Finder's Keeper (32 page)

Chapter Thirty-Five

Rollercoasters & Romantics

The one hundred-twenty-first annual Corregianni anniversary party was in full swing by the time Chase and Mia arrived at Nonna’s house. May first wasn’t just the day Gianni and Anna Maria had gotten married. Because of its significance in the family, dozens of other Corregianni couples had chosen that day to tie the knot over the decades—including Mia’s parents and both of her sisters.

Mia twisted the ring on her left hand with her thumb. She and Chase would not be joining the May first marriage cabal. There was no way they were waiting a whole year. With Chase holding her hand, Niagara Falls didn’t sound like such a bad option.

Peter had taken her rejection remarkably well. He’d seemed more affected by the thought of losing Occam than her, but she tried not to take it personally. The dog
was
endearing to an addicting degree.

He was currently alternating between trying to drag Chase toward the exciting noise in the backyard by his leash and using it to tie a knot around Chase’s ankles. The second time Chase nearly did a faceplant into the grass in order to avoid stepping on the dog, he dropped Mia’s hand so he could use both of his to wrangle the energetic puppy.

“We’ll work on
heel
.”

“Good idea.” Mia was smiling as they rounded the corner into the backyard.

Streamers arched between the trees and round tables almost disappeared beneath giant floral arrangements, each prominently displaying a card with a different couple’s names scrolled across it in gold lettering. A buffet table looked ready to buckle under the weight of the food on display. The Corregiannis didn’t celebrate in a small way.

“Is that a chocolate fountain?”

Before Mia could reply, a cheer went up as her family spotted them—and for the first time, she felt her smile widening and her heart lifting at the sound. The children descended on Occam and the older generations descended on Chase and Mia with Nonna and Zia Anna leading the charge. Their identical eyes lit on the watch, hanging prominently from the chain around her neck.

“She’s wearing it!”

“I knew she’d come around.”

“Always such a good girl.”

“Do you see the ring?”

“Lovely ring. Classic.”

“Not as lovely as mine, of course.”

“Your Angelo did have wonderful taste.”

Gina pushed her way to the front as Nonna and Zia Anna began to compare the wedding rings of everyone in earshot. Marley was asleep on her shoulder, immune to the Corregianni cacophony.

“I knew you’d pick Chase,” she gushed, grabbing Mia in a one-armed hug. She started towing her toward the porch steps. “Come on. I have gossip.
Good
gossip.”

“But Chase…”

“Is family now. No babysitting needed. Besides, he looks like he’s in heaven. Come on.”

Since Chase did indeed look like he was enjoying himself, Mia let Gina drag her up onto the porch where they had a view of the yard. Gina pointed toward the buffet. “Look.”

Mia followed Gina’s arm to where a couple were cuddled together in front of the cannoli. “Is that Jamie and Danny?”

Gina beamed. “It is. Turns out Danny was staying out late working overtime so he could surprise Jamie with a trip to Paris for their anniversary. All those charges she thought were so suspicious? They were presents for her. Total misunderstanding. And you thought there could never be positive gossip.”

“I didn’t say never. I said statistically rare.”

“Okay, well, statistically whatever, they’re happy. Teresa’s happy. I’m happy. You’re happy. Hell, even Mama’s happy. You still think the watch is bogus?”

Did she?

Mia ran a thumb over the smooth gold surface, automatically seeking out Chase’s face in the crowd of her family. He was talking to Mario, gesturing, laughing, but as if he felt Mia’s gaze, his head turned, their eyes locked and he smiled, just for her. He said something to Mario, then he was weaving through her family, all the people she loved in the world, making his way to her side.

Mia vaguely heard Gina’s arch “I think I see Tony looking for me.” Then Chase was there, tucking her against him, her back to his front, and it was just the two of them, looking out over the wildly gesticulating hands and voices raised over one another.

“Enjoying your party?”

Mia almost corrected him, told him it wasn’t hers, but this year it felt like it was. She was home in a way she’d never realized she could be. Had the watch done this?

She saw her mother and Teresa, obviously arguing but with only their usual levels of affectionate aggravation. Her father and Martin sat nearby, speaking quietly. Jamie hadn’t left Danny’s side. Marley had woken up and was being passed around like a party favor, as Nonna and Zia Anna spread mayhem wherever they wandered.

Her family. Not perfect, but hers.

She wrapped her fist around the watch. No, not magic. Relationships were rollercoasters with a thousand highs and lows. Forever didn’t happen by magic—even if you had a magic pocket watch helping out. There were road blocks and stumbles, misunderstandings and flaring tempers. Especially flaring tempers where the Corregiannis were concerned. Mia had never seen those parts before because she was never looking. It had all seemed like a fairy tale idyll. She’d missed the bumps and bruises, but she’d missed the big picture too. She’d never seen the love smoothing them through the rough patches. She hadn’t wanted to see. Until Chase.

You didn’t need magic when you had love to spare, but it couldn’t hurt. And that faith that it would all work out, that forever did happen and true love was real, maybe that helped a little too.

Chase closed his hand over hers on the watch. “Are you going to miss it? You never really got much of a chance to wear it.”

“Are you kidding? Good riddance. I can’t wait for it to be someone else’s problem.” She frowned, scanning the crowd. “Did they already announce whose turn it is next?”

“Actually it’s your sweet, not-at-all-homicidally scary line-backer brother Joey.”

Mia smiled. “Poor bastard. He doesn’t know what he’s in for.”

Chase wrapped both arms around her waist, his cheek resting against her hair. “Should we warn him?”

Mia leaned back into his arms. “Nah. Some experiments you just have to do yourself.”

Epilogue

The Clone Army

“We need a spare.” Mia frowned fiercely at the smushed red face of their sleeping daughter. The nurse checking her vitals shot her a worried look, but Chase just grinned. Mia’d been glowering at the baby pretty much nonstop since the nurse first handed her over the day before. So much so that he’d already been pulled aside and shoved handfuls of post-partum depression pamphlets. Twice.

But the nurses on the maternity ward didn’t know Mia, the woman who’d looked at him like she was plotting his execution when she first told him she loved him.

“Why? Is this one defective?” Chase reached out to stroke the impossibly smooth cheek of Carmina Hunter—they’d be calling her Karma for short. She was far from defective. No more perfect being had ever been created in the history of the earth. It was inflating and unbearably humbling at the same time.
We did this. We made her
.

Mia shot him her patented death glare. “There is nothing wrong with my daughter.”

“So why the spare?”

Her gaze veered back to the baby and the stern glower returned. When she spoke, her voice was soft and rough, each word catching in her throat. “I love her too much and I’ve only known her a day. If anything ever happened to her, I’d just shatter into a million pieces and no one would ever be able to put me back together.” She looked up, her eyes glistening with a rawness that only he ever got to see.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Chase promised. They’d argue about it later was more like it. Mia had not had an easy pregnancy. She’d been on bedrest the last three months and she still looked pale from the emergency C-section. Chase would be scheduling his vasectomy just as soon as he was sure she wouldn’t castrate him with a carving knife for getting one. But that was a fight for another day. “I’ll buy you a spare. I hear they’re cheap in China.”

The nurse made a small, shocked sound in her throat and scuttled from the room.

Mia just scowled at him. Her gaze flickered over his features and she sighed. “Damn. I’ll need your DNA too.”

Chase snorted out a laugh. “Is that your way of asking for my sperm? Cuz you know how hot I get when you go all science-y on me, but the doctors said no funny business for at least six weeks.”

“I’ll need your sperm too, obviously, but also your DNA. For cloning.”

“Cloning,” Chase repeated, forcing himself not to laugh. Mia was supposed to be resting and if she saw him laughing at her, she’d strain herself decking him.

“If anything happens to you, I’ll have to clone you,” Mia said, dead serious. “I can’t be expected to live without you.”

At that Chase did laugh, warmth tightening his chest. “You’re such a sappy romantic.” He bent and kissed his wife, the woman who had shown him how to throw his heart into the hands of the universe but who refused to allow fate any say over hers. His fierce, scientific Mia whom he didn’t doubt would keep him and Carmina safe by dint of her will alone. “You’re just going to have to take that risk like the rest of us. Have a little faith in my ability to live forever, sweetheart.”

“You suck.”

“I love you too,” he murmured against her lips.

Chase looked at his wife and the tiny scrap of perfection in her arms. All the proof he needed that magic existed. Magic of the love variety.

Scientifically proven, pocket watch-approved.

About the Author

An Alaskan born and raised, Vivi Andrews still lives in the frozen north when she isn’t indulging her travel addiction by bouncing around the globe. Whether at home or on the road, she’s always at work on her next happily-ever-after. For more about her books or the exploits of a nomadic author, please visit her website at
www.viviandrews.com
, stop by her blog
viviandrews.blogspot.com
, or email
[email protected]
.

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Superlovin'

She could resist this bad boy…if he wasn’t so darned good at it.

Superlovin’

© 2012 Vivi Andrews

A
Midnight Justice
Story

Darla Powers, a.k.a. DynaGirl, is the Jessica Rabbit of crime fighters, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy finding a date. When her latest ex opines she’s not helpless enough to make him feel manly, she flies off to take out her romantic frustrations on a villain dumb enough to pick tonight to break into a secret government vault.

Lucien Wroth’s father may be a famous supervillain, but Lucien doesn’t see himself as a bad guy. Just one determined to free his baby sister from a supercriminal’s clutches. He’s this close to getting his hands on a vital set of schematics when one sultry superheroine catches him elbow-deep in a top-secret safe.

Darla is horrified when Lucien’s pretty face—and bulging muscles—distract her enough to let him get away. No one escapes DynaGirl. But somewhere along the way to getting revenge for her public humiliation, she and Lucien become uneasy allies…resisting an all-too-easy attraction. Suddenly she suspects the perfect man for a good girl just might be a very bad boy.

Warning: This book contains heroes, villains, mind-games, epic battles, bustiers, leather, and an infamous “Women of the Cape”
Maxim
photo spread.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Superlovin’:

“You’ll never…escape,” she declared breathlessly, looking rather adorably determined laid out flat on the cement with rubble in her hair.

He would’ve laughed if he could spare the oxygen. “You don’t know how to…admit defeat, do you?” He couldn’t help but admire her tenacity. Deluded though it may be.

“What makes you…think I’m…defeated?”

“The inability to get a full sentence out without gulping for air is a tell, sweetheart,” he grunted, barely getting the sentence out himself without taking a gulp.

“I’d like to see you fly across the city twice in an hour, one of those times carrying a two-ton delinquent.”

He arched a brow. “I’m a big boy, but I’m not quite that big, princess.”

Her eyes narrowed at the suggestive lilt in his voice, pretty mouth pursing. “I was talking about the weight of your ego.”

“Then you must be constantly exhausted. How do you manage to lift yours, even with the superstrength?”

She made a face at him. The darling of the press, always poised and perfect, crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at him. Which, perversely, just made him want to kiss her.

Not a bad idea, actually.

He needed something to distract her at the right moment, and nothing was likely to unsettle the Powers Princess more than one of the unwashed masses daring to lay his lips on her. And, yeah, he was a guy, so he’d pretty much wanted to lay one on her since she’d posed for
Maxim
’s Women of the Cape issue. He’d dreamt about that magazine—dark, steamy, grinding, Technicolor dreams with Miss Goody Two Shoes as their very naughty star. Those pillowy lips were an open invitation, far too wicked for someone so sanctimoniously pure.

Sadly, DynaGirl didn’t seem to be in the mood to play.

“What did you take?” she demanded. The very proper Miss Powers was like a freaking terrier when she set her mind to something. She shoved hard on his shoulder, rolling them over so she knelt straddling his stomach. He let her be on top. For now. Her gaze flicked down his body, searching for a spot he could’ve stashed the papers. “What did you go back for?”