He looked at her darkly, struggling not to react to the woman in any way but impersonally. He would have had an easier time winning a cheerleading contest.
“I’m not interested in technicalities.”
She enumerated what she was hoping for. “Show up once in a while and play catch with him. Maybe occasionally take him to a ball game. Remember his birthday and Christmas.” She smiled at him, her features softening as she remembered. “Show him what his father would have been like if he’d lived. I want Johnny to be proud of the fact that his dad was a policeman.”
J.T. struggled to resist. He knew he didn’t want to say yes, saw further complications if he did. But the word “no” just wouldn’t come out as easily as it had for most of his life. Not to her. He wasn’t about to analyze why.
“It doesn’t bother you that I might not be the same religion as you and your son?”
It was a requirement, but there were ways around that. Tiny white lies could be forgiven. In the grander scheme of things, she was saving a soul. Or at least bringing a man back among the living. She’d had her family to help her through her difficult time. She’d already figured out that J.T. had no one.
Maddy shook her head to his question. “He’s got uncles for that.”
J.T. spread his hands. He was off the hook. “Then he’s got uncles to play catch with.”
She laughed. “You obviously haven’t seen my brothers play ball. They’re great interior decorators and each one has a fantastic eye for color and proportions. But doing anything remotely productive with a round little object flying through the air at them is another story.” Turning the baby around, she held him up in front of J.T. so that the infant’s cherubic face was close to his. “How can you say no to this face?”
J.T. took the excuse she offered him as a graceful way to surrender. But in his heart he knew that it wasn’t Johnny’s face he couldn’t say no to.
“I can’t.”
Chapter 8
Like a passive observer in a dream, J.T. watched himself get into his car the following Sunday afternoon and drive to the Church. He still wasn’t quite certain how he had managed to get himself roped into agreeing to be the baby’s godfather. He certainly didn’t think of himself as the godfather type.
Godfathers were mostly inactive roles, anyway, he consoled himself. He hardly remembered who his had been; he certainly hadn’t made a significant difference in his life. This was just something that required his going through the motions, nothing more. Once he did, that would be the end of it. Really.
It struck him that he’d said words to that effect concerning Maddy before. He was actually trying to convince himself that, this time, they would stick—and not having altogether that much luck at it.
With a sigh, he took a right turn just past the intersection and slipped into the church’s parking lot. The familiar-looking edifice brought a sudden lump to his throat. It surprised him that Maddy should have chosen St. Mark’s for the baptism. St. Mark’s was where he and Lorna had gotten married.
And where he had felt bound, because Lorna would have wanted it that way, to hold the funeral service for her over two years ago.
He hadn’t been back since then. He’d buried his belief and his soul in the same grave where he’d buried his wife.
Bracing himself, J.T. got out of the car and took the five steps up to the front of the church. A man he recognized from the hospital was standing at the doors, obviously waiting for him. The man, older by a few years and, by his estimate, a couple of inches taller, took hold of his arm the moment he came into range.
“Hi, I’m Bill. They’re waiting for you,” was all he said by way of a greeting.
He didn’t like being touched. J.T. removed his arm from the other man’s grasp. “How do you know you have the right man?”
“Maddy described you.” J.T. resisted the temptation to ask him to elaborate. But he couldn’t help wondering just what it was that she had said.
There was a baptismal font to the left of the entrance. Usually it was separated from the rest of the foyer by an ornate wrought-iron gate, but that was drawn back today and a small group of people were gathered in a semicircle around the font. A priest stood in the center. Maddy was holding her son, who was dressed completely in white from the miniature suit down to the slightly oversize socks that ran up his legs and over his knees.
She smiled a greeting at him as he approached. Everyone was obviously waiting for him.
“I was beginning to think you had a change of heart,” she told him, transferring the baby into his arms.
“I did,” he told her. “I came.”
There was a glint of vague recognition in the eyes of the priest who officiated at the baptism, but J.T. didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t let on that he knew the man—that the priest had been the one who had presided over his wife’s funeral mass. There was no point in it.
He had no reason to rekindle any sort of relationship with the man or what he represented. That part of him, J.T. thought, was dead.
So what was he doing, he wondered, standing here, professing to be this tiny human being’s godfather, the guardian of his immortal soul? Reciting words that were being fed to him by a man of the cloth? He wasn’t any more suited for the job than a snow leopard was suited for the tropics.
It was her fault, all her fault. J.T. slanted a glance at Maddy. He couldn’t seem to say no to her. But he would. He’d just get through this ceremony and then whatever else she was planning, she could just count him out.
The christening wasn’t the end of it.
Somehow, in his heart, he’d known it wouldn’t be. The moment the ceremony was over, he overheard two of the men he’d been told were her brothers, Bill and Tony, talking. There was to be a party to celebrating her son’s big day right after they all left the church.
Well, it could just go on without him, J.T. thought. He hadn’t signed on for anything extra, and he wasn’t about to mingle with people he didn’t know.
His escape was foiled.
The second the priest withdrew, gratefully accepting the envelope Bill had slipped him for the ceremony, J.T. found Maddy hooking her arm through his and drawing him outside toward where her own car was parked. The baby was tucked against her other shoulder, apparently content to remain there indefinitely.
Maybe the baby was, but he wasn’t, J.T. thought. No, he wasn’t…so why wasn’t he drawing away, for god’s sake? Why was he allowing her to remain at his side like this, directing his every move?
He refused to entertain the thought that a small part of him liked it.
“Thanks for standing up for Johnny.” J.T. looked down at the small face. He knew that, at this age, a smile was not within an infant’s repertoire, but something very close to a smile was on the small, rosebud mouth and he found himself being almost as captivated by the child as by the mother. Again.
Still, he tried to sound distant. “I doubt if he knew the difference.”
She firmly believed that babies were far more aware of things than anyone gave them credit for “He might not, yet, but I do and I appreciate it.”
She kissed the small head before placing the baby into his infant seat. Johnny began voicing his protest at being separated from his mother. His lungs had done a lot of developing in the short time since she’d brought him home from the hospital.
Maddy looked up sweetly at J.T. “Do you know how to get to DiAngelo’s?”
Having lived in the city all of his life, J.T. sincerely doubted there was a place in Bedford he didn’t know how to find. However, he looked at her suspiciously. “Yes, why?”
She returned the suspicion with innocence. “That’s where the party’s being held.” She indicated the baby. “I thought the guest of honor should be there and I’d really rather that you drive us. Bill drove my car over and he can’t seem to understand that he’s not racing go-carts anymore.”
He glanced over to where his vehicle was parked. “What about my car?”
>
“We can bring you back after the party.”
“And Bill?”
“He’s getting a ride from someone else.”
The woman had an answer for everything. He played dumb, even though he’d overheard her brothers talking to her mother about the reception. “And what party are you talking about?”
She explained as if she were talking to someone who had come from another world. In a way, she was beginning to think that he had. A very somber, joyless world. But it was up to her to change that. It was her way of paying him back for coming to her aid. It was, in her estimation, the least she could do. Besides, because of the mutual loss they’d each suffered, she felt a kinship toward him.
“It’s customary to have a celebration after a christening. My mother thought there’d be less cleanup involved if we hired a hall instead of having it my place. Or hers,” Maddy added with a smile, remembering the look on her mother’s face when she had contemplated the kind of mess forty or so people could leave behind in their wake.
It seemed to him that ever since he’d met Maddy, he was constantly attempting to find ways to beg off from things. “Um—”
She recognized that sound. He was going to say no. Maddy hurried to head him off. “It’ll just be a small thing, for the people who came to the church.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw people who had filled a number of the last pews filing out. He’d thought they were there for someone else. He should have known better.
“They didn’t bite you then,” she was saying. “They won’t bite you at the restaurant. I promise.”
He found himself coming up with reasons why it would do no harm to go along with things, just this one more time. What was this overpowering effect she kept having on him?
And why couldn’t she just take a hint?
And why couldn’t he just say no to begin with?
Shaking his head, J.T. fixed her with a look that was not altogether disgruntled. “You were spoiled as a child, weren’t you?”
“Me? Spoiled? Nope.” Her grin was wide with victory. “I earned everything I got. In case you haven’t noticed, I have the tenacity of a bull terrier.”
There was certainly no need to tell him that. “I noticed.”
Trouble was, he was noticing a lot of things about her. Like the habit she had of letting her smile begin in her eyes before it reached her lips, or the way she had of looking up at him just before she was about to put him on the spot.
It had to come to an end, and soon. There was no place in his life for the feelings that were beginning to push their way forward.
He had no business wanting to see her, to be in her company. He knew it was just asking for trouble and he’d sworn to himself that he’d never be in that kind of a position again. A position where fate could suddenly spring up out of nowhere, grab him by the throat and choke him because it had senselessly robbed him of what was his. He’d been through it once, and once had been hell.
If he ventured into the land mine laden field again, he would have no one to blame but himself.
He drove Maddy and Johnny to the reception, blaming himself.
“You’re not dancing.”
Her softly worded observation came floating to him from behind his chair. He’d mistakenly taken a seat at a table he discovered to be occupied by her mother, a woman who did not have to stop for a breath the entire time she spoke. It obviously ran in the family on the female side only. Mercifully Mr. Rossini had seen fit to take his wife onto the dance floor at every opportunity, allowing him to regroup for the next assault.
He’d just been planning his escape when Maddy came up behind him. J.T. didn’t have to turn around. The next moment, she was in front of him.
“There’s a reason for that,” he told her.
But she was already taking his hand, drawing him out of his chair. “Good, you can tell me all about it while we’re on the floor.”
A man had to take a stand somewhere. “Maddy, I don’t dance.”
The statement seemed to have no effect on her as she continued to lead him to the dance floor. “You can stand, can’t you?”
He stopped and she turned to face him. The woman was incorrigible. “You want me to stand still on the dance floor?”
“To begin with.” As if posing a mannequin, she placed one of his hands behind her back and wiggled her hand into the other one. “The rhythm’ll take you.”
It wasn’t the rhythm that was taking him anywhere. It was her. The song that was playing was a slow one and she was so close against him that he could feel each breath she took as she swayed in tempo to the music.
“Just let yourself go,” she coaxed softly. “Nobody’s going to rate your performance, I promise.”
He looked down into her face and caught himself struggling with the urge to kiss her. The woman was a witch. “Even you?”
Her smile curled all through his body. “Most of all me.”
What did he have to lose? “You asked for this.”
J.T. closed his hand over hers and drew her closer as he moved his hand to the small of her back. He’d never actually danced, only observed other people doing it. For a few minutes, he supposed he could fake it. It was easier than trying to argue with her.
At least with dancing he had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.
She raised her face up to his and smiled at him in that way of hers that was beginning to nibble away at his inner lining. “Yes, I know.”
He forced himself to look over her head. It was simpler that way. “What does your family think?”
“About?”
He could feel her warm breath against his chest, could feel something tightening in his gut in response. “You asking me to be the baby’s godfather.”
“They think I made an excellent choice.” Well, eventually they will, she added silently.
He sincerely doubted that had been the response she’d gotten, but he didn’t feel like engaging in what he knew would be a long, drawn-out process to try to draw the truth out of her. “Got an answer for everything, don’t you?”
She laughed lightly. “No, but you’ve been asking the right questions, and so far, I’m safe.”
Yes, but was he? he wondered. Two weeks ago, he would have said that nothing could get him to feel anything but anger again, and now there were a host of emotions shifting around inside of him, emotions he wasn’t about to examine.
So for now, he decided that that safest thing was to say nothing. Instead he did what she’d told him to do. He let the music take him away.
Chapter 9
It had to stop, it really did.
He’d been telling himself that for the last three months. Three months during which he found himself slipping deeper and deeper into the trap. The one that sprang when you least expected it, breaking your spirit, breaking your back.
Breaking your heart.
Granted, Maddy had a way of brightening his life, of actually making him look forward to the next day. He’d finally come to grudgingly admit that to himself. His partner swore he’d changed, become easier to get along with. He’d told Fenelli he was hallucinating, but in his heart, he knew his partner was right.
But that was just the trouble.
He didn’t want to change, didn’t want to look forward to the next day. Didn’t want to get into that kind of relaxed mode because that was exactly when it happened, when fate came to kick you in the teeth as it took away everything it had given you. And more. If you never let yourself be vulnerable, if you never had anything, then you couldn’t lose everything. It was as simple as that. He’d come to learn that it really wasn’t better to have loved and lost, it was better not to have loved at all because if you don’t love, you have no clue what it is you’re missing.
Lorna had taught him what it felt like to be in love, to center a world around someone else. If she hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t have felt as if he were walking around with a gunshot wound to his vital organs the last twenty-eigh
t months.
He should have learned something from that.
Self-preservation was supposed to be an inherent human instinct.
So just what the hell was he doing, looking forward to seeing Maddy each day? How had all that happened, anyway? he wondered in self-disgust. For a loner, he was certainly out of his element.
It had to stop.
Now.
Before he lived to regret it.
Having made up his mind, he worked out his plan and waited for the elation of freedom, of release, to come. It didn’t.
No matter, it would, he promised himself. He reached for the phone.
Maddy had gone back to work three weeks after Johnny was born. Rather than take her mother up on her offer to baby-sit every day, Maddy set up a playpen in the back office and brought the baby in with her, whimsically dubbing him a consultant. She worked with her three brothers, each of whom brought something a little different to the business her grandfather and then her father had built up.
For her part, Maddy ran the financial end and did some of the decorating. Bill did the buying, Steve had a background in architecture and Tony, with his gift for gab, did the canvassing and brought the customers in. Until recently, they had worked beside her parents. The elder Rossinis were retired now, though that didn’t prevent them from showing up at the trendy shop several times a week, especially now that their grandson could be found on the premises.
Everyone doted on the boy, although Maddy swore that his eyes lit up whenever J.T. entered a room.
When she told him that, J.T. felt it was just her way of trying to snow him, though for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why she would want to. In any event, he told himself he didn’t take the words to heart.
He’d gotten extremely good at lying to himself.
Determined to put an end to his growing relationship with both Maddy and her son once and for all, he called her at her office. He got Bill instead. The fact that Bill immediately recognized his voice just reaffirmed J.T.’s belief that he had spent far too much time with a family he had no desire to merge with.
A Mother's Day: Nobody's ChildBaby on the WayA Daddy for Her Daughters Page 15
