At Last

by Mindy McKinley

  So when she looked at him an hour ago and asked for help, what was he supposed to do?

  “Okay,” he said after a minute of scrolling through web pages. “I think this is a pretty good list of restaurants in the area, some open, some not.”

  She hung off his shoulder as they looked through the list and hit the “Italian” tab. She let out a deep sigh when the total number of candidates overwhelmed her.

  He kissed her cheek. “We’ll figure it out, beautiful.” He closed the laptop and turned his full attention to her. “I have a friend at the Chicago History Museum. There’s a whole room full of old phone books. We’ll find the right year and start there, okay? Then we can see which ones are still open and canvas if we have to.”

  She smiled. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. “You mean it?”

  “Of course I do; I promised I would help you.”

  “But you have all your other research to do. I feel like I’m taking all your time as it is.”

  “Lula,” he said steadily, “I like the way you take all my time.” He slid his hands up her waist and drew a lazy finger around her nipple. It hardened almost instantly. So did he.

  She moaned and he kissed her neck.

  “Spending time with you is”—he bit at her ear—“fucking amazing no matter what we’re doing.”

  Completely flushed, she smiled at him. “Tell me more about the fucking part.”

  With a growl, he set the laptop down on the coffee table and pushed her back into the sofa with a hungry kiss.

  Lula

  After Lit Club the next day, during which Dom gave an informative and engaging lecture on Napoleon’s military movements that had Lula fighting hot-for-teacher fantasies, he fulfilled his promise and took her to the Chicago History Museum. Tom had agreed to meet them after operating hours and had the whole research room open for their use.

  Lula couldn’t believe the number of books and files and drawers upon drawers of microfiche. It was incredible that all of this was in one room, much less organized.

  To her surprise, Tom had gotten to work already and had pulled down the Chicago area phonebooks from when she was born.

  “We are looking for specific data points,” he explained. “Italian restaurants with family names and an address in Little Italy.”

  He spread out an enlarged map. “I think if we plot each one on the map, it will help rule things out.”

  He pushed a phone book over to Lula and motioned for her to sit. “You start with this”—he pushed the map in front of Dom—“and you plot. And when you’re done you should have a smaller data set to search for a surname.”

  She shook her head in amazement, not quite understanding why this man would help her. “Thank you so much, Tom, this is incredible.”

  He laughed. “Let’s see if you thank me after a couple days of this. I’m going to go check some other sources I have, you guys are free to stay until ten.”

  Days? Her eyes widened.

  Dom shook his hand. “Thanks, man, we appreciate it.”

  Tom shrugged. “You know how I love these needle-and-haystack searches; I should thank you.”

  “You look a little overwhelmed,” Dom told Lula as they settled into their seats.

  “It’s just ... he said days.”

  “Welcome to the seductive world of research, babe,” he said with a grin and kissed her lips. “Now come on, we’ve got work to do.”

  After two hours of reading and plotting, Lula’s shoulders ached and her head screamed. There were only two dots on the map so far. They mocked her.

  She dropped her head to the table and let out a moan. How could anyone like doing research? It was the literal worst. She picked her head up and asked, “How do you do this all the time?”

  He laughed. “It’s easy when you enjoy it, Lu, it’s not for everybody.”

  “No, it fucking isn’t,” she whined, drawing another laugh from him.

  “Let’s call it a night, shall we?”

  “Yes please.”

  “Hey,” he said, pushing his chair back, “you never know, maybe one of those dots is the right one; we could get lucky.”

  “Right,” she answered. Things like that didn’t happen for her. Luck was the last thing she was willing to rely on. “Luck doesn’t even know I exist.”

  “I disagree,” he told her sweetly as he put his coat on. “I’m pretty sure it was luck that brought me to Mo’s that night.”

  “Lucky for you,” she teased, and he captured her into a kiss that made her squeal.

  “But I am going to have to buckle down on my own research the next couple of nights,” he said, brushing a strand of hair off her cheek.

  She stilled and then nodded. Is this when it started? When he began to disappear slowly, bit by bit, so that she hardly even noticed?

  “Is it okay if we don’t make it back here until Friday?”

  “Of course,” she answered. She meant it. She wanted him to work on his research, but her brain was screaming other questions. What does this mean? Will I see you before Friday? A prick of panic started at the base of her spine and started to climb.

  She searched his face for any sign of shutting her out. There was none.

  “I wanted to know if you’d mind hanging out at my place for the next few nights. I can’t really spend much time with you, but I ...” He ran a hand down his face. “I would really like it if you were around.”

  Her heart thundered back to life. This man. Christ, she loved him.

  “It’s a little selfish,” he added when she didn’t answer, “so I understand if you don’t want to, but I thought I’d ask.”

  “Dom,” she said softly, “of course I’ll be there. I’d love to.”

  His face broke into one of his boyish grins and his green eyes sparkled with something she hadn’t seen before. It made her entire body shift. He kissed the top of her head. “Awesome.”

  He helped her into her jacket. “Just so you know, I’ve had this recurring fantasy of you sitting around my house in nothing but that Cubs shirt and panties.”

  Her eyes flew open and her body heated. She very definitely wanted to make this fantasy come true. “What color panties?” she asked coyly.

  He grinned like the devil. “Your choice, beautiful. Surprise me.”

  Chapter 24

  Dominic

  Having Lula sitting around his place in exactly what he asked her to wear proved to be a bigger distraction than Dom had anticipated. He had been so distracted thinking about her perfect ass in those tiny red panties that he had to take her over the back of the couch just so he could focus.

  It worked for about an hour and then the image of her flushed, just-fucked cheeks would pop into his head, and he found himself hovering around her again.

  She swatted at him. “Get back to work.”

  “But, babe, I just want to kiss you,” he complained.

  “Yeah, and we both know what happens after that. Get to work or I’m leaving. You told me you had lots of work to do.”

  “I do.” He ran his eyes down her beautiful body, her legs were draped over the sofa and she had a book dangling from her fingers. “But I ...”

  “Nope,” she warned, “get to work, or I’ll put on pants.”

  Fuck that. “Fine,” he grumbled and trudged back to his work as if he had been sent to the principal’s office. “But I’m going to kiss you when I’m done.”

  “If I let you!” she called back.

  Okay, Adams, he told himself, you can do this.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  It took a few minutes but he was eventually able to regain his focus.

  Right now, Dom was trying to piece together all the new information about Giancarlo Menotti’s closest circle of friends. He thought he had known all the major players before, but Menotti was known for two things: his violence and his secrecy. He held his cards so close to his chest that Dom wondered if he even knew what they were.

  With the big box
of primary resources Tom gave him, though, everything was coming into focus. Menotti’s known associates were becoming more vivid, more fleshed out, and a whole new cast of players were appearing for the first time that no one had ever heard of.

  Everybody knew Menotti’s right-hand men were Luca Marchesi and Nicolo Gallo. That was old news. What Dom was uncovering was another ring just below the tip of that pyramid that up to this point, people had only guessed about. These were the guys that got their hands dirty, that carried out hits or took down shop owners who didn’t cooperate. They were muscle. Pure evil. The Stella d’Italia.

  As he worked through the box, information was starting to coalesce into a pattern that suggested the actual identity of these men, and it was the most exciting research Dom had ever been a part of. He’d heard whispers that these three men had shared a scarification tattoo on the inside of the wrist—a simple five-point star—but hadn’t believed it until he found a folded, black and white picture stuck between the pages of Menotti’s address book. There were no faces, just three wrists held together, revealing three raised star-shaped scars.

  Dom sat down in his chair with the photo in his fingers, stunned. This was proof of the Stella d’Italia that no one else had seen. He would be the first author to be able to prove what had only been guessed at by other writers. It was a stroke of pure luck.

  Choosing the Menotti Crime Family for a subject had been risky, he knew it, and just in case he didn’t, everyone told him so. Giancarlo Menotti had been written about by at least fifty other authors, but something about the man had drawn him in since he was young that he had never been able to shake.

  “Follow your burning interest,” was what his father used to tell him about historical research. “It’s what keeps you going when it gets hard.”

  So he did. And now, with all this coming together right under his fingertips, he knew without a doubt he made the right choice.

  By the time he stood up from his desk, he had compiled a pretty good case as to the identity of one of the three men. He stretched and smiled at the thought that Lula was waiting for him somewhere in his house in bright red panties. He had never felt so blessed.

  Lula

  Lula stared angrily at the four dots on the map of Little Italy that Saturday. It was all they had so far. Four little dots that fit the data points.

  And these four fucking dots, from what she could tell, weren’t the right dots. They had only gotten through the first half of the restaurants listed in the phone book, and after two nights of this, she was sure they’d have more to go on.

  She was ready to throw in the towel but Dom just kept plugging away, teaching her what real focus looked like. She loved that he was helping her, that she could look over and see his serious, handsome face working to help her keep her dream alive.

  He had been steadfast by her side for the last week. Nan was going through a rough patch and he went with her to visit every day because he didn’t want her to be alone if Nan got upset again. If she’d had any chance of rescuing her heart before this week, it was gone now. She was in love. Completely and irreversibly.

  She loved everything about him—his focus, his writing, his passion for teaching, his devotion to his family, his skills in the bedroom ... the list was pretty long before she even got to his devastatingly good looks.

  And the more of his writing he shared with her, the further she fell. He was brilliant at it, weaving boring bits of information into a fascinating tale of crime and family intrigue. He was the total package, and every time he looked at her with that tenderness in his eyes she was stunned to be the one he was looking at.

  “Come on, babe,” Dom urged her out of her thoughts, “let’s do one more page, and then I’ll carry you home, okay?”

  Home. She smiled at him. “Okay.” With a deep breath, she started the process of throwing out non-family restaurants and plotting the address of those that were. A half-hour later, she had one more dot.

  “Attagirl,” Dom encouraged her, kissing her cheek. “Zetticci’s, huh?”

  All she could do was shrug. “Let’s see if this one is still open.” She pulled out her phone and searched for a current listing. Her heart beat a little faster. This was only the second dot that was still open. “They are! Zetticci’s Restaurant,” she read from their website. “Old World Italian Food since 1938.”

  “Let’s check it out,” he said, packing up all their items. “Friday? You and me? That red dress?”

  She laughed. “That dress belongs to Amy, but I’ll see if she’ll let me borrow it again.”

  “But it’s a yes?”

  “Of course it’s a yes,” she told him, wrapping her arms around him from behind. “Thank you, for everything,” she said softly, her heart filling.

  He spun around and pulled her to his chest. “You are so welcome, beautiful.”

  A thousand other thoughts whirled through her mind, but she kept them to herself. She could feel his reticence too. What was he thinking? Was he as deep into this as she was? It felt like it, his eyes looked like it, but he remained silent.

  “Ice cream,” he announced out of nowhere. “I want ice cream tonight. You game?”

  She giggled. “Um, is the Pope catholic?”

  “Depends on who you ask,” he told her, wiggling his eyebrows.

  Chapter 25

  Lula

  “Nan,” Lula said softly, entering her room carefully the next day. Dom was right behind her, gripping her hand. She was grateful for it. “How are you today?” She held her breath. Nan hadn’t been lucid for over a week now and every day this was getting harder.

  Her grandmother looked up from her chair with shining eyes and smiled. “Lula.”

  She let out a breath and felt tears of relief pushing against her eyes. She rushed forward and threw her arms around her. “Nan, it’s so good to see you.” She kissed her cheek.

  “My goodness, Lula,” she said as Lula held her face in her hands, “you act as if you haven’t seen me in years.”

  It felt as if she hadn’t. “I missed you,” was really all she could say.

  “I missed you too, dear,” she said softly and looked over her shoulder at Dom. “And who is this handsome fellow?”

  Lula blushed, stood, and drew Dom forward so she could introduce him. “Nan, this is Dominic Adams.” She gestured toward each in turn. “Dom, this is thee Beverly Stanley.”

  “It is a pleasure to meet you,” he told her, his voice so kind and genuine that she thought she might burst as he took her grandmother’s hand and kissed her cheek.

  Nan smiled and took his face in her hands. “Well, aren’t you the most handsome thing I’ve ever seen?” She looked over his shoulder to Lula. “I like this one.”

  He chuckled and settled onto the sofa with Lula to visit, curling his fingers around Lula’s as if it were a habit.

  They sat in the small room, the afternoon sun pouring through the windows, and chatted about everything. Nan was especially interested in everything about Dom. They talked about his teaching, his family, his research ... she was clearly smitten. Just like her granddaughter.

  As they sat there, Lula felt something she hadn’t felt before. It was the warmth of family she had felt at Dom’s childhood home. And she had it right here, with just Nan and Dom.

  Dominic

  Dom thought Nan was possibly the best grandmother on the planet. She was funny, smart, sharp, and mildly flirtatious. He could see why Lula loved her so much. And also where she got her endlessly attractive personality.

  “That girl is my everything,” Nan told him when Lula left to use the restroom an hour or so later. Her eyes never moved from his, and her face was so serious that the entire mood in the room changed. It made his heart stop.

  “And I ...” she continued, struggling to speak through the emotion. Tears shone in her eyes. “I’m all that she has. I’ve been hanging on, Dom, hanging on to make sure that she has someone to watch over her.”

  He took her hand and
her fingers curled tightly around his. He nodded though he had no idea what she was going to say.

  “What I’m trying to tell you is that my time is coming.”

  He paled and shook his head. He was about to tell her no but she stilled him with a smile.

  “It is,” she squeezed his hand, “and I’ve made peace with it. I miss my daughter and my husband, and it fills me with great joy to think of seeing them again.”

  Her eyes watered and dropped for just a moment. “But ...” She brought her eyes back to his. He felt it reverberate through his soul.

  “Lula,” he said quietly, understanding dawning on him. “You’re hanging on for her.”

  A single tear slipped down her cheek. “She’s lost so much in her short life and I can’t bear to see her alone. I promised ...” Her voice cracked and she took a moment to recover. “I promised her mother I would always watch over her.”

  Looking at the struggle in her face, knowing the pain of loss she must be feeling, the sense of impending death, the hope of seeing her lost loved ones. Dom spoke before he even understood what he was going to say. He just knew without thinking that it was the right thing to do. “I don’t know what Lula and I are to each other yet,” he said softly, “but no matter what, we’ll always be friends, and I promise you that whatever life decides for the two of us, I’ll make sure she’s safe and taken care of. Loved.” And he knew he would, even as the words came out feeling foreign in his mouth.

  She drew in a quick breath. “I can’t ask that of you,” she said, shaking her head.

  He stilled her by squeezing her hands in his. “You didn’t,” he pointed out. “I am accepting the responsibility of my own accord, and I swear I will watch over her whether she wants me to or not.”

  Another tear slipped down the woman’s paper-thin cheek and her lips trembled. “Thank you,You have no idea ...” She trailed off, unable or unwilling to complete the sentence.

  But he understood, without her finishing, he knew what she was trying to say and, for now, he didn’t think about what it all meant, about how he had just cemented his role in Lula’s life one way or another. He didn’t have time to wrap his head around how appealing the prospect was.