by Virna DePaul
“Ready?” Gio asked, rising from his seat and turning to face her.
Man, was he tall, dark and sexy.
Don’t think about the dream. Don’t think about the dream.
“Yup,” Rose murmured, unbuckling her belt and pushing herself to her feet. “Do you think we could stop at Wal-Mart on the drive there or something? I have to pick up a couple of things.”
Namely, granny panties and garlic.
“I don’t think there is a Wal-Mart en route, but from what I’m told, there are a lot of little shops in the town we’re heading to where we can get whatever you need once we drop off our bags and check in with the family. That work for you?”
She nodded as Gio grabbed both of her bags plus his own and they made their way out of the airplane.
The second they stepped onto terra firma, she sucked in a deep breath. The sun was shining, the air was warm and sweet, and everything around them was lovely and green. She reminded herself again how generous Gio was being with his donation. Whatever he’d said and done in the past, he was essentially handing over what it took a year for her to fund. That meant, once she returned home, everything else she was able to drum up for Michael’s Way was gravy.
With that thought in the forefront of her mind, she followed Gio’s lead toward a sleek, black Mercedes.
“This is us,” he murmured as he gestured toward the car.
“Yeah, you weren’t kidding when you said you were a jeans and t-shirt, regular Joe when you aren’t at work, huh?” she said with a laugh. “We’re really slumming it in this ride. I won’t set my butt in anything less fancy than a Bentley.”
“Actually, I do have a Bentley at home, but you’re about to get in the wrong vehicle,” he said with a grin.
She stopped with one hand on the passenger’s door, perplexed until she caught sight of a Chevy pickup truck in the next parking space over.
“That’s our rental for the week. We’re staying at an estate that has ocean on one side and a lake just a mile back. Lots of great fishing, and it will be easier to transport poles and anything we catch in a truck.”
She nodded as she stood by and watched him load their bags into the second row of seats. “I stand corrected, then. Makes perfect sense to me. When in Maine…”
The ride to the estate was less than half an hour, but it seemed to go by even more quickly as she tried to mentally prepare herself for the role of a lifetime.
What if Gio’s Nana Ginger took one look at her and was like, “Who’s this little chippy? Gio usually likes ‘em a lot better looking than this one.”
Or, worse, what if she knew, instantly and the jig was up before they even started?
“It’s going to be fine. I actually think you could have some fun while you’re here if you let yourself,” Gio said as they pulled down a long, winding driveway.
Fun. Right. She’d get on that, just as soon as she managed to dislodge her heart from her throat.
But as he pulled up to a gorgeous, white house with a magnificent widow’s peak overlooking the navy blue waves of the Atlantic Ocean, she couldn’t suppress a little wriggle of anticipation.
When was the last time she’d taken a trip? If she didn’t count Ohio for a nursing seminar a few years back, it had been well over a decade. Back when Michael was still alive, and they’d gone on a five-day skiing trip to Colorado. It had been amazing.
She didn’t have the financial means to travel regularly, and to waste this rare opportunity being a nervous wreck was like spitting in the faces of all those people who never even got to leave their home towns.
She was here, and she was going to make the best of it, damn it.
Fishing, boating, stuffing her gullet with as much lobster as she could find and then strolling through the quaint little cottage shops they’d passed and buying homemade summer berry preserves and marmalades.
It was going to be a great week.
Gio pulled the truck up to the garage and shrugged. “Looks like we’re going to have to show ourselves in. The family were all running around doing errands for the wedding today, but said if they weren’t back, we’d find a key in the plant on the front porch.”
And what a porch it was. Blinding white and capped off with a forest green awning, it wrapped around the whole perimeter of the house. A swing for two graced the area to the right of the door and a pair of comfy looking rocking chairs sat to the right.
“This place is amazing. Will the wedding be here?”
He nodded as they climbed out to retrieve their bags.
“The grounds go back a good six acres and there is an amazing gazebo right by the water. Weather permitting, we’ll do it all out there. Worst case, they have a contingency plan for the great room, which is supposed to be massive. For now, it will just be friends and family staying here and in the oceanside cottages that sit on the eastern side of the property, but on Friday the staff and caterers will come.”
She couldn’t deny it. This was pretty much her dream location for a wedding. The trees swaying in the balmy breeze would be her church and the ocean would be the band, accompanying her down the aisle…
A swift and sudden stab of sadness shot through her chest and she blinked back the rush of tears. One more thing she’d miss if she ever did get married. No one left alive to even walk her down the aisle.
“Spoke too soon,” Gio said as she turned her gaze from the ocean in the distance and faced him. “Looks like the gang’s all here now after all. You ready?”
She blinked and wheeled around to see a gold Subaru pulling into the driveway behind them.
A woman who looked to be in her seventies sporting a peach bouffant stepped out of the driver’s side and slammed the door behind her.
“My baby boy!” she called with a cackle as she scurried, spry as a cat, toward them, arms wide open. “I’m so happy to see you!”
Nana Ginger.
Rose’s pulse pounded as she forced a smile to her lips. Time to get her shit together. It was game on.
As the woman yanked Gio into her arms, the passenger’s door went swinging open and a carbon copy of Ginger, only this one with silver hair, stepped out with a scowl.
“Your grandmother almost killed me, for shit’s sake. She doesn’t know how to use a goddamn blinker, so I’m lucky to be alive.”
And surely this must be Aunt Alice.
Rose was just about to wave and introduce herself when Gio broke away from Ginger and laced his fingers with hers.
“Nana, Aunt Alice, this is my girlfriend, Rose. Rose, these are two of my favorite women in the world.”
She wanted to say something witty and winning, but as Gio’s thumb traced an absent pattern on the tender inside of her wrist, all she could do was stammer.
“Yes, umm, Rose. That’s me. That’s my name.”
Nana Ginger nodded encouragingly. “Well, that’s good he’s gotten it right then, isn’t it?”
God, why did he have to touch her?
She was still trying to figure out how to extricate herself from his warm, strong grip when Nana came in for the assist, shoving him out of the way and pulling Rose into a soft, pillowy embrace. As a cloud of grandmotherly, floral perfume filled her head, she returned the other woman’s embrace.
And then promptly burst into tears.
Chapter 7
The erotic dream Rose had clearly been having on the plane had hit him low and hard. So hard, his cock had been like a lead pipe for the past two hours straight.
But the tears?
Hit him even harder.
The three women were now seated at the kitchen island sipping tea as he leaned on the marble countertop a few feet away, wanting to punch the fucking wall. They still hadn’t gotten to the bottom of what had made Rose cry, and the feelings of protectiveness that had risen inside of him were ones he hadn’t experienced in years.
Fifteen of them, to be exact.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, sweetheart,” Nan
a Ginger was murmuring softly as she held Rose’s hand.
“I’m so embarrassed. Honestly, I don’t know what came over me. I’m just a little nervous meeting you all and I didn’t sleep well and then, you hugged me like a grandma does, and it was so nice…”
Rose sucked in a shuddering breath and he had to look away to stop himself from scooping her into his arms, carrying her off and making her forget all of her sadness.
“I don’t know if Gio mentioned, but I don’t have any family left. I was very young when my grandparents passed, and my parents and brother are all…gone. Some days I do really well with it all, and I can look at pictures and laugh and recall the good times. Other days it feels really fresh and it all hits me in a big wave. I just can’t believe how mortified I am that it happened the second I met you,” she said with a jittery, self-conscious laugh.
“I cry during those coffee commercials sometimes,” Aunt Alice chirped. “Heck, I even cry when something bad happens to one of the girls on my daytime stories,” she added with a cackle.
“She watches a lot of soap operas,” Nana Ginger said, rolling her eyes.
“And you watch all those ridiculous Real Housewives shows,” Aunt Alice shot back. “I think they ought to rename them. Nothing real on any of those housewives, if you ask me.”
The sisters continued to bicker, but Gio tuned them out as he studied Rose. Her tears had dried and she was watching his aunt and grandmother, a smile tugging at her plump lips.
She was positively charmed by them both, apparently. Anything to stop her from crying.
Isn’t that her man’s job, asshole? She doesn’t need you to protect her, that position is filled.
That little reminder had him gritting his teeth and he made his way over to the island.
“Now that we’re all feeling better, what’s the plan for today?”
Nana Ginger shot him a glance. “Michelle and Alec are tied up seeing to some wedding business for another couple of hours, and your mother and father won’t be here until tomorrow, so I think we should let Rose choose. She is our guest, after all.”
Rose’s cheeks flushed and she shook her head. “Oh, I don’t mind. Whatever you all want to do is fine with me. I’m just here as Gio’s plus one.”
“Hopefully, you’ll be Gio’s plus two soon enough, if you know what I mean,” Nana said, reaching out to pat Rose’s stomach.
He let out a groan and squeezed his eyes closed. “Jesus, Nana. She just got here. Can we not do this yet?”
But Rose just laughed. “We’ll have to see about that, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” Nana Ginger scoffed. “You’ll call me Nana like everyone else, or I’ll be very insulted. Might as well get used to it, after all.”
Rose bit her bottom lip and then tipped her head in agreement. “Okay, then. Nana it is. I wouldn’t want to cause offense.”
“Enough of all that chit-chat. I don’t know about you guys, but it’s five o’clock somewhere, and this old bird could use a drink,” Aunt Alice said, pushing her dainty tea cup away and standing. “What say we drive down the shore a ways and try that clam bake restaurant for happy hour and some food? Supposedly, they have live music in the afternoons on weekends.”
“Sounds good. Let me just put our bags away and I’ll meet you ladies out front,” Gio said.
“Better to just leave them at the bottom of the stairs,” Nana said with a dismissive wave. “The housekeeper is a bit of a drill sergeant and was insistent about putting everything away, pressing our wedding attire and the like.”
“All right then, let’s head out.”
Because Rose wouldn’t hear of taking the front seat and Nana wanted to sit next to Rose, he wound up sitting beside Aunt Alice, who spent the entire ride explaining the difference between the hammer toe she had on her left foot, and the bunion she had on her right. He feigned interest, but in truth, he was straining to hear the conversation going on in the back seat.
He only heard snippets, but it was clear that Nana Ginger was grilling Rose like a New York Strip steak, with a hard sear on both sides.
“Ooh, since high school then? So you’ve known each other for ages! Talk about taking it slow,” Nana was saying.
He missed their next exchange as Aunt Alice explained how Medicare worked and expressed her dislike of her podiatrist due to his cold hands, but the second there was a lull, he tuned back in to the conversation behind him.
“So why did you two break up in high school, anyway?” Nana asked.
She never was one to pull punches, and for once, he appreciated the shit out of her forward question. He waited, pulse thrumming, for Rose’s answer.
“You know what, Nana Ginger? Gio and I were diff—”
“Aside from the foot issues, though. I’m healthy as a horse. In fact, my regular doctor said he’s amazed that I don’t have to take daily medicines or pills at my age. Except of course, the stool softener…”
Fucking hell.
“And that’s the whole story, in a nutshell,” Rose was saying.
Too late. If he wanted to hear whether the story she’d told Nana Ginger was the same story she’d told him, he was going to have to either ask his grandmother, which would definitely arouse suspicion, or ask Rose herself.
Did he really need her thinking he’d spent all these years worrying about something that had clearly been no more than a high school fling to her, though?
He sure as shit didn’t.
It was ancient history, and the sooner he let it go once and for all, the better. Especially since there wasn’t shit he could do about it anyway. She was taken.
His mind instantly shot back to the plane ride when he’d awoken from a power nap to the sound of her breathy moans. Was there even a shred of hope she was thinking of him and the explosive times they’d had together?
Unlikely. She was probably dreaming of the asshole she’d been pulling the whole Lady and the Tramp routine with back at her house.
And around he went again, from horny as fuck to furious in one, fell swoop.
It was going to be a long fucking week.
“It’s this right, Gio,” Nana called from the backseat.
He pulled into the parking lot of Captain Tucker’s Lawbstah Shack, and turned off the ignition. He went around the front of the car and helped his Aunt Alice out as Rose did the same for his grandmother.
He couldn’t help but note that they lagged behind a little, talking in hushed tones as he and Aunt Alice led the way into the quaint little restaurant.
They were seated at a table in the bar facing the ocean. Rose went to take the seat across from him but Nana wasn’t having it.
“Are you crazy? You two lovebirds need to sit next to each other!”
As they ordered their drinks from the waitress, he tried to catch Rose’s eye and gauge how she was holding up under Nana’s hard court press. He laid a hand on her knee and squeezed to get her attention.
Her head whipped around and they locked gazes. What he saw there made him stiffen everywhere.
Heat. Unquestionable, sizzling heat. And there was no dream to blame. No boyfriend in sight. It was just him and her.
Rose’s delicate throat worked as she pulled her leg from his grasp and reached for her water glass.
“Neat! Looks like the band is about to start playing,” Aunt Alice said, gesturing to the four guys sidling up to the abandoned instruments in the corner of the room.
Rose was still looking a little shell-shocked as their server returned with their cocktails. His Nana lifted her Manhattan high in the air and toasted.
“To Michelle and Alec!”
They all clinked glasses and took a sip of their beverages, except for Nana, who continued on, “And may Gio and Rose be inspired by the nuptials this week and get hitched themselves, hopefully before I’m dead. Cheers!”
Rose choked on her mojito and Aunt Alice leaned in to slap her hard on the back.
“You alright there, girlie?”
“
Yes,” Rose rasped, eyes watering. “All good. Just a little mint went down the wrong pipe, is all.”
He’d told her it was going to be a trying week, but even he hadn’t anticipated old Nana pushing this hard, this early on. She had to be feeling overwhelmed.
“I think we should order the family-style clam bake for four with extra lobster, what do you think?” Nana asked, oblivious to the havoc she was wreaking as the band began to play a mid-tempo reggae number.
“Sounds perfect,” he replied, pushing his chair back and taking Rose’s hand. “We’re going to christen this dance floor while you order for us, all right?”
Nana and Aunt Alice both beamed and clapped their hands together in delight, the first time they’d agreed all day.
“You youngsters go right ahead, we’ll hold down the fort until you get back.”
After Gio led her onto the dance floor, Rose looped her arms around his neck and he laid his hands on the gentle swell of her hips. She smelled so damn good, almost as good as she looked, and he tried to soak it all in. She was stiff at first in his arms, but slowly began to relax.
They danced for a while before he leaned down and murmured into her ear. “How you holding up?”
“I…um, I’m okay, I guess. It’s been interesting, that’s for sure,” she muttered as she took a step back, a smile pasted on her lips. “Are they watching us?”
“They were,” he acknowledged with a laugh. “But now the waitress is there so they’re preoccupied.”
“Thank God. This is ten times harder than I thought it would be. Your Nana is so great, but she’s like a dog with a bone. Do you know, when we were walking in this place, she told me she was glad I wasn’t scrawny like the girls you usually date? She called me sturdy, and said that was a good thing, because the Esposito men make big babies!”
He had to bite back a chuckle because, damn, did his grandmother have a way with words. “Once all the wedding stuff starts, she’ll be preoccupied. I’m pretty sure you’ve survived the worst of it.”
She let out a sigh of relief and slumped into him. He caught another whiff of her shampoo and again, his sadly neglected cock bucked beneath his zipper.
