Читать книгу Brides, Babies And Billionaires - Мишель Смарт, Rebecca Winters - Страница 77
ОглавлениеThe Marchetti bakery on historic 25th Street in Ogden was in an antique brick building with sloping wood floors that creaked musically with every step. On one side of the shop was a handmade-chocolate shop and on the other, an artisan boutique that sold local artists’ work.
The bakery drew customers from all over northern Utah, so they were constantly busy, which meant the entire family—except for the younger kids—were there when Rita arrived. Her mom and sister were in the kitchen while her father and brothers ran the front of the shop and handled any deliveries. This didn’t change, she thought with a smile as she glanced around at the shining display cases and the customers wandering, looking, sitting at tables and sipping lattes.
Just walking into the bakery soothed the ball of ice in the pit of her stomach. It had been the longest hour-and-a-half flight of her life to make it here from Long Beach. She hadn’t told the family she was coming; there hadn’t been time. She’d simply packed her things, told Casey to close up the bakery for a few days and then raced to the airport. All Rita had been able to think of was getting here, where she knew her heart was safe.
The long drive from the Salt Lake City airport had given her more time to think and she still had no answers. Hadn’t she done everything she could to reach Jack? Hadn’t she given him every reason to come out of the darkness? To live again?
Tears were close so she blinked furiously to keep them at bay and smiled at a woman she knew who was busily wiping chocolate off her child’s mouth. Here was safety. Love. Understanding.
The joy on her father’s face when he spotted her was like pouring oil on the churning waters inside her. Rita’s brothers, Anthony and Marco, called out to her as she threaded her way through the crowd toward the kitchen to find her mom. Of course she had to stop along the way to say hello to people she knew and try to make small talk, while inside she was screaming.
Behind the counter, Rita was hugged hard by her dad, then passed from brother to brother before they released her.
“This is a nice surprise,” her father said, then took a closer look at her face and frowned. “It is nice, isn’t it?”
Nick Marchetti was in his sixties, with graying black hair, sharp brown eyes and a belly that was a little fuller than it used to be. Both of his sons were several inches taller than him, but it didn’t matter because Nick was, just as he always had been, a force to be reckoned with.
“It’s good to see you, Daddy,” Rita whispered, relaxing into his familiar hug.
He kissed her cheek and said, “Go on now, go sit down and talk to your mother. She’ll be happy you’re here.”
“Okay.” Rita nodded, slipped through the swinging door and never saw the worried frowns on the faces of the men in her family.
Stepping into the kitchen with the familiar scents and the heat from the ovens was like walking into the comfort of her childhood. Growing up, she and her siblings had spent most of their free time working in the bakery, so the memories were thick and reassuring.
Rita had gone home to Ogden hoping for a little peace and quiet and maybe some understanding. A half hour later, she told herself she’d clearly come to the wrong place for that.
“I can’t believe you left,” her mother said hotly. Teresa Marchetti had short black hair, carefully touched up to hide the gray every five weeks. She was a tiny woman but ruled her family like a four-star general.
Rita took a sip of the herbal tea she wasn’t interested in. “Jack didn’t want me there. He told me to leave.”
“And so you do it?” Teresa shook her head and scowled. “I don’t remember you being so obedient as a child.”
Rita stiffened at the accusation. “I wasn’t being obedient.” God, that made her sound like some subservient fifties’ housewife asking her husband for an allowance.
“Yet here you are.” Her mother huffed a little, muttered something Rita didn’t quite catch, then slid two trays of bread loaves into the oven. Turning back around, she reached for a bottle of water and took a drink.
It was hot in the kitchen with four ovens going constantly. Rita’s father and brothers had deliberately stayed out front, leaving her mother and sister to do the heavy emotional lifting.
Gina looked up from the counter where she was rolling out cookie dough. “So Jack says go and you say okeydoke? What the hell is that, Rita?”
“Language,” their mother said automatically, then added, “your sister has a point. Do you love this man?”
“Of course she does it’s all over her face,” Gina said before Rita could open her mouth.
“Thanks, I can talk for myself,” Rita said.
“Just not to Jack, is that it?” Gina rolled her eyes as fiercely as she rolled the dough.
“I did talk to Jack.” Rita broke a cookie in half and popped it into her mouth. She should have known that no one in her family would pat her on the head and simply accept what she said. They all had opinions and loved nothing better than sharing them. “I talked till my throat was dry. He doesn’t listen to what he doesn’t want to hear.”
“Hmm,” Teresa mused with a snort of amusement. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
Fine, she was stubborn. Rita knew that. But this wasn’t about her, was it?
“Mom, how could I stay if he didn’t want me?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Gina blurted. “He does want you. You told us already he admitted that.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t want to want me.”
“That’s female logic,” Anthony said when he hustled in to restock a tray of cannoli.
“Jack’s the one who said it,” Rita pointed out, finishing off the rest of her cookie.
Anthony countered, “He only said it because that’s how men think women think.”
“What?” Gina asked, clearly as confused as Rita. “That must be more male logic because it makes no sense.”
“It does to men,” Anthony argued before picking up the tray to head out front.
Rita propped her elbows on the counter and propped her head in her hands. A circus, she thought. It was a circus at Marchetti’s.
“Go on, back to work,” Teresa ordered, waving at her son to hurry him along. When it was just the three women in the kitchen again, Teresa sat down on a stool opposite Rita. “Don’t think about what he said or what he did or even what your family thinks about all of this. There’s just one thing to consider, Rita.” She paused, shot her other daughter a don’t-open-your-mouth look and asked Rita, “Do you love him?”
“Of course I love him, Mom. That’s not the point.”
“It’s the only point,” her mother said.
Gina kept quiet for as long as she could, then blurted out, “For God’s sake, Rita, all men are impossible to deal with—”
“We can hear you!” their father shouted from the front.
Rita chuckled and shook her head. The heck with peace and quiet. This is just what she had needed.
“Am I wrong?” Gina shouted to her father. Then turning back to her mother and sister, she demanded, “See? Brothers, fathers, husbands, sons, they’re all crazy. But giving up is never the answer, Rita. You have to dig in and fight back. Never give an inch.”
“Your sister’s right.” Teresa nodded.
“It’s a miracle!” Gina looked up at the ceiling to Heaven beyond and got a dark look from Teresa for her trouble.
Then, ignoring one daughter, Teresa reached out and took both of Rita’s hands in hers. “I’m ashamed that you didn’t fight for what you want, for what you need. Rita, we didn’t raise you to walk away.”
Her heart gave a sharp tug at the realization that that’s exactly what she had done. In her own hurt and grief, she’d tucked tail and run away. But how could she not have?
“So I’m supposed to stay with a man who doesn’t want me there?”
Gina opened her mouth and shut it again when her mother held up one hand.
“He does want you there. He told you so,” Teresa said. “He wants you to leave before he loves you? What kind of statement is that? He already loves you and it scares him.”
Rita laughed shortly and shook her head, denying the possibility. “Nothing scares Jack.”
Although, the minute those words left her mouth she remembered Jack saying “You terrify me.” Maybe her mother was on to something.
“Oh, honey,” her mother said, “nothing scares a man more than love when it finally shows up.” She gave Rita’s hands a pat, then picked up a cookie and took a bite. “It’s especially difficult for a strong man, because being out of control is a hard thing to accept.”
“Jimmy wasn’t scared,” Gina muttered.
“Sure he was,” her mother said on a laugh. “You just didn’t give him time to think about it.”
Shrugging, Gina admitted with a grin, “Okay, fair point.”
“And your brothers?” Teresa laughed. “They were terrified.”
“We can still hear you,” Marco yelled.
Ignoring her son, Teresa looked at Rita. “Even your dad fought tooth and nail to keep from loving me.”
“As if I stood a chance at that,” Nick called out.
“Why do we have a door,” Teresa wondered, “when everyone hears everything anyway?” Shaking her head again, she continued, “What I’m saying is, everything worth having, is worth fighting for.”
Rita just didn’t know. She’d left the penthouse in a rush, hurt beyond belief, angry beyond anything she’d ever experienced before. Heart aching, she’d had only one thought. Come home. To the family that was always there for her.
“So what’re you going to do?” Gina spread a cinnamon-and-sugar mixture on the rectangle of dough then carefully rolled it up for slicing and baking. “You going to stay here? Or go back and reclaim your life?”
Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? Being here with her family, she was starting to think and as she did, she was embarrassed to admit that running away from her problems, from the man she loved, just didn’t feel right. She’d pulled back from him and hid away—the very thing she’d accused Jack of doing.
“Why should I leave?” she murmured, hardly realizing she was speaking aloud.
“Exactly,” Gina agreed, slicing cookies and laying them on sheets to bake.
“I have a business there. And a home—okay, not the penthouse, but I was happy there and I can be again.” Rita ate another cookie while her brain raced and the pain in her heart began to ease.
“Sure you can,” her mother said.
“Jack doesn’t make decisions for me.”
“’Course not,” Gina agreed.
“He doesn’t get to tell me when to go. When to stay. Sit. Heel.”
“That’s my girl,” Teresa cheered.
“Why should I make this easy on Jack?” Rita demanded of no one in particular.
“You never made it easy on any of us,” Marco quipped when he brought an empty tray into the kitchen.
“Oh, please,” Gina sneered. “And you were the angel child? Do you remember shaving my Barbie dolls bald?”
“A fond memory,” Marco assured her, dodging when she took a swing at him.
“I’m going back,” Rita announced. “And I’m going to look Jack in the eye and tell him that he can’t dictate my life.”
“I feel like I should have pom-poms,” Gina murmured.
“He’s not chasing me away,” Rita proclaimed, scooting off the stool to stand on her own two feet. “I’m going back. I’m going to tell him he’s in love with me and when he’s done being scared of it, he can come and find me. I’m building a life there and I’m not giving it up.”
“Good for you.” Her father came into the kitchen and gave her a quick hug before grabbing another cookie. “But you can stay for a couple of days, right? Have a nice visit before you go back?”
“I sure can, Daddy,” she said and leaned in to the most wonderful man she’d ever known. “Let Jack miss me. It’ll be good for him.”
“You women are devious, wonderful creatures,” her father said.
“And don’t you forget it,” his wife warned.
* * *
Solitude was overrated.
Three days of it and Jack felt like he was suffocating. Quiet. Too much damn quiet. He kept seeing Rita’s ghost in the penthouse. He heard her laugh. He caught her scent in the guest room she’d used and ached for her in a way he wouldn’t have thought possible.
It was worse somehow, knowing that she was in Utah. Jack hadn’t really believed Cass when she told him that Rita had left the damn state. So he’d driven to Seal Beach, walked past the bakery and got a chill when he saw the closed sign on the door.
He’d driven her off and she’d actually left. He should be happy. Instead, he felt...hollowed out. Like a shell of the man he used to be. At that thought, he imagined what Rita would say to it and he could almost hear her. Whose fault is that, Jack? Who keeps running away from life?
Shaking his head free of irritating thoughts and reminders of all he’d lost, Jack turned his attention back to the stack of papers waiting for his signature. He’d been spending more time than usual in the office because it beat the hell out of being alone in the penthouse with too many memories.
“I’ll get over it. Hell,” he murmured, scrawling his name along the bottom of a contract, “she’ll get over it.”
“Mr. Buchanan?” Linda stood just inside the open door to his office.
“What is it?”
“Marketing reports The Sea Queen is now sold-out.”
“Good. Great.” The cruise liner would be a huge success, one more feather in the Buchanan family cap and Jack couldn’t have cared less. “Is there anything else?”
“Just one thing.” Linda stepped back, a smirk on her face and Rita sailed past her into the room.
The door closed behind her, but Jack hardly noticed. All he could see was her. That amazing hair of hers was a tumble of dark curls. Her eyes were sizzling. She wore black slacks, a lime-green shirt that clung to the mound of her belly and a white linen jacket over the shirt. Black sandals were on her feet and her toenails were a bright purple.
He’d never seen anything more gorgeous in his life.
Standing up behind his desk, he curbed the urge to go to her and grab hold of her. He’d done the right thing and he wasn’t going to backtrack now. “Rita. I thought you were in Utah.”
She tipped her head to one side and gave him a cool glare. “Hoping I’d stay so far away you’d never have to think about me again?”
“No.” There was nothing on this earth that could keep him from thinking about her. “I just—”
“I didn’t come to chat, Jack,” she said, cutting him off as she dug into the oversize black tote slung over her shoulder. She pulled out a large manila envelope and handed it to him.
“What’s this?”
“It’s an ultrasound picture of your daughter.”
His eyes widened, his jaw dropped and his fingers tightened on the envelope. “I thought you didn’t want to know what the baby is.”
“Turns out,” she said, “surprises aren’t as much fun as I used to think they were.”
Okay, he knew that was a dig for the way he’d ended things between them. And fine, she was due a fair share of hits. He could take it. Then what she’d said suddenly hit him.
“A daughter?”
“Yes,” she said, and clutched her fingers around the handle of her bag. “It’s a girl. And I wanted you to know.”
“Thanks for that...”
“I didn’t do it to be nice, Jack,” she said, interrupting him. “I came here to tell you that I’m not running away. I’m not you. I don’t hide.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“Call it whatever you want to,” she said, voice tight. “It amounts to the same thing.”
Sunlight spilled into the office through the wide windows, lying in long, golden rectangles across the floor. Rita stood in one of those slices of light and it was as if she were glowing from the inside. Even the ends of her hair shone, and the sunlight was reflected in her whiskey eyes, making them look as if they were on fire.
“You’re upset, I know,” he started.
“Damn right I’m upset, Jack.” She stopped, took a long breath and steadied herself. “But I didn’t come here to get into another futile argument, either.”
Still holding the envelope he wanted very badly to open, he asked, “Why are you here, then?”
“To tell you that I’m staying. Our daughter will be raised by me, in the apartment over the bakery. I’ll tell her all about you, but you’re not going to be a part of our lives, Jack.”
“You can’t keep her from me.”
“Watch me,” Rita countered. “You don’t want her or me. You just want to do what you think is the ‘right’ thing. Well, I don’t care about that. My daughter’s going to grow up loved. Happy. And if her father isn’t willing to give up his self-pity party long enough to be grateful to be alive, then he just won’t be a part of our lives.”
“Self-pity?” He repeated the words because they’d slapped him hard enough to make an impact. Was that who he was? Who he’d become? Was she right? “That’s what you think?”
“Jack,” she sighed out his name. “If you ever manage to work your way out of that cocoon you’ve wrapped yourself in long enough to realize you love me, let me know. Until then? Goodbye, Jack.”
He looked up as Rita turned around, stormed across the room and out the door, slamming it behind her.
* * *
Jack fell asleep that night, still holding the ultrasound picture he couldn’t get out of his head. A daughter. A little girl. Torn between desire and caution, he wasn’t sure which move to make. And then the dream came.
It was hot. So hot every breath seared his lungs. He squinted into the too-bright sunlight and signaled to his men for quiet as they approached the village.
Shots were fired. Explosions rocked all around them, making his ears ring. Someone screamed and another shot fired and Jack was down. Pain burst in a hot ball in the center of his chest. Air caught in his lungs, refusing to move in or out. Jack stared up at a brassy sky, the sun beating down mercilessly and he knew he was dying.
But this wasn’t how it happened. The dream was wrong.
Then Kevin was there, leaning over him. Jack looked up at his friend. “I’m hit. I’m hit bad.”
“Yeah, dude. It doesn’t look good.”
“But this is wrong. You were wounded, not me.” Jack breathed past the pain, felt it sliding through his body. “Help me, Kev. Do something. I did it for you.”
“Yeah, you did.” Kevin grinned and was suddenly in a wheelchair. “And I appreciate it. Wish I could help you now, bro. But it’s all on you.”
None of this made sense. Jack looked around. The sand. The sun. The men. Everything was the way it always was in his dream. Well, except for Kevin, grinning like a moron at him from a chair.
“What’s so funny? Do something, damn it!”
“Nothing I can do, dude,” Kevin assured him. “It’s a heart shot. You’re done for. There’s no hope.”
Panic roared through him followed by fury. Damned if he’d end like this. “What the hell kind of help is that? Call a medic. Slap a bandage on my chest.”
“Hearts can’t be healed with a damn bandage, man. You’re way past that.”
Fear and fury were a tangled knot inside him. “Then what do I do?”
“You already know that, Jack,” Kevin said. “You’re not shot, man. Your heart’s broken and the only way to fix it is to find Rita and make this right. It’s as good as over for you.”
Reaching down, he held out one hand and waited for Jack to take it. Then Kevin pulled him to his feet and slapped Jack on the back. “The only way out is Rita.”
“Rita.” Jack looked down at his chest. He wasn’t bleeding. He was healthy enough. He was just...lost. Lifting his head, he glanced around. The dream had changed. The desert was gone.
He was on the beach, the roar of the sea pounding in his brain. And there was Rita, standing at the shoreline as she had been on the first night he’d seen her. And just like that, Jack knew Kevin was right. He felt as if his heart had been ripped out of his chest. It was over for him.
It had been over from the first moment he’d seen her.
Just the memory of her was strong enough to tear down the dream that had been haunting him for months. Rita had drawn him out, with the help of an old friend.
But when he turned to thank Kevin, the man was gone. Looking back down the beach, he saw Rita, holding a baby girl with dark brown curls and bright eyes. He started toward them just as Rita smiled. Then slowly, she and the baby faded until they finally disappeared completely. When he stood alone on the darkened beach, pain hit him like a fist.
Fix this, he told himself, or lose everything.
Jack woke with a start and sat straight up in bed. His mind racing, heart pounding, he realized so many truths at once, he was breathless. Maybe it made sense that the lesson he needed to learn had come from Kevin. He’d think about that later. Right now, he knew what he had to do, so he lunged for his cell phone on the bedside table. He punched in a familiar number and waited interminably as it rang on the other end.
“Dad? Yeah, it’s me, Jack.” He walked out onto the terrace, into the teeth of the wind and had never felt warmer in his life.
“Jack? Are you all right?” his father asked. “What time is it?”
He winced and glanced at the clock. Two o’clock. He rubbed his eyes and laughed shortly. Taking a deep breath, Jack realized that for the first time in months, he didn’t have a cold stone in his belly. In fact, he felt pretty good.
“Weirdly enough,” he said, “I think I am all right. Or I will be. I’m sorry it’s so late, but look. I need you to do something for me.”
