"I can figure it out," Matthew said quickly, and held up his hands. "Joe, listen. I think you need to have a long talk with the lady. Could be, you've figured her wrong."
The look on his brother's face almost broke Matthew's heart. "You think?"
"Yeah," Matthew said, and cleared his throat, "I think. And I think you need to have a talk with yourself, too." He clapped Joe on the back as they walked slowly along the path that led to the front of the house. "An honest talk, about what you feel for her. You know what I mean?"
Joe nodded. "Maybe she's been telling me the truth," he said quietly. He took a deep breath. "And even if everything I think is true... well, people change. Isn't that right, Matt?"
Matthew thought of his brother as he'd been in his teens, always getting in trouble; he thought of him as he'd been the last few years, working his tail off to make a name for himself in the city's financial world, dating every beautiful woman who came his way but never giving away his heart ...
"Yeah." He swallowed hard. "Yeah, bro, they do."
Joe headed home, driving a little more slowly than usual. He had a lot to think about.
He was glad he'd stopped by to see Matt. The visit had been an impulse; it was a quiet Friday, nothing much happening except drinks with a client at five, but the guy had canceled. So Joe had phoned his brother, just to touch bases. One word led to another and they'd agreed it would be cool to leave their respective offices early and meet at Matt's place for a drink.
"What's the sense of being the man in charge, if you can't play hooky once in a while?" Matt had said, and Joe had laughed and said that made sense to him.
He sighed, geared down and stopped at a red light. The truth was, he'd been wanting to talk with Matthew. So much had been going on in his life lately: Matt wasn't the only one shocked to learn he'd asked a woman to live with him. He was shocked, too, and he'd been the one who'd done the asking.
Of course, it was temporary, until either he or Lucy decided it was time for a change.
Joe frowned. He knew it would happen. He'd grow bored, or she would. Sure. It was just a matter of time. Why would he think otherwise? Had he lost his perspective?
Maybe so. Maybe that was why he'd wanted to see Matt, who was always clearheaded and logical. Well, not a couple of years ago, when he'd met Susannah. Matt had turned into a man who didn't know which way was up.
Joe's frown deepened. The light turned green and he jammed his foot down on the gas pedal.
Yeah, Matt had done some strange things when he fell for Suze, but so what? If he was acting weird, it was only because he wasn't accustomed to living with a woman. Love didn't have a damn thing to do with it. No way was he falling for Lucy. She was good in bed. Okay, so she was good to be with out of bed, too. What did that prove?
"Nothing," Joe muttered. "Not one thing."
Joe pulled the Ferrari into the driveway, shut off the engine.
Dammit, he had to know. Had she really done the things he thought she had? Would he have to look at every guy in the city and wonder if she'd been with him?
It was nuts to think a woman who'd perform at bachelor parties could have possibly hung on to her virginity, but that first night they'd been together had been different from every other night he'd ever spent with a woman.
The ghts since, too. Lucy's reactions to the things he did. Her breathless excitement when he touched her. Her intoxicating hesitancy when she explored his body with her hands, her mouth.
Joe held his breath. Was it possible that she hadn't lied? That she'd never danced for a roomful of men, or been with anyone before him? Was he her first lover? Her first love? Joe jumped from the car and ran to the house.
"Lucy?" he called as he jammed his key in the lock. "Lucy, honey, we have to talk."
He knew, right away, that she wasn't home. Otherwise she'd already have been at the door and in his arms, the way she was each night as soon as she heard him, her beautiful face turned up for his kiss.
His smile dimmed, but only for a second. Okay, she wasn't here. But she wouldn't have expected him home for another couple of hours. It was only that the place seemed so empty without her.
"Lucy," he said softly, and a thousand different emotions flashed through him, all of them pointing in one direction.
He loved her.
And she was in love with him.
That was why she'd been so furious that morning on the boat. She'd known then that she loved him, but he'd been too dense, too dumb, too all-around selfish to see it.
Joe sank down on the bottom step and ran his hands through his hair. He was in love.
"Romano," he whispered, "you blind son of a bitch, you've loved her from the beginning."
He grinned, jumped to his feet, ran up the stairs and checked the rooms, just to make sure they were empty. Then he ran down to the kitchen. Lucy was probably out shopping for their dinner. What was it they'd figured for tonight? Shrimp jambalaya, that was it.
Well, forget that. Cooking was fun. Everything was, with Lucy. But when a man poured out his heart, told a woman he loved her and that, okay, he'd been busy making an ass of himself and could she possibly forgive him?-when a man did that, it called for dinner at the best restaurant in the city and chilled Cristal champagne.
He reached for the telephone, punched the speed-dial number for Le Peregrine. "Good afternoon," a smooth-as-velvet voice said, "would you please hold?"
Joe rolled his eyes. "No problem." Then he switched the phone to his left ear, pulled a notepad towards him, picked up a pencil.
What was that, on the notepad? A list of some kind. And a name and address. The smile died on his lips as his gaze skimmed over the pad.
"Five o'clock," he said softly as he read aloud. "Private party. Swinging doors. Back room. Blue Mountain Cafe, Charles Street
."
Joe knew the place. Knew of it, anyway. It was a small club. Very private. He'd never been there but it had a reputation.
He hung up the phone. The notepad trembled in his hand. The words were hard to decipher. Lucy must have jotted them down in a rush-or was it the sudden clouding of his vision that was making it so difficult to see?
"Bikini." His voice was rough as gravel as he read the list out loud. "Pasties. Pom-poms. Melted chocolate. Whipped cream."
Joe could feel his heart shriveling, turning from warm flesh to cold, hard stone. Carefully, he put down the notepad, walked to the window and stared blindly out at the tiny flower garden in front of the house. A couple of minutes passed. Then he went back, picked up the pad and read the list again.
He wanted to pound his fist through the wall. The desire to hurt something, destroy something, was almost overpowering. Instead, he ripped the page from the pad and stuck it in his pocket.
With a head full of rage and a heart full of anguish, he ran out to his car and roared down the driveway.
A fog was rolling in. He drove by instinct, faster than he should. Horns blared; he caught a quick glimpse of the red, angry face of a cable car operator, got an impolite gesture from a guy in a car he cut off, but nothing mattered except the piece of paper burning a hole in his pocket.
That, and the woman he'd been fool enough to think he loved.
"Damned idiot," he muttered as he pulled to the curb in a no-parking zone outside the Blue Mountain Cafe.
Love? A woman like Lucinda Barry?
Joe barked out a laugh as he pushed through the doors into the club. New! New! New! a sign shouted. Private Parties, Our Specialty!
"I'll bet," he said, his mouth twisting.
A man came hurrying out from behind a high desk. "May I help you, sir?"
Joe had already spotted the swinging doors that led to the back. He kept walking.
"Sir, you can't go in there. There's a party in progress."
"I know all about your parties," Joe snarled.
The guy made a grab for his arm. Joe swatted him aside, slapped his hand against the swinging doors and felt the swift pulse of blood
through his veins as he stepped into the room where, even now, Lucy might be standing on a stage in front of a bunch of slobbering, hot-eyed sons of bitches...
And saw, instead, a bunch of helium-filled balloons, a clown with a big red nose and an even redder wig, and tables packed with little kids. Four-year-olds. Five, maybe. He didn't know much about kids.
And Lucy. His Lucy, wearing a long-sleeved, pale pink dress and a pair of her ever-sensible shoes, staring at him from behind what looked like an old-fashioned soda fountain, staring at him as if he were an apparition while she held a bowl of whipped-cream-and-chocolate-covered ice cream in her out stretched hand.
"Joe?"
He stared back at her while he tried to get his tongue unstuck and his brain into gear.
"Joe?" Lucy said again. She shot him a tentative smile, handed the dish to the kid who reached up for it, and came out from behind the fountain. "What are you doing here?" she asked as she walked towards him. She put her hand on his arm while her smile went from tentative to puzzled.
Joe opened his mouth, closed it again. "I. .. I... I. .. "
"Yuck, yuck, yuck," the clown said, and the little kids laughed and clapped their hands.
Lucy blushed, took Joe's arm and led him out through the swinging doors to the club's lobby.
"Joe, for goodness' sake, say something. How did you know I was here?"
In slow motion, like a man trapped in a bad dream, Joe took the piece of notepaper from his pocket.
"I came home early. You weren't there, but this was."
She frowned, took the paper from him and glanced at it.
"Oh, yeah. I forgot it. Good thing I remembered the stuff I needed to pick up, and the address, too."
"You're working a private party," Joe said slowly. "At the Blue Mountain Cafe."
"Uh-huh." She smiled. "The new Blue Mountain Cafe. Miss Robinson made that very clear."
"Miss Robinson," Joe repeated carefully.
"Yes. Oh, that's right, you never met her. Well, she's wonderful. She was a dancer when she was young. She's an old woman now, but she has more spirit and energy than..." Lucy laughed. "Let me just tell you the news. I called Miss Robinson a few days ago, just to see how she was doing, and she told me she'd bought this place-"
"An old lady bought the Blue Mountain?"
"Yes. Seems it had been closed for a while, that it had an awful reputation, but she bought it, renovated it, and turned it into a place that caters parties for children."
"For children," Joe repeated. It seemed all he was capable of doing.
"Exactly. And she asked if I were still working as a chef, for you she meant." A soft blush suffused Lucy's cheeks. "I said I wasn't, and she said she might have some work for me and that she'd call, if she ever did, and then, this morning, she phoned and said her desserts person had the flu and how was I at making... Joe, what is it?"
"Nobody needs this stuff for desserts," he said gruffly, snatching the list from her. "A bikini. Pasties. Pom-poms. Melted chocolate. Whipped cream."
"That's 'blini,' not 'bikini.' Well, of course, blini are usually for grown-ups but I thought of filling them with ice cream and..." Lucy's smile faded. She looked up, her eyes meeting his. "Oh, Joe," she said softly.
Joe cleared his throat. "Well, hell, what was I to think? Pasties."
"Pastries.''
"And pom-poms."
"A dessert I remembered from my own childhood. My mother didn't approve, but the cook took pity on me and made them once in a while. Chocolate cupcakes, frosted with white icing, then dusted with coconut..." Lucy stepped back. "You thought," she said, her voice trembling, "you thought I was here, entertaining men."
Joe looked at her. Her mouth was trembling even more than her words, her eyes were glassy with tears, but it was the look in those eyes, those beautiful eyes that sent a spear of panic into his heart.
"You thought that of me, Joe. That-that I would lie in your arms at night, and-and during the day, do the kinds of things that went on in the Blue Mountain Cafe before Miss Robinson bought it."
"Lucy. Honey, no. I didn't. I just-"
She jumped back as he reached for her. "Don't touch me!"
"Sweetheart. Lucinda, please-"
"I told you not to touch me!" Lucy's face was white, her eyes almost black. "What a fool I was, to let myself fall in love with you."
Her unexpected admission filled him with joy. "That's what I'm trying to tell you," Joe said. "I'm in love with you, too."
"No. You aren't." She jabbed a finger, hard, into the center of his chest. "It's that oversized ego of yours. It's all puffed up because you think I'm this-this cheap version of Salome all men seem to fantasize about."
"No," he said with hot indignation. "Dammit, I never-"
"You came here, expecting to see me leaping out of a cake. Or peeling off my G-string." She jabbed him again. "Isn't that right?"
"Yes. I mean, no. I mean, I thought that might be it. But-"
"You don't love me, Romano. You don't trust me. You don't even like me." Tears rolled down Lucy's face. "I'm just some kind of -of sexual toy to you. A trophy you figured you'd keep around for a while and then dump when things got dull."
Joe blinked. "Lucinda. You're distorting everything."
"I'm not," she said, and suddenly her shoulders sagged and her hands fell to her sides. "I'm not," she said, very softly, and brushed past him.
"Sir," an officious voice said, "I tried to tell you earlier, you cannot-"
Joe snarled, grabbed the clerk by the elbows, lifted him off his feet and set him aside, but it was too late.
Lucy had gone out the door and disappeared into the fog.
CHAPTER TWELVE
JOE stepped into the center of the sidewalk and peered up and down the street. The fog was getting denser, lending a surrealistic look to things. Swirls of it curled around people hurrying past him. Their faces seemed to float above disembodied torsos and legs.
None of those faces was Lucy's.
Fear twisted his belly with a steely grip. He crushed it down, ruthlessly, with a jolt of anger.
"Dammit," he said under his breath, and cut across the pavement to his car.
She was good at this, Ms. Lucinda-of-the-Boston-Barry's. Joe jammed the key into the ignition and started the engine.
The lady got ticked off at him, she walked out. Well, she wasn't getting away with it this time, anymore than she did the last. A woman couldn't just march out of a man's life because he said something that annoyed her. When you came down to it. what had he done, anyway, except tell her he was in love with her, and that only went to prove how crazy she'd made him.
He slowed the car to a crawl, ignored the honks of protest from the traffic behind him, and put down the window so he could check out faces he drove past.
Only a masochist would love a woman whose greatest joy, whose special skill, lay in knowing how to drive him up the wall. Lucy was beautiful. Okay. And she was bright. But he'd dated lots of bright, beautiful women, and not a one-
"Not a blessed one," he snarled, slapping his hand against the steering wheel.
Not one of those babes had done a number on his head the way this one had.
Plus, she had a quick temper. She didn't know the meaning of compromise. She didn't seem to know how to stroke a man's ego, or care about doing it. And that was only the start.
Lucy couldn't cook, not unless you thought desserts constituted "cooking," and not even he, with his cast-iron stomach, could live on chocolate and whipped cream forever.
She probably couldn't sew or knit, either. He'd bet anything she didn't know how to clean a house. She was probably lousy at any of those female things.
Joe stopped at a red light.
Okay, he'd taught her to play a mean game of eight ball.
He hadn't had to teach her to argue politics and world affairs; she could talk even him under the table with facts and figures, and that was saying a lot. For all he knew, she could hold her own in a discuss
ion of particle physics.
On top of all that, she had a great sense of humor and a wonderful laugh. She was sweet and good and kind. And yes, she was special, in bed ...
Joe blew out his breath. Okay. More than special. He felt something when they made love, felt it even afterwards, just holding her in his arms, something he'd never felt before.
So what? Was that enough to make a man tolerate her damn fool stubbornness? He'd told her he loved her, for God's sake. That he'd been wrong, in his judgment of her. What more did she want? Was he supposed to say he wanted her with him, always, that he wanted her to be his wife?
Because he did, dammit. He did.
His anger fled and the fear came back. He had to find her. Had to make her see that he didn't view her as a trophy, as the star of some juvenile fantasy. He loved her. Needed her. Wanted to share his life with her.
And, by God, if she didn't believe him, if she didn't admit that she felt the same way, he'd toss her over his shoulder and carry her off, the way he'd done before.
The light went from red to green. Joe wrenched the wheel and made a quick, hard, illegal U-turn.
A guy in the next lane shouted something.
"You don't understand, man," Joe yelled. "I'm in love." The guy rolled his eyes, made a face, and gave Joe a thumbs-up.
"Thanks," Joe said.
Something told him he was going to need it.
Lucy was running down the hilly pavement, one block over. The fog was getting worse.
Good, she thought grimly. Joe would never find her in this soup, even if he knew where to begin.
And he didn't. She was certain of it.
Right now, he was probably driving that testament testosterone that he called an automobile up and down the street where the cafe was located, searching for her.
She could picture it, picture him, getting angrier by the second. He'd never calm down long enough to stop and think logically. If he did, he might figure out that she'd run to the corner, watched him leave the Blue Mountain, then run right back inside, straight through the place and out the rear exit.
Romano's Revenge Page 17
