“But you do like him.”
“Yeah,” Trish admitted grudgingly. “I like him.”
“Then tell him the truth the next time you see him, because the longer you wait, the weirder it’s going to be.”
“How about I just get my name legally changed to Acker? It’d be simpler.”
Her friend frowned and studied her. “What’s scary is that I’m not entirely sure you’re joking.” She put her arm around Trish’s shoulders and gave her an encouraging squeeze. “It’ll be okay, Trish. Just stay calm, take a few deep breaths, and tell him the whole story.”
“I don’t have a good track record of staying calm around him.”
“Well, you could always zip over to Vegas with him for the weekend, and get your name legally changed to Rafferty. Problem solved.”
“You’re a fruitcake.”
“No, I’m a romantic. So when is this big dinner date happening?”
Trish tried one of those deep, calming breaths. “Tonight.”
“Tonight?” Nadia gasped and clapped her hands to her cheeks, clearly appalled. “But you look awful! Look at you, bags under your eyes, all bloodshot—”
“Gee, thanks. Now I’m not nervous at all.”
Her friend abruptly whipped Trish’s apron off of her and grabbed her coat and purse. “Go home and get some sleep. And maybe give yourself a quick facial, too.”
“Tea bags,” Mrs. Beasley suggested anxiously. “She needs tea bags for her eyes.”
Pausing long enough to grab a handful of unopened tea bags from behind the counter and thrust them into Trish’s hands, Nadia firmly escorted Trish to the door.
“But—”
“Go,” Nadia insisted. “Sleep.”
“I’m too nervous to sleep now,” Trish returned, her pulse speeding up just at the thought of dinner tonight.
“Try anyway.” Nadia held the front door open for her. “And Trish? Try to let yourself have a little fun tonight.” Then she grinned. “But don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, girlfriend.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down much,” Trish called back over her shoulder as she started down the sidewalk.
Chapter Seven
As it turned out, she could sleep, and if she hadn’t set her alarm for five o’clock, she probably would have kept right on sleeping. But now, two hours later, she was standing alone inside the locked bakery and pacing in front of the windows as she waited for Ian and tried to figure out the best way to explain their previous history to him.
Funny story…you used to pick on me when we were kids and I hated your guts, so I planned to re-enter your life under false pretenses and get some revenge, but now I think I really like you, and I’d like to pretend none of that ever happened. So…want to split an appetizer?
A knock on the window startled her from her train of thought, and she looked up to see Ian standing outside on the sidewalk. He smiled at her through the glass, and she flashed a nervous smile in return, thinking that for a man who claimed he’d been out of the dating game for a while, he certainly cleaned up nicely. His shirt was open at the collar, but he wore an honest to goodness suit jacket over it, and she tried unsuccessfully to recall the last time she’d gone out with a man who actually made an effort to look good on her account.
“Hi,” he greeted her as she stepped outside.
“Hey,” she returned, her pulse already fluttering. Knock it off, Trish. Keep your head on straight.
His eyes flitted over her. “You look…very nice.”
And that’s why women still wore skirts in winter, Trish thought. No matter how cold it might get. “Thanks,” she said, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles in the sweater dress that showed off her legs to great advantage.
“Although I’ll admit I do like the way you look in paint splatters.”
“I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”
He grinned, and Trish let herself smile back, praying it didn’t come across quite as goofy or adolescent as she feared. Their eyes held each other’s for a moment before Ian broke the silence again. “Ready?”
Man, I hope so, she thought but outwardly only nodded, and he opened the passenger’s side door of his car for her.
“Do you like Italian food?” he asked after he got in and started the engine.
“Love it.”
“Good, because there’s this little Italian place I heard about…”
And a few minutes later they pulled up to the curb near La Bella Rosa. Trish felt her mouth turn up slightly at the corners.
“Have you eaten here before?” Ian asked her, catching her faint smile.
“It’s like a second home,” she admitted. “You’ve really never been here?”
“Kelsey’s usually the one who picks the restaurants for us. If it doesn’t have a kiddy meal with a toy inside, we don’t go. Sorry—You want to go somewhere else?”
Surprised, Trish glanced at Ian and caught a flicker of chagrin in his expression. “No, not at all,” she said quickly, and it suddenly occurred to her that she might not be the only one who was nervous tonight. Her heart did a pleasant sort of skip. “I already know I love the food here. What’s not to like about that?”
“You sure?”
“Positive,” she assured him, and to prove her point, she opened the passenger door and stepped out.
Getting out to join her, Ian offered her his arm. “Sidewalk’s slippery.”
Trish hesitantly slid her arm through his and realized that the sidewalk wasn’t her problem. It was more the way that their close proximity made her suddenly aware of the warmth radiating from his body and of the faint trace of cologne that he wore. Or was it aftershave? Whatever it was, it made her dangerously lightheaded, forcing her to hold on to him tightly.
Well, there were worse things that could happen to a girl, she thought as they walked toward La Bella Rosa.
A waitress sat them at a table up front and center, not far from a window. Snow on the ground glowed in dim light cast by twinkling Christmas lights strung up outside, and a few tiny snowflakes were just starting to fall from the night sky. All in all, not a bad setting for a romantic dinner for two. Which made Trish wonder, actually, about where a certain third party might be. “Where’s Kelsey tonight?” Trish asked, sliding off her coat.
“With a neighbor. I think she plans to spend the entire evening glued to the woman’s front window so she can keep an eye on ours. Well, at least until my shift starts.”
“Any trouble with vandals last night?”
He shook his head with obvious relief, and for the first time Trish noticed the shadows under his eyes.
“You really did stay up last night to guard it, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Tried to. Nodded off a couple of times, in spite of all the caffeine. I haven’t pulled an all-nighter since college.” He grinned. “Guess I’m a little rusty at that, too.”
“We probably should have waited for a later night to do this.”
“And give you time to change your mind? Couldn’t risk it.”
Trish returned his smile from across the table. Neither of them looked away, and a delicious sort of shiver traveled through Trish that only grew more intense when her leg accidentally brushed against Ian’s under the tabletop. It had been a long time since she’d experienced a shiver like that, the kind of shiver that made a girl believe that her evening could possibly end very well.
“I’m glad you said yes to tonight,” Ian told her, his eyes still on hers.
There was that shiver again. And that look he was giving her…that was a look a woman could get used to. “Me, too.”
He cleared his throat. “Trish…”
But a familiar voice interrupted him before he could finish whatever he was about to say, much to Trish’s disappointment. “Ah, there’s my girl. Buonasera. Where have you been?”
Trish looked up to see Pop De Luca beaming at her. Her disappointment softened. “Hi, Pop.”
Pop pressed a hand to his heart as if
wounded. “’Hi, Pop’ she says to me,” he complained to Ian. “It’s been a week since I’ve laid eyes on her, and all she says is ‘Hi, Pop.’” He frowned at Trish. “The last time you went that long without coming to La Bella, you were laid up with the flu. You been sick, cara? I would have sent you soup, you know. Nothing better than a bowl of my zuppa Toscana to get you back on your feet.”
Ian gave Trish a startled glance. “‘Pop’? Your family owns this restaurant?”
“No, Pop is everybody’s Pop. And no, I haven’t been sick,” she assured the old man, getting up to give him an affectionate hug. “Just busy.”
“Too busy to eat?”
“I think a lot of that has been my fault,” Ian said, rising from his seat and extending his hand. “I’ve been taking up a lot of her time lately. Hi. Ian Rafferty.”
The old man started to shake hands. “Ian Rafferty? Now where have I heard—” He stopped and frowned.
Trish suddenly flashed back to the other day when she and Nadia had eaten here, and Pop’s voice echoed in her head. Give me his name, I’ll talk to the pazzo and set him straight…
Her eyes widened. “Wait, Pop—”
But Pop was already speaking. “You’re the bum?” he said to Ian, giving him a disgruntled once-over.
Ian blinked. “I’m the what?”
No, no, no… “Pop,” Trish repeated urgently, putting her hand on his arm and trying unsuccessfully to turn his attention to her instead. “You don’t understand. It’s not like that.”
“Not like what?” Ian asked, his confusion clearly growing by the second.
The old man wrinkled his brow. “He’s not a bum?”
“No, he’s not,” Trish insisted, feeling her face grow warm.
“He apologize to you yet?”
“No, but—”
“Then he’s a bum!”
“Apologize for what?” Ian asked, glancing back and forth between both of them. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” said Trish hastily, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her. Torn between her desire to spare the old man’s feelings and her need to make him leave before she spontaneously combusted from mortification, she tried again. “Pop, I know you mean well, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but please—please—trust me on this and let it go?”
“But—”
“Pop!”
Pop looked dissatisfied, but after another pleading look from Trish, he finally threw his hands up in the air in defeat. “Have it your way, cara,” he grumbled. “But while he’s in my restaurant, he’d better treat you right, or I’m tossing him out the door myself.” And he grudgingly headed back toward the kitchen, but not before giving Ian an I’m-keeping-my-eye-on-you gesture.
Ian stared after Pop’s departing figure before finally turning wide eyes onto Trish. “What was that all about?”
She swallowed, her mouth growing dry. “Pop is a little…protective.”
“A little? I think he wants to put my spleen on the menu. Has he just got me confused with somebody else?”
For a moment Trish was sorely tempted to simply say yes and try to recapture the earlier mood, but she was sane enough to admit to herself that wasn’t terribly realistic. No, thanks to a well-meaning Pop, the door to her history with Ian had been flung wide open, and there was little else to do now but go through it. Unless she faked a heart attack, which—for a moment—she considered doing.
“Not exactly,” she said finally, sinking back into her seat with all the joy of a student who’d been sent to the principal’s office for bad behavior.
Ian did a double take. “What?”
“Look, this is going to sound a little strange—”
“Stranger than what just happened?”
Trish winced inwardly. “There’s something I was planning to tell you tonight, just not quite like this.” Understatement of the year. “Or at least not with Pop’s help.”
Now Ian looked wary as well as bewildered. Great. If she wasn’t coming off like a kook yet, she probably would soon.
She took a deep breath. “You and I…we’ve actually met before.”
“We have?”
“Yes.”
Ian frowned and studied her. “I think I would remember you, Trish.”
Sweet, she thought wistfully. “Yeah, that’s another thing. Trish is short for Patricia.” Her stomach started to churn. Wonderful. Perhaps she could put the icing on the cake and wind up throwing up on his shoes out of nervousness. Perfect way to cap off the evening. She forced herself to look him in the eye. “And my last name’s not Acker. It’s Ackerly. You just sort of misheard it the first time, and I never corrected you.”
He stared at her blankly.
“You might remember me better as Pattycake.” Heat blossomed in her cheeks again as she felt a wave of fresh embarrassment. “But I look a little different now than I used to back when we were in grade school together.”
“Grade school? But—” His eyes widened abruptly with dawning comprehension. “Patricia…Ackerly?”
Biting her lip, she nodded.
“No…” he breathed, his expression flickering first to shock and then dismay.
And there went her stomach again, Trish thought. “I’m sorry,” she said, standing up a little too quickly and feeling lightheaded as a result. She clutched the table to regain her balance, all the while feeling the eyes of curious diners turn toward her. “I shouldn’t have…You know, I think I need a little air.”
“Trish—”
“No, really, I do,” she insisted, grabbing her coat and purse and then backing away from the table and Ian. “Because those look like really nice shoes, and I’d hate to ruin them.”
“Hate to—what?”
But she was already hurrying toward the restaurant’s exit and away from her growing audience.
The blast of cold air that hit her as soon as she stepped outside did wonders both to clear her head and cool her flaming cheeks. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, willing her stomach to return to normal before she faced Ian again and suspecting she didn’t have a whole lot of time before that happened.
And she was right, because a moment later she heard the buzz of restaurant noise as the door opened again briefly, and she knew he was right behind her.
“Trish—Patricia—”
“Trish,” she said over her shoulder. “I haven’t liked the name Patricia since I was a kid.”
“Because…of me.” It was a statement more than it was a question.
Trish shrugged, and silence stretched out between them for what felt like an eternity before Ian spoke again.
“When did you realize who I was?” he asked finally.
“From the start.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I planned to,” she admitted. She still refused to look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her. “That first day. And I planned to tell you off but good.”
“So why didn’t you?”
She shivered and realized she was still clutching her coat in her arms instead of wearing it. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to budge, though. “Because of Kelsey. And because…because things changed.”
Ian saw the shiver. He reached for the coat in her arms to drape it over her shoulders, and even with the awkwardness of their situation, the gesture struck Trish as sweetly solicitous. “You got your teeth fixed.”
“Yeah.”
“I liked that crooked little tooth,” he said softly.
An incredulous and mirthless little laugh escaped her, and she stared at him. “Liked it? What are you talking about? You used to make fun of it all the time.”
It was his turn to look away. “I remember.”
“You teased me about everything back then. My hair, my teeth, my name—Why did you do that?”
“Because when you’re twelve years old, you can be kind of stupid when it comes to showing a girl you like her.”
“That’s no excu—what?” Sh
e blinked, sure she hadn’t heard him right.
“I had a huge crush on you. You honestly had no idea?”
Flabbergasted, she shook her head. “No, I admit that you tripping me and pulling my hair didn’t clue me in.”
The light from the restaurant’s entryway was bright enough for Ian’s blush to be visible, even at this hour of the evening. “I’m sorry. I was kind of a little rat bastard back then, and I know it.”
“Yeah, you were,” she agreed.
Ian was silent for a moment, and then she felt rather than saw a new kind of tension fill him. Finally he pointed to the faint scar above his eye, and cleared his throat. “Did you ever hear the story about how I got this?”
The change in subjects startled her. “I think some kids said you were in a gang fight or something.”
He chuckled faintly, but there was no humor in the sound. “A gang fight? No. My father gave it to me.”
“Your dad?” Trish drew a blank. Neither Ian’s father or his mother had ever come to any school functions that she could remember, and she knew nothing about either one of them. For all she’d known, he could have been raised by wolves.
“He was aiming the bottle at my mother but got me instead. They were having a fight about something, probably over whose turn it was to light up next.”
She stared at him, speechless.
“There was a lot of fighting and yelling. And worse.” He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged ruefully. “But that’s pretty much all I had to go off of back then, so my social skills were—well…lacking. Doesn’t excuse my behavior, but maybe it helps explain it. I’m sorry, Trish. I was a miserable kid, and I made people around me miserable then, too.”
In light of his revelation, the past took on a slightly different cast. The sullen attitude, the standoffishness… “Oh,” Trish said softly.
“Somebody called the cops after one of my parents’ fights one night. Long story short, I ended up going into foster care. My foster parents are the reason I got my head on straight.”
“Foster care?” Something clicked in her mind. “That’s why you moved away so suddenly.”
The Heavenly Bites Novella Collection Page 5