by Loree Lough
He had never missed the fireworks before…but then, if everything worked as he expected it would, he wouldn’t miss them this year, either.
Any day now, Mahoney would open his front door, reach for his morning paper, and get the worst news of his life.
Chapter Eleven
Ciara looked up from her needlework when the doorbell rang. “Who could that be? It’s nearly supper time.”
Mitch shrugged. “I didn’t feel much like cooking tonight, so I ordered us a little something special.”
“Pizza?” she asked expectantly. “I haven’t had pizza in weeks. I hope you got two large ones, with the works, ’cause I’m famished.”
Grinning, he fished his wallet out of his pocket and headed for the door. After a moment of front-porch small-talk, she heard the door close, bolts click into place, Mitch’s bare feet padding up the hall and into the kitchen. The clatter of dishes and the clank of silverware inspired her to call out, “No need to get fancy, Mitch. Paper plates will be—”
He was back before she could complete the suggestion, positioning a tray table over her lap, putting a neatly folded napkin on the left side of her plate, arranging a knife and fork on the right. “I made lemonade and decaffeinated iced tea. Which would you prefer?” he asked, bowing low at the waist.
“Lemonade, with—”
“Lots of ice,” he finished. “I know.”
When he returned this time, he balanced a crockery bowl and a basket of bread on the tray carrying the drinks. “This,” he said, removing the towel that hid the bowl’s contents, “is to calm a craving.”
Her eyes widened with surprise and delight. “Mitch! Where did you—”
And then she read the label on the napkin that lined the bread basket. “Chiaparelli’s? You ordered gnocchi from Chiaparelli’s?”
“None other,” he said, spooning a huge portion onto her plate.
She waved a hand over the steaming dumplings to coax the tempting aroma into her nostrils. Closing her eyes, she sighed. “How did you know?” she asked, looking at him. “Surely not from that little slip of the tongue the other day….”
“That,” he admitted, “plus you talk in your sleep.”
“I do not.” She speared a gnocchi.
Nodding, Mitch sat in his recliner and balanced his plate on his knees. “Oh, yes you do. It’s just a good thing we have air-conditioning, because I don’t know what Mrs. Thompson would think if she heard you moaning through the open windows, ‘gnocchi, gnocchi, gnocchi!’” he said, pronouncing each louder than the first.
“She’d think you have a very strange appetite,” Ciara explained, wiggling her brows suggestively. Then she popped a pasta into her mouth, and uttered a satisfied “Mmmmmm.”
“Is it good?” he asked, taking a stab at one.
“Better than good,” she breathed. The fingers of her left hand formed a small tulip. “Delicioso!”
He bit into one, chewed for a moment, nodded thoughtfully. “Not bad,” he affirmed, eating the other half. “Not bad at all.”
She gobbled up a dozen more dumplings before saying, “I have a feeling when Donna comes to weigh me tomorrow, I’m going to tip the scales!”
“Gimme a break. If you come in at a hundred and twenty, even in your condition, I’ll be surprised.”
“I was a hundred and thirty-five day before yesterday, I’ll have you know.”
“A hundred and thirty-five? You don’t say!” He chuckled. “There’s probably not a woman within a one-hundred-mile radius of this house who’d say a thing like that with such pride in her voice.” He smirked, patted her tummy. “Come to think of it, you’re almost a hundred-mile radius….”
“Stop it,” she said, giggling, “and let me enjoy this. It’s the most I’ve weighed, ever.”
“Well, since you seem to like it so well,” he said, pinching her big toe, “maybe I oughta just keep you barefoot and pregnant all the time.”
Her smile waned, her eyes filled with tears, and she hid behind her hands.
He leaped out of the chair, nearly overturning his plate when he deposited it on the cushion. “Sweetie, what’s wrong? Did I say something? I’m sorry if…”
“Stop it,” she sniffled. “It isn’t your fault my hormones are raging out of control.”
“But you were fine till I…”
She blotted her eyes with a corner of the napkin. “You didn’t do anything wrong, I’m telling you! It’s me. All me.” Ciara thumped a fist onto the mattress. “It’s because I’ve been cooped up inside so long, getting no exercise. I’m trying to stay current…reading the paper, watching the news…but my mind is turning to mush. I’m becoming the kind of woman I’ve always despised, Mitch, weak and wimpy and whiny and—”
“Aw, sweetie,” he said, taking her in his arms. “You’re the strongest woman I know, and the proof is the way you’re handling this situation. You’re a hundred months pregnant, for goodness sake. Cut yourself a little slack, why don’t you?”
She mulled that over for a moment, then started to giggle. “A hundred months?” she repeated, her voice muffled by his shirt. “Even elephants have babies in less time than that.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I think I’m doomed to stay this way for the rest of my life.”
Ciara leaned back slightly to meet his eyes. “Oh, Mitch,” she whimpered, “do you think your baby will ever be born?”
His eyes widened slightly. My baby? Would she have said it that way if she suspected Bradley might be the father? Mitch didn’t think so. She’d blurted it out without even thinking, so it must be true. My baby, he repeated, kissing her tears away, struggling to hold back tears of his own. My baby!
“Shhh,” he soothed. “Your gnocchi is getting cold.”
“Do you really want to have more children with me?” she asked, her voice small and timid, like a child’s. “What if I’m like this every time I get—”
“Ciara, listen to me now,” he said, tapping a finger against her nose. “I mean, think about it…a lifetime with whoever that is in there,” he added, patting her tummy, “for a few weeks of inconvenience.”
“Easy for you to say,” she teased, “I have to lie here like a lump while you get to empty the trash and do the dishes and—”
“I’ll be more than happy to turn all the fun stuff over to you after the blessed event,” he said, laughing. “Promise.”
“So you really wouldn’t mind going through this all over again?”
“Peterson assured me the chances of this happening a second time are practically nil, but no, even if the whole thing repeated itself exactly, I wouldn’t mind. Not a bit.” He pushed a pink satin nightgown strap aside to kiss her shoulder. “Look at it from my point of view—how many other husbands get to see their wives in gorgeous lingerie all day, every day, for weeks on end?”
Another soft giggle, then, “How many times?”
“How many times would I do this?”
She nodded.
He kissed her shoulder again. “Until my lips wear out.”
“No, silly, I mean…”
“Six,” he said without hesitation, “just like we discussed before we got married.”
“Half a dozen,” she sighed. “We’ll have to add a whole wing onto the house.”
“Or buy a bigger one.”
“In the country, maybe,” she said dreamily, “where we can have cats and dogs and—” Ciara looked around. “Speaking of dogs, I haven’t seen Chester all afternoon. Is he out back?”
Mitch nodded. “He treed a cat out there, and I couldn’t get him to come in, not even for a rawhide bone.”
Ciara frowned a bit. “I wonder what he’ll think of the baby.”
Snickering, he said, “Are you kiddin’ me? He’s gonna make that bighearted old nanny mutt in Peter Pan look like Cujo. Now eat your gnocchi, before I do.”
Ciara stuck her fork into a dumpling. “I don’t suppose there’s dessert….”
“As a matter of fact,” he said, picking
up his plate, “there is.”
“Cheesecake?”
He sat in the recliner. “With cherries on top.”
“How big a piece?”
“I went for broke. We’ve got a whole cake to ourselves.”
She licked her lips. “If I break the visiting nurse’s scale,” she asked, grinning mischievously, “will our insurance pay for a new one?”
“Blood presh-ah and pulse rate are fine,” Donna said, her Boston accent making the details of the routine exam sound far more interesting than it was. “Your blood count is a little low, but nothin’ to worry about.” She strapped the monitor into place. “Now, let’s see how the little one is doing….”
The machine clicked and beeped quietly for a few minutes as the nurse squinted at the screen. A thin green line of phosphorescent light blipped, counting the baby’s heartbeats. “Lookin’ good. Lookin’ real good….” The diminutive woman had small, deceptively powerful hands. With firm gentleness, she palpated Ciara’s stomach. “Hmmm. He’s dropped some since I was here day before yesta-day. If I had to guess, I’d say you have a week till you join the ranks of mothahood. Maybe less.” Propping a fist on a hip, she narrowed one blue eye. “You experiencin’ any cramping?”
Rolling her eyes, Ciara shook her head. “Not unless you count the ones in my rear end, from sitting on it hour after endless hour.”
“Well, don’t you fret. It won’t be much longah now.”
“You’re not sugarcoating things to keep me calm, are you?”
“Oh, right…I’ve stayed in this line of work all these years ’cause I enjoy fibbin’ to my patients.” Then she got serious. “Stretchin’ the truth makes everything seem scarier, no mattah how good or bad the situation really is.” The perky blonde winked at Mitch. “I’ll leave the shugahcoatin’ to your hubby, here. He looks like a man who knows how to lay it on thick….”
“Now, wait just a minute here,” he said, grinning in mock self-defense. “I believe in telling it like it is.” Then, in a more serious tone, “You’d tell us if something wasn’t quite right…even slightly?”
“I would indeed. You two have got to stop all this fussin’, now, ’cause everything is fine. And do you know why?”
Like obedient students, husband and wife shook their heads simultaneously.
“Because you, Mistah Mahoney, have been doin’ a bang-up job takin’ care of the missus. There oughta be a medal for husbands like you. I’ve seen plenty of men go through this, but not one of ’em handled things like you have.” She gave an approving nod. “No mattah what time of day I drop by, this house is squeaky clean from top to bottom, Ciara’s sheets are always fresh and crisp, and by the looks of those roses in her cheeks, you must be a dandy cook, too.”
“It’ll probably take me two years to get my girlish figure back!” Ciara agreed.
“Well, don’t let this one out of your sight, missy,” was Donna’s advice. “He’s a prize, and I know a dozen gals who’d snap him up in a heartbeat!”
“They might think they want to snap me up,” he said, slipping an arm around his wife, “but none of ’em would have the stomach for me.” He patted her tummy. “Would they, sweetie?”
“Yeah, well, if they try, they’ll have to go through me first!”
“Might be a bit difficult, in your condition,” Donna pointed out. “Aren’t you glad he’s the trustworthy sort?”
She nodded, met his eyes. “Yes. I’m glad,” she said in all seriousness. “And thankful, too. He hasn’t left my side for a minute, not once in sixteen days.”
“Cut it out, you two,” Mitch said, smiling sheepishly, “or I’m going to have to make all the doorways keyhole shaped, so I can fit my swelled head through ’em.”
“Joke if you want to,” Donna said matter-of-factly, “but men like you are one in a million. I’ve seen my share…personally and professionally…I know what I’m talkin’ about.” Hefting her nurse’s bag, she headed for the door, waving to Ciara. “See you day after tomorrow.” As she passed him, she whispered to Mitch from the corner of her mouth, “Stick close by from here on out. She could blow any day now!”
Blinking, he stood gap-jawed in her wake. Any day now? he repeated. Yup, any day now, you’ll know for sure who that baby’s daddy is….
He had tossed and turned so much through the night that Ciara didn’t think either of them could have slept more than two hours. What had he been dreaming about as he’d writhed so fitfully, moaning and groaning under his breath? Was he reenacting scenes from his undercover days? Reliving the day he brought the bad guy in? Experiencing a near-death experience, like the time he’d been locked in the trunk of a car?
Today is the day, she decided, that you’ll ask him to tell you about the case. Good or bad, his answers would be a blessed relief, because anything was better than not knowing at all!
Mitch was sleeping peacefully now, and she turned on her side to get a better look at him. Once, before he’d left her, she told him he had the most amazing profile she’d ever seen. Totally masculine, it was Michaelangelo’s David and Rodin’s The Thinker all rolled into one. She had traced it with a fingertip, saying, “I wish I were an artist, so I could sculpt it from clay, or carve it from wood. That way, I’d have it to look at, even when you were at work….”
She looked at his profile now, the strong forehead, the patrician nose, the powerful jaw that was boldly, wholly man. Long, thick lashes fringed his eyes, giving him a boyish quality that softened the look, kept him from appearing too severe, too stern. And his lips, those full, well-rounded lips, only added to his very male appeal. Lightly, lovingly, she skimmed the backs of her fingers over his whiskered cheek. “I hope our baby looks exactly like you,” she said in a voice so soft, even she barely heard it.
Ciara rested her hand on his chest and, assured by the steady thump, thump, thump of his heart, drifted into peaceful slumber and dreamed of a chubby-cheeked infant with dark curly hair and enormous brown eyes, and a smile that could charm the birds from the trees….
He’d been dreaming he was walking through their house, pointing out things of interest to the baby boy in his arms. “Now son, this is your mom’s favorite afghan,” he said. “Her grandma brought it over from Italy, so whatever you do, don’t spit up on it. And this,” he added, plucking the strings of his guitar, “is your dad’s git-fiddle. Maybe when you’re older, I’ll teach you to play….”
He hadn’t known know what woke him…Ciara’s feathery touch, tickling over his stubbled cheek or her rustling sigh: “I hope our baby looks exactly like you.” All he knew was that her touch, her words washed over him like warm Caribbean waves.
I love her, and I love that kid because it’s part of her. If she’d transgressed—and it was beginning to look less and less like she had—it had only been for want of him; could he begrudge her a stolen moment of comfort? Would it have mattered, really, whether he or Bradley had fathered her child? In truth, it would have mattered a great deal. But he thought he knew the truth now. “And the truth shall set you free.”
Smiling, he pressed a palm to her roundness, hoping to feel forceful little feet or the powerful punch of a tiny elbow. After a moment of absolute stillness, Mitch admitted, regretfully, that the child, like its mother, was at complete rest.
When he was a little boy, his mother would listen to his prayers, tuck the covers under his chin and sing a verse from a song she’d learned as a child: “May the Good Lord grant you beautiful dreams and send a legion of angels to watch over you,” she’d croon, brushing back his wild, wayward curls. He sent the same prayer heavenward on Ciara’s behalf, then succumbed to drowsiness himself.
But not before this soughed from his lips:
“I love you, Ciara Mahoney, and I always will.”
They woke slowly, gently, to the distant trilling of the phone. “Who can be calling at this hour?” he grumbled, reaching for it.
“Mitch, it’s after ten o’clock! How could we have slept so late?”
Stretching, he said around a yawn, “Must have needed it, that’s all I can say.” And then, into the telephone’s mouthpiece, he muttered a groggy “Hullo?”
Silence.
He cleared his voice and said more firmly, “Hello.”
Nothing.
“Who is it?” Ciara asked.
He banged the receiver into the cradle. “Wrong number, I guess.”
But he knew better. This hadn’t been the first such call they’d received; it was the eleventh or twelfth, by his count. At first, he’d dismissed it. Could be some kind of computer error down at the phone company, he’d told himself, or maybe one of Ciara’s students has a crush on his pretty teacher and he’s calling just to hear the sound of her voice.
He had learned to trust his gut instinct, and his gut was telling him not to blame coincidence or accident or happenstance.
But who had been calling…and why?
Could be Bradley.
One of Pericolo’s men.
Some other felon he’d arrested….
Truth was, he could think of a hundred possible explanations for the silence on the other end of the phone; trouble was, the more explanations he came up with, the more nervous Mitch became.
A week or so ago, while Ciara was napping, he’d tiptoed upstairs, taken his trusty Rossi completely apart and thoroughly oiled every piece. After he’d reassembled it and loaded six rounds into it, he’d listened to the reassuring whirr-tick-tick of the spinning chamber, then snapped it shut with a flick of his wrist. Paranoid? he’d asked, sliding the revolver onto a high shelf. Probably, he’d answered, but better safe than sorry….
Hopefully, he’d never have to use it. But just in case, every now and then he rehearsed his trip upstairs to fetch it. He was in the kitchen now, fixing breakfast, when he went over it again. If he took the stairs two at a time, he believed he could get into the closet and back downstairs again in thirty seconds flat. If he could figure out a way to explain it to Ciara, he’d practice physically as well as mentally.
She had asked for a bowl of corn flakes this morning, and he topped them off with a sliced banana and cold milk. He’d put strawberry slices in her orange juice, to surprise her when she finished it off. He’d plucked a rose from the shrub beside the back fence, too, broke off the thorns and tucked its stem into her napkin.
