Deep (The Pagano Family Book 4) (32 page)

He didn’t need his mother’s approval—or Carmen’s or anyone else’s, for that matter—but he liked the thought of her preparing her house for grandchildren. She had wanted a large family and had been cruelly thwarted from that dream. He was her only hope for grandchildren, and he was nearly forty-six. She’d all but given up on him, and he’d encouraged her to give up. Until Beverly, he’d been sure he’d never be a father.

He took a drink of his beer. “Teresa is beautiful.”

“Thanks. Found a new level of love when she was born.” She paused. “You know, I’m just gonna ask. Are you thinking about it?”

He was, but Carmen was not the woman he needed to talk to. “You know I’m not gonna tell you something like that. Not your business.”

With a laugh, she said, “You’re right. I’m snooping. Ignore me.” Aunt Angie stepped out of the food tent and waved emphatically at Carmen. “Oh, God. Must be cake time. If Theo shoves it in my face, this is going to be a very short marriage.” She kissed his cheek. “Smile, Nick. The sun is shining.”

~oOo~

As dusk came on, the tone of the reception changed. People covered up their bathing suits, lights were strung, and a floor was laid out on the beach for a live band and dancing. Nick was surprised that it was a combo playing Big Band Era classics. Not what he would have expected at the beach. But vastly preferable to what he would have expected.

He was sitting in an Adirondack chair with Beverly on his lap, and it was the best time he’d had at the wedding. Luca and Manny were next to them, sitting together in similar fashion, and they’d all been chatting comfortably, but now Luca and Manny were making out.

The band had started playing, and the music soothed him.

Beverly had pulled a long, knit skirt and a zip hoodie over her bathing suit. She’d taken off the bracelet when she’d changed out of her dress—a prudent move, even though he hadn’t told her the cost of the piece, and wouldn’t. The sun pendant, though, she never took off. As she snuggled against his neck, her hand running lightly under his still-open shirt, over his bare chest, he played his fingers around her sun.

“Do you dance? I don’t even know if you dance.” Her voice was low, as if she were sleepy.

“Is that important to know?”

She shrugged. “Seems like something to know.”

“I don’t dance, no. But if you want to, I’ll go up there with you.” He kissed her head. “Or I’ll sit here and watch. I like to watch you dance.”

She sat up. “When—oh. That night at Neon. You watched me?”

“I did. You were beautiful, dancing for the joy of it. That’s when I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That I wanted you.”

“Oh. I wanted you long before that.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“
Bella
, you weren’t exactly subtle.”

She laughed. “I know. Chris told me I might as well have been wearing a…” She trailed off and put her head back on his shoulder. “Never mind.”

She was doing well overall; strangely, Mills’ death seemed to have restored her, her grief finally breaking through whatever dam she’d built up in her head. She mourned the friend she’d lost. The secret of Chris Mills’ death would die with him. Nick’s part in that death was business, and she didn’t want to know about his business. Knowing that had made him rest easier with his secret. But her loss was no less real and alive.

Holding her close, thinking about the day, the way she’d become a part of his family, the way she made him more a part of his own family, the way she made him more a part of his own
life
, he decided he couldn’t wait.

“Marry me,
bella
.”

Her hand had been caressing his chest again. Now it went still. She didn’t move or speak. He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “This isn’t an impulse. You know I’m not impulsive. I’m having a ring made already. But I don’t want to wait to ask. I love you. Marry me.
Sposami
.”

“Nick…”

That wasn’t the word he’d wanted coming out of her mouth at that moment. He put his thumb over her lips and shook his head. “Don’t tell me no.”

She pulled her head free of his grasp. “I don’t want to tell you no. But I feel like our whole relationship has been about me healing. Do we even know each other? I didn’t even know if you can dance. I don’t know your middle name.”

“That’s not important. Those are things you can learn with one word.
No
, I can’t dance.
Gavino
is my middle name. What we know about each other is deeper than that—
because
of what has happened since we’ve been together.”

She studied him, and he willed her to say the word he wanted. Anger and disappointment were crowding in at the edges of his mind. He’d expected her answer to be
yes
, quickly and unequivocally. She loved him. She wanted him. She’d just said that she didn’t want to say no. Why would she hesitate?

“What…what about family? We’ve never talked about that. We haven’t talked about where to live or whether to have kids or anything we want about the future. Those aren’t one-word answers.”

“So we’ll talk about that. We’ll talk about it all. But you can answer my question with just one word. Please,
bella
.” He was not a man who begged, but he said it again. “Please.”

Though night had fallen, he could see tears in her eyes. They glittered in the shine of the party lights strung around the beach. She wasn’t going to give him the answer he needed.

“I can’t answer yet. I need to talk first. I’m sorry.”

Nick knew hurt in that moment greater than he could remember since he was a boy. The hurt brought a wave of anger surging behind it, more than he could safely contain if he let it come on fully.

So he turned it off.

“Okay. It’s time to go.” He set her off his lap.

“Nick, wait.”

“Get your things, Beverly. It’s time to go.”

~oOo~

That night, Nick left Beverly in her apartment and returned to his own. For the first time in months, he would sleep in his own bed. Alone.

He knew she wanted to marry him. If she thought they didn’t know each other well enough, then she was stupid. After all his patience since the attack at the diner, after everything he’d tried to do to help her, she didn’t trust him enough to answer his question in the way they both wanted.

He felt exposed, and he didn’t like that feeling one bit.

It was too early and he was too agitated to sleep, so he took a quick shower, pulled on a pair of sweats, and poured himself a scotch. Then he went out onto his balcony and watched the night ocean. He lit a cigarette and thought his dark thoughts.

Though he lived outside of Quiet Cove, the night was fairly still, and he could hear the faint sounds of Carmen and Theo’s reception—music and laughter carried over the sand. Carmen had teased him for not having fun, but he’d enjoyed the day. He simply wasn’t someone who played. He never had been.

But that wasn’t true. He’d been a pretty normal kid, he thought. Until he was fifteen.

He took a long draw from his cigarette and sighed out the smoke. Maybe Beverly was right to hesitate. He was dark, she was light. She had had fun today, laughing and mingling, playing with the kids, chatting with his family. Loving him had almost doused her light, but she’d gotten it back.

He’d left the balcony door open behind him, and now he heard a knock at his front door. He stubbed out his cigarette, finished his scotch, and went back inside. He checked the peephole, saw who he expected to see, and opened the door.

Beverly was wearing one of the long t-shirts she slept in. She’d been crying.

He’d done that.

“I’m afraid to sleep alone,” she whispered, her voice soft with sadness.

He’d done that, too.

“
Bella
.” He pulled her close.

They slept in his bed that night.

~ 22 ~

Lady Catterley jumped up onto the desk and stretched out over Bev’s laptop. When Bev looked up from the file drawer, the Excel spreadsheet she’d been working on was going haywire.

“Cat! Ugh!” She pushed the cat onto the floor. “Get out of here, you walking hairball!”

Feeling instantly guilty for yelling, she changed her tone. “I’m sorry, Catty.” The cat turned and, with a flick of her tail, sauntered off into the stacks.

Bev undid the chaos the cat had wrought in the spreadsheet. And then went back to staring at the chaos that had already been there.

Chris had been a terrible record-keeper. How he’d avoided being audited, she had no idea.

“I found eight boxes in the corner of the side stockroom that look like they were stuck back there and forgotten. There was half an inch of dust.” Standing in the office doorway, Katrynn, the new manager of Cover to Cover Books, whose serendipitous last name was Page, brushed her hands together, making a little cloud that illustrated her point. “Did you call me?”

“No. I was yelling at the cat. She plopped on the keyboard and put Excel into a seizure.”

Katrynn was definitely not a wiseguy. Bev had hired her own manager—a college graduate with a degree in English. She’d been in town for the Farewell Summer Festival over Labor Day weekend and had seen the poster Bev had put up in the front window. Katrynn had no more management experience than Bev had—zero—but they’d both done their time in retail. Katrynn had even worked in a bookshop before.

And Nick’s cousin Luca was helping Bev learn the higher-level business stuff, so she thought she’d be okay.

Now that she was in Chris’s records, she didn’t think she could do much worse than he had. It was like he had put effort into not making money.

That made perfect sense, in fact. Chris had liked his shop, and he’d loved spending weekends combing through estate sales. Bev had been on scores of Sunday road trips going through people’s old belongings. Though he’d kept new stock, too, his real love had been used books, the kind that people had read and loved already. The shop was just a way to fund his estate sale habit. And feed himself. He hadn’t wanted more than that. Thinking of her rumpled friend, she smiled. It was getting easier to remember him as the friend she’d thought she had without thinking about what he’d kept from her. That revelation mattered less every day.

At first, she’d felt certain that she would keep the shop exactly as Chris always had. But in the two weeks since she’d taken possession of the shop and the rest of her inheritance, she’d decided that she wanted to find a way to make it her own now, while still honoring the way it had been his.

Chris’s personality had been more downbeat than hers, and the shop reflected that. It was in one of the older buildings in Quiet Cove, with heavy, low ceilings and wide-plank wood floors. Chris had covered the floor with mismatched estate sale oriental rugs, all of them dark and threadbare. The plaster walls hadn’t been painted in as long as he’d had the shop. They were dingy and unadorned. She’d always thought it cozy, but once Bev started looking at it with a more critical eye, the place was downright gloomy.

She was using the life insurance money for a remodel and to pay Katrynn’s salary until they reopened. With the season ending, she’d decided to keep the shop closed until the spring. That would give her time to learn the business and make it her own. She wanted to keep the cozy but lose the gloom. Katrynn agreed.

But first, they needed to make sense of the stock. And the books. And today, after hours and hours of going through the thousand and one different, seemingly random ways Chris kept his records, Bev was beginning to think burning the place down was the only reasonable plan.

“Anything I can help with?”

Bev sighed and frowned at the screen. “No. I’m going to have to sit down with Luca and see if he can help me connect some dots. Right now, it’s giving me a migraine.” She looked up. “Anything cool in those boxes?”

Katrynn shook her head and reached back to retie her blonde ponytail. Bev had noticed that was a tic of hers—she retied her ponytail three or four times an hour, whether it was loose or not. “Pretty basic stuff. There is a box of old kids’ books. Really old. Dick and Jane readers and stuff like that. Oh—and a stack of
Playboys
from the 70s.” She snickered and plopped in the ratty armchair in front of the desk. “Okay, yeah. There’s some cool stuff in there. Hey—I was thinking…”

“Yeah?” Bev closed the laptop. She couldn’t look at indecipherable numbers for another second. She’d just call Luca and see if he could make sense of Chris’s nonsense.

“You know how you were saying you didn’t want to lose the flavor the shop had when your friend owned it? Well, how about turning the side stockroom into a reading room? There’s plenty of unused space in the back, and that room is small and awkward for backstock anyway. Call it the ‘Chris Mills Room’ or something. Shelve the kind of books he liked best in there, and set up that old green chair and some floor lamps.”

Bev swallowed back the lump in her throat. “I like that idea. I like it a lot. Thank you.”

Katrynn beamed. “No problem.
Thank you
for the job. I love it. I’m having a blast. When we reopen, it’s going to be amazing.”

“I hope so.”

Lady Catterley jumped back up on the desk, sat on the closed laptop, stretched one furry, white leg into the air and began to lick her butt.

~oOo~

It was late when Bev got home. She was tired and dirty, so she walked past Nick’s door and went to her own. She needed a shower.

It had been almost three weeks since he’d asked her to marry him, and though they were more or less okay, they hadn’t talked about the future. That unanswered question hung between them because Nick refused to engage in any conversation that might lead to its answer. He seemed to have decided to live in limbo rather than get an answer he might not like.

But she wanted to give him the answer he wanted. When he’d asked her to marry him, her first feeling had been a joy that had filled her to her toes. It had felt like karma’s apology for letting her get raped and maimed. The word ‘yes’ had leapt onto her tongue and done a pirouette. And then she’d thought about kids. She wanted children, a lot of children, at least three, and she had absolutely no idea if he did. He was a lot older than she was. If he’d wanted kids, he probably would have had them by now. Or maybe not. She didn’t know.

He went to church every Sunday, and he liked her to go, too. She was spiritual, not religious. She had no idea how he felt about that difference between them. Seeing his family arrayed at Sunday Mass, filling up two whole pews all the way across the church and spilling over onto another pew, she thought he would expect their children to be Catholic. But she didn’t know.

They didn’t live together. She knew he didn’t really like her apartment—there was too much pink and purple and flowers. She liked girly things. His apartment was bigger and nicer, but not her taste any more than hers was his. And she didn’t want to live in a condo forever. She wanted a house with a real kitchen. And a yard with a garden. Maybe he planned to live in the condo forever. She didn’t know.

She
still
didn’t know. Because he wouldn’t fucking talk about it. They’d had that painful exchange at Carmen and Theo’s wedding, and he’d told her he was having a ring
made
for her. She’d said she needed to talk, and then he seemed to have flipped a switch or something. Or rewound a tape. She’d gone to him that night, and they’d slept in his bed. In the morning, he acted like the previous hours hadn’t happened at all.

And that’s where they still were. He’d become inscrutable to her again, and that scared her. And pissed her off. Alternately. Sometimes concurrently.

When she got out of the shower, she towel-dried her hair and pulled her robe on, not bothering to cinch it closed. She’d get dressed and go down to his apartment. Since the wedding, they’d been spending more time at his place. That felt portentous, too.

He was standing in her kitchen, leaning against the far counter, his arms crossed. Though he usually came in whenever he wanted, she jumped when she saw him.

“God! You scared me.”

Not surprisingly, he didn’t apologize. “You didn’t stop by.”

“I was dirty from digging through backstock all day. I wanted to shower first.” She closed her robe.

“Is this what you working is going to be like now? Not home until after nine, don’t even say hi, don’t return my calls? That’s not how I work. I don’t sit around and wait.”

Anger was taking its turn. “Then don’t.”

He stared at her, and she stared back. “What are you saying, Beverly?”

“I don’t know. Pussyfooting around you is exhausting. If we’re not going to talk about what happened at Carmen’s wedding, then maybe we don’t have anything to talk about at all.” As soon as she said those words, fear squeezed in and made anger step back.

“Answer the question I asked, and then we’ll talk.” He stepped forward and put his hands flat on the nearer counter.

“Jesus! Nick, come on! Why? Why can’t we talk first?”

“
Why can’t you just fucking trust me
?!” He slammed his hands down on the granite tile.

Bev nearly leapt backward. Nick had never yelled, not once ever, not at her or at anyone else that she’d ever seen or heard.

Once the shock had ebbed, though, she wasn’t afraid. She was moved and sorry—she’d really hurt him. She crossed the room and stood on the other side of the counter, between the two chairs that were her dining area. “I do trust you.”

He shook his head. “Not if you need me to fill out a questionnaire first. Not if you don’t
know
I’ll make you happy.”

“Kids, a home—that stuff is important. What if we don’t agree? Why can’t we talk first?”

“Are you saying if we don’t want exactly the same things right now, you don’t love me enough to find a compromise?”

Bev blinked. That wasn’t what she was saying at all—or it wasn’t what she’d meant. But Nick wasn’t a compromising man. She was afraid that she’d end up living the life he wanted for her instead of the life she wanted.

But why, exactly, was she afraid of that? In fact, he’d made all sorts of compromises for her. He’d been gentle and patient with her. He’d practically lived in her girly apartment for months because she was more comfortable here. He was helping her with the bookshop, even though he didn’t want her to work.

He was right. She was hesitating over things that were supposed to matter, not things that actually did. She was trying to wedge their real love into her adolescent fantasy of what her married life would be. She’d choked, was what it came down to. And she’d fucked up a beautiful moment and the weeks that had followed it.

So had he, though, with his cold way of pouting.

Walking around the counter into the kitchen, she stepped behind him and circled his waist with her arms. He dropped his head. “Nick, I love you. I know you’ll make me happy. I want to make you happy. So my answer is yes. I’m so sorry I didn’t say it right away. I should have.”

“Yeah, you should have.” He turned in her arms and took her face in his hands. “Don’t fuck with me like that again.”

“I wasn’t fucking with you. I was just scared.”

“Why? Of me?”

“No. Of losing myself again. I just got myself back.”

He stared into her eyes as his thumbs caressed her cheekbones. “I’ll never let you get lost again. I love you,
bella
.” With a quick peck to her lips, he pushed her away. “I’ll be right back.”

With that, he went around the counter, through the room, and out her door. Bev, expecting a much deeper kiss and also not to be alone, stood where he’d put her, dazed.