Adam’s face was pale, but he didn’t fold. He met Joe’s eyes, and the two of them exchanged a silent truce. “They wouldn’t go anywhere. They’re a pain in the behind to watch, but they don’t wander off.”
“Would they run away?”
Adam considered that a moment. “Maybe. But why?”
“That’s the $10,000 question I plan to get the answer to once I have the scruffs of their necks in each of my hands. Now, where would they go? Think.”
“Iceman, the Wildman, Scalotta!” A microphone nearly hit Joe in the teeth. “Your daughter has just won the Big League World Series. What are you going to do next?”
“I’m going to Disney World,” Joe snarled. “Where else?”
“That’s it!” Adam shouted.
Joe tried to look at the kid, but the reporter kept waving the microphone in front of his face. He’d had enough of that for one lifetime. Joe stared her straight in the eye and used his Iceman glare. “Go away,” he snapped. She did.
He turned to Adam. “What’s it?”
“The twin rats—” Adam winced and glanced at his mother, who had straightened and disentangled herself from Joe’s embrace when Adam shouted. “Sorry, Mom. This morning, on the way here, they asked me if you could get to Disney World on a bus. I said you could get to Disney World any way you wanted and a bus was probably the cheapest.”
“You think?” Evie breathed, hope lighting her eyes.
“Let’s go.” Joe took her hand, and they raced for the exit.
Evie couldn’t think straight. In fact, she couldn’t seem to think at all. Her mind was numb, her heart heavy. Her babies were missing, and she needed to do something to find them, but she couldn’t seem to do anything but stare through the windshield of the taxi and try not to cry.
The bus station was within walking distance of the ballpark, but Joe had grabbed a cab so they could get there quickly. Evie didn’t think she’d have been able to run or walk, anyway.
Joe seemed to sense her panic, and he took over. Right now, he held her hand, and she clung to him. He hadn’t let her go since they’d left the ballpark. What would she have done if he hadn’t been here to help? Evie had always prided herself on handling everything her kids dished out. But this—this was too much for her.
“Here you go,” the cabbie said.
Evie was out the door before the car came to a complete stop—breaking her own rule and not giving a damn. Joe threw money at the man and tore through the glass doors right behind her. He bumped into her when she stopped just inside the doorway.
“Thank God,” he whispered, and his breath stiffed her hair. His hard, capable hands rested on her shoulders, and Evie reached up to twine her fingers through his.
“Thank God,” she echoed.
The twins hadn’t seen them enter. They were too engrossed in a television bolted to a chair, their noses pressed nearly to the screen.
Toni and Adam walked in. Evie eyed them and shrugged. Adam took one step toward the twins, hands clenched into fists, but Evie touched his shoulder and shook her head.
She approached her boys. They looked up when her shadow fell across the television screen—first joy, then anxiety, filled their blue eyes. They were happy to see her, but they knew they were in trouble.
The two joined hands and waited for the storm to burst, but Evie didn’t have the heart to yell. She was too darn glad to see them. Instead, she pulled the twins into her arms and held them tight, breathing in the fragrance of little boy and trying not to sob her heart out.
“Mom, how come you’re here?” Danny mumbled against her neck.
“To get you and take you home, where I can ground you for the rest of your natural life.”
“Really?” Benji asked.
Evie ignored that. “What are you two doing here?”
“We were watching this great movie.” Danny looked up. “Hey, Joe, have you ever watched Mr. Mom? You know, with the guy who ended up being Batman?”
“Yeah,” Joe said, moving closer.
She welcomed the warmth of his body and the calm in his voice. Sometimes being an adult was too hard. Sometimes you needed someone. She’d done things on her own so long she hadn’t realized how much it helped when there were two against the world, instead of one.
“The guy in the movie—he’s a stay-at-home daddy. Isn’t that cool?”
“Sure.” Joe sounded as puzzled as Evie felt.
“We were gonna sack-the-face for you and Mom. We heard how you want a baby, but how Mom don’t want no more ‘cause we were so awful.”
Evie’s heart did a sickening lurch, and she wanted to cry all over again. “You heard that?”
“We shouldn’t have been listenin’, we know.”
“I was wrong to say that. It was rough when you were little. But you guys are my angels come to the earth.” She glanced up and found Adam watching her. She held the twins, but she spoke to him. “Things might have been bad, my life seemed ruined, but when I held you in my arms, the world made sense again.”
Adam smiled, nodded, and the wall that had been between them dissolved, at least for the time being. Evie could breathe again.
“Weren’t we accidents?”
Evie closed her eyes for just a second, took another breath and gave the twins a quick squeeze. “There are no accidents. Only presents we don’t know about yet.”
“Cool.” They wriggled for freedom, but she wouldn’t let them go. “Mom, we have to tell you what we found out. You always said that if you really love someone, that means you have to sack-the-face—”
“Are they trying to say ‘sacrifice’?” Joe interrupted.
“That’s what I said.” Danny’s nose wrinkled. “Jeez. So we figured if Mom didn’t have us, she could have another baby, then Joe and everyone would be happy.”
“How could you ever think I’d be happy without my two best redheaded guys?”
“Sack-the-faces have to be made, Mom. We might be little, but we know that. Anyways, we saw this movie, and we was thinkin’—you know how Joe likes to cook and stuff, and you hate it, Mom?” Evie nodded. “We never wanted to tell you and hurt your feelings, but you really aren’t good at cookin’. But you’re the best mom in the world. And the best teacher in town. Everyone says so. So why can’t Joe be the stay-at-home daddy?”
“Joe has a job, honey, a job he’s been waiting to do half his life. I can’t ask him to give that up, just as he shouldn’t ask me to give up mine.”
“But, Mom, we want a stay-at-home daddy. And we want Joe. Can’t we keep him?”
Evie opened her mouth to say no, they could not keep him, but Joe spoke, instead. “Out of the mouths of babes,” he murmured.
Her breathing became difficult as hope filled her heart. She stood and faced him. “What are you talking about?”
He pulled her into his arms. “They’ve got a point, you know?”
“They do? Which point would that be? They’ve run through so many.”
“I’d make a great Mr. Mom.”
“Oh, Joe. I don’t want you to give up your dream for mine.”
“My dream is you and the kids. Love and a family—that’s what I want. I love you, Evie, and if you really don’t want a baby, I can live with that. What I can’t live with is living without you.”
The fear of the afternoon, and Joe’s strong support when times got tough, had shown Evie the truth. Love and a family—that was all that mattered. She couldn’t continue to live half a life because of mistakes she’d made what seemed half a lifetime ago.
Somehow, when she wasn’t paying attention, Joe Scalotta had crept under her skin and into her heart. His presence gave her peace. He held her up when all she wanted to do was fall down. He made her laugh when tears still threatened her eyes. She didn’t want to live without him, either.
“How many babies?” she asked.
Joe grinned. “None? Some? Your wish is my command. One question, though.” Evie tilted her head, waiting. “Do you love me?”
“You bet.”
“Betting is what got us into this.”
“And I won. I guess I get the job I’ve always wanted. If that’s okay with you.”
“You’ll be great. So, if I sack-the-face, will you marry me?
Her answer was to jump into his arms, and as he twirled her around and around, she kissed him, long and deep. The twins made smoochy sounds and several spectators inside the bus station clapped.
The whir of a camera broke them apart, but it was only the annoying reporter from the ballpark, who had followed them.
Front page center the next morning there appeared a picture of Joe and Evie kissing, above a caption that read: “Wildman becomes mild man as he pledges future to his Coach Mom from Iowa.”
*
Epilogue
One year later
“Call us when you get to the dorm,” Evie instructed, as Adam pulled his car away from the curb.
Joe’s arm came across her shoulders, and together they watched their eldest child leave for college.
“One down, four to go,” he said.
“At least.”
Toni, flanked by the twins, waved until Adam’s car was out of sight. Then the boys started fooling around.
“Danny, quit dancing in the street and go get your mom’s bags,” Joe ordered. “Benji, get your sister’s.”
The boys hustled off to do just that. Joe no longer had any problem telling the two apart. Living with them kind of cured a person of the double vision. Now whenever someone asked how he did it, he simply winked and said, “I’m their dad. I just know.”
“Mom, we better go.”
Evie smiled as she did every time Toni called her “Mom.” The novelty of that had yet to wear off. From the force of the love that trilled through Evie every time, she doubted it ever would.
“Here.” Evie handed their newest addition into Joe’s arms. Maria Scalotta was only a month old, but she was the apple of everyone’s eye.
Joe held the baby like a pro, maybe because he was. He had become a stay-at-home daddy after finishing his one-year commitment to OGCC, and he’d taken to his new job as easily as Evie had taken to being the mother of five instead of three.
Not that there hadn’t been rough spots. Try having a seventeen-year-old boy and a sixteen-year-old girl who are in love living in the same house. Or having a young man who’s been the man of that house suddenly playing second fiddle to his girlfriend’s dad.
But truthfully, everything had worked out for the best in the end, just as Evie had always hoped. Though she and Joe had made mistakes in their youth, the example of those mistakes seemed to have impressed themselves upon their eldest children.
Her relationship with Adam had improved. She’d tried to talk to him again, and explain that while his birth had been an accident, his existence was a joy. He had made her life complete, not torn it in pieces. But, after seeing her fall apart when the twins were missing and hearing her words to them in the Cedar City bus station, Adam already understood how much both he and the twins meant to her. Once again—everything had come out all right.
Evie shook her head, remembering the pitfalls of the past year. It hadn’t been easy, but with Joe at her side, problems didn’t seem half as bad as they had when she’d handled them alone. Even labor and delivery had been kind of fun, since big bad Iceman Scalotta had passed out at the first sight of blood. Evie was laughing when Maria came into the world.
“We’ll see you in Pennsylvania?” Evie gave Maria a final kiss.
The baby gurgled and kicked—all sweetness and light—with Evie’s dark hair and Joe’s startling blue eyes. She already had all the boys in the house wrapped around her little finger—and the girls, too.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Joe said. “Maria has a new outfit. And a hat.”
“Joe!” Her big bruiser of a husband had turned into a closet clotheshorse where his baby girl was concerned. “We’re going to go bankrupt if you keep buying her clothes.”
“But they’re so cute.” He rubbed his nose against Maria’s.
Evie sighed. What was a woman to do?
She and Toni took their bags from the twins, kissed both little boys and headed for the car. This year their team was on the way to the national championships. Unfortunately, Adam had to be at college instead of the game, but priorities were priorities. Evie had every confidence in her star pitcher and adopted daughter.
“Rules for the fall season are on the fridge,” she called over her shoulder.
The twins groaned, Joe laughed and Maria started hiccuping.
Evie drove toward the airport, watching in the rearview mirror as half her family waved goodbye. Life didn’t get any better than this.
*
About the author:
Lori Handeland is a Waldenbooks, Bookscan, USA Today and New York Times best-selling author, as well as a two-time recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA award.
For more information on Lori or her books, please go to:
http://www.lorihandeland.com
Lori also writes under the name Lori Austin. Please scroll for an excerpt of the first book in the Once Upon a Time in the West series, BEAUTY AND THE BOUNTY HUNTER,
Available Now
followed by an excerpt from the second book,
AN OUTLAW IN WONDERLAND.
Coming Summer 2013
BEAUTY AND THE BOUNTY HUNTER
Lori Austin
Alexi cursed. French? Spanish? Italian? Cat wasn’t certain, but whatever language, the words, the tone, the cadence were both beautiful and brutal. Kind of like Alexi himself.
She brushed her fingertips across his face. “Why did you let him hurt you?”
“Sometimes,” he said, “the hurt just happens.”
She narrowed her eyes. She didn’t think he was talking about Langston anymore.
Cat paced in front of the window. The urge to peer from it again was nearly overwhelming. What was out there that was bothering her? If there was a rifle, and considering the prickling of her skin, there might be, she should stay away from the window.
She sat. First on the bed. Then on the chair. Then on the bed again. Alexi ignored her, seemingly captivated with the cards.
Cat went to the door, put her hand on the knob. Alexi “tsked,” and she turned away. Her gaze went again to the window, and from this angle, with the horizon framed like a picture, she saw what was wrong. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before, but she’d been Meg, and Meg wouldn’t recognize that vista. Only Cathleen would.
She had not been back to the farm since she had left it nearly two years ago. It only took Cat an instant to decide that she was going back now. Or at least as soon as she could get away from Alexi.
“Deal,” she said. Alexi glanced up, expression curious, hands still shuffling, shuffling, shuffling .“If we have to stay in here, we can at least make it interesting.”
His lips curved. “Faro?”
Cat took a chair at the table. “You know better.”
Cat loathed Faro, known by many as “Bucking the Tiger.” Every saloon between St. Louis and San Francisco offered the game, and most of them cheated. Stacked decks, with many paired cards that allowed the dealer, or banker, to collect half the bets, as well as shaved decks and razored aces were common.
Alexi wouldn’t stoop to such tactics; he’d consider mundane cheats beneath him. Besides, he’d already taught her how to spot them, so why bother? Certainly he cheated, but with Faro, Cat had never been able to discover just how.
He’d swindle her at poker too if she wasn’t paying attention, but at least with that game she had a better than average chance of catching him.
Alexi laid out five cards for each of them. “Stakes?”
“We can’t play just to pass the time?”
He didn’t even bother to dignify that foolishness with an answer.
For an instant Cat considered foregoing the wayward nature of the cards and, instead, get
ting him drunk. But she’d attempted that before. Alexi had remained annoyingly sober, and she had been rewarded with a three-day headache, which Alexi had found beyond amusing.
She had more tolerance now—Cat O’Banyon had drunk many a bounty beneath the table—but she still doubted she could drink this man into a stupor. Sometimes she wondered if he sipped on watered wine daily just to ascertain no one ever could.
Which meant her only other choice was this.
Cat lifted her cards. She gave away nothing; neither did Alexi. After pulling her purse from her pocket, she tossed a few coins onto the table. With a lift of his brow, he did the same.
They played in silence as the day waned. The room grew hot. In the way of cards, first Alexi was ahead then Cat. She watched him as closely as he watched her. Neither one of them cheated.
Much.
There was something in his face she’d never seen before. Was he scared? Had coming a hair from a hanging frightened him at last? Or was she merely seeing in Alexi a reflection of herself?
Cat bit her lip to keep from looking at the window. Instead she continued with the game. When the sun began to slant toward dusk, and the pile of coins on both sides of the table lay about even, Cat lifted her eyes. “Wanna make this interesting?”
“Khriso mou,” Alexi murmured. “When you say things like that … ” He moved a card from the right side of his hand to the left. “I get excited.”
“How about we raise the stakes to … ” She drew out the moment, and even though he knew exactly what she was doing, as he was the one who had taught her to do it, eventually his anticipation caused him to lean forward. Only then did Cat give him what he sought. “Anything.”
“Anything?” he repeated.
“Oui.” He cast her an exasperated glance as she purposely mangled one of his favorite words. “I win this hand, you give me anything I ask. You win—”
“I get anything I ask.” “You’ve played this before.” “Not with you.” She doubted he’d played it with anyone. What moron would promise anything? Only someone with little left to lose or …
Cat considered her cards without so much as a flicker of an eyelash. Someone with a hand like hers.
Out of Her League Page 21