“And fell in love,” Ally confirmed. “Why wouldn’t I? Jon is great.”
PJ flipped the steaks. He didn’t reply, just concentrated on the steaks, moved the foil-wrapped corn, totally absorbed in what he was doing. So absorbed that Ally wondered if he had even heard her.
Or maybe he had no comment. That was more likely the case.
And really, beyond “Where do I sign?” what did she want him to say?
“Can I help?” she asked. “Make the salad? Set the table?”
“Why don’t you make the salad. Use what I bought and whatever you want from the refrigerator. Stick the bread in the oven, too, will you? Then it will be ready when the steaks are.”
Grateful for something to keep herself occupied, Ally hurried back into the kitchen. Like the living room and the dining area she’d passed through on the way, it had walls of exposed brick, too. The cabinets were a light oak, the appliances stainless steel. They were all a far cry from the apartment-size stove and bar-size fridge he’d had on Oahu, and despite her insistence that she just wanted his signature and then she would be out of his life, she found that she was curious about how he lived, who he’d become.
She set about making the salad, periodically glancing back at PJ, who stood silently watching over the steaks. On one level it seemed so natural, so mundane—a husband and wife making supper at the end of a day.
On the other, to be casually cooking dinner with PJ Antonides, as if they were a simple married couple, seemed almost surreal.
She finished the salad and put it on the table, then opened the cupboards looking for plates. His kitchen was rather spare but reasonably well equipped. Obviously he was no stranger to cooking. Did he do it often? Did he have girlfriends who came and cooked for him?
A vision of Annie Cannavaro flashed through her head.
She’d told him about Jon, but he hadn’t said a word about the women in his life. The newspaper article had made it clear that there were plenty of them. No one special, though?
Would he tell her if she asked?
She didn’t get a chance. When he came back with the steaks a few minutes later, he said, “So tell me about how you got started with the fabric art. I remember you made some funky stuff back in the ‘old days,’ but I was surprised when you turned it into your profession.”
She wondered if he was going to have another dig at her for her behavior at the opening in Honolulu. But he seemed actually interested, and so she explained. “When I was in California and I got a job in a fabric store while I was going to school, it seemed like something to explore further. I had access to stuff I didn’t ordinarily have. So I got to try things. Experiment, you know.”
He put a steak on her plate and one on his, then unwrapped the corn from the foil and added an ear to each of their plates. She dished up the salad, then cut the bread. He refilled her wineglass and got himself another beer. They sat down. “Right. Experimenting. I did that with the windsurfer. I know what you mean. Go on. I’m listening,” he prompted.
She hesitated, torn between wanting to tell him how she’d gone from being a mere girl with dreams to a woman who had realized them and wanting to know more about his windsurfer, which had ultimately brought him here. And of course at the same time she realized that neither one was the reason she’d agreed to have dinner with him.
He gave her a patient smile across the table. “We’ve got ten years to catch up on, Al, minus one night. We’re going to be here a while. So talk. Or are you—”
“—chicken?” she finished for him with a knowing smile.
He gave her an unrepentant grin.
“Fine. Here it is in a nutshell.”
And she began to talk again. Maybe she could bore him into signing the divorce papers. While they ate, she began the canned account of how she got into her business, the one she hauled out whenever she was interviewed.
But PJ wasn’t content with that. He asked questions, drew her out. “Were you scared?” he asked her when she was describing the start-up of her first shop.
“Chicken?” she asked wryly.
“No, really nervous.”
She understood the difference. And she nodded. “Felt like I was stepping off into space,” she agreed, and recounted the scary times she’d spent on her own, learning what she was capable of, learning what she liked and what she didn’t, learning who she was, apart from her father’s not-so-dutiful daughter.
It wasn’t something she usually did. Ally had learned early that too much reflection meant that she wouldn’t get anything done at all. She’d think about things too much, worry about them too much, and so she’d taught herself to weigh her options just long enough to see a clear direction. Then she moved ahead.
She didn’t spend a lot of time looking back or analyzing what she’d done. She’d just done it and gone on.
And while she was busy doing, no one was close enough to her or interested enough to ask.
Even when she’d come home, the questions had been few. Her aunt Grace had been impressed. Her father had been too ill to care, and too glad she was home to do more than give thanks that she was there.
Jon thought anything she did was wonderful. He was proud of her. But he was always busy himself. And Ally knew that saving lives was far more important than her “sewing projects” even though he’d never actually said so. He never said much at all about them.
PJ, on the other hand, kept tossing out questions.
And Ally kept answering.
Maybe she answered so expansively because she was proud of what she’d done. Maybe it was to make sure he understood that she had truly taken advantage of the opportunity he’d given her by marrying her, that she’d built something to be proud of, not merely escaped. Maybe it was to show him that she really wasn’t the immature rude person she’d been five years ago.
And maybe, she admitted to herself, it was what happened when she found someone interested enough to really listen.
By the time they had finished dinner, she was aware that she had talked more than she’d talked in ages—and PJ had said very little. He sat there, nursing his beer, tipped back in his chair, watching her from beneath hooded lids.
Her awareness of his scrutiny had made Ally keep talking. But finally she stopped and said firmly, “Enough about me. Tell me about you.”
It could be opening a Pandora’s box.
She might well be better off not knowing anything more about the man who was her husband. But she couldn’t not ask. Besides, she really wanted to know.
“You read the newspaper article.” He stood up and began to clear the table.
“As you said, blah, blah, blah.”
He paused, his hands full of plates. “They got the basics right. More wine?”
Ally shook her head. “No, thanks.” She was mellow enough. She needed to move things along. At the back of her mind she could imagine talking to Jon in the morning, facing again the question about whether she’d got things settled.
“So you don’t want to talk about what you’ve been up to?” she pressed. “I thought this was ‘catching up’ time.”
“I work. I play a little softball. When I have a free weekend I go out to Long Island and surf.”
“You’re living a completely monkish existence, then?”
He grinned. “Doing my best.”
Ally rolled her eyes. That certainly wasn’t what the article had indicated. But before she could question him further, the doorbell rang.
“Wonder who that could be,” PJ murmured as he rinsed the plates and stuck them in the dishwasher.
“Probably your friend Manny from the grocery store, wanting you to make it to the game.” Ally stood up, figuring it was time to go anyway.
But PJ shook his head. “He knows better. Sit down,” he said. “I’ll see who it is. Get rid of them.”
She hesitated. But he was already heading toward the front of the apartment.
Ally knew she really should be going. There was no point i
n staying here any longer. PJ wasn’t going to let her use the opportunity to convince him to sign the divorce papers. And as pleasant as it had turned out to be, just sitting around shooting the breeze with him, it was a bad idea.
It was diverting her from her objective. It was making her fall back into the easy familiarity she’d always felt with PJ. Worst of all, it was making her remember the night she’d spent making love with him.
That was past, she reminded herself. Jon was her future.
From the living room she heard voices. PJ’s and others’. He wasn’t, apparently, “getting rid of them” because as she listened the voices grew closer.
“…don’t believe a word of it, for heaven’s sake!” a woman’s voice said as she came through the doorway and found herself staring straight at Ally.
And Ally found herself staring back at a pixieish woman around thirty with spiky black hair and the most beautifully expressive dark eyes she’d ever seen.
The eyes gaped at her, then flashed accusingly at PJ.
“You mean,” the woman demanded, “it’s true? You really do have a wife?”
CHAPTER FOUR
PJ APPEARED in the doorway behind her. “I told you—”
But the woman cut him off. “As if you ever told me the truth.” She dismissed him with a briskness that made Ally blink. Then the other woman’s hard level gaze swiveled back again to zero in on her. “So,” she said, “you’re PJ’s wife?”
The wealth of doubt and the hard edge of challenge in her voice brought Ally to her feet. They also made her do the one thing she never expected to do.
“Yes,” she said, “I am.” And she met the woman’s gaze with a frank, firm stare of her own. “And who are you?”
Because if this short-haired brunette with her chiseled cheekbones, scarlet lips and tough-girl attitude was one of the women in PJ’s life, Ally knew one thing for sure: she was obviously going to have to rescue him from this female’s possessive talons before she moved on.
The woman blinked, as if surprised by the question, then drew herself up straight. “I? I’m Cristina.”
“My sister, God help me,” PJ put in.
“And me,” Cristina retorted.
Before Ally could do more than gape, another voice said dryly, “God should really have had mercy on their mother.” And a thirtyish man carrying a preschool-aged boy followed PJ and his sister into the room. “Imagine having those two as twins.”
Twins?
But even as she heard the word, Ally remembered PJ once remarking that he had a twin. She’d envisioned a cookie-cutter PJ. A less likely looking twin than Cristina was hard to imagine.
PJ’s sister was as short as he was tall. Her eyes were brown; his were green. Admittedly they had the same dark hair. But that was the only similarity Ally could see.
“I’m Mark, Cris’s husband.” The man holding the child offered his hand to Ally with the easy acceptance that his wife completely lacked. “And this is Alex.” He jiggled the little boy in his arms. “And your name is…?”
“Ally.” Ally shook his hand, smiled at him, winked at Alex who hid his face in his father’s shoulder, then peeked at her when he thought she wouldn’t notice. He did resemble his uncle, and she had a fleeting sense of what PJ must have looked like as a little boy. Too cute for his own good. She shoved the thought away. “Alice Maruyama…Antonides.”
PJ’s sister snorted at that. “Where’d you come from?”
“Play nice, Cristina,” PJ said gruffly, stepping between them. “Ally came from Hawaii.” He gave his sister a hard look that shut her mouth long enough for him to add, “How about some wine? Beer? You’re just in time for dessert. We’ve got pineapple.”
“Don’t change the subject, PJ.” Cristina was still eyeing Ally like an eagle sizing up its prey. “If she’s your wife—”
“She is my wife.”
“Then I want to know all about her. We didn’t believe him when he said he was married,” she told Ally as if he weren’t standing right there. “We thought he was just trying to avoid all the women Ma and Pa were trying to shove down his throat.”
“Cristina—” PJ said sharply.
“I’ll take a beer,” Mark cut in. “Sit down,” he said to his wife while PJ went to the refrigerator to get one. “You’re making Ally nervous.”
“Good,” Cristina said frankly. “If she doesn’t have anything to hide she’ll be fine.”
“What could she have to hide?” Mark looked intrigued.
“Who knows? Where’s she been. What’s she been doing.
Why she’s here now.” Cristina ticked off plenty of possibilities. All the while studying Ally as if she had her under a microscope. “Maybe she’s after his money.”
“Well, she certainly isn’t after his well-behaved relatives,” Mark grinned. “Cristina can be a little, um, protective.”
“She thinks I can’t fight my own battles,” PJ said dryly, coming back to hand his brother-in-law a beer.
“Because I’m older than you,” Cristina said loftily.
PJ rolled his eyes. “Four minutes.”
“And I’m married—”
“So am I—”
“Which, amazingly, seems to be true. At least, you seem to have produced a wife.”
“I didn’t produce her. I married her.”
“But you don’t live with her, either. I, on the other hand, live with my spouse. Always have. And I have a child. So I have a wealth of domestic experience you don’t have,” she said to her brother with a smug grin. “And I’m looking out for your best interests. So go out in the garden and talk to Mark about his trip. Or baseball. Or boats. And let me do my sisterly duty. Go!” she said again when neither man moved.
Mark looked at PJ. “Your fault.”
“I didn’t invite her over,” PJ protested.
“As if you could have kept her away once she found out Ally was here.” Mark laughed and shook his head. “You know what Cristina is like when she’s got the bit between her teeth. Might as well let her get on with it.”
How had they found out she was here? Ally wondered. But she didn’t ask. She just turned to PJ and said stoutly, “Go on. I’m perfectly happy to talk to your sister. I don’t need you.”
PJ’s brows lifted. But Ally met his gaze squarely. And after a long moment he turned to face his sister.
“Do not alienate my wife,” he instructed.
Cristina looked indignant. “As if I would!”
“You would,” he said with conviction, “if you thought it was a good idea. I’m telling you it’s not.”
Brother and sister stared at each other. It was like watching mortal combat—death by eye contact.
Clearly his sister brought out a side of PJ that Ally had never seen before. He didn’t look particularly upset to have his sister here, but he still looked a little wary—as if he didn’t entirely trust her.
Ally wasn’t wary or worried. She found herself almost eager to confront PJ’s sister. Once she understood who the other woman was, the tension inside her eased. This was no floozy she had to warn off. No woman trying to worm her way into PJ’s life.
Warn off? Ally jerked herself up short. What was she thinking? She had no interest in PJ’s love life! She was only a wife on paper. His women were nothing to do with her.
Besides, it looked as if Cristina was determined to vet any woman who crossed his path. Ally smiled at the thought, feeling instantly calmer and far more in control.
Also she was curious.
She hadn’t expected PJ to tell his family anything about their marriage. Yet apparently he had. So, what had he told them? And when? And why?
She also found herself intrigued by Cristina.
She’d never met any of PJ’s family. He had talked about them occasionally. She knew he had grown up in the middle of a boisterous, noisy, demanding Greek-American family.
“I was never alone,” he said. “Ever. God, I even had to share the womb. I never had silence.
Cristina never shut up. I always had to share a room with my brothers. I never had space.”
Ally, who had had far too much loneliness, silence and space in her life, frankly thought PJ’s childhood sounded appealing. She’d asked questions, but except for a few comments, whenever he had talked about them it had been mostly about how glad he was they were practically on the other side of the world.
Now, face-to-face with the woman he’d “shared a womb with,” Ally couldn’t pretend indifference.
Neither apparently could Cristina. The men had barely gone out through the door and slid it shut behind them when PJ’s sister sat down at the table opposite Ally and jumped straight in.
If Cristina had ever heard of circumspection or tact, she’d determinedly forgotten everything she’d ever heard. She wanted to know where PJ and Ally had met, when they’d married. And why?
“I wouldn’t ask why,” she said bluntly, “because ordinarily it would be obvious. You’re gorgeous and PJ has always had an eye for a gorgeous woman. But if it were for that reason, he wouldn’t have let you walk out of his life again. So…why?”
She regarded Ally intently, and in the face of Cristina’s clear concern, Ally found herself answering.
She’d never told anyone else. Besides her father and, recently, Jon, she’d never told a soul she was married.
But this was PJ’s sister. Ally didn’t have siblings. She had never experienced the bonds that could exist between them. But it was clearly there—and just as much in PJ’s words to Cristina as in her attempted defense of him. It bespoke a loyalty and love she could only envy.
And in response, she couldn’t deny the kindness he’d done her. Nor could she minimize it or pretend it had been some frivolous or foolish thing they had done.
And so she began to talk.
She spoke haltingly at first about her father’s demands on her—about what she should take in university, about what job she would hold when she finished, about the man he expected her to marry. It sounded medieval and melodramatic to her ears as she told it, and she fully expected Cristina would roll her eyes.
Instead the other woman listened raptly and nodded more and more vigorously.
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