Jenny looked up at him and saw the stubborn frown on his face before she lowered her gaze again.
“So!” Mama commanded, letting go of Jenny’s chin only to grab hold of her elbow. “You come with Mama, now, young lady. I got just the thing to take care of you. And you can tell me all about what my son did while I fix your knees, okay?” As she began to drag her away, the older woman called over her shoulder, “Nicky! Go upstairs and get some of your sister’s things for Jenny to wear. They look about the same size.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Jenny said quickly.
“Sure it’s necessary,” Mama argued, patting her hand. “You can’t wear a torn-up dress and holey stockings all night.”
Jenny only had time for a quick look back over her shoulder. But Nick wasn’t standing by the door anymore. He’d already hustled off to follow his mother’s instructions. Jenny knew just how he felt. She’d only known Mama Tarantelli a matter of moments, but she couldn’t imagine anyone ignoring one of the older woman’s commands.
Nick didn’t waste time in Gina’s room. No matter what his mother said, he wasn’t about to go rooting through his younger sister’s closet. Besides, from what he’d seen of Jenny Blake’s figure, Gina’s clothes would be too small up top and too big on the bottom-His mother must be blind, he told himself as he snatched Gina’s bathrobe from the hook on the back of her bedroom door.
As he walked down the long hall of the family living quarters toward the stairs that led to the restaurant, Nick wondered if he’d done the right thing, bringing Jenny to his mother. Sure he had, he told himself. His mother had taken care of more strays than Mother Teresa. Besides, he hadn’t had a lot of time to come up with an alternate plan.
Nick’s boot heels thumped against the worn carpet runner and he clutched the bathrobe tightly in one fist. He couldn’t very well have taken her to her room at Sinbad’s, could he? Lord, just thinking about her in that short, tight dress, with her wide, innocent eyes, strolling through the parking lot at Sinbad’s gave him cold chills.
How in the bell had she managed to find the one hotel in the whole city of Vegas that had more human slugs per square inch than anywhere else in the world? Instinct? Nick shuddered. She had been about to marry Jimmy, after all.
And what was all that nonsense about having to get married? He stopped short at the top of the stairs and told himself to forget about the odd sense of relief he’d felt when she’d admitted she wasn’t pregnant. Why the devil did he care if she was expecting or not? Hell, he didn’t even know her!
Grumbling under his breath, he started down the stairs, still clutching the bathrobe. Something told him that he’d be a lot better off if he didn’t get to know her, either. All he wanted now was to have dinner, go back to his own place, and leave Jenny Blake in his mother’s capable hands.
“So you have to be married by when?”
Jenny’s breath hissed from between her teeth as Mama Tarantelli dabbed iodine on the raw flesh of her knees. “Four days,” she said finally.
“Hmm.” Mama held a cotton ball against the open top of the iodine bottle and tipped it. When she was finished, she reached for Jenny’s other knee. Dabbing the dark brown liquid onto the scrapes, she said, “And you say Nicky arrested your young man?”
Jenny’s fingers curled around the lip of the bathroom sink she was perched on and she winced as the iodine met her flesh. Of course it wasn’t really accurate to say that Jimmy Baldini was her “young man.” But Nick certainly had arrested him.
“Yes.”
“A nice girl like you shouldn’t be marrying men who are getting arrested.” Mama shook her head slowly as she straightened and reached for one of Jenny’s hands.
“I didn’t know he was a bigamist,” Jenny said in her own defense. “In fact, I didn’t know him at all.”
“Then why in hell were you about to marry him?” a male voice asked.
Jenny turned and saw Nick leaning against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over the robe pressed to his broad chest.
“As I was just telling your mother,” she started to explain, then jerked her hand instinctively back from a splash of iodine. But Mama was as strong as she looked and didn’t release her. “I’ve run out of time. I have to be married and I only have four days to do it in.”
“What’s the rush?” he asked even as he told himself silently to butt the hell out.
“If I’m not married in four days—” Jenny’s gaze met his and he saw the shimmer of tears clouding her deep blue eyes “—my grandmother will die.”
Three
Why wasn’t he surprised? Nick wondered. Looking down into those deep blue eyes of hers, he could see that she believed every word of what she was saying. And a quick glance at his mother told him that Jenny had convinced her, as well. But then, his mother also believed in the evil eye and that she could shorten storms by smacking two sticks together.
Oh, he could see that Jenny and his mother were going to get on famously.
Somehow he knew he’d regret asking, but he heard himself ask anyway. “What does your being married have to do with your grandmother staying alive or not?”
“It’s a family curse,” Jenny said solemnly.
Mama nodded and held up her right hand, two middle fingers and her thumb folded into the palm. Already, Marianna Tarantelli was warding off the evil eye.
Nick sighed. A curse. Naturally, he thought. On the other hand, why shouldn’t he believe in curses? Look at how his own day had gone so far.
“My grandmother is my only family. I have to protect her,” Jenny said quietly.
He frowned, unfolded his arms and tossed the bathrobe he still held to Jenny. “Okay, forget the curse for a minute. Would you mind telling me how you ended up with Jimmy the Lip?”
Even Mama looked interested in that.
Jenny shrugged and draped the robe across her lap, being careful to keep it from touching the fresh iodine on her knees. “I spoke to the manager at my hotel and explained my situation. He gave me several names to call and Mr. Lip was the first man to agree.”
Nick stared at her in disbelief. If Jimmy the Lip was on the manager’s prospective groom list, he shuddered to think who else she might have hooked up with. Jimmy was pretty much a lousy human being, but at least he wasn’t dangerous. Jenny was damned lucky it had been him who’d agreed to marry her.
She turned her gaze up to his, and Nick felt a sudden blow to his middle, as though someone had thrown a punch designed to knock the wind out of him. She must have been crying while he was upstairs, he thought. Her big blue eyes were red streaked and there were small black mascara trails on her cheeks. Lord, was he glad he’d missed her crying jag. There was absolutely nothing in the world that made him feel as helpless as seeing a woman cry. Cliché, perhaps. But true.
His
