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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.
Four
“She went where?” Nick leapt back out of the chefs way and ducked his head to avoid a low-hanging copper pot
“To the chapel,” Mama said, and paused in stirring her spaghetti sauce only long enough to thought- fully tap one finger against her chin. “The Tender Spot?” She shook her head. “Hug Me Something? No, that isn’t it.”
“Love Me Tender?” Nick asked and knew the answer even before his mother nodded.
“That’s the one.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” Mama reached for the jar of cinnamon and gave it a shake, layering a fine dust of the rich-smelling spice over the top of her sauce.
Nick pushed away from the cooking island and walked to his mother’s side. “Why did she go back to the chapel, damn it?”
Mama gasped, glared up at her oldest son and slapped one hand against her chest. “That you would curse at your own mother!”
“Ma...”
“Don’t you ‘Ma’ me. Jenny went to find a husband and it’s all your fault!”
“My fault?”
“Who else?” She shook her head, smacked the wooden spoon against the lip of the pan, then set it down on a tile trivet. Turning to Nick, she planted both hands on her hips and leaned toward him. “Three days she’s been here and did you bring by one of your police friends to marry her?”
“Of course not!”
“There! You admit it!” Mama threw her hands high in the air and shrugged dramatically. “You don’t help her, she has to help herself.”
Nick watched his mother bustle off, muttering fiercely in a combination of Italian and English as she threaded her way through the crowded kitchen. He told himself it was a good thing he’d never bothered to learn to speak Italian. He was better off not knowing exactly what she was saying.
Bus people, cooks and waiters streamed through the room in an odd sort of orchestrated dance. Bobbing and weaving around each other in a silent symphony of movement, none of them paid the slightest attention to their employer and her son. After all, it was just another Tarantelli war. They were used to them.
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