by Dee Tenorio
“Which saint is it?” she asked, when neither he nor Chloe seemed to know what to say next.
“There’s different kinds?” Chloe tucked her chin until it was nearly flat to her neck, trying to look at the now upside-down coin. “Is this a good one?”
“They’re all good. This one is Saint Christopher.” Raul reached under his own collar for the slim necklace she’d never known the connotations for.
She’d heard of that one. “Isn’t he the one for travelers?”
“Among other things. Not bad for a Protestant.” His smile was teasing.
“She watches Jeopardy,” Chloe added in, probably thinking that made Penelope sound smart instead of geriatric. “What kind does Danny have? He just says it’s a Catholic thing and I wouldn’t understand.”
“I think he’s got Saint Jude, patron saint of lost causes.”
“Figures.” Chloe smirked, pleased with her apparently superior saint.
Raul stifled a laugh. “So, I was thinking…sometime soon we should get you to my parents’ place so you can meet everyone.”
“I already know everyone,” Chloe reminded him, but she didn’t sound unhappy at the prospect. Her eyes were already dancing.
“Think of it as a reintroduction. Before you were Danny’s friend. This time, you’ll be family.”
Alarms went off in Penelope’s head. Scary ones, armed with memories she usually refused to entertain. “Maybe we should do something to celebrate, just us,” she said suddenly, brightly. When two bewildered scowls turned her way, six shades of awkward burned her cheeks. “Or, just the two of you, if…if that’s what you want.” She frowned, wanting her tongue to stop moving. Why did she just offer to let him take Chloe by himself? Was she losing her mind?
“I could do an early dinner,” Raul offered.
Chloe’s eyes widened and she yanked her backpack from the ground where she’d dropped it in her mad rush to get to Raul. Some one-handed rampaging and she snatched out a white envelope like the sword from the stone. “I’ve got free pizza!”
Penelope leaned backward when they both looked at her as if she held the keys to the city. “Am I the deciding vote or something?”
“Well, I am grounded.” Chloe sagged a little. She turned to Raul apologetically. “I forgot about that.”
Uh-huh. If he bought that, he’d get what was coming to him. Still…
“Well, it’s not every day you get a saint medal,” Pen said, going for a considering tone. A medal, a father, a whole flippin’ clan. Pizza was the least Chloe could’ve asked for. At this rate, Pen felt lucky she didn’t ask for a personal chef, just on the odds that she’d actually get it. “Keep that ticket for later, when you’re with your friends. Buying dinner saves me from death by corn flake.”
“We’re out of corn flakes,” Chloe answered with a cheeky grin.
Warmth suffused Penelope’s back and a pleasantly heavy hand slid to her arm. Little sparklers in her brain went off, points of pleasure she’d forgotten all about, when that hand drew her backward against a body she wished she didn’t still remember. “How about I buy? I mean, it’s the least I could do since I get to sit with the two prettiest women in town.”
“I thought Gennita Carlson was the prettiest woman in town.” Chloe frowned up at him. Raul looked down at her, then back up to Penelope as if she had the right response.
Pen only shook her head. “You’re going to need some new tricks if you plan on charming her.”
His sneaky half-smile came out, his warm stare shifting to her lips for the briefest of seconds. “What about charming you?”
“Mom’s uncharmable,” Chloe said. Which was helpful, really, because Penelope couldn’t quite breathe enough to tell him that herself.
“Is that so?” Raul ushered them out of the office, an arm around each of them. As if he had a right.
But he didn’t.
Penelope pushed back, slipping out of his hold wordlessly. She couldn’t let him do this to her. When he was young, he hadn’t even realized how much he raised her hopes with every kind word, his every smile or subtle acceptance of her affection. But he wasn’t a kid taking her for granted anymore. And she’d paid dearly for her lesson in protecting her heart.
Raul noted her withdrawal with only a slight tightening of his lips. She didn’t know how to read the message in his dark eyes, only that it was almost as heated as the millisecond in her office. Heated and…challenging.
She let him take a step, then two, with Chloe ahead of her. Let him challenge her. It wouldn’t get him anywhere. It couldn’t. He was in their lives for Chloe. To be the father her little girl needed, deserved.
He’s not here for you, she scolded herself, shaking off the feel of his warmth from her shoulders, from her side.
Penelope said her goodbyes to Cara and Erica, telling them to close up and go home early. Cara tried to ask questions, but Penelope just took off her jacket and hung it on the hook. Getting her purse and her keys, she made short, eye-contactless work of getting out for the day.
He’s not here for you, she mentally repeated. He never was.
But for a long time, she’d wanted him to be. Which was dangerous, because if he kept pushing, kept giving her those looks that made her heart stutter and her bones melt, it wouldn’t take much to make her want him again. And loving Raul Montenga twice amounted to little more than emotional suicide.
{{{
Two hours later, Raul wondered if maybe hauling ass with a hose over his shoulder was easier than parenting. Chloe’s pizza place in Poway—RDC had yet to get a place of their own that catered to kids—was a cross between child heaven and hearing hell. A little girl in there had hit notes only dogs should be able to hear. And according to Penelope, that had been a happy noise.
Josh was going to kick his ass six ways from Sunday for taking more time off work, but it’d been worth it. Chloe was pretty damn deadly with video games, and the basketball-throwing game was her version of stealing candy from a baby. Two more facts for him to add to his list of things he was learning about his daughter. He was currently up to ten—God, he hoped his parents didn’t know about that Protestant thing already—but he had a feeling he’d lose count soon. There seemed an awful lot about his child to learn.
“I thought my nieces and nephews were loud,” he complained again, walking with Penelope and Chloe to their door.
“They are,” Penelope said over her shoulder as she unlocked her front door. “Your family is just smart enough not to trap them in an enclosed space.”
Kids. No walls. Yeah, that seemed like a good plan.
Chloe wasn’t bouncing off any walls, but she didn’t seem anywhere near as tired as he felt. She thumped her way into the house and was already up three steps before announcing over her shoulder, “I better get upstairs and start my homework. Mrs. Garabedian is gonna be pissed if I don’t turn in my vocab sheet. Thanks for the medal and dinner, R—” She stopped talking abruptly, turning all the way around and frowning at him. “What am I supposed to call you now?”
He blinked at her. Well, crap, he hadn’t thought about that. “What do you want to call me?”
“Well, calling you Raul seems wrong. I mostly just do it ’cause it bugs Mom.”
Penelope rolled her eyes, doing a great job of not sighing.
“What did she call her father?” They both turned to Penelope, who got that cornered expression on her face again. He’d really have to ask her about that one of these days.
“Daddy,” she answered grudgingly.
Chloe scrunched the whole left side of her face. “Lame, Mom.”
“Gimme a break, I was only seven when he died.” She said it casually, but Raul remembered how she’d looked when her father died. For more than a year, he’d had to actually work hard to get her to smile. When he saw her, which wasn’t often. Grade school was all about the grade you were in. He only saw her when she managed to get away from her friends so she could come watch the bigger kids on the recess yard
. Back then, their two-year age difference might as well have been a ten-year one.
“Still.” Chloe dismissed the suggestion with a one-shouldered shrug.
“Well, I guess Daddy’s out.” He could live with that. In his family, titles were important. They showed respect, created the framework that gave the kids a sense of security he knew firsthand. It had been soothing, when he was little, to know exactly his place in his world and the place of everyone else. But that place had eventually become a box, one he’d hurt too many people trying to get out of. “How about you stick with Raul until you figure out what you do want to call me? Maybe we can work our way around to Dad or something like that.”
Dad. A moment of complete and utter terror ran through every nerve he had. This was really happening. The little girl looking at him like he was out of his damn mind belonged to him. Was part of him. Was his responsibility for the rest of his life.
Penelope frowned at him before she turned back to her daughter. No. Their daughter. “Go on upstairs, hon.”
“Is he gonna be okay?” Why did he get the sense that the eleven-year-old was laughing her ass off at him?
“He’ll be fine. Just a reality check.”
“Because of me?” His child was nuts—that seemed to make her happy.
“Someday, when you’re older, I’ll tell you exactly how scary you’ve always been. Up, before I give Mrs. Garabedian a run for her money.”
Some thumping, followed by a gleefully evil voice calling down, “Thanks for dinner, Daddy!”
Penelope reached out to him just as the edges of his vision went a fuzzy kind of white. “You better come in here before you fall down.”
Her hand slid around his biceps, a smooth movement that brought the color back to his vision. Tossing the door closed, she tugged him into the carpeted living room and down to the plush couch. Her slim form was next to him, her thigh brushing his, her dark hair slipping over her shoulder. Close enough to touch.
She turned her cobalt eyes on him, the smallest ripple between her brows. “You all right or do you need something cold to drink?”
Raul shook off the unsteady feeling, but the realization that he was being an idiot didn’t fade so quickly. “I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.”
His laugh sounded shaky to his own ears. “You’d think a man who walks into burning buildings would know better than to be scared of an eleven-year-old kid.”
“Why? A burning building can only kill you. Kids can make you beg for mercy on a daily basis.”
He could feel the color leeching from his face and forming a puddle around his ankles. It all rushed back at her soft, mocking laughter. “I’m starting to think maybe Chloe’s evil streak comes from you.”
“Probably,” she agreed easily, separating herself from him and shifting back a whole couch cushion. “But you’ll never get anyone you know to believe it.”
A growing familiar sense of irritation sparked in his gut again. Why did she keep doing that? Even the most innocent of touches and she backed away as if he were the most repellent thing she’d ever known. It made him itch to touch her even more, dare her to admit openly what she’d been doing. Explain it.
It was what he would have done when he was younger. Stupid. Firmly of the mind that while he didn’t necessarily want Penelope the way she wanted to be wanted, he had rights to her. As a man, grown and unfortunately required to acknowledge his own selfishness, he knew he didn’t have those rights. Any rights at all. He’d given those up twelve years ago.
“I’m not entirely a bad guy, you know. Someone might believe it.”
She smiled, bemused. “Oh yeah? Who?”
“My sisters.”
She outright laughed. Warm, inviting laughter that had his fingers knotting. “You’ve had the wool pulled over their eyes for decades. No, your family doesn’t count.”
“Well, hell, that rules out half the county.”
Penelope tucked her hair behind her ears before slapping her knees and rising with nervous energy. “I better get you that water. I don’t want it going to Chloe’s head if she finds you passed out on the floor.”
Yeah, there was something wrong with that girl if she thought freaking people out was a good thing. But that thought wasn’t what had him watching Pen’s lean form head for the kitchen.
“They’re not bad people, you know.”
“Who?” She called as she moved up the steps to the raised dining area.
“My family. They’re really nice, believe it or not.”
She turned, frowning. “I know. I’ve seen most of them pretty regularly the last couple of years.”
The subtle dig was hardly going to get him off the topic. “But you don’t want to see them as family.”
Her arms crossed and the line between her brows deepened. “Why would I? I’m not their family.”
“Chloe is.” A fact everyone in this small town would know within days, he was sure. So was she, if the fine bristle tightening her features meant anything. “They deserve a chance to recognize her, to show her she belongs. She deserves to know she belongs.”
“I never said they couldn’t. They see her every week at her and Danny’s baseball games. The two of them do everything together. I have no intention of getting in the way of that.”
“Then why don’t you want Chloe going to my parents’ house?”
She brushed her long bangs with an impatient hand. “How about I just get that water?”
“How about you answer the question?”
“Because there’s nothing to answer. I don’t have any problems with Chloe meeting your family officially.” She turned away from him, striding through the open doorway to the kitchen. As if she thought that would end the discussion. Really. Didn’t she know him at all anymore?
Feeling a lot steadier, Raul rolled to his feet, following the sounds of clanking glasses and glugging liquid. He stepped in, finding Penelope pouring filtered water from a jug, her back razor straight.
He tilted his head, eying her appreciatively. She’d always been pretty. Not stunning, not flashy or brash, like her friends. Miranda Whittaker and Trisha Arbourdale could steal a room from the pope when they felt like it. Penelope, though, she was the quiet type—like a treasure you couldn’t find unless you knew where it was. No one saw her, but once you noticed, you just couldn’t look anywhere else.
And for the first time in his life, Raul Montenga was really looking.
Not with the hormonal surges of a twenty-two-year-old kid, though that horny bastard was still itching to get at her. With the mature appreciation of a man who’d seen and touched and found that the glitter other women needed to garner attention wore off after a while. Not Pen, though.
Her hair fell down her back, straight as a waterfall, the strands gleaming with different shades of chocolate, molasses and caramel. Her body was trim, curving gently at the hips and…well, all right, the horny bastard in him unquestioningly loved the round, firm shape of her ass in those black slacks. God knew his dick paid allegiance to it in a daily morning ritual. But there was more he could see now. How poised she was, not to yell or pick up heavy objects to toss at his head. The way she wore her pride around her like a shield. The way she didn’t back down with him or their child.
Tearing his gaze from her butt, he glanced around, noticing the pool he’d expected out on the patio. She’d done amazing for herself, finishing her education, building her own practice. Shit, she’d come home with her fatherless child and faced down every judgmental, gossip-loving ass in this town. For as many as were harmless and kind, there were plenty who were vicious and cruel. But she’d stayed and walked with her head up for twelve years.
“I couldn’t have done it,” he said, making her jump as she turned with the glasses. “You didn’t hear me come in?”
She treated him to a mocking shrug before holding out his water. He took it, noticing she slid her fingers away before he could touch them, even accidentally. Then she positioned hers
elf against the counter, close enough that it wouldn’t be an insult, but far enough away that he’d have to come after her if he planned to touch her. Another notch on his patience gave way.
“Why are you afraid of me?”
“I’m not.” A denial that was too fast to be believable.
“Yes, you are. You’re afraid of me and you’re afraid of my family. I want to know why.”
A flicker of irritation narrowed her eyes. “Just because I’m not leaping for joy at the prospect of visiting your family does not mean I’m afraid. It means this is all moving fast and I’m a little concerned about thrusting my daughter feet-first into an already established family dynamic she won’t know or fully understand. I was hoping to ease her into a relationship with them. Gently. Carefully. To make sure no one gets hurt.”
“Why would anyone get hurt?” But in the back of his mind, he felt the doubt, the concern rise.
Penelope’s scoff told him he wasn’t fooling anyone. “I’ve met your mother, Raul.”
He stiffened, everything in him going angrily still. “And I’ve met yours.”
He knew he’d hit a raw nerve when her cheeks flushed a fast, hot pink. She set her glass down on the counter, untouched, and crossed her arms under her breasts. It wasn’t a calculated move, more as if she were hugging herself tight, but it shifted his attention nonetheless.
“I’ve done the best for my daughter—despite my mother’s personal issues—to make sure she’s been brought up safe, happy and secure, knowing that the people she loves, love her. And I’ve done pretty damn well so far.”
“No one’s arguing that.” And he wasn’t. She might be a little evil, but Chloe was a good kid overall. Better than he’d been at her age, that was for sure.
“I won’t apologize for worrying about her welfare when I know there’s a chance she could be hurt.”
Did he want her to? Heart thudding, he couldn’t answer, but he couldn’t let her walk around ignoring the obvious either. “Word is going to get around soon, Pen. What’s better for her, my brother and sisters finding out when she’s brought to the house for them to accept or when it’s thrown in their faces at the grocery store? How happy are they going to be to see her then?”