Instead he clearly recalled the meeting he’d had a week later with the major.
“You cost me about $250, Gunny,” the officer had said. “It seems even a talented dry cleaner can’t get red punch out of ivory silk.”
Standing at ease, but certainly not feeling it, Nick offered, “I’d be happy to pay to replace the dress, sir.”
“Not necessary,” the Major told him as he stood up from behind his desk and walked around to stop just inches from him. “But I suggest you make sure this never happens again.”
“It won’t, sir,” Nick assured him. “I’ll avoid the dance floor at all costs.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Sir?”
The Major perched on the edge of his desk, crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “You know as well as I do that ‘attendance is expected, and body movement at these things will be noticed.’”
Nick winced internally. The Corps couldn’t order a man to show up and dance, but they managed to get the point across, anyway.
“So before you toss some other poor woman into a punch bowl, I suggest, Gunnery Sergeant,” the man said in a low growl, “that you learn what to do on a dance floor.”
Panic, clean and sharp, whistled through him as he realized what the officer was telling him to do. “You can’t be serious, sir. Dance lessons?”
The other man stared at him for a long minute before asking, “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
Nick groaned tightly at the memory before tucking it into a dark corner of his mind. Hell. He had to be the first Marine in history to have been ordered into a dance class. Well, technically not “ordered.” He’d been “suggested” into it. He would much rather the Major had sentenced him to a few thirty-mile hikes. Or had him transferred to Greenland.
But, no. That would have been too easy a punishment.
Instead Nick was stuck practicing to be a second-rate Fred Astaire. And, oh, man, what his friends would say if they knew what he was up to. For weeks after the punch bowl incident, he’d put up with the teasing, the jokes, the near-constant barrage of abuse from his friends. Hell, if they ever found out that he was actually taking ballroom dance lessons, they’d never let him forget it. As for dancing in a contest? He’d probably have to resign from the Corps just to get some peace.
Nope. What he had to do was survive this stupid class then get back to being a full-time Marine.
Of course, when the classes were over, he wouldn’t be seeing Gina again. Surprising really, how much that realization bothered him.
A cold, damp breeze slinked in off the ocean and swept the rest of old memories and troubling thoughts from his mind. He returned his attention just in time to the short woman walking—or rather, running along beside him.
“Are you listening to me?” she asked, and judging from the exasperation in her tone, it wasn’t for the first time.
Nick stopped, looked down at her and shook his head. “If you’re still talking about that competition, no.”
She threw her hands wide and let them fall to her sides again. “Why not?”
That mouth of hers looked good even in a frown. Oh, no, he wasn’t going there. Leaving his hormones out of the equation, Gina Santini was not going to get to him. “A better question, princess, is why are you so hot to enter a contest with me when all you can do is complain about how badly I dance?”
The wind tossed her dark-brown curls around her face, and Gina reached up with one hand to push them back from her eyes. “You’re really not totally bad.”
Heartwarming. “Gee,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his words, “thanks.”
She pulled in a deep breath, which distracted him momentarily by drawing his gaze to the curve of her breasts, then she sighed dramatically. “It’s a contest,” she said as if that was enough to explain everything. “Don’t you want to win?”
That gleam in her eyes was back again, and a part of Nick admired her. He liked a good competition, too. He just preferred entering contests that he had some small chance of winning.
“We’re not good enough,” he said flatly, and started for his car again, hoping she’d drop the subject.
He should have known better.
Right behind him, he heard the heels of her shoes tapping against the asphalt as she trotted to keep up with his long-legged stride.
“We could be,” she said, “good enough, I mean.”
Nick laughed shortly.
“All we’d need is extra practice.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “for a year or two.”
“For Pete’s sake, General,” Gina said, and stepped in front of him, bringing him to a quick stop. “Do all Marines give up as easily as you?”
A quick flash of irritation swelled up inside him.
“Marines do not give up, princess,” he said, and loomed over her, which wasn’t hard since she was so darn short. “We simply choose our battles.”
“Uh-huh. Apparently only the ones you’re sure of winning.”
“Look,” he said, and threw his car a longing glance before looking at Gina again. Obviously, he wasn’t going to get out of here without yet another argument. And to think that only a moment ago he’d been bothered by the thought of never seeing her again. God. What had he done in his life to deserve this irritating, too-damned-attractive woman? Answer: he’d thrown a major’s wife into a punch bowl. “You said yourself all we do is argue. Do you really want to spend more time together?”
She folded her arms under her breasts and he absolutely refused to look. It wasn’t easy, but he kept his gaze locked with hers. One of her finely arched eyebrows went just a bit higher. “We wouldn’t argue so much if you weren’t so stubborn.”
“Hah! I’m stubborn?”
She gave him a look that would have fried a lesser man’s soul. Then, clearly disgusted, she asked, “Why am I even talking to you?”
“You got me, princess.”
“Will you stop calling me princess?”
“As soon as you stop acting like one.”
Her big brown eyes widened and then narrowed dangerously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Well, hell. He hadn’t really meant to say that out loud. “Never mind.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. “Explain.”
“There’s no reason to go into any of this,” he hedged. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. He just didn’t want to enter that blasted contest. “It’s late. I’ve got to get back to base.”
She leaned back against his car and shook her head. For such a tiny woman, she had the look of an immovable object.
“You started this, Sergeant. Now you finish it.”
This was his own fault, he told himself. He never should have said what he was thinking. But Gina had a way of irking him like no one else he’d ever known.
He swept his gaze up and down her compact, curvy form before coming to rest on those beautiful brown eyes of hers. And damned if she didn’t know just how pretty she was, too. Oh, not that she seemed conceited, but there was a confidence about her that came from knowing she presented a hell of a picture. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized how right he was in his assessment of her. Pampered, spoiled, obviously used to getting her own way, she was completely unprepared for someone—anyone saying no to her.
“So, General,” she said, “do you explain, or do we stand here all night?”
All around them their fellow students were leaving the tiny parking lot. Overhead, dark clouds sailed across a black sky, obliterating the stars and threatening rain. Even in southern California, January weather could be unpredictable. And just in case it was going to start raining anytime soon, he decided to end this debate once and for all. If she wanted the truth that badly, she could have it.
“It means that I know you better than you think I do.”
“Oh, really?”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist, he told himself. She was Italian. So was he. And if there was one
thing he knew, it was Italian families.
“Youngest in your family, weren’t you?”
She flinched slightly. “So?”
“The apple of daddy’s eye?”
She straightened up away from the car. Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her chin, glared at him and asked, “Your point?”
Ah…direct hit.
“My point is that you’ve spent your entire life getting exactly what you want just by batting those gorgeous eyes of yours.” He leaned in closer and knew instantly it had been a mistake. Her perfume distracted him, but he steeled himself against that potent scent and finished what he had to say. “Well, it’s not gonna work with me, princess. We’re partners on that dance floor, because we’re stuck with each other. But you can save that wide-eyed, innocent look for the college boys, all right?”
It took her a minute to calm down enough to talk.
Then she started sputtering. “You are the single most irritating, annoying, overbearing, insulting—” She paused and bit her bottom lip.
A bottom lip he suddenly wanted to kiss more than he wanted to draw his next breath. The other couples were driving away, and the flash of headlights skimmed across her face and faded again, leaving only the dim glow of the yellow fog lights in the parking lot. Streamers of gray, damp fog drifted in from the ocean and twined around their legs, linking them together in an otherworldly grip.
Seconds passed, ticking by as they stared at each other. She was so close. Close enough to kiss. To touch. He lifted one hand, and as she leaned in toward him a car horn sounded, shattering the weird spell that had been cast over them.
She shook her head as if coming up out of a dream. “I, uh, have to go.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
She opened her mouth to say something more, but snapped it shut again a moment later. Then, without giving him another look, she turned around and marched off across the shadowy parking lot toward her car.
Nick watched her go and told himself he was only keeping an eye on her to see that she made it into her car safely. After all, a pretty woman, a deserted parking lot, it was the decent thing to do. But he was still standing there, staring after her, long after she’d pulled out of the lot and driven off.
The next day after work, Nick entered the Staff NCO club and headed down the wide hallway. Absently he took the short flight of steps, passed the small reception area and climbed five more steps to the darkened ballroom. As he stepped into the familiar club, he turned to his right and stopped just at the long mahogany bar. His gaze swept the shadow-filled room. A huge place, it looked nearly empty, with just a sprinkling of tables dotting the floor. But when the room was decked out for a ball or a party, the old club shone like a gem.
The few noncommissioned officers seated at the tables barely glanced his way. He recognized a few familiar faces in the bunch. But on a base the size of Pendleton, it wasn’t unusual to see a lot of strangers as well as friends.
He leaned his elbows on the bar, ordered a beer and, as he had been doing all day, relived those last few minutes in the dark with Gina. Gritting his teeth, he told himself for the thousandth time that he’d had no right to stomp on her feelings like that. So what if she irritated him? That didn’t give him leave to fire mortar rounds at her heart.
And, damn it, he was sure he’d seen her eyes go all teary.
Great, he thought as the bartender slid his beer in front of him. Big, strong Marine had made a woman cry.
He took a long swallow of beer and tried to rinse the taste of disgust from his mouth as another Marine entered the bar and walked up beside him. “Paretti?”
Half turning, he looked at the man, noted the insignia on his shirtsleeve and recognized him as another Gunnery Sergeant. “Yeah?”
The guy stuck out his right hand and said, “Thought it was you. I’m Davis Garvey.”
“I’ve seen you around,” Nick said with a nod as he shook the man’s hand, then turned to pay the bartender for his beer. Glancing back at Davis, he asked, “You want anything?”
“No, thanks,” he said, and waved the bartender off. “I’m on my way home. Just stopped in to look for you, actually.”
“Now why would you do that?” Nick asked, and took another sip of his drink, wishing the guy would leave so he could get on with torturing himself for picking on Gina.
The other man grinned and leaned one elbow on the bar. “Sort of promised my new sister-in-law I would.”
Nick looked at the guy, trying to figure out what was going on here. As far as he knew, he hadn’t dated any women lately who had brothers-in-law stationed at Pendleton. So it couldn’t be some defending-her-honor kind of thing. And if this was leading to a “shotgun wedding” scenario, the man would just have to go ahead and shoot him. No way was Nick Paretti getting married again. The phrase “been there, done that” roared across his mind.
“Okay,” he said after a minute or two of silence, “you have my attention. What’s up?”
Around them conversations flowed, Marines relaxed after a long hard day, and splashes of laughter shot through the air. But Nick wasn’t paying attention to any of it. Instead, he concentrated on the man now grinning like some damned fool.
“I hear,” Davis said, “you’ve been making Gina’s life miserable at dancing school.”
Panic, swift and sure, shot through him.
“Hey!” Nick spoke up quickly, then threw a fast glance at the Marines on either side of them to make sure they hadn’t been listening in. After all the trouble he’d been going to, to keep his dancing lessons a secret, he sure wasn’t about to stand there and let Davis Garvey announce it in the NCO club. Hell, the news would be all over base by morning.
He could almost hear the teasing and ribbing he’d be getting for the rest of his life if word got out. They would be calling him Sergeant Twinkle-Toes or something else just as humiliating. For Pete’s sake, he had to get Garvey out of there.
Wouldn’t you just know Gina would be involved in this? All of his guilty feelings melted away to be replaced by the irritation he usually felt for the woman.
“Why don’t we go outside to talk about this?” he suggested, and took a huge swallow of beer when he’d finished talking.
Davis’s grin broadened, and his eyes held a knowing gleam. Yep, he knew exactly why Nick was trying to get him to leave the club. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m happy right here.”
Scowling at his fellow sergeant, Nick muttered, “Look, I’m not going to talk about it in here, all right?”
Then he turned around, marched out of the room and down the first flight of stairs like a man on the parade ground. He never looked back, never checked to be sure Garvey was following him. Just kept walking, across the reception area, up the short flight of steps and out the doors into the late-afternoon gloom. Nick kept walking until he reached his car, and there he stopped, waiting.
In another minute or two Davis Garvey approached slowly, hands in his pockets, that damned smirk still on his face.
“All right, what’s this about?” Nick snapped.
“I told you. Gina.”
Figured. It wasn’t enough that she drove him crazy at class. Now she’d thought of a way to bother him at work, too. And to think he’d spent all day berating himself for hurting her feelings. “She’s your sister-in-law, you said?”
“Yep. I married her sister Marie a couple of weeks ago.”
“Congratulations,” Nick muttered, and silently wished the poor guy luck. He’d need it if his new wife was anything like her sister.
“Thanks.”
He didn’t want to insult the man’s family, but damned if Nick was going to stand there and not defend himself, either. “Since you’re related to her, you should know what Gina’s like.”
“Charming?” Davis suggested. “Beautiful? Funny?”
All of the above, Nick thought, and plenty more. “Don’t forget to add annoying, shrewish, bossy…” He paused, then asked, “Do I have to go on?”
; “No,” Davis said on a laugh. Shaking his head slightly, he added, “I think I get the picture.”
“I’m not sure you do.”
“Look,” Davis said, “Gina said you’ve been giving her a hard time, so I thought I’d talk to you about it.”
Disgusted, Nick said, “Strange, she didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who needed someone else to fight her battles.”
“She isn’t,” Davis told him, and his smile was gone. “But she’s family now. And I look out for my family.”
Nick took the man’s measure and slowly nodded. He could understand family loyalty. “I’d do the same.”
“Then you’ll lighten up on Gina?”
“I’ll fire only if fired upon,” he said solemnly.
Davis smiled again. “Sounds fair enough to me.” He held out his right hand once more, and Nick took it in a firm shake. “Good to meet you, Gunny.”
“Same goes, Gunny,” Nick said.
But as the other man walked off toward his own car, Nick’s mind was racing. Gina Santini had called in reinforcements. Oh, maybe she hadn’t come right out and asked her brother-in-law to talk to him, but she’d probably expected him to. That meant she wasn’t retreating, only regrouping.
She may have won the first battle, but as far as Nick was concerned, the war was still on.
Three
Family-dinner night at the Santinis’ was always interesting. At least one night a week, no matter what else was going on in their lives, the Santinis came together over the dinner table. And for a couple of hours they caught each other up on the news, argued, laughed and ate themselves into a stupor.
Gina glanced around at the faces of her family and smiled to herself. Mama, of course, lonelier since Papa’s death two years ago, but still vibrant and deeply involved in whatever her daughters were up to. Then there was Angela, the oldest Santini sister. A widow herself, Angela and her son, Jeremy, had moved back home after her husband’s death three years ago. Jeremy was a great kid, Gina thought as her glance slid in his direction. And it was doing him a world of good to have Davis, Marie’s new husband, in the family. Jeremy’s father hadn’t been much good at the “family” thing. He’d made all of their lives miserable, and if anyone here was willing to admit it out loud, they’d have to say that Angela was actually happier as a widow than she had ever been when she was married.
The Last Santini Virgin Page 2