, in his eyes, was fearless, relentless and determined. She wasn’t, however, a person who granted interviews. Even at his behest, when he thought it would help promote their quickly growing company and “really put them on the map,” as Adam liked to say. Maggie, outwardly poised, charming and driven, was a very private person. No one knew it better than he did.

  Maggie felt her brother’s scrutiny. “What? You’re looking at me as if I’ve just grown another head.”

  “No, I’m looking at you as if I don’t know you,” Ethan clarified. He gathered the sheets of the report together. It had been a banner quarter, following on the heels of several others like it. Maggie had lived up to her promise, but then, he had always believed that she would. “An interview? You?”

  It pleased her that she could still surprise him after all these years. God knew her moment of weakness had surprised her. “An interview. Me.”

  He tucked the sheets into a crimson folder. “Not that I think it’s a bad thing. It’s a good thing.” He wondered what had caused her to come around to his way of thinking. Maggie tended to forge her own path without consulting anyone until after the fact. At times it made him feel a little frustrated. Not to mention useless. “I’ve always said that,” he reminded her. “But what made you change your mind?”

  She lifted her shoulders and let them drop as she rose. “The editor who called promised it was going to be a short piece. Adam kept nagging how publicity—the warm touch—could only help. So I said yes.” In a moment when I should have had my head examined. “It’ll be a good precursor for the commercial that I—” her eyes slid toward Ethan “—that we are going to shoot.”

  Maggie’s slip made him smile. She was trying, he thought. No one could deny that. After years of doing everything on her own, he fully appreciated the fact that it was hard for his sister to relinquish even a shred of control. She was too accustomed to overseeing every last detail. It was going to make her old before her time if she wasn’t careful. Not to mention driving the rest of them up a wall.

  Ada huffed and cleared her throat loudly, bringing the focus back to her problem, which in her opinion neither of them seemed to understand.

  “Look, before the reception area—” she spread-eagled a spidery hand across her shallow chest “—my area, becomes a shambles, can I bring them in here?”

  Maybe it wasn’t the free-lance writer, after all. Maggie glanced down at her calendar and saw the time she had hastily scribbled down. The man was already late. Maybe he wasn’t coming.

  A touch of relief slivered down her spine and her stomach unknotted. “Them?”

  Ada’s head bobbed once. “Them.” All traces of humor gone now, she said the single word as if she were announcing the advent of a plague.

  Ada was a wonder as a secretary, but she tended to be overdramatic. Amusement had Maggie relaxing a little more. “Wasn’t there a science-fiction movie by that name? About giant ants?” Maggie glanced at her brother for confirmation. He merely shrugged.

  “Close enough,” Ada assured her. She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door as if she could somehow divine what was going on beyond it.

  Ethan circumvented the older woman and reached for the doorknob. He glanced at Maggie. “I don’t know about you, but she’s got me curious.”

  Whatever Ethan thought he was prepared for when he opened the door, it wasn’t what he saw. There was a handsome, slightly beleaguered blond-haired man standing beside Ada’s desk. He was surrounded by three very animated little girls, also blond. The oldest didn’t look to be any older than eight.

  Maggie nudged Ethan aside. Her brother was a full foot taller than she was and it made visibility difficult. When she saw the girls, her curiosity instantly turned to amusement. Adam ob
viously had failed to tell the casting office that calls for the cookie commercial weren’t going out until the end of the week. Trust Adam to forget little details like that. His head was always in the clouds.

  Her eyes shifted from the girls to the man with them. He seemed to be having a great deal of difficulty restraining their exuberance.

  This was a twist, she thought. A stage father instead of a stage mother.

  Maggie was smiling as she stepped forward. Her eyes were on the man. “I’m sorry. There’s been some misunderstanding. You’re not supposed to be here until next week.” The little girls made her think of unharnessed, pure energy. This had to be their first commercial. They were rather adorable, she thought. “And then by appointment only.”

  Joe Sullivan turned to look at the woman who spoke, his free hand firmly wrapped around his youngest niece’s. There was a potted ficus tree by the elevator that Jennifer had been eyeing much too intently. He could see it denuded of its leaves in five minutes flat. Of his three nieces, four-year-old Jennifer was the fastest. Also the most destructive.

  “But I’ve got an appointment.”

  He probably did, Maggie thought. Another oversight. She really had to find the time to talk to Adam about writing things down. Maggie glanced at Ethan over her shoulder. “Tell Adam that when he makes appointments for me, he should tell me.”

  “Mr. McGuire didn’t make an appointment with him.”

  Maggie looked at Ada in surprise.

  The secretary nodded at the man whose name she’d just taken. “You did. With his editor. The interview?” she prompted when the light still failed to enter Maggie’s eyes. “Remember?”

  Maggie looked at the tall man before her. Damn. “You’re with County Magazine?”

  If he didn’t know any better, Joe Sullivan would have sworn that the very classy-looking woman before him looked just a touch horrified. But why would anyone be horrified of County Magazine? It wasn’t as if County Magazine was a supermarket tabloid. It was a widely read, respected magazine that basically had a good word to say about everything.

  “Yes, I am.”

  Butterflies suddenly erupted in Maggie’s stomach and began fluttering. Butterflies that were a holdover from the past. They belonged to Maggie McGuire, the girl in hand-me-downs and thrift-shop shoes, not Southern California’s Businesswoman of the Year. There was no use trying to calm them. Maggie had come to terms with the fact that she could never leave that young girl far behind. She was very much a part of everything she did. Maybe even the cause of everything she did.

  Maggie looked at the little girls again. They looked as if they were dying to break free. One of them was eyeing Ada’s computer as if it were the latest toy on the market. If this man was with County Magazine, what was he doing with these children? Why had he brought them with him?

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid that I don’t understand.”

  There was, Joe knew, a great deal to understand. He only hoped that Maggie McGuire’s disposition was half as sweet as the ingredients in her chocolate chip cookie, which had taken Southern California, and subsequently the West, by storm.

  At times he still didn’t understand any of it himself. God knew he hadn’t been able to make any sense of the tragedy that had suddenly robbed three small girls of their parents and turned him from a carefree bachelor into a bachelor father.

  For the last two long, harrowing months, as he had attempted to come to terms with his own grief, Joseph Sullivan had also been struggling to restructure his admittedly chaotic life to make a place and a home for his three young nieces, Sandy, Christine and Jennifer.

  Whole libraries, he had decided very early in this endeavor, could have been filled with what he didn’t know about parenting. It seemed as if every minute brought with it a new decision to make. Or a fresh new squabble to referee.

  He had fervently hoped that the lack of his knowledge could have been supplemented by the woman he had quickly hired to care for the girls. The same woman who had abruptly quit this morning without notice after he had upbraided her for making seven-year-old Sandy cry.

  Panic had hit him as he watched the formidable woman walk down his driveway toward the waiting taxi, suitcase in hand. He had an interview to conduct in an hour. An interview that did not call for three nieces to tag along.

  The interview with Maggie McGuire, president of Magnificent Cookies, was an important one. His editor had made it clear that it couldn’t be rescheduled when he had called him with his dilemma. His back to the wall, Joe had then called everyone he knew. Those who weren’t at their jobs had apparently disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving Joe with three nieces and no options.

  After resorting to cajoling and bribery, he’d packed all three into the car and driven to the industrial complex that housed the newly relocated Magnificent Cookies headquarters and plant.

  Miracles, he’d heard, happened all the time. All he needed was a tiny one. He needed the girls to behave for an hour. Joe figured that came under the heading of a miracle if anything did, “I know this doesn’t look very orthodox, and I’m sorry I’m late, but I am here to do the interview.”

  Maggie observed the little girls. For the moment, they were standing still. But hard-earned experience told her that she was in the presence of ticking bombs waiting to be detonated.

  Some of her butterflies abated in the face of this added twist and the man’s visible discomfort. This might not be so bad after all. Maggie turned toward her brother and she nodded at the folder he was holding.

  “We’ll talk some more later about the projections you’re making.”

  Ethan nodded, almost reluctant to leave. He had a feeling this was going to get more interesting. “Have fun,” he quipped as he went down the hall.

  From the look on Ada’s face, Maggie guessed that the woman was ready to sweep the lot of them toward the exit. Ada had apparently seen the middle one eyeing her computer.

  “Then you are Mr. Sullivan?” Maggie asked for form’s sake. She vaguely remembered the editor mentioning the man’s name when he’d made the arrangements with her.

  With one hand holding his briefcase and one attached to Jennifer, Joe had none to offer Maggie. So he nodded instead. “Yes. But it’s Joe, please.”

  He watched in dismay as Sandy and Christine ducked into Maggie’s office. He didn’t like not being in control of a situation, and this was as far from control as he’d ever been. He flashed Maggie an apologetic smile. “Maybe we had better postpone your interview.” He hoped that, after seeing his problem, she would change her mind about rescheduling.

  Maggie shook her head. If she rescheduled, that only meant she’d have more time to think about this. More time to dread it. She didn’t like talking about herself. The editor had gotten her in a weak moment. Since she was committed, she wanted to get this over with. Now.

  “No, that’s all right. I don’t mind a little chaos,” she murmured. Or a lot.

  She gestured toward her office. It was a little after the fact, she noted wryly, since two of the girls had already taken it upon themselves to dart in. The girl tethered to Sullivan was yanking him in for all she was worth. All three looked like tiny replicas of him. She assumed they were his daughters.

  Joe placed his briefcase down on the first available space, the small coffee table, and caught Christine by the hand. Alone, Sandy settled down at his side, content to be the only free one of her siblings.

  Bribery, he realized sadly, didn’t go nearly as far as he’d hoped. On the way over he’d promised the girls that they would stop at their favorite toy store after the interview, but only if they were on their best behavior this afternoon. Obviously their “best” fell way below his expectations.

  There was a time he wouldn’t have minded. As their uncle, he had doted on the girls, seeing them whenever the opportunity arose. Visits were short and the main ingredient had always been fun.

  Bringing them along on an interview put a completely different light on t
he situation. Parenting had placed another dimension on their relationship, one he felt ill-equipped to handle. It was totally foreign to him. The only discipline he’d ever applied was to himself, and that was lax at best. He didn’t know what to do where the girls were concerned.

  But if he didn’t find a way to make them behave, and soon, he was going to be in big trouble. Starting now, he imagined.

  The last thing Maggie saw as she closed the door was the reproving expression on Ada’s face. Maggie turned to face the small group gathered in her office. The girls looked as if they were twitching to get loose.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, did you bring along your own food tasters?”

  Chagrined, Joe dropped Jennifer’s hand and dragged his fingers through his hair. Freed, Jennifer took the opportunity to climb up on the cream leather sofa that was against the wall. The buckles on her shoes threatened to permanently scar the material.

  With a frustrated sigh that Maggie found more amusing than annoying, Joe scooped the little girl up from the sofa. He had to let go of the other little girl in order to do so.

  He looked about as helpless as a man could, Maggie thought.

  Joe set Jennifer down. “It’s just that I couldn’t get a sitter—”

  Where was his wife, Maggie wondered. Probably running for the hills, not that she could blame her. Although the girls were adorable, she’d been this route herself and knew how devastatingly tiring it could be.

  Still, amusement at his dilemma curved the corners of her mouth. “I think I’d say, in all fairness, that you’d probably need more than one.”

  He gave her a sheepish look as he glanced over his shoulder. He had just coaxed Christine away from the beige-coloured blinds. Joe thought of the girls’ former nanny, the very tight-lipped Mrs. Garrick. The girls had proved to be more than her match. “You’re right on that score.”