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“Let’s not waste time,” he said. “Tell me your story.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“He already told you, Mom,” the boy interjected helpfully. “He’s Tony.”
“I thought Mr. Nunzio’s first name was Frankie.”
“It is,” Tony said, wondering where she was going with this.
“If you’re not the restaurant owner, are you the manager?”
“No. Why—” he began.
“Then are you hitting on me?” She looked him straight in the eyes.
So much for presenting a can’t-con-me front. He thought he’d disguised that first visceral reaction, but she’d recognized it and called him on it. Damn.
“He’s not hitting you, Mom,” Joe said. “If he did, I’d hit him back.”
“Thank you, Joe-Joe.” She sent a grateful look at her son before casting a decidedly cooler one at Tony. “Look, I’m flattered. Really I am. And I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t have time for this. I’m here about a job that I really need.”
“Whoa.” He put up a hand. “I’m not hitting on you.”
“He’s not, Mom,” Joe agreed.
“We talked on the phone. I’m the guy you were supposed to…” His voice trailed off as a possibility occurred to him. “You’re not one of the Connies, are you?”
Delicate frown lines appeared on her brow. “Excuse me?”
He rephrased the question. “Is your name Connie?”
She shook her head, her dark hair rustling. “It’s Kaylee. Kaylee Carter.”
“And I’m Joey… I mean Joe Carter,” her son piped up.
Tony closed his eyes, winced and put a hand to his brow even as relief swept through him. “I owe you an apology. I thought you were someone else.”
He started to tell her he’d been weeding through letters with his lottery-winning stepmother to decide which of the Connies could be legitimate before setting up a meet. But it suddenly seemed like too much information.
The cell phone clipped to his pocket vibrated, interrupting his train of thought. He unhooked it, checked the number and recognized it as belonging to the Connie.
“Excuse me. I’ve got to take this.” He got up and walked to an empty booth nearby.
He felt Kaylee’s eyes on him as he listened to the Connie say she’d changed her mind and didn’t want to reschedule. No surprise there, considering he’d made it clear she had to get past him before she could get to Sofia.
He hung up, reclipped the phone and walked back to the booth. Kaylee watched him warily.
“I’m really sorry for the misunderstanding.” He didn’t sit down this time. “Let me make it up to you. Let me…”
He clamped down on his teeth before he could finish the sentence…let me take you to dinner. Yeah, like that would convince her he hadn’t been hitting on her.
“…put in a good word for you with the owner.”
“You know the owner?” She sounded hopeful.
“I grew up here in McIntosh so there aren’t many people I don’t know.”
“I’m waiting to talk to him. If you could put in a good word, I’d appreciate it very much. Joey and I, we just moved here and I really need a job.” She lifted her chin. “Not that I can’t get one myself but a good word can’t hurt.”
He nodded, ready to promise her anything. Her combination of bravado and susceptibility touched a familiar chord inside him. He’d once left everything he knew behind to go off to live in a strange city. He understood what it was like to feel vulnerable.
The swinging door at the back of the restaurant banged open, and Frankie Nunzio emerged. He scanned the restaurant, spotted Tony and grinned.
A small, wiry man on the down side of fifty who moved with the energy of someone half his age, Frankie reached Tony in seconds and vigorously pumped his hand. “Hey, Tony. What? You coming in here every day now?”
“Can’t stay away, but you’ll be glad I came in today because I found a waitress for you.” He nodded toward Kaylee. “Frankie, this is Kaylee Carter and her son, Joe. Kaylee and Joe, Frankie Nunzio.”
Frankie shook Kaylee’s hand every bit as enthusiastically as he had Tony’s. “You’re the woman waiting to see me?”
“Yes.”
“Have you waitressed before?”
“I have six years of experience.”
“Then I’ll give you a try. I need somebody from ten to two six days a week. We’re closed Sundays. Let’s see. It’s Friday. Can you start Monday?”
“You mean I’m hired? Just like that?”
“Think of next week as your trial run. But, hey, if you’re a friend of Tony’s, I’m sure you’ll do fine. What do you say?”
Something wasn’t right. Tony could see it in the set of Kaylee’s shoulders, the slight tightening of her mouth.
“Don’t you have anything full-time?” she asked.
“Not right now,” Frankie said. “But the restaurant business is fluid. Something could come up. So are we on for Monday?”
She hesitated, then affixed a smile. “Yes. Provided I can find somebody to take care of my son.”
“Try Anne Gudzinski,” Frankie advised. “She runs a day care a couple blocks from here. After I get some papers for you to fill out, Tony can walk you over there and introduce you. Right, Tony?”
“Be happy to,” he said, noting that her smile of thanks seemed distracted.
He kept her son occupied with a game of paper football while she filled out the paperwork. Tony taught Joe how to flick the “football” across the table with his fingertips.
The little boy screamed, “Score!” whenever the paper football sailed off the table and into Tony’s lap, not grasping that touchdowns only counted if it barely hung over the side.
When Kaylee was finally ready to walk to Anne’s day-care center, Tony could tell that something was still bothering her.
She was tall, he’d guess at least five foot nine. Her height helped her project an air of independence but again he sensed vulnerability. And damn if he didn’t already like her.
An image of Ellen flashed through his mind, but he dismissed his guilt. He owed Kaylee Carter for mistaking her for someone else and acting like a jerk. He couldn’t deny that he found her attractive, but his association with her was purely innocent.
Somebody grabbed his hand, but it wasn’t Kaylee. Firmly holding onto his mother with his other hand, Joe launched himself in the air.
“Let’s go,” Joe said.
Some of the strain left Kaylee’s face as she gazed down at her son. She lifted her eyes to exchange an amused look with Tony over Joe’s head.
Nothing about the moment was suggestive, but Tony again experienced that unexpected pull of desire. Normal enough. He was a healthy male, and she was an attractive woman.
It didn’t mean he intended to do anything about it.
ANNE GUDZINSKI’S day-care center turned out to be a large white Victorian house with black awnings on the windows and a wide, inviting porch.
If not for the color, Kaylee thought it would have looked like a gingerbread house transported to real life.
Nothing was fanciful about how much Anne charged for child care. Anne, a pretty woman with short blond hair and so much pep she’d probably led cheers in high school, explained the cost accounted for a low ratio of children to day-care workers.
Kaylee approved of the rationale, but her wallet didn’t. She’d mentally crunched numbers and worried that she couldn’t survive in McIntosh on a part-timer’s salary.
“Hey, Tony. Hey, Mom.” Joey’s excited voice broke into her thoughts. He’d chattered nonstop during the short walk to the day-care center and it appeared as though he might keep on talking all the way back to her car. “Watch this.”
Holding tightly to both of their hands, her son launched himself into the air. “I’m not a bird. I’m not a plane. I’m Super Joe.”
At the apex of his jump, he let go and went airborne for a split second before landing on the ground and running ahead of them.
Tony’s deep laugh shot out of him. Despite her worries, Kaylee found that she enjoyed the sound.
“Look,” Joey yelled, pointing at something on the sidewalk. “A grasshopper!”
He lunged at it, missed, lunged again, missed again. There went Tony’s laugh, so low and full-bodied it was capable of making a grown woman shiver.
With his height, thick black hair that sprang back from a wide forehead with heavy brows and hint of a shadow darkening his jaw, Tony had the look of a dark and dangerous man. But she already had a strong sense that impression was an illusion.
He laughed too easily and got along with Joey too well. His clothes, khakis and a navy rib-knit pullover, were casual but expensively cut.
Unlike some of the male customers who used to try to make time with her in Fort Lauderdale, he knew when to back off. He’d been about to ask her to dinner earlier, but held off.
She habitually turned down the men who asked her out and would have refused him, too. The last time she’d been on a date had been six months ago when Dawn had overheard a customer ask her out and engineered it so she could go. The man had been nice enough, but not worth the time away from Joey.
Kaylee sensed a date with Tony would be different. He was self-confident, polished and probably successful. He also possessed the most prized quality of all: he liked Joey.
It figured she’d meet him now when her life was in disarray. She had more important things to accomplish in McIntosh than indulge herself with the first hot guy who came along.
But this wasn’t just any guy, she reminded herself. This was the guy who’d helped her get a job and line up day care.
“Thank you for today,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said, then picked up a thread of conversation Joey had interrupted earlier when he’d spotted a squirrel scampering up a utility pole. “You told me you grew up in Houston and moved to Fort Lauderdale. But you never did say how you ended up in McIntosh.”
She tried not to tense up at what was an innocent question. He couldn’t possibly know she was both running away from and toward something. Nobody did.
Why not tell him?
The thought popped into her head and stuck. It would be wonderful to have a confidante. To talk over the threat Rusty Collier presented with somebody who was enough of a stranger that she didn’t even know his full name. To confess that she was afraid to confront Sofia Donatelli with her crazy hope. To make her feel like she wasn’t alone.
Her lips parted, but then she clamped them shut. She hadn’t shared her hopes and fears with Dawn, who was closer to her than a sister. She couldn’t air them to a man who was still a stranger.
“We needed a change,” Kaylee said.
“Do you have friends here? Family?”
A startlingly clear image of Sofia Donatelli came to mind, and Kaylee bit the inside of her lip. “I just like it here,” she said vaguely.
“What’s to like?”
“Are you kidding?” She swept her hand to indicate the blossoming trees, the blue skies and the wide, quiet street, then breathed deeply of the clean air scented with fragrant blossoms. “It’s like a little slice of heaven.”
“That’s what my father used to say,” he muttered, not sounding pleased.
She cut her eyes at him. “And you don’t agree?”
He shrugged. “I suppose it’s pretty enough, but a small town like this doesn’t have a lot to offer for someone who wants to make a success of themselves.”
She thought that depended on your definition of success, but asked, “Then why do you live here?”
“I don’t. I live in Seattle. I’m here for an extended visit.”
A bird sang, and the driver of a passing car waved in greeting. She waved back, although she’d never seen the person before in her life.
“I just got here but I already know I don’t want to leave,” she said. “I think I could find everything I need right here to make me happy.”
She mentally amended her statement. If she could make enough money to support herself and Joey. Her worry came back in force. She already had doubts about her ability to stay afloat and she had yet to figure housing costs into the equation.
“Hurry up, Mom,” Joey called. He’d given up on the grasshopper and stood beside the car, waiting for them to catch up. “I want to play with Attila and Genghis.”
Tony raised a questioning eyebrow as Kaylee took her key chain from her pocket and remotely unlocked the car.
“Attila and Genghis are snakes,” she explained, then laughed when his eyebrow raised even higher. “They’re characters in his GameBoy game.”
She didn’t add that the game was an old one she’d picked up at a store that sold used games. So far, Joey wasn’t savvy enough about what was available to clamor for new ones.
She watched her son clamber into the car, then turned to Tony. She didn’t want to say goodbye. The weekend stretched ahead of her: long, empty and filled with worry. But she’d been taking care of herself and Joey for a long time. She could manage. She pasted on a smile.
“Thank you again for your help.” Her feet felt glued to the sidewalk, but she managed to start to turn away.
“Wait.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. His touch was gentle, certainly not firm enough to stop her, but she froze. Warmth spread under her knit sweater in the spot where his hand rested.
She gazed up at him. A cloud that had momentarily blotted out the sun drifted lazily along with the wind and cast him in a shaft of light, making him look so virile she caught her breath.
It was nearly five o’clock, and the proverbial shadow darkened his jaw. She had the insane urge to rub her cheek against the stubble, to touch his slightly fuller lower lip with her fingertips to see if it was as soft as it looked.
Because she wore a pair of clunky black dress shoes, there was no more than two or three inches difference in their heights.
If he lowered his head, or she raised hers, their lips would meet. Their eyes locked. His were a light brown that reminded her of caramel. If he tried to kiss her, she’d let him. He exhaled, and she felt his breath warm against her mouth. Her breath snagged in her lungs.
“Have dinner with me this weekend,” he urged.
She didn’t have to think about her answer. “Yes.”
His lips curved, and his mouth, with that sensuous lower lip, moved closer.
The horn of her car blared. She jumped, banging her forehead against his nose.
“Ow,” he said, his hand going to the offended body part.
“Sorry,” she said, rubbing her forehead.
They both turned toward the sound. Joey sat at the steering wheel, a playful grin on his face. She waved an admonishing, unsteady finger at him. He crawled into the passenger’s seat and pressed his face flush against the window so his features looked distorted.
Tony laughed his intoxicating laugh. “That must be your son’s way of making sure we don’t forget about him. He’s invited to dinner, too, by the way.”
The magic had gone out of the moment, allowing Kaylee to think more clearly. She could easily make an excuse, begging off dinner on the grounds that she’d come to her senses.
“When?” she asked.
“How’s tomorrow night? At about six o’clock.”
“To be safe, we should make it a little later. I’m going to call a Realtor in the morning. Hopefully Joey and I can spend the afternoon looking for a place to live.”
“Why don’t you hold off on making that call and let me help you find a place?”
She blinked in surprise, then realized how little she knew about him. “Are you a Realtor?”
He shook his head. “I run a company called Security Solutions.”
“You’re a private eye?”
He laughed, touching her arm. Her body leaned toward his, seemingly of its own accord. “It’s online security. I developed a protocol that verifies the identity of remote users.”
“What does that mean in plain English?”
“It means the businesses that use my protocol can be sure the information they exchange online is secure, whether it be a transaction or a business plan.”
“And in your spare time, you help single mothers find places to live?”
He grinned, showing even white teeth. “Exactly. I already told you, I grew up here. I’ve got connections. You can’t afford to house hunt without me.”
“You already know of a place for rent?” she guessed.
“I know the owner, too. Why don’t I pick you up tomorrow around ten and I’ll show it to you?”
The corners of his dark eyes crinkled, and she nearly staggered under the power of his smile. She could come to depend on a man like this in a hurry. Even though that would be unwise, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse his help. Not when she wanted it so very much.
“All right. But I’d rather pick you up,” she said. That way she’d have her car and some vestige of independence. “All I need is an address.”
He gave it to her, and she committed it to memory. The horn blared again. Joey sat in the passenger seat doing a terrible job of looking innocent.
“I think the native is getting restless,” she said and went around the car to the driver’s side. She opened the door, then looked at him over the roof of the car and smiled. “This is crazy, but I don’t even know your last name.”
He smiled back. “It’s Donatelli.”
She might have staggered if she hadn’t been holding on to the door frame. She felt like her body was on autopilot as she lowered herself into position behind the steering wheel and tried to process the new information.
Donatelli was a common Italian surname. Just because Tony shared it with Sofia Donatelli didn’t necessarily mean he was the stepson she’d mentioned on the television broadcast.
But when she cross-checked the address Tony had given her in the white pages of the phone book, Kaylee already knew that Sofia’s name would appear.
That meant Tony Donatelli wasn’t merely a hot guy she’d met at a restaurant. He was a hot guy who could very well be her stepbrother.
CHAPTER FOUR
TONY WHISTLED to himself as he turned his rental car into the middle-class neighborhood where he’d grown up, already looking forward to seeing Kaylee and her son the next day.
He’d briefly considered asking her to dinner tonight before remembering that Sofia was planning a special meal. His stepmother seemed to think she had to make up for serving takeout fettuccini alfredo the night before, even though Nunzio’s made the dish with a recipe she’d invented.
No matter. Tomorrow was soon enough.
He drove by modest brick houses with shingle roofs and yards that looked amazingly like they had twenty years ago. The Stewarts still needed to prune their trees, the Walkowskis’ house could benefit from a paint job and the Pagiossis still had the best-kept lawn in town.
He didn’t stop whistling until he drew even with the Medfords. Something was wrong. He did a double-take. The For Rent sign he’d seen yesterday was no longer there.
“Aw, hell,” he said.
It figured that his friend Will, who happened to be a real estate agent, was out of town on a long weekend. But Sofia had contacts. Maybe she knew of another place for rent.
He parked, walked up the sidewalk and stepped over the automated doormat before unlocking the door and punching in a code to disable the new security system Sofia had installed.
All the while, he tried not to let the old memories blindside him. It was no use. They came rushing at him like a powerful wave, the same way they did every time he entered the house.
It was probably because of the silly doormat his father had invented. An elevated contraption with ground-level machinery, it was supposed to suction dirt off the soles of shoes through tiny holes in the mat. Most of the time, the holes were clogged.
Anthony Donatelli, Sr., had been dead for two years, but a part of Tony still expected him to appear and excitedly fill him in on his latest idea that would make them all rich.
The majority of the time, his father’s ideas had been clunkers, but Tony had to concede his father had the seeds of a few ideas that had turned out to be moneymakers. For other people.
His father’s predictions of striking it rich had been nothing but bluster. He’d always failed, either in the developing or marketing phase.
Tony used to wonder how Sofia could listen to his father blather about the Next Big Thing. He never understood why she’d cheerfully supported them while his father had dreamed away his days.
Tony rubbed at his forehead, trying to banish the memories.
“Sofia. I’m ho…here,” he called.
“You don’t have to break my eardrums, dear. I’m right here.”
Sofia was descending the staircase dressed in a short-sleeved red sweater that complemented her Mediterranean coloring. She’d combed out her thick black hair so that it framed her face, added lip gloss to her naturally red lips and mascara to her already dark lashes. High heels worn under black slacks added inches to her height. The clothes were obviously new.
He whistled long and low. “Did I miss something? Do you have a date tonight?”
“No date.” She spread her hands. “I’m running an errand, is all.”
“Well, you look terrific. Like ten-million bucks.”
She smiled at him and descended the rest of the stairs. Stopping in front of the mirror in the foyer, she fluffed her hair. “Charmer. Where have you been?”
He had no intention of causing her more heartache by telling her about the Connie who hadn’t showed up at the restaurant. “Errands. Same as you.”
“Mine won’t take more than an hour. Then I’m coming straight home to cook you that special dinner.”
“With the fortune you won, you should hire a cook.”
She settled her hands on her hips and cocked her dark head. “I thought you didn’t want me to spend my money.”
“I don’t want you to spend too much of your money on other people. I never said anything about not spending it on yourself.”
“But I don’t need much, Tony. I certainly don’t need someone to cook for me, especially because I’m no longer working at the restaurant. Then what would I do?”
“Relax? Enjoy yourself?” he suggested.
“I’ll relax tonight—while I’m cooking,” she said and headed for the door.
“Sofia, wait.”
She turned an inquisitive look on him.
“Do you know why the Medfords’ house isn’t for rent any longer?”
“Why, yes.” She seemed surprised that he’d asked. “They found someone to rent it this morning. Why?”
He hesitated, then figured there was no harm in telling her. “I met a single mother and her son today and told her I’d help her find a place to live.”
“Is she anybody I know?”
“She’s new in town.”
Sofia tilted her head to the side as she regarded him. Her forefinger tapped her bottom lip. “Is she pretty?”
He squirmed under her scrutiny. “I didn’t notice.”
She pointed at him. “You, my son, are a terrible liar.”
“Okay. Yes, she’s very attractive. But it’s not like that. I already have a girlfriend.”
“A girlfriend, not a wife.”
“Ellen could be my wife some day.”
Sofia pinned him with her gaze. “I didn’t realize you were serious about her.”
“We’ve been dating for almost a year.”
“Time doesn’t mean anything. I once knew a man who dated the same woman for sixteen years. Then he got stuck in the elevator with a woman who worked in his office building. He broke up with his girlfriend the next day. Three months later, he was married.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“If you’re having second thoughts about Ellen, it’s not too late to do something about it.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d met Ellen. She’s perfect. Smart, beautiful, talented, successful. Everything I could want in a wife.”
“Then why do you have a date with another woman tomorrow night?”
“I already told you. She doesn’t know anybody in town, so…” His voice trailed off. “How do you know I asked Kaylee to dinner? I told you I was going to help her find a house, not take her out.”