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“The very talented Muriel Jensen has a definite skill for penning heartwarming, humorous tales destined to remain favorites….”
—Romantic Times Magazine
Dear Reader,
Here we are in Dancer’s Beach again with Peg and Charlie, parents of the McKeon brothers from the original WHO’S THE DADDY? series.
Also at the beach are the new residents of Cliffside, a home on the bluff outside town. They are David Hartford, Trevyn McGinty and Bram Bishop—all recently retired from the CIA. They host a masked ball dressed as the Three Musketeers and cross paths with identical triplet sisters dressed as a Regency miss, a flapper and a Southern belle.
Seven months later one of the women is rescued from the Columbia River very pregnant and suffering from amnesia. But which of the three sisters is she? And the question everyone is asking is who’s the daddy?
I hope you enjoy finding the answer!
Best wishes,
Dear Reader,
Happy New Year! May this year bring you happiness, good health and all that you wish for. And at Harlequin American Romance, we’re hoping to provide you with a year full of heartwarming books that you won’t be able to resist.
Leading the month is The Secretary Gets Her Man by Mindy Neff, Harlequin American Romance’s spin-off to Harlequin Intrigue’s TEXAS CONFIDENTIAL continuity series. This exciting story focuses on the covert operation’s much-mentioned wallflower secretary, Penny Archer.
Muriel Jensen’s Father Formula continues her successful WHO’S THE DADDY? series about three identical sisters who cause three handsome bachelors no end of trouble when they discover one woman is about to become a mother. Next, after opening an heirloom hope chest, a bride-to-be suddenly cancels her wedding and starts having intimate dreams about a handsome stranger, in Have Gown, Need Groom. This is the first book of Rita Herron’s new miniseries THE HARTWELL HOPE CHESTS. And Debbi Rawlins tells the emotional story of a reclusive rancher who opens his home—and his heart—to a lovely single mother, in Loving a Lonesome Cowboy.
In February, look for another installment in the RETURN TO TYLER series with Prescription for Seduction by Darlene Scalera.
Wishing you happy reading,
Melissa Jeglinski
Associate Senior Editor
Harlequin American Romance
Father Formula
Muriel Jensen
www.millsandboon.co.uk
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Muriel Jensen and her husband, Ron, live in Astoria, Oregon, in an old four-square Victorian at the mouth of the Columbia River. They share their home with a golden retriever/golden Labrador mix named Amber, and five cats who moved in with them without an invitation. (Muriel insists that a plate of Friskies and a bowl of water are not an invitation!)
They also have three children and their families in their lives—a veritable crowd of the most interesting people and children. In addition, they have irreplaceable friends, wonderful neighbors and “a life they know they don’t deserve but love desperately anyway.”
Books by Muriel Jensen
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
73—WINTER’S BOUNTY
119—LOVERS NEVER LOSE
176—THE MALLORY TOUCH
200—FANTASIES & MEMORIES
219—LOVE AND LAVENDER
244—THE DUCK SHACK AGREEMENT
267—STRINGS
283—SIDE BY SIDE
321—A CAROL CHRISTMAS
339—EVERYTHING
392—THE MIRACLE
414—RACING WITH THE MOON
425—VALENTINE HEARTS AND FLOWERS
464—MIDDLE OF THE RAINBOW
478—ONE AND ONE MAKES THREE
507—THE UNEXPECTED GROOM
522—NIGHT PRINCE
534—MAKE-BELIEVE MOM
549—THE WEDDING GAMBLE
569—THE COURTSHIP OF DUSTY’S DADDY
603—MOMMY ON BOARD*
606—MAKE WAY FOR MOMMY*
610—MERRY CHRISTMAS, MOMMY!*
654—THE COMEBACK MOM
669—THE PRINCE, THE LADY & THE TOWER
688—KIDS & CO.*
705—CHRISTMAS IN THE COUNTRY
737—DADDY BY DEFAULT**
742—DADDY BY DESIGN**
746—DADDY BY DESTINY**
756—GIFT-WRAPPED DAD
770—THE HUNK & THE VIRGIN
798—COUNTDOWN TO BABY
813—FOUR REASONS FOR FATHERHOOD
850—FATHER FEVER**
858—FATHER FORMULA**
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 Thirteen
Chapter One
Alexis Ames reclined on her side on her sister Athena’s bed, propped up on her elbow as she watched her fold clothing into a dark blue soft-sided bag. Athena, usually serious and sedate, placed a flowered bra and matching French-cut panties into the bag’s front pocket.
“Now, there’s something I never thought I’d see,” Alexis said, pointing to the scraps of silk and lace as they were tucked away. “How will you be able to keep a straight face while addressing the jury, knowing you’re wearing those?”
Athena blushed and laughed. “David bought them for me. And I won’t be in court this trip.”
Alexis was fascinated by her sister’s blush. Athena had changed in a score of subtle little ways since taking up with David Hartford.
Athena practiced law in Washington, D.C., a champion of the oppressed and the underdog. She’d always been the serious one of the Ames triplets, every detail of her life organized for the best and most efficient outcome.
Of course, their aunt’s sudden death in the crash of a light plane in Hawaii had changed all their lives. Athena had taken time off from her law practice, Alexis had left her art studio in Rome, and Augusta had arranged for a substitute teacher and had flown in from northern California for the reading of Aunt Sadie’s will at the Portland, Oregon, office of her attorney.
The news that Sadie had left Cliffside, her family’s home, to a mysterious beneficiary named David Hartford made all three sisters suspicious. Sadie had always promised the home to her nieces, and the will offered no explanation for the sudden change in plans.
When they’d learned that Hartford had already taken possession of Cliffside and had rented the guest house and the garage apartment to friends, Alexis and her sisters had rented a car and driven to Dancer’s Beach on the Oregon Coast. They invited themselves to a costume party the men were hosting in an attempt to discover, through clever subterfuge, what they didn’t seem to be able to uncover with straightforward questions.
Only things had backfired. The men had been dressed as the Three Musketeers, wigged and masked and of similar height and coloring. Each sister had attached herself to one of the men, the plan being that she could use whatever means she deemed fit to gather information.
When they’d met back at their car sometime later, Athena had been the only one who still questioned the men’s sincerity. Then Alexis and her sisters had resigned themselves to the situation and returned to their lives.
And then, just one brief week ago, Alexis had been visiting with friends at the American Club in Rome and seen a television broadcast about an unidentified young woman rescued from the Columbia River at Astoria, Oregon. The reporter said that a blow to the head had left her with amnesia.
Alexis gasped at the grainy image of the woman on a gurney being lifted into the back of an ambulance. It was one of her sisters. And she was very pregnant.
As she tried to assimilate that information she’d run closer to the television, hoping for a clue that would tell her which sister it was.
“When the victim’s sister, Athena Ames, came with a friend to Astoria to claim her,” the reporter went on, “the mystery woman had disappeared. She is five-seven, about 120 pounds, has long red hair, dark blue eyes, and may be looking for food or work since she had no purse and no identification on her when she was pulled from the river. She has now been missing eight days.”
Alexis had stared in disbelief, then tried to call Athena, only to learn that she was on leave from the office for an indefinite period of time. Then she remembered that the news story had said “by the time her sister arrived—” and realized that she must be in Oregon. She called Patrick Connelly, a private detective who often worked for Athena, who gave her an address in Dancer’s Beach.
Alexis had hung up the phone and stared at the note she’d taken. Her sister was staying at the former home of their aunt. But where was the man who now owned the home?
She recalled that the news story had said, “by the time her sister and a friend had arrived—” Could it be…? She couldn’t believe it.
But it was true.
When Athena and David Hartford met at the hospital, they’d decided to join forces in their search for Gusty, and had just decided to make the alliance permanent. Alexis and David’s friend, Trevyn McGinty, had been their witnesses just two days ago in a simple service at Faith Community Church. Athena appeared to be hopelessly in love with David.
“Writers are temperamental, you know,” Alexis said, referring to her new brother-in-law’s current profession. With one sister missing, the other changed, and with the discovery that Aunt Sadie had left David the house because she, too, had been a CIA agent code-named “Auntie,” Alexis was beginning to feel like a trespasser in someone else’s life. “You’re sure you’re doing the right thing, closing up your D.C. office to open a law office in Dancer’s Beach? I mean, you’re used to big-city doings and important cases. What’ll you find here to match that?”
Athena smiled. It was a scary look. Her usually intense sister actually appeared serene. “I’ve already found it,” Athena replied. “And it far surpasses everything I’ve known so far.”
Alexis would have found that nauseating if Athena hadn’t been so sincere.
“What if this literary agent is wrong, and the publishers he wants David to meet don’t consider him publishable after all?”
Athena shrugged. “Then he’ll find another one. It’s a good book. A great book.”
Alexis leaned over the side of the bed to catch a folded pair of socks Athena had thrown at the suitcase and overshot. She tossed them back.
“So they really were CIA agents? Our Musketeers?”
Athena nodded as she closed the lid on the suitcase. “They really were. That’s why it’s such a great book. It’s fiction, but it’s based on everything David really knows.”
Alexis sat up as Athena carried her suitcase to the door. “I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me to imagine Trevyn McGinty as a CIA agent. Maybe as a cop in Car 54, Where Are You?…”
Athena gave her a scolding look over her shoulder as she pulled a lined raincoat out of the closet. “Lex, you’re going to be here with him for at least a week helping with the boys while David’s in New York and I close up my office. You have to buff up your attitude.”
“He keeps making smart remarks to me.”
“In response to your smart remarks.” Athena grinned. “You’re just upset because he got the better of you in that little altercation when you thought he’d broken in.”
“Sure he did.” Alexis avoided her sister’s glance as she picked up her tote bag off the bed. “He’s bigger and he didn’t mind using his muscle.”
“It was dark,” Athena defended him. “He thought you were attacking him!”
Alexis had a clear memory of McGinty sprawled over her body on the kitchen floor as the frying pan she’d wielded flew through the air and crashed into the dishes on the drying rack. She remembered gasping for breath, certain her back would break.
She sighed dispiritedly. “To think I went to self-defense classes two nights a week for three months.”
Athena laughed and opened the door. “I’m sure the training Uncle Sam gave him was more heavy-duty than your class at the Rome Y. You’re sure you want us to leave the boys and the dog with you? Dotty will be gone until next Monday. You’ll have to—” Athena grinned apologetically “—you know, remember to feed them, see that the boys get to school, walk the dog.”
In acquiring David as her husband, Athena had also acquired the care of his two half brothers, Brandon, twelve, and Brady, ten. Alexis had known them just a matter of days, but she thought they were wonderful.
Equally wonderful was Ferdie, the boys’ 110-pound Great Dane and Saint Bernard mix.
Alexis rolled her eyes at her. “I think I can handle that. I can’t believe that you’ve turned from a warrior into some kind of Donna Reed and you still think of me as incompetent.”
Athena turned to her, an aggressive tilt to her chin. “I do not think you’re incompetent. It’s just that, as an artist, you sometimes forget the normal, day-to-day things.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not much of an artist at the moment.” Alexis pushed her gently out the door. “And though I know your trip east isn’t exactly for pleasure, I’m sure the two of you can use a little space after all you’ve been through since Gusty was pulled out of the water. And we can’t even continue the search for her until Holden gets an answer on the passenger lists.”
Brandon and Brady had confused Athena with a redheaded woman they’d seen at the Portland Airport while running away from their mother’s home to stay with David. It had been the first time Gusty had been seen since she’d disappeared from the hospital.
Since then, Officer Holden of the Astoria Police, who’d been handling the investigation, had been checking the passenger lists for flights arriving at the baggage carousel where the boys had seen Gusty. It was a long and tedious process.
She’d been traveling with a man the boys had described as “scary looking,” and the police were checking the identity of every passenger, presuming that they were probably traveling under assumed names, since Gusty reportedly no longer remembered hers.
Alexis wrapped her free arm around Athena’s shoulders as they walked down the hallway to the stairs. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around to help you the past couple of weeks.”
Athena dismissed her apology with a shake of her head. “My only concern was that, when I couldn’t locate you either, I wasn’t sure which one of you they’d found.”
Alexis made a scornful sound. “Like I’d ever turn up seven months pregnant.”
Athena gave her a look Alexis found unsettling—as though she had knowledge Alexis didn’t share. “Someday,” she said with a curious little smile, “you’ll meet the right man and wonder why you ever thought that.” Then Athena squared her shoulders before going down the stairs. “The boys, the dog. Holden’s number on the fridge. Is there anything I haven’t covered?”
This efficiency was a glimpse of the old Athena and Alexis frankly considered it a relief.
“No, I’ll take it from here. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll look after everything and prod Holden every day for something to go on. You just enjoy the East Coast and your new husband. Maybe we’ll even have Gusty here to welcome you back.”
At the bottom of the stairs Athena wrapped her arms around her and for a moment they held each other fiercely, trying to make up for the gap Gusty’s absence created in their lives.
“Yes,” Athena said, composed again. “Try to make that happen. I’ll call you from D.C.” She picked up her bag and started out the door toward the car.
Alexis followed with her tote bag.
“And don’t start any fights with Trevyn.”
“He’s the one who starts everything,” Alexis argued.
“Yeah, right.” Athena countered.
TREVYN MCGINTY HELPED his friend and landlord, David Hartford, pile luggage into the trunk of David’s blue sedan. “Now, if you sell your book to these guys,” Trevyn said, moving the toolbox and blankets aside to make room for David’s brown leather bags, “what’s the first thing you’re supposed to demand in your contract?”
David handed him a fat briefcase. “That my portrait on the dust cover be taken by you.”
Everything in place, Trevyn dusted off his hands and patted David on the back. “Very good. I’m glad I saved your life that time in Bangkok after all.”
“As I recall, the idol I was hiding behind saved my life.”
“Only because I arrived in time to return fire.”
“You were three minutes late.”
“And you’re still here to continually remind me of that. Where’s Bram, anyway? He can’t still be in Mexico.”
“He is. That wayward husband he was following loaded his SUV with pretty girls at the Barkley Regis and Bram followed him—into Mexico. He called me before he crossed the border. Some kind of big meeting going on, or something.”
Bram Bishop had often been the third member of their CIA team, a security expert with more than twenty years experience. He’d retired with them almost ten months ago and had opened a detective agency in downtown Dancer’s Beach. He lived in the apartment above Cliffside’s four-car garage.
Trevyn frowned. “You think it’s drugs? White slavers?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him since. I tried to call him a couple of times when Gusty was first reported missing for some advice on where to start a search, but I couldn’t get through on his cell phone.”
“How long’s it been?”
“Three weeks.”
Trevyn considered that, then dismissed it. “If it was anybody else, I’d worry.”
“I know. He’s fine.” David grinned at him as Athena and Alexis walked out of the house toward them. The boys, shooting hoops on the edge of the driveway, stopped their game, shouldered their backpacks for school and fell in behind them, the dog loping along in step. “Are you going to be okay with Lex and the boys while Dotty’s at her son’s? Or should I arrange for a nanny and police protection?”
“Funny.” Trevyn shoved him, then eyed the bags the women carried and reached into the trunk to rearrange its cargo. “The boys are great. And Alexis has the house, I’ve got the guest house and if there’s a just God, never the twain shall meet.”
From what he’d learned so far, Trevyn guessed Alexis was the evil triplet. Though as beautiful as Athena with her long dark red hair and deep blue eyes, she had none of her courtesy. She was outspoken and outrageous—and she’d tried to bean him with a frying pan. It was hard to feel kindly toward a woman like that.
“What if Holden gets some news about Gusty?” David asked.
“I’ll find her,” Trevyn assured him, “without Lex’s help.”
“But she knows her better than you do,” David argued, “even though you…”
Trevyn sighed impatiently at David’s hesitation. “Even though I got Gusty pregnant. You can say it aloud. It isn’t as though we don’t all know she’s seven and a half months along.”
“You’re sure you were with her?” David asked. “Considering how identical the girls are. I mean, with costumes and masks and just a brief glimpse of her face…”
“I made love to her,” Trevyn said firmly, lowering his voice as the women approached. “She’s the only sister who’s pregnant. It was me.”
“You’re not going to go too nuts waiting around, are you?” David asked. “I know you’d like to try to find Gusty on your own, but I’ve got Wren still looking for her and I’ll feel so much better knowing you’re here with Lex and the boys.”
Wren was an old friend of theirs from their “company” days who’d also retired and now freelanced his spook skills.
Trevyn would have preferred action, but he owed David a lot. When they weren’t on “company” business, he and David had worked together at the Chicago Tribune, David as a journalist, Trevyn as a photojournalist. He nodded. “I’m fine with it, and I’ll keep my eye on the boys. If Alexis inadvertently disappears…”
“Trev—”
“Okay, okay. I’ll watch out for her, too.”
“Thanks for making it all fit, Trevyn.” Athena beamed at him as he tucked her two bags into a tight spot. “If we’d left this to David, he’d have made me leave most of my stuff.”
“Oh, he’s always been selfish,” Trevyn teased, then closed the trunk and David locked it. “You must see something in him that’s invisible to the rest of us. There. You’re all set.”
Athena hugged each of the boys, promising that they would call, and asking what they wanted in the way of souvenirs from Washington and New York.
“A New York Yankees hat,” Brandon said, reaching up as David hugged him. He was fair-haired and spindly and very, very smart.
Brady stood back, arms folded, an uncharacteristic pout on his dark-featured face. Trevyn had spent time with the boys when they’d visited David over the past few years, and he’d never seen Brady anything but hopelessly cheerful. Trevyn suspected he was upset about David’s trip.
“When are you coming back?” Brady asked, still keeping his distance.
Trevyn noticed that David didn’t move in. He admired that about his friend. In the field, he’d always waited for the right moment.
“About a week, maybe ten days,” David replied.
“You’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“’Cause if it’s any longer, you’ll miss Parents’ Night. You get to see all my work and look at my classroom. And there’s cookies.”
“We won’t miss it. I promise. Athena put the flyer on the fridge.”
Brady eyed David.
Alexis and Athena suddenly made a production of getting Athena into the car, pretending not to notice it had become a tense guy moment.
Brandon elbowed Brady. “Don’t be a doofus,” he said under his breath.
Brady gave him a lethal look, then wrapped his arms around David’s middle. “Okay,” he said. “Have a good time.”
David held him, then drew him away and looked down into his face. “Tell me what’s on your mind,” he said.
Brady’s lips parted and there was an instant of silence, then he said quietly, “I was just worried about Parents’ Night at school. There’s goodies, you know. And you get to look in my classroom.”
“We’ll be back in time,” David assured him, then put an arm around him and led him toward the driver’s side of the car. At the door, he stopped and asked, frankly, “Brady, are you worried that your mom will send Darby after you guys again?”
David had told Trevyn that Darby was their mother’s new husband and the reason for their leaving home when he’d put Ferdie in the pound.
Brady folded his arms again. “I worry about that sometimes,” he admitted.
David leaned against the car door and put his hands on Brady’s shoulders. “Mom signed papers that make me your legal guardian, remember? They’re in our safety-deposit box. I showed them to you.”
Brady nodded. “I know.”
“Then, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah.” Brady forced a smile but it was unconvincing.