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“But not a father.”
“Oh.” She laughed without a hint of mirth as a horn began to blast impatiently. Stephen. She started for the car. “So now you’re applying for the job. Substitute dad? Give me a break.”
With lightning speed, he grabbed her arm with his free hand and spun her around to face him. “Give me one, Tiffany,” he said, his face suddenly stern. “From the moment I set foot here you’ve been baiting me and fighting me.
“Maybe it’s because I don’t trust you.”
His jaw slid to the side and he dropped her wrist.
“Come on,” Christina insisted, pulling on his other hand. He waited. The car horn blared again.
“Fine, fine! Come with us!” Tiffany said as she marched across the dry grass and fished inside her purse for her keys. Christina sprinted ahead and crawled into the back seat
J.D.’s voice, calm and so in command that it irritated her, chased after her. “You know, Tiffany, we don’t have to fight.”
She stopped short and her temper flared. “Of course we do, Jay. It’s what we’ve always done.”
“Not always,” he reminded her, and she, remembering too vividly how intimate they’d been, how she’d let down her guard before, felt fire climb up her cheeks.
“Th
ere are some things better left forgotten,” she warned before opening the door of her car and motioning Stephen to climb into the back seat. Grumbling, he did as he was bid, and J.D. slid into his recently vacated spot. He winced a little as he dragged his bad leg into the warm interior. Sweat dripped down the side of Tiffany’s face as she inserted the ignition key.
Just get me through this, she silently prayed and flicked her wrist. The engine caught on the first try. If only the rest of the evening would go so well. But what were the chances, now that she was trapped with J.D. for the next hour or so? Slim and none leaped readily to mind, along with several wanton, and unwanted, illicit memories.
J.D. slipped a pair of sunglasses on to the bridge of his nose, and Tiffany slid a glance in his direction. Wearing the aviator glasses he reminded her of the first time she’d seen him, and she willed that memory to fade.
She didn’t have time to dwell on the past. Not now, not ever. They drove to the clinic in silence.
Only much later, after Stephen had been stitched up and they had returned home to a late dinner, had she, after spending hours with J.D. and her children, finally unwound.
Alone in the bathtub, with cool water surrounding her and the lights dimmed, she remembered, in vibrant Technicolor, the first time she’d come face-to-face with J.D. Santini.
She closed her eyes, sighed, and finally let all her old emotions come to the surface. It had been nearly fifteen years ago, she’d been eighteen at the time and more naive than any girl should have been.
She could almost hear the sound of champagne bottles popping over the strains of “The Anniversary Waltz” played by a pianist seated at a baby grand so many years ago. She’d been much too young, had thought what she’d felt was love for an older man and had never expected to run into the likes of James Dean Santini.
But she had, and she remembered the first time she’d seen him as clearly as if it had been only this afternoon...
CHAPTER FIVE
Tiffany rested in the bathtub and remembered that evening so long ago...
“Look at that rock!” Mary Beth Owens, a friend who had graduated with Tiffany this past spring, reached for Tiffany’s hand and eyed the diamond sparkling on her ring finger. “Wow,” she breathed, her eyes as bright as the stone.
Blushing, Tiffany pulled her hand away and concentrated on lighting the candles that would warm the serving trays for the wedding reception she and Mary Beth were catering at the Santini winery in McMinnville.
“I would die for a ring like that. Philip must be loaded,” Mary Beth gushed as she placed napkins with the name of the bride and groom on to a long cloth-covered table already laden with hors d’oeuvres and empty champagne glasses. A silver fountain was flowing with sparkling wine, the pianist was warming up, and the guests, arriving from the church, filtered among the folding chairs in the huge tent that was the center of the reception. Under its own separate awning stood a round table crowned with the tiered wedding cake; to the right was another table laden with gifts. Near the entrance to the main tent, an ice sculpture of two entwined hearts was starting to drip. “So what’s he worth? Do you know?” Mary Beth asked.
Tiffany only smiled. The truth of the matter was that she didn’t know and really didn’t care. Money wasn’t her reason for planning to marry Philip.
Mary Beth, ever the gossip, pushed a little further. “The way I hear it, Philip’s in line to inherit all of this.” She gestured widely, her fluttering fingers encompassing the acres of vineyards, stately old brick manor, the winery buildings and the natural amphitheater tucked into the hills where the reception was being held. Vast and well-kept, the Santini winery was one of the most well-known in the region, but Tiffany wasn’t interested in the profit-and-loss statements of the company. Philip’s potential inheritance wasn’t on the list of reasons she’d fallen in love with him.
“You know,” Mary Beth confided in a hushed whisper, “there are two brothers, but Philip’s the good one. The other—” She rolled her eyes. “Big, big trouble. Always has his father in knots or court or worse.”
“Is that right?” Tiffany wasn’t interested.
Mary Beth nodded, her head bobbing rapidly. “Good-looking as all get-out and just plain bad news. Always in trouble with the cops. My mom says that J.D. Santini is all piss, vinegar and bad attitude.”
