Could this day get any worse? Rob thought as he cleaned up after his three to five-thirty shift and prepared to hand the reins over to Nick and Gretchen.
Tara Welles and Lance Burk. Now there was a pair who deserved one another.
He shook his head remembering their visit.
Seeing Tara was like running into a pesky little sister, but seeing Burk always inspired him to violence. To want to sack him. It was the very way of him. So. Damned. Annoying.
He spotted Elizabeth’s car pulling up in front of the shop. Punctual, as usual.
Jacques stood by the counter, chatting it up with Gretchen. Nick played a final round of his favorite electronic game on his smart phone. Some sports thing, of course. A couple of customers lingered over waffle cones and sodas. Rob slipped out unnoticed.
“Hey,” he said to Elizabeth. “Recovered from the rappin’ jugglers yet?”
One small corner of one side of her mouth lifted into a very literal half-smile. It was a funny thing. For someone who didn’t talk much, the lady sure had a way of expressing herself.
“Ah, don’t worry,” he said. “They’ve got gigs lined up for weeks. We probably won’t see them again.”
She stepped out of the car and he saw she was wearing a long skirt. A nice one in a pretty shade of green. Very delicate ankles.
“Th-That’s not what w-worries me, Rob.”
“What worries you?”
She raised a brow at him and sighed. “Let’s just go.”
He put his palm on her shoulder to stop her from turning away. “No, c’mon. Tell me. Please.”
Some kind of private battle duked it out on her face, but she seemed to give in to his request. “This m-m-morning, what you did, getting those jugglers. I-I didn’t like it. It was risky and it made me nervous, but—”
“But what?”
“But it was also k-kind of ingenious. How you p-pulled it off. It’s not something I would think of. Ever.”
A pride he didn’t want to admit, but couldn’t deny, crept into his spine and crawled up it, making him stand taller. “Thanks, I think,” he said.
“You’re welcome. Sort of,” she said back.
“Anything besides that on your mind?” he asked her, hoping it might be something else good but fearing it probably wasn’t.
“No,” she answered quickly and, before he could fish for more compliments, she slid into his car, sank into the leather seats and angled herself away from him. Great. They’d make a believable couple, all right, just not a couple still in the throes of infatuation.
He cracked his knuckles, revved up the engine and played his part by pretending to ignore her, too. And, so, onward to Mama’s for a second dinner they went. Two meals down. Only twenty-eight to go.
As promised, a huge pan of lasagna awaited them. The aroma of oregano, basil and garlic greeted them at the door like a butler, while the “Material Girl” sang cloyingly through the speakers of Mama’s stereo. Home again.
Mama was busy in the kitchen and the kids were with Maria-Louisa in the basement again, but Tony ushered them in, took the plate of cookies they brought, clapped him on the back and smooched Elizabeth lightly on the cheek.
“You look smashing tonight,” his brother told Elizabeth, giving her the Male Eye-Scan (face, chest, legs, chest).
She grinned at Tony. Tony winked at her.
“Knock it off,” Rob said to him. “You’re a married man. You don’t get to ogle or wink or flirt.” At this, Elizabeth turned her big, surprised eyes on him.
“What?” he said to her. “You’re my girlfriend, and my brother ought to be checking out his wife, and his wife only. There are rules.”
She and Tony made eye contact, and Rob heard her whisper to Tony, “You know the truth, don’t you?”
Tony reached over and took her hand, then he kissed it gently. “You’re an amazing woman, Elizabeth, and my brother is a world-class idiot.”
She didn’t say anything to that, she merely sighed.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he said to Tony, lowering his voice in case Mama snuck in on them.
But it wasn’t his brother who answered him. It was Elizabeth.
“He knows w-we’re not really a couple,” she whispered. “He’s sharp. He figured it out last night.”
Panic gripped his throat. “When last night?”
“During dinner, would be my guess.” She motioned to Tony with her palm.
“Before, actually,” Tony said. “When we all talked in the hallway.”
She nodded. “And Maria-Louisa knows, too, d-doesn’t she?”
Tony shrugged. “Probably. We didn’t discuss it.”
“Liar,” Rob said. “You two discuss everything.” Dammit.
“Okay, fine, but you fooled the kids,” Tony said, his voice taking on a hard, dangerous edge. “And, of course, you sure bamboozled Mama. That’s gotta make you proud, big brother.”
“Well, hell, you know how she gets when—”
“That’s neither here nor there,” Tony said. “But, since Elizabeth was willing to play your game to help you, I won’t snitch on you. Not this time. But you’ll owe me.”
Rob may have missed Tony’s moment of realization last night, but he didn’t miss the threatening note in his brother’s tone tonight, nor could he avoid seeing the sadness lingering in Elizabeth’s eyes as she looked away from him and headed toward the dining room.
He felt like the idiot his brother claimed he was.
The trampling of little feet thundered up the stairs and beelined straight for the table. Jeez, did those kids ever slow down? After a chorus of enthusiastic Hi’s and Hello’s to and from Maria-Louisa and the kids, Mama marched into the room.
“Oh, good. Our Elizabeth is here again!” Mama held her tight, and “Frizzy Lizzy” embraced his mother with a warmth she might have reserved for her own dear mom.
And now he felt like guilt-ridden fool.
“Roberto.” Mama kissed him. “How was your day at the shop? You want to follow in your Uncle Pauly’s footsteps now? Work at Tutti-Frutti?” Hopeful, futile questions.
“I like what I do in Chicago, Mama. And, besides, Siegfried and Uncle Pauly will be back before we know it.” He said this to try to convince himself, but four weeks still seemed like an eternity of two-and-a-half hour shifts.
“Tell her about the j-jugglers,” Elizabeth said with a crafty look made all the more wily because she routinely passed herself off as such an innocent.
He narrowed his eyes at her before turning back to his mother.
“We’ve been having a little fun at the shop and doing some different things,” he explained without really explaining. “Some jugglers entertained us today for a while. No big deal. I doubt they’ll be back and, besides, I’m sure our uncles will go on doing things their same old way when they come home. That’s what works best for them.”
His mother raised a dark eyebrow.
“I’m not trying to interfere or change things too much, Mama. There’s no room for another person’s vision anyway. Too many chefs and all that.”
Mama tweaked his nose. “So sure of yourself, Roberto, aren’t you? Now go wash your hands for dinner.”
He sighed and did as he was told.
Strange night, though, and he didn’t know why exactly. A certain vibe shimmied between him and Elizabeth. Maybe because he sat next to her tonight instead of across the table from her. Maybe because they had this shared secret. Or maybe just because the moon grew fuller as the June nights grew longer, making weird ions hang in the air everywhere. Or something.
Anyway, for whatever reason, all through the meal he felt himself being hyper-attentive to her: The way she talked (so sweetly) to his niece and squirmy nephews. The way she interacted (so politely) with his Mama and Tony and Maria-Louisa. The way she emitted (so surprisingly) a very grown-up sensuality that seemed both innate and unpretentious.
He’d never allowed himself to think of her like that. Like a potential conquest. Partly because they’d roamed in such different spheres during high school, but mostly because she’d never been the kind of girl who threw herself at him.
She still wasn’t.
But, he remembered overhearing her say he had a “hot body” yesterday. That was something, he supposed, although not nearly as promising as the “kind of ingenious” compliment she gave him about getting the jugglers today. And once, during their junior year, she’d called one of his world-history project ideas “very clever” after class.
He smiled at that.
“Why are you laughing, Uncle Rob?” Camilla the little pixie asked him.
“I wasn’t laughing.”
“Yes, you were!”
“I was smiling,” he said, noticing all the eyes at the table turning toward him and looking more interested than they needed to be. Elizabeth, in particular, seemed pretty damn curious.
“Why were you smiling, then?” Camilla said.
“I just had a happy memory.”
“Oooh! Was it from your birthday?”
“No,” he told the girl. “It was from a long, long time ago.” Then, taking a chance, “It was from a conversation Elizabeth and I had when we were in high school.”
He put his hand over Elizabeth’s jittery one and gazed into her shocked green eyes. Hey, what was the use of pretending to have a girlfriend unless he acted somewhat affectionately toward her, right? He had to make the show believable, if only for his mother’s benefit.
“Remember history class with Mr. Monroe?” he said to Elizabeth, rubbing the top of her hand and feeling the soft skin with the firm bones just beneath. “I remember how you used to know the answers to just about everything in there. Really impressive.”
She tried to tug her fingers away. No way was he letting her. He held them fast with one hand and continued gently stroking her skin with the other.
“I-I d-didn’t know all th-the answers.”
“Sure you did.” He traced her tiny blue veins with his fingertip and grinned at her. “You sat two seats away from me, so I always noticed what you were doing. Most of the time you were looking at the clock or staring out the window. You were at least three million light years away. Then Mr. Monroe would ask a question about World War II or the Russian government or something. If you heard it, you’d slink down in your seat behind Kent Grommer. If you didn’t, you’d just keep on daydreaming. He’d ask a bunch of people, but they wouldn’t know the answer. Then, when he couldn’t stand it anymore, he’d call on you or on Matthew Landers. And, no matter what, whether you’d been paying attention or not, you could answer the question. It was freaking amazing.”
She shot him a glare, which confused him. He’d kill for a compliment like that, but she was clearly sending an I’m-Pissed-Off vibe in his direction. And also still trying to get him to release her hand.
He tried to put it another way so she’d get his meaning. “Look, everybody wished they could do that, too. Be acknowledged as the smartest one. That’s why girls like Tara Welles were so jealous of you.”
She stopped both tugging and glaring. “W-What?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I couldn’t do what you did either, and I even liked history. I’d concentrate as hard as I could, but I could barely follow Mr. Monroe’s train of thought. For you, it didn’t even seem as tough as breathing.”
Her hand lay like a limp dinner roll beneath his. Her blank expression gave away nothing. “Y-You’re kidding?”
He shook his head. “Nope.” Then he turned to Tony. “Tell her. Wasn’t she like a legend in high school?”
Tony didn’t speak. He merely answered with one of his sage nods and a grin.
Camilla piped up, “Was that your happy memory, Uncle Rob?”
“Kind of,” he said, knowing he’d be too embarrassed to explain the real recollection. He turned to look deep into Elizabeth’s eyes and saw a flash of something there. Her big brain must be hard at work trying to process his words, evaluate their merit. What her conclusion would be was anyone’s guess, though.
“Ah, young love,” his Mama mused, standing to clear away the dessert dishes. “Why don’t you all go relax on the patio?”
“Th-Thank you, Mrs. Gabinarri,” Elizabeth said, almost jumping to her feet, “but I have to g-get back a little earlier tonight.”
“You do?” Rob said. She hadn’t mentioned this to him before.
Her head bobbed vigorously. “Work.”
Like hell.
“Okay, sweetheart.” He patted her hand, which was clenched tight again. What had he done to get her so angry and why was she shorting him forty-five minutes? Not that he didn’t want to leave, too, but they had a deal. “Sorry, Mama. I guess Elizabeth’s cookbook project can’t be put off any longer.”
“Well, that’s all right,” Mama said. “We’ll see you both again tomorrow, yes?”
Elizabeth smiled at his mother. “Of course.”
“Absolutely,” he said at the same time.
Mama disappeared into the kitchen. Elizabeth snatched her hand away from him once and for all and turned abruptly away.
He glanced at his still-seated family members, and he saw how Camilla tilted her little head in thought. And Maria-Louisa squinted at him. And Tony, never one to hold back, rolled his eyes and pressed his knuckles to his own lips.
“Have a terrific night, you two,” Tony called after them as they walked out the door. Although, Rob could tell his little brother expected the remainder of the evening to be just the opposite.
***
Elizabeth massaged her temples and took full, body-cleansing breaths in Rob’s car.
“Thanks for springing us early,” he said a few blocks down the road, “but what happened back there?”
“N-Nothing.” What could she tell him? That having him caress her hand the way he did at the table was torturous and hurtful since he didn’t mean it? That his preposterous fib about her being envied by girls like Tara was even more so?
The tips of his ears turned an attractive shade of pink, but Rob’s temper seemed to run several degrees hotter. “Nothing? You practically sprinted out of my mother’s house. We may be playing a charade in there, but be straight with me here.”
“B-Be straight with y-y-you?” She clasped her fingers together and shook them in front of her, imagining she had them around his neck. “Rob, you’ve d-done nothing but lie to me since you came into town.”
“What? I didn’t—” He swerved the car over to the side of the road and parked it.
Oh, goody. This was becoming a nifty nightly ritual.
“Okay, now you listen up, Elizabeth Daniels. The only thing I lied about was telling my family we were a couple. With Tony and Maria-Louisa guessing the truth, the only person I’m lying to—and asking you to lie to—is my Mama. And yes, yes, I know that’s still scummy of me, but I have my reasons, and I already told those to you. I haven’t lied to you about a thing since then.”
“We’re also lying to the k-kids.”
He shrugged. “But they don’t really care.”
“They do. Camilla does especially.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s why you’re mad? Because of them?”
It was partly the truth, but she didn’t clarify, which also made it partly a lie as well. Still, she wasn’t going to explain that if he touched her again she might have to choke him to make him stop. Every cell inside her body went haywire with desire for him when their fingers joined together. And looking into her eyes, so sincerely it seemed, for those few nanoseconds before she realized he was just acting…that almost did her in at the Gabinarri house.
“Huh. You really like kids, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“How much do you like them?” he asked, his voice laced with suspicion. “When you get married, how many children do you want to have?”
Well, there was no denying it. She wanted what she wanted. “If I get married, I w-want four.”
“Four! For real?”
She nodded, shrugged and turned to look out the window.
“Jeez,” he said. “What is it with you women?”
She figured this was a rhetorical question he didn’t expect her to answer. She was wrong.
“Elizabeth?”
“What?”
“Explain this to me. Why on earth would you want a brood of little rug rats tearing up your house? They make messes everywhere. They ask a gazillion questions. They fight and bicker with each other until you’re crazed with wanting to get away from them. Granted, they’re cute and all, especially when they’re asleep, but that’s hardly a reason to have so many of them living with you.”
She thought about her mom—the delightful messes they made together in the kitchen when she was little, the long walks they took while asking questions about each other’s day, the warmth and closeness they’d always shared. Motherhood was such a special relationship. A gift to treasure. Then, knowing she’d sound like a Hallmark card but not caring, she said, “Because p-parenting is about real and true love.”
This comment seemed to halt his wagging tongue.
“So what’s wrong with getting a dog or a cat or a pet alligator?” he said finally. “You could fall in love with a baby black widow. I’ve seen it happen. This guy in my college dorm treated his like royalty. He named her ‘Legs’ and he kept her in a golden—”
“Rob.”
“What?”
“That’s not the same thing. At all.”
He sighed. “I guess not. I just—well, it’s hard for me to imagine I’d ever feel ready. That I’d ever know I could handle the problems that’d come up. My mother—she’s amazing. She knew when we were really sick and when we were faking. She helped us with our schoolwork even though English was her second language. When Dad died, she kept the family together, despite her own sorrow. I mean, she must’ve just wanted to crawl into bed and hide in her room for three months, but she didn’t. She worked. She made our meals. She let us be sad or angry or whatever we felt.” He gave her a serious look. “I wouldn’t be able to pull off something like that.”
Elizabeth remembered when Rob’s dad had died, just before their senior year in high school. She hadn’t imagined he’d been so haunted by it, though. That it would have affected his decision whether or not to be a father. Then again, the deaths of her parents had affected her as profoundly—only in the opposite direction.
“You’d b-be able to do it. No matter what, I think everyone has fears about being a parent.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Tony must’ve had worries when he became a dad. Did you talk to him about it?”
An odd look came over his face. “Umm, not recently. Look, we’ve got some time before I have to be back at the shop. If you’re able to stay away from your computer for another half hour, I could buy you some coffee or something. What do you say?”
What could she say?
“O-Okay.”
“Great. Let’s get out of here.”
A few minutes later they were seated at Karen’s Koffee Shoppe on First and Central. She’d gotten a handful of cappuccinos here over the years, but she’d never ordered and sat in a booth. Least of all with a guy. She always took everything to go. And this…this…outing, or whatever it was with Rob, felt suspiciously like a date.
Too bizarre for words. Though most things were.
“So, where do you usually hang out on Saturday nights when you aren’t surviving stressful family dinners with old high school friends?” Rob said.
Stressful dinners, she wouldn’t argue, but old high school friends? Is that what he thought they were?
But she didn’t say that. She said, “Gretchen, Nick, Jacques and I get t-together sometimes. We have Treat Swaps.”
“Treat Swaps? What’s that?”
“We each bring something we m-made to share. Tortes, crepes, chocolate, pastries…anything good…and we taste test.”
“Mmm. That sounds fun.” He licked his lips and she felt her attraction to him rise from her belly, still churning with suppressed anxiety, to her own lips, which trembled strangely but, she hoped, unnoticeably.
“It is,” she said. And, then, to her own astonishment, she added, “M-Maybe you can join us sometime.”
His eyes lit up like a little kid being handed his first triple-decker ice cream sundae. “Thanks, Elizabeth. That’d be great. Just let me know when you’re going to do it again. I can’t promise to make anything fancy like you guys do, but I’ll bring along something for everyone, too.”
She nodded and took a long sip of her cappuccino. He’s only here for a few weeks, she reminded herself. Don’t think you can adopt him into your little group. Don’t think he’ll become your new best friend. Don’t think someone like Rob Gabinarri will stay around for a second longer than he has to.
But it was hard to deny that niggling little hope, that unruly wish that she’d get the answer wrong for once.
They got on the subject of kids again, a topic Rob couldn’t seem to move away from.
“So why, if you like children so much, didn’t you become a teacher or something? You seem really at ease when you’re around Tony’s kids, and they listen to you,” he said.
At this she had to laugh. “Don’t you realize how much t-talking is involved in teaching? I’d freeze.”
He squinted at her as if trying to figure out a Great Mystery of the Universe. “I’ve heard you with them, though. Your speech is really smooth.” Then he paused as if weighing his words. “You don’t stutter then, Elizabeth.”
Well, at least he was able to openly acknowledge her disability. Two points for him and a big brownie with chocolate chips on top. At least he wasn’t one of awful people who pretended to ignore her stuttering while looking like they were going to crawl out of their skin with impatience. Or, even worse, one of those people who spoke louder when they talked to her.
“I’m c-comfortable with the kids. I don’t feel the kind of pressure from th-them that I do with adults. Unfortunately, teaching is not just doing art projects with seven-year-olds and a bunch of Popsicle sticks. There are the parents and the staff members and the administrators.” She took a breath after her long explanation. “Writing lets me p-put everything on paper first. Even most of my communication with m-my editor is done through e-mail. That works best for me.”
“Okay, fair enough. But I’ve also heard you talking to Gretchen, Nick and Jacques. You barely ever stumble with them.”
She squeezed her lips shut. How to explain this? If she said that they were her friends and that’s why she could speak freely in their presence, would he be offended? He seemed to think of the two of them as friends, too, and, yet, she was anything but at ease with him.
“I’ve known them a long time,” she said.
“You’ve known me a longer time.” He raised his eyebrows at her in challenge, but the smile on his lips told her he was still in good humor. “What’s the difference?”
She took another sip of cappuccino to buy a few seconds. “Did y-you ever run into someone after a f-few years had gone by and, when the two of you started talking, it was l-like those years disappeared? You felt the same feelings you felt before just by being around that person?”
He grinned. “You mean the way I feel like I’m ten again whenever I’m back at Mama’s house?”
“Kind of. Yes.”
“Well, sure. Certain people pull you back into the context of whatever time period you shared. When I get together with my college roommates, it’s like we’re twenty-year-old slackers again, just interested in playing football in the courtyard and watching action flicks on TV and drinking beer at a sports bar.”
She nodded and watched his handsome face as realization slowly dawned.
“You mean, being with me puts you back into high school mode? Makes you feel like you’re there again?”
“Now you’re on it, Detective Holmes,” she said.
He crossed his arms, shooting a faux-scowl in her direction. “Did that snide, stutter-free comment really come from you, the reputedly oh-so-sweet-and-not-very-communicative Miss Lizzy Daniels?”
A giggle escaped her lips without permission. “Elizabeth,” she told him.
He laughed then gulped down some of his own coffee. After a few moments he said, “Was it that bad for you back then? I always kind of thought not being in the spotlight would’ve been a little easier. But what do I know, eh?”
It had been bad but, no, she didn’t plan on telling him that. He didn’t need to know about the nasty “observations” popular girls like Tara made about her or the unkind remarks sports-hero guys like Lance said to other, similar, sports-hero guys. Guys like Rob. If he didn’t remember it for himself, she sure as heck wasn’t about to remind him.
“Y-You didn’t like being adored by the masses?” she asked instead. “You didn’t want everyone drooling over your opinion of just about anything or…or driving out in droves to watch your Midas touch on the football field?”
He fingered his stirring stick and flicked a few coffee droplets on the napkin in front of him. “I’d have traded it for something else in a heartbeat.”
“What kind of ‘something else,’ Rob? There weren’t that many choices for cliques. And, c’mon. You c-can’t expect me to believe you wished you’d been unpopular.”
He looked up at her, his dark eyes intense. “Okay, maybe not ‘unpopular’ but I sure could’ve lived without that Golden Boy crap. That was a lot of pressure to live with. People projecting their wishes on you all the time. No one taking you seriously in any area but sports. Feeling like every single move you made was being watched and recorded by somebody who wanted something from you, but you were never sure what it was. God, I hated that.”
None of his characteristic good humor remained. He was in full glowering form. But, for the first time, it occurred to her that maybe they both craved the same thing: To be seen as they were now, not as they once had been.
“I guess neither of us felt too happy w-with our lot in life back then,” she admitted.
“Ain’t that the truth.” He squinted at her. “So, why did you stay? Why not ditch Wilmington Bay the minute you could blow town?”
“Like you did?”
He nodded.
Why did she stay? “I guess there are a few reasons. Living here is ‘the devil I know,’ so to speak. I don’t spend much time out and about the town, but when I do, I know my way around. My only living relative is Uncle Siegfried, and he’s here. My three best friends are here, too. I wouldn’t want to start all over in a new place. Plus, Wilmington Bay has some g-great memories for me also, especially of times I’d spent with my parents.”
“Okay, I get that. But aren’t you ever nibbled by the wanderlust bug? Want to go out and see what else the world has to offer?”
“Maybe a little,” she admitted. “I went with my parents to California once. To a spot my mom really loved. Mendocino. I wouldn’t have minded spending more time there. It was beautiful. But Wilmington Bay is home. I don’t plan to ever move away.”
“Hmm.” He stared at her for a second, brows pushed together, and then pointed with his chin to her cappuccino. “Want a refill to go? I have to get back to Tutti-Frutti before your ‘longtime friends’ skewer me with a swizzle stick for tardiness. Scary, those people.”
“Are not.”
“Are, too,” he insisted. “But I like them, and I can see why you like them.” He gave her a long, scrutinizing look. “I can also see why they like you.”
He grabbed a second round of coffee for each of them and tossed away their trash before driving them back to the ice cream parlor.
“Thanks for the evening,” he said, opening her car door and helping her out. Not that she needed help. She was just too stunned to refuse.
With her second cappuccino in one hand and his fingers gripping her other one, it was all she could do to step onto the sidewalk and nod her thanks at him.
He smiled and brought his lips to the back of her hand, making every nerve fiber tingle. “See you tomorrow, Elizabeth,” he said. “Sweet dreams.”
Oh, yeah. That was going to happen all right. Damn.