Dessert was served, along with a large helping of skepticism, if the expressions on the faces of the Garibaldi clan were any indication.
“Practicing?” Roberto asked, nodding at Kristen.
Gretchen couldn’t help herself. “According to Marco, he doesn’t need any practice.”
Marco shot her a dark look. “That’s right, I don’t.”
“Of course you do,” Carlo told him. “What do you know about raising children?”
“He’s a doctor, isn’t he?” Bruno said.
“That doesn’t mean a thing,” Kate interjected. “All they teach you in medical school is how to deliver a baby and how to diagnose illness. They never touch on feeding and diaper changing and all the day-to-day care that goes into raising a child.”
“Which is exactly what I told Brian, when he asked me to watch her,” Marco said.
“How is Brian?” This was from Franco.
“Not so good. He and his wife are having marital difficulties. That’s why they went away this weekend, to hopefully sort it all out.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Brian and Val are good people.”
“Yes,” Marco said quietly, “they are.”
“Actually, that’s where I come into the picture,” Gretchen said, hoping to take the spotlight off Marco. “After Brian left, Marco asked if I would help take care of Kristen. You know what a sound sleeper he is.”
Gretchen had never realized that you could actually hear stillness. But after her announcement, and despite the murmured conversations of the other diners, she could actually hear how still her table mates had grown. All except Kristen, who gleefully banged on the high chair’s tray with a spoon.
“I knew that,” Roberto said softly. “I just didn’t know that you knew that.”
Gretchen felt her cheeks heat. Damn. She’d tried to help, and instead had only succeeded in making matters worse. Astronomically worse.
“It’s not what you think,” she said. “Marco was afraid he’d never hear Kristen if she woke in the middle of the night. So I slept with her in the living room. On the couch.”
“You don’t have to justify yourself to them,” Marco said stiffly.
Carlo’s wife, Samantha, gave her a sympathetic smile. “Marco’s right. Don’t let these overgrown bullies intimidate you. They can be a bit overwhelming at first meeting, but deep down they’re all pussycats. If you need any moral support, you can always look to Steve—that’s Kate’s husband—Louise, or me.”
“Thanks,” Gretchen said with a grateful smile.
“See what you did?” Louise chided her husband. “You’ve made our guest uncomfortable.”
“You’re right, and I’m sorry, Gretchen,” Roberto said, sounding genuinely contrite. “That was inexcusable of me.”
“How’s he doing with Kristen?” Carlo asked Gretchen.
“He’s doing a great job.”
“Good, ’cause he needs the practice.”
“I don’t need the practice,” Marco grated from between clenched teeth, “and you all know very well why.”
Carlo waved a hand in the air. “Yeah, yeah, we know. You’re never going to get married.”
“Just because you changed your mind, it doesn’t mean I’ll change mine.”
“You will if you meet the right woman.” Carlo looked directly at Gretchen. “Who knows, maybe you already have.”
Chapter 8
They drove home in silence, Marco staring straight ahead as he maneuvered through traffic. In the back seat Kristen was sound asleep in her car seat.
Gretchen watched his hands on the steering wheel: strong, capable, sure. A lock of hair fell forward onto his forehead, making him look like a devilish imp getting ready to raid the cookie jar. In contrast, there was nothing of the mischievous child in the set of his mouth, which looked so taut and grim she found it hard to believe it was the same mouth that had kissed her with such devastating thoroughness just twenty-four hours earlier.
“Did you really witness a bank robbery?” she asked when the silence, and the force of his presence, finally got to her.
“When I was fifteen I witnessed an attempted robbery,” he replied, without taking his gaze off the road.
“And you didn’t tell your family about it?”
“I told my father.”
“But not your brothers and your sister?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“They have a tendency to blow things out of proportion.”
After her experience with them at brunch, she had no trouble at all believing that statement. “Must’ve been scary.”
He shrugged. “Not really. He wasn’t much more than a kid himself. The gun shook in his hands even more than his voice did when he ordered us all to hit the floor. It was fairly obvious, at least to me, that he didn’t want to hurt anybody, that he just desperately needed some money. At the trial I learned the gun wasn’t loaded. I also learned that his father had just died, that his mother had seven other children to feed and was facing a mountain of unpaid medical bills and that the bank was threatening to foreclose. The same bank he tried to rob.”
“How sad,” she said.
Marco nodded. “He spent five years in prison. When he was released, he put himself through college by working two and three jobs at a time. He now works as a counselor for troubled kids, and has a wife and three children.”
Gretchen stared at him, amazed.
“We keep in touch,” Marco said in answer to her unspoken question.
She felt a rush of admiration. How many crime victims forgave their victimizers, let alone befriended them?
“Did his mother lose the house?”
“No. My father was on the Pittsburgh Police Force then. He and some fellow officers got a fund going and collected enough money to keep the bank at bay. Because of all the publicity and the public sympathy surrounding the case, the hospital agreed to forgive a huge chunk of the debt.”
Sometimes, Gretchen mused, the system actually did work. “About brunch,” she said, deciding it was time to broach the subject they’d both been avoiding. “Thank you for not saying, ‘I told you so.’”
His smile held no humor. “I told you so.”
“It really wasn’t that bad,” she felt compelled to say.
He spared her a disbelieving glance before turning his attention back to the road. “Wasn’t it?”
She looked out the rear window. “So far as I can tell, we’re not being tailed by a mad group of vigilantes intent on rounding us up for a shotgun wedding. We’re still footloose and fancy-free, as our grandparents’ generation was fond of saying. We escaped unscathed.”
“We may be footloose and fancy-free,” he replied, “but we didn’t escape unscathed.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because we left thirteen people back there who, thanks to you, are totally convinced we’re sleeping together.”
She felt her eyebrows climb. “Thanks to me?”
“The minute you told them you knew what a sound sleeper I was, it was clear what they were all thinking.”
Her chin went up. “I can’t help what they think.”
“I know that.”
“I was only telling the truth.”
“I know that, too.”
“Did you want me to lie to them?”
“Of course not.”
And just a minute ago she’d actually been wishing that he would kiss her again.
“I see,” she said. “Then you wanted me to be a good little girl and keep my mouth shut. Is that it?”
A nerve throbbed in his jaw, and his knuckles whitened around the steering wheel. “No.”
“What did you want?” she asked.
“To have a nice, quiet, uncomplicated brunch with my family.”
Gretchen had a feeling that nothing was uncomplicated where the Garibaldis were concerned. Or quiet.
“As the song goes, Marco, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’”
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Frustration gleamed in the depths of the eyes he turned her way. “I didn’t get what I needed, either.”
What did he really need? Did he even know? Gretchen was curious to find out.
“And what was that?”
“For my family to believe that we are uninvolved.”
Gretchen stiffened. She knew she wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the world. Nor was she the most charming and sophisticated. But did he find her so undesirable that it actually horrified him to have his family believe they were having an affair? If he found her so repulsive, why had he kissed her the way he had?
She turned in her seat to face him. “Can I ask you a question?”
He gave a curt nod.
“Up until this morning, has your family believed you were leading a celibate lifestyle?”
“Of course not.” He sounded impatient.
“So there have been times in the past when they thought you were sleeping with a woman.”
“I suppose so. It wasn’t something we discussed.”
“But you were pretty certain they were thinking it.”
“Yes.”
“Did it bother you?”
“No.” His impatience had turned to reluctance.
“But it bothers you now,” she said softly. “Because they think you’re sleeping with me.”
“Yes,” he said, “it does. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Should it?”
“I think it should.”
“Why?”
He shot her a glance. “Because I always thought you were the type of woman who would mind if people thought you were sleeping around. Your reputation is important to you, isn’t it?”
She had no idea what he meant. “Of course it is.”
“Well, then…”
She spread her arms in a helpless gesture. “Well, then, what?”
“It should bother you that they think you’re sleeping with me.”
“Because I’m not,” she said.
“Yes.”
Gretchen was so amazed, for a minute she didn’t say anything. He wasn’t ashamed of her. He was trying to protect her, or rather, her reputation.
It was a new millennium, the sexual revolution had long ago freed women from the chains of endless years of child-bearing if they so chose, and Marco Garibaldi—even though he had done nothing to compromise it—was trying to protect her reputation. As unbelievable as it seemed, there was still a man left in this world who thought that way. Gretchen didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended.
Even though this protective instinct of his was macho as all get-out, and even more out of date than beehive hairdos and fishnet stockings, it generated a warmth inside her. She’d been alone for so long, and now Marco had come along, and in his own way he was trying to take care of her. She’d almost forgotten how good that felt.
Of course, she had to put a stop to it. Right here and right now. She might not have been the most progressive person around before she’d made those promises to Jill, but she wasn’t back in the dark ages, either. She didn’t want a man to take care of her. When she allowed a man to enter her life, it was always as an equal partner.
“I’m not a virgin, Marco,” she said. “I’m an adult woman fully capable of making my own decisions where my sex life is concerned. I don’t need anyone’s approval, nor do I care if they disapprove. And I don’t need you to protect my reputation from what people might or might not think about me, although I appreciate the thought.”
“I didn’t say I had to,” he said.
No, but his actions spoke louder than his words. An even more interesting question was why it had bothered him when his family thought he was sleeping with her, but not when they thought he was sleeping with any of the other women he had been involved with. There was only one answer to that question that Gretchen could figure, and the implication left her dizzy.
Whether he wanted to or not, he had feelings for her. And those feelings were different from any he’d felt in his previous relationships. They had to be, otherwise he wouldn’t be so afraid of having an affair with her. And he was afraid of having an affair with her. That was obvious to her now.
Before she let her imagination run amok with crazy hopes and dreams, Gretchen cautioned herself, it was time she remembered one basic fact: if she was right, and he really did have feelings for her, he was going to fight them—was already fighting them—with every breath he took. Life was too short for her to wait around to see who would win the battle. Jill’s death had taught her that, at least.
“Did you think less of me when I propositioned you?” she asked him.
He blinked. “Of course not.”
“You still respected me. As a fellow human being, I mean.”
He looked confused. “Of course.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she continued, “but didn’t you tell me that you were actually tempted to accept that proposition?”
“Yes.” He sounded wary again.
“And that if you hadn’t sensed any ambivalence on my part, we would, in all likelihood, have slept together that day?”
She could tell that he wanted to lie, but his innate honesty wouldn’t allow it. “Yes.”
“Then, what your family is thinking would actually be true.”
He gave a grudging nod. “Yes.”
“Would you still be upset about it?”
“Yes. No.” He thrust a hand through his hair. “Hell, I don’t know. I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore.”
She knew, though. It had taken her a while, but she had finally figured it out. This whole thing with his family had nothing to do with his outmoded chivalric response to their assumption about her and Marco. It had nothing to do with his trying to protect her reputation. It had everything to do with his fear of commitment.
Of course, if she were to voice her thoughts aloud, he’d simply deny them.
“I’m not going to lose sleep over what your family might or might not think about me,” she said.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“You shouldn’t, either.”
“I’ll do my best.”
His forced politeness was starting to grate on her. All questions of his fear of commitment aside, did he even begin to realize how fortunate he was? So what if his family was pushy and butted their noses in where they didn’t belong? At least they were there. And they obviously loved him and had his best interests at heart. Did he even begin to have the faintest notion of how many people would gladly change places with him in a heartbeat, herself included?
“You really are lucky to have each other,” Gretchen said.
“So they keep telling me,” he grumbled, although he sounded relieved that she’d changed the subject.
“They didn’t mean any harm,” she said.
“Maybe not, but subtlety is not exactly their strong suit.”
“Still, it was obvious how much they really care about you.”
After a minute he said quietly, “Yes, they do.”
“That’s not something to be taken lightly.” She paused, then added, “Or to be tossed aside on a whim.”
“No, it isn’t.” At a red light he turned to meet her gaze. “I’ve been an insensitive fool, haven’t I? You miss having a family, don’t you, Gretchen?”
Without warning, she felt the sting of tears behind her eyes and had to look away. “More than I ever thought possible,” she replied, her throat thick with emotion.
When she felt composed enough to meet his gaze again, the light had changed and he was staring straight ahead.
“I hope you get that family of yours someday,” he said as the car moved forward. “You deserve it.”
His sincerity was clear, as was the implication of his words. While he wished her all the best, he had no intention of helping her form that family. But then, hadn’t she already known that?
“I hope so, too,” she said softly.
Brian and Val arrived shortly afte
r a very quiet and subdued dinner, during which Marco tried very hard not to make eye contact with Gretchen. His friends didn’t look rested, nor did they look all that happy, although their pleasure at reuniting with their daughter was real enough.
There were hollows under Brian’s eyes that Marco felt fairly certain had nothing to do with the hours he devoted to his profession. And, although she smiled, Val’s mouth had a pinched look to it that made her appear older.
Marco had a feeling that, after the weekend he’d just spent, if he peered at himself in the mirror this very minute, he’d find he looked much the same. His emotions were in a turmoil. They were so churned up he felt like a washing machine stuck on the spin cycle.
“Who’s the babe?” Brian murmured, his gaze on Gretchen as, after a brief introduction, she and Val oohed and aahed over Kristen’s attempts at standing.
“My landlady.”
Brian gave him a look brimming with curiosity. “You never told me your landlady looked like that.”
First his family. Now his best friend. Would it never end?
“She’s just a friend, Bri. A friend who very graciously agreed to help me out with your daughter after you all but dumped her in my lap.”
Brian had the grace to look ashamed. “Remind me to thank her before we leave.”
“How’d it go?” Marco asked.
Brian’s face took on a haggard look. “Not well.”
“Did you talk things out?”
“We did a lot of talking.”
“Things any better between you two?”
“We’re still married, if that’s what you mean.”
It wasn’t exactly the joyful news Marco had hoped for.
“How’d everything go here?” Brian asked.
A loaded question if ever Marco had heard one. But then Brian was asking about his daughter, not Gretchen Montgomery. At least the answer to that question was fairly simple.
“Everything went just fine.”
The next ten minutes were spent gathering up Kristen’s belongings, loading up Brian’s car and accepting his friends’ thanks. Then Marco was alone with Gretchen again, the two of them standing shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk, arms raised to shield their eyes against the brightness of the sun as they watched the Newcomes’ car turn the corner and disappear.
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