Spiced Read online

  She studied him, lips pursed.

  “And I was enjoying myself for the first time in ages,” he added, though the admission put some heat in his neck and cheeks. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I wanted a little more time.”

  She pulled him back onto the bed. “I’m glad one of us was smart that day,” she whispered. Her arm hooked around his neck, and she pulled him in for a kiss, and then another, and for the rest of the night, Tony was finally, absolutely, unquestionably living in bliss.

  18

  An early March heat wave had zapped the last of the blizzard snow and put Pepper in linen pants, a short-sleeve tunic, and a light jacket as she and Gran walked into Pepperoni Tony’s behind Max and Merry for lunch two weeks later.

  “I never should’ve told Max to get a garage right next to this place,” Merry said. “It smells so good in there all day long, I can’t help coming here for lunch every day.”

  Marinara sauce, melted cheese, and baking crust tickled Pepper’s nose, and her mouth watered. “You’re working at the garage too?”

  “Have laptop, will travel. But I might have to start writing something else on the side, because I do not have kid-appropriate thoughts when I’m watching Max with a wrench.” She fanned herself. “And Tony’s not helping. Have you tried his gourmet cheese pizza?”

  “Does it have aphrodisiacs in it?” Gran asked.

  “Depends on how much you like cheese,” Max told her. “You found yourself someone special here in Bliss?”

  “Sonny, everyone’s someone special. But I’m still looking for the one good enough to peek under my knickers.”

  “Party of four?” one of the servers that Pepper didn’t recognize asked.

  “You go on back there and tell the boss his lady’s here,” Gran said. “And that I want some of this gourmet aphrodisiac cheese pizza.”

  “Yes,” Pepper said quickly when the poor girl’s eyeballs threatened to fall out. “Table for four, please.”

  “Your life must be so very interesting right now,” Merry murmured.

  “That’s one word for it.”

  The server led them to the back room, where someone called her name. Lindsey and Will were tucked into a quiet corner in the back room, along with Mikey and Dahlia.

  And a baby.

  An unwelcome, surprised swell of grief pinched her heart.

  “Come settle a tie.” Mikey lifted the baby bundle with a big grin. “Lindsey says TJ is cuter than Evelyn.”

  “He is,” Lindsey said.

  The server pointed to the table next to the happy fivesome. Max and Merry settled in with a wave at the happy parents, but Gran followed Pepper to look at the baby.

  Evelyn was wrapped in a pink baby blanket with cartoon guitars all over it, her little head covered with a pink knit teddy bear cap, and she was sucking on her fist, big blue eyes staring intently up at Mikey.

  She had to swallow twice before she could speak. “She’s beautiful. Congratulations. I didn’t realize you’d had her.”

  “Six hours of labor, three pushes, and boom! My girl’s the rock star in this house.” Mikey beamed at Dahlia. “And her boobs got bigger too.”

  “Always with the boobs.” Dahlia sighed, but she was smiling just as big.

  “It pains me to say this,” Pepper said to Lindsey, “but Evelyn is definitely cuter. And what an adorable name.”

  “This is because you don’t know TJ’s real name, isn’t it?”

  Pepper smiled sweetly. “Of course not.”

  “I agree,” Gran declared. “And it is because I know Evelyn’s name.”

  A familiar hand slid over Pepper’s back. “Hey,” Tony said. His eyes slid toward the table, then back to Pepper, and it was a little thing, but the slight tightening of his lips and softening of his eyes said it all. You okay? Babies shouldn’t be this hard.

  “Hey, yourself.” She smiled as he kissed her cheek.

  “My turn,” Gran announced, and he obliged her with a peck to her cheek too. Gran went up on her toes. “And to think your waitress didn’t believe you might have the hots for me.”

  “I’d apologize,” Pepper murmured as both tables laughed, “but I think we’re past that.”

  “We are,” he agreed.

  She congratulated Mikey and Dahlia again, then pulled Gran back to the table with Max and Merry. But Tony snagged her arm before she could sit. “Borrow you a minute?”

  “What for?” Gran demanded.

  “A quickie in the kitchen.”

  “Oh, by all means then.” Gran waved them away. “I’ll just tell this kind young couple about how awful people get when an elderly woman accidentally pulls a fire alarm at a senior living facility.”

  Pepper’s eye twitched. Tony was chuckling as he pulled her back into the front dining room. “Good thing she’s cute,” he said.

  “She’s actually been an angel at home. I think she’s afraid I’ll kick her out if George pees in my plants like he did at that facility Mom took them to last week. And she knows she has to clean up any food fights she starts in my house.”

  He was smiling as he pulled her through the kitchen to his little office, where he slammed the door, pulled her close, and kissed her.

  “Wow,” she said a few minutes later when they came up for air.

  He grinned. “You should stop by for lunch more often.”

  Someone knocked at the door. “Hey, boss, that old lady in the back room’s causing some trouble.”

  Pepper sighed.

  Of course she was.

  They returned to the dining room, where Gran had squirted honey mustard dressing all over the ceiling. Evelyn was crying, and Mikey was eyeing Gran as though he wanted to hang her by her toes from the ceiling fan. Will, Lindsey, Max, and Merry were all sucking in their cheeks, and the rest of the customers were gawking with undisguised glee.

  Tony put his fists on his hips, sent a look at the ceiling, and then pinned Gran in his sights. “This one’s gonna cost you.”

  She clapped. “Are you gonna spank me?”

  Lindsey choked on her water, most of the men grimaced, and a few people snickered behind them.

  And Tony?

  First his lips twitched on the left. Then the right. “You win this round,” he said to Gran. “But I know where you sleep.”

  “Hot diggity.” Gran pumped a fist in the air. “Better watch out, Pepper. I told you your boyfriend has the hots for me.”

  Tony was staring at the yellow glob on the ceiling. Head tilted back, lips straight, a five o’clock shadow starting already. He rubbed his chin, then tucked his hands under his arms, thinking.

  And unless she was way off base, he was contemplating clearing the room out and letting Gran finish her mustard-dressing masterpiece on the ceiling.

  “The health department wouldn’t like that,” she said.

  He blinked down at her, surprise and then amusement dancing in his dark eyes. “Wouldn’t like what?”

  “Salad-dressing art. And I’ll kill you with my own two hands if you help her ego get any bigger.”

  “How did you—” he started, but he stopped himself with a shake of his head and a wry laugh.

  How did she know?

  The same way he knew babies were her weakness. The same way he’d known she played sports in high school. The same way he knew she’d never kick her grandmother out.

  She just knew. Because she knew him. His strengths. His weaknesses. His sense of humor. His heart.

  She’d thought she was done with men.

  Now she couldn’t imagine her life without Tony in it.

  Ever.

  And that might’ve been the scariest situation she’d faced all year.

  * * *

  Pepper didn’t know exactly what to expect of Tony’s family, but big, loud, and boisterous—much like her own—pretty much covered the reality.

  Tony had been stiffer than his sister’s hairdo, and Pepper hadn’t been entirely certain he wasn’t going to object to the
wedding when the priest asked, but they’d made it through Bella’s wedding and were now seated at a round table in the back banquet hall of the biggest Italian restaurant in Willow Glen.

  “A month?” one of his sisters—the one with the dress that made her look like a spotted apple and a beauty mark just below her ear—was saying. “You’ve been dating a month and we haven’t met you yet? He usually brings his bimbos by as first dates.”

  The teenage girl beside her rolled her eyes. “Don’t call Uncle Tony’s dates bimbos, Ma. Most of them are smarter than you are. Do we have to stay for the dancing? I told Logan I’d go to the movies with him tonight.”

  Tony’s eye twitched. His sister’s eye twitched. Their aunt Josefina—seated on Tony’s other side—stared at the teenager as though she were silently working an old family curse in the girl’s direction. Either that, or the antipasto appetizer had given her gas.

  “This is why you should never have children,” Tony’s sister declared with a pointed jab in his direction.

  Pepper reached into her purse. “Hershey’s Kiss?” she asked the table at large.

  The teenager lunged. So did her little brother and Aunt Josefina.

  “What is it you do?” the teenager asked Pepper.

  “She runs half of Bliss,” Tony answered for her.

  His sister’s eye twitched again, which seemed to make Tony’s eye twitch again.

  “My uncle’s second wedding was in Bliss,” the teenager said.

  “I threw up,” her little brother volunteered. He was probably eight, maybe nine. “It was epic. Like even better than that scene in Phoebe Moon and the Sneeze Snatchers when—”

  “That book is so for babies,” his sister interrupted.

  “I love Phoebe Moon,” Pepper told the boy. “And did you know Amber Finch lives in Bliss?”

  His eyes went round. “Nuh-uh.”

  “Yep. And she comes into your uncle Tony’s place for lunch almost every day.”

  Tony sent her a curious look.

  “Loves cheese pizza,” she supplied. “Practically lives in the garage next door.”

  “Huh. Didn’t know that.”

  “Mom, can I go to Uncle Tony’s for lunch tomorrow?” the boy asked.

  “We’re helping Bella sort presents tomorrow.”

  “Awww, Moooooom,” he groaned.

  “Tony, my boy,” a big voice boomed behind them. “You planning on introducing us to your beautiful date, or do I have to steal her away?”

  And there went his shoulders, dancing with his earlobes.

  Pepper turned in her seat and stuck a hand out. “Hi. I’m Pepper.”

  The man was Tony thirty or forty years into the future. Silver streaked his dark hair, distinguished wrinkles carved into all the right places, his belly about the size Pepper expected her own to be soon after all the food she’d been eating lately. He took her hand, bent over it, and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Such a beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

  “She’s a little old for you, Dad.”

  His sister cracked up. That was something. Pepper extracted her hand and kept a bland smile on her face.

  “You make sure you get out there for the bouquet toss,” Tony’s dad said with a wink. “We love our weddings. And save a dance for me.”

  So maybe his family wasn’t entirely like hers.

  But it was big. And loud. And boisterous.

  And when she squeezed Tony’s hand under the table, his lips settled into a resigned line.

  For today, that close to a smile was practically a miracle.

  * * *

  Tony was being an ass today, and he knew it. He wanted to be happy for Bella, but even she’d seemed to sense that his heart wasn’t in the hug and congratulations he’d offered in the receiving line. Pepper had covered for him—how had she become his better half so quickly?—and then endured a so-so pasta dinner and a thinly veiled, suspicious inquisition with cheerful grace.

  While Tony had barely refrained from taking an entire bottle of wine all for himself.

  This wedding was worse than Pepper’s sister’s non-wedding, because this wedding was full of all the people who knew where his life had gone off track. They knew about Tabitha. They knew about the baby. If Bella knew, then they probably all knew he’d been faking his way through dating women the last year, and they almost certainly knew his pizza location in Bliss hadn’t taken off as quickly as it should’ve.

  And here he was, supposed to be happy for his niece, when all he could see was bleakness in her future.

  Pepper had excused herself after cake to hit the ladies’ room, so he’d followed suit. Now, he was walking out of the men’s room between the restaurant’s main dining room and their banquet hall, wondering if he could talk her into cutting out early, when a toddler streaked by him.

  “Destiny, stop!”

  The little girl didn’t stop, but Tony did.

  Froze, actually. Rooted right there, his heart suddenly spinning up into his throat, pulse launching like a rocket, knees tingling.

  Turn around, his brain ordered. Back into the bathroom.

  But his body was in lockdown mode.

  And that was before he smelled the gardenia perfume.

  “Destiny, I said—”

  The little girl—the little girl who should’ve been his—was suddenly yanked before she reached the banquet hall. Her mother hadn’t spotted him yet. He could turn, duck back into the men’s room, ignore this, pretend he hadn’t seen her, except his feet were cemented to the ground.

  She turned and made eye contact, her eyes flared, and she visibly tightened her grip on the squirming child. “Tony.”

  He could barely nod in response. A giant diamond glittered on her left hand, and the little girl was staring at him with her mother’s eyes.

  The door to the ladies’ room swung open, and Pepper stepped out. She looked left, started to smile at him, and then she, too, stopped.

  “Lookin’ good,” Tabitha said.

  He couldn’t feel his face, but he suspected good wasn’t the right word.

  That little girl should’ve been his.

  The ladies’ room door swung open again, and Francie nearly collided with Pepper. But where Pepper was suddenly moving to Tony’s side, hand extended to grab his, clearly uncertain as to what was going on, Francie took one look and went into screeching harpy mode.

  “Tabitha? Oh. My. God. What the fuck are you doing here, you bitch?”

  A cool hand settled in his. “Hey.” Pepper nudged him. “You okay?”

  Tabitha picked the little girl up and put her on her hip. “Don’t you use that language in front of my daughter.”

  “How dare you come into my daughter’s wedding after what you did to our family?”

  Tony wasn’t seeing red. Not like Francie was.

  No, he was seeing his future.

  A future where Tabitha got to have a family with a husband and kids. Where his siblings and nieces and nephews would have weddings he wouldn’t want to be at. Where he was married to his work and where one day, Pepper would recover after her own personal struggles and realize he wasn’t all that and move on.

  Because he wasn’t forever material.

  It wasn’t in his genes.

  The proof was right there. Right there with the two women about to launch into a fistfight despite an innocent little babe being between them. The restaurant’s staff and a few patrons were gathering to watch from the main dining room. His family had noticed the commotion from the banquet hall.

  This would be all anyone talked about whenever Bella’s wedding came up.

  For years.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” Pepper said on a sigh.

  She pulled her hand away, stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled. “You.” She pointed at Francie. “Go back to the wedding, right now. And you.” She turned her finger to Tabitha. “I have half a clue who you are. And if you don’t want me to get the full clue—which, I highly suspect you do
n’t—you’re going to take that innocent child and leave. Aah-ah.” She wiggled her finger in a no-no gesture when Tabitha opened her mouth. “You want to be a good mother, you’re going to take that baby out of here before this gets ugly. And you’re not going to like my brand of ugly, because I don’t have a single thing to lose. Understood?”

  Tabitha went white as a ghost.

  Which Tony didn’t appreciate nearly as much as he should’ve. His equipment might’ve started working again, but he obviously still didn’t have full possession of his man card, or his girlfriend wouldn’t have to come riding to his rescue just because his ex-wife was standing there.

  He didn’t wait to see if Tabitha left.

  Instead, he shouldered past all of them and made his way to the bar.

  This kind of day called for a drink.

  * * *

  Tony hadn’t said more than four words in the last two hours, but he’d had about six shots of bourbon, and Pepper was starting to worry about him. His sister—the one they’d had dinner with, Joella, she thought—finally helped her get him out of the wedding and into his truck.

  “I’m sorry I called you a bimbo,” she said sheepishly once they had Tony closed in the truck.

  “I have twelve siblings. I’ve been called worse.”

  “He just…hasn’t been himself the last year.”

  “Who would be?”

  Joella paused with one hand on the truck. “I miss him. He never comes back to visit, and when he does, he’s always bringing some girl who tries too hard, like she thinks she’s going to be the one who heals him. He’s a really great guy.”

  Was that what they thought of Pepper? That she was trying to heal him? “Bliss isn’t that far away, and he does run a pizza place open to the public. Go see him. He’d probably appreciate the visit.”

  The other woman looked back toward the restaurant. The raucous sounds of laughter and music were still carrying out into the night. “He’s not like our brothers. We all thought he’d be the one to make it. And now—now, I don’t think he’ll ever get married again. Just so you know.”

  Pepper had no idea if she’d ever get married, but for today, she didn’t need to be. “Go on back in there and enjoy the rest of the reception. I’ll take good care of him.”