by Peggy Jaeger
“I’m not a saint, Regina. I’m just a guy who saw an opportunity to do good and took it.”
“I think that’s pretty saint-like.”
One side of his mouth quirked up. “We have different opinions about that, so I’ll let it go. Anyway.” He took another hit of his tea. “I was going to tell you all this, but before I could, your father kinda beat me to it.”
“In the worst possible way. Connor, I’m so sorry. Sorry for all of this. For my father’s behavior, for mine. I’m not sorry he sought you out, though, and apologized. It was the right thing to do. The honorable thing.”
“I can’t fault your father too much about his behavior, now that I’ve got a little hindsight. He was simply looking out for you and your best interests. If I had a daughter like you, I’d probably do the same thing.”
“I tend to think you’d do a more legal background check and not depend on guys who got their information by cracking heads and breaking kneecaps for a living.”
For the first time, he laughed. A full shoulder-shaking guffaw. The sound sailed to my soul with a side stop at my heart.
“So,” I said once he calmed. I wanted to ask where we go from here, but I was afraid to. The hope that all was forgiven enough for him to want to still be with me loomed large. With it was a fear now that he’d said his piece, he’d be on his way with a clear conscience. I mean, why would he want to be involved with me having firsthand knowledge about how my family worked? If he was as smart as I thought he was, he’d run for the hills to get away from all the crazy.
Did it make me a horrible person that I really hoped he wasn’t that smart?
“So.” He pulled both my hands into his again and worried my knuckles. The sensation shot little heated spears straight through me. When he lifted my hands to his mouth and kissed them, all the while his gaze holding mine, I felt liquid heat pool at the juncture of my thighs.
Madre di Dio. One touch from this amazing man and I was as hot as my industrial baking ovens.
“Regina.”
I couldn’t help it; I sighed. “I love the way my name sounds on your lips.”
A devastatingly charming grin stared back at me. “How does it sound? Tell me.”
For the first time in a lifetime, I laid my heart bare. My only hope was he wouldn’t leave it raw and bleeding. “Like it belongs there.”
Those amazing colors in his eyes shifted once again. From gunmetal to flint then an inky coal that smoldered and smoked with desire and intention.
He swallowed, his neck bobbing with the effort.
“It does,” he whispered.
It was my turn to swallow.
“The other night,” he said, “when we made love?”
I nodded.
“I’m glad that happened. Well, not glad.” He clarified with a chuckle when my eyes went wide. “There has to be a better word for it, but afterward I was afraid I’d moved too fast, forced you to do something you might have second thoughts about, or regret.”
“Hello,” I said, pulling a face. “Remember me? The girl who got pregnant on her first date ever with a boy? If that isn’t the definition of fast, what is?”
He kissed my hand again.
“You were a kid then. You’re a woman now. And you’re the most desirable, most amazing woman I’ve ever known.”
Okay, that made my heart sing.
“Plus you’d admitted you hadn’t been with any other man since your husband, so I knew I should tread carefully with you.” He leaned a little closer to me across the table, and a gentle tug on my hands brought me in tighter. In a much lower voice, a voice made for the bedroom at midnight, he said, “But that night I wanted you so much, I was willing to throw caution out the window for a chance to make love to you, to show you how I felt, how much I wanted you.”
I gulped again.
“After I stormed out, I realized I’d never told you something.”
“What?” I whispered.
Without blinking, without ever moving his gaze from mine, Connor shifted in closer to me and, like an unseen magnet, pulled me to him.
“I’ve fallen in love with you, Regina San Valentino. I know it’s crazy, too fast, too…whatever. I’ve waited a long time to feel this way, and I can’t deny what my heart is telling my head. I love you, and I can only hope you feel a little what I feel for you.”
So, how do you tell the guy who basically brought you back from the emotional dead what’s in your own heart? What words can express that adequately?
I didn’t have a clue, so I went with the simple truth. “Way more than a little,” I told him. “Way more.”
One more movement and his lips were on my mine. They lingered for just a moment, then he pulled back. “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”
He paid the bill, and we began walking back toward my parents’ house. It was colder than when we’d started out, the chill in the air biting and fresh. Connor draped an arm around my shoulder, pulled me close, and grabbed my hand, holding it across his midsection as we walked.
We didn’t talk.
At the house, I walked up the first step and turned around to face him. From this position, I was on the same level as him, able to look him square in the eyes. Before I could say a word, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in. When our lips met, that feeling of contentment filtered through me once again. I skimmed my hands up his coat and over his shoulders. My gloves wouldn’t let me clutch the back of his neck.
I groaned, frustrated, and murmured, “Too many clothes.”
With a tiny laugh, he pulled back.
“Are you heading to your parents now?” I asked.
“No.” He kissed the tip of my cold nose.
“Oh? Do you have other plans, then?”
“Yes.”
Before I could ask him what those plans were, the front window above us shot open and ’Carlo’s head popped out. “Regina, get in here. The food’s ready, and we been waiting for you to get back so we can start. I’m starving, so get a move on.”
“You’re always starving,” I shot back, but he’d already closed the window.
I turned back to Connor. “I’m sorry. Family.” I rolled my eyes and kissed him. “When will I see you again?”
“In about one second.”
“What?”
“I’m not leaving. Your father invited me to dinner.”
“He what?”
Connor nodded and started walking up the steps, dragging me with him. “Part of his apology.”
“You’re the last-minute item he went out to bring home?” I asked remembering my mother’s comment.
“Yup.”
At the top of the stairs, ’Carlo opened the door. “About damn time.”
“Language, GianCarlo,” Ma called from behind him.
Pop came from the living room, his eyes flitting from Connor to me and then down to our joined hands. A wide smile blossomed across his weathered cheeks as he shook Connor’s free hand. “Benvenuto. And Merry Christmas. Come in. Come in out of the cold.”
Connor, God bless him, never missed a beat. He patted my father on the back and said, “Grazie, Sonny.”
Then, Pop moved to me, bent to kiss my cheek, and whispered, “Do you like your Christmas present, bellissima figlia?”
It took everything in me not to say, “At least I know it didn’t fall off a truck.”
Chapter 11
Regina’s tips for surviving in a big Italian family: 11. Remember that with faith and family, nothing is impossible.
One year later
“Mamma mia, it gets colder every December,” Aunt Grace said as she made the sign of the cross at Angelina’s grave. “I can feel the wind shooting straight across my nipples. Rest in peace, piccolo angelo.” She turned to my mother and Aunt Frankie. “I’m heading back to the car before I freeze my ass off. Take your time. Our reservation isn’t until one.”
Ma nodded.
“We won’t be but another minute,” Frankie
told her sister.
The wind whipped up around us. My mother and aunt were burrowed in their big woolen coats, scarves, hats, and gloves in place to protect them from the cold, but even with all that protection, I could tell they were feeling the chill.
“She ain’t wrong about the weather,” Frankie said. She, too, crossed herself and laid a hand on top of the marble headstone. “We’ll see you soon, Angie, baby. Love you. Miss you.” Then she kissed me on both cheeks. “Make sure you don’t stay out here too long, Regina Maria.”
“I won’t.”
“Come on, Urs. Let’s get outta this wind.”
Ma pulled me into a hug and held on tight. Even through the sixteen-odd layers she’d garbed herself in to ward off the cold, I felt her shoulders shake as she tried to hold back the tears.
“It’s okay, Ma.”
“We’ll see you tonight for supper,” she said, pulling back and cupping my face with her gloved fingers.
“We’ll be on time, I promise.”
“Bring cannolis. Your father’s been asking for them, and I keep forgetting to bring them home with me. Come on,” she said to her sister-in-law. “Let’s go get warm.”
I sat back down on the bench.
“Baby,” I said to the headstone, “Nonna and the aunts are gone. It’s just me and you, now. Connor went to get the car to give me a few moments alone with you, and I wanted to wait until everyone left to tell you our news. The last time we came out here was when we got married in July, remember?”
After joining my family for Christmas Eve dinner and eating every single fish course my mother made—even the octopus—Connor had accompanied us to midnight mass. The fact he’d survived the boisterous dinner, answering every question my nosy, overbearing brothers put to him about his business, his family, what kind of car he drove, and where he lived, I figured if he could survive that initiation under fire and still smile, he could survive a doomsday nuclear event. The inquiring looks and pop-eyed side-glances he got at mass from the members of my extended family didn’t faze him in the least. At the back of the church, Pop introduced him to everyone as Regina’s guy and left it at that. I was sure I’d be the number one topic of conversation around all their Christmas meal tables that day as speculation about who my guy was, what his intentions were, and every other little nosy tidbit they could gossip about danced from their lips.
Connor saw me home and, after a heart-stopping kiss at my door, spent the night in my bed instead of going back to his apartment. He brought me back to my parents’ house on Christmas morning and then to his parents’ home in Staten Island. It was a testament to how happy my family was for me that they didn’t even balk at my leaving our family Christmas before the macaroni was served.
We were together, officially, as a couple from that day forward.
At a romantic dinner for two in his condo on Valentine’s Day two short months later, he proposed. I’d baked red-velvet cupcakes for dessert, and when I’d gone to the bathroom after dinner, he’d slipped a fake ring inside one of them, then made sure I chose that one when dessert time came.
He’d placed it in the frosting and let it stick out a little so it would be noticeable. I squinted down at it, asked, “What’s this?” and then licked the frosting until the ring was revealed. It was a huge fake diamond he told me he’d bribed his sister to buy at a local costume jewelry store in the King’s Plaza Mall in Brooklyn. Gaudy and shiny and so tacky, it made my eyes bleed.
I loved it.
When I started to laugh, because really it was pretty funny, he slipped out of his chair, got down on one knee, and grabbed my free hand. In his other, he held a distinctive blue box.
I stopped breathing. When he kissed my hand and grinned, my heart joined my lungs.
“Regina—”
“Yes!” I exploded.
Of course I’d said yes before he even got a chance to ask.
Laughing, crying, I fell on top of him, tumbling us both to the floor.
In between kisses, Connor chuckled and said, “I had this big long speech prepared about how much I love you. How I waited a long time to find you, and you’re not even gonna give me a chance to tell you?”
“You can tell me every day for the rest of our lives,” I said. “Or better still, show me.”
We never got to eat the red-velvet cupcakes.
On July fourth weekend, we were married in St. Rita’s. Father Tom performed the ceremony, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Connor’s family—both of them, adoptive and biological—attended. The aunts, once they’d all heard the story of Connor’s birth and adoption, laid siege to Lisa DeBenedetto at the reception and, in their nosy, loving way, grilled her like a steak for details. I’d overheard Aunt Frankie ask if she was seeing anybody because she knew of a couple of unmarried guys looking to find companionship and she’d be happy to set her up. I told this to Connor, who blanched, then promised me he’d warn her.
“Well, a lot has happened since then,” I told my daughter. “The biggest news is that you’re gonna be a big sister. Connor and I are expecting a baby sometime in April.”
I placed my hand over my puffy overcoat to my stomach. Yup, this was a honeymoon baby, and we were both thrilled. Sometimes I’d find Connor staring at me, a look of such complete joy and love on his face, it brought me to tears.
Or that could be the hormones.
Anyway, he was as blissfully happy as I was when we confirmed the pregnancy. Of course we waited a few months to tell everyone. Old-world Italians corner the market on worrying. They are truly the most superstitious people on Earth and believe the worst will happen before something good does. If I’d announced the pregnancy too early, they’d all be in church daily praying that I lived through the first three months.
I’m not kidding.
Not even a tiny bit.
So, we waited until I was past that all-concerning first trimester to announce our happy news.
“Oh, Angelina, I’m so happy sometimes I have to pinch my arm to make sure I’m awake and all this is really happening. I never thought I’d get married again or be blessed with another child.” I slipped off a glove to swipe at my teary eyes. “Nonna told me the other day she believes everything that’s happened to me this past year has been orchestrated by you. That you’re up in Heaven, looking down on me, protecting me, and making sure I find happiness again.”
“I believe that,” Connor said from behind me. There wasn’t a speck of uncertainty in his voice. He plopped down next to me on the bench and grabbed my ungloved hand. Immediate warmth spread throughout my body at his touch.
That battalion of butterflies I’d grown accustomed to whenever he was near or touched me, fluttered like crazy inside me.
I loved him so, so much. More each day.
“I think your mother is right and this little angel”—he chinned toward the headstone—“brought us together.”
He reached out and fingered the top of the headstone as Aunt Frankie had. “Thank you,” he said.
Joy spread through me.
“Did you tell her our news?”
I nodded.
Connor lifted my hand and kissed it. “She’ll have someone else to watch over now.”
Was it any wonder I loved this man?
The wind kicked up again, and I leaned in closer for a cuddle.
There’s an old Italian saying, ama guarisce tutti i cuori rotti, love heals all broken hearts.
Connor had come into my life exactly when I was ready to be healed from the tragedy of my past and I hadn’t even known I was. His love had restored not only my heart, but my very soul.
Sitting there, with the man I loved beyond all words and the daughter who’d touched so many lives, I truly believed she was our guardian angel.
And I felt at peace.
A word about the author…
Peggy Jaeger is a contemporary romance writer who writes about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them
.
Family and food play huge roles in Peggy’s stories because she believes there is nothing that holds a family structure together like sharing a meal…or two…or ten. Dotted with humor and characters that are as real as they are loving, Peggy brings all topics of daily life into her stories: life, death, sibling rivalry, illness, and the desire for everyone to find their own happily ever after.
You can visit her on her website PeggyJaeger.com
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Also available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc. and other major retailers
A Kiss Under the Christmas Lights
by Peggy Jaeger
With Christmas just a few weeks away, Gia San Valentino, the baby in her large, loud, and loving Italian family, yearns for a life and home of her own with a husband and bambini she can love and spoil. The single scene doesn’t interest her, and the men her well-meaning family introduce her to aren’t exactly the happily-ever-after kind.
Tim Santini believes he’s finally found the woman for him, but Gia will take some convincing she’s that girl. A misunderstanding has her thinking he’s something he’s not.
Can a kiss stolen under the Christmas lights persuade her to spend the rest of her life with him?
Also Available
All Hearts Come Home for Christmas
by Annalisa Russo
Jillian Magee, a fifth-grade math teacher who loves Christmas, has a freezer filled with Christmas cookies, all her Christmas gifts wrapped, and the red scarves all knitted for her caroling party. Unfortunately, the universe seems bent on depriving her of joy this season, even when it supplies her with a well-intentioned celestial do-gooder—a quirky female version of Jacob Marley.
Tristán Solano, famous as Trystan Sol in the rock music world, grew up across the street from Jillian Magee, his first friend at five years old and the woman he left in order to grab the brass ring. After eight years with a popular group, earning more money than he can possibly spend in one lifetime, he longs for his old, uncomplicated life. As Christmas approaches, he leaves the band and heads home with his four-year-old daughter.
