As if that would make a difference. She bent over TJ’s carrier and gently pried the soft yellow blankets back until she could see his little sleeping face. She barely resisted clenching a fist to her belly, and she had to swallow hard again at the burn in her throat and eyes. He was so sweet. So precious. So perfect.
A new generation to love and snuggle and carry on the Blue name.
“How’s he sleeping?” she asked.
“Pretty much only in the car or when Aunt Lindsey or Uncle Will is holding him. Which, of course, is proof my family is just as awesome as yours.” Nat tossed her jacket on the second chair. “Now, back to you. How did Tony really take the halftime show?”
She touched a finger to the baby’s nose. Half of her wanted to offer to babysit every night, and the other half wanted to go throw up. “Can I pick him up? He’s so cute. Look at those cheeks.”
“You think Tony has cute cheeks?”
That was close enough to permission for Pepper, so she went to work unbuckling her new nephew and pulling him out of his seat. “The baby has cute cheeks. Quit changing the subject.”
“We were definitely talking about Tony. So who’s changing the subject?”
“You show up here with a baby and you think my latest boyfriend is going to be my top priority?”
“You haven’t dated a new guy since before I got pregnant. So, yes.”
Dating. Crap. She needed to let Tony off the hook. Go buy knitting needles and learn to be that aunt who made blankets for everyone else. Level with Gran, tell her dating was off the table right now. That she’d decided she didn’t want a husband or family, and—dammit, her eyes stung. She buried her nose in the baby’s blankets and inhaled his sweet baby-lotion scent while she tried to get herself back under control.
“You know he’s divorced,” Nat said softly.
She nodded. Everyone knew he was divorced, and apparently everyone thought that made him broken.
Nat, of all people, shouldn’t judge.
“Want me to find out why? Lindsey’s all attorney-client privilege, but I have my ways of finding out.”
Tony’s divorce was none of her business. “You don’t trust me to talk to my own boyfriend?”
“I don’t like not knowing about the men my friends and family are dating. And I don’t know very much about Tony. I mean, I know the six feet, dark hair, always scruffy, fabulous ass part. I know he grew up in Willow Glen and Lindsey loves his pizza. But I don’t know who he dated before or after his wife, why he got divorced, who his parents are, what his most embarrassing childhood moment is, and if that’s actually his original pizza recipe.”
“How many people’s most embarrassing childhood moments do you know?”
“Here on The Aisle? Pretty much everyone under forty. You know Max Gregory, right?”
“Is there anyone who doesn’t?” Max had been the primary topic of gossip since Merry arrived in town a few months ago. Between her secret life as an author, her father being a jewel thief, and Merry herself stealing Max’s family’s most prized jewel from their jewelry store shortly before Christmas, there practically wasn’t anything else worthwhile to talk about in Bliss. “The entire state knows him by now. Probably the whole country.”
“He serenaded Charlotte Russell with a really bad version of Bro Code’s ‘American Sweetheart’ to ask her to homecoming our senior year. She thought that his singing was two ducks having sex outside her bedroom window, so she threw a bucket of water on him.”
An unexpected laugh welled up inside her. “Does Merry know?”
“If she doesn’t, she will soon. I hear Charlotte is trying to talk her into doing a signing at Once Upon a Page a few times a year, when she’s not kicking Max’s ass on the basketball court for keeping the secret.”
“So what’s your most embarrassing childhood memory?”
“You first.”
“Not a chance.”
Nat smiled. “That’s what I thought. So, how many dates until you ask Tony to marry you?”
“I already asked. He said he’s not buying the cow before he gets a sample, and I’m not putting out for a guy who calls me a cow.”
“He called you a cow and you’re still dating him? And wait—you haven’t slept with him yet?”
Dang it. She’d screwed that up again. “Not all of us can have some emotionally wounded prince come riding into town to save our firstborns and their dinosaurs from evil fountains,” she said pointedly. “And Tony has a unique sense of humor. It was funnier in person.”
She hugged TJ closer. The little guy yawned and stretched, and a hollow pang cramped her empty womb.
“All of your Blue people think you’re funnier in person,” Nat said.
Pepper pressed a kiss to TJ’s forehead. “Your mommy is making fun of me,” she whispered.
“Only because I love you.”
TJ scrunched up his face, blinked his dark blue eyes open, and let out a wail.
“I know, sweetheart. I don’t like it when she laughs at Auntie Pepper either,” Pepper cooed.
Nat sighed, but despite the crying baby, her lips were still curved up in a smile that forecasted trouble.
Pepper needed to buck up. Because life was going on with or without her.
* * *
Tony was elbow-deep in pizza dough, enjoying the hell out of getting his hands dirty. He did the paperwork because a businessman had to, but he lived for the cooking. With the mid-afternoon lull creeping in, he was catching up on getting tomorrow’s dough ready and contemplating those cookies he’d stashed in his office after having two for breakfast.
“Looks a little dry,” one of his crew said over the traditional Italian music coming through the speakers in the ceiling.
“Never doubt the master, kid.”
“Yo, boss, got a lady looking for you,” his cashier called from up front. “Something about that bridal fest crap.”
Always something. “That bridal fest crap makes it possible for me to pay you,” Tony called back. “Out in a minute.”
He slapped his ten-pound ball of dough into a proofing bucket and stuck it in the walk-in fridge, then washed his hands before heading out front.
His cashier nodded to a slender woman in a black wool coat perusing the family photos—including a photo of him in a pink bunny costume—near the glass door.
“If she wasn’t from The Aisle, man, I’d be all over that,” his cashier murmured.
A brunette head twisted as though she’d heard the guy, but her wry brow-tilt changed to a quiet smile when her green gaze landed on Tony.
“Eyes on her face or you’re fired,” he murmured.
The kid ducked his head and grabbed a rag. “I’ll get those tables wiped off, Mr. Cross, sir.”
“Tormenting the hired help?” Pepper asked.
He looped an arm around her waist—he was her pretend boyfriend, after all—and smiled at her. There was something off about her. Her eyes weren’t bright enough, her smile not quite authentic.
He could relate. Sleep had been elusive last night after her pointed reminder that this arrangement was temporary. “Always. What brings you in today? You had lunch yet?”
She pulled away and shifted her bulky brown purse to her other shoulder. “I’m here on business.”
Despite her hip cock of unhappiness causing a flutter in his chest, a flare of awareness sparked below his belt. Her cheeks were tinged with pink as though she’d walked the eight blocks in the cold to get here. He couldn’t see much of her figure beneath her coat, but the shape of her legs inspired thoughts that inspired more healthy, virile movement in his pants.
Looked like she might need to go in back and talk in private. Or…do other things. Like get naked.
“Business is overrated,” he said with a wink.
She didn’t smile back. Actually, her nose pulled a Rudolph, going shiny and red while she blinked quickly.
His instincts were screaming for him to hug her, and their ploy would’ve made a simp
le hug natural, but self-preservation demanded distance. He settled for cupping her elbow. “You okay?”
“Perfect.” She treated him to a smile that was heavy on the unhappy. “Busy day.”
He might not have been in the dating game for several years, but he knew the difference between a busy day woman and an I’m displeased with you woman. He slipped his arm around her waist and pointed to the grainy picture of two girls in terrycloth jumpers and him doing a girly impression of her dog in front of an insurance office. “My sisters parading me around Willow Glen as the Easter Bunny.”
A soft smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “You seem quite proud.”
“Of course. I made that costume look damn good.”
She rolled her eyes, but the smile growing on her lips made the tight band suffocating his heart loosen. “Modest much?”
“Just telling you what my mom said.”
Her smile slipped, and she dug into her bag. “I really am here on business. Just need your signature on this to apply for the recommended dining list. I’ll make sure it’s approved.”
He took the paperwork from her, an unease he didn’t want to acknowledge clawing at his gut. “You sure you don’t want something to eat? Pizza, breadsticks…you ever try gelato? Not as authentic here as you’ll get in Italy, but I guarantee it’ll make your taste buds sing.”
“I’m good. Thank you.” She hefted her bag on her shoulder once more. “And they need me back at the boutique.” Her eyes flicked to the dining room behind him, where he was fully aware of his staff watching them. “Thank you for—for your help this last week, and for everything you did last night, but I need to suck it up and tell my grandmother the truth. I’ve taken enough of your time.”
Panic slammed into his gut. “No.”
She flashed him a pained smile. “You’ve been great. Above and beyond duty. Thank you, again, for your help.”
“No, I mean no, you’re not doing this.” He barely refrained from stomping a boot. She wasn’t doing this. He lowered his voice. “If you let me out of our arrangement, I have a few sisters of my own who will spend the next six weeks trying to set me up with potential dates for a family wedding.”
There went another pained smile. “Doesn’t seem like you’d have any issues finding a willing and able date on your own.”
Dammit. A year of being a one-date wonder to give the appearance of a playboy enjoying single life, and now the only woman his body had reacted to since his divorce was shoving him off for that very reputation he’d worked so hard to cultivate.
“Four weeks,” he pressed. “Those women—business—” Hell, he was screwing this all up. “Am I that much of a hardship? Four more weeks, a nicely staged breakup, and we’ll both have more breathing room in the meantime.”
She fingered the single emerald dangling from a short chain around her neck, lashes lowered so he couldn’t read her.
“I’ll quit with the asshole jokes, I promise.” He wasn’t desperate, he told himself. And this wasn’t about her, exactly. The last week or so, she’d somehow become a friend. The fact that she was one of the few friends who didn’t know why he was divorced, one of the few women—the only woman—who had inspired his equipment to work again was simply an added bonus.
And he had some oceanfront property here in Illinois to sell himself too.
“So you’ve been getting more out of this than I thought,” she said.
“Just got the invitation reminder,” he said gruffly. “I wasn’t trying to use you. More than agreed upon.”
“You’re right. We both have secrets.”
Ironic, coming from the woman claiming to be down because of a busy day. “Most people do.”
She locked gazes with him, and her eyes didn’t waver. She had high expectations. A demand that he be good enough for this task. But she also had something else—a belief that he could do it.
She wouldn’t still be here if she didn’t.
“All right,” she finally said. “Four weeks.”
Her right hand moved, but he was quicker, sliding in to let a kiss linger on her soft, cool cheek. “Thanks for dropping by, sweets,” he murmured.
Her breath was uneven against his skin. “My pleasure.”
It was a lie, but he’d bought himself some time, so he didn’t care. He let her go. “Call me later,” she said quickly before ducking out the door.
He turned around, and because the dining room was occupied by only a handful of customers, half his staff was unoccupied and staring at him.
His head server set her tray down on the counter and snagged a breadstick from a basket that hadn’t found a home during the lunch hour. “Did you chase her away on purpose, or are you really that bad at picking women?”
“Why am I paying all of you to be here when there aren’t more customers?”
“Because you’re a softie.”
Hell of it was, she was probably right. And when he got back to the pizza dough, his heart wasn’t in it.
His heart was wondering what had gotten Pepper down today. As soon as he was done here today, he was sniffing out the truth.
9
Cinna was working, and Gran had been invited to a seniors’ Bunco party—“I’m gonna meet me a man without a grandson so you and me and him and Tony can go out on a proper date,” she’d threatened, er, promised—so Pepper miraculously had the night to herself.
Well, her and the two dogs.
After a nice long walk with Sadie, and a follow-up walk with George, she plopped herself down on the couch with the bag of yarn and knitting needles she’d bought that afternoon, searched for a “how to knit” video on YouTube, and refused to consider the possibility of letting herself cry.
She’d followed all the doctor’s orders for success. Diet, exercise, rest. She’d learned new stress management techniques to deal with the hectic pace at the boutique, and she was a damn successful breather now. She’d battled mood swings through months of hormone therapy. Don’t get her started on the number of hours she’d spent with her legs in the stirrups or having her reproductive organs poked and prodded.
For her body to refuse to carry a baby?
Who the fuck did her body think it was?
Her fingers curled tight around the knitting needles in her left hand, and she yanked an unsuspecting skein of yarn from the plastic bag. Except the yarn got caught in the bag handle. The plastic crinkled and snapped with every tug, but it wouldn’t give up the yarn from the handle. Sadie was already hiding upstairs, and even George beat a stealthy retreat out of the living room.
Pepper stabbed the knitting needles into the bag. She ripped the handle apart. The yarn sprang loose, and she threw it at the TV.
A sob the size of Texas rose up from the pit of her stomach, clawing its way up her ribs and jamming itself in her throat.
Why was her body broken?
Science could put a man on the moon, but she couldn’t do the one thing women were biologically born to do.
If her body couldn’t have babies, why couldn’t she have lost the instinct to want them?
A knock startled her. The words go away formed on her tongue, but shame made her swallow them.
Her problems weren’t anyone else’s fault. Not Gran’s, not Cinna’s, not her family’s. Not whoever was at the door, be it the UPS man, a neighbor, or an ax murderer. Though if it was an ax murderer, he’d picked the wrong house on the wrong night.
She blew a slow breath out through her mouth. Whoever it was would go away. And those knitting needles weren’t going to unstab the plastic bag and other skeins of yarn by themselves. But her fingers wouldn’t unclench to do the job.
The knock came again, this time accompanied by a dark shadow swaying toward the window.
Dammit.
They could see her sitting here. And they apparently weren’t going away.
She marched across the living room to the small foyer and flung the door open. “What?”
Tony’s eyes flared wide, and hi
s mouth parted. He stood there sexy as sin with his dark jacket, jeans that hugged his muscular thighs, and tousled hair. Strong and virile and probably perfectly capable of fathering as many children as he could ever want.
If that damn sting in her eyes didn’t learn who was boss real quick, she—
For once, she didn’t know what she’d do. Not like she could threaten her own eyeballs.
He stepped into the house. “You okay?”
No, she wasn’t okay. She might never be okay again. “Yeah, I—oh. This?” She wiggled her fingers toward her face, undoubtedly red-eyed and puffy-nosed. “I was reading.”
And if he believed that, maybe he should’ve stuck to delivering pizza instead of opening his own chain.
“On purpose?” he said.
Her chin tilted up, and while she knew her bitch face was coming out, she couldn’t stop it. “These are happy tears. Good book.”
His lips twitched, and she couldn’t decide if she wanted to hug him or kick him.
He took the question out of her hands when he came the rest of the way in, kicked the door shut behind him, and wrapped her in a tight hug. His body radiated heat, sucking her into his orbit as though he were a universe all his own and she were the central solar system. Scents of pizza and leather tickled her nose, and while that sob tried to suffocate her lungs again, a long-forgotten desire flared to life.
“Thanks.” His breath tickled the roots of her hair. “I needed this.”
Oh, she had too. More than she’d realized. More than she wanted to admit. Her sisters had hugged her this weekend. Gran had hugged her before disappearing into the seniors’ center. A bride had hugged her at work today.
But no one had hugged her like this. Intentionally. Thoughtfully. Not out of habit, but because it was necessary.
She wiggled her arms beneath his open jacket to loop them around his back. Her cheek settled over his heart. The steady thump, thump, thump in his chest was a reliable, soothing rhythm battling the chaos raging in her own body.
Tears threatened again and her breath dragged unevenly, but she refused to let the grief win.
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