by Lauren Layne
Anthony felt a little stab of gratitude that his family so firmly had his back on this, although damned if he knew how to express it. Thank you wasn’t very often in his vocabulary.
“I do it because I care,” Tony Moretti muttered, looking both annoyed and properly chastened at his family’s gentle scolding.
Anth waited until his father glanced at him, and held his gaze. “I know, Dad.” Then he nudged his plate in his father’s direction and saw from his dad’s slight nod that Tony Moretti knew what it was. A peace offering in the form of bacon.
“Men,” Elena muttered. “Communicating in food.”
“So?” Vincent said. “You women communicate in shoes and chocolate—”
“And wine,” came a soft female voice from the edge of the table. “Don’t forget wine.”
Maggie.
He knew his brothers would never let him forget it if he said it aloud. He very nearly did, though, just to hear her name on his lips. But somehow he knew this woman, not by her voice, or her look, or even her smell, but just by her presence.
He felt her. Felt when she was near. Felt when she was afraid. And felt when her eyes were on him.
Like now.
“You’re a wine-o, Mags?” Luc said, forcing her to shift her gaze from Anth to his brother, and causing Anth to want to relieve Luca of all his teeth.
Maggie gave a small smile. “Let’s just say that sometimes a glass of wine is just exactly the thing.”
“Or a bottle,” Ava chimed in. “Sometimes a bottle is just the thing.”
Maggie grinned down at Luc’s girlfriend. “Or a bottle,” she agreed. “Although the hangover is rarely worth it.”
She flicked a gaze at Anthony, and he gave her the smallest of winks, reassuring her that he did in fact remember that her last hangover involved him and a series of texts…
Too late, he realized that his siblings would be watching him like a hawk, and no way were the Morettis the type to let one of their own off the hook.
“Did you just wink?” Elena asked.
Anth gave her his best scowl, but his sister merely shrugged. “Glare all you want. I know what I saw.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“What Sister Dearest meant to ask,” Luc chimed in, “was not did you wink, because obviously you did, but why did you wink, Anth?”
“I didn’t wink.”
“You totally winked,” Ava chimed in. He transferred his glare to Luc’s girlfriend, who merely beamed and stole a piece of his never-ending supply of bacon.
“You did wink,” Maggie said, a smile lighting up her face as she looked at him.
And though Anthony knew it was insane…knew that his family would see right through him, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling back.
Vincent cleared his throat. “Hey, Mags…I think there was maybe some mistake, but um, Anthony seemed to get all the bacon in the restaurant.”
“Seriously, there are like, twenty pieces,” Elena chimed in.
Anth leaned back in his chair and watched as Maggie’s pretty features formed the picture of confusion. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Nonna pointed a long spindly finger at Anthony’s plate. “Sure you do. You made sure he got half of a hog all because you two had relations.”
Maggie gave one of those slow, secret smiles that only women seemed familiar with and leaned down so her lips were close to his grandmother’s ear. “Mrs. Moretti, with all due respect…if I were to have relations with a man, he’d have all the reward he needs. You get me?”
Maggie stood up slowly, grinning a little when Nonna let out a delighted whoop and smacked her palm against Maggie’s backside as Ava and Elena gave Maggie high fives. Even his mother looked strangely approving.
Anthony, meanwhile, was torn between grinning with the rest of his family and wanting to drag Maggie out the back door of the diner, press her up against the brick wall, and show her that when it came to relations, he was no slouch either.
Unfortunately, there was a time to woo a woman and a time to mind your manners. Sitting across the table from one’s parents in a brightly lit diner after an extra long church service fell into the latter category.
Instead he settled for watching her as she joked with Elena, appreciating the way the youthful ponytail contrasted with the laugh lines around her eyes and mouth.
“You’re staring,” Vincent said under his breath.
Anthony immediately jerked his gaze away from her, locking it instead on the ivory porcelain of his coffee mug.
For years, he’d been ensuring not only that women didn’t get the wrong idea about his intentions, but also that his family and friends didn’t get the wrong impression either.
He’d told himself never again.
Not after Vannah had killed herself, citing him as the cause. He’d never forgive himself for being so wrapped up in his job that he didn’t see how attached Vannah had become.
He’d been ignorant, and that was unforgivable.
He wouldn’t be ignorant around Maggie.
He didn’t want to let her imagine something that couldn’t be.
His eyes fell on his father, watched as the often too-serious Tony Moretti smiled warmly at Maggie, let her rest a hand on his shoulder as she chatted with Anth’s mother.
Maggie had always been comfortable with his family, and he’d never thought much about it, but things had gotten even more familiar as of late. The knot in his stomach tightened as he watched his father put his hand over Maggie’s and pat it in a downright fatherly manner.
He should put a stop to this. Now.
But then she glanced over at him, and the guileless happiness in her eyes loosened the knot.
No doubt about it: he was in serious trouble.
“Anything else I can get you guys?” Maggie asked. “More coffee. Bacon?”
“I’d love a cup of tea, darling,” Maria said. “If you have it.”
Maggie laughed. “Mrs. Moretti, the day we stop having tea is the day you should find another diner.”
“Never,” Elena said, popping the last bite of her pancake in her mouth. “This place is our second home.”
“But you should really consider selling booze, dear,” Nonna said. “I could go for a nip right about now.”
“It’s eleven in the morning,” Anthony’s mother said mildly.
Nonna nodded emphatically and pointed at her daughter-in-law. “Exactly. Bourbon time.”
Maria opened her mouth, but Maggie spotted the argument a mile away and broke in. “Mrs. Moretti—”
“Nonna.”
“Nonna. I promise to let you know if the manager ever decides to pursue a liquor license, but in the meantime, how about a piece of pie, on me?”
“We will absolutely have pie,” Anthony broke in, “but not on you. I’m buying.”
“I’m buying,” Tony broke in. “Bring us a piece of every flavor you’ve got, Mags.”
She smiled. “Tea and pie, coming right up.”
“And bourbon!” Nonna called after her.
Maggie didn’t turn around to this last part, and Nonna grumbled under her breath before reaching under her shirt and pulling a silver flask out of—No. Anthony didn’t even want to ponder where the hell she’d stashed the thing.
“Not to worry,” his grandmother said proudly. “I came prepared.”
“Wonderful, I know I’ll rest easy knowing my mother-in-law keeps a flask in her bra,” Maria said. “Son, hand me a piece of that bacon.”
“Oh, this from Miss ‘I’ll just have a nice bite of oatmeal and some fruit’?” Nonna asked.
Maria pointed her piece of bacon at her mother-in-law. “Keep it up and I’ll be stealing your flask.”
That shut Nonna up.
Anthony enjoyed about two seconds of glorious, non-meddling silence from his family and then…
“Okay, so back to Smiley—” Tony said.
He was met with a chorus of groans, and his wife shoved a piece of bacon
in his mouth.
Anth hid a smile as his dad sent him a victorious wink. The wily old bastard had been after the slice of bacon the whole time.
Then Vincent had to go and ruin his burst of happiness with a rare moment of brotherly bonding.
“Maggie’s not like her, you know.”
Vin’s voice was low enough not to be overheard by anyone other than Anthony, but Anth stiffened all the same. He took a sip of coffee and tried to block out his brother and the memories that came with his brother’s words.
“Vannah was an emotional wreck,” Vincent said, after glancing around and ensuring that the rest of the family was involved in a semi-good-natured argument about some new TV series about firefighters.
“Maggie’s different. Fragile, maybe, but she has strength. Vannah was a selfish—”
“Don’t,” Anthony interrupted.
“I’ll say whatever I damned well please,” Vincent shot back. “I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but Vannah was a selfish bitch who refused to be happy and wanted desperately to take you down with her.”
“She’s dead, Vin,” Anth said flatly. “She killed herself because I didn’t pay enough attention to her. Because she begged me over and over again to see her, and I chose the damn job every time.”
“Bullshit,” Luc said.
Anth glanced around and saw that the family had taken notice of his and Vincent’s discussion, and from the looks of things, they were all gearing up to take Vincent’s side.
“Vannah begged you to pay attention to her, but it wasn’t her right to do that. She didn’t own you. And it wasn’t your fault that she based her entire self-worth on whether or not her boyfriend texted her back within a certain amount of time.”
“And she wasn’t even your girlfriend when she died,” Elena added gently. “You guys had been broken up for months.”
Anthony’s jaw clenched.
Two months. He’d officially ended things with Vannah two months before she’d swallowed a bottle full of sleeping pills.
Those two months were crucial, but not in the way his family seemed to think.
The way Anthony saw it, that time when they’d stopped seeing each other—his choice—were two months more that he might have helped her. Two months where he might have had the chance to see the warning signs. Two months he could have been there for her.
Technically, Vannah had been an ex-girlfriend when she died.
But that technicality meant bull-fucking-shit when you were named in the suicide note.
As the cause.
It was reasons like this that he couldn’t pursue things with women like Maggie Walker. Women who would need him, and women who he couldn’t be there for. Women who—
The clattering of plates disrupted his dark thoughts, and he and the rest of the Morettis shifted in their seats to see the cause of the commotion.
Anth’s first impression was that that was a lot of wasted pie. A tray full of pie in every color littered the ground.
Seconds later, pie became the last of Anthony’s worry, because then he caught sight of her face.
Maggie’s face.
He was shoving at Vincent to move his brother out of the booth seat, but his brother was already on the move. All of his family was.
Ava had been sitting at the end of the table and made it to Maggie first, her arm wrapping around the other woman’s waist and holding her up with surprising strength.
Maggie said nothing, her fingers reaching behind her to pull at her apron. One of her fellow waitresses gently pushed her hands away and did it for her.
“Maggie?” Luc asked.
She looked at Luc, eyes filled with panic. “It’s my dad. There’s been an accident…I don’t—they don’t—my brother says he’s in surgery.”
Her eyes moved around the circle of Morettis almost frantically until they landed on his, and his hand reached out for hers, wanting to somehow tug away the pain and fear he saw there.
“Where do you need to go?” Ava asked. “Is your family local?”
“New Jersey,” she said faintly.
“We’ll take you,” Vincent said.
The rest of his family nodded in confirmation, and Anth knew he was overstepping all sorts of boundaries, including his own, but nothing—nothing—could have stopped him just then.
He moved forward, oblivious to the fact that he all but mowed over his brothers, until he was standing directly in front of her. Elena and Ava stayed by her side, but he barely noticed them.
“I’ve got you,” he said quietly.
Damn it. What he meant to say was, “I’ll drive you.”
But when her eyes warmed in relief—and maybe something even more important—Anthony realized that maybe I’ve got you was exactly what he’d meant to say after all.
He wanted to hold her. To have her. To do anything and everything she wanted, to be everything she needed.
Because the woman in front of him felt like his.
Chapter Fourteen
Her dad had wrapped his Toyota around a light pole.
No other parties involved, just him, an inanimate steel object, and a bottle of vodka.
Actually, she wasn’t sure about the vodka.
Knowing her father, it could have been whiskey. Or rum. Or a couple dozen beers…
“You know how crappy that road is, Bug, especially in the rain,” her brother said from where he was slouched across from her in the hospital waiting room. “There are all those curves, and the city hasn’t done shit to fix the potholes.”
Maggie could only stare at him.
It was always like this with Cory.
Nothing was ever his fault. Nothing was ever their father’s fault.
Cory had happily blinded himself to the fact that a pothole and a little bit of rain wouldn’t have caused a car to go careening off the road with enough speed to practically split the car in two.
She studied him, waiting for the moment when this would click with him, even as she knew that the moment would never come.
Her brother looked exactly the same as she remembered.
Cory was good looking. Ridiculously so. He had the same brown hair and hazel eyes as Maggie, but whereas this translated to merely average on her, he had the added benefit of thick lashes, an excellent jawline, and white, perfect teeth.
It was as though fate had noticed the shortcomings of his character and decided to make amends by making him outright gorgeous.
“How long has he been out of rehab?” she asked quietly.
Cory snorted, not looking up from his phone. “He doesn’t need to be in rehab. So he likes beer. What’s the big fucking deal?”
“Your father is currently lying on an operating table in a trauma center. I’d say it’s a big fucking deal,” Anthony Moretti said from the spot where he stood in the corner of the waiting room.
Maggie tensed. It was the first thing Moretti had said since they’d gotten to the hospital. Mostly he’d done a lot of frowning.
He’d frowned when the nurse at the front desk had told them that her dad was still in surgery.
Frowned when her brother had greeted him with a ’sup.
Frowned when Maggie had refused his offer of coffee.
Cory’s expression turned from indifferent to sulky as he flicked his gaze to the pissed-off-looking man in the corner. “Sorry, who the fuck are you?”
Maggie dug her nails into her palms. “I told you, Cor, he’s…”
“Yeah, I get that he’s a big shot cop, Buggsie, but that’s not what I’m asking. I want to know what he’s doing here.”
Cory had finally flicked off his phone screen and transferred his attention to her, but not in the way she wanted. She heard her brother’s question loud and clear: What is a cop doing here with you?
“He gave me a ride,” she said quietly.
Cory’s eyes narrowed. “You just happened to run into an off-duty police captain who just happened to drive you out to fucking New Jersey?”
>
“I—”
Moretti cut her off. “Answer your sister’s question. When did your father get out of rehab?”
The two men glared at each other for about twenty seconds before Cory looked away with an insolent shrug. “He was only there about a day or two. Didn’t like it.”
“He didn’t like it?” Maggie said. “He’s not supposed to like it, Cory. He’s sick. He told me he wanted to get better and I—”
She broke off before verbalizing the extent of her foolishness, but knew from the curl of her brother’s lip that he saw right through her. And she didn’t have to look at Moretti to know what she’d see on his face. Disgust. Or worse, pity.
Maggie resisted the urge to dip her head all the way forward to bury her face in her hands. Instead she forced herself to sit up straighter. “What about the money?”
Cory’s brow wrinkled. “What money?”
“Never mind,” she said quickly, realizing her mistake.
Cory sat up straighter, looking alert for the first time since she’d walked into the hospital. “No, seriously. What money?”
Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
Cory might have inherited the startling good looks of their mother, but he was thoroughly his father’s son. Especially when it came to sniffing out money.
“Bug?” Cory prompted.
She felt Moretti’s gaze on her. “I’m guessing your sister bankrolled your father’s rehab stint,” he answered for her.
Cory’s expression turned thoughtful. “Huh. I wonder how much of that is refundable. Be a shame to let them keep it when he doesn’t even need…”
Anthony very slowly pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning against, extending his long body to its full, impressive height.
Maggie’s eyes widened a little at the look on Anthony’s face, but her brother was too busy calculating how to get his hands on additional funds to recognize the danger until Anthony was standing in front of him, towering over Cory.
“I believe, Mr. Walker, that the shame here is that your sister is wasting her money on a man who doesn’t have enough respect for himself or his family to get sober.”
Maggie frowned and pushed out of her chair. “Now wait a second, Captain.”
