Marilyn Pappano - Criminal Deception

And for the first time Liz had seen that didn’t involve the puppies, Natalia smiled.

They ate on the porch, the two rockers facing each other with a small table in between to hold the pizza boxes and iced tea. Breaking the last bit of crust into two pieces, Joe tossed one to each dog before he closed the empty boxes and set one on top of the other.

“I love pizza,” Liz said with a satisfied sigh.

“It’s in your blood, huh?” When she glanced at him, brows raised, he lifted one shoulder. “Josh said you were half Italian.”

“On my mother’s side. I always thought it would be fun to eat my way through Italy.”

“Do you cook Italian food?”

Her smile was faint in the growing darkness. “Does macaroni from a box count?”

“No.”

“I don’t cook.” Before he could respond, she raised one finger to make her point. It was slender, the nail curved gently and polished the same shade as her toes. “I can. I just don’t.”

“I can and I do. Mostly Cuban.”

She tilted her head to one side to study him. Did she have a clue how incredibly relaxed and beautiful and sexy she looked? He doubted it. That was okay, though, because he damn well knew.

“Blond hair and blue eyes. You don’t fit my stereotyped image of a Cuban.”

“My father’s not Latino, but his adoptive parents were.”

“I didn’t know that.”

Bear came around to sniff the napkin resting on Joe’s leg. He pushed the dog away, then crumpled the napkin into a ball. “Why should you? Josh was never big on heritage or family or much of anything besides himself.”

“And yet people love him.”

All sense of ease fled as Joe’s muscles tightened. Half surprised he could unclench his jaw to speak, he asked sharply, “Do you?”

She drew her gaze to him, her dark eyes rounded. “Love Josh?”

“You were with him a long time.” His tone was accusing, but he couldn’t soften it. “You must have felt something …I don’t know…serious? Significant?”

He would bet his next shipment of Salvadoran strictly high-grown Arabica that she wouldn’t have answered at all if she could have avoided it. As it was, her answer was a non-answer. “It was…complicated.”

His laughter was short and sharp. “With Josh, everything is complicated.”

Her own laugh was rueful. “You’re not too simple yourself.”

“Of course I am. What you see is what you get.”

She looked as if the idea of “getting” might tempt her. It had better. If he were the only one wanting things, the only one who’d damn near burst into flames at the simple touch of her fingers around his hand, life truly wasn’t fair.

Elizabeth shot to the edge of the porch, nose quivering, and Bear joined her with a shuffle, staring into the deepening shadows with the same intensity. Liz watched them, smiling faintly. “Are you missing a pillow?”

“Yeah. From my bed. The best one I ever had. I figure Elizabeth is responsible. She has this defiant screw-you look when she does something wrong. She probably smelled me on it and that’s why she shredded it.”

“Natalia said she would replace it.”

“Nah. I’ll ask Mom where she bought it-” Abruptly he broke off. He wouldn’t get comfortable enough with Liz to talk about his parents. Not when he couldn’t trust her.

But she didn’t pounce on his slip, try to get more information out of him or even look at him. She continued to watch the dogs as they stared out a moment longer, then, with Elizabeth in the lead, returned to their places against the wall and curled up. After a long time, she said, “I’m not in love with him.”

Relief seeped through him, his muscles easing from tension that had become so familiar he only noticed it when it was gone. He would tell himself it didn’t matter whether she loved Josh, but unlike his brother, he wasn’t in the habit of lying. It did matter.

For whatever it was worth.

“Then why are you looking for him?” He was surprised at how even his voice was, as if he didn’t give a damn about the subject.

“I’ve told you.”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s got something you want. What?”

“Charm to spare?”

He scowled at her, even though she still wasn’t looking at him. She must have sensed it, though, because she did meet his gaze at last. “I’ll make you a deal, Joe. I’ll tell you why I’m looking for Josh right after you tell me where your parents are.”

He scooted his chair away from the table so he could stretch out his legs. “Ain’t ever happenin’, darlin’.”

She mimicked his drawl. “Ditto, darlin’.”

After a moment, he asked, “Do you ever miss Kansas?”

“Not the place so much as what it represents.”

Home. Family. Simpler times. At least, that was what Chicago meant to him. Truth was, he hadn’t realized how much it meant to him until he had to leave it.

“Are you ever going back there to live?”

“I don’t know.” She folded her arms across her chest as if chilled. “Probably not, though my mother wonders how I could even consider raising her grandbabies in any other state.”

“Planes fly to all fifty of them. You’ll visit.” But he understood. His parents had chosen to make their new home in Savannah in part because it was only two hours from Copper Lake. She might never see Josh again, his mother had sniffed, but she would always be close enough to spend an afternoon with Joe’s kids.

Assuming he found someone to marry and have them with, and no way was Liz that someone.

“Try telling my mother that a visit with her only grandchild is sufficient.” She tucked her feet into the seat of the rocker. “Is it different with sons? Does your mother nag you? Has she already got plans for the son or daughter you don’t yet have?”

“Of course. She intends to do all the things we did with our grandmothers-teach him to cook, have Saturday night sleepovers, let him get away with breaking all the rules we had to abide by.”

“Rules you abided by,” Liz pointed out. “Not Josh.”

“Yeah.” He tilted his head back, letting his eyes close. Besides Bear’s snuffles and the steady drip of the rain, distant music drifted. Country, with the dominant whine of a steel guitar. “Nat’s got the blues.”

The rocker creaked as Liz presumably twisted to see the other house. “I invited her to dinner, but she said no. She’s an interesting girl.”

“Girl? She’s just a few years younger than you.”

“But she seems so young.”

He knew exactly what she meant. Natalia pretended to be tough, but she was one of the most vulnerable women he’d ever met. The people who should have protected her and made her feel safe had done a lousy job of it, and he felt as if he needed to make up for it but didn’t know how other than by being friends with her. He suspected the damage already done was so great that a little thing like friendship couldn’t begin to repair it.

“I didn’t figure you for the waif type.”

It took a moment for Liz’s comment to sink in, and when it did, he grinned. He liked Natalia a lot, maybe even sort of loved her in a big-brother-kid-sister way, but when it came to steamy, hot, wicked sex, it wasn’t big-eyed vulnerable Nat who turned him on. She didn’t even enter the picture, thank you, God. Just the thought struck him as perverse.

“Nat and I are buddies.” He emphasized the last word. “My type is…” He glanced at her peripherally: black curls, outfit that was neither particularly snug nor revealing but sexy as hell anyway, killer legs, bare feet, expression guarded-not too open, not too friendly, not too invested. Yeah, right.

He left the sentence hanging as the breeze freshened, and she shivered, rubbing her hands over her arms. He stood, gathered the pizza boxes and glasses, then opened the screen door. Elizabeth and Bear shot past him, rocketing through the living room and into the kitchen. “Want to come in?”