Gillian shifted the dishes, almost dropping them. Mitch Valetti had amazing nerve. Apparently Royce Jones thought so too, judging by the way his jaw went slack.
Mitch waited, his face carefully masked.
The charade dragged on for several minutes; Gillian regained her poise and sense of humor. Donning a properly cynical smile, she let her gaze travel between the two men. “If you have to work that hard on an endorsement,” she told Royce, “it’s probably just as well if I turn him down now and give him time to ask someone else to be his date at the Knights’ dinner party.”
“What? I thought you’d agreed to go.” It was obvious from Mitch’s face that he hadn’t expected his machinations to backfire.
Royce suddenly found the whole situation amusing. He laughed, lording it over Mitch and his predicament. “Well, Valetti, ’pears to me your reign as Desert City’s stud has come to an end.”
“Come on, Jones. Fun is fun. I’m trying to be serious here. Ethan said you think I made a pass at Christy. I didn’t. Never have. Never would.”
Royce tucked his hands under his bulging biceps and scowled. “Don Billings said he saw you two right here, tight as termites. Said you were coming on to the waitress, but the minute Christy walked in, things changed.”
“Excuse me.” Gillian regained their attention. “Mitch was drinking coffee at the counter. I was eating lunch. Two separate entities. Christy asked to talk to him about a job. Mitch carried his cup over and sat at her table. In the center of a packed room. There was nothing private about their meeting. You asked me that day to clarify what happened. I said the same thing then. It was strictly business.”
Muttering, Royce backed down. “She did stick up for you, Valetti.” The beefy man rocked from foot to foot. “Christy makes me crazy. She’s moved in with her sister again. Sorry, Mitch. I should know Don Billings gets sadistic pleasure out of causing trouble in the ranks.” He growled a bit more, cleared his throat and edged closer to Gillian. “You’re probably safe enough going out with this guy.”
She barely avoided a smile as Mitch muttered, “Thanks a heap, Royce. Remind me never to ask for your backing if I ever decide to run for public office. It’d be like handing my opponent the victory.”
“That’s the best you’re gonna get from me, man. If you want more, don’t be doing side work for Christy, even if she finds the funding.”
At a stalemate, the men continued to posture and glare at one another.
“Stop it, you two. I’ll go with you on Saturday night, Mitch. Tell Mrs. Knight I’ll bring dessert,” she said more softly. By then, though, Royce was on his way out the door.
“Regan. Ethan’s wife is Regan. I’ll tell her.” Mitch touched Gillian’s cheek lightly with one finger. He let his hand drop when she raised her eyes to meet his. “This is for real, right? You’re not saying you’ll go just to get rid of me?” he asked.
His obviously shaky confidence chased away the last remnants of her doubt. “Have you ever been stood up in your life?”
“Yeah, I have. And Ethan’s never let me live it down.”
There was a vulnerability in his admission that touched Gillian. Maybe because it had crossed her mind not to show up… “I’ll be there. Six o’clock, you said.” She turned and all but ran to the kitchen, never looking back.
Mitch, although slower to gather his wits, remembered to drop money on the table for his meal and a tip before he left. He even made eye contact with the remaining lunch-goers. He didn’t know any of the men, so if they’d overheard his exchange with Royce, who would they tell?
All the way home, he felt like a man who’d pulled off a big coup. Dammit, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so desperate to make a woman like him. There was something in the shadowy blue of Gillian Stevens’s eyes that sent his hormones spinning and his mind into chaos. Not a good combination. If he were counseling a friend in a similar case, he’d suggest running like hell in the opposite direction.
Maybe she’d screw up really badly on Saturday night. Then he’d have to heed Ethan’s warning. Or Regan’s, if the women didn’t hit it off. That meant any chance for a relationship with Gilly would be finished. Mitch hadn’t owned up to it before, but the real reason he’d hung out at Ethan’s as long as he had was to wallow in a sense of family and home. His mother and father had been too involved in Wall Street to act like parents with Mitch and his two sisters, who were both school-age when he was born. He’d decided he’d either been a pure accident or a product of his father’s egotistical desire for a male to carry on the Valetti name. In any event, Mitch had been partially raised by his dad’s mother. Following her death, his guidance had come from a housekeeper, a cook and a nanny, respectively. Ethan’s folks were the total opposite of his parents, and they were genuine role models, to boot.
In marrying Regan and requesting to adopt quadruplets, Ethan had landed for himself everything his parents enjoyed and more. Mitch envied the love his friends shared—that sense of family. Hell, he even envied their sleepy exchanges when they got up to console wakeful babies in the small hours of the night.
Maybe he wouldn’t feel so footloose if he went back to coaching the kids’ basketball team at St. Margaret’s. His job, coaching, part-time ranching—before Ethan got married, it had all seemed enough. Why was he suddenly spending so much time wondering what it would be like to teach a kid of his own how to play ball? Wondering who might mother that child?
He sat in the car outside his home for a minute and surveyed his domain, trying to see it through a woman’s eyes. Amy had called it a typical bachelor pad, he remembered as he climbed from the car and unlocked his front door. Trooper bounced all over him, barking and licking Mitch’s face. “Whoa. Hey,” he said, kneeling to rub the pup’s belly. “Are you trying to tell me all I really need is a dog?”
Once, Mitch might have bought into that philosophy. Not now. After he’d fed Trooper and seen to the horses in the barn, a long empty evening stretched ahead of him. That was followed by a hard time falling asleep. Dreams just didn’t cut a man’s loneliness, even if these nights Gilly Stevens invaded most of his.
CHAPTER FIVE
ANXIOUS TO BEGIN his eagerly awaited night out, Mitch sped through the tasks of mucking out stalls and spreading fresh hay. He showered, shaved and put on slacks and a sport shirt rather than jeans. Ready to walk out the door, he recalled that he hadn’t discussed what to wear with Gillian. According to an article in a men’s magazine someone had brought him at the hospital, first dates went better if the woman showed up dressier than the man. The author warned that, the other way around, women tended to feel awkward and embarrassed. Mitch didn’t know how seriously to take this, but why risk it?
Back to his bedroom. He rummaged through his closet, hoping to find a pair of laundry-pressed jeans. Ah, good, one pair left. The shirt he had on looked dorky with jeans. He pawed through drawers until he found a navy-blue T-shirt Regan had washed before he moved home. He’d fussed at her for doing his wash. Now, seeing how full his hamper had gotten, Mitch was grateful for Regan’s insistence.
And it was a good thing he’d gone back to change clothes, even though Trooper yipped and loped back and forth to the door as if to question his master’s sanity. Mitch had nearly forgotten to call his neighbor, Dave D’Angelo, to ask if Dave would check on Pretty Baby a couple of times over the course of the evening. Her due date was still two weeks away. Since this was her first foal, Mitch would feel more comfortable knowing she was looked after.
“Hi, Dave. Mitch. I’m going out for a while tonight. Could I impose on you to keep an eye on my pregnant mare while I’m gone?” He listened a moment. “You will? Thanks, Dave. You can reach me at Ethan’s if Pretty Baby goes into labor. Oh, and I’m taking Trooper with me.”
The men exchanged a few more comments, and then Mitch heard a woman’s voice in the background. “Tell Barb I heard that,” he said. “It’s sort of a date. I mean, there’ll be an unmarried woman there.” Mitch
listened again. “No way. Dave, tell Barb I’ll know who to blame if Father Costanza calls to ask when I’m posting banns. This is a first date, for crying out loud. Not even a real date. Yeah, I’ll let Barb know if it gets serious. Bye. Thanks again. What? No. Those two incidents seemed to be the extent of it. No more strange happenings. The last creep scared my horses. Didn’t destroy anything, though. You bet, phone our vet if you think Pretty Baby’s in distress. Don’t wait.”
After hanging up, Mitch turned on a light in the living room. He paused at the fireplace, as had become habit, and ran a finger lightly over the lettering on Katie’s urn. Stupid, he told himself. Except it made him feel that, somehow or other, he would connect with her family. Although he didn’t seem to be making any headway, he admitted as he also touched Gran Valetti’s rosary beads.
She’d left the world before her time, too. Mitch had fallen away from her church and her beliefs after the day he’d come home from elementary school and found her bludgeoned to death in the kitchen. A robbery, the police declared. All that was missing from the house was a fifty-dollar emergency fund she’d kept in a cookie jar. The person responsible was never brought to justice. The incident changed Mitch’s life. In spite of his parents’ objections to his being a cop, Gran’s death led him to police work. He made one concession to her faith: for every rotten crook and killer he’d jailed, Mitch lit a candle at church and gave a donation in Gran’s name.
As he looped her rosary around the pewter urn, he whispered an old prayer she’d taught him. It ended with, “May the Saints protect you wherever you are.” Though he felt foolish, he asked Gran to watch out for baby Katie.
Backing away from the fireplace, he called Trooper. The pup responded with a bark and bounced toward him.
EVEN FACTORING IN all the delays, Mitch still arrived at Ethan’s twenty minutes early. Looking harried, Regan Knight answered his knock. She held a crying child under one arm. A cheese grater dangled from the opposite hand. Two more babies crawled down the hall behind her, while a third scooted on his butt, propelled by a hand and a foot.
Mitch had Trooper on a leash, but it tangled around his ankles when the babies and the puppy tried to connect.
“Mitch, thank heavens you’re early. I was so afraid you were—what’s her name?” Regan looked blank.
“Gillian? Gilly. Oof.” Mitch momentarily lost his wind as Regan shoved the wriggling, crying ten-month-old girl at him. Trooper threatened to knock him off his feet now that juggling a child placed him farther off balance.
“Yeah, that’s the name Ethan gave me. Gillian Stevens. It has a nice ring,” Regan said. “I don’t know why it’s so hard to remember. Would you change Cara while I finish grating cheese to go over the green corn tamales? Don’t ask me why I suddenly felt domestic and decided to concoct tamales from scratch.”
“Where’s Ethan? Loafing again?”
Regan shook her head. “He’s out on a call. He took Taz. Last month a little girl his sister Elizabeth had in foster care was returned to her natural parents. Ethan got a call from a neighbor who claims they’re abusing Brittany again. He’s gone to get a court order to pick her up. I haven’t seen her case file. Based on what Ethan and Lizzie have told me about her situation, I think we have grounds to remove her permanently this time. The good news is Lizzie would love to adopt Brittany.”
“Like you and Ethan are doing with these guys?” Mitch said, bending to tweak Rick’s nose before he un-hooked Trooper’s leash. “Can I put Trooper in the backyard? He’s only paper trained.” Mitch wrinkled his nose. “Not well-trained at that.”
“I’ll let him out through the kitchen.” Regan called to the dog, maneuvering carefully through three of the four quadruplets.
Mitch, having spent a long time in this house recovering, didn’t have to ask where the nursery was.
“Hey, when did you put the kids in separate rooms?” he asked when he returned to the large, welcoming kitchen, toting a much happier Cara. Already the aroma of the corn tamales filled the air and whetted his appetite. Mitch grabbed a squeaky toy from the floor and examined it to make sure it belonged to the babies and not Taz before he put it in the drooling child’s hand. Cara, the smallest of the quads, was the one most damaged by Tony DeSalvo. No longer in casts, she wore Velcro braces now to help with damaged nerves that restricted the movement of one arm and a leg. And her development was slower than that of her siblings.
“We rearranged the cribs last weekend. Mark and Rick are light sleepers. Angela and Cara still wake up several times a night. Moving the boys means they aren’t bothered when the girls fuss. Put Cara in her walker, Mitch. The doctor said it’ll strengthen her muscles. I’ll pour you a glass of vino. Then I want to hear all about this new woman in your life before she arrives.” Regan had things in the kitchen under better control. She seemed ready to devote time to grilling Mitch.
He set the child in her walker and hoisted her sister, tickling Angela to make her giggle. “What has Ethan told you about Gilly?” He placed Angela on the floor again.
“Not much.” Regan pulled the cork and poured a robust red wine into two glasses.
“You can’t lie worth a damn. I know she rubs Ethan the wrong way.”
Regan tasted from her glass before handing Mitch his. “Don’t swear around the kids. And I should’ve asked if you’d rather have a beer.”
“Isn’t wine more civilized? I want to make a good impression on Gillian. I wonder where she is,” he muttered, stepping around Regan to peer out the window that faced the street.
“Goodness, Mitch. It’s not quite six. She isn’t late.”
“I know, but…”
“If she worked today, she could be running late. I’ve never seen you so antsy, Mitch. Why don’t we talk about something else? Then maybe you’ll quit clock watching.”
Mitch watched Angela crawl over to the boys, who played with a small wagon filled with blocks. As if he hadn’t heard Regan, he turned away and pressed his nose to the window again.
She sighed. “Ethan said you were unofficially investigating an unusual case that sort of appeared on your doorstep. How’s that going?”
“Slow. Yesterday I fired up my computer and downloaded an investigative program that allows me to run a state-by-state check by date of birth. I started with Arizona, since it’s where the suitcase was found. I discovered there were a lot of babies born that day. So far, I haven’t found any named Katie, Kathryn or Kathleen who died the same day they came into the world.”
Regan raised an eyebrow. “Ethan thinks you’re wasting your time. I’m inclined to think it’s worth the effort. I hope you succeed. It’s an intriguing puzzle.”
“It’s more, Regan. Don’t freak out when I say this, but I feel like…like the baby’s…well, not her guardian, exactly. Maybe…emissary.”
“After all the years I’ve worked in social services—plus all the case studies I’ve read—I’ve come across far stranger stories.”
“Hey, Gilly’s here.” Mitch started to turn from the window, then cupped his hand against the glass again to screen out the kitchen light. “What’s she doing? She’s not getting out. I’d better go see. Maybe she’s not sure she’s at the right house.”
Regan joined him at the window. “You said she was bringing dessert. She’s probably getting it out of the back seat. Nope. Looks to me like she’s drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. Hmm. I’d say she’s having second thoughts about coming in. Why? She’s parked right behind your pickup. She obviously knows you’re here.”
“If she’s seen me driving anything, it’s probably the Vette.” Mitch thrust his half-drunk glass of wine into Regan’s free hand. “Anyway, she’s kind of shy. Don’t overwhelm her, all right? And whatever you do, don’t psychoanalyze her.” Once he’d delivered that lecture, Mitch hobbled down the hall, leaving a speechless Regan behind.
Afraid Gillian would take off before he could reach her and persuade her to stay, Mitch walked so fast a pain struck deep in h
is side. It stole his breath; when he pulled open Gilly’s car door, he couldn’t speak, wasn’t able to allay the fear that caused her to jerk away and cry out.
For a long moment, Mitch stood, breathing hard, blinking at Gillian, who cowered against the passenger side of her car.
“What’s wrong?” Razor instincts—honed to a fine edge through his years as a cop—kicked in, restoring Mitch’s ability to breathe. “Were you involved in a fender bender or something?”
“No.” Gillian’s fingers flexed around her seat belt, already stretched to its limits. “You scared the daylights out of me, yanking my door open without saying a word. Why did you pounce on me like that?”
“Why are you sitting in your car instead of coming to the door?”
Guilt flooded her face.
“Aha! You considered standing me up, didn’t you?”
After a shake of her head, she said, “I gave my word.”
Mitch didn’t look convinced. “I watched for you out the window. I know how long you sat here after driving up.”
“I, ah, was bolstering my courage to meet your friends. I’m not good in crowds.”
“There’s only going to be four of us. Hardly a crowd.”
“Oh, so one of the Knights parks in the street?”
“I told Regan you wouldn’t know my pickup. I use it mostly to haul hay and stuff. Tonight, I brought kibble for Trooper and I didn’t want him getting into it.”
“Oh. Well, I still need to work up nerve to get cozy with your friends.”
Mitch’s eyes darkened sympathetically as he leaned inside and took her hand. “This is supposed to be a fun evening, Gilly. Not a supreme ordeal.”
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