Hot and Bothered (Hot in the Kitchen) (37 page)

“Time to eat,” Jack said, evidently trying to be the bigger person here.

“I’m not hungry,” Tad said, turning away to the street. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be hungry again.

* * *

“How come Jack’s not here getting his hands dirty?”

Using the heel of his work boot, Tad pushed the pitch fork into the densely-packed earth to its hilt. Once secured in the ground, he joined Shane on the patio. His friend passed him a cold one and took a long slug from the bottle in his own hand.

“Don’t want to mess up Lord Kilroy’s lily white hands. You know how he feels about anyone contaminating the air he breathes.” When Shane raised a disapproving eyebrow, Tad went on. “Look, I know he’s your brother but he’s not my favorite person right now, so he doesn’t get invited to partake in the fun.”

He gestured to the “fun” with a wave. The yard hadn’t improved much since he’d started tearing it apart three days ago. Rolled up grass sod lay to the side, the herb and vegetable garden was at best “distressed”, and the earth was in various stages of upturn like the
Caddyshack
gopher had paid a visit. He could have hired people to do it but the work’s weight was about the only thing keeping him from smashing somebody’s face in.

“I’m touched you thought of me when you needed free labor,” Shane mumbled.

“There’s beer and pizza in it for you. Besides, I know you can’t stay long with Cara needing you to keep her satisfied every minute of the day.”

Shane gave a sly smile. “Can I help it if my hot wife can’t keep her hands off me?” He took a long draught and leaned his elbows on his knees. “So the beef between you and Jack. Still Jules, I assume?”

“He’s just trying to protect her,” Tad said, resigned. He lowered himself to the bleach-weathered Adirondack chair and crossed an ankle over his knee.

“Yup, because she really needs protecting. Are you still going with the not-good-enough-for-her play? Or have you moved onto some other crappy excuse? Lean back there and tell me all about it.”

Tad groaned. “You missed your calling, Irish. Wasted making cakes. Absolutely wasted.”

“I would have thought this business with Evan’s father would have focused you. Made you see what you’ve been missing.”

Ignoring him, Tad picked at the label on his beer bottle.

“Or the fact that she started dating. Sure, that woke you up, didn’t it? Made you realize you’re crazy about her?”

The label tore. He used to be able to get it off in one smooth peel.

“The fuck, man.” A combination of awe and disgust thickened Shane’s voice.

Tad dragged his eyes up from the bottle, knowing they would reveal everything he had been hiding for two long and painful years, and no longer caring.

Shane’s glare was incredulous. “You’ve been in love with Jules from the beginning.”

The final brick in that fortress around his heart fell away. Not admitting it, even to himself, was another one of those brilliant strategies he had for keeping sane. It was up there with avoiding kitchens and liking his women loose and drinking himself into a stupor once a year. Absolutely brilliant.

“Tad, I’m not asking you, I’m telling you that you’d better come clean or I’m calling Cara and Lili in to get it done.”

Gripping the bottle tighter, Tad drew a deep breath to fuel what he had to say next.

“It was the night Jack was taping his show at DeLuca’s. She waltzed in like the world owed her a living, all bravado and hair and attitude. I turned to Lili and asked who the shit was that and next thing I knew this blond spitfire was marching into the kitchen on a mission. The second I saw her, I knew that was it for me.”

Colpo di fulmine.
The thunderbolt had struck him to his knees.

“Two minutes later, she announces she’s pregnant to Jack and the crew, but for that two minutes, Shane…”

He paused, his heart too full with the emotion of it. That perfect 120 seconds when he watched her take that first step to becoming so strong. He had known she was special then and every second with her since confirmed it—and confirmed he wasn’t worthy.

“For that two minutes, everything was stripped away and all that was left was possibility.”
And hope.
“But then, boom, she’s Jack’s sister, and boom, she’s pregnant, and boom, she needs a friend, not some horn dog who wanted in her pants.”

Shane studied his beer, then pointed it at Tad for emphasis. “And boom, you’re still not doing anything about it. You are such a pussy.”

Should have known better than to expect a smidge of sympathy from his so-called friend. The bubble of rage in his chest threatened to rise up and choke his throat.

“This from the guy who knew Jack Kilroy was his brother for twelve years before he decided to show his smug-as-all-get-out, pointy-ass, Irish face.”

That just got Tad a shake of that smug-as-all-get-out, pointy-ass, Irish head.

“We’re not talking about me and my now-perfect life. We’re figuring out how a guy who has been in love with a woman since the first day he laid eyes on her still can’t get his head out of his Italian arse and work it out. But if you want to go there, be my guest. I let a million things get in the way of connecting with Jack. I built up the barriers in my head—he didn’t want to know, he hated our father so he was going to hate me, he was doing just fine without another hanger-on. Etcetera, etcetera. All my life, I wanted a family. Jack, Cara, you guys. I wasted a shitload of time and if I could do it differently, I’d have called Jack the day I found out he was my brother and told him I wanted to see him.”

Tad downed his beer, praying for the cool liquid to take the edge off. Shane had excellent reasons for not reaching out to Jack sooner, the primary one being their violent, abusive father who’d beat Shane senseless when he was a kid. Feeling worthless is usually a perfectly adequate reason not to take the next step.

“Well, it all worked out in the end. You got Cara and Jack and soon, you’ll have your kids. And you got a cool cousin-in-law in the form of Yours Truly.” The guy had nothing to complain about.

They both took long draughts of their beers, the swallows cool and satisfying in the muggy heat.

“Swing set would look nice over there,” Shane said after an extended beat.

“Real subtle, asshole.”

Shane laughed and pulled out his buzzing phone. “Hey, gorgeous. What’s up?” His expression turned to granite as he listened to whatever Cara was saying. “I’ll be right there.”

He bolted out of his seat. “Come on, Cara’s at the hospital.”

* * *

Thwack.

Tad turned the corner on his way to the emergency room waiting area and found his uncle dealing a deathblow to an uncooperative vending machine.

“How’s Cara?” Shane had jumped out of the car and raced inside while Tad parked.

“No news yet. Shane is with her now.”

Thwack.

“What happened?”

“She was meeting with a client, the big one who is the son of the mayor, when she started getting cramps. Of course, she carried on with the meeting. When she left, she headed here and then called Shane.”

“Jesus.” He knew Cara was a workaholic and the consummate professional but that took the cake. Assuming she made it out of this okay, Shane was going to kill her.

Tony shook his head disapprovingly. “Now we must wait and see.”

Wait and see.
Well, that just blows.

“Need some help?” he asked, nodding to the candy bar that wouldn’t budge.

“It is hanging on the edge right there.” Tony’s glare was usually quite persuasive but the recalcitrant Kit Kat gamely withstood Il Duce’s pressure.

“You don’t eat candy. What’s going on?”

“Your aunt is a sugar fiend.” His uncle shrugged in that lazy Continental way of his. “Not unlike your father. He had quite the sweet tooth.”

Tad felt a smile tugging at his lips. “Junior Mints were his weakness. He said it was the best thing about going to the movies.”

A couple of moments ticked by, not uncomfortably. Tad could feel a space opening up in the air around him, a welcoming gap he could step through to a place where everything wasn’t quite so skewed.

“I went to the cemetery last week,” Tony said. “There were fresh white roses. Your mother’s favorite.”

Tad had driven out there the day after he sobered up. Rosehill Cemetery was just a few miles as the crow flies, but he had never seen the appeal in fixating on a slash of earth and a lump of stone. Better to internalize the pain and fixate on their memory.

“I hadn’t been there since the funeral,” Tad said. “Seemed it was time.”

“That day was hard for everyone.” Tony met Tad’s gaze, his blue eyes tinged with regret and distant memory. “I didn’t make it easier.”

“Easy would have been worse. I needed it to be hard.”

The truth of that carved out a cavity in his chest. He had needed it to be hard because that was the only way he could get through it. Tony’s disapprobation had hurt but it had worked to keep his guilt tangible, just the way Tad liked it.

His uncle let go of a world-weary sigh. Tad would have sworn the old man was carrying Jesus’s cross on the way to Calgary.

“I was never so glad as the day Cara called to tell me you had come to visit her in New York after all that time away. I should have come to see you but I thought you would not want people to crowd you.”

This was the first he’d heard that Cara had called home or that Tony had known. Though to be fair, after numbing his brain dead with drugs, drink, and pussy halfway around the world, he didn’t remember much from that trip.

“I was only there a couple of days before heading out to Italy. Seeing you might have sent me back to Asia.” Instantly he regretted his flippancy. “Sorry, bad joke.”

Tony looked thoughtful. “I should have apologized to you properly for how I acted. Two years later you were home, back where you belonged, working at DeLuca’s. Not in the kitchen like I hoped, but I expected that would come. I thought that was enough. We have never needed a lot of words.”

“I would have liked to hear them all the same,” Tad said around the lump in his throat. “I didn’t drive the car or run that light but I’m the reason they were out that night. I know what I did was wrong but damn, I needed you to tell me that, even as fucked up as I was, you still saw me as family. As a DeLuca.”

Tony’s eyes flashed. “That has never been in question. It was an accident. I was wrong to react the way I did and even more wrong not to put things straight between us.”

Tad fought to get a leash on his emotions.
Thwack.
He gave the vending machine a slap, drawing a curious look from some punk ass kid off in the corner.

“Taddeo, tell me you have not imagined you were not a part of this family…” He trailed off, focusing once more on that freakin’ Kit Kat bar. Seemed it was much easier for them both to look elsewhere.

“I don’t know. I hated myself, Tony, and maybe it was easier for me to think you were still bitter. Every time you looked at me, I saw Dad. I saw his disappointment, I saw his dreams for me go up in flames and the life he wouldn’t have. And every time I looked at you, I remembered that I was closer to you than my own father and that just made me feel a different level of guilt. In the kitchen, you and Vivi taught me everything, and when you barely spoke to me when I came home, it cracked me in half.”

Aw, crap, the old man looked like he was going to cry and if he lost it, Tad knew he might not be far behind. It had been a shitty week.

Tony drew a deep breath that seemed to stave off the threatened waterworks. “You had changed, Taddeo. You were so closed off and I thought you needed more time. When I asked you to cook with me, you refused. One year turned into two and…” He waved his hand to fill in the rest.

Something loosened in Tad’s chest, a rigidity turning wobbly and warm. Could he really have forgotten that Tony made overtures of peace all those years ago? Every time Tony had spoken to him, Tad had braced himself for a lecture, built a wall to shut it out before it found traction. He didn’t want to cook and whenever Tony mentioned it, Tad took it as a veiled criticism of Tad’s choices. Just another example of letting down Vivi.

Memory could be selectively cruel, especially when you’re so determined to play the martyr. Vivi had always told him he wanted too deeply, felt too acutely, loved too much. Of course he was going to give this martyr business 110 percent.

Your heart may break many times, Taddeo, but when you find the right one… it will be
perfetto.

Tad had let his pain blind him to Tony’s peace offerings over the years. Neither of them were good with words.

“Tony, I’m sorry.”

His uncle looked horrified. “Taddeo, you have nothing to be—”

“Not about the accident. I can’t carry that weight anymore, but I am sorry about how it hardened me. About how I let it take over and used it to push people away. Especially you.”

Tony’s lips turned up in the barest smile. “We are always here for you, Taddeo. This family doesn’t always tell each other these things but there is no shortage of love.” He patted Tad’s arm awkwardly.

Tad’s throat was too thick with emotion to respond. A few moments passed. The Kit Kat still teetered on the edge.