by Stacy Gail
“You’re hyphenating?” This came from Rude, and he also turned to watch the couple descend toward the international baggage carousels. “I think Frankie’s gotten you monogrammed sheets as a welcome home thing, so don’t tell her that, she’ll lose her shi—”
“Rude.” Sass put her fingers over his mouth, grinning. “You can’t yell that out in public. They’re little kids around.”
“Geez, you’re going to be like Tonya when you become a mom, I can see it now.” His eyes smiled into hers, and his hand came up to hold her palm to his lips so he could place a lingering kiss in its cradle. “Batshit crazy in love with her kid and hyper-protective over every word that enters that kid’s world.”
When you become a mom…
“Sass, Rude! Wait right there, I’m coming up to you guys.”
Scout’s shout from below skipped off Sass’s brain without leaving a mark. She was too busy wrestling with the enormity of what he’d just said. It was amazing how differently she and Rude viewed the world. He automatically assumed that everyone would live the life his parents had lived—get born, grow up, settle down with a significant other, and start having babies to kick off the cycle all over again. Her thought process, though… it never went down that road. Hell, there wasn’t any road, at least that she could see. She had no assumptions about what her future was going to be, except that maybe it would reflect her past.
And what reflection was that, precisely?
Nothing.
Maybe that meant she had nothing to give a child.
“I don’t know how to be a mom.” The words shot out of her as they topped the escalator. She hopped onto stable ground like the moving stairway was made of lava and turned to face him while tension made her stomach roll up into a ball of acid. “I’ve never even thought of being a mom. I can’t mom.”
“Hey.” Catching her by the shoulders, Rude held her in place when she would have run to the other side of the terminal. Or maybe even the other side of the state. “Take a breath and look around you, Sassy. No one’s forcing you to be anything you’re not ready to be, yeah? The world’s not closing in and you’re not ever going to be trapped into anything that doesn’t make you happy. It’s okay to not be okay with things that make you uncomfortable.”
She inhaled slowly, because he was right. She needed the air. “I’m not saying I’m anti-mom. I’ve just never thought of becoming one until this very second, and…” She lifted a furtive shoulder. “It threw me for a second, that’s all. Really. It’s no big deal.”
“For what it’s worth, I think you’d be a first-class mother who’d be a little on the crazy side, like Tonya. You know how rough the world can be, so you’d naturally want to protect your kid from all the bad things that you know are out there.”
The way he put it made her smile, and the last echo of alarm faded. “You think Tonya’s crazy when it comes to Sabrina?”
“Babe, she’s a nut job, but that’s the way it’s supposed to be,” he added, moving to fold his arms around her and lowering his head until his brow rested on hers. “When you have your whole world wrapped up in a single person, going insane is understandable. Suddenly your focus is all about doing everything you can to protect that person and make them happy. That’s how you parent—just love them until you’ve lost your damn mind. It’s not rocket science.”
When he put it like that, it sounded almost easy. “I think I could do that.”
He gave her a squeeze. “I know you can.”
“Is that the way you’re going to do be a dad?”
“Hell, yeah. I’m even looking forward to it. That’s how crazy I already am.”
She smiled, picturing a wildly over-protective Rude holding a baby in his arms, and the mental image spawned a warm glow deep inside. “You’re going to make a great dad someday.”
The arms around her tightened, until she was up on her toes and her mouth was a breath from his. “Someday. But that’s a long way off. Right now all I’m interested in is being the man you can go to when shit gets crazy and you need a place where you can feel safe. You just need to get it through your head that I can be that place for you.”
That warm glow began to burn, so beautifully it took her breath away, and she tried to fight with a quick shake of her head. “I don’t need you to be anything but who you are.” With that, she brought his lips to hers and tried to keep that glow from taking over her world.
“Seriously, you guys need to get a room.”
For the first time in her life, Sass was less than thrilled to see Scout, despite the fact that she hadn’t seen her former foster sister and best friend in two weeks. Tall and hourglass-curvy, with her sable brown hair held back in a pinup-girl bandana, the underside of her hair dyed a shocking poppy orange and a lei of vibrant flowers tattooed around her neck and chest, Theresa “Scout” Upton-Fournier was a sight to behold. When Sass had first met her, she’d had the impression that Scout could do anything. Twelve years had come and gone, and that impression hadn’t changed a bit.
“I thought you guys were coming in around midnight tonight.” Leaving Rude’s arms to fling herself into Scout’s, Sass gave her a big squeeze while Rude and Ivar greeted each other by shaking hands. “If I’d known you were going to be here as well, I would have hired a party bus and picked everyone up in style.”
“You mean you didn’t?” Scout’s mock outrage dissolved into a grin before she leaned back against her husband’s shoulder. “It was kind of crazy, how it all worked out. Our original flight was supposed to have this ridiculously long layover at Gatwick, but something went wrong with our plane—it wasn’t in the mood to fly, or something—so Ivar got busy with his panty-melting smile with the ladies at the ticket counter.”
“I am almost certain no one’s panties melted, ma fleur.” Ivar, former supermodel with ebony hair, pale eyes and features so sculpted he almost didn’t look real, wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and gave her a flirtatious wink. “Almost.”
“Ha-ha.” Nevertheless, Scout’s hand fluttered to her chest, and Sass couldn’t blame her. Ivar Fournier was the kind of man who made women flutter. “Anyway, before I knew it, my amazing man had us booked on the next flight out, in fucking first-class, with just a forty-five minute layover in Paris. So here we are, five hours early and just in time to catch you guys making out on the escalator like a couple of horny teenagers.”
“Horny teenagers, my ass.” Rude slung an arm around Sass to pull her to him. “When Sassy and I make out, we do it with way more finesse than horny teenagers.”
“Dude, you were sticking your tongue down her throat.”
“That’s my automatic response when Sass squeezes my ass.”
“An occurrence that might not happen again if you don’t show a little decorum, pal.” Sass shot him an exasperated glance while Scout and Ivar laughed. Seriously, though. The man was freaking incorrigible. “Don’t let us hold you guys up. I know you must be exhausted from your long travel day and probably want to get home. Do you want me to drop Red The Skittish at your place later tonight after we drop Mama Coco and Papa Bolo off at their place, or should I wait until tomorrow, like we’d planned?”
“Red The Skittish?”
“I sort of renamed your cat. She’s actually a pretty good conversationalist, if you ignore her tendency to bathe her privates while chatting.”
Scout snorted. “Sounds like you two got along great. Don’t worry about a thing tonight, tomorrow’s soon enough. I don’t want you running all over town just because we got in early.”
“It’s not a problem—” Sass’s head snapped around when she heard the familiar smoky voice of her former foster mother call out over the usual din at baggage claim.
“My babies! Bolo, look, so many of our babies came to greet us!”
“Just watch. Mama Coco is going to be convinced you guys worked your travel schedule out just so you could be here for their arrival.” Sass grinned, looking from Scout to Ivar. “Even if you tell
the whole story, complete with grumpy airplanes and panty-meltings at the ticket counter, she’s going to hear it like you did this deliberately, just so everyone could enjoy this unexpected reunion.”
“Might as well not spoil it with facts and simply go with the flow.” Rude shrugged and walked toward them, arms open wide.
The next few minutes were filled with the happy chaos of hugs, kisses, smiles and extra-loud babble about travel, food, family and whether or not to pay a king’s ransom for a baggage cart. It wasn’t until they’d collected Mama Coco and Papa Bolo’s luggage and descended en masse via an elevator to go through the same routine for Ivar and Scout’s belongings that Papa Bolo turned to Sass to give her a one-armed hug.
“It was so good of you to come all this way to welcome your sister home and to wait around to see us come in as well.” He gave her a one-armed hug and kissed the top of her head before looking to his wife. “I think we raised some sweet kids around here, Mama.”
Oh, shit. “Uh…”
“Sass, you’re such a good girl.” Mama Coco smiled as they made their way toward the exit, bird-like frail as always compared to her bespectacled husband, her helmet of henna-colored hair the same since Sass had known her. “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me, knowing you’ve remained close to your foster siblings, sweetie.”
“Some closer than others,” Scout snickered while Sass tried not to look like she was dying by inches. “Way, way, way closer.”
“Hey, Ivar?” Sass turned to Scout’s husband with her most winning smile. “If I shoved Scout in front of an oncoming bus, how much would you miss her?”
“Quite a lot, to be honest.” Smiling while Scout chuckled, Ivar pushed the luggage cart that carried both his and Scout’s baggage, and most of Mama Coco’s. “My lovely bride has promised she would help me revamp my way of doing travel expenses, because according to her, I do it wrong. So I suppose she has her uses.”
“I’ll remind you of what other uses I have later this evening, Trouble. The same kind of uses,” she confided to Mama Coco, and the wicked grin she slanted Sass’s way was the only warning she got, “that Sass might want to remind Rude about later on as well. Apparently something’s been brewing between those two while we were away.”
Why was there was never an oncoming bus when it was needed the most? Why? It wasn’t fair.
Mama Coco’s eyes widened, and she looked to Sass with her mouth a bright scarlet O. “What’s this?”
“Scout’s exaggerating,” Sass said, automatically downplaying the situation in order to avoid an explosion of Mama Coco’s head. The poor woman had just had a long flight, after all. “It’s just safe to say that Rude and I are no longer enemies.”
Yes, it was definitely safe to say that. It was also safe to say that the sun was warm and water was wet.
“Damn it,” she heard Rude mutter a few feet behind them as he and his father rolled luggage along the sidewalk. “I knew I should have texted it to myself. Hey babe, where did we park again?”
She smiled back at him. “Level 3, row D—right there, two rows to the left.”
“That was it.” As if it was the most natural thing in the world, he cupped a warm hand around her jaw and planted a solid kiss bang on her lips, then another one, just because. “I’d be lost without you, Sassy Pants. Okay troops, let’s move out.”
The loudest silence Sass had ever heard bombed her ears, and with nothing left to do but roll with it, she patted him on his spectacular ass as he passed. “Lead the way, Sugar Britches.”
Chapter Seventeen
It was almost scary, how Mama Coco never stopped beaming the entire drive home. Heaven knew it had creeped Sass out, mainly because there was such a vast amount of dreamy hope in it. That hope was almost as bad as what she’d anticipated in the opposite direction—disapproval that she wasn’t good enough for their youngest son.
Getting away from Mama Coco and Papa Bolo without answering specific questions had been difficult. Thanks to the older couples’ travel fatigue, however, they’d been able to make their escape with the promise of meeting later in the week for dinner. An inquisition with food was probably a better description for what awaited them, but Sass figured she could jump off that bridge once she got to it.
For now, she could relax.
She relaxed so much that she zonked out almost as soon as they dropped Rude’s parents off. One minute she was waving farewell at her old foster parents as she and Rude drove away, and the next thing she knew, the door was opening up and her seatbelt was retracting. Dazedly she let Rude help her out of the SUV, shocked that she was now so comfortable in his presence that she could nod off like she’d been doing it all her life. She’d never been able to sleep so easily in the presence of others. Never.
What the hell did that mean?
She was so preoccupied she didn’t realize he was leading her by the hand through a courtyard gate she didn’t recognize. Her head snapped up, and she looked around in confusion.
“Where are we?”
“My place. I haven’t been back since I left for Canada last week and I need to see if everything’s cool around here.”
A twinge of guilt hit her as he unlocked the door of a vestibule to a mid-century, three-story apartment building faced in varying shades of brown brick. She had washed a load of his clothes that he’d had from his trip, and knew he’d been more or less living out of his suitcase while he spent virtually every waking moment—and non-waking moment, for that matter—with her. She knew he had a life outside of hers, so she needed to respect that and his personal space.
But when she entered his first-floor apartment with its white-washed walls, beige carpet and bland furniture that screamed “furnished apartment,” she had to wonder just how personal his space really was.
“Make yourself at home,” he invited with an absent sweep of his hand before he tossed his keys onto a dinette table that held a stack of junk mail that needed to be shredded, a football and, of all things, an electric razor that was out of its box, but still in its internal packaging. “I’m just going to head across the hall to see how my neighbors are.”
“Neighbors?”
“The Esposito sisters—two of Mom’s bingo buddies and unofficial aunts who’ve been looking out for me since I got back to Chicago. They’re the ones who’ve been making sure I don’t starve whenever I’m here. Be right back,” he added, and with a wave he was out the door, leaving it ajar.
And leaving her speechless with a whirl of emotion so intense she couldn’t begin to make sense of it.
Never in a thousand years would she have guessed that Rudolfo Panuzzi would grow up to be such a conscientious, responsible man. There were some forces of nature that were destructive, like tornadoes or hurricanes. She’d once thought Rude fell into that category too, but that was nowhere near the truth now. He was a positive force, and he found a way to leave goodness in his wake for all the people who knew him.
Especially her.
A quick glance around the living-dining area showed her it was barren of any personal mementos, so she went in search of something that showed Rude truly lived there. Her search led her down a hallway and a sterile white half-bath that looked like it had never been used, before she headed through the open door of what was obviously his bedroom.
Ah. Here we go.
She inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of his soap and fabric softener and some deliciously warm spiciness that was all Rude, and finally found what she was looking for. It was a picture frame set on a nondescript bureau, holding a photo of several men in desert camo. The men were all posed beside a sand-colored Hum-V, sunglasses on, badass rifles in hand, though relaxed with the muzzles pointed down, and big cheesy smiles in place. Rude was almost in the center, cradling his gun and grinning like the rest, while the man next to him had a cigar chomped between his white teeth and an arm slung around Rude’s shoulders, looking as though the picture had been snapped mid-laugh. The way all the men were grouped around
him, Sass knew he had to be Miracle Max Gold.
Their “father,” as Rude had called him.
They were all so full of life, so certain they could get out of anything as long as they had each other. As long as they had Max, they were ready to have fun storming the castle, no matter what castle it was. To have had that belief so viciously yanked out from under Rude had to have been part of what shattered him, especially when he found himself alone in the world.
She knew what that was like. More than anything, she knew what that awful, silent hell was like.
A movement in the open doorway had her glancing up at Rude, and only then did she realize there was wetness clinging to her eyelashes.
In two strides he was by her side. “Sass, what—”
“You were right.” She took in a breath to keep the worst of her turbulence in check, and tried to smile at him even as the first tear fell. “You were totally right, thinking that I would understand what you were going through. I never had a family, or a close band of brothers like you obviously had here with your unit and Miracle Max. But it’s true what they say—you don’t miss what you’ve never had, so it was okay. I never felt truly alone until…” Then she rolled her lips between her teeth and shook her head. This wasn’t about her old war stories. This was about him, and letting him know she understood. “I’m just glad you had these amazing men in your life. And even though you miss them with everything in you, I know you could never regret allowing them to become a part of you. That’s how I am with your family. Did you know that? It took a ton of courage to let them in, but I eventually allowed them to become a part of me.”
A hand came to rub slow, soothing circles over her back. “I know, Sass.”
“Our ties to people who aren’t our blood… they might not seem real to other people. But you know how real my ties are to the Panuzzi family, because I see that exact same feeling of closeness in this picture. You get what I feel for them.”
“Yeah, Sassy, I get it.” He moved so that her back was to his front, and his arms wrapped around her from behind while he bent to rest his chin on her shoulder. “The guys in that photo and I became close because we were under the worst kind of pressure. To make that pressure bearable, we became family. You had your own kind of pressures to deal with, because you were under fire too. Weren’t you, baby?”
