by SUE FINEMAN
Nick caught a glimpse of a man darting from bush to bush, making his way toward the boat. “Here he comes.” He shoved Cara into the head with the gun so she could defend herself if necessary. Nick grabbed the gaff and ducked behind the cabinets in the galley and waited.
Lance opened the door and stepped inside the cabin. As he crept closer to the galley, past the head, Nick knew he’d have only one chance to disarm him. The door to the head opened slightly behind Lance and Nick prayed Cara would stay there, where she couldn’t get hurt.
A siren sounded on the beach road and, as Lance glanced toward the window, Nick grabbed his chance. Gripping the gaff, he stepped out and hit Lance in the arm that held the gun, and then in the crotch. He hit him hard there, then yanked the gaff back, sinking the hook into the bastard’s gonads from behind. Lance dropped the little gun and hollered, grabbing his crotch and the gaff, screaming and swearing in pain.
“That one’s for Gwen Billings,” said Nick. He yanked the gaff again, and blood darkened Lance’s pants. “And that one’s for me.”
Cara opened the door to the head, whamming it into the back of Lance’s head. “And that’s for me.”
A stream of profanity poured from Lance’s mouth as blood pooled on the floor around his feet, but he didn’t let go of the gaff. He held it so tightly, his fingers turned white.
Several sirens blared on the beach road above them, a symphony of help on the way. Sirens had never sounded so good.
Lance sank to his knees, screaming and crying in pain. “I’ll kill you for this,” he screamed at Nick, and he grabbed the gun from the floor. Nick froze. Still holding the gaff with one hand, Lance took aim with the other.
Cara screamed, “No,” and kicked Lance as Nick jerked the gaff again. Lance pulled the trigger, but his shot went wild and the bullet went through the window behind Nick’s head. Footsteps pounded down the dock and, as Lance took aim again, so did Cara.
A single shot rang out, but it came from outside the door. The officer’s shot hit the mark. Lance slumped to the floor and Cara went white.
Nick stepped over Lance and grabbed her. He put the gun on the table and pulled her out to the deck, where her color gradually returned. Shielding her from the gruesome view of Lance’s bloody body, he glanced over his shoulder and watched the officer bend over, feel for a pulse, and shake his head.
“It’s over, baby,” he whispered to Cara. “It’s over.”
<>
Bruce was found unconscious near the beach road. He was taken to the hospital in Tacoma for observation, where he was diagnosed with a concussion.
Dirty, bruised, scratched, and smelling like smoke, Cara and Nick checked into a hotel suite in Gig Harbor. The manager promised tight security and privacy.
Cara stood in the window, hugging her arms. She was an emotional wreck. Her husband was dead. She should feel something for him, but she couldn’t. He’d come to kill her like he’d killed the woman in San Diego. It could have been her in that body bag they carried off the boat, and Lance wouldn’t have stopped with her. He would have killed Nick, too.
“Are you hungry?” asked Nick.
“I’m numb. If you want something, go ahead and order it. I’m going to take a hot shower. I smell like smoke and I need to wash out these scratches.”
“If you need some help...” Nick let the words trail off, and she knew what he wanted.
“Yes, I could use some help, and the shower...” She motioned to her bathroom. “. . . looks like it’s big enough for two.”
Nick walked slowly toward her, and her heart filled with love. Without speaking, he took her hand and they walked into the bathroom together. Dirty, smoky clothes fell in a heap on the floor and they stepped into the shower. He gently washed her achy body, kissing scratches and bruises, shampooing her hair, and caressing her tenderly. Using a washcloth, he carefully cleaned around the scratch on her neck and the cut on her arm, taking care of her like he’d taken care of her after the earthquake.
When Nick finished washing her, he dropped to his knees in front of her and pointed to his hair. She shampooed his hair, lovingly massaging his head and neck and shoulders. He buried his face between her breasts and she cradled his head in her arms.
He spoke then, breaking the sensuous silence. “I know what you need.” He gazed up into her face. “You need a real husband, someone who will treat you like a regular person, someone who doesn’t care about your money, a man who will love you and take care of you until the day he dies. Cara, I love you, honey. I’ll always love you. Nothing is as important as being with you.”
Her eyes filled and one little tear slid down her cheek. He kissed it away. “Teach a girl to cry...”
Cara gazed at the look of love in his eyes and knew anything was possible as long as they were together. She touched his face and kissed him gently. “I love you so much.”
“So, what do you think? Could you put up with me for the rest of your life? Because once we tie the knot, I’ll never let you out of my sight again. How ’bout it, Maxine? Will you marry me?”
She swiped away tears. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you, on one condition.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I want to make a baby right away.”
He grinned. “We’ll start working on it tonight and we won’t stop until...” He waved his hand. “Hell, we won’t ever stop.”
“What about when we’re old?”
His chuckle bounced off the tiled walls of the shower. “I’ll never be too old for that. After all, I am...”
“Italian,” they said together.
“I love you, Nick. I’ll always love you.”
“My wife, Maxine Donatelli. I like the way that sounds.”
*Thank you for reading Maxine. Please turn the page for an excerpt of Blind Love, Book Two of the Donatelli Family series.*
BLIND LOVE
by
Sue Fineman
Chapter One
“I’ll tell you what’s real,” said Catherine Timmons. “Real is a thirty-something guy who’s still living at home and lying to his dates about what he does for a living. He may be charming and great looking, but if he’s working at all, he doesn’t make enough to pay rent, and his mother provides him with home-cooked meals and clean laundry. He’s getting everything he needs at home with Mama. Everything except sex.”
“Speaking from experience, Cat?” said Mitzi, and a soft meow came from somewhere in the room.
It was nearly midnight, and as other residents of the Los Angeles basin were breathing the brown hazy air outside, ten people sat around a table littered with coffee cups and crumpled paper, trying to come up with an idea for a new television show. Reality TV was the going thing these days, and everything Catherine had seen was either stupid, dangerous, or it had been done to death.
Ignoring Catherine’s remarks, Mitzi, a cute blonde who’d recently traded her breast implants for bigger ones, said, “Instead of having people playing games for money, why don’t we use rich people vying for love?”
As if she had to vie for love. Mitzi was so gorgeous she had every man in the building drooling after her. Catherine couldn’t figure out why anyone would want bigger breasts. Hers were big enough to be a nuisance, and she wore baggy shirts to hide them. She hated having men staring at her breasts instead of looking at her face when they spoke with her.
Scooter, a busy little man whose real name Catherine could never remember, said, “Rich people don’t have problems finding love. We’re talking reality television here.”
Someone asked, “What about the women?”
“Not beauty queens. I never could figure out why a beautiful woman would humiliate herself on national television to make a play for a guy who has a ninety-five percent chance of rejecting her. No matter how rich or good looking the guy is, it makes her look desperate.”
“Women want to find true love,” said Mitzi.
“On national television?” said Catherine. “Get real.”
>
“Everyone wants to be on national television,” said Scooter. “Besides, no one will watch unless the women are beautiful, and if he’s not rich, he’d better be good looking or have something special going for him.”
Henry Wallace, the producer and boss, made a few notes and closed his folder. “Cat, we’ll meet at ten in the morning to go over the details.”
Her co-workers rushed from the room like rats leaving a sinking ship, and Catherine was left sitting alone in the middle of an empty, but messy room with a pot of fresh coffee and a presentation to work up for Henry by morning.
As the hours passed, she sketched out one plan after another. She knew what Henry expected, but the details to make this show work weren’t coming. If the guy was too much of a loser, it would show in the way he presented himself, and most women had to work for a living. Taking a month off work to live in a mansion and play games was out of the question when you had bills to pay.
Finally, she rested her head on her arms and closed her eyes. A drop-dead gorgeous guy with dark hair, sparkling brown eyes, and a killer smile haunted her dreams. A dozen tall, beautiful women strutted around in expensive evening gowns, showing their stuff. And there was short, dumpy Catherine, in her baggy shirt and wrinkled slacks, her curly red hair slipping out of the knot, and her glasses sliding down her freckled nose. The man pointed to her and crooked his finger, probably to tell her she’d be the first woman on the show to be rejected. No surprise there. No guy worth having wanted her.
A hand on her shoulder woke her from her strange dream. Sunshine streamed through the dusty windows, and she groaned. Morning already? She didn’t have a thing to show Henry.
“Sleeping on the job, Cat?” Scooter glanced at the doodles on the pad of paper in front of her. “Productive work session, I see.”
She wanted to tell him to shut up. Instead, she said, “It’s all in my head.” God help her when Henry found out she didn’t have anything sketched out for this show.
An hour later, Henry called her into his office, poured a cup of coffee, and handed it to her. “I’m intrigued by your idea. An average, but great looking guy who lives with his mother.”
Catherine sipped her coffee and tried to clear her sleep-deprived brain. She had nothing to show him, so she talked it out. “The women can be single moms, average girls with frizzy hair and freckles, and some beauty queens to keep it interesting. We’ll let him see them all in the beginning, but they won’t exchange names.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re calling the show Blind Love, and he’ll be wearing a blindfold when he interviews them. He’ll have to make his first few cuts based on personality and compatibility.”
Henry chuckled.
“It evens the playing field. She’ll have to intrigue him in the interview or she’ll be out the door. On the other hand, some guys can’t see past a girl’s appearance, and she won’t be as intimidated if he’s not staring at her boobs or the zit that popped out on the end of her nose.”
Henry’s gaze slid down to Catherine’s chest. “I see what you mean.”
She sipped her coffee. “Having the guy eliminate the first few girls before he sees them would add an element of risk. What if he gets rid of all the pretty ones? He’ll have to see them when he sends them away, and the look on his face when he realizes who he’s rejecting should be interesting.”
“How much do we tell the women about him?”
“Nothing until he’s eliminated the first half of the girls. After all, this is...”
“Blind Love,” they said together.
“I like it. See if you can find a guy who fits the profile and a location to film it.”
He bought it. Catherine couldn’t believe that Henry actually bought one of her ideas. They usually got shot down as soon as they left her mouth.
If they got the right bachelor, it could be an interesting show. On the other hand, it could bomb and end Catherine’s career. The thought of going home to her father and admitting she was a failure made her stomach hurt. He already thought she was a failure or he would have kept the family business for her instead of selling it to the highest bidder when he retired.
<>
Tony Donatelli sipped his beer and scanned the room. He could barely hear the mournful country tune on the jukebox over the murmur of conversation and laughter. He’d been spending his evenings renovating a house, and tonight he wanted a date with a sexy blonde. If he could find one.
He made eye contact with several women, but the one that interested him was a tall blonde playing pool with another woman. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and leaned over the table, her tight jeans cupping her behind. She walked around the table, where he got a good look at the rest of her. “Oh, yeah,” he said under his breath. He wondered if she’d come with a guy or if she was here alone. He didn’t date women who were attached.
A cute little brunette sat at the stool beside him and eyed his body. Throwing a come-on smile his way, she ordered a drink. She obviously wanted company, but he didn’t want to tie up his evening with the brunette if the blonde was available. He’d always preferred blondes, especially tall ones.
He wore a tight black T-shirt that hugged his chest and arms, worn jeans that fit like a second skin, and boots that added another inch to his six-foot-two-inch frame. He knew he looked good, and as he wandered toward the pool table, he was aware of several sets of eyes following him.
“Hey, Tony,” a man called from across the room. It was one of the men on Tony’s construction crew. He was with another guy and two women. Tony waved and kept walking toward the pool table. The two women at the table stopped playing and looked up. The blonde holding the cue stick gazed directly into his eyes, but she didn’t smile.
“Mind if I watch?”
“Are you Tony Donatelli?” asked the blonde.
“Yeah. And you are...”
“Not interested.” She turned back to the table and sank another ball.
Her companion said, “A woman was in here a few minutes ago looking for you.”
“Oh, yeah? Did this woman leave a name?”
“Melissa Juno. She said you’d had a fight and you’d probably try to hit on another woman tonight.” She cocked her head. “How many months along is she?”
“If she’s pregnant it sure as hell ain’t mine.” Melissa was a gorgeous brown-eyed blonde, but there was something important missing in that pretty head. He’d taken her out to dinner once, but when she invited him into her apartment for an after-dinner drink, something told him to back off. So he did. She’d insisted on making him dinner a week later, and all through dinner, she talked about having his babies. He got out of there in a hurry. Two lousy dinner dates and she was knitting little booties? She was out of her ever-loving mind!
Tony’s mother kept pushing him to find a nice girl, settle down, and give her more grandbabies to love. He loved women, but he was a long way from happily ever after. Besides, he had enough responsibility without taking on a wife, especially a crazy one like Melissa Juno.
He glanced back at the bar to see the brunette hot and heavy with another guy. No woman in her right mind would date him now, not after Melissa spread her lies. Damn! What would it take to get that woman off his back?
Feeling the need to hit something, Tony finished his beer and went to the gym.
<>
Catherine spent the rest of the week reviewing the files of men who’d been considered for previous shows. Most of them had stable jobs and their own homes, or at least their own apartments. None of them lived at home or owed back child support or had any of the other negatives that could be a surprise at some point in the show. Some were just too young. She didn’t want to put a twenty-year-old male model looking for a way to ease himself into an acting career on this kind of show.
There was a thirty-year-old firefighter who looked good. He was Mr. July on a calendar last year, and he shared an apartment with his divorced and unemployed brother. It wasn’t qu
ite the same as living at home with Mama, but he might do in a pinch. At least he didn’t live alone.
She found three possibilities in the women rejected by other shows. They were all tall, slender, poised, and beautiful. One was a former model, retired at the age of twenty-five. Another was a former Miss Florida. She was thirty-three. Half a lifetime ago, she’d gone to boarding school with the third one. Jenny was now a twenty-nine-year-old single mom.
She was still plowing through applicants for the new show when she received a phone call from Santa Barbara. “Catherine, this is Fawn, your father’s fiancée.”
Fiancée? She had to be kidding.
“I tried to call you last night after the paramedics took Walt to the hospital. He had a dizzy spell and fell down the stairs.”
Catherine’s relationship with her father had been strained the past three years, but she didn’t want him hurt. “Did he break something?”
“His leg and hip,” said Fawn. “They put an artificial joint in his hip this morning. I don’t know how he’ll climb these stairs when he gets home.”
Catherine swallowed a groan. As much as she wanted to handle this project herself, it was out of the question now. Henry had preliminary approval from the network, and it looked like Blind Love would be filmed this summer. It was already March, and nobody had been interviewed except the fireman. There was still a lot of work to do, but she wouldn’t be here to do it.
Someone would have to take care of her father, and there was no one else. Catherine’s parents were divorced, her mother lived in San Diego, and her aunt had moved to France with her new husband. Fawn didn’t sound like the caregiver type, and Father wouldn’t listen to any of the household staff. As if they’d dare say anything to him. He was a tyrant, and keeping the house staffed had always been a problem.
Catherine tapped on Henry’s open office door. “I hate to bail out on you, but my father had a bad fall. I’ll have to stay with him until he’s able to bellow at the staff without ending up in the hospital again.”
