Robin Kaye Bundle

by Robin Kaye

  Annabelle was going to freak when she found out her lover was Chip’s brother, but even worse than that, one of the two people who’d made Annabelle’s life miserable the whole time she was with Chip planned to make a place for himself in Mike’s life. After all the hell Becca’s parents had put Annabelle through when she and Chip were together, Becca couldn’t imagine Annabelle would sign up for more of the same.

  What would Mike think when he found out his father saw him as the answer to all his prayers. Someone to carry on the family name. A son who followed in his old man’s footsteps. Another doctor to carry on his work. Dad planned to right all the wrongs he’d done to both her and Chip, even if most of it was his absence.

  Dad wasn’t the only one who wanted a second chance. Becca wanted a place in Mike’s life, too. It would be nice to have at least one normal family member. Maybe that hollow feeling she’d had since Chip’s death, the feeling of being utterly alone in the world, would diminish.

  Her father took a sip of his scotch. “We need to order so we don’t give them anything to add to the gossip mill.”

  She was too shocked to argue. “Fine. I’ll have a salad, but don’t expect me to eat.”

  She wouldn’t be able to eat a thing until she broke the news to Annabelle. Maybe she’d wait until Annabelle called her tomorrow to report on her adventures in dining. Besides, there was only so much a person could go through. Her plan to dine with each of her parents at their respective country clubs within a twenty-four-hour period was over her personal limit. Expecting her to break the devastating news to her best friend was more torture than any human being should be expected to face. No, even Annabelle would understand why Becca waited; that is, if Annabelle ever spoke to Becca again. She took another slug of scotch and waited for the fire to hit her stomach and maybe give her the strength she needed to get through the next day.

  Chapter 9

  FOUR DAYS HAD PASSED SINCE ANNABELLE TORQUED her ankle, and she still wasn’t used to the crutches. She rushed through the sanctuary doors. Okay, she pushed one open with her shoulder, and as quickly as possible, got her crutches and the rest of her body through the swinging doors, blessed herself with holy water, and scanned the pews for the family. Her mother always insisted on sitting as far in front as possible and this time had snagged the third pew. Goody. Annabelle tugged at her skirt and pulled her cotton sweater more closely around her before she hobbled down the aisle, ignoring the stares, and the cloying scent of flowers.

  There was nothing like walking into church late and on crutches to bring back every nightmare experience she’d ever had within the hallowed halls of St. Joseph’s. The memory of Sister John Claire pulling her around by the ear and parading her up and down the aisles in front of the entire school population assaulted her. Every person who attended daily Mass during Lent had witnessed her humiliation. The Friday morning Mass-acre, as she dubbed it, ran on a never-ending loop through her mind like a bad B movie on the late-night cable lineup.

  Today only added a new episode to Annabelle’s Life: The Good, The Bad, and The Humiliating.

  The congregation watched as she limped down the aisle like a badly dressed disabled bride. The stabilization boot, obviously designed by a straight man, made her leg look ugly and forced her to wear flats on her uninjured foot. God forbid the designer put a little heel on it, or make it a slingback. Sheesh. No wonder she was depressed. It looked worse than Aunt Rose’s orthopedic shoes. Which, when you think about it, went a long way to explaining Aunt Rose’s perpetual nasty mood. A mood Annabelle had been suffering from since the day she hurt her stupid ankle.

  It didn’t help that the morning had not gone as planned. She and Mike had a late night and an even later morning. Okay, so she was easily distracted. Who knew people actually made love in the shower? Although doing it on one leg was a bit of a challenge. Being late for Mother’s Day, however, was unforgivable and liable to haunt her for the rest of her days.

  Thumping down the aisle late for Mass earned her death glares from both Mama and Aunt Rose. Papa looked as if he was already asleep. He was lucky Mama stared at her instead of elbowing him in the ribs.

  Richie gave her one of his annoying knowing looks, which made her want to stick her tongue out at him. God, she was reverting to childhood.

  She genuflected—as much as she could, considering the crutch situation—and then hopped on one foot while she tried to figure out what to do with the crutches. You’d think they’d have come up with collapsible crutches by now or at least prettier ones.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Rich took pity on her and laid the crutches on the floor in front of the kneeler. He held her elbow as she scooted into the pew. Not ten seconds after she got her butt settled on the bench, the congregation stood to say the Our Father.

  Mama elbowed Papa in the ribs to wake him.

  Rich gave her a hand getting her butt off the bench. “Nice entrance,” he whispered like he had when they were kids.

  Mama shushed them just like old times, and the Mass went on and on and on.

  When Mass was almost over, Rich retrieved the crutches and walked her out ahead of the crowd, holding the doors open for her as he went. He opened the outer doors, and sunlight spilled in. Annabelle felt as if she could breathe for the first time since she’d arrived. The church wasn’t stifling—it was her parents.

  She enjoyed going to Mass, but she always went alone. She tried to go Saturday afternoon to avoid her parents. She even begged out of Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, claiming she was too tired. With the exception of Rosalie’s wedding, she hadn’t celebrated Mass with her family since before she’d moved to Philadelphia. If Annabelle could have avoided the whole “always the bridesmaid and never the bride” nightmare, she would have skipped that Mass, too.

  After moving away from home, she skipped church more often than not. Once Chip got sick, Mass had kept her sane. She prayed constantly he would survive, and when she was sure he wouldn’t, she prayed for a pain-free passing. God hadn’t granted either.

  She hobbled to the bench outside and lowered herself onto the concrete seat. She shaded her eyes from the sun and squinted at Richie, who looked like he wore a halo. Obviously a trick of the sun. As much as she loved him, Richie was no angel. “Where did you get reservations?”

  Rich sat beside her and held her crutches upright. “At an old friend’s restaurant. He was able to squeeze me in at the last minute.”

  “Is the food good?”

  “Yeah. I haven’t been there in years, but it used to be. I’m sure it still is.”

  “If not, I’m not protecting you from Mama’s wrath. You’re on your own.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  The rest of the family exited the church after shaking the Father’s hand.

  Rich rose and hauled her off the bench. “Are you up for walking a few blocks?”

  “You don’t have your car?”

  “Why would I drive? Everything is within a five-block radius.”

  “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because I fell off a ladder, tore all the tendons in my ankle, and walking on crutches means I’m effectively walking on my hands!” She held her hands out and showed him Band-Aid–covered blisters.

  “Want a piggyback ride?”

  “No. I want a cab ride.”

  “Aw, come on, buck up. It’s just a block and a half.”

  “Sure. Okay. No problem.” She took her crutch and aimed for Richie’s foot, crushing a toe under the rubber-tipped crutch and scarring the Italian brown leather. It felt good to know that she wouldn’t be the only one bucking up because she was in pain.

  Mike loved his mother. He really did. Heck, he even loved Vinny and Mona DiNicola. After all, they were practically family. When you had as few family members as Mike, you appreciated the ones you had. Right now, he was ready to strangle all three of them.

  When he’d arrived at the specified time, Mother’s Day gift in hand, he’d been stunned to see Rita, Mona’s second cousin
, sitting with his mother. Rita was beautiful, tall, bleached blonde, twentysomething, and single. Before Nick’s engagement, she’d gone after him with a single-minded determination that could only be described as scary. Now she seemed to be targeting Mike. Clue number one was when she muscled her grandmother out of the seat next to Mike. The second and third clues were her leaning into him with both her breasts in his face and whispering in his ear.

  Talk about an awkward situation with the potential to turn volatile. The worst part about it was he had no idea how to avoid disaster. Guilt had already invaded his consciousness, and he’d done nothing to deserve it, which made the situation even more egregious, if that was possible. Mike figured that if he was going to feel guilty, he should have at least had the opportunity to do something worthy of guilt. Guilt for something he hadn’t done was just wrong.

  Rita drew the attention of every man in the room because she wore what had to be a Frederick’s of Hollywood skintight dress with a plunging neckline that ended in the vicinity of her navel. Vinny stared at her with a glazed look in his eyes. Most of the men did, but it wasn’t the men who mattered. The back dining room was reserved for “family” members, so every woman who saw Mike and Rita together was directly related to someone in “the family” and had known him since he was in high school. In woman-speak, Mike having a date—even the illusion of a date—at a family affair like this meant he was in a serious relationship, which also meant he was seriously fucked.

  Annabelle’s hair stuck to the back of her neck, her ankle throbbed, and her parents’ cold silence covered everyone around them like a cloud of dry ice fog in a bad production of Macbeth. She kept her head down and hobbled along behind the family. She didn’t pay attention to where they were going, focusing instead on the sidewalk. Annabelle learned from experience that sidewalk bulges from tree-root growth don’t mix well with crutches and should have warning signs.

  She didn’t think Mother’s Day could get any worse until she followed the family through thick wooden doors into the bustling restaurant. She raised her head and was greeted by a hostess. “Welcome to DiNicola’s.”

  “DiNicola’s?” Annabelle had thought her humiliation was over when she hobbled out of church. But no. “Richie, you never told me you made reservations at DiNicola’s.”

  “Hey, you called and told me I had to make reservations for Mother’s Day, remember? Do you have any idea how hard it is to get reservations for brunch on Mother’s Day? Let me tell you. It’s easier to get tickets to a Springsteen concert at the Garden. With Springsteen at least the scalpers are out. You pay through the nose, but you can get tickets. Nobody scalps reservations. It’s a good thing I saw Vinny at Rosalie’s wedding.”

  “Yeah, great.”

  She had a bad feeling about this. She knew Mike planned to take his mother to brunch, so it wasn’t a big stretch to think they’d dine at DiNicola’s. After all, the way he talked about Vinny, you’d think they were related. Annabelle would look like a stalker. Worse, she’d look as if she’d arranged this to meet Mike’s mother. Something she really didn’t want to do—ever. She was oh for two in the impress-the-mother game. Chip’s mother had hated her with a bleeding passion, and Johnny’s mother had tolerated her only because she’d agreed to marry the two-faced, cheating slimeball.

  The thought of meeting Mike’s mother had Annabelle’s stomach preparing for a future meltdown. All systems were a go for the production of acid because one never knew when one might need to burn a hole or two or three in the lining of one’s stomach.

  The hostess smiled. “We’ll walk through the bar into the back dining room. Please follow me.”

  Like a lemming, Annabelle took up the rear and made her way into the crowded bar. When the family stopped, she quit paying attention to the inordinate number of chair legs to trip over and looked to see what the holdup was.

  Ben was the holdup. Ben decked out in a suit. She’d never seen him in a suit. Ever. “What are you doing here?”

  He handed Mama a bouquet of flowers and kissed her powdered cheek. “Thanks for inviting me, Mrs. Ronaldi.”

  “You invited him?” Mama had the audacity to look proud of herself. She smiled as if expecting a compliment. She should have been worried about how much damage a crutch could do.

  “Ben has no family here. Of course, I invited him. When I called for you one day, he answered. I asked if he was going home to spend the holiday with his mother, and he told me both his parents died when he was a little boy. I told him he should come with us.”

  Annabelle speared Ben with a look that had him taking a step back. Damn him and that devilish smirk.

  Richie looked from Ben to her and back again. She gave Rich a shake of the head and received a shrug for her trouble. As if he didn’t believe there was nothing between her and Ben. Hell, she couldn’t blame him. Even she questioned it.

  She waited until the rest of the family moved on before turning on Ben. “Do you mind telling me what the hell is going on here?”

  “What do you mean? Your mother called for you and invited me to join your family for Mother’s Day.”

  “Yes, I understand that, but what in the name of God made you accept such a blatant invitation from my mother? You knew she planned to throw us together.” She poked him with her pointer finger for emphasis. “My mother has had one thing on her mind since I hit puberty—marrying me off.” Poke. “Why would you knowingly submit yourself to my mother’s patented form of torture?” Poke. “And why, if you knew you were coming to dinner, didn’t you mention it yesterday when we closed the gallery together?” Poke. “You had plenty of opportunity. Heck, you could have told me over lunch.”

  Ben took her hand before she could poke him again. “Maybe I wanted to spend time with you outside the gallery and didn’t want it to have anything to do with work.”

  “Don’t you think this might be something you should consult me about?” She pulled her hand from his.

  Ben smiled as if he wasn’t speaking to someone who wanted him dead. “No, not especially.”

  The acid from Annabelle’s stomach made its way to the back of her throat. She swallowed in time to keep it from doing more damage than burning the lining of her esophagus. She resisted the urge to smack him. After all, they were in a public place. Had they been at the gallery, she’d have picked up her crutch and popped him one. Then, after he came to, she’d tell him what she thought of him.

  “You smug, arrogant—”

  Ben put his hand on the small of Annabelle’s back and steered her through the bar and into the back dining room.

  Annabelle stepped into the room, scanned it for her family, but the first person she noticed was Mike. A woman practically sat on his lap. A strange metallic sound drowned out all others, like a constant gong or a cymbal on steroids. She blinked her eyes and hoped she was seeing things, but even her fertile mind couldn’t make up anything like this. She didn’t have that good of an imagination for horror. If she did, she’d be the next Stephen King.

  She turned to Ben as if she’d never seen Mike and smiled. “Our table is over there.” She nodded in the direction and held her head high as Ben, with his hand firmly on her back, led her to the table.

  “Richie Ronaldi.” She turned in the direction of the rich baritone and saw a rotund balding man with one eyebrow and a big smile pushing his way through the melee of the crowded restaurant. Rich stood next to their table and shook the man’s hand. “Vinny, you remember my mother, Maria, my aunt Rose, my little sister, Annabelle, and that’s her… friend Ben Walsh, and my father, Paul.”

  Vinny DiNicola nodded at everyone in turn and gave Annabelle a funny look.

  Annabelle smiled her way through the introductions, Ben put his arm around her waist, and she decided to hit him with her crutch just as soon as she could figure out how to make it look like an accident.

  The look Mike had given her when she and Ben arrived had nothing in common with the one he gave her when they parted company outside her
apartment less than two hours ago. The worst part about it was the guilt written all over Mike’s face.

  She’d been sweating a minute ago, and now she’d entered a deep freeze. The gong in her head increased in volume, and her scalp got that weird prickly pins and needles feeling. She probably should have eaten something that morning. At least then, she’d have something to throw up when the time came.

  She smiled her most pleasant smile as Ben pulled the chair out for her and took her crutches before helping her onto the chair.

  Ben leaned over her shoulder and whispered, “That’s your doctor friend wearing the blonde, isn’t it?”

  Annabelle jerked the napkin off the table and wrung it between her hands on her lap, wishing it were Ben’s neck. “Yes.”

  He pushed her chair in. “Don’t you think it was rude that he didn’t at least say hello?”

  His breath washed over her ear as he whispered. She turned her face to him and found herself close enough for a kiss… or bite. The look on her face must have forecasted the latter since he straightened and took a big step back. “My relationship with Mike is none of your business. Now why don’t you go and sit with my mother since it’s her invitation you accepted.”

  He nodded and left her sitting with a very clear view of Mike and his puttana.

  Mike needed to get his temper under control. He was a doctor for crying out loud. He couldn’t pummel everyone who touched his girlfriend, especially since he had Rita practically dripping off him. It’s hard to act holier-than-thou when you don’t have a leg to stand on.

  There were at least two members of the DiNicola family watching the disaster unfold. Any reaction on his part would be served right along with the antipasti to the entire room.

  Mike ignored Rita and caught his mother’s eye. He widened his eyes and gave a slight shake of his head while tilting it toward Rita. It’s a good thing Rita was known for her bra size, not her intellect.