Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (10 page)

Nell exhaled.
 
He had such confidence in Fred, and rightly so.
 
Although the man was a lousy husband who
cheated on her with abandon, he’d always treated Jimmy well.
 
But the idea of her son
being so far away from her for the first time in his life . . .

She frowned, rubbed her son’s thin arm.
 
“I don’t see why you have to go with him,
anyway.”

“He’s getting married, Ma.
 
He wants me at his wedding.
 
He wants me to meet his fiancée and her
family.
 
Besides, he’s moving to Nebraska
for good, and I want to see where he’s staying and everything.”

“Why you need to see that?
 
You aren’t moving there with him, I don’t
care what he wants.”

Jimmy stared at his mother.
 
He’d give his right arm for her to find a
good man that could sweep her off of her feet.
 
She was fast becoming a bitter woman with dwindling prospects,
especially when every man interested in her ended up being rebuffed by
her.
 
But that was his mother. Most times
she was
a calm
, caring woman who loved him
unconditionally.
 
Other times she was the
bitch of bitches, a woman nobody in their right mind would want to be around.

But good or bad, she was his mother.

He leaned over and hugged her.
 
“
It’s
okay, Ma,” he
said, fighting back tears as hers shed.
 
“It’ll only be for five weeks.
 
I’ll
be back in five weeks.”
 

“That’s the whole summer.”

“I know.
 
Dad wants me there with him and his new family.
 
But I’ll be back.”

Then Jimmy looked past his mother as Fred
Ridgeway stepped out of the house carrying two suitcases.
 
He and his mother stopped embracing. “I’d
better go.
 
Dad’s come outside.”

Nell looked across the lawn at her ex.
 
He was lifting the trunk of his car and
putting his suitcases in.
 
He was a lean
man like Jimmy who once loved her and begged her to marry him after she returned
to Crane, fifteen years ago, with a two-year old son.
 
They would say he impregnated her before she
left town, was what he told her.
 
Jimmy,
he had said, wouldn’t be a bastard child, but would be raised as his son.

 
Although Shanell knew her son was no “bastard”
no matter what the circumstance, she knew he would need a father.
 
So she married Fred Ridgeway and they both
told Jimmy that he was his father.
 
She
never regretted telling him that, either.
 
Given the circumstances surrounding the birth, and given the lifestyle
of the man who was his real father, she knew it was the best thing for her
son.
 

But now, as Fred Ridgeway was about to take
her son away from her, for the entire summer, to be with some strange woman and
her family, she wasn’t so sure.

Nell patted her son on his chest.
 
“Be good,” she said and kissed him lightly on
the cheek.

Jimmy smiled, but she could see his
anguish.
 
He’d always held out hope that
she and Fred would someday reconcile.
 
But now, with this pending marriage to this Nebraskan woman Fred was
hooking up with, that reconciliation seemed, as Nell knew it was all along,
impossible.

And as her son walked across the lawn toward
his father, and as Nell got back into her Mustang and watched he and his dad go
back inside that house, she closed her eyes in pain.
 
Somehow she couldn’t shake the feeling that
Fred was about to marry the woman of his dreams, and she was about to lose
everything.
 
She didn’t know why she felt
that way, but she couldn’t shake the feeling.

The apple-red, high-revved Porsche zoomed into
the driveway of the modest, wood-framed home.
 
Reno, behind the wheel, and Trina on the front passenger seat beside
him, stared up at the big, two
story
, residence with
long, wraparound porches on the first floor and the second floor.
 
There was nothing remarkable about the place,
other than its size, and Reno immediately realized its lack of character.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he said.
 
“I told those realtors to find me the best
house they had to offer in this town.
 
This
is the best they have to offer?”

“Oh, Reno, it’s cute.”

Reno looked at Trina.
 
“Cute?
 
It looks like an oversized white, wooden box, Tree.”

Trina knew that Reno had never lived in a
modest home in his life, but she’d lived in plenty.
 
“It’ll do just fine,” she said.

“And look,” Reno said, nodding his head toward
the front porch.
 
Trina looked as a tall
white woman came bounding out of the house.
 
She was smiling and waving.
 

“Who the hell is that?” Reno wanted to
know.
 
“Pollyanna?”

Trina smiled and hit him lightly on his
muscular arm, an arm revealed by the short-sleeved polo shirt he wore.
 
“Don’t start, Reno,” she warned, and began
getting out of the car.
 

Reno couldn’t help but smile himself, as he
got out, too.

Blossom Spivey, the realtor, stood on the
porch and held her clipboard over her squinted eyes.
 
The glare of the Georgia sun made it almost
impossible for her to get a perfect look, but she was able to quickly size them
up.
 
They both wore jeans and polo
shirts, although the male’s shirt was red and the female’s was white.
 
Both pair of jeans fit snugly, with the woman
showing some curves and the male’s jeans, she was pleased to notice,
highlighted the kind of muscular thighs that always turned her on.
 
Muscular thighs meant muscular dick, or at
least that had been Blossom’s considerable experience, and given the slim
pickings around here lately, and she meant SLIM, the idea of fresh,
thick
, new white meat on the market
delighted her.

 
“Well,
hello there,” she said grinningly as she hurried down the porch to greet them,
her flowery sundress ballooning around her shapely legs and creating a
pageantry effect.
 
She really was a very
beautiful woman, with long, blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a slamming body.
 
If Trina was insecure about where she stood
in Reno’s heart, this woman wouldn’t help her insecurity at all.
 
But Trina wasn’t insecure.

Blossom had every reason to believe that the
man coming toward her had to be Dominic Gabrini.
 
Not just because she was expecting him, but
because nobody from Crane, and she meant nobody, drove a car quite that
grand.
 
“Hope y’all didn’t get lost,” she
said as she arrived in front of them.

Reno placed his hand on the small of Trina’s
back as she approached them.
 
His dark
shades were shielding the disappointment in his big, blue eyes as he couldn’t
stop looking up at the big but ordinary-looking house.
 
He wasn’t expecting the PaLargio.
 
But damn.
 
He wasn’t expecting some dump, either.
 

“No, we didn’t get lost,” Trina said when it
was obvious Reno was too busy checking out the house.

“That’s good to know,” Blossom replied.
 
“Because finding a small town like this isn’t
as easy as you would think.
 
Even with
GPS and all of that other newfangled technology.”
 
She extended her hand to Reno.
 
“You must be Dominic Gabrini.”
 

Reno removed his hand from Trina’s back.
 
“How are you?” he asked as he shook Blossom’s
hand.

“Well, I’m just wonderful, sir.
 
Even in this weather,” she added with a
grin.
 
“Welcome to Crane!”
 

Then she turned her sights on Trina, the sexy
black woman standing beside the hunk.
 
He
was probably fucking her, she decided, but it didn’t matter.
 
Once men got a taste of Blossom Spivey, they
always came back for more.
 
And this
hunk, she also decided, would be getting a taste real soon.
 
“And you must be his aide,” she said to
Trina, her hand extended.

My aide
?
Reno thought.
 
What the---

“No,” Trina said, smiling and shaking her
hand.
 
“I’m not his aide.”

“She’s my wife,” Reno corrected her.
 
“This is Katrina Gabrini.
 
My wife.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Blossom said, surprised.
 
“I truly meant no offense.
 
I just assumed a man of your stature would
travel with an assistant.”

“No,” Reno said.
 
“No assistants.
 
Just me and my wife.”

“Understood,” Blossom said.
 

Although she was disappointed that he was
married, that fact alone never stopped her before.
 
She would just have to be even more discreet,
she figured, because no way was she letting this hunk of sex get away from her.
 
She was bored with the pickings, and her
husband was the pits lately.
 
This
Italian stallion was going to spice it up around
here,
she could feel it in her bones.
 
And in
her v-jayjay too, she smilingly thought.

“So you must be the realtor,” Trina asked.

“Oh, yes, ma’am, I am.
 
I’m Blossom.
 
Blossom Spivey.
 
But everybody just calls me Bloss.
 
Not that I care for that particular nickname,
mind you, because I don’t.
 
But I don’t
care for Blossom, either.
 
So I guess it
all works out in the end.”
 
She grinned a
grin so grand Reno wondered if it would hurt her face.
 
She then flung her long, blonde hair behind
one shoulder and then the other one in a coquettish double-jerk of her small
head.

She was a phony, Reno decided.
 
She was one of those smiley-face fakers who’d
invite you to lunch and then, after you left, throw away the glass you drank
from.

“Y’all look so cute,” Blossom said, pointing
to their clothes.
 
“Red, white, and blue
jeans,” she said with a laugh.
 
“All-American.”

Reno gave Trina one of those
what-the-fuck
looks, but Trina smiled.
 
She was born in the south.
 
She had been around women like Blossom all
her life.

“We didn’t think about it that way,” Trina
said to Blossom, “but I guess you’re right.
 
Red, white and blue jeans.”
 
They both laughed.
 
It was, Trina thought, kind of clever.
 
And it demonstrated, Trina also thought, just
how much of a fish out of water Reno was going to be here in the south.
 
This, for him, would be like another world.

“So this is it?” Reno said, removing his
shades to get a better look at the house.
 
Blossom already could see he was a good looking man, but my goodness,
she thought, when he took off those shades.
 

“This is it,” she said.
 
“Four bedrooms and two
baths.
 
It’s a very lovely
home.
 
Care to see inside?”

The house had awning over the top windows that
gave it an almost cottage look, but he was still unimpressed.
 

“Care to look inside?” Blossom asked again.

“Yeah, why not,” he said, still staring up at
the monstrosity. He just couldn’t see allowing his wife to live in a place this
bland.

But just as they were about to go inside the
house, a Cadillac Escalade SUV drove
up,
and Sullivan
Chambliss stepped out.
 

Trina looked.
 
And he was a sight to behold.
 
He
wasn’t as muscular as Reno, but he had that tanned
skin, that
lean, sprinter’s body, that long, smooth neck and bright white smile that made
him look graceful.
 
Like Reno, he had
blue eyes, but unlike Reno, his hair was far shorter, and immaculate.

“Who’s that?” Trina found herself asking
Blossom.
 
Reno was curious, too.