A Family Kind of Gal (10 page)

“Than look after my brother's kids?”

“They don't need looking after. They have a mother.”

“But not a father.”

“Oh.” She laughed without a hint of mirth as a horn began to blast impatiently. Stephen. She started for the car. “So now you're applying for the job. Substitute dad? Give me a break.”

With lightning speed, he grabbed her arm with his free hand and spun her around to face him. “Give
me
one, Tiffany,” he said, his face suddenly stern. “From the moment I set foot here you've been baiting me and fighting me.

“Maybe it's because I don't trust you.”

His jaw slid to the side and he dropped her wrist.

“Come
on
,” Christina insisted, pulling on his other hand. He waited. The car horn blared again.

“Fine, fine! Come with us!” Tiffany said as she marched across the dry grass and fished inside her purse for her keys. Christina sprinted ahead and crawled into the back seat

J.D.'s voice, calm and so in command that it irritated her, chased after her. “You know, Tiffany, we don't have to fight.”

She stopped short and her temper flared. “Of course we do, Jay. It's what we've always done.”

“Not always,” he reminded her, and she, remembering too vividly how intimate they'd been, how she'd let down her guard before, felt fire climb up her cheeks.

“There are some things better left forgotten,” she warned before opening the door of her car and motioning Stephen to climb into the back seat. Grumbling, he did as he was bid, and J.D. slid into his recently vacated spot. He winced a little as he dragged his bad leg into the warm interior. Sweat dripped down the side of Tiffany's face as she inserted the ignition key.

Just get me through this
, she silently prayed and flicked her wrist. The engine caught on the first try. If only the rest of the evening would go so well. But what were the chances, now that she was trapped with J.D. for the next hour or so? Slim and none leaped readily to mind, along with several wanton, and unwanted, illicit memories.

J.D. slipped a pair of sunglasses on to the bridge of his nose, and Tiffany slid a glance in his direction. Wearing the aviator glasses he reminded her of the first time she'd seen him, and she willed that memory to fade.

She didn't have time to dwell on the past. Not now, not ever. They drove to the clinic in silence.

Only much later, after Stephen had been stitched up and they had returned home to a late dinner, had she, after spending hours with J.D. and her children, finally unwound.

Alone in the bathtub, with cool water surrounding her and the lights dimmed, she remembered, in vibrant Technicolor, the first time she'd come face-to-face with J.D. Santini.

She closed her eyes, sighed, and finally let all her old emotions come to the surface. It had been nearly fifteen years ago, she'd been eighteen at the time and more naive than any girl should have been.

She could almost hear the sound of champagne bottles popping over the strains of “The Anniversary Waltz” played by a pianist seated at a baby grand so many years ago. She'd been much too young, had thought what she'd felt was love for an older man and had never expected to run into the likes of James Dean Santini.

But she had, and she remembered the first time she'd seen him as clearly as if it had been only this afternoon...

T
iffany rested in the bathtub and remembered that evening so long ago...

“Look at that rock!” Mary Beth Owens, a friend who had graduated with Tiffany this past spring, reached for Tiffany's hand and eyed the diamond sparkling on her ring finger. “Wow,” she breathed, her eyes as bright as the stone.

Blushing, Tiffany pulled her hand away and concentrated on lighting the candles that would warm the serving trays for the wedding reception she and Mary Beth were catering at the Santini winery in McMinnville.

“I would
die
for a ring like that. Philip must be loaded,” Mary Beth gushed as she placed napkins with the name of the bride and groom on to a long cloth-covered table already laden with hors d'oeuvres and empty champagne glasses. A silver fountain was flowing with sparkling wine, the pianist was warming up, and the guests, arriving from the church, filtered among the folding chairs in the huge tent that was the center of the reception. Under its own separate awning stood a round table crowned with the tiered wedding cake; to the right was another table laden with gifts. Near the entrance to the main tent, an ice sculpture of two entwined hearts was starting to drip. “So what's he worth? Do you know?” Mary Beth asked.

Tiffany only smiled. The truth of the matter was that she didn't know and really didn't care. Money wasn't her reason for planning to marry Philip.

Mary Beth, ever the gossip, pushed a little further. “The way I hear it, Philip's in line to inherit all of this.” She gestured widely, her fluttering fingers encompassing the acres of vineyards, stately old brick manor, the winery buildings and the natural amphitheater tucked into the hills where the reception was being held. Vast and well-kept, the Santini winery was one of the most well-known in the region, but Tiffany wasn't interested in the profit-and-loss statements of the company. Philip's potential inheritance wasn't on the list of reasons she'd fallen in love with him.

“You know,” Mary Beth confided in a hushed whisper, “there are two brothers, but Philip's the good one. The other—” She rolled her eyes. “Big, big trouble. Always has his father in knots or court or worse.”

“Is that right?” Tiffany wasn't interested.

Mary Beth nodded, her head bobbing rapidly. “Good-looking as all get-out and just plain bad news. Always in trouble with the cops. My mom says that J.D. Santini is all piss, vinegar and bad attitude.”

“Sounds like a real winner.” Tiffany hadn't heard much about him, didn't really care. All she knew was that Philip's brother was quite a bit younger than he and had no interest in the family business. Whenever she'd asked about him, Philip had just shaken his head and sighed. “James is just James. I can't explain him. Wouldn't want to try.” Truth to tell, Tiffany wasn't all that interested in the guy.

She lit the final candle beneath a silver chafing dish and nearly burned her fingers on the match.

“Are you and Philip gonna have a spread like this?” Mary Beth asked, clearly awed.

“No.” Tiffany shook her head. “He was married before, so we agreed that we'd just have a private ceremony.”

“Bummer. You should at least have a gown and bridesmaids and—oh, look, here's the limo.”

Sure enough, a white stretch limousine rounded a bend in the winery's private drive to park near the manor. The bride, a willowy blonde in a beaded gown, emerged still holding hands with her groom, a short, balding, wealthy dentist who had been married four times previously.

“Being married before didn't stop Dr. Ingles from having a big to-do.”

That much was true, but the good dentist's fifth wife, the pampered daughter of a local television celebrity, had wanted a lavish wedding since this was her first and, as she'd been quoted as saying, her groom's “last.” Tiffany didn't care about the ceremony; the less pomp and circumstance, the better, as far as she was concerned. She couldn't imagine a huge church wedding without the support of a father to give her away. Besides, as the bride she insisted upon paying for the event herself, and her budget was limited. “Where's the punch bowl for the kids?” she asked, turning the subject away from her own situation.

“All set up. Over there. André handled it” Mary Beth motioned toward yet another table, then turned her attention to her job, and Tiffany was relieved that she didn't have to make any more small talk. She smiled to herself as she spied Philip, tall, dark-haired and in command. She'd met him three months earlier at another event where she'd worked. He'd stayed late and offered to drive her home. She'd declined, refused to give him her number, but he'd persisted, and within two weeks they were dating. Sure, he was older than she—fifteen years older—but it didn't matter, she kept telling herself.

Before meeting Philip, she had planned to start college in the fall, intending to take business courses at Portland State University while working two part-time jobs.

But then Philip had asked her to marry him, and she'd said yes. He was everything she wanted in a husband. Stable. Smart. Educated. Successful.

The age factor didn't bother her. His ex-wife and he were cordial if not friendly, and his kids—a boy and a girl—were twelve and ten and weren't a worry. She, as an only child with a single mother, wanted to embrace a large family. She would love Philip's children as if they were her own, as well as have her own children someday.

But things weren't perfect. Philip's parents, devout Catholics, had never approved of his divorce and didn't want him to remarry. And her own mother, who had struggled in raising Tiffany alone, had warned her to wait

“You're only eighteen,” Rose Nesbitt had said, shaking her head as she'd dusted the piano bench where countless youngsters had sat as Rose had spent hours trying to teach them what had come so naturally to her. “Give yourself some time, Tiffany.”

“Philip doesn't want to wait. He's thirty-three, Mom.”

“And too old for you.”

“We love each other.”

“He thought he loved someone else once.”

“I know, but—”

“But it didn't last.” Her mother had tossed her dusting rag into a plastic bucket that held cleaning supplies. “Just give it time.” She had sighed and rubbed the kinks from the back of her neck. “Real love isn't impatient.”

“Why wait?”

“Why rush in?”

“Because Philip wants to,” she'd argued.

“This shouldn't be all his decision, honey. You're talking about marriage. Two people. Give and take. I know I'm not one to talk because I've never walked down the aisle, but I just think you should slow down a little. Date boys your own age.”

That was the trouble. They were boys. Tiffany had never felt comfortable with them. They were too young, too immature, too stupid. Philip was none of those things, and as she watched him now, walking briskly between the rows of beribboned chairs, his hair starting to gray at the temples, his smile fixed and professional, she felt an inward satisfaction that this man loved her.

Unlike the father who had abandoned her and her mother before she'd been born.

“Hi,” she said as Philip stopped at the table on his way to the bar where Santini wines were being served.

“Hi.”

“Everything set?”

“Looks like.” She smiled up at him, and Philip winked at her.

“Good job, kiddo. I'll see you later.” He disappeared into the throng of guests that were arriving as if in a fleet. Valets parked cars, the pianist played, she and Mary Beth served, and the best chardonnay, Chablis and claret the Santini Brothers Winery offered flowed like water. Guests in designer gowns and expensive suits talked, drank and nibbled at the appetizers.

The bride and groom cut the cake, sipped from crystal glasses, smiled and glowed, then started the dancing on a platform set near a waterfall and fishpond.

The scene was romantic, and Tiffany told herself to be practical; she didn't need this kind of expensive wedding and reception. She wasn't interested in limos and a designer wedding dress and all the show. She just wanted to marry Philip.

She was standing at her post, nearly forgotten as the guests had gathered around the bar and dance floor, when she caught her first glimpse of the stranger.

Tall, lean, hard as nails, this was a man who obviously didn't belong with the others.

In faded jeans and a matching jacket tossed over a white T-shirt, he stalked toward her tent. Tinted glasses covered his eyes, and yet she could feel him staring at her with such intensity she wanted to run away. She didn't. Instead she managed a frosty smile. “May I help you?”

“You tell me.”

“You're with the Ingles party?”

“If this is the Ingles party.”

Should she call security? No. Just because he wasn't wearing a suit and tie didn't mean he wasn't invited. Every family had its rebel. “We have lobster thermidor or beef Wellington or—”

“You're Tiffany Nesbitt?”

Who was this guy? “Yes.”

He reached across the table, grabbed her left hand and held it up to the light. Her ring caught one of the last rays of the setting sun, glittering brightly on her finger.

The man's jaw tightened, his already harsh features grew more taut. She yanked back her hand somehow and suddenly felt the ring she loved was ostentatious and obscene. “And you're...?”

“J.D.”

Her stomach dropped. Her throat turned to sand. She was staring into the hard expression of the hellion.

“Philip's brother.”

“I…I recognize the name.”

“Good.” His smile was as cold as death. “Looks like we're going to be related.”

She couldn't hide her dismay. While Philip was refined and polished, this guy was as rough and edgy as a cowboy fresh from a two-week cattle drive. She tried to retrieve her rapidly escaping manners. “Pleased to meet you, James.”

“No one calls me that.”

“But Philip—”

“Is a snob. The name's J.D. or Jay.” He reached into the breast pocket of his T-shirt for a pack of cigarettes. “Let's keep it simple.”

“Fine,” she said, feeling a general sense of irritation.
What was James—oh, excuse me, J.D.—doing crashing the party in disreputable jeans and tattered jacket?
He lit up, surveyed the crowd from behind his tinted lenses and rested a hip against the table. Tiffany tried to ignore him as she helped another couple of guests. But he never left her side. Standing in the shade of the tent, arms folded across his chest, lips razor thin and compressed, he smoked, then crushed the cigarette beneath the worn heel of his boot.