Melinda Curtis - Count on Love

“We had one scoop,” Brett interrupted.

With one arm around Annie’s shoulders, Maddy looked at her grandfather and grinned. “The music was loud. I had to dance.”

“Sometimes you’ve gotta dance,” he crooned, doing a little jig.

Sliding to the floor, Maddy giggled and then grabbed her plastic princess dress-up shoes. She swayed and clacked the heels together like a tambourine, creating an uneven beat.

“Are you feeling all right?” Annie asked. Her father didn’t dance.

“Right as rain.” He reached for Maddy, who came willingly into his arms. “I’m a grandpa, you know.”

The sight of the two of them, so happy and at ease, only made Annie feel more alone. She’d been that girl once. Annie sidled around the dancing pair into the small kitchenette. The day had been full of too many ups and downs. She’d done well at the casino and had been irrationally disappointed that Sam hadn’t offered to call Carl Nunes on the spot…or to offer Annie the card-counting-expert job. At this point, even temporary employment had its allure.

Who was she kidding? She’d be a fool to want to get tied up with Sam.

“How did the job go, Annie?”

Oh, it went, all right. Annie froze in the middle of putting milk in the refrigerator, staring inside as if searching for something. The light was burned out and the top shelf was cracked and covered with duct tape. She’d come full circle.

“I’m not sure the job is going to work out,” she said, as casually as she could manage through her tight throat. She’d graduated early from high school and breezed through the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on an academic scholarship. How had she become such a failure?

“That’s too bad.” Her dad deposited a giggling Maddy on the boxy brown burlap couch. “You’ll find something you like in no time, though. You always did manage to get yourself out of a bind quicker than most.”

Not knowing what to say, Annie just stared at her father, noting a funny-colored smudge near his nose. Ice cream? He twitched under her scrutiny and turned away.

“Well, quicker than me, anyway,” he said sheepishly.

There was too much water under the bridge for Annie to correct him. Still, guilt had a way of loosening lips. “I thought it might be nice to have spaghetti.”

“Just like old times.” He grinned over his shoulder and the smudge fell from his left cheek.

Maddy laughed and bounced on the couch. “Grandpa didn’t get all the Play-Doh off his face.”

There were two open canisters of Play-Doh and several doughy strings of pearls on the scarred coffee table. Annie shouldn’t have worried about Brett. He was throwing himself into the role of grandpa without any of the ulterior motives she’d expected.

“Come on, Grandpa.” Maddy held out a small hand. “Let’s make an elephant.”

Obedient as a love-struck puppy, he sat on the couch and pulled the five-year-old close to him. Unexpectedly, Annie blinked back tears. How she’d loved to do things with him as a child. He’d been her best friend. Losing that closeness had been the hardest part about refusing to play cards for him. And much as she’d wanted to find that with Frank, Annie realized now that her marriage had been lacking many things, most importantly, trust.

“HOW IS SHE?” Vince asked, without greeting Aldo as he entered the bedroom. The maids who scrubbed toilets had better manners than this cafone.

“The same.” Always the same. In a coma. He walked out of the room, giving Vince some time alone with his grandmother.

“Of course.” Vince always sounded as if Rosalie’s condition was Aldo’s fault.

The day nurse came only as far as the doorway.

“Is that a Picasso?” Vince asked when he joined Aldo scant minutes later.

“Come in. Sit down.” Aldo shuffled the deck. Keeping his hands busy made the shaking less noticeable. He did not like to appear weak in front of Vince.

His grandson didn’t sit until Paulo pulled out a chair at the table. Aldo spoke three languages fluently—English, French and his native Italian. Vince only understood the language of a bully. He was becoming more like his father every day.

Once he was seated, Aldo nodded to the painting on the wall. “Le Rêve by Picasso.”

“The portrait of his mistress?” Vince angled around for a better look. He and Rosalie shared a passion for art that Aldo never completely understood.

“Of his love,” Aldo corrected. He’d gotten the painting for Rosalie. She would enjoy it once she awoke.

“How much did that set us back?”

It was on loan from Steve Wynn, the Bellagio owner, in exchange for a large charitable donation, but Aldo wasn’t going to admit he didn’t have deep enough pockets to purchase such a prize. “Not nearly as much as it’s worth.”

His grandson laughed, the sound grating along Aldo’s bent spine. “You’ve still got it, old man.”

Part of Aldo preened at the compliment. It was rare since his grandson had returned from the war that the two of them exchanged anything other than sharp words. Sometimes Aldo wished for a better relationship with him, and sometimes—

“I don’t feel like playing tonight,” Vince said. “I’ve got places to be.”

Sometimes Aldo thought he’d be better off alone with Rosalie. “I don’t ask for much from you, Vince, except these games.”

“You ask more than that.”

“I suppose the beauty pageant rehearsal downstairs has something to do with this.”

A grin unfurled on Vince’s dark face. “I’d hate to disappoint the ladies.”

“So, you’ll play at being a celebrity. Only you’ll end up like your father, living in a trailer park in Florida with a gold-digging former showgirl. Hard work pays off, not gambling and skirt chasing.” Aldo didn’t care if Vince’s wife had left him. A married man honored his vows.

“Regretting sending that P.I. after me when I ran away as a kid?”

Aldo slapped the cards onto the table. “I may have been the only one in the family who did not. Your father was glad to see you go.” It was the blackjack game all those years ago that had led to his family’s unraveling. Aldo’s son, Nick, had overreacted to the situation. They’d all paid a price back then, but he and Vince had found common ground. Or so he’d thought. Now they’d come to this—trading insults like schoolboys.

“And now Dad’s in Florida, waiting to come back.”

“Waiting for me to die, you mean,” Aldo growled. “I won’t give what I’ve built to anyone who’s not willing to work for it.” Nick would benefit very little from Aldo’s passing. And Vince—

“You won’t be able to control us from the grave.”

“Che brutta.” How ugly Vince was. Disappointment froze Aldo in his chair. How had two generations of Patrizios become such schmucks? Three, if you counted how coarse Aldo himself had become.

Vince laughed off the insult, but his parting smile wasn’t happy and didn’t reassure Aldo that things would turn out well for any of them.

“I think I’ll retire, Paulo.” Aldo shuffled toward his bedroom, where he could face his bleak future alone with Rosalie.

STUPID. THAT’S WHAT SAM WAS.

Stupid for following Annie after she’d left him at Tiny’s. Stupid for lurking in the produce aisle while she selected zucchini and grapes. Stupid for tailing her to this run-down apartment complex where someone had let her in to the second-story apartment. And the stupidest mistake of all was him driving all the way home, only to come back, climb the shaky stairs, stand on the stoop and contemplate knocking on her door.

Sam was used to following hunches, but this was crazy. Annie wasn’t the answer to his problems on this case. She pretended to be a staid financial analyst from the tips of her heels to the curve of the pearls around her neck.