she’d spoken with hadn’t seen her in person. Nick couldn’t imagine any man turning down a marriage proposal from Jenny Blake.
Except, of course, himself.
One failed marriage was more than enough for Nick Tarantelli.
“Don’t you worry,” Mama said as she twisted the lid on the iodine bottle and stashed it inside the medicine cabinet. Patting Jenny’s shoulder, the older woman went on firmly, “My Nicky will take care of this.”
“What?” He pushed away from the door frame and stared at his mother. The glare he gave her had been known to freeze fugitives in their tracks. His mother, however, planted her feet and glared right back at him.
“You heard me,” she said. “It’s your fault that Jenny isn’t married. Now you have to fix it.”
“My fault? She ought to thank me for stopping that wedding!” This whole situation was nuts, he told himself. Things had started out bad enough, but they seemed to be on a downhill slide and picking up speed.
“Thank you?” Mama chided. “For what? Getting her grandmother killed?” One hand flat against her massive bosom, she shook her head. “Is this what being the police is to you, Nicky? Killing old women?”
“What?” Nick had been in the middle of dramatic scenes like this his whole life. And he’d learned early on that the only way to fight fire was with fire. “First off, Ma,” he noted, “I’m not on the force anymore, and you know it.”
She waved one hand at him, dismissing irrelevant facts.
“Second, if I was going to kill off older women—” he straightened, forcing his mother to tilt her head far back on her neck to see him “—I wouldn’t start with a stranger!”
Mama glared at him.
“Excuse me...” Jenny tried to speak up, but the other two people in the bathroom ignored her.
“Thank God, your father-heaven rest him—” Mama muttered, crossing herself quickly, “isn’t here to listen to you!”
“Pop would be saying the same thing.”
“Pardon me...” Jenny tried again, with the same results.
“That my own son would turn his back on a woman who comes to him for help.” Mama shook her head slowly, clearly disgusted.
Nick felt that hill he was sliding down steepen considerably.
“She didn’t come to me for help, Ma,” he said. “I arrested her bridegroom!”
“If you’ll both let me talk...” Jenny’s voice was drowned out by Mama’s quick retort.
“And this you’re proud of?”
“Damn right,” her son snapped.
“Please!” Jenny shouted, and both people turned to stare at her. While she had their attention, she spoke quickly. “Mrs.—” She broke off and corrected quickly. “Mama. This isn’t your son’s problem.”
“Exactly.” Nick threw his hands wide and let them fall to his sides.
Mama sent him one long, withering look before patting Jenny again. “Of course, it is. Nicky will find you a husband.”
“Now wait a minute, Ma.”
“There isn’t time.”
“Four days,” Mama reminded her with a smile. “That’s plenty of time for Nicky. He knows lots of nice boys, don’t you?”
Nice boys. Nick groaned silently. He wondered how his former fellow officers at the police department would feel about being called “nice boys,” and then dismissed the thought. His mother was way off base on this one. “Most of my friends are already married, Ma,” he said quickly in a last-ditch hope to end the discussion. “And the ones that aren’t, don’t want to be.”
“Nonsense!” Mama waved one hand at him again. “All men want to get married. As soon as we tell them so.”
“Ma...”
He felt it. Nick felt control of the situation slipping further and further from his grasp and he was helpless to do anything about it. He looked down into Mama Tarantelli’s big brown eyes and knew that he would lose this battle. As he’d lost every argument he’d ever had with her.
Hell, he couldn’t remember a single time when his late father, his brothers and sister or he had come out on top of Mama in a fight. Even those few times when someone had backed her into a corner, Mama had always triumphed. Maybe it was because she was so tenacious. He’d never known her to give in or give up.
For one brief moment Nick wished that the others were there. If Gina and his brothers, Tony and Dino, were around that minute, they would at least have Mama outnumbered.
But Gina was in New York visiting family, Dino was at the casino where he worked squiring celebrities around town. Nick frowned slightly. And no one knew where Tony was.
“I can do this myself, Mama.” Jenny’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
Despite his own unwillingness to get any more involved, Nick couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Oh, sure you can. You’ve done a helluva job so far.”
Jenny turned a hurt look on him and Nick clamped his mouth shut. It wasn’t her fault that he was going to war with his mother. Well, actually it was, he corrected mentally. But it didn’t matter. The Tarantelli family went to war more often than any Medieval Crusaders ever had. And, Nick thought wryly, the Tarantelli’s were better at it, too.
Slipping off the edge of the bathroom sink, Jenny stood up straight to face him. But in her bare feet, she didn’t make much of an impression. The top of her head barely reached the middle of his chest.
Still, he had to give her credit. She pulled her shoulders back and stared up at him evenly. “I’ll remind you, Mr. Taraptelli, that if not for you, I would already be married.”
An unreasonable flicker of relief trickled through him and Nick refused to admit to it. What the hell difference did it make to him if she got married or not? None, he told himself. Absolutely none at all. Although, he thought as he stared into her eyes and watched flecks of green shimmer in their clear blue depths, looking into her eyes could get to be a habit.
A habit he didn’t want, Nick thought with hardened determination.
When he tore his gaze from hers, he saw Jenny shake herself as if she were coming out of a trance. He knew just how she felt.
“I—” Jenny started, stopped, then spoke again. “Thank you both for everything, but I’d like to go back to my hotel now.”
Mama clucked her tongue and took Jenny’s arm firmly in her grasp. “No such thing. You’re staying here.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Jenny said, and futilely tried to pull free.
Nick didn’t say a word. He’d been expecting this. And more than that, he
