Finder's Keeper (13 page)

“Do you have to be so gleeful about our incompatibility?”

Mia flicked a glance at the women huddled around the stove and turned her back on them, lowering her voice. “If we give them even a spark of hope, they’ll never let it go.”

“Don’t you worry about the lady protesting too much?”

He saw his words sink in and the color leech from her face. “Crap. You’re right. So should I just ignore you? Be completely uninterested?”

“I don’t think changing strategies at this point is going to do any good. Maybe keep the
we’re just friends
monologues to a minimum.”

She studied his face and a tiny smile slowly tugged at her stern lips. “Is it denting your fragile male ego, Chase?”

He laughed, always ready to have one at his own expense. “I don’t think anything as massive as my ego counts as fragile.”

She shook her head, a smile playing in the air between them. “I—”

“Seven Minutes in Heaven!”

“Nonna!” Mia yelped, a fraction of a second before a surprisingly hard shove hit him between the shoulder blades and knocked him through a darkened doorway. He caught Mia as she was thrown in after him, setting her on her feet as the door snapped shut behind her and darkness closed around them. A scraping that sounded alarmingly like a heavy chair being dragged in front of the door followed. Then only the sound of the two of them breathing filled the small space.

“Did your sweet little Italian grandmother just lock us in a closet to make out?”

He heard Mia’s exasperated little huff in the darkness. “Technically it’s the pantry.”

“The pantry,” he repeated, still trying to wrap his head around the commando matchmaking that reigned in Mia’s family.

“And I’m not entirely sure she wants us to make out. She’s always going on about the way to a man’s heart being through his stomach. She probably wants me to whip up some homemade pasta and a nice marinara for you.”

Chase snorted at her dry tone. Mia may not see herself as the life of the party, but her little muttered comments were funny as hell. And all the more appealing because she didn’t say them loud enough for everyone to hear—like her humor was a secret she only shared with him.

A suspicious thumping sounded outside the door, followed by the unmistakable opening notes to “Let’s Get It On”.

Mia groaned. “Oh sweet Jesus.”

Chapter Thirteen

The Pantry o’ Love

Mia thumped her head back against the pantry door. “On second thought, she’d probably be ecstatic if you knocked me up in here. There’s a long Corregianni tradition of getting a head start on the wedding night—though they’ll scratch your eyes out if you imply that Uncle Tommy was anything other than the world’s first ten-pound three-ounce preemie.”

“A wedding night, huh? Was that a proposal?”

“Not funny, Chase.”

His chuckle was low and far too delicious in the dark. An invitation to things she had no place hungering for. “So, now that you have me in the pantry, what are you going to do with me?”

What indeed?
Mia’s heart had been doing double time ever since Nonna shoved her in here. The inky blackness inside the pantry seemed to amplify all her other senses—and give her permission to indulge them. She could hear the rustle of his shirt, the slightest shift in his breathing. And, Lord almighty, he smelled amazing. Like summers at the beach with lowered inhibitions—not that she’d had any of those.

“I say we go with it,” Chase said, his body suddenly so close she could feel the warmth of him.

“Go with it,” she repeated, defensively trying to sound quelling and disdainful rather than like a trembling pile of hormonal mush.

She must have succeeded, because Chase made a low scoffing noise, the puff of breath stirring against her skin in the darkness. “Stop trying to plan everything, Mia. Sometimes you’ve gotta go with the moment. Have you ever done that? I bet you have a boyfriend checklist. Itemized and ranked.”

And color coded
. Mia cringed, glad he couldn’t read on her face how right he was. So she liked to plan. And, yes, she knew what she required in a mate. Was that a crime?

Outside Marvin Gaye’s crooning segued from “Let’s Get It On” into “Sexual Healing”. Nonna was nothing if not subtle.

“This isn’t a moment. It’s a hostage situation,” she protested, but the words wavered as a calloused hand brushed across her throat and around to cup her nape.

“I say we pay the ransom,” he murmured, his voice so throaty and low…and close. The words practically touched her lips. And then his lips did.

The kiss was a jolt to her system. She’d heard of toes curling and always thought it was a metaphor, more for poets than scientists, but with the warm, gentle press of his mouth against hers, synapses she’d never known she had started firing and, sure enough, her toes curled in her impractical shoes.

Mia held herself still, observing the kiss more than participating in it. Until his tongue traced the seam of her lips and then slipped between them, and Mia remembered she was supposed to be kissing him back.

She flicked her tongue against his and leaned into his chest, fisting her hands on the lapels of his blazer and hanging on for dear life. As soon as she relaxed against him, Chase’s arms came around her and suddenly he was all she could feel, swamping her senses. He was warm and hot and smelled deliciously of sunblock and citrus. Damn if the man couldn’t kiss. She was swooning—actually swooning!—in his arms, clinging to his lapels to keep from careening into the dry goods.

He murmured something indistinct and utterly intoxicating against her lips, some mumbled exclamation of surprise or pleasure, and angled his head to take the kiss deeper, sucking her under until all she felt was his mouth and all she heard the rushing of her blood, the pounding of her heart…

And the creak of the pantry door opening.

Light splashed across the tangle of their embrace and a high, young voice sing-songed, “I
fooound
them!” The words echoed throughout the house as Mia jerked away from Chase, knocking several cans of soup off a nearby shelf.

Mia ignored the fallen cans and Chase and everything except her cousin’s six-year-old daughter Imogen, standing in the doorway, staring at them without blinking, her arms folded disapprovingly. “Nonna says you hafta come to dinner ’fore we can eat.”

“Of course! We were just on our way,” Mia yelped, grabbing Imogen’s shoulders and spinning her to face the dining room where half the family would be gathered, the rest spilling out onto tables in the side yard.

Imogen took off toward the dining room as Chase stepped out of the pantry behind her. “They were
kissing,
Nonna!” she shouted, her high, clear voice carrying back to them and echoing throughout the house as she ran. Chase covered his mouth—either to conceal the evidence or his laughter, she couldn’t tell which. A cheer rang out from the dining room. Mia flinched.

So much for just friends
.

Suddenly it all felt like too much. The missing watch, Chase, her family crowding around her pushing so hard for her inevitable, fated happiness. It all weighed on her chest, brick after brick after brick. She couldn’t get a full breath.

“I just…one second. Be right back. It’s… I forgot my…in the car.”

Mia bolted for the back door, panting and trying to remember what to do in the case of hyperventilation. Something about paper bags. How was that logical? How was a paper bag supposed to help her breathe? An O2 tank. That’s what she really needed. Or a chest tube and a breathing machine, since her body had clearly forgotten how.

On the back step, she pressed her spine against the door and closed her eyes, trying to remember the mechanics of getting oxygen into her lungs. She could do this. She’d been doing it for thirty-four years. In and out. Easy. In…out…

Her breathing finally eased and Mia closed her eyes, relieved to be thinking of something outside her lungs. The clouds had cleared off, but a cool wind still rustled the leaves. Around the corner of the house she could hear the Corregianni hordes gathered for the traditional feeding frenzy—and beneath that medley of voices, two more arguing just around the corner, hidden from sight. Two familiar voices.

“This isn’t the time, Martin,” her sister Teresa snapped, her voice sharper than Mia’d ever heard it—and growing up as the sister most likely to dissect Teresa’s Barbie dolls, she’d heard some pretty sharp tones.

“Putting it off won’t make it any easier.” Martin’s ever-reasonable voice was aggravated, impatient. “Maybe they’ll understand. They all know how hard it’s been for us lately—”

“I said no, Martin. This is Gina’s day. I’m not going to ruin it for everyone. We’ll tell them next week at Nonna’s…”

Teresa’s voice drifted off, retreating back to the party, and Mia realized she was leaning half over her mother’s back porch rocker, shamelessly eavesdropping.

Sweet Jesus. Were Teresa and Martin getting a divorce? No Corregianni ever had, but it was more than that which shocked Mia. They’d seemed so happy. So perfect for each other—whether ordained by an idiotic bit of gold and gears or not, she’d thought they of all couples would go the distance.

But what else could it be? What else would so upset the family that it would totally ruin the day? And why else would Teresa have suddenly declared that she and Martin couldn’t be godparents?

A horrifying—and completely unscientific—thought tracked across her brain, leaving numbness in its path. Was this somehow her fault? Had she
caused
the divorce by losing the watch?

She couldn’t have. She knew it was impossible. A superstition. But if she admitted she’d lost it now, of all times…
Mary, Mother of God.
She had to get it back. Chase had to find it.

Chase…

He’d kissed her. That couldn’t be standard professional conduct. And she’d let him. She’d more than let him, she’d practically mounted him in the pantry. Given a few more minutes, she may well have.

And now her entire family knew she’d kissed him…and he was in there talking to them. Alone. Unsupervised.

Nonononono.
Mia jerked open the door and rushed inside.

She found him in the dining room. As she watched, he pulled something from behind the china cabinet with a magician’s flourish and the entire room burst into applause.

Zia Verna leapt up from the table as soon as she spotted Mia in the doorway, rushing toward her with her hands flapping. “Mia
bella
! How could you not have introduced us to this wonderful boy sooner? He has The Sight!”

Chase held up his hands in obviously false humility and flopped into the chair between Nonna and Zia Anna, both of whom immediately fell to cooing over him. He was the belle of the ball. The prize stallion, all right. She’d brought him home and her family, who had always looked at her as if she was a changeling, instantly fawned over him and beamed at her, delighted that she had finally done
something
to prove she was, in fact, a Corregianni.

“
This
one is a keeper, Mia!” her grandmother gushed. “Not like that Peter.”

A chorus of agreement met that proclamation and Mia bit back her protest that Peter was a lovely man and there was absolutely nothing wrong with a relationship based on common interests and intellectual compatibility.

Instead, she smiled and let herself be pulled into the boisterous bosom of her family, shoved right alongside Chase as Nonna scooted down to make room for the happy couple. But she couldn’t help the low boil of resentment in her blood at how easily this stranger had become one of them, how instantly he had been embraced. How she had needed someone like him as her entre into the group when she should have been accepted from birth.

She wanted to kick him when he winked at her and all the women at the table swooned a little. He did
not
need to be feeding the flames, even if they’d officially burned the just-friends bridge to cinders in the pantry.

She could still salvage this evening. And next week when Teresa dropped her bomb, everyone would forget all about Chase’s winks and smiles.

If only she could be certain she would forget his kisses so easily.

Chapter Fourteen

They Say It’s Your Birthday

Chase’s phone rang while he was helping clear the table—amid Zia Anna and Nonna’s play-by-play commentary on his candidacy for sainthood, interspersed with tips on how to word his wedding proposal. Mia was shooting him the same glare she’d been giving him since their escape from the pantry. If she hadn’t kissed him like he was the second coming of Casanova, he might have been concerned.

Until he looked at the caller ID and saw Brody’s name, he’d forgotten he was supposed to be hovering awkwardly around Brody’s barbeque grill this afternoon, while all his old frat buddies grimaced at him sympathetically over their brewskies.

He ignored the call, knowing that would just make Brody even more of a pain in his ass the next time they talked, but not ready to interrupt his afternoon of domestic bliss.

Zia Anna beamed at him, visibly pleased that he’d silenced the call even though she patted his arm and cooed, “You go ahead and answer it, sweetie. We’re not formal here.”

Mia rolled her eyes. “Says the woman who flushed Mario’s new iPhone down the toilet last Thanksgiving because it rang during grace.”

“It interrupted
God
,” Nonna gasped.

“The Devil’s cell phone,“ Zia Anna agreed, and they crossed themselves in unison as Chase’s phone began to ring again.

“I’ll turn it off,” he offered apologetically, barely glancing at the screen where Brody’s name had flashed again.

“You can take it in the living room,” Mia suggested, her gaze scuttling to the pantry like she was afraid her grandmother would find a way to get them back in there. “I’ll say my goodbyes and meet you there in a few minutes and we can take off.”

Chase studied the I-will-kill-you-if-you-say-you-want-to-stay-longer wildness in Mia’s eyes and nodded meekly, retreating to the living room, which was surprisingly empty, most of the party having moved outside.