by Joy Nash
“My brothers used to tell me I was adopted,” Johnny commented. Tori started. She hadn’t realized he’d come up behind her. “Either that, or the mailman’s kid.”
She met his laughing eyes. “Did you believe them?”
“Well, not the bit about the mailman. Ma and Pop were too much in love for that. But I did believe the adoption story for a few years.” He laughed. “Still do, sometimes.”
Tori replaced the photo on the shelf. It must have been bliss growing up in a family with a mother and a father, ones who actually loved each other, too. She stifled a sigh as she turned from the photos to examine the rest of the room. A computer setup and a large desk spread with blueprints filled one entire wall. Nick’s desk.
The wall above it was filled with framed artwork. Pencil drawings of the beach and the boardwalk. A watercolor of Lucy the elephant, another of a seagull perched on a weathered piling. Several more, all original. Some had clearly been done by a child’s hand, others by a more mature artist.
The largest drawing was an ink-and-watercolor rendering of the Santangelo home. It was a two-dimensional architectural drawing, the lines drawn crisply with the aid of a straight edge. The artist must have had incredible patience, Tori thought, to capture the house in such detail.
“I did most of those,” Leigh said, following Tori’s gaze. She’d picked up Sophie and was balancing her on one hip. “Except the one of the house. That one’s Dad’s.”
Tori was surprised. “I didn’t know your dad was an artist.”
“He’s not. At least not anymore. He drew that before I was born. Before the house was built, even.”
“Before it was built? I don’t understand.”
Johnny leaned a hip on Nick’s desk. “Nick wanted to be an architect. He designed this house as a high school project. Our father had just bought the land for a new house, and he liked Nick’s design so much he had his architect work with Nick to draw up the plans.”
“But I don’t understand,” Tori said. “If Nick wanted to be an architect, and has so much talent, why didn’t he become one?”
Johnny glanced at Leigh. “He…um…never went to college. He went to work for my dad right out of high school.”
Tori took one look at Leigh’s pained expression and immediately wanted to bite her tongue. Leigh had been born when Nick was only eighteen; her unplanned arrival had obviously caused a drastic change in his life plans. But Tori couldn’t imagine Nick resenting his daughter for being born. He just wasn’t that kind of man.
Tori didn’t know what to say. The moment stretched into awkwardness. Finally, Sophie broke the tension by leaning sideways in Leigh’s embrace and grabbing Tori’s arm.
“You wanna play a game?”
Tori smiled down at her. “Sure. What should we play?”
Johnny jumped up, rummaging through a cabinet. “Cards,” he said, producing a deck. “We’ll all play.”
“What’s the game?” Leigh asked, taking a seat at a game table set up in a corner of the room as her uncle rippled the deck accordion-style.
“Blackjack.” Johnny plunked a rack of poker chips on the table and sat down opposite Nick’s daughter. “I’ve been tutoring Sophie, you know. She’s a whiz.”
“You’re teaching a five-year-old how to gamble?” Tori exclaimed, appalled.
Johnny grinned. “She’s got to learn sometime. Besides, it helps with her math. Sophie can add and subtract all the other preschoolers into the ground.”
“Be on my team, Tori,” Sophie begged.
“Okay.” She took an empty seat. Sophie slid out of Leigh’s arms and onto her lap, wriggling to get comfortable. She was warm and sweet, and her weight felt good. Tori’s chest contracted as she tightened her arm around the girl’s tiny waist.
“You smell good,” Leigh said, sniffing. “What is it?”
“Lavender soap,” Tori told her.
“I like it. Will you give me some?”
“Sure, if you want.”
Nonna arrived from the kitchen at that moment. Her eyes lit up. She surprised Tori by settling into the remaining chair.
“Just a couple hands. Then Johnny here has to drive me home. I gotta watch that crime scene show.”
Johnny gave everyone one hundred dollars in chips, then dealt the first hand. The pile of chips Tori shared with Sophie grew rapidly—mainly, Tori suspected, because Johnny and Leigh were throwing each round to their niece. Their obvious affection for the girl made Tori smile. Sophie bounced in her lap, thrilled every time a new chip landed in front of her. Counting them carefully, she built them into towers and knocked them down while Johnny kept the cards and jokes coming.
“Okay,” he said finally, “last hand. Nonna’s getting antsy.”
Nonna peered at her watch. “I don’t wanna miss my show.”
“Don’t worry,” Johnny said. “I’ll get you there in time if I have to run every light from here to Atlantic City.”
“Don’t you dare,” Nonna said, frowning. “I’ll get Alex to write you a ticket.”
“Alex doesn’t give out speeding tickets,” Leigh said.
“He got police friends, don’t he?” Nonna retorted.
Johnny leaned sideways, his lips a fraction of an inch from Tori’s ear. “See what I have to put up with?” he said in a stage whisper. “My own grandmother, siccing the cops on me.”
“You poor baby,” Tori whispered back, just as loudly, meeting his laughing gaze.
“Better keep Johnny out of it,” a voice called from the living room. “Nonna, I won’t be long here. I’ll drop you off on my way back to the office.”
Tori’s heart stuttered.
Nick’s tall form appeared in the doorway. “I just stopped home to—” He halted abruptly, his dark eyes widening as they collided with her gaze.
“Tori.”
Johnny straightened. Tori’s pulse sped up. She searched Nick’s face for some sign that he was pleased to see her. His expression was completely unreadable.
She gave him a tentative smile.
Sophie slid off Tori’s lap and ran to him. “Uncle Nicky!”
Nick lifted his niece easily, the smile he hadn’t offered Tori softening his features at once. “Hi, squirt.”
“You wanna play cards with us, Uncle Nicky?”
“I can’t,” he said, carrying her to his desk. He hunted around and picked up a flash drive. “I’m not staying, honey. I just came to get something I forgot.”
He set Sophie on her feet. “Ready to leave now, Nonna?”
“Just gotta get my handbag,” Nonna said, pushing to her feet and heading for the door.
“Aren’t you going to ask how Tori’s first day went?” Leigh asked Nick, indignation plain in her voice.
He eyed her. “You worked there today?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t give you my permission.”
Tori looked at Leigh, aghast. “You told me—”
“Mimi said I could work at Tori’s today,” Leigh put in quickly. Her chin went up as she turned back to her father. “After all, you weren’t home to discuss it.”
“Just great,” Nick muttered. His dark gaze cut to Tori. “So, how’d it go?”
“All right,” Tori said carefully, trying to ignore the tightening in her stomach.
Nonna returned with her enormous black bag. Tori eyed it, wondering if, as Leigh insisted, Nonna had stashed the chakra bracelet from the shop inside. It didn’t seem possible.
“Yeah, I’m good to go,” Nonna said.
Nick escorted Nonna out the door with little more than a scant nod to the room as he left.
“Well,” said Johnny. He collected the cards and chips. “That was fun. As usual. You can always rely on my big brother to liven things up.”
His tone was carefully light, but Tori didn’t miss the sharp edge to it.
She stood. “It’s getting late. I’d better get going, too.”
Johnny looked up. “Did you drive over?”
&n
bsp; “No,” Leigh told him. “We walked over together from the shop. It’s only a few blocks.”
“I’ll walk Tori home, then,” he said.
“You don’t have to do that,” Tori protested. “I’ll be fine.”
“I know.” He flashed her an easy grin. “But I’m going to walk you home anyway.”
Chapter Twenty
No one knows you like family. Fortunately.
Nick ran three red lights on his way to Atlantic City.
His knuckles went white on the steering wheel as his mind flashed an image of his first sight of Tori with Johnny. Christ. Johnny’d practically had his tongue in Tori’s ear. And it sure as hell hadn’t looked like she minded. She’d been laughing, the way all women did with Johnny, her inky lashes fluttering over her sea green eyes.
Nick felt scooped out and scoured raw. He’d broken his date with Tori and tried to brush her into the background of his life. He’d told himself it was because he didn’t like the way she’d taken front and center in his thoughts. And he’d almost believed it. But now, after seeing Johnny putting the moves on her…Damn it.
He tried to tell himself he’d be just as pissed if Johnny had hit on any of Nick’s old girlfriends. But that was a bald-faced lie, and he knew it.
“Your new girlfriend’s a cutie,” Nonna said.
Nick repositioned his death grip on the steering wheel. “She’s just a friend.”
“Oh, no. I seen you with friends, Nicky. You smile, you laugh, you charm. Tonight, your face looks like someone’s squeezing your cojones.”
“Nonna!” Nick was appalled.
She gave a snort. “That girl ain’t no friend, Nicky. You’re under her skirt.”
He nearly plowed into the car in front of him. “Jesus, Nonna.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad for you. It’s been too long since that wife of yours left you.”
“I’ve hardly been celibate all that time. I’ve dated plenty of women.” Hell. What kind of conversation was this for a man to be having with his grandmother?
Nonna’s hand waved. “Is that what you call what you’ve been doing all these years? Dating? Come on, Nicky. A man brings a date home to his family. You never brought a woman home before today.”
“I didn’t bring Tori home,” Nick pointed out grimly. “Leigh did.”
“Well, however she got there, I like her. Even if she ain’t Italian.” She patted his arm. “Don’t let this one get away.”
He exhaled. “It’s not like it’s a fishing trip, Nonna.”
“And you should make sure you look nice for her,” Nonna said, ignoring his comment. She turned in her seat and squinted, forefinger pressed to one cheek. “You know, you always dress so boring.”
He glanced down at his white Santangelo Construction golf shirt. “What’s wrong with the way I dress?”
“Too…blah. You need some color to keep a nice girl like that one.”
“Forget it,” Nick muttered.
“Hmmm…” Nonna unsnapped her handbag. “Lemme see. I think I got just the thing.”
Nick’s apprehension rose as a panoply of items spilled from Nonna’s black bag. Change purse, pillbox, hair spray. A soap opera magazine with the headline, “Franklinville Hospital Tragedy: Will Dr. Marshall Survive?”
“It’s in here somewhere,” she muttered.
Nick took his hand off the steering wheel long enough to rub a sudden pain above one eye. “Please tell me whatever it is you’re looking for came from Mr. Merino’s store,” he said wearily, “and not from somewhere else.”
Nonna’s hand plunged into the bag’s gaping maw. “Old man Merino’s stuff is gettin’ too cheap for me. I stopped at that new men’s store in one of them Trump casinos yesterday. Ah,” she said finally, brightening. “Got it.”
“It” was a truly hideous pink-and-yellow necktie. Real silk, clearly, and Nick thought he saw the flash of a designer tag.
“Did you steal that thing?” he demanded. “From a casino, for chrissakes?”
“I mighta picked it up while I was there.”
Nick bit off a curse. “Nonna! You can’t just waltz into a casino boutique and steal things. Do you know what would happen if you got caught?”
“Ah, they won’t do nothing to an old lady like me. Besides, I put enough money in their slots to pay for a hundred ties.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Ah, Nicky. You worry too much.”
“Just quit it, okay? Quit the shoplifting.”
She waved the tie under his nose. “What do you think? Nice, ain’t it?”
“Nonna,” Nick said, keeping his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road, “that is, without a doubt, the ugliest article of clothing I have ever seen in my entire life.”
“Well, I’m giving it to you,” Nonna said happily. “A man can always use a snazzy tie.”
“So, just what is it you see in my brother?” Johnny asked Tori.
She stopped, letting her bare toes sink into the cool, damp sand as she swung her sandals in her hand. Johnny had insisted they walk the three blocks south on the beach rather than on the street.
It was dark on the beach, and she couldn’t gauge the tone of his expression. “That’s kind of a personal question, don’t you think?”
Johnny had left his shoes at the house. Now he moved closer to the ocean and stepped into the end run of a wave. “I’m a personal kind of guy.”
She shifted her sandals to her left hand, following him. A wave rushed her, flattening out as it splashed her ankles, and sent a shock up her legs.
“Nick renovated my house,” she said, as if what had gone on between them could be categorized as a simple business arrangement. “He helped me out when I couldn’t find anyone else. And he didn’t ask for any money up front. In fact, he hasn’t even sent me my first bill yet.”
“Nick didn’t charge you?” She could hear the surprise in his voice.
“Not yet.”
“I don’t believe it. Nick is never late with an invoice.” Johnny scooped up a clamshell and tossed it into the waves. “Of course,” he mused, picking up another shell, “you aren’t his usual kind of client.”
She didn’t like the way he said it. “And just what do you mean by that?”
He exhaled. “Your project’s not on the company books. Did you know that? I did a little snooping after Leigh told me about you. Doris said Nick told him not to open a file on your job.”
“But…I saw delivery slips on some of the materials. They said Santangelo Construction.”
“Nick reimbursed the company personally. I know, because Doris showed me the deposits.”
She stepped back as another wave hit. Nick had paid for her job out of his own pocket? That couldn’t be right.
“What’re you saying? That Nick isn’t planning to charge me at all? That’s not true. I told him I won’t take charity.”
Johnny sent her a sidelong glance. “I doubt he’s thinking of you as charity.”
“What other way can he mean it?”
Johnny’s eyes were fixed on the sea. “Tori. I know my brother. Nick’s a guy who likes to keep his balance sheets even. I probably shouldn’t be butting into this, but I like you. I saw how you looked at him tonight, and I saw how pissed he was to see you there with all of us. There’s something you gotta know about Nick. He never brings women he’s dating home for dinner. He breaks up with them before it ever gets that serious.”
A hollow, uneasy feeling took up residence in Tori’s gut. “What makes you think I want things to get serious?”
He glanced at her, then resumed his walk up the beach. “I’d put money on it, Tori,” he said quietly. “And I’d win. You’re the family type. I can tell.”
She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat.
“Do you know,” he continued, “it’s been fifteen years since Nick’s wife left him, and in all that time he hasn’t had a single serious relationship. Not one. And it’s not because women haven’
t chased him.”
Tori felt small. “He loved his wife that much?”
“Cindy? Hell, no. Nick married her because she was pregnant and it was the”—he made quotation marks in the air—“ ‘right thing’ to do. But it turned out to be dead wrong. I was only nine when they split up, but even I could tell he could barely stand her by then.”
Tori’s stomach cramp eased a little. “I don’t understand. What does Nick’s love life have to do with the money I owe him?”
Johnny came to a halt. Tori stopped, too. He looked down at the sand and kicked it.
“How can I explain this without getting you pissed at me?” His head came up, and for once, his smile was nonexistent. “Okay, I’ll give it a shot. Nick’s an uptight bastard on the outside, but underneath he’s a great guy, with the biggest heart. He’d do anything for anyone, but what he’d never do is take anything from anyone. He doesn’t like to be in debt.”
“So?”
“So the reason Nick won’t charge you for the work is because it’s his contribution to your relationship. So he won’t need to put in an emotional investment.”
The humid air was thick in Tori’s lungs. “That sounds like some very shaky armchair psychology.”
“Well, I did spend a couple years as a psych major.” He touched her arm. “Look. I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.”
But his words had a ring of truth to them she didn’t want to accept, and she just couldn’t let them stand. “So you think…what? That Nick did my work in exchange for…for sex?”
Johnny’s silence was answer enough.
Tori groped for a lifeline in the dark. “I…I just can’t believe that, Johnny. Nick’s an honest, caring man. He’d never cheapen what we have together that way. There has to be another explanation.”
Johnny opened his mouth, then shut it and just looked at her.
“Shit,” he said. “I’m too late. You’re already in love with him.”
“You can’t stay,” Leigh told Jason, leaning over the seawall at the edge of the patio. “Dad could be home any minute.”