By Break of Day (The Night Stalkers)

by M. L. Buchman

  He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. Not as he’d seen in Italy, those air kisses, but an actual kiss.

  She slapped lightly at his chest and then rubbed her fingers together. “You’re all wet, bambino. Go change your diapers. I think maybe I will like you.”

  And then her door closed and Justin was left to drip alone in the hall.

  He headed off to find a towel and fresh clothes.

  * * *

  “He is so pretty, Kara.” Marta made a sighing sound that Kara’s brother had better never hear pass her lips. He might have married a singer and went to all of her gigs, but her big brother wasn’t the most understanding sort. Marta continued to dice onions for the sauce.

  “Good manners,” Mama noted with a voice that said she certainly hadn’t missed how pretty he was. She was unwrapping a Tupperware container of lasagna noodles she had brought home from the shop.

  “Justin is—” Kara tried to turn the conversation somewhere, anywhere else.

  “One heck of kisser,” Nonna put in from her perch on the other side of the counter where she now directed rather than cooked.

  They all looked at her, and Kara wondered what form of hell she had walked into. “Nonna!”

  “Old, bambina. Not blind or stupid. I see how you hang on to him when you kiss. Like a woman who is—”

  “Nonna!” Kara cut her off, looking to her mother and sister-in-law for some reprieve.

  Marta began to snigger as she tossed onions into the hot cast-iron skillet. “Paybacks are hard. How much did you tease me when I started dating your brother?”

  Kara grimaced. Every chance I got, was the answer.

  “Now what we all want to know, bambina. If he makes a kiss look so wonderful, how is he the rest of the way?”

  Kara felt the flush of heat roar up to her cheeks, and Nonna smacked the counter with her palm.

  “Good for him, bambina. Good for you. You want a man in your bed who can make you feel that way.”

  Kara glanced at her mother and sister-in-law. They both turned away from her. It was bad enough to think about your parents having sex, but your grandmother? It was more than any of them were ready for.

  Maybe if Justin found his way downstairs to the kitchen, they would stop talking about him.

  “Hey, when’s dinner?”

  Mama looked at the ceiling and swatted Rudi affectionately as he came off the stairs. “Every day the same. It doesn’t matter when I cook, you know it will be done in thirty minutes when my darling boy shows up with an empty stomach. Get the antipasto tray from the refrigerator and take it back up to your papa. You boys be nice to Kara’s young man.”

  “Don’t worry, Mama. Papa and Junior already got that covered.” Rudi took the tray and was eating a rolled-up piece of salami before he hit the stairs back up to the living room.

  “Maybe I should go rescue him.” Kara tried to head out.

  “Maybe you should shred this cheese for the lasagna first.” Her mother handed her several balls of fresh mozzarella.

  “So, Nonna”—Marta tossed some green peppers into the pan, evoking a fresh sizzle—“how good a kisser is he?”

  Kara groaned. She’d been right the first time; no chance of reprieve.

  * * *

  “I must admit, most of the sports in my part of Texas have to do with horses.” Justin knew he was in dangerous territory here. He had met enough Yankees and Mets fans in the service to know better than to ever mention the Astros or the Rangers. And he’d wager that bringing up the Dallas Cowboys and going for a change from baseball to football wouldn’t help matters much either.

  The game on the television was in the sixth inning, the Toronto Blue Jays down by a lot to the Yankees. No one was paying close attention to it, even though that’s where their focus remained as they spoke.

  “We have a good minor league team in Amarillo though. The Amarillo Thunderheads, though they were the Amarillo Sox all while I was growing up.”

  “Like the Red Sox?” Rudi asked, returning with a big plate of individually rolled-up meats alongside olives and some kind of bright green peppers Justin didn’t recognize.

  “Same spelling, but not as good.”

  “You think the Red Sox are any good?” Joe, Kara’s middle brother, jumped in as if looking for any angle of attack.

  Justin opened his mouth, then realized that he was about to praise the Yankees’ main rivals, the Boston Red Sox. He’d always felt a kindness toward them just because of that same s-o-x spelling. He closed his mouth again.

  “I see you’re a smart one, Justin.” Mr. Moretti spoke. “Don’t let my boys rattle you none. Though if you said something nice about the Phillies…” He left the threat hanging.

  Justin didn’t really follow baseball very closely. Was he supposed to praise or despise the Philadelphia team? Despise, he decided. New Yorkers looked down on everywhere outside their city limits.

  “I’d never do such a thing, sir.”

  Mr. Moretti grunted in a pleased way that didn’t seem to have much to do with one team or another. He ate one of the pickled peppers.

  Justin tried one, biting it cautiously in the middle. It exploded with liquid that dribbled down his chin and burned where he’d just shaved.

  “You have to bite pepperoncini off close to the stem and eat them whole, son. Can’t take just a part and end up with anything good.”

  And it was clear that Mr. Moretti wasn’t talking about pickled peppers either.

  * * *

  By the fourth knock on his bedroom door, Justin had pretty much given up on sleep. Marta, Angela, and even Nonna had each wanted to “just make sure he was comfortable.”

  Marta had delivered a glass of warm milk.

  Mrs. Moretti had brought him a delicate china plate of some chocolate cookies called baci that went very well with the milk.

  Nonna had actually giggled like a far younger woman when he offered her one. How was he supposed to know that baci meant kisses in Italian? He’d been given a plate of “kiss” cookies and offered one to a woman fifty years his senior.

  Now the fourth knock repeated and Justin wondered if it was Alfonso Moretti Senior showing up with his .38 Special, Al Junior with a Taser, or Joe with a butcher’s knife. Only Rudi had given him any sign of friendliness. Apparently Kara’s approval was all Rudi needed to know.

  “Yes, come in.” He wanted to hide beneath the covers.

  “Kinda terse greeting for a cowboy.” Kara slipped into the room. Her flannel robe was nearly floor length, but the backlight from the hall revealed that it was a light material, and plenty of her shape was silhouetted to fire up his imagination and other parts of his body.

  “Kara, go away,” he whispered to her, knowing it wouldn’t work.

  She stepped in and closed the door behind her.

  A streetlight shone through a gap in the front curtains that he hadn’t found the energy to get out of bed and fix.

  Kara pulled a string at her throat and shrugged. Her robe shimmered down to the floor, leaving her naked and him breathless.

  All through dinner and that evening, they had been so close, yet unable to touch. Well, not unable; she’d seemed willing enough. But Justin couldn’t find it in himself while his every word or gesture was being weighed and considered. He’d been poked, prodded, and scored like a prize cow at the Tri-State Fair in Amarillo.

  Now she shimmered. The sliver of light rippled over her as she moved through it, offering momentary views of curve and shadow, of muscles and a gleaming smile.

  Against his own better judgment, he shifted back and held the covers up for her as she slid into his bed. And then he did as had been suggested: he made the best love to her he knew how.

  Chapter 17

  Nonna was watching her when she woke…

  Kara flinched.

 
She was in Justin’s bed in the guest room. She’d meant to merely use his body, then sneak back up to her own room. But he had made the night shine and her body burn. When he at long last had thoroughly had his way with her, for there was no question about who’d taken the lead last night, she’d slid into a contented slumber in his arms.

  Kara enjoyed being the dominant one in bed, guiding and controlling. But last night Justin had found some weird corner of her soul that wanted to be pampered and coddled, and that she didn’t recognize at all in the morning’s light.

  Now she was alone, except for Nonna looking down at her.

  And smiling.

  “Your grandfather needed me just so much.”

  “What? How much?” Kara immediately wished she hadn’t asked.

  “So much that he make me smile the way you now smile, mia cara. For forty-seven years he make me smile that way.” Her smile grew wistful. “It is good when a man needs a woman so fiercely.” She brushed at the corners of her eyes and turned quickly back for her room.

  “Nonna?” But she was gone.

  Kara clambered out of Justin’s bed, slipped on her nightgown, and made the bed before slipping up to her own room.

  A Post-it note was stuck clearly for all to see on the middle of her own bedroom door.

  Gone for a walk. J.

  Like that would fool anyone. It certainly hadn’t fooled Nonna. Still, it was nice of him to make the effort to protect her honor.

  She grabbed some clothes and headed for the shower. The water ran hot, if with a familiar lack of force. She got herself wet in the first thirty seconds, then soaped with the water turned off. As she was getting ready for the ninety-second rinse off, she remembered this wasn’t a shipboard Navy shower and she could take her time. That was one of the hardest things about long hair—getting it clean within the water conservation rules at sea.

  Even serving at Clovis in the New Mexico desert, they’d had a more generous water allowance. Kara had always remembered how much she’d loved Mama’s long hair and how she’d wept the day Mama cut it shoulder length. Papa had not looked much happier, though Mama had.

  As soon as Kara shifted over to Special Operations at SOAR and learned that they allowed longer hair, she’d gone for it. Anywhere but the 5D, she’d have had to trim it back. Justin’s deep appreciation of her hair was yet another reason to keep it long despite the logistics issues.

  Justin.

  He was starting to get on her nerves, though her nerves weren’t complaining.

  When they’d been granted leave, he’d come home with her. He’d done it without asking, as if it was the most natural thing. Maybe it was for him. Not caring a bit about it being her home and her family, just caring about sex and sating his own desires.

  Except that sounded nothing like Justin and a whole lot like her. She’d followed her fair share of boys right into their kitchens and their bedrooms—and to hell with what the parents thought.

  Justin had chosen the guest bedroom and tried to turn her away.

  Damn the man for being decent. What was up with that anyway?

  She slapped off the water, wrapped her hair in one towel, and began rubbing herself down with another.

  Kara hadn’t asked him home, though she’d been pleased when he came with her. Admit it! If he’d gone to Texas, you’d be on the phone every night to see what he was doing.

  And if it was distance she’d wanted, she’d done a lousy job of that last night.

  Kara dragged on fresh clothes and found her old hair dryer tucked in the back of the sink cabinet. As she bent forward to hang her head and hair upside down, she had to admit that Nonna was right.

  The man put a smile on her face. Even now, the bastard. Here she was wearing a perfectly decent frown, but with her head upside down and her hair hanging down, her mouth was curved upward like a smile.

  He didn’t have any right!

  Any right to what? Make her feel like she was loved?

  She caught her comb in a snarl of hair at that moment and almost ripped off a chunk of her scalp in her surprise.

  Loved?

  No way in hell had this soldier signed up for that.

  Her hair was only half dry, but that was just tough. She chucked the dryer back under the counter still running, then unplugged it and heaved the cord in after.

  Kara caused herself a surprising amount of pain with the comb before she’d tamed the multiple snarls. At one point she was almost angry enough to pull the shears out of the drawer and chop the whole damn mess off.

  But she resisted, managed a decent ponytail, then headed off on a search-and-destroy mission.

  Target?

  Justin soon-to-be-bloody Roberts.

  * * *

  Justin was on his cell phone when Kara walked into the kitchen. Her hair shone. With a bit of a jolt, he realized that this was the first time he’d seen her in civilian girl clothes. A light blouse hid more of her shape than an Army sand-colored T-shirt, but it told more of the woman within. Instead of khakis and Army boots, she wore formfitting jeans and running shoes. She was always breathtaking, but now she was pure woman and it stunned his brain to mush.

  For a moment, he forgot about the voice buzzing in his ear. Then he held out a hand to her. She stepped forward and took it.

  Then with a practiced flex and twist she had it twisted against the small of his back and leveraged it to crash his face down on the counter.

  He managed to hang on to his phone. “I’ll have to call you back, Ma, but it will be great to see you. Give my love to everyone. Bye now.”

  Justin found the off switch, then hooked a foot behind Kara’s knee and swept her in the direction that would ease the pressure on his arm.

  She was stronger than he expected, even after their various tussles between the sheets, but he was able overpower her. She went for a cheap shot that he barely managed to block with a thigh.

  He finally latched an arm around her waist and her arms. Hooking a leg around hers, he managed to fall back against the refrigerator for support.

  She pounded her head back against him, hard enough to shatter his nose if she’d been taller. Instead, her head bounced off his chest.

  Kara kept squirming until he shook her. “Cut that out, Moretti. Hell of a ‘good morning’ for a man you made love to only a few hours ago.”

  His comment seemed to take the wind out of whatever was happening.

  He picked her up by the waist and set her on one of the kitchen stools. Then he backed off quickly just in case she was going to go for another poke at him.

  “Now…” He blew out a breath when she didn’t attack right away. “What in the name of the Lord Almighty was that about?”

  “You bastard!”

  “Ma and Dad might argue with that.” He shot for a little lightness until he figured out what was going on.

  “I’d still be right.”

  “So much for the power of humor.” Maybe he’d just wait her out.

  “You made love to me.”

  Justin debated, but Kara wasn’t moving. Somehow this was normal in her family, right out in the kitchen. In his family there would never be this conversation to begin with. And if there was, it would be held out in the back corral with no one but the horses to overhear.

  “Yes, to answer your question, I made love to you last night. I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”

  Kara folded her arms on the counter, rested her head on them, then screamed in frustration.

  “Could I at least know the offense I committed?” Justin did his best to sound reasonable but rather suspected that he sounded totally pleased with himself. Kara Moretti could certainly please a man thoroughly. “We have made love many times as I recall.”

  “No. No, we haven’t.” She didn’t raise her head. “I wasn’t making love. I was having the best
goddamn sex of my life, Cowboy, but Kara Moretti, I can assure you, doesn’t ‘make love.’ Ever!”

  Justin felt as if he’d just been punched by an Abrams M1 battle tank.

  “Oh,” Nonna remarked from the doorway. “Why do I think I walk in at just the perfect moment?”

  “Go away, Nonna,” Kara snarled at her without bothering to raise her head.

  If her grandmother felt any surprise, she didn’t show it. “Don’t you mind me. I’m going to be quiet as a mouse. I need to make lunch for my son-in-law and his boys.” And she moved right into the kitchen.

  Once she was past Kara, Nonna winked encouragement at Justin, an encouragement he certainly wasn’t feeling at the moment.

  He and Kara—

  They’d— “And stop winking!” Kara snarled without looking up.

  Was it possible he was so wrong?

  Nonna raised her hands as if in shock, but her smile didn’t fade in the slightest as she began slicing bread and fishing items out of the refrigerator.

  Kara looked up and glared at him for a long moment.

  He did his best to kept his churning emotions off his face.

  Then Kara turned on her stool to face her grandmother. “Please tell me this gets easier.”

  Nonna shook her head, then reached out to pat Kara’s cheek.

  Justin already knew the answer to that one. It didn’t.

  “Not in love. Not no way. Not ever!” Kara snarled at her grandmother as if he wasn’t even in the room.

  * * *

  The words tasted bitter in her throat. They caught and burned.

  Kara wanted to be sick, to curse, to cry.

  Instead her chest simply knotted up so tight she couldn’t breathe. It knotted until it hurt like she’d been shot—sucking chest wound. The “sucky” part was right at least. All she could hear was her pulse pounding in her ears and her lungs’ lame attempts to catch a breath.

  She couldn’t turn back to face him, couldn’t stand to see the look she knew would be on Justin’s features. Kara was searching for some nerve—she’d never been a fan of cowardly until this moment—when Nonna spoke.