For as long as Jordyn could remember, her parents and sisters had gathered together with all the aunts, uncles and cousins for a potluck meal in the park. Over the years, the number and composition of the family had changed. Many of the cousins that she’d played with when they were all kids were busy with kids of their own now.
The summer that she and Brian were engaged, he’d been here with her. She’d loved having him by her side, watching her cousins with their spouses and their children and counting the months and weeks until the wedding when she and Brian wouldn’t just be engaged but actually married. Except that had never happened, and before the next summer, she was alone again.
She shook off the melancholy and glanced over at the picnic tables, where she spotted Lauryn and Rob in conversation. Lauryn must have asked him something, because Rob shook his head, then his wife shrugged and walked away.
“I’m craving ice cream,” she said to Jordyn. “So Kylie and I are going for a walk to see if we can find some. Do you want to come with us?”
“Ice cream before dinner?” Jordyn feigned disapproval, then she winked at Kylie. “Of course.”
They headed away from the family gathering.
“Rob didn’t want ice cream?”
Lauryn shook her head. “He said if he starts catering to my whims now, I’ll keep him running for the next seven months.”
Jordyn clenched her jaw to hold back her instinctive response.
“He’s not thrilled about the baby,” her sister admitted, fighting back tears. “He says we can’t afford another child right now.”
Jordyn wished her sister’s husband was there so she could remind him that Lauryn didn’t get pregnant on her own—and then so she could smack him in the head for being such an ass. Since he wasn’t there, she slid an arm across her sister’s shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “He’ll come around.”
“I hope so.” She tried to smile, but failed. “After all, it’s not as if I can take the pregnancy test back to the pharmacy and ask for one with only one line instead of two.”
“And if you could?” Jordyn asked gently.
“I wouldn’t.” Lauryn responded without hesitation. “I want Kylie to have a brother or a sister—hopefully one that she’ll feel as close to one day as I do with you and Tristyn.”
“Do you know why two sisters are better than one?”
“Why?”
“One to help bury the body and the other to be your alibi.”
This time Lauryn’s smile came easily. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
* * *
Marco didn’t think there was any chance his grandparents would change their plans for the holiday, so he wasn’t just surprised but a little suspicious when they agreed that it might be fun to celebrate the Fourth of July at Arbor Park. Although there was some grumbling from Salvatore—“we’ll probably have to park so far away, we might as well walk from home”—but everyone seemed willing to check out the town’s festivities.
Their acquiescence made Marco wonder if the big family celebration might be too much for the elderly couple—not that either of his grandparents would ever admit as much. And although his mom and aunts helped with the food, Nonna still did the majority of the cooking, and he was glad that, this year at least, things would be a little easier for her.
Because Renata didn’t feel up to standing around in the heat for an hour to wait for the parade to start, Marco offered to go ahead with the girls so they wouldn’t miss it. After the last float had passed, they turned with the rest of the crowd to head into the park.
They didn’t make it far before Anna spotted the face-painting tent, and he let her drag him inside. There weren’t too many kids waiting in line, but when it was her turn, she still hadn’t been able to decide whether she wanted to be a butterfly or a kitty cat. Unexpectedly it was Bella who made up her mind first, going in a completely different direction and choosing to be painted like a dinosaur.
Half an hour later, he walked out of the tent with a grinning kitty cat holding on to one hand and a ferocious triceratops latched on to the other.
“Look, Uncle Marco—there’s the lady from the shoe store.”
He stopped abruptly, forcing others on the same path to move around him. He didn’t know how Anna could have spotted Jordyn through the crowd, but she had. Jordyn was there, walking beside her sister, Lauryn, and a little girl who looked younger than Bella.
“Her name’s Jordyn,” he reminded his eldest niece, which she interpreted as an invitation to yell out, “Hi, Jordyn.”
Jordyn paused in midstep and turned, surprise—and a hint of wariness—on her face when she saw him with his nieces. But she smiled as he guided the girls over.
He knew Lauryn, but he didn’t know she had a daughter—and there was no doubt the toddler clinging to her shorts was hers. Jordyn introduced him to her niece—Kylie—then introduced the little girl to his nieces.
“Raarr!” Bella said, making a snarly face to show her teeth. “I’m a scawy twi-zair-o-sop.”
“Triceratops,” Marco corrected her.
“You are very scary,” Jordyn said.
Kylie seemed to agree, as she hid her face behind her mother’s leg.
“Are you a scary triceratops who eats little girls?” Lauryn asked.
Bella’s eyes grew wide with horror at the possibility, and she shook her head vigorously. “I eats ice cweam.”
“Well, it just so happens that we’re on our way to get ice cream,” Lauryn told her. Then she asked Marco, “Is it okay if I take them over?”
He nodded, grateful for the opportunity for a few minutes alone with Jordyn.
“I like this look,” he said, his gaze skimming from her sandals to her short shorts and halter-style top, admiring all the smooth, tanned skin on display.
“It’s hot,” she said, just a little defensively.
“Very hot,” he agreed, taking a step closer to brush a quick kiss on her lips.
“What are you doing here, Marco?”
“Celebrating the Fourth of July,” he told her.
“You told me that your grandparents usually have a get-together at their place.”
“Usually they do,” he confirmed. “But this year, they decided to do something different.”
“Just this year? Out of the blue?”
He understood her skepticism. After all, the last time he’d seen her—two days earlier—he’d asked her to celebrate the holiday with his family at his grandparents’ house. Not surprisingly, she’d said no.
“Okay, I might have made the suggestion that played a part in their decision,” he acknowledged.
“Why?” she asked warily.
He shook his head. “I don’t know whether to be amused or frustrated by your deliberate obtuseness.”
She frowned at that.
“I suggested that we come here because I wanted to spend the day with you and you turned down my invitation to go there,” he explained patiently.
“I turned down your invitation because, while I’m sure your family is wonderful, I didn’t want them making the kind of assumptions about our relationship that tend to be made when a guy takes a girl home to meet his family.”
“What kind of assumptions are those?” he asked.
“Now who’s being obtuse?”
It was an effort to hold back the smile that wanted to curve his lips in response to the frustration in her tone. “If you’re worried that they’ll assume you’re important to me, you shouldn’t—because they already know it.”
“I feel so much better now.”
“Good,” he said, choosing to ignore her sarcasm. “Now I should get the girls and track down the rest of the family.”
“And I need to get back to help my mom and the aunts get dinner set out.”
“Are you staying for the fireworks tonight?”
“They’re my favorite part of the day,” she admitted.
“Then I’ll come find you later so we can watch them together.”
“It might not be that easy,” she said. “It’s a big park and there are a lot of people here.”
“I’ll see you later,” he promised, and kissed her again before wandering over to the picnic table in the shade where Anna and Bella were sitting with Lauryn and Kylie, trying to eat their ice-cream cones before they melted away.
Chapter Fourteen
It turned out that she saw him sooner rather than later.
When Jordyn, Lauryn and Kylie returned to their usual picnic area, she discovered that Marco’s family had somehow found their way to the same spot.
“This was a setup,” Jordyn grumbled.
“If it was, I had nothing to do with it,” Lauryn assured her.
“Tristyn,” she decided. “There’s no way he could have known where to find us unless she told him.”
“You’re probably right,” her sister agreed. “But instead of scowling at her, you might consider saying thank-you.”
“We’ll see how this goes,” she said.
Afterward, she could acknowledge that it had gone fairly well. In fact, with so many of each of their respective family members gathered together and everyone being introduced to everyone else, there was less of an emphasis on Jordyn meeting Marco’s family and vice versa. Still, she didn’t think it was a coincidence that his grandmother lingered to make conversation with her, or that her father cornered Marco for a chat. And when she saw her mother and his with their heads close together, she was more uneasy than reassured.
When it came time to eat, the two families pooled their culinary offerings so there was no shortage of food—quantity or selection. In addition to the standard potato salad and pasta salad, baked beans, fried okra and spicy potato wedges, there were trays of lasagna and penne with meatballs and green salad and crusty rolls. When everyone had their fill of those offerings, dessert was put out: platters of fresh fruit, lemon squares, double chocolate brownies and cannoli.
“Marco mentioned that those are a particular favorite of yours,” his mother commented when Jordyn put a cannoli on her plate.
“I would suspect they’re a favorite of everyone who has tasted them,” Jordyn said.
“They are a popular dessert at the restaurant,” Donnaleesa acknowledged, smiling as Bella raced over to steal one from the tray. “And family gatherings.”
“The way this family is growing, you’re going to have to share that recipe and let someone help you with the baking,” Renata chimed in.
“You’re a good cook, but you have no patience for baking,” her mother chided.
“I wasn’t thinking of me, but Francesca.”
Donnaleesa glanced around the gathering until she found her eldest son and his fiancée, then nodded. “Maybe I’ll talk to her about it after the wedding.”
“In the meantime—” Nata linked her arm through her mother’s and began guiding Donnaleesa away, sending a conspiratorial wink over her shoulder to Jordyn “—maybe you can talk to Dad about the tree house he promised to build for his granddaughters.”
After dinner and dessert were cleared away and the kids finally stopped running around, the parents of the younger ones started to round them up to take them home before the fireworks.
Renata and Craig tried to convince Anna and Bella that it was time to go, but the girls wanted to stay because Kylie was staying.
Jordyn took a seat on the top of the picnic table, with her feet on the bench. She’d pulled a hooded sweater over her head, more to deter the mosquitoes than to ward off any chill in the air. Marco sat beside her, so close that their legs were in contact from hip to knee, then he took her hand in his and linked their fingers. It was nice—sitting quietly in the dark, holding hands and snuggling close together. She almost felt like a teenager again, except that she and Marco had done all kinds of things she’d never dreamed of as a teenager.
Before the fireworks were over, her cousin Justin, an ER doctor, was paged to go into the hospital. Unfortunately, his car was blocked so Tristyn offered to take him, leaving Jordyn without transportation. She could have asked for a lift from any one of her relatives who were left, but she decided to take Lauryn’s advice and be grateful for the opportunity.
“Any chance I can get a ride home?” she asked Marco. “My sister abandoned me—again.”
“This is getting to be a habit,” he noted.
“At least this time, she had a good excuse—she had to give Justin a lift to the hospital.”
“I’d be happy to give you a ride home,” he said. “Or back to my place.”
“Are you inviting me for a sleepover?”
“You don’t have to work early tomorrow, do you?”
“No, but I don’t have my pajamas.”
“That’s okay—you’re not going to need them.”
* * *
With the renovations at the new restaurant in full swing, Marco started most of his days there. And though it was only a short walk from her house, Jordyn never ventured over to say hello or check on the progress they were making. Probably because there were always numerous and various other members of his family also on-site helping out, and, even after meeting everyone on the Fourth of July, she was still wary of being labeled his “girlfriend.”
So he was taken aback when, a week and a half later, she walked over to the site.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” he said, steering her to a quiet corner where they’d be out of the way of the painters.
“I got something in the mail that I wanted to show you.”
He took the envelope she offered, noted the registered mark and the return address.
“You entered the contest,” he realized, proud that she’d done so and a little disappointed that she hadn’t told him before now.
She lifted a shoulder. “You made me believe I had a shot.”
He opened the flap and pulled out a sheaf of papers.
Congratulations on being selected one of five finalists in A. K. Channing’s “Search for a New World Design.”
He couldn’t have prevented the smile from spreading across his face if he wanted to—and he didn’t want to. “And now you know that I’m not the only one who can see your talent. Jordyn, this is incredible news.” He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight. “I’m so happy for you.”
“I think I’ll be happy, too,” she said. “Once I get over the shock.”
He chuckled. “What did your sisters say? Your parents? They must all be so proud of you.”
“I haven’t told anyone else yet—I wanted you to be the first.”
That admission took most of the sting out of his earlier disappointment. “So what’s the next step?”
“I’ve been given a short scene to illustrate, and I’m supposed to go to New York City to present my work to a panel of judges.”
“What do you mean ‘supposed to go’?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure it wouldn’t be a waste of my time.”
“How can you say that? This is the opportunity of a lifetime,” he told her.
“Is it an opportunity?” she wondered. “Or a pipe dream?”
“It’s your dream—and you should go for it.”
But still she hesitated. “I don’t want to get my hopes up.”
“You were chosen as one of five finalists out of—” he glanced at the letter again “—more than a thousand entries. Your hopes shouldn’t just be up, they should be dancing and singing and throwing confetti. And you should be booking your flight to New York City.”
“You really think I should go?”
“Defin
itely,” he said. “And if you want some company...I’ve always wanted to visit New York City.”
“You’ve never been?”
He shook his head. “You?”
“A few times,” she admitted.
“Then you could show me around.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip, obviously tempted but still resistant.
“Come on, Jordyn—you can’t tell me it’s your ambition to serve drinks at O’Reilly’s for the rest of your life.”
She’d almost managed to convince herself that it was, that she didn’t need or want anything more. Until Marco had encouraged her to take this chance. He’d nurtured the seed of a long-forgotten dream and it was starting to grow in her heart. But the bloom was still fragile, tentative.
“I like my job,” she said, just a little defensively.
“That’s not the point.”
She took the letter back from him and tucked it into the pocket of her shorts. “And I don’t see how you can take off for a weekend with the opening of the new restaurant on the horizon.”
“I can because this is important to you and you’re important to me.”
“You’d really go with me?”
“Absolutely.” He kissed her softly. “Maybe we could even catch a Yankees game while we’re in the city.”
She smiled. “You sure know how to tempt a girl.”
“I promise you—baseball tickets are only the beginning.”
* * *
“I’ve decided on a date for O’Reilly’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration,” Wade said to Jordyn when she arrived at the pub for her evening shift a few nights later.
“The first weekend in October is the twenty-fifth anniversary,” Jordyn reminded him.
He shook his head. “Business is too slow in October.”
“Which is what makes the timing so perfect—it gives us an excuse to do something big to bring customers out.”
The Bachelor Takes a Bride (Those Engaging Garretts!) Page 16