Читать книгу Have Bride, Need Groom - Maureen Child - Страница 10

Three

Why wasn’t he surprised? Nick wondered. Looking down into those deep blue eyes of hers, he could see that she believed every word of what she was saying. And a quick glance at his mother told him that Jenny had convinced her, as well. But then, his mother also believed in the evil eye and that she could shorten storms by smacking two sticks together.

Oh, he could see that Jenny and his mother were going to get on famously.

Somehow he knew he’d regret asking, but he heard himself ask anyway. “What does your being married have to do with your grandmother staying alive or not?”

“It’s a family curse,” Jenny said solemnly.

Mama nodded and held up her right hand, two middle fingers and her thumb folded into the palm. Already, Marianna Tarantelli was warding off the evil eye.

Nick sighed. A curse. Naturally, he thought. On the other hand, why shouldn’t he believe in curses? Look at how his own day had gone so far.

“My grandmother is my only family. I have to protect her,” Jenny said quietly.

He frowned, unfolded his arms and tossed the bathrobe he still held to Jenny. “Okay, forget the curse for a minute. Would you mind telling me how you ended up with Jimmy the Lip?”

Even Mama looked interested in that.

Jenny shrugged and draped the robe across her lap, being careful to keep it from touching the fresh iodine on her knees. “I spoke to the manager at my hotel and explained my situation. He gave me several names to call and Mr. Lip was the first man to agree.”

Nick stared at her in disbelief. If Jimmy the Lip was on the manager’s prospective groom list, he shuddered to think who else she might have hooked up with. Jimmy was pretty much a lousy human being, but at least he wasn’t dangerous. Jenny was damned lucky it had been him who’d agreed to marry her.

She turned her gaze up to his, and Nick felt a sudden blow to his middle, as though someone had thrown a punch designed to knock the wind out of him. She must have been crying while he was upstairs, he thought. Her big blue eyes were red streaked and there were small black mascara trails on her cheeks. Lord, was he glad he’d missed her crying jag. There was absolutely nothing in the world that made him feel as helpless as seeing a woman cry. Cliché, perhaps. But true.

His gaze moved over her quickly. Her hair was tangled and windblown, the hem of her dress was torn and her hands and knees were splotched with iodine. And still, she was far too pretty for Nick’s peace of mind. Obviously the other “husband candidates” she’d spoken with hadn’t seen her in person. Nick couldn’t imagine any man turning down a marriage proposal from Jenny Blake.

Except, of course, himself.

One failed marriage was more than enough for Nick Tarantelli.

“Don’t you worry,” Mama said as she twisted the lid on the iodine bottle and stashed it inside the medicine cabinet. Patting Jenny’s shoulder, the older woman went on firmly, “My Nicky will take care of this.”

“What?” He pushed away from the door frame and stared at his mother. The glare he gave her had been known to freeze fugitives in their tracks. His mother, however, planted her feet and glared right back at him.

“You heard me,” she said. “It’s your fault that Jenny isn’t married. Now you have to fix it.”

“My fault? She ought to thank me for stopping that wedding!” This whole situation was nuts, he told himself. Things had started out bad enough, but they seemed to be on a downhill slide and picking up speed.

“Thank you?” Mama chided. “For what? Getting her grandmother killed?” One hand flat against her massive bosom, she shook her head. “Is this what being the police is to you, Nicky? Killing old women?”

“What?” Nick had been in the middle of dramatic scenes like this his whole life. And he’d learned early on that the only way to fight fire was with fire. “First off, Ma,” he noted, “I’m not on the force anymore, and you know it.”

She waved one hand at him, dismissing irrelevant facts.

“Second, if I was going to kill off older women—” he straightened, forcing his mother to tilt her head far back on her neck to see him “—I wouldn’t start with a stranger!”

Mama glared at him.

“Excuse me...” Jenny tried to speak up, but the other two people in the bathroom ignored her.

“Thank God, your father-heaven rest him—” Mama muttered, crossing herself quickly, “isn’t here to listen to you!”

“Pop would be saying the same thing.”

“Pardon me...” Jenny tried again, with the same results.

“That my own son would turn his back on a woman who comes to him for help.” Mama shook her head slowly, clearly disgusted.

Nick felt that hill he was sliding down steepen considerably.

“She didn’t come to me for help, Ma,” he said. “I arrested her bridegroom!”

“If you’ll both let me talk...” Jenny’s voice was drowned out by Mama’s quick retort.

“And this you’re proud of?”

“Damn right,” her son snapped.

“Please!” Jenny shouted, and both people turned to stare at her. While she had their attention, she spoke quickly. “Mrs.—” She broke off and corrected quickly. “Mama. This isn’t your son’s problem.”

“Exactly.” Nick threw his hands wide and let them fall to his sides.

Mama sent him one long, withering look before patting Jenny again. “Of course, it is. Nicky will find you a husband.”

“Now wait a minute, Ma.”

“There isn’t time.”

“Four days,” Mama reminded her with a smile. “That’s plenty of time for Nicky. He knows lots of nice boys, don’t you?”

Nice boys. Nick groaned silently. He wondered how his former fellow officers at the police department would feel about being called “nice boys,” and then dismissed the thought. His mother was way off base on this one. “Most of my friends are already married, Ma,” he said quickly in a last-ditch hope to end the discussion. “And the ones that aren’t, don’t want to be.”

“Nonsense!” Mama waved one hand at him again. “All men want to get married. As soon as we tell them so.”

“Ma...”

He felt it. Nick felt control of the situation slipping further and further from his grasp and he was helpless to do anything about it. He looked down into Mama Tarantelli’s big brown eyes and knew that he would lose this battle. As he’d lost every argument he’d ever had with her.

Hell, he couldn’t remember a single time when his late father, his brothers and sister or he had come out on top of Mama in a fight. Even those few times when someone had backed her into a corner, Mama had always triumphed. Maybe it was because she was so tenacious. He’d never known her to give in or give up.

For one brief moment Nick wished that the others were there. If Gina and his brothers, Tony and Dino, were around that minute, they would at least have Mama outnumbered.

But Gina was in New York visiting family, Dino was at the casino where he worked squiring celebrities around town. Nick frowned slightly. And no one knew where Tony was.

“I can do this myself, Mama.” Jenny’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

Despite his own unwillingness to get any more involved, Nick couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Oh, sure you can. You’ve done a helluva job so far.”

Jenny turned a hurt look on him and Nick clamped his mouth shut. It wasn’t her fault that he was going to war with his mother. Well, actually it was, he corrected mentally. But it didn’t matter. The Tarantelli family went to war more often than any Medieval Crusaders ever had. And, Nick thought wryly, the Tarantelli’s were better at it, too.

Slipping off the edge of the bathroom sink, Jenny stood up straight to face him. But in her bare feet, she didn’t make much of an impression. The top of her head barely reached the middle of his chest.

Still, he had to give her credit. She pulled her shoulders back and stared up at him evenly. “I’ll remind you, Mr. Taraptelli, that if not for you, I would already be married.”

An unreasonable flicker of relief trickled through him and Nick refused to admit to it. What the hell difference did it make to him if she got married or not? None, he told himself. Absolutely none at all. Although, he thought as he stared into her eyes and watched flecks of green shimmer in their clear blue depths, looking into her eyes could get to be a habit.

A habit he didn’t want, Nick thought with hardened determination.

When he tore his gaze from hers, he saw Jenny shake herself as if she were coming out of a trance. He knew just how she felt.

“I—” Jenny started, stopped, then spoke again. “Thank you both for everything, but I’d like to go back to my hotel now.”

Mama clucked her tongue and took Jenny’s arm firmly in her grasp. “No such thing. You’re staying here.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Jenny said, and futilely tried to pull free.

Nick didn’t say a word. He’d been expecting this. And more than that, he agreed with it. He wasn’t about to take a woman like Jenny back to Sinbad’s, of all places.

“Sure you can,” Mama went on as she headed for the stairs, pulling Jenny along behind her. “You’ll stay in my son Tony’s room.”

“I can’t put your son out of his bed,” Jenny protested, and threw a wild glance at Nick, looking for help.

He ignored her silent plea and went to his mother’s side. The older woman had stopped short at the foot of the stairs and she was staring into nothingness. But Nick knew what memory she was looking at. He knew because he saw it himself, often. He knew because the pain his mother was experiencing at that moment was all his fault.

Instinctively, he went up to the older woman, draped one arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze before bending to drop a kiss on top of her head. Then he glanced at Jenny. “Tony’s not here. You can stay in his room as long as you like. Isn’t that right, Ma?”

“Yes.” Mama sniffed, straightened her shoulders and reached up to pat Nick’s hand before she nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

“But it’s not necessary...” Jenny tried again. “I can do this myself, Mama.”

“No need for that My Nicky is happy to help.” His mother turned and fixed him with a look he hadn’t seen since he was ten years old and had smashed the restaurant window with a home run. Amazing, he thought, that it still had such power over him. His mother paused for a long moment before asking much too sweetly, “Aren’t you, Nicky?”

Warm, fed and freshly showered, the pain in her knees faded to no more than an unpleasant reminder of a shattered plan. Jenny curled up in a worn armchair by the window. Staring out at the night, she tried to tell herself that everything would be all right. That things had a way of working out.

But her mind wasn’t listening.

Over and over again, her brain counted down the days. Four, three, two, one. She had to find a husband. A mental image of her grandmother’s smiling face only strengthened her determination. Jenny wouldn’t risk losing the only family she had left.

Letting her head fall against the back of the chair, Jenny’s gaze focused on a single bright star. If only she had taken care of this sooner. If only she had more time.

More time? her mind shouted. In four days, you’ll be twenty-seven. How much more time is required, for heaven’s sake?

Even if she didn’t count the years before she turned twenty, that still left seven long years in which she should have found a husband.

And she could have, if she hadn’t been waiting for the lightning.

Jenny groaned, lifted her head and frowned. That’s where she’d made her mistake. She’d really believed her grandmother’s tales of true love and soul mates. How many times, Jenny wondered, had her grandmother told her about the lightning bolt? About how the women in her family, when first kissed by their true soul mate, would feel an arc of lightning shoot down their spines and into their hearts.

And how many men had Jenny kissed hopefully, waiting for that bolt to strike?

All right, she admitted silently. Not all that many.

But still, if she hadn’t been waiting for her grandmother’s tall tale to come true, who knew? She might already have a family and her grandmother’s life wouldn’t be in danger.

A knock at the door shattered her thoughts and Jenny turned. “Yes?”

“It’s me, Nick.”

Jenny ignored the tiny ripple of awareness that sent goose bumps racing along her flesh. Muttering under her breath about stress and a lack of sleep, she rose, crossed the room and opened the door.

He looked taller, somehow, backlit by the overhead lamp in the hallway.

“I went to Sinbad’s and got your suitcase.”

“Oh!” She stepped back and allowed him to walk past her. “Thank you.” Even though the oversize shirt she’d borrowed from his absent brother Tony was comfortable, Jenny was glad to have her things with her.

Nick plopped the bag onto the bed and the mattress sagged.

“Weighs a ton,” he said absently.

She had always overpacked, but Jenny didn’t feel the need to confess that fault to him.

“You never did say...” Nick went on, turning to face her. “How the hell did you pick a place like Sinbad’s? Stick a pin in a city map?”

Jenny sensed his gaze move over her and suddenly felt as though the old shirt she wore was transparent. Glancing quickly around the room, she spied an afghan at the foot of the bed. Hurrying past Nick, she snatched it up and swung it over her shoulders like a shawl. Feeling a bit less at a disadvantage, she answered his question. “It was the nicest hotel without a casino that I saw.”

One black eyebrow lifted high on his forehead. “You disapprove of gambling?”

“Not for everyone else,” she answered, though she really couldn’t understand the fascination other people had for throwing money into a machine that only rarely spit any of it back. “But I never have been very lucky.”

He laughed.

At least, Jenny thought it was a laugh. It was so choked and short, it could have been a bark, but why would Nick Tarantelli be barking? “What’s so funny?” she asked.

“You.” Shaking his head, Nick sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her as though her head were on fire. “You’re not lucky at gambling so you don’t do it.”

“That’s right.”

“But you’re willing to gamble on Jimmy the Lip as a husband?”

“That’s different,” she protested, though his analogy did make her feel a bit ridiculous. “Besides, I don’t have a choice.”

“Oh,” he nodded slowly. “That’s right. The curse.”

“Yes.”

He pushed one hand through his hair and told himself one more time that this was none of his business. Then he heard himself say. “So you picked Sinbad’s because there was no casino.”

“Well, that and there seemed to be a lot of women staying there.”

His head dropped to his chest and another strangled bark-laugh shot from his throat. When he looked up at her, there was a reluctant smile tugging at his mouth. Naturally, it hadn’t occurred to her that the other women staying at Sinbad’s were hookers.

“You’re amazing, Jenny Blake.”

“Thank you, I think.”

He stood and walked to the door. He had to get out of there...before she started making sense.

“Nick,” she asked, “I had unpacked some of my things at the hotel. Did you—”

He cut her off. “I collected your...stuff, and packed it.”

In the half-light, she looked as though she was blushing again, but he couldn’t be sore. Although, he thought, remembering the filmy lingerie he’d plucked out of the seedy hotel’s nightstand, she probably was. And who could blame her?

Hell, those bits and pieces of silk and lace had damn near scorched his fingers. Even the memory was enough to stir his body and make breathing just a bit more difficult

“I do appreciate your help,” she said softly.

Though he knew it was a mistake, he let his gaze sweep over her one more time. Her tousled hair, wide blue eyes and bare, iodine-smeared legs combined to start a groan building in his chest. How in the hell, he wondered, did Jenny manage to make one of Tony’s old flannel shirts look sexier than a black teddy from Victoria’s Secret?

Run! his brain screamed: Run fast and far and whatever you do, don’t look back!

Nick knew good advice when he heard it. Without another word, he turned, sprinted for the door and made his escape.