Knowing You (17 page)

She was about to find out.

“Ah,” Mama said as she hurried to the table and slipped into the chair opposite Stevie. “You're here. I'm late. Tina was sleeping and Beth had to work. Tony came home early, so he's watching the baby.” She smiled and Stevie's heart warmed at the wide familiar grin. “This is good. We have a chance to talk a little.”

“Is everything all right, Mama?” She studied the other woman, from her graying black hair, tugged into a topknot on the crown of her head, to her dark eyes, snapping and crackling with an energy most thirty-year-olds would envy, to the dress she wore. Mama's favorite, green cotton with small yellow flowers dotting the fabric, it had been around for years and yet somehow always managed to look starched and fresh.

Mama drew her head back and clucked her tongue. “What's not all right? We can't have lunch?” She glanced at the menu, but only for the ceremony of it. She would order what she always ordered and everyone knew it.

It was good to have a constant in your life. One person who wouldn't change on you or do a 180 when you least expected it.

The waitress appeared as if by magic, took out her notepad, and looked at Mama first. “Hi, Mrs. C. What'll it be? Your usual?”

Mama shrugged and smiled. “That's good, Donna. How's your mother?”

“Oh,” the blond girl said as she picked up the menus, “she's fine. Dad's a little worried, I think, but Mom's happy.”

Intrigued, Stevie looked at the girl she'd known for years. “What's your mom up to?”

Hot red color swept up Donna's cheeks, but the smile tugging at her mouth couldn't be ignored. “She's pregnant again.”

“A gift,” Mama said solemnly.

“That's what Mom says,” Donna told her. “But I think five ‘gifts' are enough already. Besides, it's a little
embarrassing.” The girl leaned over and lowered her voice. “I mean, everyone at school's gonna know that my parents—”

One of Mama's black eyebrows lifted as she reached over to pat Donna's hand. “What are they going to know? That your parents love each other? Such a crime.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right,” Donna said, but she still didn't look convinced. “How about you, Stevie? What'll it be?”

“Chicken salad,” she said promptly, and ignored Mama's tongue clucking.

“Got it. One chicken salad, one chicken parmigiana.” Donna turned so fast, her long ponytail swung out in a wide arc. “Be back in a jif.”

“You don't eat enough,” Mama was saying. “You're too skinny already.”

“I'm fine,” Stevie said, thinking about Donna and her parents. Five kids in that family already and now there would be a sixth. And it would be welcomed and loved and cherished just like all of its brothers and sisters. A pang of something sharp and sweet echoed inside Stevie before she let it go. Envy was pointless. Besides, she didn't want a husband, remember?

“So,” Mama said, sliding a quick glance to Virginia before lowering her voice. “Nicky's through with football.”

A sinking sensation opened up in the pit of Stevie's stomach. She should have known. Should have expected this. Hadn't Mama given her and Nick that “happy couple” look just the other night?

Step carefully, she told herself. Don't say too much.
Don't say the wrong thing. Heck, why not just don't say
anything?
With any luck, Mama would do all the talking and wouldn't even require input from Stevie.

“Is better, I think. A grown man running around playing catch.” She shook her head firmly, picked up her napkin, and flicked it open with a snap before settling it across her lap. “Is not a good way to live.”

Uh-oh. Mama's accent was getting thicker. Not a good sign. Carla always swore that Mama kept her accent because she enjoyed being “colorful.” And the more upset she got, the thicker the accent.

“Nicky is so unhappy,” Mama was saying.

Where was that food? Stevie shot a look toward the kitchen door, hoping, unreasonably, that Donna would come striding toward them carrying food it had only taken thirty seconds to prepare. Okay, that wasn't going to happen. She'd have to talk.

“Nick loved football.”

Mama's eyes actually
gleamed
. “Nicky loved
you
.”

Oh God.

“
Loved
being the operative word there, Mama,” she said, keeping her voice low, even. “Past tense. It's been over between us for a long time.”

Mama waved one hand at her. “Ah. Is love ever over? No. Is changed. Is different, maybe. But over?” She shook her head again, absolutely refusing to give in on that point.

Swell.

“Mama,” Stevie said, trying again, though she knew she had to go at this carefully. Nick was a Candellano. The Golden Boy. The light of Mama's eye. Oh, no pressure. “Mama, you remember why we broke up.”

Angela Candellano's lips tightened and thinned into a grim slash across her wide, usually smiling face. “He was an idiot. All men do stupid things, Stevie. They learn, though.”

“Yes, but—”

Hallelujah! Donna came bustling back, carrying their lunches. It took a couple of minutes to get everything set up, and when the girl turned and headed off again, Stevie jumped into the conversation before Mama could get her train back on the tracks.

“Nick and I are just friends now.”

“Friends is not a bad place to start,” Mama said with another shrug.

Yeah, but she'd already started with a different friend. Oh God. What would Angela have to say if she only knew that while she was scheming to get Nick and Stevie back together,
Paul
and Stevie were doing the horizontal limbo?

Oh God again. She knew what would happen. She'd get tossed out of the Candellano circle. Out into the cold. The dark. Alone. Oh God.

Stevie forked a bite of salad into her mouth, but the food clogged on the way down her throat. Not a good thing. Desperate, she grabbed for her iced tea and took a long swallow. Great. With any luck, she'd choke to death on a lettuce leaf and her problems would be over.

Although what a stupid epitaph would
that
be?

“You were always good for Nicky, Stevie,” Mama was saying as she pushed her lunch around her plate with the tip of her fork. “With you, he didn't drink so much. Wasn't so sad.”

Why would he have been sad? Stevie wondered silently. He was sleeping with half of San Jose.

“Mama—”

“I only ask that you think about it maybe. You could remember how good it used to be. How you used to love him.”

She'd spent way too much time trying to forget how she'd felt about Nick. And now that those feelings were truly gone, sometimes Stevie wondered if she'd ever really loved him. Or if he'd been more of a habit for her. She'd always cared for him, so she simply expected to care for him. It was instinctive. Like breathing. Eating. Stevie loves Nick. Simple. Uncomplicated.

But was it really?

Had she honestly been that crazy about Nick? Or was it just that she'd wanted so much to really belong to someone—to his family—that she'd convinced herself she loved him in order to get what she thought she wanted?

Crap
.

That was a hell of a thing to realize about yourself.

“Nicky is having a bad time,” Mama was saying. “He needs you.”

Man. Nobody played the guilt card better than Mama. Stevie stared at the woman across from her and knew, deep in her bones, that she would be willing to do almost
anything
for her. At a time in Stevie's life when she'd felt lost and alone, Mama and her family had taken Stevie into their hearts. Given her a sense of belonging when nothing else had.

And just thinking about losing that was enough to
make Stevie want to cry. Naturally his mother would try to do whatever she could to ensure Nick's happiness. But Stevie simply couldn't give Mama what she wanted. That ship had sailed.

A part of Stevie wondered what it must be like to be loved so fiercely—even as she admitted that she would probably never know.

“No, Mama,” Stevie said softly, her gaze locking with Angela's, “Nick doesn't need me. The only one who can save Nick now is
Nick
.”

Mama blinked back a sudden terrifying sheen of tears, but then she nodded and straightened up in her chair. “Is true. He has to find his way himself.”

Stevie drew a long, deep breath of relief. Then blew it out in exasperation when Mama finished her speech.

“But when he does … he'll need someone. That could be you, Stevie.”

Frustration bubbled inside her, but she kept quiet, preferring to let the subject end as Mama went into grandmother mode, telling her all about Reese and Tina. Stevie concentrated on her salad, forced herself to chew and swallow, and tried to listen to Mama, all the while sifting through the thoughts racing through her brain.

Mama loved her, true. But the bottom line was, Stevie wasn't a Candellano and Nick was.

She felt as though she were on the outside of life, looking in, and someone had just dropped another pane of glass onto the stack separating her from the party.

*   *   *

Paul stared out his office window at the greenbelt. He had no idea what time it was, but judging by the sun, it
was sliding into late afternoon, and he hadn't done a damn thing all day. There was a stack of messages on his desk and a meeting he was supposed to be attending … whenever. But he couldn't seem to think about anything but Stevie.

Big surprise.

He shoved both hands through his hair, then pushed them into his pants pockets. His gaze locked on the window glass, but instead of seeing his own reflection staring back at him, he saw Stevie. The way she'd glared at him that morning. The way she'd snapped and snarled at him. The way she'd melted in his arms when he touched her.

Oh, yeah. This forgetting-all-about-her thing was really moving along.

A knock on the door and then it was opened. Paul didn't even turn around to look. “Go away, Max.”

“Love to,” his assistant snapped. “Unfortunately, I just missed the last flight to Bermuda.”

Surrendering to the inevitable, Paul shifted her a look. He knew damn well Max wouldn't leave until she was good and ready. It'd happen faster if he helped her out a little. “Fine. What is it?”

“Your meeting with the design team is in”—she checked her trim silver watch—“fifteen minutes.”

“Great. Buzz me when it's time.”

“I live to serve.” Sarcasm dripped from every word, but she didn't move. Didn't leave.

“Something else?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Your mother's here.”

“My
mother?
”

What might have been a smile flitted across Max's
stern face and disappeared a second later. “That's what she claims. Since we've never met, I can't be sure, but—”

“Okay, okay.” He threw both hands up. “Send her in.” Fear rocketed through him. Was somebody dead? Mama had never been to his office. Not in the three years he'd been here. Up until ten seconds ago, he would have been willing to bet she didn't know where his office
was
. So it had to be something big to get her down here.

Mama stepped through the doorway and Paul asked, “Is everything all right?”

She looked at him as if he were crazy. “Everything is fine. I can't come to see you at work?”

“You never have before,” he pointed out, but bent his head to plant a kiss on top of her head. The scent of rosewater greeted him and instantly took him back to his childhood.

Max actually smiled before she left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

“There has to be a first time,” Mama said, absently patting his arm as she walked past him to drop her black leather purse on his desktop. “Is a nice place,” she said as she did a slow turn. Her gaze swept the room, taking in the view from the window, the deep, cushioned couch and matching chair. She noted the ficus tree in the corner, the television and stereo set on the far wall, and then her gaze stopped on the wall of awards behind his desk.

“Mama—”

“Shh.” She waved a hand at him and walked closer, her gaze never leaving the framed citations and
plaques, glinting in the spray of sunlight dancing through the windows. Leaning in closely, she read one, then another, and then another.

Paul shifted uncomfortably as she continued, and tried to dismiss the small tug of pleasure he felt, watching his mother look at the proof of his successes. He wouldn't have gone out of his way to show her these awards, but he could admit, at least to himself, that he was glad she was finally seeing them.

Then she turned to face her son. “What is this?”

“What?”

“This.” She pointed at the awards. “When did you get all of these?”

Paul shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets again. He'd never been much on tooting his own horn. Hell, the awards wouldn't even be hanging here if it were up to him. Every damn award he won, Max framed and hung on his wall. For a while there, he'd tried to play “hide the award,” but eventually he'd given up in the face of Max's determination. “The last couple of years. It's no big deal, Mama.”

“Uh-huh.” She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. He wasn't really worried until he noticed the toe of her shoe tapping violently against the carpet. “No big deal it is to be called Man of the Year?”

He tried a laugh. It didn't work. Fire snapped in her eyes. Plus, he'd noticed that her accent was getting thicker. “There's a new one every year.”

“Funny. You have one for being a funny man, too?”

“Mama, it's just a couple of awards.”

“Your papa would be ashamed.”

He felt that blow hard. “Why? What'd I do?”

“You don't tell your
family
what happens in your life?”