Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story (7 page)

“Always a plus from her point of view,” Sam conceded.

“Trouble?” Cash asked.

Her head snapped up and her gaze locked with his. Oh yeah. Trouble. Capital
T
kind of trouble. But nothing anyone outside the family would understand.
Or
know about. She shook her head and forced a smile.

Turning her back on him, she whispered, “When’s she arriving?”

“That’s the thing,” Sam said. “Tomorrow morning. She said, and I quote, ‘Tell Josefina I will make calzones for supper.’ Unquote.”

“Oh man . . .”

“Exactly. Lucas already volunteered to pick her up at the airport and—”

“Is he crazy?” Jo asked as little black dots danced in her suddenly swimming vision. “Did Mike finally make that poor man suicidal?”

“He’s never met Nana.”

“Good point.”

“She didn’t say how long she’s staying, but my guess is she’s here for a
looooonnnngggg
visit.”

“Oh crap.”

“Pretty much covers the situation,” Sam said, then added, “She said ‘Oh crap,’ Mike. Happy now?”

“He knew about this three weeks ago,” Jo said, furious to realize that Papa hadn’t said a word about it to anyone. He hadn’t told
her
. And he’d
known
that his mother-in-law was on her way to town.

“Yep. Makes it easy to understand how Grace talked him into that cruise, doesn’t it?”

Yeah, it really did. No wonder the man who’d never been interested in long vacations had run like a rabbit for the Greek islands.

Nana Coletti had
never
been a big fan of Henry
Marconi’s. She’d always been convinced that her daughter Sylvia could have done much better in the husband market. And, since finding out about little Jack Marconi, and how Papa had been off with another woman while his wife lay dying . . . well . . .

Jo had to admit, she really couldn’t blame her father at all for wanting to get out of the country before Nana hit town. That little reunion, when it finally
did
happen, wouldn’t be pretty.

But oh man. “Wish Grace could take me on a cruise right about now,” Jo muttered.

Not that she and her sisters didn’t love Nana. They did. When they were kids, summer visits to Nana’s house in Omaha were always special. They’d camp out in the backyard and catch fireflies at dusk. Nana always had ice cream in the freezer and hot dogs on the barbecue.

But having your grandmother running your life when you were ten was a lot easier than having the same thing happen when you’re thirty.

“I hear that,” Sam said, then muffled a groan.

“What’s wrong?” Jo asked her.

“Gotta go throw up. Talk to Mike.”

“Oh, for God’s sake—”

“Hi,” Mike said, “me again!”

“Good-bye, Mike,” Jo snapped and hung up while her youngest sister was still talking about how no one ever listened to her.

Stuffing her phone back into her pocket, she took a deep breath and pushed thoughts of Nana to the back of her mind. Of course, her grandmother wouldn’t stay there, but for now, she’d give it a shot. Bracing herself, she turned around and faced Cash. He was still watching
her, a question that wouldn’t be answered shining in his dark eyes.

“Everything all right?” he finally asked.

“Oh, terrific.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

She tipped her head to one side and studied him. “Why would you want to?”

“I’m a nice guy?”

Jo laughed shortly.

Cash grinned and Jo’s stomach did a fast little two-step. Oh boy.

“Okay, so maybe I just want to help so you’ll be indebted to me.”

Her eyebrows shot straight up. “That’s honest, anyway.”

“No it’s not,” he said softly, taking a step toward her. “But it’s what you were thinking.”

“Ooh. You read minds, too.” “I’m a man of many talents,” he said, one corner of his mouth quirking.

“So I’ve heard.” She blew out a breath. “Look, Cash,” she started and then paused, searching for the right words, the right—oh, the hell with it. “I appreciate the offer. Seriously. But it’s a family thing and, really, there’s nothing you can do.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” She nodded and suddenly admitted, at least to herself, that she wished there
were
something he could do. Was she weakening toward him? Oh, good God. She
was
. Damn, he really was good.

She took a step back and said what had to be said so she could leave. “Look, I, uh . . .
thanks
. For helping Jack out—”

“Bet that hurt,” he commented wryly.

She shrugged and smiled. “Not as much as I thought it would.”

“Progress,” he said, smiling back at her.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong? What your sister said that made you go pale?”

“You know?” she said, backing up to keep that distance between them. She needed it now more than ever, since there was a part of her that really wanted to step right up and let him hold her. She could use a little comforting right at the moment. But that path was a bit too dangerous. “I really don’t think so.”

Then she turned to look at the boy, still happily pitching baseballs through a target. “Jack! We gotta go! Get your bike and put it in the truck.”

While Jack, shoulders slumped, dragged his feet across the lawn as if they were blocks of concrete, Jo stalked to the truck and flung open the driver’s-side door. Didn’t even surprise her when Cash followed her.

He grabbed hold of the door’s edge when she would have slammed it shut and leaned in toward her.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jo pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and tucked it back behind her ear. “What?”

“At the job site. The Santiagos’ new deck?”

“Oh.” Damn it. She’d forgotten about that. Forgotten about having to hire Cash because neither of her sisters was up to the work at the moment. When did her life become an amusement park ride? “Right.” She tugged at the car door.

He let it go and it slammed shut with a metallic clang that echoed over and over again inside her head.

“Yeah,” he said, stepping back from the truck, his
dark eyes damn near sizzling as they fixed on her. “I’m looking forward to it, too.”

Her stomach jumped, her blood pumped, and she told herself to back off the caffeine for a while. No way was Cash Hunter getting to her. Oh please, God, he wasn’t getting to her.

Jack clambered into the truck and slammed his own door before leaning down to peek out at Cash. “Thanks a lot, Cash.”

“Anytime, Jack,” he said, then shifted his dark, damn near smoldering gaze to Jo. “See you, Josefina,” he said in a low voice designed to rattle a woman’s defenses.

“Oh, for God’s sake . . .”

She threw the truck into reverse, and as soon as Jack had buckled himself in, Jo stepped on the gas and peeled out, spinning dirt into the air and never once looking back at the man who watched her go.

His smile slowly fading, Cash walked back to his workshop, trying unsuccessfully to put Jo Marconi out of his mind. But try as he might, she just wouldn’t go.

He knew damn well that the safest thing for him to do was to stay away from her. And yet, she pulled at him. She was a mixture of temper and gentleness that appealed to him on too many levels.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he was attracted to her because she didn’t coo and flirt with him. Maybe a part of him was intrigued by the fact that she didn’t seem to want him.

But it was more than just that.

Something about Josefina resonated with him in a way that he’d never experienced before. And while a
part of him wanted to enjoy it, wanted to bury his hands in her thick hair and
himself
in her damp heat, he knew damn well that if he ever
did
get her into his bed, he’d lose her.

He kicked at a rock on the road and sent it skittering into the high grass and wildflowers. Stopping dead, he lifted his head and stared up at the sky, already streaked with color as the sun slowly slid out of view. Clouds drifted, the wind kicked up, and the scent of the nearby lake filled him.

He should be happy. This house was everything he’d once dreamed of. All he’d wanted as a kid was somewhere to belong. Now he had it and it wasn’t enough.

He was a part of Chandler and yet separate. Still on the outside looking in, and there was no way past the invisible barriers that shielded him from the rest of the world.

Of course, he’d erected those barriers himself so he had no one but himself to blame.

“Small consolation,” he muttered. Reaching up, he pushed both hands through his hair, scraping his fingertips along his scalp, then let his arms drop as he headed for the workshop again. He’d lose himself in work. It was the one refuge he could still count on.

STEVE SMITH FOR STATE SENATE
.

Jo winced as she looked at the poster tacked up outside Jackson Wyatt’s law office. She studied the face of the man in the picture and fought down the chill snaking along her spine. Her mouth went dry and her palms went damp as her gaze locked on Steve’s image.

It was as if he were looking right into her soul.

Smirking at her.

God, ten years and it was just like yesterday. She could almost smell the stale odor of beer—hear the music pumping through the frat house—feel the wood floor beneath her back—

“Jo?”

She heard Jack’s voice as if it were floating up from the bottom of a well. Today drifted into a thick mist as yesterday came sharper, clearer.

Her breath quickened.

Her heart pounded.

The little boy at her side grabbed her hand and shook it. “Jo!”

As if it were a life rope tossed to a drowning woman, she latched on to the feel of Jack’s hand in hers and used it to pull herself out of her nightmare memories. Blinking, breathing, she looked down into his worried eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, trying to convince herself as well as the boy. She’d survived ten years. Ten years of squelching memories, shattering dreams. She wasn’t about to let that man come back and take another bite out of her life at this late date.

Deliberately not looking at the poster again, she reassured her little brother as she tugged him toward Terrino’s pizza parlor. “I’m fine, Jack.”

Or she would be, she thought, if she could just pass her final exams next week, stop seeing posters of Steve Smith, keep Nana appeased while she was in town, survive her sisters’ pregnancies, keep herself from falling for Cash Hunter, and find a way to make her little brother happy.

Sure.

No problem.

Nana Coletti was eighty-six years old, four feet nine inches tall, and a whirring buzz saw of activity. The woman never slowed down and didn’t see a reason why anyone else should, either.

She still lived on her own in the tiny house in Omaha where she’d spent her entire adult life. She knew everyone for blocks around and she was the only person the grocery store would make home deliveries for. She baked on Sunday, did laundry on Monday, washed floors on Tuesday, windows on Wednesday. She volunteered at the local nursing home because she felt “sorry for those poor old people,” and she swore that red wine and olive oil were the secrets to longevity.

And maybe, Jo thought, she had a point. After all, the tiny woman had outlived most of her friends and still showed no signs of slowing down. Or of mellowing, for that matter.

“Josefina,” Nana said, sitting in Papa’s favorite chair and smoothing the skirt of her black dress across her knobby knees. “When isa your papa home again?”

“A couple of weeks, he said.”

“He should be here. With his
son
.”

Jo blew out a breath and wished to hell Lucas had stuck around for a while. But she couldn’t really blame her brother-in-law for heading for the high country. He’d had Nana all to himself for the ride in from the airport, and she knew from past experience, it couldn’t have been a pleasant journey.

Nana had never learned how to drive, but that didn’t stop her from telling everyone else how to. In a mixture
of Italian and English, she cursed the other drivers and shouted instructions to her own. Not to mention the fact that she had an opinion on everything and felt that, at eighty-six, she had the right to tell everyone exactly what she was thinking.

Whether they wanted to hear it or not.

As kids, Jo and her sisters had been crazy about Nana. She baked cookies and always had ice cream in her freezer. Whenever they went to Omaha to visit, it was an adventure. Nana’s friends indulged them and Nana herself made every visit special. She had a way with kids. It was adults she wasn’t very fond of.

But Jo knew that Jack’s very existence had to be a sore point for the old woman. Her daughter, Jo’s mom, had been dying of a cancer that had swept her away on a tidal wave of pain and misery when her husband had made his only marital slip.

Lonely and afraid, Papa had looked for comfort somewhere else and Jack was the result. It had taken Jo a long time to get past her own anger and, if truth be told, she still wasn’t past the sting of disappointment in her father. But none of that was Jack’s fault. He was a Marconi.

And Marconis stuck together.

Against all comers.

Which was why she had to have this little talk with Nana before heading off to the Santiago job.

“A cruise,” Nana said with a sniff. “He lives inna sin. He will pay,” she said, pointing an index finger at the ceiling as if signaling to God it was time He took control of this situation.

Jo winced. She really didn’t want to think about her father “living in sin” with Grace Van Horn. There were
just some things daughters shouldn’t know about their fathers.

“Nana,” Jo said, leaning forward and bracing her elbows on her knees. “You know I love you . . .”

The old woman smiled, her papery skin crinkling at the corners of her dark brown eyes. “You’re a gooda girl, Josefina. Not like your papa. Like your mama. A saint, my Sylvia, God rest her soul.”

She crossed herself automatically, whispering a little prayer for her late daughter.

Jo nodded, thinking it was probably best to just go with the flow. No point in antagonizing her by trying to defend Papa. Especially, she reasoned, since she still wasn’t feeling all that happy with him herself.