Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (11 page)

“Okay, I get that. But aren’t you ever nibbled by the wanderlust bug? Want to go out and see what else the world has to offer?”

“Maybe a little,” she admitted. “I went with my parents to California once. To a spot my mom really loved. Mendocino. I wouldn’t have minded spending more time there. It was beautiful. But Wilmington Bay is home. I don’t plan to ever move away.”

“Hmm.” He stared at her for a second, brows pushed together, and then pointed with his chin to her cappuccino. “Want a refill to go? I have to get back to Tutti-Frutti before your ‘longtime friends’ skewer me with a swizzle stick for tardiness. Scary, those people.”

“Are not.”

“Are, too,” he insisted. “But I like them, and I can see why you like them.” He gave her a long, scrutinizing look. “I can also see why they like you.”

He grabbed a second round of coffee for each of them and tossed away their trash before driving them back to the ice cream parlor.

“Thanks for the evening,” he said, opening her car door and helping her out. Not that she needed help. She was just too stunned to refuse.

With her second cappuccino in one hand and his fingers gripping her other one, it was all she could do to step onto the sidewalk and nod her thanks at him.

He smiled and brought his lips to the back of her hand, making every nerve fiber tingle. “See you tomorrow, Elizabeth,” he said. “Sweet dreams.”

Oh, yeah. That was going to happen all right. Damn.

CHAPTER SIX

“DID YOU LIKE your surprise, Boss Man?”

“You’re the best,” Rob said on the phone to his favorite Chicagoan, admiring the three big boxes of milk-chocolate-covered fruit slices Miguel had stashed between the folds of his requested casual attire. “You know just what I like. Now, tell me about my restaurant. What disasters are happening down there in my absence?”

Miguel huffed on the line. “There are no disasters with me at the helm, oh, ye of zilcho faith. The staff’s hopping around like rabbits trying to keep up with demand. We’ve been book solid every night since you’ve been away.”

“We were book solid every night
before
I went away, too,” he reminded his buddy, “but thanks for keeping up the good work. Maybe I’ll give you a raise.”

Miguel snorted. “I already gave myself one.”

“Way to stay one step ahead,” Rob said. “Hey, you guys need anything down there?”

“Can you spare any of your uncle Pauly’s ice cream? It’s been Death-Valley hot this weekend and the coolest dessert we have on the menu this month is flan.”

Hmm. Rob hadn’t considered putting ice cream on the menu before. He figured it wouldn’t strike customers as the kind of chic selection that epitomized a hot spot like The Playbook. Too commonplace. But Uncle Pauly and Siegfried had a local supplier, one who made the ice cream thicker and creamier than store-bought brands. Several of the flavors were, in fact, made the Italian way, chockfull of fat and sugar and undeniable goodness.

“Tell you what,” he said to Miguel. “Add a section on the new menu. Call it ‘Gelato,’ the Italian name for ice cream. By tomorrow, I’ll get this local guy to ship out three sample flavors for you to test on next week’s crowd. If it goes over, I’ll send down some more, and maybe I’ll throw in a box or two of Greek pastries. There’s a kid working here who makes some amazing baklava. Give me a ring later and let me know how it’s working out.”

“You got it.” Then Miguel laughed. “Pretty soon we’re going to have an international menu, what with all the foreign words you’ve got me adding to it.”

Rob thought of Jacques (a French import), Nick (a first-generation Greek), Gretchen (whose ancestry was Swiss), Elizabeth (a descendent of Germans and Englishmen) and then of his own Italian background. “That’s kind of what my life’s about right now,” he said. “I’m living in Wisconsin’s version of the United Nations.”

“Well, be a good boy and try not to aggravate any of the natives or foreigners, okay? It would mess with your America’s Least Wanted image.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“C’mon, Boss Man. I know you’re Italian, but you act as White Bread as they come. You never rock the yacht. You charm the cleats off everybody. A straight, good-looking guy like you doesn’t need to try so hard to be All-American inconspicuous. Now me, on the other hand, a hot Latino gay brother—I need to be more careful. I need to blend.”

Rob imagined Miguel prancing around the restaurant while saying this, striking poses in front of the mirrors and twisting his gold jewelry. It made him grin but, at the same time, there was an uncomfortable truth behind his friend’s words that stopped him from brushing off the comments. Maybe he had put too much of his Italian heritage aside since he’d left Wilmington Bay. Maybe he’d gotten a little far from his roots.

Not a bad thing, he argued. A man needed to stretch his skills, test his limits.

But, until he’d been back in Wisconsin, he’d forgotten about some of the things he’d missed: Mama’s exceptional lasagnas and tiramisus, the warmth of a close family, the physical demonstrativeness they shared so naturally. Life in Chicago had lots of culture to offer, but it didn’t have those things he’d always loved so much from home.

It also didn’t have anyone railroading him into marriage.

“Thanks for sharing,” he told Miguel dryly. “Now get your butt back to work.”

“If you persist in talking to me in such an uncouth manner, I’ll—”

“Quit?” Rob finished for him. “Don’t you dare, man. I need you.”

There was a long pause on the line. “Oh, now see? There you go saying something sweet. You’re a man of many facets, Rob Gabinarri.”

“So are you, Miguel.”

The self-titled Hot Latino Gay Brother blew him a kiss on the line and hung up.

* * * * *

SOMEHOW, AND ELIZABETH still didn’t know how, she made it through the next two weeks of this crazy schedule:

Write and revise all morning and afternoon.

Nibble only on fruit and veggies during the day in preparation for an evening of feasting.

Flutter around in an hour-long panic over which outfit to wear to the Gabinarris’ house at night that they hadn’t yet seen.

Meet Rob in front of Tutti-Frutti at five-thirty and spend the most pleasurable and most anxiety-producing two and a half hours of her day with his family and, briefly, alone with him.

Fall into a fitful sleep, dreaming about a man she should know better than to love.

But tonight there was going to be a break in the routine. Rob’s mother was going out of town for the evening, staying overnight at Rob’s uncle’s sister-in-law’s house in Milwaukee for some kind of Summerfest concert series. No, Madonna would not be performing, but apparently some band from Michigan would be there doing covers of all her big hits. Alessandra Gabinarri and her distant relative were beside themselves with excitement.

Elizabeth was beside herself with uncertainty. Her first night in half a month without obligatory dinner plans and she didn’t know what to do.

Rob, who’d been ever-pleasant but hadn’t gotten any closer to her since that hand-kissing incident, breezily announced that she was “off the hook” for this evening. That he had “some stuff to do.”

Gretchen had some artsy-craftsy thing planned with her siblings in nearby Kenosha.

Nick had a basketball game up in Port Washington that he’d talked Jacques into going to with him.

They’d even closed Tutti-Frutti early for once. Everyone had plans for the night but none of them included her.

It was simply ridiculous. She used to spend almost all of her nights alone. She’d read. She’d work on new cookbook ideas. She’d watch Jane Austen classics on A&E. She’d tend to her herb garden—plants she kept in small pots on her windowsill. And, occasionally, she’d meet up with her friends at one of their apartments for a Treat Swap night. Regardless, she’d go to sleep at a reasonable hour, and she’d never, ever meander around her place like a chef without her spatula just because she didn’t have a pseudo date for the evening.

Okay, so maybe it was difficult getting used to loneliness again after being a part of lively family camaraderie for two weeks. But still. This silliness had to stop.

She tossed on one of her favorite DVDs—
Rachael Ray’s Fasta Pasta
—and sank into the sofa. She lasted ten minutes.

She fixed herself a steaming mug of hot cocoa with shaved bits of chocolate on top. She didn’t savor it. She gulped it down and found herself scanning the room for her purse and keys. What she needed was a
real
date, but she wasn’t going to find it here.

She threw on a semi-fashionable ensemble, strode out the door and slammed it shut behind her.

For the first time ever in Elizabeth Daniels’s personal history, she was going out on the town, and maybe, if she played her cards right, she’d pick up a man while she was at it.

* * * * *

ELIZABETH sniffed the air of Hauser’s Grill and Ale. Wisconsin’s Garden Spot, this wasn’t. Budweiser’s Basement was more like it but, though she’d made no promises to herself to stay late, she did vow she’d give the experience at least thirty minutes. How hard could it be to have a few drinks, meet a few people and, maybe, make out with some guy that she’d probably never see again? Other women did stuff like this all the time.

She bravely marched up to the bar and placed her order. White wine. She just couldn’t go for the hard stuff. Imagine
her
drinking scotch or whiskey or bourbon!

No. Now that was the problem right there.

She
should
be able to imagine herself doing anything she darn well pleased. Maybe she’d work her way up to a martini next. Or maybe she’d settle for a rum and Coke. But if she wanted to try a Brandy Alexander, who was going to stop her?

“Lizzy Daniels?”

Elizabeth turned. The not-so-sweet voice belonged to the not-so-sweet mouth of the not-at-all-sweet Tara Welles.

“What are
you
doing here?” Tara inquired, her razor-thin eyebrows raised like mini-boomerangs, waiting for the answer to come back to her.

“W-Wine,” she said. “Very thirsty.” And, to underscore her point, she took a long sip. “Mmm.”

Tara swept her sneering glance from side-to-side, in search of something. “Is Rob here with you? I haven’t seen him tonight.”

“Nope.”

Tara’s beady little blue eyes brightened. Well, no. That was a lie. They weren’t actually beady. They weren’t actually little either. They were big, round, blue…

“Well, where is he?”

…like dinosaur eggs, of the Tyrannosaurus Rex variety.

“C-Couldn’t tell you,” she said before taking another swig of wine. Yeah, where was he? What “stuff” was he doing tonight? Not that she had any hold on him or any say in where he went or what he did, but she was curious. In an Old High School Friend sort of way.

Ah. That was a lie, too.

Tara, dressed in a skintight jungle-print miniskirt and a sage-green blouse, took a couple of slithery steps forward on her spike-heeled sandals.

“You need to stop monopolizing him,” she hissed. “I’ve seen him at your uncles’ shop, you know. And every time I ask him about his plans for the night, he says he
has
to do something with you. I can tell it’s some kind of chore you’ve concocted to get him to go out with you.”

Elizabeth drained her wineglass and ordered a martini. “Really?” she said through gritted teeth.

“You’ve always been so transparent, Lizzy. Having a crush on Roberto Gabinarri. Honey, he wouldn’t seriously go for someone like you in this or any other lifetime.”

The truth, Elizabeth thought, always hurt just a little more when it was about something you prayed you could keep hidden. She chewed the olive from her martini and regarded the terrible lizard standing before her.

“A-Appreciate your insight, T-Tara.”

“Hey, Elizabeth! Over here.”

She turned to see, of all people, Maria-Louisa waving at her from a table in the corner. Never had Rob’s considerate sister-in-law felt more dear to her than at that moment, even if the woman was sitting with a group of six strangers who were bound to make Elizabeth nervous.

“Hi,” she called back in her cheeriest, most confident voice and took a healthy gulp of her second drink. Alcohol. Definitely helpful in situations like these.

“Come join us!” Maria-Louisa shouted over the din of country-western music. To emphasize the invitation further, she motioned with not one, but both hands. “It’s Rob’s girlfriend,” she explained loudly to her group of friends, and soon all of them were calling her over.

Elizabeth looked between Tara, who was staring at her with a kind of mild horror melded with bewilderment, and Maria-Louisa’s grinning, girlish face and waving arms.

No contest.

“L-Later,” she said to Tara as she walked toward the table of women, half-full martini in hand, ready to do a little partying with an as-of-yet unknown Wilmington Bay crowd.

She took a very, very deep breath.

Hey, she could be spontaneous and
fun
if she wanted to be. She could act like a popular girl. Goodness knows she’d watched women like them long enough to be able to approximate how they behaved. All it would take was another dr—

“We’re drinking strawberry margaritas, Elizabeth. Can I pour you one?”

“A-Absolutely,” she said, shining her best smile at Maria-Louisa and then greeting the woman’s merry band of friends. “I was just thinking of trying something else.”

“Ooh, these are the best,” one of the other ladies said. “Jimmy, over there at the bar,” she pointed, “makes ours extra sweet and—”

“Extra potent,” another woman finished.

All the ladies at the table giggled and raised their glasses in agreement.

“Sounds exactly l-like what I’m looking for,” Elizabeth declared, polishing off the martini and gratefully reaching for the margarita. She took a good look at Jimmy the bartender. He was pretty cute. And their waiter—his nametag said “Ivan”—was even cuter.