Can't Help Loving You

by Nika Rhone

  Eventually, talk branched out to other things, and as the evening wore on, Rafe saw the difference in Lillian. It was subtle at first, the faintest lessening of the tension that had kept her body strung so tight the past few days. But as she talked and joked with her friends, he saw the impish sense of humor rising again, and breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever happened, it hadn’t been bad enough to break her. It had dented her a bit, for sure, but his little pixie was one tough cookie.

  By the time his mother came around to visit, the platters had been all but licked clean. She nodded with approval. “¡Que bueno! Just what I like to see. There is no greater praise than an empty plate.”

  “The food was amazing, Señora Delgado,” Lillian said.

  “Yes, it was.” Thea shook her head as she surveyed the carnage on the table. “But I still can’t believe we ate all that!”

  Des rattled off a compliment to Rafe’s mother in flawless Spanish, ending with a Continental flair by kissing his closed fingertips and throwing them open in the universal gesture of approval. Rafe narrowed his eyes. The man was full of surprises, and Rafe didn’t like that. He got to his feet while his mother thanked Des and bussed her cheek. She smelled the same as she had all his life, like spices and home.

  “Outstanding, as always.”

  She harrumphed even as she patted his arm. “If you liked my cooking so much, you’d visit more often.”

  Rafe groaned. “Mamá…”

  “And you would bring this woman you seem so very fond of,” she continued, switching to Spanish. “What kind of son doesn’t bring his woman home to meet his mother?”

  “The kind who isn’t ready to yet,” Rafe replied in the same language, shooting an annoyed look at Des, who was shamelessly eavesdropping. He lowered his voice. “I’ll come by the house on Sunday. I promise.”

  “You’ll come for church.”

  He wanted to argue, but decided to pick his battles. “Fine.”

  “And you’ll bring your woman so I can talk to her.”

  What a terrifying thought. “We’ll see.”

  “Rafael…”

  “We’ll see, mamá.”

  She harrumphed again, but she too, knew how to pick her battles. “Fine. We will talk about it then, si, mijo?” She patted his cheek. Switching back to English, she said to everyone, “Coffee and dessert will be right out. It was a pleasure to meet you all. I hope you come back again. Friends of my son are always welcome.”

  A low groan escaped Thea after Rafe’s mother was out of earshot. “Dessert? Seriously?” She offered Rafe an apologetic look as she pressed a hand to her belly. “I don’t want to diss your mother, but I’m already close to popping like a balloon.”

  “Seconded,” Lillian said, flopping back against the seat. “I’m sure it’ll be delish, but I don’t think I can eat another bite. Not if I ever want to move again.”

  Rafe’s first mistake was looking at Lillian.

  The second was not looking away when he saw the low burn of arousal in her eyes that seemed to always be there, simmering in the background, whenever they were near each other.

  The third was not remembering what a nosy pain in the ass her friend Des had proven himself to be.

  “Well, here’s a thought, kittens. The night is still young, so why don’t we take our no doubt divine desserts to go, and head over to my place for some coffee and klatching while we wait for dinner to settle?” Des smiled at the disgruntled scowl Rafe gave him. “We wouldn’t want to let the evening end too soon, would we?”

  It took a few seconds for the underlying meaning of his words to sink past Rafe’s annoyance. Right. The reason he’d set up this little get-together in the first place. Lillian was much more relaxed now, but he still hadn’t discovered what was wrong. Until he did, he couldn’t fix it.

  Which was why he found himself driving to Des’s duplex for coffee he didn’t want, instead of heading home for another round of hot sex with the woman he did. Later, he promised himself. If she was still talking to him.

  “Thank you for tonight.”

  Rafe glanced at where Lillian was curled up on the other end of the truck’s bench seat. He could only see her face in short bursts as they passed each streetlight, but she seemed sleepy and content, like a well-fed kitten. He scowled, not liking that he used the same pet name as Des. “You’re welcome.”

  “And thank you for agreeing to go to Des’s. I know you really didn’t want to.”

  “He’s…”

  Lillian laughed when he couldn’t come up with a single nice thing to say. “I know, he’s a troublemaker and a bitch, but only in the best way. He’d do anything for the people he loves. Just like you. What?” she asked when he gave her a sharp look. “You think I couldn’t figure out you weren’t telling us the whole story about why you became a cop?”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “I never said you did. I just think there’s something more to it, that’s all.”

  It would have been so easy to brush off her too-keen observation. But since he was planning on prying a few secrets out of her tonight, it wouldn’t hurt to give her a little quid pro quo.

  “My father was robbed by some punk. That was no lie. But it wasn’t as…bloodless as I made it sound. He wasn’t shot,” Rafe said when she made a sound of distress, “but the bastard pistol whipped him when he saw how little money my father was carrying. The restaurant was barely turning a profit then, and there wasn’t a whole lot going to the bank every night.”

  “Oh, my God. How bad was he hurt?”

  “Bad enough.” A concussion, twenty stitches, and a broken nose that to this day still had a slight bend to it as a permanent reminder of that hellish night. He remembered lying in bed after his parents had come home from the hospital, unable to sleep, chilled and sweating at the same time. Knowing that one different choice, one pull of the trigger, and he and his siblings would have been left to finish growing up without a father.

  It was the first time in his life he’d ever been truly terrified.

  The second was waking up in a hospital bed not knowing if he was ever going to walk again.

  “My mother was so afraid after that. And my sisters. Every little thing made them jump. So, my brothers and I, we all decided we’d make sure they were safe. We weren’t letting anyone hurt our family again.” He grinned, remembering the very solemn oath taken by a bunch of boys that couldn’t have put a whisker together between the four of them.

  “We walked our sisters to and from school, escorted our mother to the market, and made a general nuisance of ourselves for the next few months. After a while, though, things got back to normal for everyone. The memory of that night was buried under life moving forward, and then just kind of forgotten.”

  “But not by you.”

  Perceptive pixie.

  “No, not by me. I decided I liked making sure my family was safe from all of the bad in the world. It made me feel like I was, I dunno, doing something worthwhile. Important.” He shrugged. “I still helped out at the restaurant like always, but I started thinking maybe there was something else I was meant to do.”

  Something he’d done very well for the past six years.

  Something he very much hoped he’d be allowed to continue doing, once all of the doctors got together and compared their notes at his review board.

  Parking his truck along the curb not far from the duplex Lillian pointed out as Des’s, Rafe was stopped from opening his door when her hand touched his arm. They were on the outer fringes of the nearest streetlamp’s halo of light, but he could see her face clearly enough to know her eyes were a little swimmy with tears.

  She leaned closer and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re a very good man, Rafael Delgado.”

  Stroking her face with his fingertips, he kissed her back, knowing her good opinion was about to be severely tested. “Do me a favor and hold that thought.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rafael Delgado was a rat bastard.

&
nbsp; It wasn’t until she was on her second cup of very excellent French press that Lillian came to that conclusion. It took that long to figure out what the jerk was really up to. Nice dinner with her friends her butt! This was an intervention. A very subtle one, no doubt arranged with the best of intentions, but it still had all the undertones of a sneak attack.

  It felt like betrayal.

  Not a fair assessment, of course. Rafe didn’t know the secret he hoped her friends would be able to pry out of her was linked to the one thing she’d confided to him in total confidence. But she wasn’t feeling fair. In fact, she felt like being a total bitch and giving him a real piece of her mind. And then going home to burrow under the covers to hide until she had to drag herself out for tomorrow night’s showing.

  One thing kept her from doing any of those things: the story he told her in the car.

  Rafe wasn’t being a jerk on purpose. He just couldn’t help himself. He was a protector. It was something apparently hardwired into his DNA, the same way it was in Thea’s husband. They seemed to think that if there was something wrong, it was up to them to fix it, whether they’d been asked to or not.

  Endearing in theory. Annoying as hell in practice.

  She didn’t need anybody to fix her problems. She was a big girl. Smart. Capable. A freaking warrior goddess. So what if she’d just been thinking about hiding under the covers and wallowing in disappointment and self-pity for the next twelve hours? Even warrior goddesses got to sulk once in a while, didn’t they?

  “Earth to Lil.”

  It took a second to realize from the exasperated look Thea was giving her she must have been zoned out of the conversation. Oops.

  “Sorry. I was thinking about something.”

  “Anything you’d care to share?” Thea asked.

  The worried, expectant look on her friends’ faces had her biting back the snotty retort that rose to her lips. She took a sip of coffee to buy a few seconds to think. Would it really hurt to tell them at this point? It would mean sharing her ultimate humiliation, but then, these were the people she’d spilled her guts to about The Incident. Who else could she talk to if not them?

  “Okay, fine.” She set her cup down on the glass coffee table in front of the plush couch with a click. Sitting on the edge of the cushion, her leg bounced a crazy beat, all of the rioting emotions of the past few days rushing up and swamping her with nervous energy. “You all know about my painting. Well, I’m…I’m trying to get Felix to give me my own show.”

  “Well, that’s fantabulous, kitten! You deserve one.”

  Thea was more reserved. “I thought he had strict rules against doing favors for pretty much anyone in the universe?”

  “He does. Which is why I had to beg for the chance to prove I rated one on merit alone.” She explained about the deal she’d struck about the painting in the window.

  “Sounds pretty convoluted to me,” Thea said, her lips pinched into a half-scowl.

  “More than a little,” Lillian agreed. “But that’s Felix. He’s always marched to the tune of his own drummer.”

  “A polite way of saying the man is a wackadoodle.”

  There was a fair amount of truth to Thea’s assessment. But Lillian was used to dealing with eccentric behavior, so it never bothered her all that much. Artists could be a rather mercurial bunch. Herself included.

  They also tended to bruise rather easily.

  “Have I seen this painting?” Des asked.

  Lillian shook her head. “No, it’s new.” She’d been afraid to show it to anyone before she brought it to the gallery, worried they might not like it as much as she did. Worried they might call her out for being a fraud.

  In hindsight, that might have been better than waiting for some random art critic to do it with such casual cruelty instead.

  “Here.”

  Lillian was shocked to see an image of Lady Dreaming on Rafe’s phone as he passed it over the coffee table to Des. She shot him a questioning look. “Where did that come from?”

  “I took it through the window while I was waiting to pick you up the other night.” He hesitated. “I hope that’s okay.”

  Okay? That he liked her painting so much he bothered to take a picture of it? A nugget of warmth flared in her chest. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “This is a beautiful piece,” Des said, passing the phone into Thea’s outstretched hand. “If the rest of what you’ve been creating lately is anywhere near as good, your debut is going to be a smash.”

  “Oh, Lil.” There was awe in Thea’s voice. “This is…wow. Amazing. I love it!”

  Stupid tears pricked at the corners of Lillian’s eyes as Thea handed Rafe his phone back. God, she loved her friends. But that was the problem. They were her friends. Not an unbiased opinion in the bunch.

  “It is amazing,” Rafe said, staring at the screen again before shoving the phone back in his pocket. “You should see how many people stop and look at it.” To Lillian he added, “You might not see it from inside the gallery, but trust me, when I’m sitting out there waiting for you, dozens of people slow down or come to a dead stop to take a better look. A couple of people even turned around and came back.”

  “Yeah, well, what does that prove? A picture of a two-headed cow would get the same reaction,” Lillian muttered before wincing. “Okay, even I know that was snotty.” She dared a look at Rafe. “Sorry.”

  Rafe reached over and took her hand, lacing their fingers together. “Is that what’s been going on with you? Did your boss say you wouldn’t get to show your work?”

  “No, not yet. But as soon as he sees that review—” She groaned and collapsed back against the cushions. “I’m so screwed.”

  “What review?” Rafe asked.

  “There was this guy who came in. A critic.” In the worst sense of the word. “Let’s just say he would have liked a picture of a two-headed cow better than he did Lady Dreaming.”

  “Then he’s not only blind, he’s an idiot,” Thea said.

  She appreciated her friend’s steadfast support, but it would have meant more if Lillian didn’t know Thea would have said the same thing no matter how good or bad the painting was.

  “Critics can leave a nasty sting when they want to,” Des said. Lillian knew he had firsthand knowledge of that fact.

  “Oh, he wanted to, all right.” The man seemed almost giddy while delivering his scathing opinion. Bastard.

  “Who was it?”

  “Um…” Lillian frowned. Had he ever even introduced himself? The whole conversation was a blur of painful badness in her head. “I don’t remember his name, but he said he reviewed for Art Regard.”

  “Hmm.” Des got up and disappeared down the hallway to the bedrooms, one of which served as his home office-slash-design studio.

  “So what if this guy didn’t like the painting?” Thea asked. “Is one person’s opinion really such a big deal?”

  “It is when he uses it to trash not just my work—which, of course, he didn’t know it was—but the gallery as a whole.”

  “He didn’t like anything he saw?” Rafe asked.

  “He didn’t even bother to look at anything else. He felt the quality of what we chose to put in the window would be indicative of everything we had on display.” Which was the part that made her squirm the most. She’d convinced Felix to let her put Dreaming in the window. Now that decision would cause a direct hit to the gallery’s reputation. Any negative fallout was entirely on her.

  Rafe made a noise indicating disgust. “Then Thea’s right, the guy is an idiot. I may not be a professional, but I know what I like, and I know your painting is really, really amazing, no matter what this di—dummy says.” He squeezed her hand. “And remember, I told you that before I knew you were the one who painted it.”

  That’s right. He had.

  Lillian brightened before deflating again. “It doesn’t matter. Once this guy’s review comes out, Felix will not only yank my
painting out of the window and refuse to ever give me my own show, I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t fire me.”

  “He wouldn’t do that, would he?” Rafe asked.

  He definitely would.

  Des returned to the living room, brandishing his tablet as he settled back onto the couch. “Found it.”

  Lillian felt her stomach try to exit her body through her toes. “It’s posted online already?” She’d hoped to at least make it through tomorrow’s showing before having to deal with Felix’s wrath.

  “Afraid so, kitten.”

  “May I?” Thea reached for the tablet as Lillian groaned.

  “How bad was it?” Rafe asked Des.

  “Awful.”

  Lillian groaned again, wanting to sink through the couch. “I told you.”

  “No, love, I meant the review was awful,” Des said. “As in awful writing, awful syntax, awful thought structure. The whole thing is one long meandering hatchet job.”

  Wonderful.

  “This guy is a moron,” Thea said, shaking her head as she passed the tablet to Lillian.

  She didn’t want to, but Lillian skimmed through the review, wincing as the worst of the damning descriptive phrases all but jumped off the screen at her. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what he said in the gallery.” She tried to pass the tablet back to Des, but Rafe intercepted it and tugged it out of her grasp. As much as she hated it when Des and Thea read the scathing review, it was ten times worse as she waited for Rafe to finish.

  When he was, he shook his head. “I don’t know what these things usually sound like, but that seemed more like a personal attack than an honest review.”

  “It did, didn’t it?” Des gestured toward the tablet. “Anything else strike you as strange?”

  She didn’t want to, but Lillian found herself leaning closer to Rafe to look at the screen with him. “Like what?”

  “Check out one of the other reviews.”

  Rafe shook his head, still staring at the screen. “What other reviews?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t get it,” Thea said. “This is his only review for them?”