Changes (The Magic Jukebox Book 1)

by Judith Arnold

  Mrs. Fiore must have noticed Diana’s gaze. “You’re not allergic, are you? Some people are, I know. But Missy is skittish. She’ll hide in the basement until you leave. She’s scared of most people.”

  “No allergies,” Diana said, wondering if Missy, like her mistress, had ever been abused. Mrs. Fiore didn’t seem at all skittish. Indeed, she seemed starved for company. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Diana asked, nodding toward the simmering saucepan on the stove, the pot of boiling pasta beside it, the Pyrex baking tray and the bowl of ricotta cheese.

  “Just sit. Please. You’re a guest.” Mrs. Fiore pushed up the sleeves of her knit cardigan and gave the sauce a stir.

  Diana took a seat at the square table pressed up against the wall, which featured patterned wallpaper in a cheerful yellow shade. The café curtains at the window above the sink were the same sunshine yellow, and the table was covered with a yellow and white checked cloth. “Nick uses tomato sauce out of a jar,” she said.

  “I’ve tried to teach him how to make real gravy,” his mother said with a laugh. “He doesn’t want to learn. But that’s okay. I keep thinking, if he wants pasta with real gravy, I’ll make it for him. He’ll come here to eat.” Diana was touched by the poignant undertone of her words. She was obviously eager to lure her son home for visits. “I don’t cook like this all the time,” she went on. “I work, you know. Customer service at the Wal-Mart down on Route One. It’s not much, but I didn’t go to college like you young people. And I never worked while Nicky was growing up. I wanted to be here with a snack for him when he got home from school. But now…” She shrugged and overturned the large pot into a colander in the sink, draining the hot water from the wide, ridged strips of pasta. “I’ve got to earn my keep, right? They’re good to me at Wal-Mart. It’s a nice job. Nicky said something about you work in antiques?”

  So Nick had told his mother about her. Diana was enormously pleased. “That’s right.”

  “This whole house is full of antiques,” Mrs. Fiore said. “Not that any of them are worth anything. Just old stuff. When you can’t afford new, you call the old ‘antiques’ and it sounds a lot better.”

  Diana dutifully chuckled.

  Nick’s mother was quite pleasant. Of course she would be—she’d raised a wonderful son. Yet this same woman, so friendly and full of chatter, had betrayed that son in the worst possible way. When he’d defended her, when he’d protected her, when he’d stood before a judge, fighting for his future, his mother had forsaken him.

  Mrs. Fiore prattled as she layered the lasagna into the pan, and Diana added an appropriate comment whenever the woman paused for a breath. Once the lasagna was constructed, Mrs. Fiore popped it into the oven. Within minutes the small kitchen steamed with mouth-watering aromas of tomato sauce, oregano, and garlic.

  By the time Nick joined them in the kitchen, the lasagna was done baking, a salad had been tossed, and Mrs. Fiore had told Diana about a pregnant young associate she worked with at Wal-Mart, the tulip and daffodil bulbs she’d planted—“I was hoping they’d sprout by now, but I guess it’s still a little early”—and her recent trip to a casino, where she actually came home fifty dollars ahead. “Those slot machines are rigged to make you lose, you know? But I got lucky. I got lemons, I got cherries. I love fruit, especially when I get three across on the screen.”

  Nick removed his leather jacket and rolled up his sleeves, and Diana stifled a lustful sigh at the sight of his lean, sinewy forearms as he washed his hands at the sink. He dried them on a paper towel, which he scrunched into a wad and lofted into the trash can near the cat’s dishes. His gaze intersected with Diana’s, and he arched an eyebrow. She gave him a discreet nod, signaling him that her conversation with his mother had gone well.

  “So, sit.” Mrs. Fiore pointed to one of the empty chairs at the table. “The lasagna is done. What do you want to drink? I’ve got a nice red vino, soda, iced-tea…”

  “Just water, thank you,” Diana said, then informed Nick, “Your mother wouldn’t let me help at all. She did all the cooking.” She wasn’t sure if she was telling him this to improve his opinion of his mother or to justify her own lack of contribution to the meal.

  He didn’t respond, just pulled two tumblers from a high cabinet and filled them with water.

  “Do you like it?” his mother asked, once they were all seated and digging into their food.

  “It’s delicious.” Diana wasn’t used to eating such a heavy meal for lunch. But the lasagna was marvelous. She’d eaten lasagna at countless restaurants in the North End, Boston’s “Little Italy” neighborhood, and Mrs. Fiore’s lasagna could easily hold its own with what those restaurants served.

  “Nicky, you like it?”

  “It’s fine,” he said tersely.

  “I made the gravy with extra basil. I know how you love basil.”

  “It’s good.”

  “The pasta, it’s not too soft? I know you like it al dente—”

  “Mom.” He lowered his fork and stared at her. “You don’t have to knock yourself out for me, okay?”

  His tone, quiet but firm, pierced Diana’s brain like a laser. Suddenly she understood Mrs. Fiore, her ingratiating personality, her need to talk, to entertain, to please. How many times, Diana wondered, had the woman’s lasagna failed to satisfy her husband? How many times had he slapped her or punched her because of that failure?

  Mrs. Fiore appeared flustered, as if Nick’s quiet reproach was itself evidence that she had failed. Her face went pale and she lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry, Nicky.”

  “No need to apologize.”

  “Of course there is. There always is.”

  They were no longer discussing the lasagna. Nick stared at his mother again, and she stared at her plate, her fork resting against the edge, her hands folded in her lap. The tension in the room was thicker than the tangy fragrance of the food.

  Diana pushed her chair back, realizing that they had wandered into personal territory, into their wounded past. “Perhaps I should excuse myself,” she murmured to Nick.

  He pressed his hand to her wrist, holding her in her seat. “No, stay. You want me to change? I’m doing my best, but…I need you by my side for this.”

  Diana’s breath caught in her throat. She knew she loved Nick, although he’d never uttered the word love. Yet asking her to remain with him as he wrestled his demons to the ground was as just as significant.

  His statement seemed to startle his mother, too. She lifted her gaze to Nick and then Diana. Then Nick again.

  “I’m trying to forgive you, Mom.” The words emerged in a dark rumble, his voice gruff as he struggled to express himself. “I don’t know why you did what you did. I don’t know why you sold me out that way. But I’ve been angry for too long. I don’t want to be angry anymore.”

  Tears filled his mother’s eyes. “Nicky. I never meant to sell you out. As God is my witness, that was never what I wanted.”

  “It’s what happened.”

  “I know it looks that way to you. But Nicky…” His mother emitted a sob, and she wiped her cheeks with her napkin. “He scared me so much, Nicky. He healed, and he got out of the hospital, and he threatened me.”

  “He was always threatening you.”

  “This was after, though. You were in that foster home, out on bail, awaiting trial. Your father got out of the hospital and he came here, and he held a knife to my throat and told me that if I told anyone he hit me, he’d come back and kill me. And he would have, Nicky. I was sure of it.”

  “So you figured your life was more important than mine?”

  “I would have died for you if I had to,” his mother said, her voice wobbling as more sobs undermined it. “But I knew I wouldn’t have to. You would be okay. You were strong. He couldn’t hurt you.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “You stood up to him, Nicky. You beat him. You took him down. He was as scared of you as I was of him. I knew you were safe.”

  �
��Safe? I was convicted of a crime!”

  “But you escaped from this house. You freed yourself from this family. You had that wonderful cop looking after you. Officer Nolan. And me… If I went into court and said your father had beaten me, I’d be dead. If I didn’t say anything, he would leave and I wouldn’t have to get beaten by him anymore. I didn’t want to die, Nicky. I was scared, I was a coward, but I didn’t want to die.”

  She broke down, freely weeping. Diana watched as Nick rose, circled the table and pulled his mother to her feet. He wrapped her in a hug—a tentative, awkward embrace, but a protective one. A forgiving one. “All right,” he said.

  “I’m a terrible mother,” she murmured into his chest. “You had a terrible father. And you turned into such a good man, Nicky. Maybe it was best that we set you free.”

  A dry laugh escaped him. “I was hardly free. I was in the criminal justice system. In detention.”

  “Free from us. Free from all the hate and fear in this house. I’m so sorry, Nicky, so sorry.”

  “All right,” he said again. “It’s done. It can’t be changed. Time to move on.”

  They held each other for a long while. Diana felt like a trespasser on the scene, witnessing such a private moment—until, over his mother’s head, Nick directed his gaze back to her. He looked resigned, and relieved. Younger. His eyes glistened, not with tears but with an inner light she’d never seen before. The light of forgiveness. The light of letting go.

  Yes, he had changed.

  And she loved him even more.

  ***

  Chapter Sixteen

  He felt…changed. Liberated and free, as if a two-ton weight had been lifted off his back.

  He had always enjoyed his mother’s lasagna, but today it had tasted better, the sauce rich and fresh, the pasta al dente, just the way he liked it. In the past, his mother’s fussing to cook her pasta to his specific taste had irritated him. He’d felt that she was overly anxious to please him the way she’d been with his father. “I’m not your husband,” he’d wanted to shout. “I’m not that sonofabitch. Not all men are like that.”

  Yet he’d come close to killing his father. For years he’d feared he was like that. If not for Ed Nolan scraping him off the floor and reshaping him into a functioning human being, a student, a responsible adult who could, if not make things right, at least make things a little less wrong, Nick might have turned into a sonofabitch, too.

  That he hadn’t was a triumph in itself. That he could forgive his mother—that he did forgive her—was more than a triumph. It was a rebirth.

  When he and Diana took their leave after lunch, Diana paused halfway down the front walk and turned to inspect his mother’s house. “It looks good,” she said, pointing to the shutter he’d rehung.

  “It was a simple fix.”

  “Simple if you’re six feet tall and know how to use a hammer,” she said. “There’s no way your mother could have done that. She’s so small.”

  “There’s this thing called a ladder,” he joked. “Even I needed a ladder to hammer in the nails on top.”

  “Okay, so you have to know how to use a hammer and a ladder,” Diana joked back.

  He slung his arm around her shoulders as they admired his simple handiwork. Her body nestled within the curve of his arm as snugly as two puzzle pieces locking together. Had the song compelled him to change? Or Diana?

  It didn’t matter. He would never love that song. But damn it, he loved her.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what? Acknowledging that you know how to use a hammer and a ladder?”

  He smiled and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Her hair felt like warm silk against his lips. “For making a new man out of me.”

  She turned to face him. “Are you a new man?”

  He closed his other arm around her and took her mouth with his. She tasted spicy from the lasagna, but sweet as well, her own special sweetness. Yes, he loved her. Loved her and wanted her. If they weren’t standing on his mother’s front walk, in full view of her nosy neighbors, he’d let this kiss progress from R-rated to X-rated.

  But there were the nosy neighbors, and not even a wall to lean against, let alone a bed to lie down on. Before he made a fool of himself, he eased back, nuzzled her forehead with a final kiss and said, “Here’s an idea. Check out of the OB and move in with me.”

  She blinked, apparently startled by what he’d said. He was startled, too. He’d known his share of women over the years, but he’d never invited one to move in with him. He’d never met a woman he’d wanted to live with. Not until now.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.” Gazing down into her suddenly solemn face, he realized he’d never been more serious about anything in his life. “I know, you’ve got your place in Boston, and your job. And I’m here in Brogan’s Point.”

  “And we’ve known each other only a week.”

  “Yeah. That, too.”

  She peered up at him, her eyes shimmering, her brow flexing as she sifted through her thoughts. Finally, she spoke. “I guess you’d better drive me to the inn so I can check out.”

  He couldn’t expect more from her than that. Hell, if he could, he’d go ahead and ask her to marry him. Not that he could give her a monstrously huge diamond, or her parents’ blessings, or the life she would have had with her rich ex-fiancé. Not that he could expect her even to want to get married so soon after she’d ended an engagement that had been based on a relationship of many years’ standing.

  But he wanted it. He wanted her. He wanted the woman who had changed him, and in the process healed him.

  For now, he would take what she offered. He would help her move out of the Ocean Bluff Inn, bring her back to his house, dive onto his bed, and spend the next several hours there with her. Naked.

  He opened the passenger door of his car for her, then climbed in behind the wheel. They didn’t talk during the drive through town, along the waterfront and north to the inn’s winding driveway. But even without words, he communicated with her, his right hand folded around her left, his fingers imparting their heat to her, his need, his love.

  He had barely pulled into a parking space and shut off the engine before she was bounding out of the car. Was she as eager as he was to get her stuff, sign her bill and race to his house for some naked-on-the-bed time? It looked that way. Her eyes were bright, her face slightly flushed. Once again her skin made him think of peaches. Honey hair, peach skin… Damn but she made him hungry.

  She met him at the rear bumper and laced her fingers through his. Together they strolled up the walk to the veranda—and froze when a tall, well-groomed man rose from one of the Adirondack chairs and started toward them.

  “Peter?” Diana said. “What are you doing here?”

  Nick noted that she didn’t slip her hand from his. He also noted that Peter, the ex-fiancé, was staring at their clasped hands—staring and scowling. He remained on the veranda as they approached, his posture regal, his expression supercilious, as if he believed it was only right that they should come to him, not the other way, and that he should be standing above them.

  Not for long. Refusing to retreat, Nick proceeded up the steps until he was eye-to-eye with the guy.

  Peter met Nick’s gaze for a long second, then turned to Diana. “I’ve come to take you home,” he said. “Get your things. Let’s go.”

  “What are you talking about?” She sounded a touch exasperated but not terribly concerned.

  “This has gone on long enough. I gave you a few days to get your head on straight.” He looked pointedly at her hand in Nick’s and shook his head. “Evidently, you haven’t accomplished that yet. But I’m tired of waiting. You wanted a brief vacation from our engagement, so fine. Your last little…whatever. I won’t dignify it by calling it a fling.” That bit of nastiness, Nick suspected, was directed at him, not at Diana. “Now it’s time to get back to reality.”

  “Peter.” Diana eased her hand from Nick
’s, and he felt the loss of contact like a small death. But she needed both hands to clasp Peter’s upper arms in a reassuring hug. “You’re the one who needs to face reality,” she said gently. “I broke up with you. I ended our engagement. It’s over.”

  “It’s not over. You’re just—I don’t know, experiencing a brief psychotic episode. We’re getting married. Everyone wants this.”

  “I don’t want it.” She still sounded gentle, like a mother comforting a toddler whose balloon had blown away. “I don’t want to marry you, Peter. I don’t want to go wherever you have in mind to take me. I don’t want you to decide what my home is. I’m in Brogan’s Point right now. It’s where I want to be.”

  “With him?” Peter shot Nick a lethal look.

  “Yes. With him.”

  “You’re going to stay here? In this seedy little nothing town?”

  “I don’t know where I’m going to stay,” she said. “I don’t have my whole life mapped out anymore. And I like that. Please…I’m sorry you drove all the way here—”

  “What about your apartment in Boston?”

  “It’s still there. I’ve got five months left on my lease. I’ll figure things out.”

  “No need to. Everything’s already figured out. You’re coming with me.” And with that, he flung her hands off his arms and snagged one of them in a tight grip. “We’re going to go inside, get your things, and drive back to Boston. I’ll send someone to pick up your car. It’s time for you to quit this craziness.”

  “Stop it, Peter.” She no longer sounded slightly exasperated. She sounded downright furious. “I’m not crazy.”

  “You dragged me to that sleazy bar, you swooned over that stupid jukebox, and you’ve been deranged ever since. Who is this guy, some local stud? What the hell has gotten into you, Diana?”

  “I’ve changed,” she said. “I’ve changed.” She tugged her arm, unable to free herself. “Let go of me.”

  “Let go of her,” Nick echoed. He didn’t like the way the guy was holding Diana, his grip so tight, so possessive.