A Family Kind of Gal (5 page)

“Okay, okay. The next time, the
last
time I was there,” he said, nudging the edge of the carpet with his toe, “it was another dare, okay?”

“Oh, Stephen, no.”

“It's true.” He shoved both fists into the front pockets of his baggy jeans. “Some of the kids knew I'd worked for the old guy and that I knew where he kept his keys to his vintage cars, since I'd spent a few days working for him, so…I…” He hesitated, as if he was afraid to say what was on his mind.

“So you what?” she prodded, surprised at his candor. This was a secret he'd managed to keep.

“Miles Dean, he dared me to swipe the keys.” Stephen bit his lower lip.

“Again? Why?”

“I—I don't know.” He looked genuinely filled with regret. “Maybe he was gonna drive one of ‘em. He liked that old Buick, but anyway it was the day the old man split.”

Her throat was as dry as a desert wind, her pulse pounding out,
no, no, no
, in her ears.
Don't ask it, Tiffany. You don't want to know.
But she couldn't stop the question from forming on her lips. “And did you?”

“Take the keys?” He shook his head vigorously. “Heck, no! I climbed the fence and was going to sneak into the barn, but I just had this…this weird feeling. I can't really explain it. I looked over my shoulder at the house, and there was Mr. Wells, sittin' in his rocker, a rifle on his lap, starin' at me.” Stephen took in a deep breath. “It was weird, Mom.
Really
weird. So, so I—I took off.” He looked at the floor and blushed. “I was scared and I ran and Miles was really mad and…he threatened to beat the—er, tar out of me.”

“And that's why you couldn't admit that you were there?” she asked.

He nodded mutely, tears of mortification causing his eyes to glisten.

“Oh, honey—” She wanted to enfold him in her arms, but didn't dare. The look he shot her warned her to keep her maternal instincts under wraps.

“And you never saw him again?”

Stephen shrugged. “I don't think anybody did,” he whispered in a voice that was barely audible over the hum of the refrigerator, the bubble of the simmering sauce and the stutter of the woodpecker tapping at the oak tree outside the window.

“Why didn't you tell the police?”

“I said, I was scared.”

“So am I,” she admitted, tapping the wooden spoon on the edge of the saucepan. She believed her son, but wished he'd come clean earlier, that he'd trusted her enough to confide in her. The timer chimed, reminding her to check the coals she'd lit in the barbecue.

“Mommy?” Christina's voice filtered through the doorway just as the little girl, dragging her blanket behind her, toddled into the kitchen.

“Well, look who woke up.” With a smile, Tiffany picked up her daughter and placed a kiss on her crown. “Are you still a sleepyhead?”

“No!” Christina snorted out the word and rested her head on her mother's shoulder.

“Yeah, right,” Stephen muttered under his breath as he plucked another grape from the cluster in the bowl and tossed it into the air before catching it in his mouth. “Grumpy Gus.”

“I'm not a Grumpy Gus!” Christina grouched.

“Shh! Of course you're not, sweetheart.” Tiffany sent her son a look that would cut through steel. “Your brother was only teasing you.”

“He's a big…big…dumbhead.”

“Oh, wow, like that's a problem,” Stephen mocked. “A dumbhead, Chrissie? Is that what I am?”

“Enough!” Tiffany said. “Come on, sweetie, you can have some grapes while I put the chicken on the grill.”

“I
hate
grapes.”

Tiffany set Christina into a chair at the table, and Stephen, on the other side, had the audacity to cross his eyes.

“Lookie what he's doing. I
hate
you, too, dumbhead.”

“Christina, don't call your brother any bad names, and you, Stephen, should know better than to bother her when she's still sleepy. You weren't all that sunny-side up when you used to wake up from your nap.”

“Make him take one now!” Christina said in the bossy tone she'd adopted since turning three.

“I'm too old for naps.”

“But not to set the table,” Tiffany said as Stephen, grumbling under his breath about “women's work,” got to his feet and searched in a drawer for place mats.

“So how come we're not going to the wedding?” he asked as he slid three woven mats on to the top of the table, then reached into a cupboard for glasses. She heard the sound of footsteps on the back porch and turned to see J.D. through the screen door. Instantly she tensed. Living in the same house with him was sure to be torture.

“The wedding?” she repeated.

“You know. Grandpa's.” He scowled as he said the word, as if it tasted foul.

She opened the door, and J.D. strode in. “Wedding? What're you talking about? Your grandparents have been married for over fifty years.”

“He's not talking about the Santinis,” Tiffany said, wishing she could drop the subject, but J.D. was going to find out sooner or later. In a town the size of Bittersweet, gossip spread like a windswept wildfire. “My father's getting married on Sunday.”

“
Your
father?” He scowled slightly, his eyes narrowing. “But I thought—Well, I always had the impression that he was either dead or out of the picture.”

“He seems to be back in. Big-time.” She pulled a pan of chicken from the refrigerator and carried it outside, then forked the meat on to the grill. The chicken sizzled on the hot rack. “Stephen, bring out the pan of sauce on the stove—and the wooden spoon.”

J.D. came through the door with the items in question. “Tell me about your father.”

She hesitated, took the pan from his outstretched hand and began drizzling barbecue sauce over the chicken. She didn't really want to discuss the wedding with her brother-in-law, but she had no choice. “It's a long story, but it seems my biological father is really John Cawthorne. I found out years ago, but it was easier to keep up the lie my mother had started when I was a little kid—that my dad was dead.”

“Easier?”

“Than thinking he just didn't give a damn,” she said in a voice barely audible because her kids were still arguing at the table on the other side of the screen door.

“Cawthorne?” he repeated as if the name was vaguely familiar.

“Yeah, a cowboy-turned-developer-and-businessman. Married. One daughter. Well, one legiti—” She held her tongue as both her children had turned their heads in her direction. “Uh, would you, uh, like to eat with us?” she asked as much to change the subject as anything else. She set the lid on to the barbecue. J.D. Santini was the last person she wanted to spend time with, and in the corner of her peripheral vision she caught a glimpse of her son rolling his eyes theatrically.

J.D. hesitated, then shook his head. “Thanks, but another time. I just wanted to work a deal with you.”

“A deal?” She was instantly wary.

“I'll need a phone until mine's connected.”

“No problem.” She let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. The man made her so damned nervous. She picked up the empty saucepan and spoon and told herself not to let down her guard for a minute. J.D., she reminded herself for the fiftieth time, was a man to avoid. If possible. “There's the wall phone in the kitchen.”

“Seen it.”

“And an extension in my bedroom on the second floor.”

“The kitchen will do.”

He started up the two steps leading to the back porch, and Tiffany felt a wash of color flood her cheeks. “Fine.”

“When the bill comes, I'll take care of the extra charges.” He hesitated. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” But it was. Everything about him seemed to be a complication in her life. “I was serious about dinner,” she added, knowing she was making a big mistake but unable to stop herself. She was going to live in the house with him for the next few months. If life was going to be tolerable, they had to get along. “Look, it's not a big deal, but I thought we should try and…and…”

“And what, Tiffany?” he asked, his eyes as dark as slate.

What was it about one of his looks that could make her feel like a fool? “Never mind. I was just being polite.”

He looked over his shoulder to the well-used barbecue and the smoke escaping from a hole in the lid. Furrows etched his brow, and suspicion tightened the muscles of his shoulders. “I think we're past being polite.”

“Then we should go back a step or two, don't you think?”

He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “What is it they say? Something about never going back.”

“Then they're wrong.” She stepped closer to him, close enough to notice the few flecks of gray at his temples. “You barged in here. Asked all sorts of questions about me and the kids. Demanded to live here. So I think—no, I
insist
that we be civil and, yes, at times even polite to each other. If we don't, I can guarantee our new living arrangements aren't gonna be worth a single red cent.”

He glanced toward the house and the kitchen, where her kids were lurking near the open door. He nodded. “Thanks for the offer,” he said. “Another time, maybe. Thanks.” Then he went through the screen door and Tiffany didn't know whether to be relieved that he was gone or insulted that he hadn't accepted her invitation. It had been her way of offering an olive branch, a way to bridge the gap that had been forever between them.

Not forever,
she reminded herself. There had been a time when she'd been close to her brother-in-law. Too close. She swallowed hard and let out her breath as she watched him walk through the kitchen and press a shoulder against the swinging door to the hallway. She wondered if his limp was permanent but decided it didn't matter. Any way you looked at it, J.D. Santini was a very sexy man. Just the kind of man she didn't need around here.

“J.D.'s a jerk,” Stephen said as she returned to the house and set the empty saucepan in the sink.

“Let's not tell him, okay?” Tiffany flipped on the faucet and rinsed the small pot.

“Why not?”

“`Cause it's not nice,” Christina said with a knowing nod that caused her curls to bounce precociously.

“Big deal. I thought we were always supposed to tell the truth.”

Tiffany placed a bowl of pasta salad on the table, zapped some leftover garlic bread in the microwave and decided to ignore her son's need to vent some of his anger. How could she defend J.D.? The man was an enigma and someone she was certain would only cause her trouble.

She poured the kids each a glass of milk and hesitated, thinking she might have a small glass of wine, then discarded the idea. As long as J.D. was living here, she would need a clear head.

Who knew really why he was in Bittersweet? Judging from past experience, she realized she couldn't trust him.

J.D. was and always had been dangerous. If she were smart, she'd stay as far away from him as possible.

Even if he was living in her house.

* * *

The kid was already in trouble with the law.

“Hell.” J.D. sat on the edge of his new bed and ignored the mental image that leveled a guilty finger in his direction. It wasn't his fault that Stephen had decided to rebel. What thirteen-year-old wouldn't? Stephen had lost his father, been uprooted and moved to a new town, and become the man of the family all in one fell swoop.

It was too much for any boy. No wonder the kid was full of piss and vinegar.

What a mess. And J.D. wasn't going to make it any better. He rifled through his duffel bag until he found a crisp manila envelope. Inside the packet was the deed, bill of sale and proof that this house—Tiffany's home since the accident that had taken Philip's life—belonged to the Santini family. Well, at least most of it. A portion—one-fourth, to be exact—was still hers; the rest had been signed away to pay off Philip's gambling debts.

“Great,” J.D. said, tossing the envelope on to the foot of the bed and wishing he hadn't agreed to step into Philip's shoes in the first place. He'd never wanted to work for his father, had avoided anything to do with Santini Brothers Enterprises for years, but then, after Philip's death, he'd felt obligated. His parents had been devastated by the loss of their eldest, and his father had hoped to “step down,” or so he'd claimed. At the same time J.D. had become jaded with the law, tired of the constant courtroom battles and legal arguments he'd once thrived upon, sickened that settlements and awards were always more important than justice.

His motorcycle accident had been his own personal epiphany. When a colleague had suggested he sue the manufacturer of the bike, or the highway department, or the parents of the kid he'd swerved to avoid, he'd decided to chuck it. J.D. had been pushing the speed limit, the accident had been his fault; he'd nearly lost his life, and he wasn't going to blame anyone or anything but himself.

But the accident had made him take a good long look at himself and what he did for a living.

When his father had offered him the job, he'd accepted, as long as they both understood it was temporary. He wasn't going to be sucked permanently into the fold.

For the time being he took the job that Philip, in dying, had vacated. Carlo kept talking about retiring and had tried to lure J.D. into becoming more involved—about someday running the multifaceted company—but deep in his heart, J.D. didn't believe his old man would ever voluntarily give up the reins of an operation he'd started nearly fifty years earlier with his own brother, who had retired five years ago. Not so Carlo; the day Carlo Santini quit work was the day he gave up on life.

One of the first duties of J.D.'s employment was to deal with Tiffany. The family wanted to be certain that she and the children were dealt with fairly, but Carlo had never liked his second daughter-in-law, nor had he forgiven his son for divorcing his first wife. Whether he admitted it or not, Carlo blamed Tiffany for the marriage breakup, though she hadn't even met Philip until after his divorce was final.