Loving You (15 page)

No doubt about it. A man with that much personal power was a man to keep a wary eye on.

*   *   *

“That was so cool,” Jonas said as he rushed into the house and tossed his shoulder pads onto the staircase. Turning back around, he looked at Nick, his face beaming. “The guys really liked you. I could tell.”

Tasha scooped up the mail from the floor, where it had fallen through the slot in the front door, then moved past the two of them. Nick watched her as she carried the envelopes and circulars into the dining room. She'd been damn quiet since leaving the pizza joint. Made him wonder why. And that made him wonder why the hell he cared. His gaze still on her, he said, “I had a good time, too, Jonas.”

“I knew you would,” the boy crowed. “And you'll go to the next game, too, huh?”

Nick smiled. His gaze shifted to the little boy and basked in the warmth radiating from the kid's grin. Hell, it had been a pretty good night. He'd been worried about the whole spending time with Jonas thing, but it had really been fun. Talking to the boy's teammates and their parents about football. Reliving a few of his more memorable moments. Nick rocked back on
his heels and shoved both hands into his back pockets. He'd been worried for nothing. It was easy doing the father thing.

Not that he
was
a father or anything.

Tasha dropped her purse onto the dining room table and Nick looked over at her as she flipped through the mail. He saw her pause over a postcard, her fingertips tracing whatever glossy picture was there; then she dropped it onto the stack and turned around to meet his gaze. Her green eyes carried a solid punch even from across the room, and he wondered what she was thinking. Usually her expression left him no doubt at all about where her brain was.

Tasha wasn't like most other women he knew. She didn't play mind games. Didn't pretend to be fascinated by him or football. Didn't discreetly laugh or muffle a yawn. She yelled when she wanted to, challenged him whenever she thought he was stepping over a line she'd drawn in the sand, and she flashed that amazing smile of hers when she was happy.

With her, what you saw was what you got. Until tonight. Now there were shadows haunting her brilliant green eyes. Secrets hidden behind that nervous chewing of her lip. And damned if he didn't want to know what they were.

“Jonas,” she said, ripping her gaze from Nick's in order to confront the still chattering boy. He looked at her as she said, “It's time for you to take a shower.”

“But we were still talkin',” Jonas said.

“Jonas,” Tasha said firmly, though her voice was tinged with fatigue, “it's been a long day. You're tired and sweaty. Say good night and go upstairs.”

He wanted to argue, Nick could see it in the kid's face. And he flashed back to his own childhood when
he and Paul would put up a last-ditch effort at gaining a few extra minutes. But they'd never won those battles and apparently Jonas didn't, either. Being a bright kid, he saved his breath and caved early.

“Okay, but—” He looked up at Nick. “Are you gonna be here when I get out?”

Tempting thought. A little extra one-on-one time with Tasha and maybe he'd be able to coax that truce into something a little friendlier. But even as he thought about it, he glanced at her expression. No welcome there. Just those intriguing shadows.

“No,” he said, shifting a look at Jonas. “I'd better go.”

“But you'll come back, right?”

Jesus, how did anybody stand a chance against those big brown eyes? The kid packed so much hope and expectation into a single glance that his feelings were stripped bare. And Nick felt a flicker of unease. How could
anyone
live up to what this boy wanted, dreamed of having? Him, least of all. Had he really just thought this thing was
easy
? “I—”

“Jonas,” Tasha cut into the conversation before Nick could either agree to return or dodge the question. He was so busy being grateful for the rescue that he didn't know what he might have said. Maybe it was best for everyone that way.

“Go take a shower.”

“Aw.…” Shoulders slumped in exaggerated defeat, the boy turned and headed for the stairs. He paused to pick up his pads and sling them over his shoulder. Then, drooping with every step, he slouched up the stairs like a man headed to the gallows. When he hit the top of the staircase, though, he stopped and looked down at Nick.

“I almost forgot. Can you get me some more of those pictures?” he asked.

“Pictures?”

“Yeah.” Jonas grinned. “Like the other ones you sent me, with you catching a pass, and you signed 'em, too, so you have to sign the new ones, too, 'kay?”

Signed pictures?
“When did I send you pictures?”

Jonas leaned over the banister, dangling his shoulder pads by one dirty strap hooked around his index finger. “I wrote letters to you and you sent 'em.”

Fan letters. Signed pictures. It took a second or two, but things clicked in. “Did you send your letters to the stadium?”

“Uh-huh.”

That explained it. Any letters sent to the players via the football stadium were automatically forwarded to the players' PR people. Since his second season with the Saints, Nick had used a secretary his business manager had hired. The secretary and whoever
she
hired answered the letters, signed the photos, and kept the fans happy. Nick never saw the letters himself. Like most of the other players, he'd been too busy practicing and playing the game to have time to deal with letters.

And to tell the truth, it had never bothered him before. He hadn't given a single thought to the people writing to him. Celebrities got fan mail. That was just part of the job. And celebrities hired people to answer the mail. Also part of the job. So why, all of a sudden, was Nick feeling like a shit for not knowing that this kid, who might be his
son
, had written to him and gotten a generic reply along with a forged signature on a photograph?

He pulled his hands from his pockets and folded his
arms across his chest. Looking up at Jonas, he said, “I'll get you some more.”

The kid lit up like a Christmas tree and Nick told himself he shouldn't feel bad if the boy didn't mind. But it didn't seem to help.

When Jonas was out of sight, Nick pushed thoughts of fan mail and photos out of his mind and turned toward Tasha. He felt her withdraw even before she took a cautious step backward. Her gaze lifted to his and he wished again he knew what she was thinking. Strange, though, he couldn't remember
ever
worrying before about a woman's thoughts. He'd been too busy admiring their hair, their eyes, their mouths. But Tasha … for some damn reason, he could admire the package while still wanting to know what was inside.

How new and intriguing was that?

“Thanks for coming,” she said, though he saw how much it cost her.

“Wasn't easy, was it?”

“What?”

“Thanking me for being here when you really want me gone?”

She blew out a breath, reached up, and yanked the rubber band off her ponytail. Instantly her hair tumbled down to her shoulders in a thick, rich mass that made his hands itch to touch it. “Look, it's nothing personal.…”

“You know,” he said softly, “I'd rather it was.” He didn't understand it himself. But damned if he wanted to be lumped in with every other male she'd chase from the door. Hell, if she was going to hate him, he at least wanted that hatred to be specific to
him
. And if
that
wasn't twisted, he didn't know what was.

“What are you talking about?”

“Damned if I know,” he muttered, and kept his arms folded tight across his chest, to keep from reaching out for her. Hell, knowing her, she'd probably take his hand off at the elbow if he tried it.

Truce or no truce.

“I appreciate what you did for Jonas tonight, but—”

“Who was the postcard from?”

She stopped. “What?”

“The postcard you were looking at. Who sent it?”

Her gaze shifted from his, then back again. “Mimi.”

“Yeah? Where is she?”

Tasha sucked in a breath and released it in a rush. “Paris.”

Nick nodded, even though he wasn't buying it. There was something else, he thought. Something she wasn't saying. “Paris is beautiful. You ever been there?”

She laughed, short and sharp. “No.”

“You should go,” he said, and in his mind he was already seeing her there at the little café he knew on the Champ de Mars. His imagination painted a clear vision of the two of them, tucked behind a small glass-topped brass table. They would sit and sip wine and watch the incredibly fast-paced French traffic roar past. They would chuckle at the tourists and sniff at strangers as the locals did. And much later, when the summer sun was setting, late into the night, they would stroll along the champ to the Eiffel Tower. There they'd stand in the encroaching darkness and watch as the tiny white lights on the tower blinked into life.

“Sure,” she said, shaking her head and dispelling the images in his mind. “I'll put that right onto my ‘to do' list.”

Nick glanced around the interior of the house, noting again the age of the place. Shabby but clean, old but cared for. Okay, there wasn't much money here. But Mimi had managed it, hadn't she? He looked at Tasha again. Maybe she didn't see trips to Paris in her future, but she should, he thought. Everyone should see those things. Whether they did them or not, it was important to at least dream about them.

But he had the distinct feeling that Tasha Flynn was too rooted to the hardscrabble reality of life to let her dreams run wild.

“So Mimi does Paris while you stay here and take care of Jonas and everything else?”

She stiffened and he was struck by her loyalty. Not only to Jonas, but also to a woman who apparently dumped all the work of running a house, a shop, and a kid on
her
.

“Mimi likes to travel,” she said tightly.

“And you don't.”

“I've seen enough, thanks.” The words came clipped and pointed, and hinted at yet
more
secrets. Secrets Nick wanted in on.

“What have you seen, Tasha Flynn,” he murmured, “that makes you so unwilling to see anything else?”

She surprised them both when tears suddenly swam in her eyes. “You should go.” She sniffed, blinked her eyes frantically, and somehow, thankfully, managed to keep those tears from falling.

But she hadn't been able to hide them, and they tore at Nick. Just knowing they were so close to the surface made him want to discover their source. Made him want to stand in front of her to make sure no other fast-talking clod brought them into life again.

“Tasha, I—”

“Just go, okay?” She stepped up, grabbed the edge of the door, and clenched it so tightly, her knuckles went white.

“I'm going.” Turning around, he stepped through the doorway and onto the porch. There he stopped and looked back over his shoulder at her. Backlit by the house lights shimmering behind her, she looked small and
way
too alone. “But I'll be back.”

She tried a laugh, but it nearly strangled her. Still, she said, “Who're you? The Terminator?”

Okay, he could play light-hearted with the best of 'em. In a deliberately hideous imitation of Schwarzenegger's already horrible accent, Nick said those words again. “I'll be back.”

And when the smile on her face stayed put, he felt almost as good as he had the last time he'd scored a touchdown.

*   *   *

Sunday dinner at Mama's.

In any other family, that probably would have meant a pleasant evening, good food, and a visit with the brothers and sisters.

To Nick it was something else.

It was the Colosseum in Rome, filled with lions just off a hunger strike, and he was the fattest Christian in town.

He sat in his car and stared at the house where he'd grown up. It hadn't changed much. Well, except for the paint. Every few years, Mama got some bug up her … and decided to stir things up a little. This year, the answer to Mama's decorating binge had been, God help them all, bright, bilious blue with pale green trim on
the shutters and dark green trim on the porch railings and floor.

If Papa could see it … hell. If Papa could see it, he wouldn't have cared. If it made Mama happy, then it had been all right with her husband. It didn't really bother Nick, either, until he was drafted into the painting team and forced to look at the god-awful colors close up.

Nick's fingers drummed on the leather-wrapped steering wheel. He was stalling. He knew it. Wouldn't have even tried to deny it. Any member of his family, except for his mother, of course, would have understood.

At one time or another, they'd all dawdled outside like condemned prisoners getting one last stroll around the prison yard.

He glanced into the rearview mirror and took a long thoughtful look at the road behind him. The road that could take him back to Tasha's place. He'd been thinking about going back ever since leaving, the night before.

He could just fire up the engine, slide the car into reverse, and get the hell outta Dodge. But just the thought of having to pay the penance for that sent a shiver down his spine. Missing a Sunday dinner was only excused if you were at death's door.

And God help you if you weren't really dying.

No way was he getting out of this, so he might as well get it over with. Grumbling to himself, he climbed out of the car, slammed the door, and hesitated again, on the driveway. From inside the house, lamplight shone through the glistening windowpanes to dot the lawn below. The kitchen door was open, and on the wind, Nick caught a whiff of something incredible, and
it was that scent more than anything else that got him moving again.

Nobody
cooked like Mama Candellano.