“Stunning.” Carmen’s eyebrows rose as she looked from the basket to Sofia. “And it is from?”
“The nonsignificant other.” Sofia jerked her head in the direction of Seth’s house as Gianna cleared vintage prints of yesteryear Hollywood stars from an antique side table. She set the basket down and withdrew a small white envelope from the plastic holder. “The card.”
Gianna took the tiny card from her mother’s hand, opened it and read, “Congratulations on a great yesterday, a better today and a blessed tomorrow. It’s kind of nice to have you in Kirkwood. And right across the street.” It was signed Seth and Tori and the words a blessed tomorrow blessed her with heightened self-confidence. She’d made it this far. She’d done well. With God’s help, her family’s blessing and great new neighbors, she’d be fine. She pushed thoughts of the evening’s confrontation out of her mind and concentrated on the here and now.
Her mother placed an arm around her shoulders, her voice matter-of-fact. “For a friend, this man does okay.”
Carmen met Sofia’s cryptic look from across the room. “In my day he’d be considered a ‘keeper,’ but then I’m old, and things were no doubt different.” Her expression said Gianna should be considered certifiable for keeping a guy like Seth Campbell at arm’s length, but then Grandma had been with the love of her life for forty years before he’d passed away from natural causes.
“Stop. Both of you.” Gianna turned and sent them a look meant to shush with little hope it would happen. “I buried my father as a kid. I buried my husband as a bride. The idea of putting these two babies in the line of fire, of taking a chance for them to go through that pain and loss by deliberately dating a cop, is beyond contemplation. I know you both mean well. And I know you both love me, but you have to understand this—from where I’m standing, nothing can come of this attraction to Seth Campbell. I can’t risk burying another policeman I love, or intentionally doing that to my children. It isn’t going to happen.”
“But...” A deep voice came through from just beyond the curtain. “You like the flowers.”
Her heart stopped cold in her chest.
Seth had walked in during her scolding. He’d been in the kitchen, separated by nothing more than a sheet of calico cotton. He’d most likely overheard everything.
If she had a trapdoor mechanism for the floor to swallow her up, Gianna would push it right now. Because she didn’t, she turned, ready to face off with Seth and apologize for hurting him.
He came into the room, holding one tiny guest cake while eating another, and he aimed a look of approval at the basket. “They did great. So. You like ’em?”
His calm wasn’t forced. He wasn’t taken aback or insulted. He seemed...
Fine. He seemed fine, when he’d just overheard her saying how there could be nothing between them, ever. Why was he fine when her insides were under attack trying to figure out a way to fix things? She mustered a breath and nodded. “They’re beautiful. Thank you, Seth.”
“You’re welcome.” He didn’t hesitate, didn’t glance around, didn’t miss a beat, just swept one arm around her and kissed her soundly, then took a step back as if that was an expected thing to do. “I’ve got to help my father today, but just so we’re clear?”
There was no turning away from those blue eyes, eyes that could be soft and beseeching, then turn hard and decisive as needed. “Yes?”
“Campbell men don’t give up easy. Ever.”
Sofia put a hand to her heart, clearly impressed.
Eyes down, Carmen pretended to be working on the already hemmed garment, but her grin said Seth Campbell had gone up another rung on her estimation ladder.
Tori came in just then, and Gianna bit back what she might have said, because in truth? Seth’s declaration made her feel as though things could be all right, given time. Yes, she understood all the reasons why she shouldn’t fall head over heels in love with the big, blue-eyed blond. But when he talked like that? Gave her that look? Kissed her?
None of it mattered.
* * *
Marie walked into the store thirty minutes before closing time. They’d had a busy morning and a busier afternoon. The fair weather helped, and with a storm predicted for Sunday, Gianna knew she’d been fortunate to have a sweet spring weekend for the opening.
She watched quietly as Marie moved around the store. When Marie noticed Gianna standing in the back, she made no sound or gesture of acknowledgment, but her flat expression and silence spoke across the thirty feet separating them. Disapproval and disappointment. She kept her purse high on her shoulder and tucked against her waist, untrusting the local clientele. She checked price tags and sniffed audibly, insulted.
It wasn’t the prices she found repulsive. Gianna knew her well enough to see beyond the obvious. It was the thought of wearing someone else’s clothes and paying for the dubious honor. And even though the store was carrying three distinct lines of new vintage-styled clothing, the gently used clothing racks had drawn great interest from the weekend shoppers. Which meant a lot of Kirkwood Lake folks didn’t share Marie’s repugnance of someone else’s castoffs.
Mrs. Thurgood came into the store shortly before closing time. The elderly woman from the east side of the lake marched through the store and brandished a used cord-handled gift bag that had seen better days. “For you!” Delight colored the older woman’s voice as she handed the bag to Gianna. “And those babies! I thought I might be too busy to make these over spring, so I wanted to finish them up before I started more things for the summer festival season. Mind, I’ve got a lot done,” she added, lest anyone overhearing her might think she’d been shirking over the elongated winter, “but taking time out to make something special for these babies was pure pleasure!”
“Mrs. Thurgood, thank you.” Gianna hugged her, surprised and delighted. “May I open it now?”
“Yes. Please. And tell me what you think. I know Carmen said you’re having a boy and a girl, so I wanted them different but similar. If that makes any sense.”
“Perfect sense,” declared Sofia as she walked through the fabric divider. “Oh, Gianna, how precious.”
“It is.” Gianna lifted a miniature white christening gown knit with the softest of yarns. Blue trim marked the hem and thin blue satin ribbon wove an in-and-out pattern through the wrist openings. “Oh, it’s just simply amazing, Mrs. Thurgood. So delicate and perfect.”
Mrs. Thurgood’s face said Gianna’s reaction made her day. She nodded to the bag Gianna had set down near the cash register. “And the other one?”
Gianna withdrew a matching gown, trimmed in pink, but not the typical soft baby-pink. This was a full-toned raspberry, one of Gianna’s favorite shades. She turned toward Mrs. Thurgood, wondering, and the woman smiled fondly.
“You wear that color often. That’s how I knew. And if this baby girl has her mother’s coloring, then this shade of pink will be just right, don’t you think?”
“Stunning.” Gianna reached out and hugged her again. “I love them, Mrs. Thurgood. I’m overwhelmed because I know how long it takes to make things like this.”
“Not so long when time is all you’ve got and winter hangs on well past its welcome,” returned the widow. “Like your grandma, I keep myself busy. And making these little gowns?” She grinned, her pleasure evident in a wreath of wrinkles. “A true delight. I hope you don’t mind me reusing that bag.” She touched the frayed gift bag with one hand. “I don’t hold with waste and I’m known to be frugal, so I like to reuse things as often as possible.” She sent a look around the vintage store and smiled. “I knew you were the kind of folks who’d understand that logic.”
“Use it up, wear it out,” Carmen agreed. She put her hand on Mrs. Thurgood’s shoulder. “You have blessed us like you bless this community with goodness and sharing.”
Mrs. Thurgood shrugged off the c
ompliment, but joy showed in her face, her smile. “I must get off. We’ve got a project to talk about at the church hall, and I don’t like to do these things on Saturday night, but with the bicentennial celebrations coming up, even an old duck like me has to make exceptions. Good night, dear.” She pressed Gianna’s hand and hurried out of the store.
A murmur of approval went through the few remaining customers. Smiles were exchanged over the beauty of baby clothing.
Gianna pretended not to notice Marie’s frown. She kept her attention focused on the customers, half hoping closing time lingered. And it did as they finished up the last sale of the day, but keeping Marie at bay might have made matters worse. From the look on her face, Gianna was pretty sure that was the case.
Chapter Fifteen
“You have broken my heart. And you have done so deliberately.” Marie pushed forward from her side of the small kitchen table, her eyes boring into Gianna’s a short time later. She’d exchanged her customary melodrama for hard-edged anger, and Gianna wondered which side she disliked more.
Both, she decided, wishing she saw the softer side of Marie more often. “My intent wasn’t to hurt anyone,” she began, but Marie waved a hand, brushing her words aside.
“Bah!”
The typical Marie shutdown made Gianna cringe internally. If Marie didn’t agree with you, she refused to listen, but if the Italian matriarch wanted to have a nurturing relationship with her grandchildren, she’d better start listening. And being nice. Soon. “Marie.”
Michael’s mother kept her face averted, so Gianna touched her sleeve with a gentle hand. “Look at me. Please.”
Marie huffed, then turned slightly, as if doing Gianna a favor. In her turn, Gianna bit back a sigh of resignation that would do neither of them any good. “We both lost something precious when Michael died.”
“You think I don’t know this? That my son, my precious son, was taken from me so callously? While he was out to get ice cream for his pregnant bride at that hour of night? Tell me something I don’t know, Gianna. Tell me something that makes this—” she waved a hand toward the rounded swell of Gianna’s belly “—all right. To bear my grandchildren without a word to me.”
“If you stop scolding, I will explain.” Gianna kept her voice taut and her gaze firm, a trait she’d learned from Carmen. Act calm but be strong. “For years I’ve been paying the fertility clinic to keep our last embryos in storage. That wasn’t a secret. You all knew we couldn’t conceive in the normal way and that we sought help. And you also knew that both pregnancies ended badly.”
Marie shrugged concession but didn’t look mollified.
“Last year I started thinking about them.” Gianna laid her hand atop the babies. “Those last two embryos, and how we’d created them for our own selfish purposes.”
“Wanting a child is not selfish. It is normal. Don’t call my son names, Gianna. Not in my presence.”
“We were selfish,” Gianna continued, ignoring the interruption. “We thought first of our wants, our needs. So when Michael was shot and I lost that baby, we’d come to a fork in the road. My life changed that month. Your life changed. We all grieved for a loss we shared, but I realized last year that those two tiny scraps of life were living in cryogenic limbo. They had no choice in the matter. They had no say in their creation or their disposal. Should I go on keeping them frozen forever? Or should I cancel payment to the clinic and have them discarded? Or—” she reached out and sandwiched Marie’s left hand “—should I offer them the one chance at life God gives? Should I give them my body as an incubator and my love as their shield? What choice did I really have, when you look at it from their point of view?”
“But you tell no one? Except for Carmen? How is that right?”
Gianna kept her voice matter-of-fact. “I lost two pregnancies before. Why get everyone excited or nervous for something that might not work? And frankly, you all tend to overreact to everything. You. My mother. My aunts.” Gianna shrugged. “Grandma doesn’t. She listens, talks and prays. And she quietly stands guard, helping but not interfering. I needed someone calm and steady to see me through this, and Michael wasn’t available.”
Marie’s eyes darkened, then brightened with tears.
“I didn’t have his strength and grace this time,” Gianna continued. “There was no knight in shining armor to run to the store for me late at night, and if you’re harboring old feelings about my guilt in all this, you needn’t bother. I’ve regretted letting him go to that store for years, because if I hadn’t whined about ice cream, my husband would still be alive.”
Marie’s face shadowed. She sighed deeply. “I’m wrong to think things like that, Gianna. I’m wrong to look for blame, but after my husband walked out on us, I had no one but Michael. Nothing but Michael. I had no great passion for a career.” She indicated the vintage store with a glance in that direction. “No great talent like sewing or painting. I had money.” She shrugged. “My father’s money. The only thing I had was Michael. He was it, my one and only. Mi famiglia. And now you’ve gone and done this—” she waved her hand toward the obvious pregnancy and the town beyond “—moved here, to take more family from me. And I can’t let that pass.”
“And yet you must.” Gianna sat straighter and met Marie’s gaze. “I needed a fresh start. I wanted a new location where I can walk the streets and people see Gianna, not Michael’s widow. I want the unceasing talk of my sanity while I grieved the loss of my husband and babies behind me. I can have that here. It would be an impossibility back in Edgerton.” She stood and offered the silent message that the conversation was coming to an end. “We don’t have to figure all this out now. We have months yet. And you are my children’s grandmother—”
“Their nonnie.”
Gianna acknowledged the sweet name with a dip of her chin. “Their nonnie. But I am their mother, and you have to come to peace with my decisions as their mother. I want them surrounded by love and laughter. Warmth and peace. The faith of our fathers. And I can have all that here with a new, unfettered reputation.”
“And what of their father? His grave? His monument? How will they know of him, what a fine man he was? How will they respect his courage and bravery? His dedication to others?”
This line of questioning was easy to answer. Gianna reached out and hugged Michael’s mother and whispered, “Because we will tell them, Marie. We will show them pictures and tell them stories, and they will realize what a fine and honorable man their father was.”
Her words eased the strain but didn’t stem Marie’s grief. As she moved to the door she turned back, reenergized and seemingly as angry as ever. “You think you can make this all right with pretty words and Judas’s kiss, but, Gianna, you have stirred my grief with your actions. My life had moved on, I made changes that suit me and now you’ve brought that awful loss back to the forefront of my brain, my life. The night of that phone call, the day of his burial, the empty weeks and months that followed. I had come to grips with it, and now you go behind my back and bring it all up again. I’m not so sure you thought of others when you made this decision. I’m fairly certain you thought of yourself and your emptiness. And maybe that’s the part that is unfair. Fatherless children are nothing to be taken lightly.”
“A fact I know from experience, making me even more capable of handling this.”
“As you handled grief?” Marie’s face went hard and cool. “And loss?” She aimed a chilled look at Gianna’s abdomen. “Who will be their mama when you fall apart the next time?”
The arrow hit sharp, maybe because Gianna hadn’t realized how deep Marie’s anger went. Now she knew. “Good night, Marie.”
Marie didn’t return the farewell. She strode out, walked up the street in the direction of the bed-and-breakfast, and Gianna gripped the edge of the table in the sudden silence, wondering if Marie’s prediction would be pro
ved right. Would she fall apart in a crisis? Would pain or grief be her downfall forever, and would her children pay for her shortsightedness? Maybe she wasn’t as strong as she made out. Maybe—
No.
She refused to accept Marie’s criticism as valid. Grief was normal. It was part of life. And no one should put a limit on feelings, on sorrow, any more than they do on joy. What part of the human equation said it was okay to judge when others have grieved too much or too long? What gave anyone the right to find her lacking?
She sank into the kitchen chair and bowed her head, remembering the psalm she loved so well, a song of David.
You have searched me, Lord, and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue, You, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before, and You lay Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
God hemmed her in, He watched over her, protecting her. The gracious words meant a great deal to a seamstress. Once everything else is complete in a garment, the hem must be done to perfection, even and true, a perfect circle.
Like a wedding band.
A soft, familiar knock sounded at the door. When she stood, Seth came into the room, and one look at her face had him hold out his arms. She stepped into his hug, knowing she didn’t need his strength to uphold her but wanting it anyway.
Marie had made an accurate if mean-spirited point. Gianna hadn’t handled grief with aplomb. She’d been down and out for a long time, but things were different now. Two hearts beat beneath hers, two innocents, whose lives she’d created and now nurtured to fruition.
Could she risk losing this gentle man whose arms wrapped her in a hug that said forever? She’d learned the hard way that forever didn’t exist, and now she had two children to care for. Did she dare take a chance on love, knowing the dangers of police work firsthand?
Loving the Lawman Page 17