Juliette said with a laugh, “I can practically guarantee. But Gemma can be a real sweetheart, Dante. She’s surprisingly easy to be around, even for us ordinary people.”
“How would you know? Nothing ordinary about you,” Dante teased, and she laughed again. It was infectious. She was so happy these days it fairly flowed over the connection. And he had a suspicion that once that damned Groom Killer, as the ever-helpful media had tagged the serial killer terrorizing would-be grooms in Red Ridge, was caught, some wedding planning would be starting.
“And one more thing,” Juliette added. “If she says she’ll do something, she’ll do it, unless outside forces prevent it. She truly, honestly tries to never break a promise. Their father broke too many, I think, so she’s hard over the other way.”
Dante went still for a moment. Juliette could have been talking about him. He knew all about long strings of parental broken promises, and his reaction had been the same: if he gave his word, his promise, he’d go to whatever lengths necessary to keep it.
“Thanks, Walsh.”
“No problem.”
“Stay happy, will you?”
She laughed, and it was a light, airy sound that was full of delight. “Blake’ll see to that.”
He stared at the phone when the call was done, contemplating for a moment the unlikely way and place Juliette Walsh had found—or rather refound—the love of her life. And as unlikely as it was, he believed his brother had genuinely loved Agostina, at least as much as he was able. Dante was the one who was out of step on that front. He’d never met a woman he thought he could spend the rest of his life with. And cops were generally lousy marriage material anyway. What kind of woman would want to put with the crazy hours, the callouts, the grimness of it all, let alone the fun of knowing every time your husband walked out the door he might never come home?
That had even been one of Dominic’s arguments when Dante had signed up for the police academy. After the shock had worn off, anyway, and after his outrage at the problems this would cause for the family. Especially when Dante had bluntly told his brother not to think he’d now have an in with the department, that he had every intention of becoming and staying an honest cop.
Dominic had never forgiven him for that.
And now he never would.
As the memory of the scene she had walked in on played back in Gemma’s head, she had to admit Dante was also damned sexy. Not as sexy as smooth, suave Devlin, of course, but in a different, rougher, edgier way.
Not that that type appealed to her. Which did not explain her first reaction to the sight of his bare torso, but she decided not to think about that now. She had other things to deal with. Like keeping these two quiet. She dropped down to sit beside the two babies and the dog.
You two are going to be my résumé. When Dev sees I can handle this, he won’t have doubts anymore. Then everything will go back to the way it should be.
The dog lifted his head again, looking at her steadily. She knew she was being fanciful, but there seemed a world of wisdom in those deep-set canine eyes. She felt the urge to pet him but didn’t know if that would break some K9 protocol. Funny, she’d heard all her life about the Red Ridge K9 unit, had raised money—a lot of money—for them, but she knew very little about the animals themselves. Maybe she’d held herself apart because they had been the pet cause of her father’s first—and, if she were honest, most beloved—wife. Maybe the only one he’d really loved; she’d figured that out fairly young.
She glanced across the office at Dante, who appeared to be waiting for a response to a text to Juliette asking for a convo. Then, tentatively, she held out a hand for the dog to smell. He didn’t seem impressed, but then she remembered the deep sniff he’d taken earlier.
“No harm,” she whispered to him. With some idea that it might be less objectionable than a pat on the head—this dog, with his almost noble mien, did not seem the type for such saccharine gestures—she reached out and stroked one of the long, dropping ears with the back of her fingers. It felt surprisingly thin and delicate, and amazingly, incredibly soft. And it curled at the tip, inward and back, in a way she had spent many hours trying to get her hair to do just right.
One of the babies giggled. Or at least that’s what it sounded like. It startled her, and her head snapped around. It was the baby she’d just put down—she’d have to learn how to tell them apart, so she didn’t call them by the wrong names—and she was watching her and Flash with obvious interest.
She felt another gaze, knew it was Dante. She looked up at him and smiled.
He went very still. But before she could decipher the look on his face—normally she wasn’t much for stubble, but she had to admit on him it looked good—he turned away. For an instant she wondered if it had been an expression of male reaction, but then she heard him talking into his phone as he walked away, toward the window, and laughed inwardly at herself.
God, you really do think it’s always about you, don’t you?
She looked back at the two girls. And for the first time felt overwhelmed at what she’d done. Felt the fierce urge to back out, now, fast, before she got in any deeper.
...an ounce of maternal instinct.
Dev’s words rang in her mind. And her determination returned. She’d set out to prove him wrong, and she would. Somehow.
She stroked that soft ear again. And to her surprise, the big head nudged her hand. She looked at the dog. The dog who had already gotten one of the girls to giggle.
“Will you help me, Flash?” she whispered to him, scratching behind that ear now. “You’ve obviously got the knack.”
The dog gave her another long, considering look, and then turned toward the two babies, as if he understood exactly what she meant. With a sigh that sounded nothing less than long-suffering, he plopped his head back down on his huge paws.
Gemma chose to interpret that as acceptance, if not an outright offer to help. It would have to do.
* * *
Jolted out of useless meanderings, Dante turned to walk back toward his desk. And stopped a few feet away at the sight of Gemma sitting cross-legged on the floor, one hand holding one of the dangling, beaded earrings she’d been wearing in front of one of the twins, who was batting at it happily as her sister slept on, and the other hand stroking one of Flash’s ears. The dog looked as close to blissful as he ever did.
It wasn’t much to go on, he knew that. But the combination of that recognition that he and Gemma had chosen a similar response to parental unreliability and this image of her, the twins and Flash before him made up his mind.
“I hope you can learn to tell them apart.”
Gemma looked up at him, smiling widely. All the Colton polish and elegance was still there, but that smile made her seem...real. “Oh, I can already do that.”
He blinked. “You can?”
She
