by Lori Ryan
He tried to pry himself loose, but she was strong, pushing up even higher, a dangerous feat considering she was wearing sky-high heels.
“Somebody’s been working out since high school,” she whispered in his ear, squeezing his shoulders.
From the corner of his eyes he saw Lina staring at them, a small smirk adorning her face.
He wrapped his hands around Lauren’s arms and physically extracted her from his body, pushing her an arm’s length away. “You look great, too, Lauren. It’s been awhile.”
“Sure has,” she said seductively. She reached up and ran her red-tipped fingernails through his hair. “Somebody needs a wash and blowout.” The way she said blowout left no doubt as to what she really meant.
He side stepped her hold and smoothed down his hair. “Uh, thanks. I’ll call you soon.”
Her soft green eyes rolled over his body from head to toe again. “Please do.” She dug into a hot-pink purse that was large enough to double as a duffle bag. “Here.” She shoved a card into Jake’s hand. “Call me.” She stepped closer and he was assaulted by her floral perfume again. “Anytime.”
He had to swallow down a gag. “Thanks,” he said nervously, quickly sticking the card into his back pocket. He had no plans to call her for anything, at any time.
Lauren turned her attention to Lina. “Hey, beautiful.” She smiled and the expression was genuine, not so predatory this time. Lauren ran her fingers through Lina’s hair too. “You need to come in for a touch up, sweetie, or a new color. Maybe pink or purple this time?” Lauren said, rubbing her thumb and forefinger over the blue strands at the tips of Lina’s hair.
Suddenly Jake was overcome with jealousy, wishing he were the one running his hands through Lina’s silky tresses. Good God, where had that thought come from?
Jake had never been one for wild or unnatural hair colors, probably because you didn’t get to do those sorts of things in the circles he worked in. But even he had to admit, the blue dyed tips of Lina’s hair fit her personality and made her wild and sexy hair even more irresistible.
Images of his hands twisted around the ends of those blue tipped strands as he yanked her back against him, taking her…
“Jakey!”
Oh, damn, here he was fantasizing about Lina while his daughter had been trying to get his attention. God, he was such a horrible father.
He swallowed as his gaze went first to Lina who gave him a knowing smile, and surprisingly enough, she didn’t seem offended.
“Jakey!” Becca called again.
“No yelling, Rebecca Anne.”
His daughter’s brows furrowed and she huffed, tapping her foot. He didn’t need a DNA test to prove she was a Sumner. Her stubbornness documented the lineage beyond a shadow of a doubt.
She crossed her arms over her chest, poor Dog squished in the middle. “Why do you call me that?”
“I don’t know,” he said, honestly having no idea. He figured it was a parental reflex brought on by sheer frustration. He really needed to apologize to his mother.
“I called you a lot and you wouldn’t answer me, so I had to yell,” she said in a sulk.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” He leaned down. “What did you want to tell me?”
“Ms. Parker said I can’t read Click, Clack, Moo.”
“Well, Ms. Parker is in charge.”
“No, not may.” She shook her head. “She doesn’t think I can read it. She doesn’t think I have the…,” she paused trying to recall their earlier conversation.
“Ability?” he answered.
“Yes,” she said, excitedly. “She doesn’t think I have the ability to read it. But I do. I read it to Aunt Maggie when she gave it to me.”
“Well,” Jake sighed, wondering how the hell you explained to a five-year old that she wasn’t like most kids her age. “Sometimes people underestimate kid’s abilities.”
Becca frowned, glancing over his shoulder before returning her gaze to him. “She shouldn’t do that.”
“What’s up, half-pint?” Aunt Sally looked down at Becca then him.
He stood up and stared at his aunt. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t want this highway expansion,” she said. “I’m Team Lina all the way, here to find out what our fearless leader wants from us.”
“Hmm.” Jake said, not sure why he hadn’t thought about his family taking sides. They were all business owners in the town.
“Anyway,” Aunt Sally shook her head, glancing down at Becca, “what has my beautiful niece all in a tizzy?”
“What’s a tizzy?” Becca asked.
Jake held up a hand. “Don’t you dare.” He had no doubt his aunt would use a bad word.
“Phhh,” she waved him off as she turned her attention back to Becca. “A tizzy means you’re having a fit because you’re upset.” She looked at Jake. “I bet you thought I was going to say pissed, didn’t you?”
“You just did, Aunt Sally.”
She laughed. “So what’s got you so upset, little one?”
Becca clutched the book to her chest. “Ms. Parker doesn’t think I can read my book.”
Sally glanced over her shoulder. “That old bat,” she grumbled. “Come on, sweet cheeks,” Aunt Sally extended her hand, “let’s go prove Old-Lady-Parker-With-A-Bug-Up-Her-Butt wrong.”
Becca smiled as she slipped her hand into his aunt’s. “That’s kind of a bad word, Aunt Sally.”
“Ooops.” His aunt covered her mouth.
“It’s not real bad so you don’t have to pay.”
“Well thank you, honey bun.” She smiled down at Becca.
As much as Jake wanted to protest, he had to admit, his Aunt Sally had become one of his biggest helpers when it came to his daughter.
“Save me a seat,” Sally called over her shoulder as they walked toward the front of the library.
Poor Ms. Parker, he thought.
“Two words.” Lina said behind him.
He turned and noticed she was watching Sally and Becca walk away. “Only two?” He laughed.
“Big trouble,” she said.
“Hot mess.”
“Complete disaster.” She laughed.
“I’m so screwed.”
She smiled. “That’s three.”
“Maybe, but true.”
Lina took one last glance at Sally and Becca then turned to face him, her long hair swinging with the move. “Yeah, you’re totally screwed,” she said, turning and walking toward the front of the room. He watched as she greeted everyone walking through the group as if she knew them all intimately.
He wanted to hear what she had to say about the expansion and see if she had any challenges to the arguments he knew the corporations who were pushing for the expansion would offer up.
As if sensing his gaze, Lina turned back toward him, her eyes meeting his. Her lips curled up in a devious smirk that had his body stiffening. “Totally screwed,” she mouthed with a laugh, throwing back her head.
His eyes followed the line of her neck, his gaze sliding down the contours of her body, wondering what she looked like under all those clothes. What the hell?
“Close your mouth, sweetheart, there are children present.” Sally bumped his arm and laughed as she walked past him and settled into a seat.
As much as he tried, Jake couldn’t pull his eyes away from the beautiful woman who seemed to have the entire town transfixed. Including him.
Lina bent over the table, reaching for a stack of papers. Parts of his body stiffened as he watched the curve of her ass when she leaned further. He swallowed down a moan. Christ on a cracker, what was wrong with him?
Yeah, he was screwed. In more ways than one.
Chapter Thirteen
Lina leaned against the counter in her parent’s kitchen, chewing on a carduni fritti her grandmother had just pulled from the frying pan. The salty fried goodness filled her mouth and made her moan. A cardoon was similar to a stalk of celery, only longer and thicker.
And when golden fried into a carduni fritti by her grandmother, the food was damn near perfection.
“Oh my gosh, these are so good,” she said, moaning around the tasty goodness that most Americans had never even heard of. Forget French fries, Lina would take Nonna’s cardunis any day of the week.
Nonna smiled wide, gripping Lina’s chin. “Grazie, topolina.”
Lina laughed at her grandmother’s Italian endearment, one she’d now found herself calling Becca for some strange reason.
“Don’t you ever get tired of this?” Lina asked, waving her hand around the area.
“What? Cooking for my family?” Nonna asked in her thick Italian accent. She was a first-generation immigrant, born in Palermo, Sicily. Lina’s mother and father had come to the United States first. Nonna followed when her husband passed away from lung cancer almost twenty-five years ago just after Lina was born.
“Every Sunday?” Lina asked.
“I cook all the time, Angelina.”
Lina smiled when Nonna called her by her given name. It sounded so elegant spoken with an authentic Italian accent.
“I love my family,” Nonna said, staring back at Lina. “What I get tired of is watching you skinny chickens eat up all my good food and still stay so rail thin.”
Lina rubbed her stomach. “I think rail thin is pretty generous, Nonna.”
She waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Boh! When I was your age I’d already had three children and looked like a gassona.”
“That’s a lie,” Lina’s sister, Frannie said, nudging into the small kitchen. “You don’t look like a blimp, Nonna. Mammá showed me pictures of you when she was a teenager and you were a knock out.” She smiled and kissed their grandmother on the cheek. “Still are.”
Nonna took the wooden spoon from the pot she’d been stirring, wiped it on a towel and swacked Frannie on the behind.
“Ow!” Frannie yelped, rubbing her butt. “That hurt, Nonna.”
“That’s for lying, may God forgive your soul.” Nonna made the sign of the cross and clasped her hands together, whispering some prayer in Italian.
Her other sister, Gia waltzed in, her hair pulled up into a messy knot on top of her head. “Don’t waste your prayers on that one, Nonna,” she said, pulling open the refrigerator and grabbing a bottle of water. “She’s still banging her hot physics professor.”
“Acqua in bocca,” Nonna said, swatting Gia on the butt too.
“Ow!” Gia howled like Frannie had.
Lina laughed. It was true, Frannie had been sleeping with her undergrad physics professor, but not until she’d passed his class. Considering that Frannie was a graduate student now and the two had been dating for the last two years, Lina was pretty sure God approved.
“Prayers to our heavenly Father are never wasted, ragazzas,” Nonna said in her thick Italian accent that brought Lina more comfort than she sometimes realized. “I pray for you girls every day.”
“Well, if you’re already praying anyway,” Gia said, “could you ask God to get one of Lina’s hunky roommates to slip through my bedroom window tonight? They’re so hot I almost want to start a fire just to have them rescue me.”
“Amen to that,” Frannie said, giving Gia a high-five. “I’d like to ride their engine.”
“Basta!” Nonna shouted, wielding the spoon above her head.
Both sisters burst into a fit of laughter as they raced out of the kitchen.
“I don’t know why you invite those two to dinner every Sunday,” Lina said, laughing.
“Si, non so perché,” Nonna said, returning to her bubbling pot of goodness.
“You do too know, Mammá,” Lina’s mother said, stepping into the kitchen and kissing Nonna on the cheek, then Lina. “Because even though my girls are pests, you miss them like crazy,”
Nonna hmphed and gave a shrug.
Lina’s sisters both lived in Denver, attending school. Frannie was studying for her MBA, and Gia was persuing a nursing degree. With her baby sister, Natalia, in California at a prestigious art school, sometimes Lina felt like the black sheep of the family. She’d never gone to college herself. She’d taken online classes, though, so that had to count, right?
She bit her lip and studied a spot on the floor. Maybe she should think about going to school. Or even just looking for a full-time job with, as her mother put it, room for advancement. Something she could do that had benefits and might turn into a real career.
Her Nonna bumped her hip, giving Lina a tilt of her head when Lina looked up. She knew what the gesture meant. Lift yourself up and get your head out of the clouds little one, she said silently. Your mammá is about to descend on you.
“How are you, sweetheart?” her mother asked.
“I’m good.” Lina smiled and kissed her mother, pulling herself away from her thoughts, just as Nonna had silently told her to do.
“I heard your meeting went well,” Nonna said.
Lina cringed, afraid of what her mother would say. Her mother hadn’t liked the fact that Lina was on the opposite side of the fence about the highway expansion, and she hadn’t been shy about voicing it.
“The meeting went well,” Lina said quietly. “We had a good turnout. I think we’re building a solid base of citizens who are concerned about the environment.”
Her mother scowled. “You’re just going to divide this town, Lina. And make enemies for all of us.” Her mother shook her head. “Customers are already talking.”
“Let them talk,” Nonna said.
“I’m not trying to make enemies, Mom” Lina answered, her voice rising despite what she’d told herself she wouldn’t do today.
Her mother placed a hand on her hip. “Then what are you trying to do?”
Lina felt her face grow warm. Her mother had never understood her passion for people and the environment, choosing money over the delicate ecosystem every time.
“I care about the citizens of this town just as much as you do but my care is rooted in their well-being, not their wallets.”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you so angry, Lina? We’ve given up everything for you.”
Lina’s shoulders slumped and she bowed her head. “It was your choice to leave,” she said, never meeting her mother’s hard glare.
“You gave us no choice, Angelina. It was move or watch you go down in flames, taking your sisters with you. Your passion,” she used air quotes, “and rebellious nature has cost everyone in this family.”
Lina felt tears prick her eyes but she remained silent.
“Everyone knows our daughter is the one trying to fight progress here in the town,” her mother continued. “The gossip has already started. Again,” she added for effect. “Do you know what that will do for our business? Why can’t you see?”
“Basta!,” Nonna shouted, pointing her spoon at Lina’s mother, flinging red sauce on her shirt.
Lina gasped and covered her mouth.
“Mammá!” her mother squealed. “This is a new top.”
“Enough, Giovanna,” her grandmother said, glaring at her daughter. “Our Lina is fighting with passion from her heart.” Nonna pounded her chest. “You would be wise to learn from her.”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed.
Nonna had always been Lina’s biggest advocate growing up. Lina had been a wild child, a free spirit, and a tad rebellious, sometimes falling in with the wrong crowd. Okay, a lot rebellious, but she didn’t like to let her thoughts wander back to those times, or the fact that she was the reason they were here in Colorado.
Her mother rolled her eyes. “That passion will cost us all.” She moved to the refrigerator, pulling out a lemon and cutting it in half, squeezing the juice on her blouse. “Ah, never mind. Now I have to put detergent on this before it stains.” Her mother held out her shirt, shaking her head as she cast her stern look at Nonna.
Nonna shrugged. “It wasn’t that pretty anyway.”
Lina bit back a laugh.
Her mother narrowed h
er eyes and for some reason, Lina thought of Becca. And Jake.
She and Nonna watched silently as her mother stalked out of the kitchen.
“So,” Nonna turned back to face her, “you will fight?”
“The road expansion you mean?”
“Sì.”
“I don’t want to fight anyone, Nonna. I just want to be heard. I want the people to understand what the construction will do to the ecosystem, to the wildlife and the creek. I don’t think they get it.”
“It’s important to voice your concern, Angelina. Don’t let her scare you.”
Lina wrapped her arms around her nonna, leaning down and inhaling the sweet smell that could only be described as grandmotherly.
Nonna kissed her cheek and pulled away, glancing around the doorway before staring up at Lina. “What I really want to know about is this young man who everyone says stares at you like you’re a cannoli.”
Lina burst into laughter. “Who?”
Nonna swatted the air. “Who?” She laughed sarcastically. “You know who. Maryanne Thompson said Lauren Avery had her hands wrapped up in his hair and she thought she was going to have to hold you back.”
Lina remembered the moment. She’d wanted to swat Lauren away—okay, and maybe she wanted to scratch her eyes out. Lauren was a nice woman who did an amazing job on Lina’s own hair, but it didn’t mean she wanted her pawing at Jake.
“Ahh,” Nonna laughed, “so it’s true, yes?”
“What?” Lina shook her head.
Nonna smirked but said nothing. “I hear he has a child.”
“He does.” Lina reached for another carduni, thinking if her mouth was full she’d be less likely to say more, like how she spent her nights imaging Jake—
“You said you don’t want babies.”
She shook her head to rid the memories. “Nonna, it’s not like we’re getting married.”
“Who’s getting married?” Gia slid into the kitchen, wide eyes darting between the two of them.
“Vattene!” Nonna swatted at Gia.
“No way,” Gia shook her head, grabbing a carduni. “I’m not going anywhere. Are we talking about Jakey?”
Nonna stared up at Lina. “His name is Jakey?”