Never a Bride

by Caridad Piñeiro

  He nodded and smiled. “Totally. I’ll bring the cash by tomorrow. I’m sure you could use the money for the holidays.”

  “Could I ever. It’s been hard since . . .” Her voice choked up and tears shimmered in her eyes, but she dashed them aside. “It’s been three years since Ed died and you’d think I’d be getting better about it. But it still gets tough around the holidays.”

  “We’re here for you, Jesse. Just know that, okay?” He couldn’t imagine how hard it was for her to have lost her husband so unexpectedly when a drunk driver had smashed into Ed’s car as he was on his way home from work.

  She braved a watery smile, sniffled, and nodded. “I know. I’ll have everything ready. If you need anything else or extra hands . . .”

  “If you’re free to be a server –”

  “I am,” she immediately replied. “I can ask Sammie next door to babysit for me.” The two shop owners often watched out for each other for things like deliveries, holidays, and babysitting. Sammie had just had a baby girl a few months earlier.

  Although he had enough people for the upcoming parties and the wedding, he’d make room for Jesse and Sammie as well if she needed the work. “Great. I’ll give you the details for the events and have Paolo reach out to you. Tell Sammie she’s welcome to work as well if you guys can swing a babysitter.”

  With business settled, he did the short walk up the half a dozen or so blocks and across the busy state road to where his warehouse was located. As he entered, the sounds of laughter filled the space and he wondered what was up until he reached the reception area outside their offices and caught sight of the familiar figure in the Army service uniform and the distinctive tan beret that identified him as a Ranger.

  “Tomás,” he called out and hurried over to hug his younger brother. As he did so he noticed the cane his brother leaned on and the large metal brace on his left knee.

  “You’re hurt? Why didn’t you call and let us know?” he said, his attention focused on the brace and the way his brother favored his good leg.

  “He always was the clumsy one,” Paolo teased and nudged Tomás with his elbow.

  Tomás grinned ruefully and shook his head. “Because I’m embarrassed to say that it happened while I was training for a mission. Fell off the obstacle wall and landed wrong. Totally messed up the knee.”

  Carlo heard something in his brother’s tone that he didn’t like. “How bad?”

  “Yeah, how bad?” chimed in Paolo, the baby of the three, his features wracked with worry. Tomás had dreamed of being a soldier since they were all kids.

  “Bad. I’ll be out of commission for at least another month in the brace and then PT for another few weeks. The Army doc is going to have to be satisfied that I can perform before I can rejoin my team.”

  “And you’re not sure you can,” Carlo prompted to get his brother to open up which could be difficult most times. Tomás preferred being the strong silent type.

  “I’m not sure but I’m optimistic. In the meantime, you may be seeing a lot of me around here in the future. That is if you’ll have me,” Tomás said in a tone mixed with disappointment and hopefulness.

  Carlo was surprised that his brother was willing to admit it and he wasn’t the only one who had taken note of the unusual admission. Paolo wrapped his older brother in a hug and said, “The three da Costa brothers together again. Awesome, mano.”

  As he met Tomás’s gaze over Paolo’s shoulder, there was that mix of emotions again, but Tomás hugged his baby brother and repeated the wish in a determined voice. “The three da Costa brothers ride again,” Tomás said.

  Carlo smiled and slapped his brother on the back. “Let’s find you an office and when you’re ready, you can get to work. You can’t believe how much we’ve got to get done in the next few weeks.”

  “Still the work-a-holic, mano?” Tomás teased.

  “Always,” Carlo confirmed and led his brother to a spare office down the hall, his pace measured in deference to his brother’s slower speed.

  At the door, he reached in and flipped on the light to display a desk piled with stacks of papers and files.

  “Sorry for the mess, but we’ve been so busy I haven’t had a chance to file these away,” Carlo said.

  Tomás nodded, walked to the desk, and shuffled some of the papers. “Perfect job for me. I’ll get these put away for you.”

  “Obrigado,” he said and started to walk away, but then stopped and turn. “I’m sorry you’re hurt, mano, but I’m happy you’re here.”

  Tomás smiled, eased off his beret, and pointed it in Carlo’s direction. “Don’t get soft on me, Carlo.”

  Carlo chuckled and as he walked away, he heard Tomás mumble, “I missed you goofballs too.”

  CONNIE HAD WANTED TO forego the traditional bridal shower and bachelorette party because of the limited time before the wedding, but Emma and her friends wouldn’t let Connie miss such rituals for all the money in the world. With only a little over two weeks to go before the wedding, the large living room of the Sinclair beach house was filled with friends and family, mounds of gifts, and an assortment of fabulous finger foods prepared by Carlo and his staff. His brothers Paolo and Tomás were part of the crew keeping food available and champagne flowing along with a number of other servers, including Jesse from the cheese shop. The young woman looked like she was almost back to normal.

  Emma couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose your husband so tragically and with a young son to support. It had been a tough few years for Jesse, but everyone in town had banded together to help her in one way or another. From babysitting to watching the shop to buying local, Emma was proud of how they’d all pulled together for one of their own and in the nearly three years since that loss, she and Jesse had gotten to be friends.

  While Connie opened gifts with Tracy and Maggie helping her, she took a moment to seek out Jesse as she took a break from serving.

  She hugged the other woman and said, “You’re looking good.”

  Jesse offered up a soft smile. “Thanks to all of you. How are you holding up? It seems like there’s so much to do in a couple of weeks.”

  Emma chuckled. “That’s an understatement, but we’ll get it done. And now Carlo has Tomás here to help out also,” she said and motioned toward where the da Costa brothers were busy working. Paolo was instructing one server on what to do while Tomás poured more champagne into the punch bowl. Carlo was wheeling in a cart with pastries for the party goers.

  Jesse looked over in their direction as well, her gaze seeming to linger on Tomás, but then the other woman quickly shifted her glance to Connie. “She looks so content,” Jesse said.

  “Yes, she does. I’m so very happy for her,” Emma said, but peered from Jesse to Tomás, wondering if she’d imagined there had been something different in that look.

  “And what about you, Em? How are you holding up?” Jesse said and glanced toward the brothers again, but this time the young widow’s gaze settled firmly on Carlo.

  Emma glanced over longingly, the joyous emotions of the day making it difficult to contain her emotions. “I’m . . . struggling with it all,” she confessed, trusting the other woman’s friendship and discretion.

  Jesse patted her on the back and then laid her hand on Emma’s shoulder. “I get it, Em. You’re afraid of losing him as a lover and a friend, but remember that old saying?”

  “It’s better to have loved and lost—” Emma began, but cut off abruptly as she realized how inappropriate it might be considering what Jesse had suffered.

  “Yeah, that one. Believe me, I know. But even if I’d had a clue how it would end with Ed, I wouldn’t have changed a thing,” Jesse said, her voice shaky and the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

  Emma hugged the other woman and said, “Thank you for that, Jesse.”

  She broke away from Jesse as Maggie, Tracy, and Connie called out for her. “Come on, chica! We need you up here!” Connie said and with a broad swipe of her hand waved
at Emma to join them in opening the gifts.

  “Duty calls,” Emma grinned, and hurried across the room to where her friends were gathered amidst piles of presents. Tracy had a notepad and was keeping track of who gave what while Maggie had been handing Connie the gaily wrapped items. That left Emma taking over from Connie’s cousin Katrina who had been selecting ribbons, paper, and bows to make a hat for Connie to wear.

  As box after box was opened, the hat grew way too big and Emma and Katrina started making a bouquet. With nimble fingers and a light heart, Emma created a brightly colored bouquet and smiled as it was her turn to hand it to the bride-to-be while Katrina tied the outrageously immense hat on Connie.

  The friends all gathered around Connie and Carlo did them a favor by snapping photos on their cell phones to commemorate the event. When he was done, Connie faced her friends and they exchanged a big exuberant group hug.

  “You chicas are the best,” Connie said, rocking all of them back and forth jubilantly.

  Which prompted a happy exchange of “No, you are,” between the friends who laughed and hugged again before sitting to watch the guests mingling.

  “Did you ever think you would be doing something like this with me?” Connie said and eyeballed her friends.

  Her comment was met with resounding agreement.

  “Never,” Maggie said with a strong shake of her head.

  “No way,” Emma said.

  “Absolutely not,” Tracy said, but then quickly added, “But stranger things have been known to happen, like my moving to Sea Kiss.”

  Stunned, Emma leaned forward to scrutinize her friend’s face to see if she was really serious and surprisingly, it seemed she was. “You’re moving here? To Sea Kiss?”

  With a shrug, Tracy said, “With all of you here . . . I want to start my new life surrounded by friends and finally do what I want to do.”

  “Which is?” Maggie and Connie said at the same time and with similar puzzled looks.

  With another shrug and a hesitant chuckle, Tracy said, “I’m not really sure.”

  A long pregnant moment filled the air, but then Connie hugged her and said, “We’re happy to have you here with us. It is going to be totally epic.”

  Emma chuckled and shook her head, “Jon is truly rubbing off on you.”

  With a sniffle, Maggie said, “You guys make me want to live here full time.”

  Connie laughed and rubbed her baby bump. “Maybe when it’s baby time for you.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes. “Believe me, we’re trying.”

  Which prompted raucous laughter from her friends. “Yeah, it must be rough to make love with the uber hot Owen Pierce,” Tracy said with a roll of her eyes.

  “I’m with you, Tracy,” Emma chimed in.

  “Totally rough,” Maggie said with a self-deprecating laugh. Pointing her finger at Emma and Tracy, she said, “But just wait until it’s your turn.”

  Tracy waved her hands back and forth. “No way. I’m done with men for a long time. Maybe forever.”

  Emma slapped her legs with her hands and shot to her feet. “I second that thought. And I think it’s time for me to see how things are going.”

  She walked away quickly, but not fast enough to avoid hearing her friends’ disbelieving laughter and comments.

  “I say she falls hard on my wedding day,” Connie said.

  “For sure,” Maggie and Tracy chimed in.

  No way, Emma thought as she walked into the kitchen and caught sight of Carlo patiently instructing a young server on proper procedure. The teenager smiled at him and swung up the tray with the finger foods to head out to the guests.

  It was way too easy to picture him being that patient with a young child. Their child. One with dark hair with some of her reddish color, hazel eyes that blended his dark chocolate with her green, and Carlo’s olive skin so the poor kid would never have to worry about blushes or sunburn from a day spent on Sea Kiss beach. A real mix of the two of them.

  With a sigh, she held that thought for a moment, then released it to drift away like a soap bubble in the wind. Joyful, but ephemeral.

  As Carlo sensed her presence, he looked her way and smiled, and a bubble of hope built inside her. She walked over and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you for everything. You made it so special for Connie.”

  She sensed the surprise in him at the spontaneous gesture, but he relaxed, returned the embrace, and said, “We made it special, Emma. And you know I’d do anything for you. Anything.”

  “I know, Carlo. I know you would,” she said and nestled against him tighter, savoring the peace and comfort of his arms. Thinking that it would be amazing to feel that all the time. Thinking that her friends were right that it was getting harder and harder to fight what she felt for this amazing man. And that she was an idiot for doing it.

  “Hey, Carlo,” Paolo called out and came rushing into the room.

  Carlo mumbled a curse beneath his breath and eased away from her. “I’m sorry, Emma.”

  Me, too, she thought as Carlo hurried away and cuffed his brother playfully on the back of the head as the two of them walked out the door.

  As Maggie called out to Emma, she lingered for just a moment to store the memory of him and their embrace and then returned to the party.

  Chapter 8

  Carlo’s mind was so set on getting through Jonathan’s press conference in a week and the wedding the week after, that he hadn’t done anything to get ready for Thanksgiving which was only days away. That meant making a few dishes for his mother, going home with his two brothers for the always over-the-top table piled with food and the assorted relatives who would drift in and out over the course of the day. It also meant asking Emma to join him as she had for so many years.

  Since her mother lived in Edison, only about thirty-five or so minutes away from Newark, she’d usually have an early meal with her mother and then come north to join him and his family. Or at least that’s what used to happen only she was sending so many mixed signals lately that he didn’t know what she was thinking.

  And he suspected what some members of his family were alternately thinking. Paolo was all for cutting Emma loose and not having a repeat of Carlo’s prior disastrous engagement. Tomás seemed to be on the fence and lost in his own thoughts revolving around his military service and possibly Jesse. You’d have to be blind not to see that there was a connection between the two of them. As for his father, mother, and his half-brothers, they were all aboard the Emma train, but they only saw her at family events when she plastered on her happy face and everything seemed good between them.

  And maybe it was all good, he thought as he hesitated, his fingers poised on the speed dial number for Emma, and then pressed it. He listened to her cheery pop ringtone until she picked up and breathlessly said, “Sorry. I was just finishing up a consult. Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s going great if you don’t count that this Thursday is Thanksgiving and I still need to cook a bunch of dishes,” he said in a teasing tone.

  The rustle of papers came across the line followed by a mumbled curse. “I get it. I can’t believe it’s Thanksgiving already. It’s just been so crazy the last few weeks.”

  “I get you. Mamãe called to remind me about what to bring,” he said and paused. Before she could say anything, he jumped in with, “And to ask if you’d be coming to join me . . . join us again.”

  An uneasy silence filled the air before she said, “There’s still so much work for Connie and Jon’s wedding and I’m so tired. . .”

  He shut her down to save himself the embarrassment of a rejection. “It’s okay, Emma. There is a lot going on with all the events and I bet you could use a little down time by yourself. Plus I know that if you came we’d probably end up talking about the wedding and stuff so you couldn’t really relax.”

  “Yeah, we probably would,” she said with a sigh filled with sadness that he suspected had nothing to do with Connie and Jonathan’s upcoming marriage.<
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  “I guess I’ll see you next Monday to finalize the press conference plans,” he said and when she quickly agreed, he ended the call.

  A knock on the glass door of his office dragged him back to work as he noticed Tomás standing by the door. He’d been wearing civvies since coming back, but the brace was ever present on his left leg. “What’s up, mano?” he said with a quick jerk of his head.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing, Carlo. You look like the day we had to put down Spottie,” he said, referring to the beagle they’d had for over a dozen years as kids. They’d found the beagle with only a stub of a tail rooting through the bakery’s garbage one morning and taken him in as a pet. Carlo, always the sucker for the lost and wounded, had bonded with Spottie more than any of them.

  Carlo shook his head, unable to deny his mood. “Feeling close to that bad, Tomás. How are you doing? Leg doesn’t seem to slow you down all that much.”

  Tomás glanced at his balky knee and made a face. “I’m trying not to let it, but there’s a part of me that says I need to consider what I’ll do if I can’t go back to the Rangers. You know what I mean, right, about considering what to do if things don’t work out?”

  Tomás’s question surprised him since it seemed to move him into the Paolo Cut-Emma-Loose camp. “I know what you mean, but maybe I’m just not ready to take that next step.”

  “Me, either, mano. But I have to say that all this wedding stuff and being in Sea Kiss has me wondering what it would be like to be here all the time. Get up in the morning and go surfing or fishing. Take a stroll with a beautiful woman through town or on the boardwalk. Maybe even have a kid or two, you know. Things I never imagined I’d want.”

  The wistful tone in his younger brother’s voice was impossible to miss and a surprise since he’d always been All Action Guy. “It’s ‘cause we’re getting older. Mamãe already had the three of us by this age.”

  Tomás blew out a rough laugh. “Caralho, I’m only thirty. Don’t make me feel sixty.”