Daddy Bombshell. Lisa Childs

do you know about the past that made Natalie’s paternity no surprise to you?”

      Devin sighed wearily. “You’re not going to let this go. Damn reporter …”

      Thad grinned. “That’s what I am.”

      His brother fixed him with a steady gaze as if trying to determine if Thad told him the truth. “Is that all you are?”

      Nerves tightened his stomach, but he forced a laugh. “You’re not getting out of this.” Nor was he getting the truth from Thad. At least not the whole truth. For the most part, he was a real photojournalist, reporting real stories for a real news station, but that was only a small part of what he was.

      “I’m not an eleven-year-old kid, Devin. You don’t need to protect me anymore. Tell me everything you know about our parents. It’s the only way we’re going to catch their real killer.”

      Devin hesitated as if determined to protect their memory.

      “I don’t remember that much about them,” Thad said with regret and guilt. He had been eleven when they’d died; he should have had more memories of them.

      What would Mark have when Thad left? At three, would he remember his father at all if, like Michaels, Thad didn’t make it out of his next assignment?

      “I even looked through old photo albums the other day,” he said, but that had been to compare how much his son looked like he had at that age, “and they were hardly in them.”

      “They weren’t around much,” Devin admitted. “Dad was here all the time, building this company. He was so ambitious.” He surveyed the office with pride in their father’s accomplishments.

      He needed to take pride in what he’d accomplished, too. But there was something else he’d left out. “What about Mom?” Thad asked.

      “You must remember how beautiful she was?”

      Thad shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s my memory, though, or all the news reports that have been done about her over the years. They talk about her like she was a movie star or a princess.”

      “She was the perfect trophy wife for a rich and powerful man like our father,” Devin said. “But she craved attention and always had to be the center of it.”

      Thad stilled his usual restless pacing and focused on his brother. “What are you saying?”

      “I’m saying that they weren’t happy.”

      Thad remembered yelling. Screaming. Slamming doors. And he winced, realizing now what had been happening. “You were the oldest. You knew what was really going on with them.”

      Devin nodded. “Affairs. While Dad was working so hard building this company, Mom was sleeping around.”

      “With who?” His gut churned at the prospect that there was more than one. Finding Natalie’s biological father might not be as easy as Thad had hoped.

      “I don’t know.” Devin shrugged. “I didn’t really want to know.” He sighed. “Hell, I don’t think our father wanted to know, either. They fought about her going out all the time, but I don’t think he realized she’d actually taken it as far as she had—to a hotel one of my friends worked at. Or maybe Dad was just too proud to admit it.”

      “We need to find out who these men were,” Thad said, although the thought of delving into their mother’s affairs made him nauseous. There had been no mention of her affairs in the police report. The detectives had figured the murders were the result of a botched burglary and hadn’t looked any further for motives or suspects than the man who’d spent twenty years in prison for crimes he hadn’t committed.

      “Do you remember the name of the hotel?”

      Devin named one renowned for its discretion. “That was twenty years ago. You aren’t going to find out anything now.”

      “I’ll try.” But he didn’t like his chances, either.

      “That’s your theory here?” Devin said. “That Natalie’s real dad murdered our parents?”

      “Why else would his son try to destroy the evidence that cleared Rick Campbell of the crimes?” he asked. “It’s a lead. About the only one we have right now.”

      “You’ve been scarce lately,” Devin remarked. “Have you been chasing down leads?”

      No. He’d been chasing down a squealing little boy who’d thrown snowballs at him. And kissing a woman he’d had no business kissing. After he’d forced that kiss on her, he’d been lucky she hadn’t thrown him out. Instead, she’d been accommodating about Thad spending time with their son. But usually she made herself scarce, going grocery shopping or Christmas shopping while he and Mark hung out.

      He would spend tonight with both of them, as if they were a real family. But that they could never be, not just because of Thad’s real job but because of his real past.

      HE WASN’T GOING TO SHOW. Caroline had known it the minute Mark had asked his father to meet them at the mall this Friday night to see Santa. Thad Kendall had been hunkered down, deeply embedded, in war zones. He had nearly been blown up and had almost been abducted, if there was any truth to news reports about him. But Mark asking him to visit Santa Claus was the first time Caroline had ever seen a flicker of panic in his blue eyes.

      He hated Christmas. She understood why. And if she didn’t have a son who loved it, she would have been more sensitive to Thad’s predicament. But she hadn’t made an excuse to get him off the hook with Mark. She’d waited for him to come up with his own excuse.

      Instead, he’d agreed, with a grim determination, as if he really intended to show up. And maybe he would. Maybe he hadn’t lied to their son.