An Offer He Can't Refuse (38 page)

Joey suddenly turned toward Johnny. "So why are you still here?" she asked, in her usual impatient manner.

Eve rolled her eyes. "My God. It's as if you're six instead of twenty-six. Let me show you how this is done, little sister." She put on her angel-singing smile. "Johnny, how are you enjoying Palm Springs?"

You could hear the returning smile in his voice. "What's not to enjoy?" He plucked the gardenia from behind Téa's ear and stroked the petals against her cheek.

She tensed her muscles so as not to show her shiver.

Eve continued to use her party-circuit voice. "And how's the design of your house going?"

"Your sister's a cross between a miracle worker and a slave driver. Demolishers are demolishing. Painters are painting. More furniture arrives every day."

Pride warmed her from the inside out to meet the tingles that his touch started on her skin.

"Then you've learned one of her secrets," Joey said.

"What's that?"

"She's bossy." Joey grinned. "Not to mention overly worried about what she looks like and what other people think."

Téa sent the younger woman an "I'm killing you later" look. Tonight she was supposed to get less personal with Johnny, not more.

"I think I'm glad I don't have sisters," he murmured, bending closer to her ear.

But Joey heard it. "No sisters? Brothers then?"

"One brother. We're not that close."

"Ah," Joey said, nodding. "But we're Italian, which means we call 'em like we see 'em. We don't play the nicey-nice WASP game."

"Well maybe we could try," Téa protested.

"Hey, I'm no WASP," Johnny said. "I'll have you know I spent my formative years in catechism at St. Charles parish church," Johnny said.

Every Italian eye in the room focused on his face.

"You're Catholic?" Rachele replied. "No way."

Johnny shrugged. "I can still remember the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit that were awakened at my confirmation." He ticked them off on his ringers. "Wisdom, understanding, right judgment, courage, knowledge, reverence, and fear of Our Lord."

"Give the man a St. Christopher's medal," Eve said. "He knows more than I remember after thirteen years of parochial school."

Téa's neck prickled. Catholic? She didn't care if he was Buddhist or Baptist, but somehow, finding out he was Catholic made her wonder what other things he'd been keeping from her.

'This is the worst day of my life," Rachele suddenly whispered, squeezing shut her eyes.

Téa reached over to rub her arm. Had the mention of parochial school made Rachele remember "Honor thy father?" Téa had experienced problems with that one herself, after Salvatore had disappeared and left them to face the FBI alone.

Maybe the minds of her sisters had gone in that direction too. Eve looked off into the distance. Joey scowled.

'Those FBI SOBs gave me the worst day of my life," she said.

"No, Joey," Téa whispered. Not now. Not more secrets tonight. Not with Johnny so close to her.

Johnny's hand stroked down the length of her hair. She wanted to move up, move away, but she couldn't let him guess how tense she was.

Eve frowned. "The FBI are showing up at your Starbucks again?"

"No." Joey's eyes were gazing at a place in the distance. In the distant past. "Remember that day they burst into the house? I was hiding under my bed."

Johnny's hand stilled in her hair, midstroke.

Eve sounded offhand. "Of course I remember. We all remember, Joe."

Téa let out the little breath she'd been holding and felt Johnny's hand resume its soothing stroke.

But then Eve spoke again, her voice lower. "They pulled you out by your ankles. I'm sorry, Joe. I should have stopped them. I hate that I'm such a coward."

Damn it, Téa thought. This wasn't the time or the place or the people she wanted to discuss this around. But
she
hated hearing the guilt in her sister's voice. Anger started rattling its cage inside her again as images shuffled in Téa's mind. Memories. "You were in the closet, Eve. You didn't know they were dragging her out by her feet."

Rachele made a muffled noise. Johnny's hand moved to rest on Téa's shoulder.

The touch renewed Téa's resolve. "But let's not talk about this tonight," she said, mustering all her big-sister bossiness. Maybe at some point they should have talked about the events that changed their lives, but their mother had started the silence they all still kept.

Except for Joey, who now couldn't seem to keep her mouth still. "They didn't care about us or our feelings," she said. "They only wanted to find the stashes of cash they were sure we were hiding, no matter who they had to grab by the ankle or pull by the hair."

"Damn," Johnny muttered near her ear, apparently repulsed.

But the sisters kept on talking. "And the Loanshark book," Eve added. "They wanted that too, but they only found the cash and left us with nothing."

"God. Damn. It." Johnny spit the words out. His hand pulled away from Téa's shoulder. She could feel his disgust.

And almost, almost, could laugh about it. She'd wanted to cool things between herself and Johnny. She'd wanted to put him off before she got hurt. The funny thing was, it only took getting more personal, more intimate with him to find the way to make that happen.

Now that he knew more of her secrets, her heart was safe.

Not surprisingly, the subject of the FBI raid put the final damper on an already depressing evening. Rachele, who looked exhausted, assured all of them that she'd be fine alone. Certain that their mother would check in on the younger woman later, Eve left, then Joey, then finally Téa and Johnny.

It was a silent walk to the parking lot.

He hadn't said a word since his muttered, "God. Damn. It," and she hoped he'd leave it that way.

She had no need of platitudes. He didn't need to say, "Hey, maybe we'd better take a break from this distraction thing," for her to read the writing on the wall. FBI, stashes of cash, the Loanshark book. A man wouldn't want to be mixed up in ugliness like that.

She didn't expect him to understand what it was like to have a father like hers. Who would? Thinking she could be anyone's "distraction" or anything more than that was just a silly dream. Her father, her family, her past would al-ways bubble up and give any good man sensible, second thoughts.

So, letting her relationship with Johnny die this quick, sudden death was all right with her.

Her hand was in her purse, scrambling around for her keys when he spoke, his voice rough and abrupt. "Where were you hiding?"

"Huh?"

"If Eve was in the closet and Joey under the bed, then where the hell were you?"

She swallowed, the memories coming alive again, a slide show of anger and fear. "You don't want to hear about that."

A white Cadillac cruised past them, its headlamps bathing their legs in light. It turned into a spot farther down the lot. The night air carried the sound of the Caddy's doors opening and a couple's conversation as they walked closer.

"Yes, I do." Johnny turned to the Jag and unlocked the passenger door. Holding it open, he nodded toward her and then the seat. "Get in. Get in and tell me."

Bristling, she glared up at him in the darkness, angry at his insistence and angrier still at the memories that had been poked alive by Joey and Eve, and now by him. She didn't like remembering them.

"Damn it. Get in and
tell me
." •

Fine. He thought he wanted to know? Téa marched toward the car and ducked into the seat. Then she would tell him. Maybe he needed the words in order to feel less guilty about breaking things off. Certainly what she had to say could only tarnish the "pure pleasure" he claimed he wanted with her.

But when he was settled in the driver's seat beside her, he had to prompt her again. "I gather the FBI raided your house—after your father's disappearance?"

She took a breath, nodded. "They came in wearing bulletproof vests and carrying sledgehammers and crowbars. At least a dozen of them. They pounded on the door and then didn't give us a chance to answer. They poured into the house like cockroaches."

Her mother had been frozen for days, ever since it was clear that Salvatore wasn't coming home. She'd watched the agents invade with dead eyes. "My father had been missing for more than a week."

"Where did they find you, Téa?"

She laughed, the sound dry and bitter. Scornful. "I wasn't hiding, if that's what you're asking." She'd still thought of herself as royal then. And loyal. So stupidly loyal. "I stood in the foyer and told them to get the hell out."

It seemed to take him a moment to absorb that. "How old did you say you were… twelve?"

"That's right. Twelve years old and I thought I could order them off the premises."

"Jesus." Johnny forked his hand through his hair. "Did they have a search warrant?"

She laughed again. "I don't know. Do you think they would have bothered to show it to me, Salvatore Caruso's little bitch of a daughter?"

"They called you a little bitch." Apparently he recognized the direct quote.

"Only when I bit the hand of the agent that shoved me out of the way."

That surprised a laugh out of him. "I would never have guessed you're a biter, Contessa."

"Oh, you don't really know me, Johnny." And he never would. Strange how sad and glad she felt about that at the same time. "You don't really know me at all."

He let the comment go, staring straight out the windshield as if he found the dark street fascinating. 'They found cash then?"

"Wads of cash. I remember this one agent getting a little giddy as she scooped handfuls of twenties from a space be-hind the shelving in a linen closet. I read all about it in the newspapers. There was over $130,000 found in various places around the house. They confiscated every last dollar bill."

"It's no crime to have an aversion to Citigroup and B of A."

"I wish I'd thought to mention that when they smashed our piggy banks. I'm fairly certain that's what cemented Joey's hatred for the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

"Jesus," Johnny said again. "Jesus." With a jerky movement he started the car and then slammed it into reverse.

"Wait, wait." Bewildered, Téa put her hand on his arm. It was stiff and tense beneath her fingers. "My car."

"We'll get it tomorrow."

"You're driving me home?"

He glanced over. "What? I thought we were going back to my place."

"I… I don't want to go home with you." She cleared her throat. "I mean, you can't want me to go home with you."

"Why the hell not?" He was already racing down the street.

"Because…" She wanted to cool things between them. Because he had to be disturbed by what he knew about her family.

"You can't think this changes my attraction to you, Téa."

Of course she thought it changed his attraction to her! She was counting on it! Panic started to flutter in her belly again. Her family wasn't known as part of the Mafia because they were Italian and liked their pasta. It was because the FBI had found inexplicable sums of cash in the walls… and because of the Loanshark book.

"You don't understand. You don't know everything," she heard herself say.

He sped through a stale yellow light. "What don't I know?"

"Don't kid yourself." She'd done that, of course. But not anymore. "My father didn't have an aversion to banks, Johnny. He had a business that dealt in cash. An illegal business that was documented in the Loanshark book."

"Eve mentioned this Loanshark book. But if it was never found, then how does anyone know what it actually documented?"

Johnny was already pulling into his driveway. In another couple of minutes they'd be in his house and in his bedroom and she didn't know if she'd be able to deny herself another night with him… or where another night with him might take her heart.

So she had to tell him the truth now—or at least most of it, she thought, desperate. Get it out, so that he'd have his eyes opened about who she
really
was. Then certainly he'd be done with her.

"
I
know what the Loanshark book actually documented, Johnny, because I did all the record-keeping for my father."