by Mia Madison
The woman has all the maternal warmth of a loan shark. “The law says it is.”
That’s my cue. “Until you’ve established your identity, and proven that you were still legally married to Mr. Callahan, you’re trespassing. I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
Deirdre narrows her eyes at me. “You a cop, too?”
“No, I’m a lawyer.”
I don’t miss the flash of dismay in her eyes, quickly concealed but there all the same. This woman may in fact be the girls’ mother, but she’s running a con. Glancing at Lando, I see he’s drawn the same conclusions.
“You heard the man,” he says. “Until we can get this sorted out, you’ll need to be on your way.”
Deirdre’s gaze, sweeping the room, fixes on the sisters, who are standing in a cluster to my right, Jade in the front. A grotesque mockery of a smile stretches the older woman’s face. “There’s my Jade. You always were a pretty little thing.”
Jade takes a step forward, her hands balled into fists. “How dare you.” Her voice is low and lethal. “You abandoned us and our father, and you have the nerve to come back here now, to try to steal what’s ours, and act like you’re family? You’re nothing to us. Get out.”
I’m proud of her, but there’s no time to savor it. Fury twists Deirdre’s face. “That’s no way to talk to your mother.”
“You stopped being our mother when you left. Now get. Out!”
Her voice rises to a shout, and that’s apparently enough to snap Buford’s control. He comes up off the couch and lunges at her. It all seems to happen in slow motion: his movement, my answering step forward, and the vicious uppercut I plant on the underside of his jaw.
He arcs backward and lands with a crash, arms splayed out, his head barely missing the coffee table. Deirdre jumps up and starts to shriek. “That’s assault! I’ll file charges! I’ll sue you--”
My head whips around and she pales and takes a step back.
“You have worn out your welcome,” I tell her. “In this house, and very nearly in this town. If you have a legal claim, you can pursue it through the proper authorities. In the meantime, you are to stay away from this property. If we spot either of you anywhere near it, you will be arrested. Have I made myself clear?”
Her eyes glitter with malice. “Perfectly.” On the floor, Buford is stirring. He shakes his head, blinks, and then his glare lands on me and he lumbers to his feet.
“Enough,” Lando says. He’s got his hand on his gun again. “Get your asses out of here or I’ll haul you both in.”
Buford sneers at him. “You ain’t no cop. Anybody can carry a gun and talk tough.”
Lando fishes his badge out with his free hand and shows it to him. “Only game here is the one you two are playing. I assure you the rest of us are deadly serious.”
Buford’s eyes cut to me. “Try it,” I tell him, half hoping he does. I’ll lay him out again and he won’t get up so fast next time.
Deirdre reads the scene better than her “friend.” She puts a hand on his arm and says, “Let’s go.” He hesitates, but finally moves toward the door.
To give Burford plenty of room, I back the girls up, putting myself between them and him. He lumbers past me, not giving me his full attention because he’s got Lando on his other side. In the doorway, Deirdre turns back. “You haven’t seen the last of us.”
I take a step forward, and she flinches. I’ve never laid a hand on a woman in anger in my life, and I have no intention of starting; but if she’s scared of me, so much the better. “For your sake, I hope you’re wrong.”
She holds my stare for a long moment, both of us cold as vipers, then turns away without another word. Lando and I step through the doorway to watch them go. I wouldn’t put it past them to try to lift some small items on the way out.
We follow them all the way to the door, and watch them climb into a red Corvette, one that’s seen better days. The late afternoon sun shows every dent and ding in the body, and I’m guessing it could use a good tuneup too. Buford peels out, kicking up dust and gravel, and fishtails down the long driveway.
When they’re out of sight, my brother and I exchange glances and turn around to see the girls behind us, pale and grim. We pull all three of them in for a group hug, Jade on my side, Brianna on Lando’s, and Quinn in the middle.
“I’ll talk to the cousins,” Lando tells me quietly. “I’m guessing you don’t want this on the department’s radar, and we wouldn’t have the funds to patrol regularly anyway.”
“Yeah, let’s keep it in the family for now.” Our cousins Kosta and Tonio have their own private security details, and our cousin Carlo owns a security and investigations firm. The three of them can help out with keeping an eye on the place until we’re sure the girls are safe.
“You staying here tonight?” Lando asks.
“Yeah.” No way am I leaving Jade, or her sisters, alone. “You?”
He nods. “I can bunk down here. I’ll run back to town and get my stuff.” I toss him my keys, knowing he’ll grab my gear too. “You girls want me to bring back pizza?” he asks.
That gets us some smiles. “We’ll make ice cream,” Brianna announces. “And more cookies. We can have a movie night.”
“No chick flicks,” Lando warns.
Brianna snorts. “Die Hard marathon, more like.”
Lando shoots me a grin on his way out. All things considered, it’s shaping up to be a good night.
But there’s a kernel of disquiet in my gut that says this is a long way from over.
9
Feels Right
I’m relieved when Romero and Lando announce that they’re spending the night. Part of me wants to be alone, and have a good long cry. Mostly, though, I’ll feel a lot better with them around.
The twins and I get busy in the kitchen making all our favorite treats. Romero sits at the table in the adjacent dining area, making notes on a yellow legal pad he brought in from his car and offering to be our quality control taste tester.
“You just want to know which ones to hog for yourself,” Bree teases him.
He shoots her a grin. “Naturally.” I get that little flare of jealousy again, and then he catches sight of the look on my face and summons me with a crook of his finger.
It was annoying when that cop did it, but for Romero I obey, feeling petulant and foolish at the same time. When I reach him, he grabs hold of a fistful of my top, right between my breasts, and uses it to tug me down so I’m bent over him. It’s a graphic display of ownership that my sisters, a few feet away, can’t possibly miss.
“Hey,” he says softly.
“Hey.”
“You’re my girl.”
I squirm, uncomfortable at being called out. “Okay.”
“Kiss me.”
I give him big eyes. “Now?”
“Uh-huh.”
Making out in front of my sisters is not my idea of a good time, but his raised eyebrow is a warning that I’d better not make an issue of it. Dipping a little lower, I try to give him a quick peck on the mouth.
As soon as our lips make contact, his hand cradles my face. He’s not exerting any force; just his touch is enough to hold me there. There’s no tongue, nothing but the brief pressure of my mouth against his; but when he eases me back a few moments later, his eyes are flecked with amber and my lips are tingling.
I go back to work with my feelings all in a jumble. For some reason, that almost chaste kiss is more disconcerting than anything else we’ve done so far. He’s just … staking a claim, that’s all.
But somehow it feels like more than that.
We’ve got an impressive array of goodies assembled when Romero takes a call on his phone. “Hey, Lando.” He listens, and the expression that grows on his face is not one I can begin to fathom.
“You talked to Mom? Right. Yeah, I know how she is.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “So, incoming … any minute now.” His grin is wry. “Brace yourself, brother.”
He ends
the call and looks at us. We’ve all stopped work, alerted by the curious tone of his voice, and are eyeing him uncertainly. “So, um …” he starts, then trails off.
“We couldn’t exactly help overhearing your end of things,” I say. “What does ‘incoming’ mean?”
“It means my family is on the way.”
“Your family? Like, your parents?” That gives me a strange feeling; I’m not sure if it’s good or bad.
“Like, my whole family.”
“How many people are we talking about?” Bree says.
He gives an eloquent shrug. “It could be anywhere from a dozen people to a hundred.”
“A hundred!” Bree shouts. “That’s crazy! Why are all these people …” She flings her arms out in silent entreaty.
“Invading,” Romero says gently. “That would be the word you’re looking for. It’s … well, word got around about your situation, and it’s their way of showing support.”
“That’s kind of sweet,” I say. “But … no offense, but I kind of have to agree with Bree on this one.”
He gives me a crooked smile. “No argument here. It’ll be all right, I promise. Just remember that.”
“What are we going to feed them all?” Quinn wonders.
“Oh, they’ll bring food,” he assures her. “Lots of it.”
With her usual equanimity, Quinn says, “Then we’d better bake some more cookies.”
Lando brings the pizza anyway, because he said he would, and he wasn’t sure what else his family might show up with. It’s a good thing the farmhouse is big; I don’t think we wind up with a hundred visitors, but it’s way more than a dozen.
And the amount of food they bring is truly impressive. Every kind of pasta dish imaginable, not surprisingly, but also soups, seafood dishes, roasts, salads, side dishes … it’s mind-boggling.
Every available flat surface in the downstairs area is soon covered with serving dishes. Our desserts reign supreme in the kitchen area, drawing oohs and ahhs from the stream of visitors, and lots of warnings from moms to kids that they need to eat dinner first.
Then there’s Bianca. She’s tall, dark and gorgeous, like every Adamo, apparently, and she takes one look at our array and says, “To heck with dinner. I’m eating dessert first.”
“There’s ice cream, too,” I tell her.
“Stop. I’m dying here.” She takes a nibble of a double fudge brownie and her eyes roll back in her head. “Anjelica,” she calls. “Come taste this.”
Another Adamo woman joins her — her sister, maybe? — and together they sample the brownie, a lemon bar, a cranberry almond cookie, a bread pudding muffin, a sliver of spice cake, and some of our blackberry ice cream. Then they round on me.
“Are you selling all this in town?” Bianca demands.
“Um … no.”
“Why not?” Anjelica chimes in.
“Down, girls.” Romero’s arm circles my waist protectively. He’s stayed within earshot of me all evening, and it’s left me feeling supported, but not hovered over.
“Rome,” Bianca says. “Have you tasted any of this?”
“Most of it, yeah.”
“It’s amazing. All of it.” She turns back to me. “People would pay good money for this kind of quality.”
“Well …” I can’t even begin to imagine the logistics of trying to set up shop in town. I’d need a business degree or something.
Romero says in my ear, “Bianca is the owner of, you guessed it, Bianca’s.”
“Oh. Oh!” I’ve window-shopped her high-end boutique more than once. “Your clothes are amazing.”
“Thanks.” Smiling, she gestures to Anjelica. “Anj runs Bel Fiori.”
“Ohh, I love your jewelry.”
“Thank you. The point is,” she says gently, “we understand retail. We could help you write up a business plan, make contacts in town, even get funding.”
My eyes are suddenly full of tears I can’t hold back. When they spill over, I blurt, “Excuse me,” and turn to bury my face in Romero’s chest. Gentle pats on my back tell me that my new friends aren’t offended.
Romero’s arms come around me, his lips grazing the top of my head. “All right, sweet girl,” he murmurs.
I look up at him, and he gently brushes the moisture from my cheeks. “Did they mean it?” I ask.
“Every word.”
Emotion threatens to overwhelm me again. “They don’t even know me.”
“My family have big hearts. And that pair are very sharp. If they think you’ve got a viable product here, then you do.”
“We could save the farm,” I whisper. Something that seemed impossible for my sisters and me a few hours ago is suddenly within reach.
“So we’ll make an appointment for you to sit down with them this week, and we’ll see where it leads.”
I nod and snuggle into Romero’s side, watching the steady flow of people through the house. “You know, when Bree mentioned a movie night, I was thinking we might sneak upstairs and fool around.”
“Funny thing,” Romero says. “I had that same thought.”
“But this …” A gaggle of children hurries by us, chattering. One boy stops, doubles back, and grabs a chocolate chip cookie. Stuffing it in his mouth, he gives me a gooey grin and runs after his playmates. “This is good. It’s crazy, but it’s good.”
Something changes in the atmosphere, a subtle alteration of the air around us. “Yeah,” Romero says quietly. “It’s good.”
I’m not sure what just happened, and I’m afraid to ask. I don’t want to spoil this moment. So I lean against Romero, and bask in the glow of having family fill the house. Even if it’s not mine, even if it’s only temporary, it feels right.
10
Gone Soon
I find my brother in the family room, where one of the Die Hard films is in fact playing on the not-that-big television. He’s doing the same thing with Brianna that I’ve been doing with Jade all night: keeping an eye out, making sure no overzealous family members get carried away in their attentions.
He looks up, sensing my presence in that way twins have, then glances over to check on Brianna. She’s surrounded by a crowd of middle-school kids, in a way that suggests they’ve glommed onto her as the coolest adult in the house. The attention doesn’t seem to faze her in the slightest, but then I don’t think there’s much that rattles Brianna Callahan.
Lando works his way around the crowd and joins me. When I lead the way outside, he doesn’t say a word, just follows. The front porch is occupied by people getting a breath of fresh air after the closeness of the packed house, so we wander down the driveway a bit until we have privacy.
I lean against a split-rail fence that borders the driveway; he joins me, waiting patiently. I let the silence stretch out into the velvet night until the thing that’s taking shape inside me finds its own words and spills out.
“I always figured I’d settle down one day.”
“Sure,” Lando says. “It’s what we do. Eventually.”
“It’s one of the reasons I came back here. I couldn’t see myself raising a family in New York.”
“I would have been pissed if you’d tried. Making me go all the way there to see my nieces and nephews.”
I smile. “I figured I had a better chance of meeting the right woman here.”
“But who’s the right woman?”
“That’s the question. For me, there’s always been one thing that topped the list of criteria.” He sends me a look. “No, not that, you perv.”
“Tell me.”
“Someone who isn’t intimidated by our big, clamorous, nosy Italian family. Who groks the goodness of what we have right down to her bones.”
He’s silent a long moment. “Weathering an invasion is a pretty good way of testing that.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re not out here because she failed the test.”
“No, we’re not.” I nudge a dirt clod with my toe. “I felt it, Lan. I felt it i
n her.”
“The grokking?”
My brother can always make me laugh. “The grokking,” I agree.
There’s another long pause as we both let the weight of our words settle. Finally, Lando says, “So she’s the one?”
“I don’t know if she is, yet. But I know she could be.”
“Even knowing that much … it changes things.”
“Yeah.” I look toward the house, as if I could see Jade through the walls. I needed to say it out loud, this new knowing, and Lando and I have always been each other’s confidantes.
Now that it’s done, the urge to get back inside, to find her, takes over. I come up off the fence and look at my brother. “How’s Brianna holding up?”
“I don’t think anything intimidates that girl.”
“I’m inclined to agree.” He hasn’t had any knowings, or he’s not ready to talk about them. That’s all right. Everything in its time.
Right now, I have an appointment with a green-eyed girl.
Jade’s still in the kitchen … talking to my parents. Of course they waited until I left her alone for five minutes. There’s only a hint of panic in her eyes, which is pretty good considering.
“Excuse us a moment,” I say to them, and taking her by the hand, I draw her away to a semi-private corner. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She takes a breath. “Better, now that you’re back.” I can’t quite suppress a mild flash of irritation, and her faint smile fades. “Are you mad at them?”
“It’s my job to make sure none of this gets out of hand. They shouldn’t have cornered you when I wasn’t there for backup.”
An emotion I can’t name sifts through her eyes. Whatever it is, it leaves me with a strange, piercing pleasure-pain in the center of my chest. Laying a hand on my cheek, she says softly, “You’re a hell of a man, Romero Adamo.”
“I leave the toilet seat up.”
Her eyes sparkle with suppressed merriment. “Sorry, you’ll have to do better than that if you want to convince me you’re not a good guy.”