The rain had lessened to a drizzle by the time Jordyn got home to the Northbrook town house that she shared with her sister. Tristyn met her at the door, offering a towel in exchange for the food boxes so that Jordyn could dry off.
“Maybe the weather was an omen,” Jordyn said, kicking off her shoes. “As soon as I saw the forecast, I should have canceled the date and stayed home.”
“Or at least taken a jacket or umbrella,” her sister teased.
“Neither would have made this evening any less of a disaster.”
“Was it really that bad?” Tristyn asked, setting the food on the table.
Jordyn draped the towel over the back of her chair and picked up the glass of wine her sister had poured for her. “I don’t think there are words to adequately describe it.”
“What did he do?”
“Well, he opened the conversation by asking if I’d ever thought about changing my name.”
Tristyn frowned as she lifted a slice of pizza from the box. “Why would you want to change your name?”
“Because it’s misleading. Apparently when Carrie offered to set him up with me, Cody initially refused because he thought I was a guy.” And, he promised her in a mock deep voice accompanied by a leering grin, he was strictly and exclusively heterosexual. She shuddered at the memory.
“I get that sometimes, too, but never on a date.”
“Well, the criticism of my name wasn’t the worst of it—after that, even before I’d had a chance to peruse the wine list, Cody asked me what kind of birth control I used.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.” She peeled a slice of pepperoni off of her pizza slice, popped it into her mouth.
“How did you respond to that?”
“I think my jaw hit the table, because he actually apologized for the bluntness of the question—not the question itself, just the delivery of it.”
Tristyn shook her head.
“Apparently he’s got a six-year-old son from a short-term relationship with a woman who lied to him about being on the Pill. Now half of his paycheck goes to child support and he’s saddled with the kid every other weekend.”
Tristyn choked on her wine, obviously shocked by the statement.
Jordyn held up her hands. “His words—not mine.”
“I should have realized,” her sister acknowledged.
“And the whole time he’s talking, he’s looking at my breasts instead of my face.”
“Well, you do have exceptional breasts.”
“I’m flattered you think so,” she said drily.
“And that dress really does emphasize your curves.” Her sister looked down at her own chest, sighed. “Even with Victoria’s very best secret giving me a boost, I can’t fake cleavage like yours.”
“Does that make it okay for him to stare at my chest all through dinner?”
“Of course not,” Tristyn immediately denied.
“Not that I actually stayed through dinner,” she admitted, helping herself to a wing. “When I waved my hand in front of his face—for the third time—to draw his attention upward, he didn’t even apologize. He just said, ‘You’ve probably realized by now that I’m a breast man—and I’m so glad Carrie hooked us up tonight.’”
“He didn’t.”
“Oh, yes, he did.” She licked pizza sauce off of her thumb. “And when I assured him that we weren’t hooking up, he promised that he would change my mind before dessert.”
Tristyn grimaced.
“I’m just glad I met him at the restaurant, so that when I walked out, I didn’t have to wait for a cab.”
“I’m so sorry,” her sister said sincerely. “Carrie told me he was a terrific guy.”
“Obviously Carrie needs to raise her standards.”
“I just wanted you to go out and have a good time. You’ve been a recluse since—”
“I work with the public,” she interjected, because she knew what her sister was going to say and didn’t want to hear it. “I think that’s pretty much the opposite of a recluse.”
Tristyn’s gaze was sympathetic. “But you don’t date.”
“After tonight, do you really need to ask why?”
“There are a lot of really great guys out there,” her sister insisted.
“Probably,” she acknowledged. “But you’ve dated most of them, and that’s a whole other category of awkward.”
“I haven’t dated that many men,” Tristyn protested.
Jordyn’s only response was to pick up the bottle of wine and top up their glasses.
“And why should I feel pressured to go out and meet guys who don’t interest me when I’m perfectly content with my life?”
She reached down to rub Gryffindor, who had followed the scent of food into the kitchen and rubbed himself against her leg in a silent bid for attention—or scraps. Not that she ever fed him from the table, but the battle-scarred cat she’d rescued from the streets seven years earlier was eternally optimistic.
“You should not be content hanging out with your sister on a Saturday night,” Tristyn said.
“Which begs the question of what you’re doing home on a Saturday night.”
Her sister shrugged. “I didn’t feel like going out.”
“Are you ill?”
“I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“Like what?”
“I had lunch with Daniel yesterday.”
“He’s trying to lure you over to GSR,” she guessed, referring to Garrett/Slater Racing—the company their cousin had founded in partnership with his friend Josh Slater.
Tristyn nodded.
“And?” she prompted.
“I’m tempted,” her sister admitted.
“But?”
“I love working at Garrett Furniture, being part of the business that Granddad founded.”
Gryff, finally giving up on the possibility that he would get anything more than affectionate but inedible scratches, wandered off again.
“Then tell him no.”
“But it would be really exciting to be part of the business that he’s building, too.”
Jordyn sipped her wine. “You’re not usually so indecisive. What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’m not sure I could work with him,” Tristyn confided.
“Daniel?”
Her sister shook her head. “Josh.”
“Well, well, well,” Jordyn mused, as her sibling pushed away from the table and carried their plates to the dishwasher.
“Not for the reason you’re thinking.”
“Not because the man looks likes sex on a stick?”
Tristyn choked on a laugh. “Sex on a stick?”
She shrugged. “Just because I’m not interested in taking anything home from the market doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy browsing.”
Her sister finished loading the dishwasher, then wrapped the leftover pizza.
“You were saying that your objection to potentially working with Josh has nothing to do with the fact that you want to rip his clothes off and have your way with him,” she prompted.
“I do not want to rip his clothes off.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve had sex,” Jordyn admitted. “But I seem to recall it’s easier if you’re naked.”
Tristyn huffed out a breath. “He’s arrogant and obnoxious and thinks he knows everything.”
Since those were uncharacteristically strong words for her sister, Jordyn let it go. For now.
“So you’re not going to take the job?”
“I haven’t decided.” She returned to the table and picked up her wine. “Maybe Daniel could set you up with Josh.”
Jordyn’s brows lifted. “You want me to go out with a guy you just described as arrogant and obnoxious?”
“You could tame him. You don’t take any crap from anyone.”
“And then you’d have an excuse to ignore your attraction to him,” she guessed, seeing right through her sister’s plan. “Because it would be too weird to go out with a guy who’d gone out with your sister.”
“We’re not talking about me—we’re talking about you.”
“But your life is so much more interesting than mine.”
“Because I get out and meet new people.”
“I met someone tonight,” Jordyn said.
“Your date from hell doesn’t count.”
She should have nodded her agreement and let the topic slide—but she wasn’t thinking of Cody. She was thinking of Marco. In fact, she hadn’t stopped thinking about Marco since she’d seen him standing behind the counter at Valentino’s with her phone in hand.
She should have been outraged by his audacity—instead, she’d found herself intrigued by the man. And because her sister had a lot more experience with the opposite sex than she did, she wanted her assessment of the brief interaction.
“Actually, I met someone after,” she said now. “When I was at Valentino’s.”
“Really?” Tristyn somehow managed to sound both skeptical and intrigued. “Who did you meet at Valentino’s?”
“Marco.”
Her sister’s lips curved. “Ahh—the sweet and sexy bartender with the melted-chocolate eyes and the dimple at the corner of his mouth?”
Now it was Jordyn’s turn to be surprised. “You know him?”
“I’ve seen him at Valentino’s,” Tristyn admitted. “Shared some conversation.”
“Along with lingering glances and fleeting touches?”
“I might have flirted with him a little,” her sister acknowledged, because flirting was as natural to her as breathing. “But it never went any further than that.”
“Why not?”
Tristyn shrugged. “No chemistry. Although I’m guessing you had a different experience, or you wouldn’t have mentioned his name.”
“I’ve always thought chemistry was overrated,” she hedged.
“As a woman with much more dating experience than you, I have to disagree,” Tristyn said. “I don’t think a relationship can work without at least some degree of chemistry.”
Jordyn wasn’t sure what she believed when it came to matters of the heart, since her own had been shattered more than three years earlier.
“So—what did you feel?” Tristyn prompted. “Butterflies? Tingles? Heat?”
“Just…curiosity.”
“Considering that’s probably more than you’ve felt in a long time, I’d say it’s a good start.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t see how a three-minute conversation with a guy is the start of anything.”
“That depends on what you plan to do next.”
“My only plan right now is to take my glass of wine into the living room to watch the Ryder to the Rescue episode that I missed last night.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” her sister agreed.
* * *
Marco rapped his knuckles against the wood before he turned the knob and opened the door of his sister’s two-story colonial in western South Meadows, only a few blocks from where they’d grown up and where their parents still lived.
His mother always chided her kids for knocking before they walked into the house that she insisted was still their home, despite the fact that none of them lived there anymore. Renata didn’t subscribe to quite the same open-door policy, but she usually made sure the front entrance was unlocked when she was expecting company. With two busy kids, it was hard to predict what she might be in the middle of when the doorbell rang—or how long it would take her to answer the summons.
Five-year-old Anna’s face lit up when she saw him in the doorway. “Uncle Marco!”
“Unca Mahco!” Bella, her three-year-old sister, echoed the greeting.
He set the paper bag containing the desserts on the seat of the deacon’s bench inside the door so that he could catch the two little girls who flung themselves at him. As Renata had said, they were both in their pajamas—coordinating outfits with ruffled cuffs and hems: Anna in purple and Bella in pink.
“We haven’t seen you in forever,” Anna lamented.
“Fo’eva,” Bella agreed.
He squeezed them both tight. “Has it really been that long?”
“Uh-huh,” Anna said solemnly, and her sibling nodded.
He usually stopped by to see his sister and her family at least once a week, but he’d been so busy working on plans for the new restaurant that he’d been unaware more than three weeks had passed since his last visit. Until now. And he felt a sharp tug of guilt to realize his nieces had noted the absence.
“What’s in the bag?” Anna asked. “Did you bring us a surprise?”
“A ’pwise?” Bella echoed, looking at him hopefully.
“It’s tiramisu for your mom,” he told them.
His nieces wrinkled their noses in identical expressions of displeasure.
“And a cannoli for each of you—if you go sit up at the table.”
They raced to the kitchen to comply with his request.
Nata took two small plates out of the cupboard, setting one in front of each of her daughters so that Marco could distribute the pastry.
“I wike cannowi,” Bella told him.
“I knew that about you,” Marco agreed, kissing the top of her head.
“Your uncle Marco spoils both of you,” Renata said.
He lifted his brows as he handed her the bowl of tiramisu.
“Uncle Marco spoils all of us,” she amended.
“Sit,” he told her, nudging her toward a chair.
“I was going to get you a cup of coffee.”
“I can get it,” he said, moving over to the counter. He selected a pod, inserted it into the machine, then pressed the button to start it brewing.
“Can we have milk?” Anna asked her mother.
“Of course.” Renata started to rise from the table.
“I’ve got it,” Marco told her, easily locating the girls’ favorite plastic cups and filling them with milk, then pouring a glass of the same for their mother.
“Thank you,” they chorused, when he set the drinks in front of them.
Marco carried his mug of coffee to the table and sat down beside his sister.
“So how are you feeling these days?” he asked her.
“Hungry.” She dipped her spoon back into the bowl.
He chuckled. “I guess that means the morning sickness has passed.”
She nodded.
“Mommy’s got a baby in her belly,” Anna said, in case he’d somehow forgotten that fact. “And it’s gonna grow really big and she’s gonna get really fat.”
“Wike dis,” Bella said, stretching her arms out in front of her as far as they could reach to demonstrate.
“Well, hopefully not quite that big,” Renata said drily.
“But Daddy says that just means there’ll be more of her to love,” Anna added.
Marco had to give his brother-in-law points for that response, because he knew his sister was already self-conscious about the weight she’d gained and she was only four months into her pregnancy.
“And soon, you’ll have another sister or a brother to love,” he said, hoping to shift their attention away from their mother’s belly and to the baby she carried.
“I wanna sisda,” Bella said. “I don’ wanna be da widda sisda anymo.”
“I wanna brother,” Anna countered, rolling her eyes in the direction of her younger sibling. “Sometimes one sister is one too many.”
“I want both of you to go wash the powdered sugar off of your faces and hands, and then brush your teeth,” Renata said.
“We aweady bwush our teef,” Bella sad. “Befo Unca Mahco comed.”
“Which was also before you ate the cannoli he brought for you,” her mother pointed out with patient firmness.
“Oh.” Bella sighed as she slid off the chair to follow her sister upstairs to the bathroom they shared.
Nata pushed her mostly empty bowl aside and rubbed her tummy. “Hopefully that will settle him down for a while.”
“Him?”
She shrugged. “Nonna hasn’t been wrong yet.”
“Are you hoping for a boy?”
“I know I should say that I just want a healthy baby—and I do. But if I had a choice, yeah, I’d like a boy this time.”
“Well, you and Craig make beautiful babies, so if it’s not a boy this time, there’s no reason you can’t keep trying.”
“Even if this one is a boy, we’re probably going to go for one more.”
“You’re a brave—or maybe crazy—woman.”
His sister laughed. “Probably both.”
He heard the water running in the bathroom upstairs, proof that the girls were brushing their teeth again.
“Can I tuck them in when they’re ready?” he asked.
“They made you feel guilty about not visiting for so long, didn’t they?”
“It hasn’t been that long,” he protested.
“More than three weeks.”
“But who’s counting?”
“We missed you,” she told him.
“Rebecca—the new waitress—asked for a couple of weeks off in July to go home to Minnesota because she hasn’t seen her parents since Christmas.”
“Because they live in Minnesota,” she said, stating the obvious.
“Maybe I should move.”
His sister chuckled. “As if. When you moved out, Mama cried for three days, and you felt so guilty, you almost moved back home again.”
“No one knows how to guilt a man like his mother,” Marco agreed.
“We done bwushed our teef,” Bella called down.
“Uncle Marco’s on his way up to tuck you in,” Renata told her daughters. Then, to him, “They’re going to want a bedtime story.”
“I haven’t forgotten the routine in three weeks,” he assured her, already heading for the stairs.
He sat on Anna’s bed, between both of the girls tucked under the covers, and read them a bedtime story. They giggled at the different voices he gave to the characters and responded with gasps and sighs in appropriate places. When the story was finished, they were both fighting to keep their eyes open. He slid off the bed, returned the book to its shelf, kissed Anna’s forehead, then scooped Bella up and carried her across the room to tuck her into her own bed.
He loved sharing the nighttime routine with his nieces—and with his nephews, when he was at Tony and Gemma’s house. But it was always a little sad to go home to his too-quiet apartment afterward and crawl into an empty bed.
It wouldn’t be much of a hardship to find a woman to share his bed for one night or even a few. The harder part was finding the woman he wanted there for the long term. He wasn’t one of those commitment-shy guys who was only looking for a good time—he wanted to fall in love and get married and read bedtime stories to his own kids at night. But until that happened, he had be content spending time with his nieces and nephews.
When he returned to the main level, Renata was in the living room folding a load of laundry with the news on TV.
“Are they asleep?”
“You know they won’t fall asleep until their mom kisses them good-night.”
She pushed herself up from the sofa. “Then I’d better go do so.”
While she was upstairs, he busied himself washing up the plates and cups the girls had used.
“You’re going to be a great father someday,” Renata said when she came back downstairs. “And a great husband to some lucky woman.”
“You’re only saying that because I’m tidying up your kitchen.”
“And because you brought me tiramisu.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“The right woman is out there,” his sister said.
He nodded. “I know.”
“I just don’t want you to get discouraged—wondering when you’re finally going to meet her.”
“I already did.”
She considered that as she picked up a towel to dry the dishes he’d washed. “So when are the rest of us going to meet her?”
“Not for a while.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want some time and space to get to know her better before the family scares her away.”
“We’re not scary,” she protested.
“Are you kidding? I was born into this family and I’m terrified by major holiday events with the whole clan.”
“If she’s going to be the mother of your future children, she’s got to meet us someday.”
“Someday,” he agreed.
Nata sighed. “Are you at least going to tell me her name?”
“No.”
“Does she really exist?”
“Of course she exists.”
“That’s what you said about Tessa Wheeler, your make-believe girlfriend in high school.”
He glanced away. “She was real.”
“A real person,” his sister acknowledged. “But she wasn’t really your girlfriend—she didn’t even know you existed.”
“I was a sophomore,” he pointed out in his defense.
“And while I would certainly hope you’d outgrown manufacturing fantasy girlfriends, you should appreciate how your refusal to give me a name is cause for concern.”
“If I’d made her up, don’t you think I would have made up a name for her?”
“And what name would that be?” she challenged.
Renata was nothing if not relentless, and he knew she wouldn’t quit badgering until he gave her something. He decided her name was harmless enough.
“Jordyn,” he finally said.
Her brows lifted. “Jordyn Garrett?”
He frowned. “Where did that come from?”
“Ohmygod—I’m right. It is Jordyn Garrett.”
“I never said it was Jordyn Garrett.”
“But you didn’t say it wasn’t.”
“How do you know her?” he finally asked.
“Duh. She’s a bartender at O’Reilly’s and Craig plays on the Brew Crew, the team they sponsor.”
He’d forgotten that his brother-in-law played recreational baseball—but he should have remembered that his sister knew almost everyone in Charisma.
And the way she was worrying her bottom lip right now made him suspect that she knew something that she wasn’t telling him.
“What’s your objection to my interest in Jordyn?”
“I like her,” Renata assured him, though her tone was cautious.
“But?” he prompted.
“But she’s always seemed a little…guarded,” she decided. “And I don’t want you to get your heart broken.”
Again.
Although she didn’t say the word, they both knew she was thinking it. As he was, too. But this time, he was confident there wouldn’t be a sad ending but a happy beginning, because Jordyn Garrett was the woman he’d been waiting his whole life for.
Now he just had to help her see that she’d been waiting for him, too.