His Secret Son. Brenda Jackson

might work, but he has to start learning to interact with other kids, Bristol.” As they walked toward the waiting private car that was compliments of the gallery, Margie changed the subject. “Have you decided to go out with Steven?”

      Bristol shrugged. Steven Culpepper was nice enough, and good-looking, too. However, he was moving too fast. At least, faster than she liked. They’d met a few weeks ago when she’d closed a huge deal for a commissioned piece. He was the corporation’s attorney. He’d asked for her number and, without thinking much about it, she’d given it to him. Since then he’d called constantly, trying to get her to go out with him. So far, she hadn’t. She hated pushy men and Steven, she thought, was one of the pushiest.

      “No.”

      “I like him.”

      Bristol grinned. “You would. You have a thing for wealthy businessmen.” She knew Margie had been married to one. Or two. She was on her third marriage and not even fifty yet. But the one thing all three men had in common was the size of their bank accounts.

      “Well, I know you still have a thing for Laramie’s father and—”

      “What makes you think that?”

      “Bristol, you make it quite obvious that you haven’t gotten over him.”

      Did she? The only thing she’d told Margie about Laramie’s father was that he’d been in the military and had died in the line of duty without knowing he’d fathered a son. She’d even fabricated a tale that Laramie had been her deceased husband and not just her lover.

      It had been pretty easy. Dionne’s fiancé, Mark, had helped. Mark worked for a judge in Paris and had falsified the papers before Bristol left France. It was a way to make sure her son had his father’s last name without people wondering why her last name was different. It wasn’t as if she was trying to cash in on her son’s father’s military benefits or anything.

      “If you ask me, I think you should finally move on...with Steven,” Margie said, interrupting Bristol’s thoughts.

      Bristol wanted to say that nobody had asked Margie. But deep down, a part of her knew Margie was right. It was time for Bristol to move on. However, she doubted very seriously that it would be with Steven.

      A short while later she was entering her home, a beautiful brownstone in Brooklyn that she’d inherited from her aunt Dolly. She loved the place and knew the neighborhood well. She’d come to live here with her aunt ten years ago, when she was fifteen. That had been the year her mother died.

      She didn’t want to think sad thoughts, especially after her positive meeting with Maurice Jazlyn, the owner of the gallery. The man was excited about tomorrow night’s showing and expected a huge crowd. He loved all the artworks she would be exhibiting.

      “How did things go tonight?”

      She turned toward the older woman coming down the stairs to the main floor. Charlotte Kramer lived next door and had been a close friend of her aunt Dolly. With her four kids grown and living in other parts of New York, Ms. Charlotte had thought about moving to a condo not far away, but had decided she’d rather stay put since she’d lived in the area close to forty years and loved her neighbors. Ms. Charlotte said there were a lot of memories of Mr. Kramer stored in that house. He’d passed away eight years ago, a couple of years after Bristol had come to live with her aunt.

      Bristol appreciated that Ms. Charlotte loved watching Laramie for her whenever she had meetings to attend. And Ms. Charlotte had offered to watch him again tomorrow night when Bristol attended the exhibition.

      “Everything went well. Everyone is excited about tomorrow. Mr. Jazlyn thinks he’ll be able to sell all my paintings.”

      A huge smile touched Ms. Charlotte’s lips. “That’s good news. Dolly would be proud. Candace would be, too.”

      She doubted the latter. Her mother had never approved of Bristol becoming an artist. It was only after she died that Bristol learned why. Her father had been an artist who’d broken things off with her mother to study in Paris. It was only after he’d left the country that her mother discovered her pregnancy. She’d known how to reach him but refused to let him know about his child. She had resented him for ending things with her to pursue his dream.

      Bristol had been sixteen when she’d met her father for the first time. She would not have met him then if it hadn’t been for her aunt’s decision to break the promise she’d made to Bristol’s mother years ago. Aunt Dolly wanted Bristol to know her father and vice versa. When Bristol was given the man’s name, she had been shocked to find that the person whose art she’d admired for years was really her father.

      She’d finally gotten the courage to contact him on her sixteenth birthday. Randall Lockett was married with a family when they’d finally met. He had two young sons—ages ten and twelve—with his wife Krista. Bristol was his only daughter and she favored him so much it was uncanny. She was also his only offspring who’d inherited his artistic gift.

      When he’d died, he had bequeathed to her full tuition to the school he himself had attended in Paris as well as the vast majority of his paintings. He’d felt she would appreciate them more than anyone, and she had. She’d heard that Krista had remarried and sold off all the artworks that had been left to her and their sons.

      Paintings by Randall Lockett were valued in the millions. Art collectors had contacted Bristol on numerous occasions, but she had refused to sell. Instead her father’s paintings were on display at the two largest art museums in the world, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Orsay Museum in Paris.

      A few months before her father had died, they had completed a painting together, which was her most cherished possession. It was so uncanny that when it came to art she and her father had possessed identical preferences. They even held their brushes the same way. On those days when she felt down and out, she would look at the portrait over her fireplace and remember the six weeks they’d spent together on his boat while painting it. That was when they’d noticed all the similarities they shared as artists. She hadn’t known he was dying of cancer until his final days. He hadn’t wanted her to know. He was determined to share every moment he could with her without seeing pity and regret in her eyes.

      Forcing those sad thoughts from her mind, she glanced back over at Ms. Charlotte. “Did Laramie behave himself tonight?” she asked, placing her purse on the table.

      The older woman chuckled. “Doesn’t he always?”

      Bristol smiled. “No, but I know you wouldn’t tell me even if he was a handful.”

      “You’re right, I wouldn’t. Boys will be boys. I know. I raised four of them.”

      Yes, she had, and to this day Ms. Charlotte’s sons looked out for her, making sure she had everything she needed and then some.

      After Ms. Charlotte left, Bristol climbed the stairs to her son’s room. He was in his bed, sound asleep. Crossing the bedroom floor, she saw he had put away all his toys. That was a good sign that he was learning to follow instructions.

      Approaching the bed, she sat on the edge and gently ran her fingers through the curls on his head. He favored his father. Laramie Cooper’s features were etched in her memory. Whenever Laramie smiled, he displayed his father’s dimples in both cheeks. Then there was the shape of his mouth and the slant of his eyes. Like father, like son. There was no doubt in her mind that one day Laramie would grow up and capture some woman’s heart just as quickly and easily as his father had claimed hers.

      As she sat there watching her son sleep, she couldn’t stop her mind from going back to that time in Paris when she’d met US Navy SEAL Laramie Cooper...

       Two

      Paris, France, three years ago

      Bristol glanced up from her sketch pad when she heard the male voices entering the café.