Truly Madly Yours (7 page)

Nick smiled and straightened. His brother would appreciate the inheritance. “You’re going to love it.”

“He got practically nothing,” his mother interjected, carrying a plate of sliced bread into the dining room.

“He left me his Angel Beach property and the land at Silver Creek.”

Louie’s thick brows rose up his forehead and a glint sparkled in his dark eyes. “Holy shit,” the thirty-four-year-old land developer whispered so his mother wouldn’t hear him.

Nick laughed and the two of them followed Benita into the dining room, then sat at the polished oak table. They watched their mother neatly fold back the lace tablecloth, then leave to get their lunch.

“What are you going to put on the Angel Beach property?” Louie asked, assuming correctly that Nick would want the land developed. Benita might not realize the worth of Nick’s inheritance, but his brother did.

“I don’t know. I have a year to think about it.”

“A year?”

Benita set bowls of
guisado de vaca
in front her sons, then took her seat. It was hot outside, and Nick really didn’t feel like stew. “I get the property if I do something. Or
not
do something, actually.”

“Is he trying to get you to change your name again?”

Nick looked up from his bowl. His mother and brother stared back at him. There was no way around it. They were family, and they believed family had the God-given right to stick their noses in his business. He snagged a piece of bread and took a bite. “There was a condition,” he began after he swallowed. “I get the property in one year if I don’t become involved with Delaney.”

Slowly Louie picked up his spoon. “Involved? How?”

Nick cast a sideways glance at his mother, who was still staring at him. She’d never talked to either boy about sex. She’d never even so much as mentioned it. She’d left
the talk
up to Uncle Josu, but by that time, both Allegrezza boys had known most of it anyway. He returned his gaze to his brother and lifted one brow.

Louie took a bite of stew. “What happens if you do?”

“What do you mean what happens?” Nick scowled at his brother as he reached for his spoon. Even if he were crazy enough to want Delaney, which he wasn’t, she hated him. He’d seen it in her eyes today. “You sound as if there’s a possibility.”

Louie didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He knew Nick’s history.

“What happens?” his mother asked, who didn’t know anything but felt she had the right to know everything.

“Then Delaney inherits the property.”

“Of course. Isn’t it enough that she got everything that is rightfully yours? Now she will be after you to get her hands on your property, Nick,” his mother predicted, generations of suspicious and secretive Basque blood running through her veins. Her dark eyes narrowed. “You watch out for her. She’s as greedy as her mother.”

Nick seriously doubted he would have to
watch out
for Delaney. Last night when he’d driven her to her mother’s house, she’d sat in his Jeep doing a really good impersonation of a statue, the moonlight casting her profile in gray shadows and letting him know she was royally pissed off. And after today, he was pretty sure she’d avoid him like a leper.

“Promise me, Nick,” his mother continued. “She always got you into trouble. You watch out.”

“I’ll watch out.”

Louie granted.

Nick frowned at his brother and purposely changed the subject. “How’s Sophie?”

“She’s coming home tomorrow,” Louie answered.

“That’s wonderful news.” Benita smiled and set a slice of bread next to her bowl.

“I’d hoped to have a little more time alone with Lisa before I tell Sophie about the wedding,” Louie said. “I don’t know how she’ll take the news.”

“She’ll adjust to her new stepmother eventually. Everything will turn out fine,” Benita predicted. She liked Lisa okay, but she wasn’t Basque and she wasn’t Catholic, which meant that Louie couldn’t marry
in the church
. Never mind that Louie was divorced and couldn’t marry
in the church
anyway. Benita wasn’t worried about Louie. Louie would be okay. But Nick. She worried about Nick. She always had. And now
that girl
was back and she would worry even more.

Benita hated anyone with the last name Shaw. Mostly she hated Henry for the way he’d treated her and the way he’d treated her son, but she hated that
girl
and her mother too. For years she’d watched Delaney parade around in fancy clothes while Benita had to patch Louie’s hand-me-downs for Nick. Delaney got new bicycles and expensive toys while Nick went without or had to settle for secondhand. And while she’d watched Delaney get more than one little girl needed, she’d also watched her son, his proud shoulders straight, chin in the air. A stoic little man. And each time she watched him pretend it didn’t matter, her heart broke a little more. Each time she watched him watch that girl, she grew a little more bitter.

Benita was proud of both her sons and she loved them equally. But Nick was different from Louie. Nick was so very sensitive.

She looked across the table at her younger son. Nick would always break her heart.

It had taken Delaney less than five hours to decide to accept the terms of Henry’s will. An appallingly short amount of time, but she wanted the money. She’d been given a one-week reprieve to travel to Phoenix, quit her job, and close her apartment. Saying good-bye to her friends at Valentina had been hard. Saying good-bye to her freedom was even harder. It had been only a month, but it felt like she’d been a prisoner for a year.

She had no job and wore boring clothes she didn’t particularly like because she lived with her mother.

The hot sun baked the top of her head as she made her way down Grey Squirrel Lane toward the center of town. When she’d lived in Truly ten years ago, most of the streets hadn’t had names. There had been no need, but with the recent influx of summer residents, and the boom in real estate, the city council had knocked itself out to come up with really inventive street names like Gopher, Chipmunk, and Grey Squirrel. Delaney, it seemed, lived in the rodent section of town, while Lisa fared somewhat better over on Milkweed, which of course was next to Ragweed and Tumbleweed.

Since she’d been back, she’d noticed a lot of other changes, too. The business district had quadrupled, and the old part of town had been given a facelift. There were two public boat ramps to accommodate the heavy invasion of boats and Jet Skis, and the city had added three new parks. But beyond those changes, there were two other very visible and telling signs that the town had finally been pulled into the 1990s. First, there was the Mountain Java Espresso Shop located between Sterling Realty and the Grits and Grub Diner. And second, the old lumber mill had been converted into a microbrewery. When Delaney had lived in Truly before, the people drank Folgers and Coors. They would have declared a double-shot skinny latte “sissy coffee” and would have beat the crap out of anyone who dared to utter the words “raspberry beer.”

It was the Fourth of July and the town was smothered in patriotism. Red, white, and blue flags and ribbons decorated everything from the “Welcome to Truly” banner to the wooden Indian standing outside Howdy’s Trading Post. There would be a parade later, of course. In Truly, there were parades for just about every occasion. Maybe she’d stick around downtown and watch the parade. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do.

At the corner of Beaver and Main, Delaney stopped and waited for an RV to lumber by. For walking so nicely beside her, she reached into her pocket and rewarded Duke and Dolores with Milk-bones. It had taken several frustrating weeks to assert her role as the alpha dog and teach them who was boss. She’d had the time. For the past month she’d spent some of her time catching up with a few old school friends. But they were all married and had families and looked at her as if she were abnormal because she didn’t.

She would have loved to spend more time with Lisa, but unlike Delaney, Lisa had a job and a fiancé. She would have loved to sit down with her old friend and talk about Henry’s will and the real reason she was back in Truly. But she didn’t dare. If its stipulation became public, Delaney’s life would turn into a burning hell. She would become the subject of endless speculation and the topic of never-ending gossip. And if the part of the will concerning
Nick
was revealed, she’d probably have to kill herself.

As it was, she was just likely to die of boredom before it was all over. She spent her days watching talk shows, or she walked Duke and Dolores as a means to get out of the house and escape the life her mother had planned for her. Gwen had decided that since Delaney would be living in Truly for a year, they should be involved in the same projects, belong to the same social organizations, and attend the same civic meetings. She’d even gone so far as submitting Delaney’s name to spearhead a committee concerned with the drug problem in Truly. Delaney had politely turned down the offer. First of all, Truly’s drug problem was laughable. Second, Delaney would rather drink bong water than get involved in the community.

She and the dogs moved down Main, passing a deli and T-shirt shop. Both were recent additions to the downtown area, and judging by the foot traffic, seemed to do a fair amount of business. With the souls of. her Lycra sling-backs slapping her bare heels, she walked past a tiny bookstore with a poster stuck on the door advertising an up coming R&B festival. The poster surprised Delaney, and she wondered when the town had abandoned Conway Twitty for James Brown.

She stopped in front of a thin two-story building flanked on one side by an ice cream shop and on the other by the offices of Allegrezza Construction. Painted across the big plate glass window were the words: “Gloria’s: A Cut Above. Any cut and style $10.” Delaney didn’t think the sign spoke well for Gloria’s abilities.

Duke and Dolores sat at her feet, and she scratched them between the ears. Leaning forward, she peered into the huge plate glass window to see the red Naugahyde salon chairs. Each time she’d driven through town, she’d noticed the salon had been closed.

“Hey there, what’s up?”

Delaney recognized Lisa’s voice and turned to her friend. She wasn’t surprised to see Louie standing by Lisa’s side. His gaze was direct and a bit unnerving. Or maybe she found him unnerving because he was Nick’s brother. “I was just checking out this salon,” she answered.

“I gotta get going,
alu gozo
,” Louie said, then bent his head and kissed his fiancée. The kiss lingered and Delaney lowered her gaze to a point between Duke’s ears. She hadn’t had a boyfriend in over a year, and that relationship hadn’t lasted more than four months. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had kissed her like he meant to eat her up and didn’t care who watched.

“See you around, Delaney.”

She glanced up. “See ya, Louie.” She watched him walk into the building next to the salon. Maybe she found him unnerving because, like his brother, he was extremely masculine. Nick was taller, more sculpted, like a statue. Louie was built like a bull. You’d never see an Allegrezza in a Versace neckcloth or a tiny Speedo. “What does
alu gozo
mean?” she asked, having a little difficulty pronouncing the foreign words.

“It’s an endearment, like sweetheart. Louie can be so romantic.”

Unexpected envy tugged at her. “What are you up to?”

Lisa lowered to one knee and scratched Duke and Dolores beneath the chin. “I took Louie to lunch, and I was just dropping him back off.”

“Where’d you go?”

Lisa smiled as the dogs licked her hands. “My house.”

Delaney felt a twinge of jealousy and realized she was lonelier than she’d thought. It was the Fourth of July and a Friday night. The weekend stretched before her—empty. She missed the friends she’d had in Phoenix. She missed her busy life.

“I’m glad I ran into you. What are you doing tonight?” Lisa asked.

Not a damn thing, she thought. “I don’t know yet.”

“Louie and I thought we’d have some friends over. I want you to come, too. His house is on Horseshoe Bay, not far from where they’ll shoot the fireworks out over the lake. The show is pretty awesome from his beach.”

Delaney Shaw at Louie Allegrezza’s? Nick’s brother? Mrs. Allegrezza’s son? She’d seen Benita the other day at the grocery store, and everything she remembered about the woman was still true. No one showed such cold contempt as Benita Allegrezza. No one could convey both superiority and disdain in the same look of her dark eyes. “Oh, I don’t think so, but thanks.”

“Chicken.” Lisa stood and wiped her hands on her jeans.

“I’m not a chicken.” Delaney shifted her weight to one foot and tilted her head to the side. “I just don’t want to go someplace where I know I’m not welcome.”

“You’re welcome. I talked to Louie, and he doesn’t have a problem with you coming.” Lisa took a deep breath, then said, “He said he likes you.”

Delaney laughed. “Liar.”

“Okay, he said he didn’t
know
you. But if he gets to know you, he’ll like you.”

“Will Nick be there?” One of her main goals for surviving the entire year was to avoid him as much as humanly possible. He was rude and crude and purposely reminded her of things best forgotten. She was stuck in the same city, but that didn’t mean she had to socialize with him.

“Nick will be out on the lake with some of his friends, so he won’t be there.”

“What about Mrs. Allegrezza?”

Lisa looked at her as if she were an idiot. “Of course not. Louie is going to invite some of the guys who work for him, and Sophie will be there with some of her friends. We’re going to get together for hot dogs and burgers about six. You should come. What else are you going to do?”

“Well, I was going to watch the parade.”

“That’s over by six, Delaney. You don’t want to sit home alone do you?”

Her obvious lack of a life embarrassed Delaney, and she glanced across the street toward Sterling Realty. She thought of the night ahead of her. After
Wheel of Fortune
, what was there to do? “Well, I guess I could drop by. If you’re sure Louie won’t mind my being there.”

Lisa waved aside Delaney’s concern and took a few steps backward to leave. “I told you, we talked it over, and he doesn’t care. Once he gets to know you, he’ll like you.”

Delaney watched her friend walk away. She wasn’t as optimistic as Lisa. Louie was Nick’s brother, and the tension and animosity between herself and Nick was a tangible thing. She hadn’t spoken to Nick since the reading of Henry’s will, but she’d seen him several times. She’d seen him bombing down Wagon Wheel Road on his Harley, then a few days later walking into Mort’s with a redhead pressed up against his side. The last time she’d laid eyes on him was at the intersection of Main and First. She’d been stopped at the traffic light, and he’d crossed the street in front of her.
I don’t know, Frank. She’s pretty hot. What if I just can’t control myself
?

Her grip had tightened on the steering wheel, and she’d felt her cheeks burn. His attention had been focused on the folder in his right hand, and she’d wondered what he would do if she
accidentally
bumped into him? If her foot accidentally slipped from the brake and hit the gas. If she accidentally mowed him down, then backed up just to make sure?

She’d revved the Miata’s engine like she was Cha-Cha Muldowney waiting for the flag to drop, then she’d eased the clutch just enough so the car lunged into the crosswalk. Nick’s head had jerked up, and he’d jumped out of the way. His brows lowered and his cool gray eyes bored into her. In another split second the bumper would have clipped his right leg.

She’d smiled at him. For that moment, life had been good.