Just Desserts Read online

  Praise for the novels of

  “ONE OF TODAY’S BEST WOMEN’S FICTION AUTHORS.”

  —The Romance Reader

  Just Like Heaven

  “I laughed, I cried, I cheered for these very engaging people…who felt remarkably like friends. Bravo, Barbara Bretton; Just Like Heaven is sure to be another winner!”

  —Contemporary Romance Writers

  “Exhilarating…[a] delightful Jersey romance.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “A wonderful tale of romance, deep hidden emotions, and family relationships…So emotionally charged that it is definitely a three-Kleenex story.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “Just Like Heaven by Barbara Bretton is exactly that. An engaging, humorous, and tender novel, it made me feel comfortable enough to want to linger in the author’s world for at least a lifetime or two, the way I imagine the real Heaven should.”

  —Romance Reader at Heart

  “A poignant story about love and the rediscovery of what our hearts truly want. Just Like Heaven is a touching, funny exploration of what life can be if we’re given a second chance.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “A pleasant escape.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Peopled with an interesting cast of secondary characters, not to mention this strong couple, this one will keep you reading past your bedtime.”

  —BellaOnline

  “An exhilarating contemporary romance.”

  —BookReview.com

  “Bretton’s lyrical writing enthralls from the first page as she immerses readers in a tale of romance and new beginnings.”

  —Romantic Times

  Someone Like You

  “Bretton, a master storyteller, superbly dramatizes a great range of emotions in this compelling tale.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Readers who appreciate a powerful character study that digs deep into cause and effect will want to read Barbara Bretton’s fine, convincing tale.”

  —The Best Reviews

  Chances Are

  “Alternately poignant and humorous, this contemporary romance gracefully illuminates life’s highs and lows.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Ms. Bretton provides a fine return to the Jersey Shore with this warm family drama.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  Girls of Summer

  “Barbara Bretton is a master at touching readers’ hearts. Grab this one when it hits the shelves! A Perfect 10!”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “A book readers will want to savor.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Shore Lights

  “Bretton’s warm, wonderful book presents complex familial and romantic relationships, sympathetic characters, and an underlying poignancy, and will please fans of Kathryn Shay and Deborah Smith.”

  —Booklist

  “Entertaining…Barbara Bretton bestows a beautiful modern-day romance on her audience.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  And acclaim for the other novels of Barbara Bretton…

  “The region of the heart is her territory.”

  —Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  “Bretton’s characters are always real and their conflicts believable.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “Soul-warming…A powerful relationship drama [for] anyone who enjoys a passionate look inside the hearts and souls of the prime players.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “[Bretton] excels in her portrayal of the sometimes sweet, sometimes stifling ties of a small community. The town’s tight network of loving, eccentric friends and family infuses the tale with a gently comic note that perfectly balances the darker dramas of the romance.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A tender love story about two people who, when they find something special, will go to any length to keep it.”

  —Booklist

  “Honest, witty…absolutely unforgettable.”

  —Rendezvous

  “A classic adult fairy tale.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “Dialogue flows easily, and characters spring quickly to life.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “No one tells a story like Barbara Bretton.”

  —Meryl Sawyer

  Titles by Barbara Bretton

  JUST DESSERTS

  JUST LIKE HEAVEN

  SOMEONE LIKE YOU

  CHANCES ARE

  GIRLS OF SUMMER

  SHORE LIGHTS

  ONE AND ONLY

  A SOFT PLACE TO FALL

  AT LAST

  THE DAY WE MET

  ONCE AROUND

  SLEEPING ALONE

  MAYBE THIS TIME

  Just Desserts

  Barbara Bretton

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  JUST DESSERTS

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Jove mass-market edition / March 2008

  Copyright © 2008 by Barbara Bretton.

  Excerpt from Casting Spells copyright © 2008 by Barbara Bretton.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1519-7

  JOVE®

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “J” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  For Kali Amanda Browne (aka The Food Goddess)

  and the wonderful Marie

  Watley-Browne: Love and thanks for friendship,

  laughter, and the world’s best cookies.

  I love you both!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5r />
  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  1

  Manhattan

  The other attorney leaned forward and fixed Finn Rafferty with a look meant to remind him which one of them had Harvard Law on his side.

  “Our own report on outstanding paternity claims against your client came in yesterday,” Hampton Sloan IV said in the clipped and highly enunciated way of those to the manor born.

  Finn, whose own background was more blue collar than blue blood, leaned back in his chair and fixed Sloan with a look meant to tell him that he already knew the answer.

  “And—?” he prompted. These Ivy League types had a real jones for making you beg.

  “To my surprise, the names on your list are no longer an issue.”

  Tell me something I don’t know, Finn thought. This wasn’t the first time (and it probably wouldn’t be the last) that he had been down this road. “No surprise to me. Those names have been vetted more than once.”

  He had to hand it to aging preppies with roman numerals after their names. Being wrong didn’t even register on Sloan’s patrician features. Finn, however, was having a tough time keeping “told you so” from registering on his.

  “Glad it all checked out.” He gathered up the signed documents scattered across the top of the cherrywood desk. “Mr. Stiles will countersign and then we can consider the prenup a done deal.”

  The smile on Sloan’s face should have tipped Finn off but he was already planning his escape route from the city. “As I said, Mr. Rafferty, the original list you provided checked out, but our investigators turned up one more name that seems to have escaped notice.”

  “We didn’t withhold any names, if that’s what you’re implying. The list was complete and current.”

  “It would seem your investigators didn’t go back quite far enough, Mr. Rafferty.” Sloan slid a crisp manila folder across the desk. “I think you’ll find this very interesting.”

  Finn, who had been hoping to hit the road before rush hour started, looked down at the folder. “‘Maitland,’” he said, reading the label. “What’s this?”

  “Read the summary page, counselor.” It was never a good sign when the other side’s attorney looked that amused.

  He flipped open the folder. The summary page was on top of the paper-clipped stack. “Where did this come from?”

  “Like I said, our investigators are very thorough.”

  “We’re talking Tommy Stiles, the man who actually wants to know if he has other kids out there.”

  “Then he should be exceedingly happy if this turns out to be a DNA match.”

  A graduate of Harvard Law would have tendered an enigmatic smile, slid the folder into his briefcase, then waited until he was safely ensconced in his own cherrywood-and-leather office before he read the contents.

  Finn, however, had graduated SUNY Stony Brook and he read it twice while Sloan watched.

  Name: Hayley Maitland Goldstein

  Dob: 08/17/1969

  Mother: Jane Maitland

  Father: Thomas Joseph Stiles

  Place: Lexington, KY

  Siblings: n/a

  Marital Status: Divorced/Michael Goldstein (February 1999)

  Children: 1 daughter (Name: Elizabeth)

  Occupation: Bakery Owner

  Current Residence: 418 Main Street, Lakeside, NJ

  He met Sloan’s eyes across the wide expanse of antique desktop. “I don’t know how in hell we missed this. Our people are relentless when it comes to tracking down paternity claims.” Tommy was probably the only superstar on the planet who was actually disappointed each time a claim was found to be without merit.

  Sloan leaned back in his chair and for a moment he looked almost human. “It was a fluke,” he admitted. “The original birth certificate was amended two weeks after the baby’s birth to read Father: Unknown.”

  “That’s not uncommon,” Finn said. “Usually the original is destroyed.”

  “Not this time.” According to Sloan’s people, the hospital in Kentucky had held on to the original records in a basement storage room where they stayed for years until they ended up being scanned into the county’s genealogical database two months ago. “Quite clearly a mistake on their part but an interesting turn of events for our respective clients.”

  “‘An interesting turn of events’?” Finn said, meeting the other lawyer’s eyes. “That’s one way to put it.”

  The other way was holy shit, but he kept that observation to himself.

  Midtown traffic was hellacious as usual. It took Finn almost an hour to make his way from West Fifty-seventh across town to the Queensborough Bridge entrance, but he barely noticed it. The Maitland folder was open on the passenger seat and each time traffic ground to a standstill, he read more of the background information Sloan’s people had uncovered about Jane Maitland and her daughter, Hayley.

  The more Finn thought about it, the less he believed there was anything to the claim. There was nothing unusual about reverting to Father: Unknown status. More than likely Jane Maitland and Tommy had come to some kind of understanding about paternity and the issue was dropped. The only reason it was being addressed now was because some overzealous record keeper had saved the original documents instead of destroying them.

  Traffic at the entrance to the bridge was at a literal standstill. Finn dug deeper into the file and found a photo of Dr. Maitland. He couldn’t quite match up the fiercely intelligent but plain-looking scientist with nineteen-year-old guitarist Tommy Stiles. Call it sexist on his part, but the whole thing just didn’t compute. Not even when you factored in the whole older woman/younger man dynamic.

  A dead end, he told himself as he waited for traffic to start moving again. Nothing more than a formality.

  And then he saw Jane Maitland’s curriculum vitae.

  She was an oceanographer.

  A world-famous, prizewinning, planet-changing oceanographer.

  Suddenly it all started to make sense.

  He looked more closely at the paperwork. Hayley might have been born in Kentucky but her mother had been teaching at Princeton during the years before and after. Tommy had grown up right outside Princeton.

  And there was the ocean…

  Two hours ago he had been certain this new prospect would turn out to be a dead end like all the others. Now, the more miles he racked up, the more certain Finn became that the Stiles family was about to increase by two.

  New Jersey…the ocean…the timing.

  By the time he rolled past the sign welcoming him to East Hampton, he was reconfiguring Tommy’s prenup to include the Goldstein girls as legitimate heirs.

  He made the turn onto Greenleaf Path on autopilot. The toughest part would be getting Tommy alone so they could talk. The place was usually bursting at the seams with family, friends, friends of friends. Sometimes the only way they could get any work done was to head down to the beach and talk business while they walked the shoreline.

  Tommy’s place didn’t look like much from the road. Two stories of sprawling sun-bleached shingles set on what passed for a hill in the Hamptons. The house sat so close to the water that it was practically built on beach sand. There were times when it seemed like a stiff breeze would send it hurtling into the Atlantic. It wasn’t until you wound your way up the driveway that you got a real sense of the place. Ten bedrooms, twelve full baths, and two guesthouses tended to make an impression.

  The first time Finn saw the place, he was a scared sixteen-year-old kid with no family and enou
gh baggage to fill the hold of a 747. Tommy Stiles was his father’s best friend, and when Jack and Mary Ann died, it was Tommy who opened up his heart and his home to Finn.

  And how did Finn repay him? He had done his level teenage best to throw it all back in the guy’s face.

  The Hamptons were another planet to the kid from a small town in central New Jersey. The people were aliens who might as well have been sporting antennae and wearing shiny silver jumpsuits. Tommy’s kids—and there were a hell of a lot of them—all had one thing in common: they hated the ocean. When the winds kicked up they retreated deeper into the house, hiding beneath headphones and loud music, counting down the minutes until the sun came out again.

  Not Finn. The briny smell, the percussive sound of the waves breaking along the shore, the silvery glint of sunlight against the dark, unknowable ocean. It got into his blood fast and hard and before long he loved it the way Tommy did.

  It seemed like another lifetime. He could barely remember the angry, lonely kid who had shown up on Tommy’s doorstep with his father’s Stratocaster, an old leather jacket, and what was left of his heart.

  Tommy wasn’t like anyone Finn had ever known. You couldn’t get a rise out of the guy. You couldn’t make him angry. The house had reverberated with enough teenage rebellion and adolescent angst to fuel a thousand TV movies, but during it all Tommy’s gut-level goodness carried them through.

  Everyone loved Tommy Stiles. Even his exes loved him. The place looked like a Mormon family reunion on holidays and birthdays, what with the former wives and girlfriends and kids who flew in from far and wide to be with him. A man had to be doing something right to be loved like that.

  Definitely not the kind of guy who’d cold-bloodedly ignore his firstborn child.

  Willow’s Porsche was angled at the head of the driveway near the path that led to the front porches. Willow was young but she knew how to mark her territory. As the presumptive next Mrs. Tommy Stiles, Willow was also making sure the others in line to the throne understood exactly how important she was in the hierarchy.