Have Bride, Need Groom

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“Ma...”

He felt it. Nick felt control of the situation slipping further and further from his grasp and he was helpless to do anything about it. He looked down into Mama Tarantelli’s big brown eyes and knew that he would lose this battle. As he’d lost every argument he’d ever had with her.

Hell, he couldn’t remember a single time when his late father, his brothers and sister or he had come out on top of Mama in a fight. Even those few times when someone had backed her into a corner, Mama had always triumphed. Maybe it was because she was so tenacious. He’d never known her to give in or give up.

For one brief moment Nick wished that the others were there. If Gina and his brothers, Tony and Dino, were around that minute, they would at least have Mama outnumbered.

But Gina was in New York visiting family, Dino was at the casino where he worked squiring celebrities around town. Nick frowned slightly. And no one knew where Tony was.

“I can do this myself, Mama.” Jenny’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

Despite his own unwillingness to get any more involved, Nick couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Oh, sure you can. You’ve done a helluva job so far.”

Jenny turned a hurt look on him and Nick clamped his mouth shut. It wasn’t her fault that he was going to war with his mother. Well, actually it was, he corrected mentally. But it didn’t matter. The Tarantelli family went to war more often than any Medieval Crusaders ever had. And, Nick thought wryly, the Tarantelli’s were better at it, too.

Slipping off the edge of the bathroom sink, Jenny stood up straight to face him. But in her bare feet, she didn’t make much of an impression. The top of her head barely reached the middle of his chest.

Still, he had to give her credit. She pulled her shoulders back and stared up at him evenly. “I’ll remind you, Mr. Taraptelli, that if not for you, I would already be married.”

An unreasonable flicker of relief trickled through him and Nick refused to admit to it. What the hell difference did it make to him if she got married or not? None, he told himself. Absolutely none at all. Although, he thought as he stared into her eyes and watched flecks of green shimmer in their clear blue depths, looking into her eyes could get to be a habit.

A habit he didn’t want, Nick thought with hardened determination.

When he tore his gaze from hers, he saw Jenny shake herself as if she were coming out of a trance. He knew just how she felt.

“I—” Jenny started, stopped, then spoke again. “Thank you both for everything, but I’d like to go back to my hotel now.”

Mama clucked her tongue and took Jenny’s arm firmly in her grasp. “No such thing. You’re staying here.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Jenny said, and futilely tried to pull free.

Nick didn’t say a word. He’d been expecting this. And more than that, he agreed with it. He wasn’t about to take a woman like Jenny back to Sinbad’s, of all places.

“Sure you can,” Mama went on as she headed for the stairs, pulling Jenny along behind her. “You’ll stay in my son Tony’s room.”

“I can’t put your son out of his bed,” Jenny protested, and threw a wild glance at Nick, looking for help.

He ignored her silent plea and went to his mother’s side. The older woman had stopped short at the foot of the stairs and she was staring into nothingness. But Nick knew what memory she was looking at. He knew because he saw it himself, often. He knew because the pain his mother was experiencing at that moment was all his fault.

Instinctively, he went up to the older woman, draped one arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze before bending to drop a kiss on top of her head. Then he glanced at Jenny. “Tony’s not here. You can stay in his room as long as you like. Isn’t that right, Ma?”

“Yes.” Mama sniffed, straightened her shoulders and reached up to pat Nick’s hand before she nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

“But it’s not necessary...” Jenny tried again. “I can do this myself, Mama.”

“No need for that My Nicky is happy to help.” His mother turned and fixed him with a look he hadn’t seen since he was ten years old and had smashed the restaurant window with a home run. Amazing, he thought, that it still had such power over him. His mother paused for a long moment before asking much too sweetly, “Aren’t you, Nicky?”

Warm, fed and freshly showered, the pain in her knees faded to no more than an unpleasant reminder of a shattered plan. Jenny curled up in a worn armchair by the window. Staring out at the night, she tried to tell herself that everything would be all right. That things had a way of working out.

But her mind wasn’t listening.

Over and over again, her brain counted down the days. Four, three, two, one. She had to find a husband. A mental image of her grandmother’s smiling face only strengthened her determination. Jenny wouldn’t risk losing the only family she had left.

Letting her head fall against the back of the chair, Jenny’s gaze focused on a single bright star. If only she had taken care of this sooner. If only she had more time.

More time? her mind shouted. In four days, you’ll be twenty-seven. How much more time is required, for heaven’s sake?

Even if she didn’t count the years before she turned twenty, that still left seven long years in which she should have found a husband.

And she could have, if she hadn’t been waiting for the lightning.

Jenny groaned, lifted her head and frowned. That’s where she’d made her mistake. She’d really believed her grandmother’s tales of true love and soul mates. How many times, Jenny wondered, had her grandmother told her about the lightning bolt? About how the women in her family, when first kissed by their true soul mate, would feel an arc of lightning shoot down their spines and into their hearts.

And how many men had Jenny kissed hopefully, waiting for that bolt to strike?

All right, she admitted silently. Not all that many.

But still, if she hadn’t been waiting for her grandmother’s tall tale to come true, who knew? She might already have a family and her grandmother’s life wouldn’t be in danger.

A knock at the door shattered her thoughts and Jenny turned. “Yes?”

“It’s me, Nick.”

Jenny ignored the tiny ripple of awareness that sent goose bumps racing along her flesh. Muttering under her breath about stress and a lack of sleep, she rose, crossed the room and opened the door.

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.