by Lori Wilde
Rattled, Nick ran a hand through his hair. “Um… it’s okay.”
“I shouldn’t have gone off on you either. It’s just that I want you to understand how you’re sabotaging your chance for happiness.”
“Yeah?” The question came to his lips even though he hated to ask it. “How’s that?”
“All you’ve got to do is stop denying how you really feel.”
Nick sucked in a deep breath. The heat of her gaze warmed his cheek. “You wanna know how I really feel?”
“Yes.”
He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t say the words. Couldn’t tell her how betrayed he felt because she was selling the house out from under him. Couldn’t tell her why he’d felt so compelled to chase Delaney Cartwright away.
“Well?”
Anger sent his pulse throbbing through his veins. Fear tightened his lungs. Denial squeezed his stomach. “Never mind,” Nick mumbled, turned on his heels, and walked away.
Before he reached the corner of the house, he heard his grandmother muttering, “Men. Hardheaded as cement. Every last one of them.”
Lucia and Trudie caught Delaney as she was leaving the office that afternoon. The minute she saw the two elderly ladies, her heart sank. Via the telephone it had been difficult enough to quit the job, but to reject Lucia to her face would be next to impossible.
“Lucia, Trudie, it’s so good to see you,” Delaney greeted them in the parking lot of her office. The silver Acura sat three spots away from the front door, taunting her. If she’d just parked a few feet closer, she would have already been driving away when they pulled up. “Were you in the area and decided to drop by?”
“No, no.” Lucia beamed. “We made a special trip just to see you.”
“It’s over fifty miles,” Trudie said. “And my driving’s not what it used to be.”
“You can say that again,” Lucia chimed in. “We were lucky to make it here alive. She almost hit a seagull. Twice.”
“Pesky creatures,” Trudie muttered.
“I was just leaving for the day,” Delaney said, hoping that might deter them.
“We brought cannoli,” Lucia said and held up a paper bag smelling deliciously of baked goods. “I made them myself.”
“They’re an especially tasty batch,” Trudie said. “I had two on the drive over.”
“That’s why you almost hit the seagulls. Eating and driving don’t mix.”
“It’s your fault. You’re too good of a cook.”
Delaney bit back a sigh. “Would you ladies like to come into my office?”
“We would love that.” Lucia smiled. “Thank you.”
Delaney took out her keys, opened the office back up, and ushered the women inside. “Have a seat,” she said, inviting them to sit down on the love seat while she took the plush-cushioned chair positioned beside it.
“Nice office,” Trudie said. “Informal, cozy. I like it.”
“Thank you.” Delaney smiled and braced herself for what she knew was coming next. “How can I help you, Lucia?”
Lucia reached across to take Delaney’s hand in hers. She looked her in the eyes. “Come back, stage my house. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”
Delaney took a deep breath to bolster her courage. “Like I said when we spoke over the phone, Lucia, I should never have agreed to take on your project in the first place. Not with my wedding so close. I just have too much to do. I apologize for any inconvenience I might have caused you. I have the name of another house stager I can recommend.”
“This is about Nicky, isn’t it?” Lucia wasn’t pulling any punches. “You can tell me the truth. He likes you. I can tell, but I promise he won’t get out of line with you again. It hurt him so badly last year when Amber cheated on him on their honeymoon. He would never do anything to cause your fiancé to suffer like that.”
“Lucia…”
“If being alone with Nicky is the only thing that’s worrying you, we can take care of that.”
Delaney paused. She still wanted to renovate that house. Still hoped to get on American Home Design. But she couldn’t do that if she had to work alone in the house with Nick. She simply couldn’t trust herself to keep her hands off him.
“This is very important to me,” Lucia said lowering her voice. “Because you see…” She let go of Delaney’s hand and splayed her palm across her heart.
“What she’s trying to say,” Trudie interjected, “is that her ticker isn’t in the best of shape. She wants to get the house sold and settled before… well, you know, she kicks the bucket.”
Delaney scooted to the edge of her chair. “You’re sick? Lucia, why didn’t you tell me?”
“She’s proud,” Trudie said.
“Please, Delaney,” Lucia whispered. “Finish the house. Trudie and I will be there every day to act as chaperones. We promise you that.”
“But is that good for your heart? Shouldn’t you rest?”
“Doc says it’s good for her to get out. Stay busy. She just needs to avoid any emotional distress. Right, Luce?”
Lucia nodded. “Please?”
When she presented it like that, how could Delaney say no? “Under the circumstances, of course I’ll finish the job for you, Lucia.”
“Oh,” Trudie said. “One other thing. You can’t tell Nick about her heart condition. He doesn’t know.”
Delaney captured Lucia’s gaze. “Doesn’t he deserve to know?”
Lucia looked uncomfortable. “It’s just that he’s had so much to deal with over the past year. I thought it best to keep it from him for now.”
Delaney didn’t agree, but she had to respect Lucia’s wishes. “I won’t say a word to him about it,” she promised.
“That,” Lucia said to Trudie as they left Delaney’s office, “was completely underhanded. I feel like such a liar. I just had a physical two weeks ago, and the doctor told me I had the heart of a thirty-year-old.”
“It worked though, didn’t it? Pretend heart problems get ’em every time. How do you think I con my kids into coming home for the holidays?” Trudie winked. “Now it’s all up to the whammy.”
Nick sat at the Sandpiper, an outdoor seaside bar near the entrance to the amusement park, his injured leg propped on an adjacent stool, nursing a longneck bottle of beer and idly watching a game of beach volleyball featuring bikini-clad coeds. He wished he could stop thinking about Delaney and what Nana had said to him.
He had chased Delaney off—fully, intentionally. Not because she was staging his grandmother’s house, like he told himself, but because he was terrified of his growing feelings for her.
And he had done the same thing with Amber, albeit subconsciously. Nana had him pegged.
It was a painful thing to face. His denial. The way he’d been sabotaging himself. He was still doing it. Allowing himself to be attracted to a woman who was engaged to marry another man, knowing he stood no chance with her.
“You’re one sick puppy, Vinetti.”
“Excuse me?” the bartender said. “Need another beer?”
Nick waved him away. He didn’t want the one he was drinking; he’d just needed to get out of the house and away from the renovations and Nana’s on-target assessment to clear his head. “I’m good.”
The guy nodded, swiped the bar with a towel, and slipped a bowl of cocktail peanuts in front of him. Nick reached for a handful, then stopped with the peanuts halfway to his mouth with he spied an elderly woman with a patch over one eye amble up to the bar.
He sat up straight.
Was this the woman he’d promised Delaney he would investigate and had completely forgotten about? Just his luck, the one-eyed carny woman drew herself up on the bar stool beside him, slanted her head Nick’s way, winked, and said, “Buy an old gal a drink, handsome?”
Nick was painting the shutters on Lucia’s house the next morning when Delaney drove up. She didn’t see any signs of Lucia’s car, and for one breathless moment when she looked across the lawn at him, she
almost panicked and drove away.
He must have sensed her hesitation, because he looked up from his work and gestured her over.
Lucia had promised Delaney she would be here and she trusted her to keep her word. She could handle being alone with Nick until Lucia arrived. It wasn’t like she was going to rip his clothes off his body and have her way with him on the front porch. But even as she thought it, she pictured it. What in the heck was wrong with her?
Putting the smile she’d perfected in charm school on her face, she strode up the sidewalk.
“Delaney,” he said when she reached the porch.
“Nick.”
“I’ve got some news for you.”
Worry gripped her. What kind of news? Had he found out about Lucia’s heart condition? Had something bad happened to Lucia? “Yes?” she asked and laced her fingers together.
“You remember that matter you asked me to check out for you?”
“What matter?” She was so busy worrying, his words didn’t fully register.
“The patch-eyed woman from the amusement park.”
“Huh?”
“You asked me to find out who she was.”
“Oh, right, yes, yes.”
“I should have followed up sooner, but we were so busy with the house that it slipped my mind.”
“That’s okay.” Truthfully, it had slipped Delaney’s mind too. “What did you find out?”
“All I learned is that she hasn’t been working at the amusement park long, and in fact, she’s leaving town soon.”
“Where’s she going?”
“Pensacola.”
“Is that all?” Delaney curled her fingers into her palms.
“I asked a PI friend of mine to do a little more digging. See if he could find out where she came from. I’ll let you know if he finds a connection to your mother.”
“Any clues as to why my mother would be meeting her?”
“No idea.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing. Now that I think back on it, I was probably mistaken. I don’t see how my mother could have a secret life where she slipped off to islands to visit carnivals.” She laughed.
“I’m sure you’re right about that.”
“It’s preposterous, really. Maybe we should tell your friend not to bother.” Delaney tried not to notice how delicious Nick looked with the morning sun glinting off his muscles. She swallowed. “Thank you anyway. I appreciate it. I’ll give you a check so you can pay your friend for the trouble he’s already gone through.”
“Don’t worry about it. He owes me a favor. I’ll just give him a call and tell him you decided not to persue the matter.”
“Thanks,” she said again.
They looked at each other.
“We should talk about what happened the other day,” he said. “I’m sorry about my behavior. I was out of line.”
“So was I.”
“I can promise nothing like that will happen again.”
“It’s okay. I talked to your grandmother. She and Trudie are going to come over every day and act as our chaperones.”
“That’s pretty pathetic. We’re adults, and we can’t be trusted in the same room alone together.”
“Things just got out of hand.”
“I apologize for kissing you,” he said. “But I don’t regret it. It was bound to happen.”
“I’m sorry if I hurt you. I’m sorry I said you were just something to get out of my system. The way I said it made it sound like you didn’t matter, but you do matter and that’s precisely the problem. You’re a good person, Nick, and you deserve a woman who’s free to love you, wholly, completely. In another time, another place…” She let her words trail off.
“Yeah.” He nodded, but did not look at her. Restlessly, he ran his hands down the sides of his jeans. “It would be a lot easier if this was just an itch that needed scratching.”
That was the hell of it. Underneath the guilt, her heart was breaking from the desolation of knowing she would never again feel the pressure of his lips against hers. If he had just been something to flush from her system, she wouldn’t have felt such shame. But the kiss they’d shared held too much meaning to dismiss as a simple hormone rush.
“So we understand each other?” She looked deeply into his eyes. “Nothing more can ever come of this.”
“Never,” he croaked.
Chapter 13
Since she couldn’t shake things up with Nick, Delaney shook things up by decorating Lucia’s house in a Tuscan style. Lucia heartily approved and her input was invaluable. She told Delaney stories, reminiscing about her childhood in Tuscany, describing the countryside, the food, the people. Through her narrative, Delaney fell in love with a country she’d never seen, but soon felt as if she knew by heart. It sounded like a magical place, and she hoped someday to visit.
Her creativity took on a whole new facet as she explored aspects of color and lighting, texture and dimension, that she’d never before explored.
Most of the walls they painted using Venetian plaster technique. It was time-consuming, but the results were well worth it. In the kitchen, they installed new appliances, replaced the Formica countertops with Italian tile, and refurbished the cabinets. Delaney selected Roman shades as window treatments for the rooms. They added crown molding for visual flair, installed scroll casing around the doors, and exchanged the small baseboards for wider ones. They put in rounded archways and atmospheric lighting.
Lucia and Trudie helped out in what ways they could—refilling paint trays when they ran low, handing Nick tools as he worked to repair leaky pipes, making lunch, tending the flower garden.
Other members of the family put in appearances when possible, mainly on weekends, pitching in wherever they were needed. Delaney loved being around when the whole group got together. Even when they were arguing, the Vinettis had fun together. Teasing and disagreeing, laughing and squabbling and loving one another in ways Delaney envied.
Throughout the whole restoration project, Nick and Delaney kept a respectful distance from each other. Making sure they never accidentally touched or brushed up against each other, which was sometimes difficult in the confines of the small rooms. But even though it was possible to maintain their physical distance, it was almost impossible to keep from bonding emotionally.
Nick was a passionate man, yes, but he managed to retain his cool when things went wrong. Delaney admired that about him. He had a tolerance for the tedious and a willingness to start over from scratch if a project wasn’t working out. His patience surprised her. She hadn’t expected it.
Besides tales of Tuscany, Lucia told Delaney stories of Nick and his siblings when they were growing up in this house. How Nick had gone through an Untouchables phase when he was six—dressing up like Eliot Ness complete with suit, tie, hat, and plastic tommy gun. Even then, he was a cop in the making. She told of how he climbed up the chimney one Christmas to see if he could find Santa. And how he slid down the banister, crashed into his sister, and knocked out her front baby tooth.
On the long Fourth of July weekend, the Vinetti clan returned for one final big push on the project. It would be the family’s last holiday in the house on Galveston Island, and no one wanted to miss it.
For four days they worked and joked and ate and drank. Teased and cried and laughed and sighed. At times it was something of a madhouse with all the activity. But miraculously, on the final day almost all of the renovations had been completed. Delaney and Nick would be left with only touch-ups and strategic decorating before the house was ready to display. Delaney’s job was almost done, and oddly enough, she found herself feeling as nostalgic for the house as the rest of the family.
“I’ll see you after the Fourth,” Delaney told Lucia as she got ready to leave for the day. The family was standing in the kitchen, admiring how well it had all turned out. All except for Nick. He’d disappeared somewhere, and Delaney had to force herself not to look around for him.
“You’re not comi
ng to our barbecue tomorrow?” Lucia asked, disappointment in her voice.
“My mother…” Delaney waved a hand. “She has this event she sponsors for the Houston Symphony every year. I’m expected to attend.”
“Can you get out of it?” Gina asked. “The party won’t be the same without you.”
Delaney’s heart squeezed, and for some weird reason she felt like crying. “I always go.”
Trudie clicked her tongue. “Tsk. Such a shame. You haven’t lived until you’ve had Fourth of July with the Vinettis.”
“We have fireworks,” Zack said.
“And homemade ice cream,” Jack added.
“And watermelon,” lanky, teenage Tony threw in. “It’s a blast.”
She wanted so badly to say yes, but from the time she was little more than a toddler, Delaney had been attending the annual Fourth of July Symphony Under the Stars bash her father funded and her mother orchestrated. And all that time, she’d wished for the simple pleasure of backyard barbecues and fireworks.
There’s no law compelling you to go to that symphony event. Tell Lucia you’ll come and deal with Mom later. It was Skylar’s voice whispering in the back of her head, urging her to misbehave.
“We’ll miss you,” Gina said.
Delaney smiled gently. “There’s over two dozen people spending the night in this house; I seriously doubt I’ll be missed.”
“You underestimate yourself,” said a deep voice from the doorway. “The party won’t be the same without you.”
Her pulse spiked. She looked over to see Nick standing there with an enigmatic look in his eyes.
“You want me to come?” Delaney murmured, unable to take her gaze off him.
“I’m just saying you’ll be missed.” His tone was grave, and he broke their eye contact.
Delaney’s breath hitched in her lungs.
“Don’t pressure her,” Lucia scolded. “If she’s got a previous engagement, she’s got a previous engagement.”
“I’d love to come to your barbecue, Lucia,” Delaney surprised herself by saying. “I’ve been attending that boring symphony thing for as long as I can remember. I can skip one year.”