The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men (27 page)

“It's not that easy.”

“It's better than easy. This time, you get to choose to love them, not because you have to, not because you're three years old and alone in the world. But because you want to. You get to choose to love them back with everything you have.”

Without moving, Eve continued staring at her older sister. Then Bianca appeared at Téa's elbow. Bianca, sleek and lovely in a nubby silk suit the color of café au lait, a small bouquet of gardenias in her hand. Twenty-five years ago, Bianca Caruso had faced just such a moment of soul-wrenching shock and confusion as Eve was facing now. Twenty-five years ago, her identity as beloved wife had been shaken when her husband had brought home his mistress's daughter.

Twenty-five years ago, Bianca had bent down to the
little girl who'd looked so different from her own daughters and had hugged her to her heart.

Bianca had chosen to love Eve then.

So how could Eve do any less now?

“You get to choose to love them back with everything you have.”

She took a step inside.

The small group in the vestibule glanced her way. The women froze, then expressions of relief and joy overtook their faces. Trying on her own tentative smile, she took another step.

“Good job, Eve,” Nash whispered from behind her. “Good job, good luck, and good-bye.”

What?
Without thinking twice, she whirled around. “No! You can't go now.”

For the first time that day, she noticed he was wearing jeans, a chambray shirt, his beat-up cowboy boots. He looked tired and his eyes were shadowed, his chin gritty with whiskers.

For the second time in her life she went against everything she'd always believed would be the safest path. “Please, Nash. Please stay.”

And then Bianca and Joey and Téa were there, their arms encompassing her, and she lost sight of him as she blinked away her tears.

E
ve.” Nash touched her shoulder, and she looked up, grateful for the excuse to wrap up yet another conversation. She murmured an apology, then turned to give him her attention.

Though the wedding ceremony had gone off without a hitch and the reception was in full swing now, she didn't have her feet under her yet. To take in this new turn in her life would require time, time that didn't include a gazillion guests and a nine-piece band in attendance. Not to mention the distracting, sophisticated beauty of the setting Téa had designed. The ballroom was dressed in black and white, accented with elegant floral displays of white and blood red roses. Stones that glittered like diamonds were strewn across the tables.

“Eve,” Nash said again, shoving his hands in his front pockets. “I'm going now.”

Going? Her knees went woozy with that just-hit-dry-land feeling they'd been fighting since she'd stepped out of his truck. She clutched his arm. “No—”

“Yes,” he interjected, cutting her off. A faint yet grim smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “Look, it's been a big day for me. I rode my mighty steed across the desert. I rescued the fair maiden from the empty castle. Finally, I returned her to her royal family.”

“Nash—”

“Since then, I've been acting like some kind of knight waiting around for his reward, but now I think I'll just demand it. Give me a grateful peck on the cheek and release me to go on to my next adventure.”

“You can't—”

“I've had my time at the party, Party Girl. I'm done.”

Her fingers tightened on his arm. He meant he was done with her. Two nights ago he'd told her he was in love with her, but she'd known not to believe it, even as much as she'd wanted to. From the beginning, he'd been clear about leaving, just as he'd been clear that what he really wanted in a woman was all the things Eve was not. The Law-and-Order Preacher wanted a secure, uncomplicated woman. Instead he'd dabbled with her—a woman with a mistaken past and a misbegotten present that he didn't even know about.

Well, fine. That was just fine. She didn't need him. She didn't need any man. Anyone.

Though she'd learned she wasn't really a mob boss's daughter, she hadn't forgotten that men were still inherently unreliable.

“All right.” She dropped her hand from his sleeve, promising herself she'd be pleasant and dignified as she walked him to the door of the ballroom. “Let's go—”

“No one's going anywhere.” This was Joey, grabbing both her elbow and Nash's and pushing them into vacant chairs at a nearby table. “The fun's just about to begin,” she declared, dropping into the seat on the other side of Eve.

Bewildered, Eve looked about the ballroom. Though the cake had been cut and consumed, no one looked in any hurry to leave, including Johnny and Téa. Eve watched them also being urged to take seats.

“What kind of ‘fun' do you mean?” she asked Joey. But the younger woman had popped up again and was filling clean stemware with champagne for the three of them and then the others settling into chairs around the table.

Toying with her champagne glass, Eve studied Nash from beneath the protection of her eyelashes. He didn't look very happy to be sitting beside her, she thought, which reminded her of all his annoying, irritating, arrogant ways. She should be glad to be rid of him.

But she still didn't want him to go.

One of the groomsmen came by and dropped a pair of dice on the tabletop. “What's this?” she asked. It was Johnny's brother, Michael, wearing his customary reckless grin.

“We call it Tossing for Toasts,” he said. “A game in honor of our gambling groom. Each table will roll the dice, and whoever is seated at the corresponding numbered chair has to get up and say something. Tell a funny story, tell a serious story, give the bride and groom your good wishes. Then we all drink. The game ends when the first person slides to the floor.”

As Michael moved on, Nash pushed his champagne away. “I really do have to be heading out, Eve.”

No
. It was the only thought she had as dice were
tossed on the other side of the room and a cousin of Johnny's got to his feet. “Don't go quite yet.” Leaning close to rub her shoulder against his, she also managed to brush her fingertips across his thigh beneath the cover of the tablecloth. “I haven't given you that thank-you you've been waiting for,” she said, automatically using her practiced purr. Anything to get him to stay.

“Damn it, Eve—”

Joey was back, whirling into her chair and cutting off what Nash had been about to say. She burst into laughter along with the crowd at the end of Johnny's cousin's soliloquy about his dissatisfaction with the single life. Champagne glasses were lifted.

Eve took only a tiny sip.

Joey slanted her a glance. “You can do better than that.”

Eve shook her head as more noise erupted when someone at the next table rolled their dice. “I better not. I haven't eaten much tonight, and I didn't eat all day yesterday. There wasn't any food at Diana's.”

“What?” Joey frowned. “Your car battery was dead, your cell phone battery was dead, and you didn't have any food. What did you think you were going to do?”

Across the room, an older woman stood up. One of Téa's favorite clients. As she started a tipsy ramble about interior design that was somehow related to a good marriage, Eve stared at the woman's eye-bugging hat. It seemed to be trimmed with yards of orange ribbon and a real bird-of-paradise flower. “I didn't worry about it. I knew Nash would come for me.”

Startled, she replayed the words in her head.
“I knew Nash would come for me.”
They'd popped out of her
mouth without thought, but they were nonetheless true, she realized, her hand squeezing the stem of her glass. Somewhere, in the secret center of her guarded heart, she'd known that Nash would come.

Lucky for her she was seated, because her knees went wobbly again and the lights in the room started a slow spin.

Nash looked over at her, apparently unaware of her now thudding, frantic pulse. “I'm leaving.”

“No.”
She grabbed for his thigh again and thought of what she could say to get him to stay. What she could do. She needed more time to figure out what was going on here!
“I knew Nash would come for me.”
“Not yet. You can't leave yet.”

“Why not?” he asked, his voice flat, his eyes watchful.

Why not? Why not? She couldn't think. She didn't know. She didn't know anything beyond the fact that she couldn't let him go. There was that feeling fluttering in her belly again and something tugging at her heart, but she ignored the sensations. She still had to be careful, didn't she? There was no one but herself to protect her from making any big mistakes. No one who would pick her up if she fell.

“Why do you want me to stay, Eve?” Nash insisted.

Her mouth opened, some unknown confession ready to trip off her tongue. Pulse pounding, she yanked it safely back. Then, using the tools she'd always had at her disposal, she ran her hand up toward his groin, looked him boldly in the eyes, and licked her lips. This was how she mastered men. “Because I still have that ‘thing,' Nash.” She set her voice to Sultry and left it there. “That ‘thing' about you and sex.”

Beneath her hand, his thigh tightened to iron. He
shifted closer, his eyes snapping cold sparks. Fire and brimstone, but the cold kind. The cold, cold kind. She shivered, and his breath felt icy too as he breathed against her cheek.

“Don't play me like that, Party Girl. Don't play me like that ever again.” He lifted her hand off his leg and set it on the table. “It's been fun. Real fun, but I'm sorry to say that I finally realize it was never real.”

Her skin chill-bumped. Air refused to move into her lungs. The sound around them was hushed to muffled whispers.

She'd blown it. She'd fallen on old, superficial habits and turned Nash away from her.

Her gaze followed him as he rose from the chair. Then she saw him start, turn, and look at Michael Magee, who was gesturing at him and then at the dice. She could read Michael's lips, though she couldn't hear his voice. Toss the dice. Toss the dice.

With an impatient gesture, Nash did. Then all eyes at the table turned to Eve. Joey was elbowing her in the side. Téa and Johnny were looking at her too, expectant smiles on their faces.

She had to make a toast. Tell a story.

But weeks ago she and Joey had drawn straws for the maid-of-honor position and the toast-making duties. She'd lost, gladly. Now she had nothing to say.

Years of party-going, a lifetime of trying to be pretty and charming, made her unable to stay in her seat, however. Someone ran over with a cordless microphone as she came to her feet and looked out upon all the people who'd come to witness Téa and Johnny's wedding.

Time slowed as she studied those she considered friends, as well as those the old Eve Caruso had
believed were family. They were still that—she'd made that choice back at the church—but she didn't yet know exactly who
she
was.

Her gaze landed on the bride and groom, looking as happy as they both deserved.

Nearby sat Uncle Tuna, along with a handful of her grandfather's aging mobsters even Téa couldn't leave off the guest list, men who had watched Salvatore Caruso's fatherless daughters grow up, treating them with a kindness and indulgence they didn't bring to their day jobs. At the next table was Cosimo himself, his posture as straight as any soldier's. Then Bianca, with an encouraging smile on her face, sitting with Johnny's relatives.

Also ringing the room were more friends who had grown up in the Coachella Valley as she had. All looking at her. Nanette O'Riley, who had held Eve's hand on the first day of second grade when she'd found out she hadn't been assigned the same classroom as Téa. Buzz Tyler, the public high school quarterback who'd come out before most of them had understood what “out” was. And there, on his other side, was…

Sandy Dailey.

Eve's mouth went dry with guilt. Though she had that tape of Vince Standish's confession to pass along, she no longer had that genetic excuse for her own crime, did she? Her gaze darted in Nash's direction, hoping he couldn't detect her anxiety, but his place was empty. She could see him threading his way between the tables in the direction of the exit.

All right. If she made a fool of herself, he wouldn't be there to see. If the truth about the illegal insider trading ever came out, The Preacher wouldn't be there to know.

Whew.

Eve, still keeping her secrets.

Eve's heart safe.

Suddenly, Téa was beside her. “Are you crazy?” she whispered furiously. “Look what's happening. You can't let Nash walk out.”

“But—”

“Eve, that man is in love with you. Don't mess this up.”

“This is your wedding day,” she whispered back, her gaze never straying from the tall, strong figure leaving her behind. Did he really love her? A man like Nash,
could
he love her? He'd said so, but…“I'm supposed to say something.”

“Then say the right thing, little sister. You have the microphone. Say the thing that will make him stay.”

Oh, God,
Eve thought. That was it. That was the truth.

She wanted him to stay, didn't she? This man she trusted. This man she was certain she could rely on. She
so
wanted him to stay because she was so in love with him. It was symptoms of that she'd been suffering from for days and days.

And if Eve didn't let the truth of that free, it would be smothered in the darkness of her heart forever.

Except she was nobody. Vince had said that.
“She's nobody.”
Nothing beyond the looks she'd used all her life. Why would Nash want her?

“Watch out for the snake in Paradise,”
she heard Salvatore whisper in her ear again. But that snake wasn't Vince, it wasn't anyone or anything except her own self-doubt, she knew that. She only needed to stop listening to that hissing voice. Though her outside beauty was only skin deep, what she had inside was worth something too.

Nash had made her believe that.

An idea formed in her mind.

Her heart thudding, she squeezed the microphone tight as she spoke into it. “To the bride and groom—you two know how thrilled I am for you. But, uh, I have more to say than that. Téa, I hope you won't regret giving me this moment.”

“I don't regret anything I've ever given you,” her big sister replied.

Téa meant love. Eve had almost turned away from it, but not any longer. She looked over at Cosimo.
“You don't always have to handle things alone,”
he'd said.

“Um, Grandpa? If you could give me some of that help you offered?” She nodded toward the entrance, where two of his bodyguards stood, solid and alert in sand-colored suits and silk ties.

Without a smile, the California Mafia's boss of bosses made a small gesture with a finger. The two men blocked the exit to the room, just as Nash reached it. He halted, then glanced over his shoulder at Eve and frowned.

She wouldn't let it stop her. “Joe,” she said, holding out her hand, “I need you too. Get me up on this table.”

Joey jumped to her feet and steadied Eve as she climbed onto her chair and then onto the tabletop. The soles of her shoes crunched on the diamond decorations as she stepped over the fallen dice. From this new height, she looked across the heads of the bewildered wedding guests at Nash. It wasn't enough. “A chair, Joe. I need a chair.”

Grinning, Joey lifted a chair on top of the table. Eve pushed it into position, then, with a deep breath, gathered the hem of her dress in one hand. She stepped out
of her bridesmaid pumps, then stepped up onto the chair.