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She didn’t remember him being so evasive. In fact, the J.D. she’d known had been blunt and direct, a man who could make you squirm with his intense, no-nonsense gaze, thin-lipped mouth that rarely smiled and somewhat harsh demeanor. With raven-black hair, thick eyebrows and sculpted features, he never gave an inch and was known to call them as he saw them. And never had he worked for his father. The way Philip had told it, J.D. the renegade, eleven years his junior, was forever at odds with his old man. But then who could get along with Carlo Santini, patriarch with the iron fist and closed mind?
Something wasn’t right. She sensed it and began to perspire. She cracked open the windows in the kitchen nook. “You know, Jay, you’re the last person, the very last, I expected to cave in and join the family business.”
“Life has a way of not turning out the way you expect it, Tiffany. Haven’t you learned that by now?” His lips barely moved, his eyes caught hers in a breathtaking hold that she hated, and she felt the first trickle of sweat slide between her shoulder blades. Her stomach did a slow, sensual roll, reminding her of just how easy it was to fall prey to his charm.
But not now. Not again. Never.
She swallowed hard and avoided his eyes. Suddenly the kitchen was much too small. Too close. She needed a reason to break up this unexpected atmosphere of intimacy with J.D.
“Oh, gosh, it’s almost three,” she said, staring pointedly at her watch. “Christina,” she called, looking through the window and spying her daughter drawing on the side of the garage with a piece of yellow chalk. “Time for your nap.”
“No nap!” The little girl dropped the chalk.
“Excuse me,” Tiffany said, hurrying out the back door and feeling the much-needed breath of a breeze touch her face and bare arms. It had been a long, strained week capped by a hellish day speaking with Stephen’s counselor. On top of it all, she’d learned that her father—John Cawthorne—actually expected her to show up at his wedding after thirty-three years of pretending she didn’t exist. Fat chance!
Charcoal, who had been rolling over in a spot of sunlight, scrambled to his feet and dashed under the porch. “Come on, sweetheart,” Tiffany cajoled her daughter as she picked up broken bits of chalk and stuffed them into the tattered pack.
“I not tired.”
“Sure you are.”
“No, I not!” Christina’s lower lip protruded, and she folded her chubby arms across her chest.
“Well, Bub and Louie are tired, and they’re waiting upstairs in bed for you. It’ll just be for a little while.” She hoisted her daughter into her arms, and Christina, still pouting, didn’t protest.
Unfortunately J.D. had watched the entire display from the kitchen window. Tiffany wished he’d just go away. She didn’t need any member of the Santini family, especially not J.D., intruding into her life right now—or ever, for that matter. She knew they all thought she hadn’t been good enough for Philip while he was alive, so they could all just go and take the proverbial leap.
She carried Christina into the back of the house,
mouthed, “I’ll be back in a few minutes” to her erstwhile guest, then lugged the tired three-year-old through the hallway and up the stairs to her room.
This part of the house, aside from the addition of the bathroom, was as it had been for nearly a hundred years, and Christina’s room was a small alcove that overlooked the fruit trees in the backyard. The bedroom next door belonged to Stephen, and Tiffany’s was across the hall. There were two occupied apartments in the basement and a third one—an empty studio—on the top floor. The ground floor of the carriage house that flanked the backyard was rented, while the upper level was, at the moment, standing empty.
“There you go,” she said, as she tucked Christina under a hand-pieced quilt her grandmother had made. She arranged Bub, a floppy-eared stuffed rabbit missing one eye, and Louie, a black-masked toy raccoon, beside her daughter.
“Just a little while,” Christina insisted.
“That’s right.” Tiffany leaned over and planted a soft kiss on the little girl’s forehead. Christina, who Tiffany had dubbed the “miracle” baby, had been an unexpected blessing three years ago, long after she and Philip had decided that one child—Stephen—was enough. Philip had two nearly grown children from his previous marriage, and he hadn’t thought it was necessary to “overpopulate the world,” especially when he’d already been “paying a fortune” in child support
Gazing down at her daughter now, Tiffany was thankful that God had seen otherwise, and that despite the use of birth control and Philip’s lack of interest, Christina had been conceived. “Destiny,” she’d told her husband upon learning the news.
“Or a curse,” Philip had replied with a scowl. “How many kids do you think I can afford?”
“It’s just one more.”
“That you planned,” he’d stated flatly, insisting that she’d intentionally tricked him by not using her diaphragm. The fight had simmered for days, with Philip brooding and spending more time at the office. Philip had slept in the den for nearly two weeks, acting as if she wasn’t even in the same house with him until she’d confronted him and flown into a rage.
“I want this baby!” she’d told him. “Stephen needs a sister or brother.”
“He’s got one of each.”
“Half siblings who don’t live with him.” She’d advanced upon him as he’d sat in his chair, holding the newspaper firmly in white-knuckled fists, his jaw set, his nostrils flared in a seething, silent rage. “I didn’t plan to have this baby, but now that it’s coming, I consider it a gift and you should, too.”
“I’m too old to be a father again.”
“But I’m not too old to be a mother. It’ll be all right,” she’d said, aching inside. She wanted this baby so badly. “I’ll make it right.”
His snort of derision and snap of the sports page had been the end of the argument.
