From Friends to Forever Page 2

  “You’ve all got hats,” Dad said, sounding mostly normal again as he struggled to get the Empress—that’s what they sometimes called JoJo, on account of her being named after some dude’s wife two centuries ago—into her stroller. “I think you’ll survive six blocks. Think of it as being ecologically responsible.”

  “Or cheap,” Claire grumbled with a longing look over her shoulder at their old Volvo wagon, sitting in the driveway. One fist wrapped around the stroller handle, Dad tugged a receipt out of his jeans pocket and handed it over.

  “What’s this?”

  “That’s how much it cost me to gas up the car yesterday.”

  “Holy crap.”

  “Don’t—” He sighed. “Yeah.”

  Then it occurred to Claire that maybe she should cut Dad some slack, since this obviously wasn’t one of his better days. “C’n I push?” she asked, reaching for the stroller. Yeah, Josie could be a pain in the butt, but she could be really cute and lovey and stuff, too. And Claire tried to help out with her little sisters as much as possible, so Dad wouldn’t feel like he had to do everything. Especially since she’d overheard Nana and Gramps talking about how it would be so much easier on Dad if Claire and her sisters came to live with them. She loved her grandparents and all, but…no.

  “Go for it,” Dad said, moving over so Claire could take the stroller.

  “The walk will do us good,” she said, feeling all tingly inside when Dad’s hand landed on the back of her head. She looked up at him, smiling, letting out a little breath of relief when he smiled back. Even if it was the kind of smile that made Claire’s insides hurt. Basically Dad was pretty cool, if a little crazy sometimes, although they didn’t see the crazy so much now. As awful as Claire’d felt when Mom died? She knew it’d hurt Dad a hundred million times more.

  Which was why she couldn’t tell Dad about how she’d found Mom crying one day, before they knew she was sick. Mom made her swear to never say anything to Dad, or anybody else, that it was a secret.

  Claire didn’t much like keeping secrets—they always made her feel like when you want to throw up but you can’t because you’re in school or church or someplace. But Mom said it would only upset Dad if he found out, so Claire said okay. And Claire never, ever broke her promises.

  Even ones she was sorry she’d made.

  Daphne’s hot—but clean—hand in Tony’s, they walked the six blocks underneath a bleached sky, the hot, sticky silence broken only by the stroller’s bumping over the cracks in the old sidewalk and Josie’s babbling. Not a leaf stirred in the sycamore trees fronting the sturdy New England Victorians, erected a century ago when families were huge and building materials cheap. The early summer humidity clung to everything like plastic wrap; Marissa hated this weather, the way her hair would always corkscrew into a tangled, frizzy mess—

  The memory slashed through Tony like a rusty knife, reopening still-infected wounds, now rancid with disbelief and shock. His pace slowed when his aunt and uncle’s house loomed into view a half block ahead. How could he do this, go to some party and pretend like everything was fine when his guts were bleeding all over the damn place? But what choice did he have? Especially since turning back would mean facing a barrage of questions from Little Miss Never-Miss-a-Thing pushing the stroller.

  So he’d do the playacting thing for a couple hours. At least the kids would get fed. One less thing to worry about, he thought as they approached the old brick foursquare where Benny and Magda had raised six kids.

  Uncle Benny opened the door, immediately pulling Tony into a brief, but deadly, bear hug as a stiff-legged golden retriever and a cotton ball toy poodle eagerly rushed the kids, woofing and yipping and wriggling and licking. From every corner of the house, laughter taunted him.

  “You made it,” Benny said, clapping Tony on the back before Tony squatted to spring Josie from her stroller while the other girls hovered nearby. “We were beginning to think you wouldn’t show. Aww…gimme the little cutie,” he said, holding out his arms to Josie, who clung more tightly to Tony, shaking her head. His uncle laughed, not in the least offended.

  Instead he grinned at the girls. “God, you two are getting so big! Unbelievable, huh? Hey—most of your cousins are upstairs. Even Stacey,” he said to Claire. “You should go on up.”

  Daphne the Invincible was gone in a flash, but Claire hung back, forehead creased, eyes worried, obviously picking up on stuff Tony did not want her picking up on. Now or ever. Looping an arm around her shoulders, Tony wondered how soon they could leave. “Stace is here? So Rudy and them came down?”

  “Just for the day. They had to find somebody to watch the inn.” Benny smiled for Claire. “Stace was askin’ about you, wonderin’ if you’d be here.”

  Claire’s eyes shifted to Tony’s, torn. “Go,” Tony said with a little smile. And a not-so-little push. Because if he had a hope in hell of getting through the next couple of hours, he had to stay out of range of that all-too-knowing look.

  “Hey, Tone,” Benny asked as Claire finally trudged off. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, I’m fine—”

  “Tony?”

  His head jerked up, toward a voice he hadn’t heard in a thousand years and a pair of blue eyes as laser-sharp as he remembered, and before he could catch his breath Josie wriggled to get down, then ran over to this woman she’d never seen in her life. Her arms wrapped around Lili Szabo’s knees, she looked up at her adoringly, and Tony felt like somebody had just shoved him off a damn cliff.

  Chapter Two

  “Oh my goodness,” Lili said, her smile threatening to fry what was left of Tony’s brain as she lifted Josie into her arms. “Is she yours? She’s adorable—”

  “What on earth are you doin’ here?” Her smile faltered, and Tony felt like a jerk. A blindsided jerk, but a jerk all the same. “I’m sorry, that came out bad, but, damn—”

  “No, it’s okay,” she said, hiking Ms. Chunkers higher on her hip. A hip much more, um, there than he remembered.

  “How long has it been?” he asked, realizing Benny had disappeared. “Twelve years?”

  The smile flickered to life again, giving him a flash of the slightly crooked eyeteeth she’d been so self-conscious about. God knows why. “Fourteen, actually.”

  “Fourteen. Right. God.” He paused. “So what brings you back?”

  “My mother died,” she said softly, swinging Josie from side to side, making her laugh. “A month ago—”

  “Jeez…I’m sorry—”

  “It’s okay, it wasn’t unexpected,” she said in her pretty accent. “A blessing, actually, when she finally let go. In any case, afterward…” She touched her forehead to the baby’s. “I thought the change would do me good.”

  She was still skinny, mostly, except for a couple of crucial places that weren’t, judging from the way that dress was fitting. And it wasn’t like she’d turned into a bombshell or anything, because she hadn’t, she was still just little cousin Lili with the too-wide mouth and long, ordinary brown hair that curved slightly on the ends. Although the glasses were rimless now, and her mouth seemed fuller or something—

  “Tony? Are you feeling all right?”

  —but she’d been the only person, Tony now realized in such a rush he got dizzy, who’d ever really gotten him. At least, the eighteen-year-old “him” who’d been so cocksure about what he wanted.

  And that hadn’t included his fifteen-year-old, slightly geeky Hungarian cousin visiting for the summer after her father died and the rest of her family toured Europe with their high-wire act. The only person, friend or relative, willing to keep him company when a stupid-ass skateboard accident shattered his leg, his summer and whatever hope he’d had of going all the way with Marissa Pellegrino.

  Who he had wanted, with a single-mindedness bordering on obsessive.

  “It’s been a rough few months,” he said, the words out of his mouth before he had any clue they were there, and Lili gave him that same disingenuous smile that h
ad kept a cooped-up boy from totally losing it that summer, a moment before she gave him a one-armed hug…and she was soft and warm and strong and giving, no longer smelling of grape soda and potato chips but of something sweet and musky and honest, a scent way past dangerous to a battered, stunned man whose life kept falling in the crapper.

  Then she leaned back slightly, her hand still on his arm, drawing him into the calm behind that smile, and he knew the exact instant when she saw what nobody else did, when those deep blue eyes said, Come in out of the storm, where it’s safe.

  As if.

  I know that look, Lili thought, her Empathy Alert System spiking to at least orange level as she gazed into those dark, haunted eyes and saw a man struggling not to fall apart in public—

  “She’s probably getting pretty heavy,” he said, taking the baby from her.

  —rather than, say, the slightly dulled, stoic grief of someone who’d lost the love of his life several months before.

  A thought which did nothing to mitigate the flush still stinging her chest and cheeks from before she’d stumbled into all that sadness and shock, when she’d spotted Tony across the room and her brain simply stood aside and gave her hormones the floor, those rowdy hooligans yelling Taller! Broader! And did you notice the mouth, perchance? in her ear.

  Can we say, inappropriate?

  Not that she and Tony were real cousins, since her parents and Tony’s weren’t related to each other, except by Magda and Benny’s marriage. Not a single gene shared, anywhere. Still. What hadn’t been right then still wasn’t right now. Her hugging him, that is. Because they never had before. Although it was no big deal, everybody hugged and kissed in this family, that was just the way with these Mediterranean types, even those three generations removed from the home country.

  And the tingling would subside. Eventually.

  As would the instant, mortifying reversion to lovesick teenager indulging a forbidden fantasy.

  “How old is she?” Lili said, smiling, unable to keep from touching the silky blond hair. To keep the slight sting of longing at bay.

  “I’m this many,” the little girl said, holding up two fingers.

  “Oooh, big girl. And what’s your name?”

  “Josie. You’re pretty.”

  Lili flushed even more. “Thank you, sweet lamb. So are you.”

  “I know,” she said, and Lili laughed, before some female cousin Lili didn’t really know carted off the child—Tony’s gaze followed, protective and sad—and then it was just the two of them, awkward and bufferless.

  Then Tony smiled for her, a very different smile from those he’d first spared for her that summer, when his entertainment options had been reduced to hanging out with a younger cousin who wasn’t even cool by Hungarian standards. “Wow. It’s really you.”

  “It really is.”

  But he’d never been snide or condescending. And by the end of the summer, the smiles had come more readily, as well as the conversations and laughter, easing Lili’s chronic awkwardness. No surprise, then, that she’d developed a huge crush on him. Except he’d had a girlfriend and she was going back to Hungary, anyway, and…well.

  The crush, thank God, had eventually faded. The memory of all that kindness and patience and honesty, however, hadn’t. That he should be going through such hell now broke her heart.

  “You have other children?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he breathed out. “Two more girls. They’re around somewhere, I’m sure you’ll meet them.”

  “I’m sure I will.” Then she said, “I’m so sorry about Marissa,” and Tony actually jerked, the pain blossoming anew in his eyes as his mouth flattened into a grim line, and she thought, Put a foot in it, why not?

  But before she could think of some way out of the tangle she was rapidly making of the conversation, she was nearly thrown off balance when her—their—aunt wrapped one arm around Lili’s waist, releasing enough perfume to fell oxen at twenty kilometers.

  “Tony, sveetheart! You made it! Now my birthday is complete.”

  Lili watched, amazed, as Tony seemed to shrug off his pain like an ill-fitting coat, then leaned over to kiss their aunt on the cheek. A move which brought his pheromones close enough to wink at Lili’s hormones, those sad, neglected things. “Like I’d miss it, Aunt Mag.”

  Their aunt laughed, then squeezed Lili’s waist. Harder. “And hesn’t our Lili turned into a lovely young voman?”

  Oh, dear, Lili thought, until Tony leveled an unexpected, and unnervingly steady, gaze on her and said, “Yes. She certainly has,” and she could barely hear for all the stampeding hormones.

  Before they trampled her to death, she spun around and ran.

  “No, you come vis me,” Magda said when Tony started after Lili, instead steering him toward the back of the house.

  “But—”

  “She’ll come out ven she’s ready. Like a kitty from under ze bed.”

  His aunt gently pushed him out onto the deck, the clinkety-clanking of a dozen bangles mingling with the roar of countless gabbing Vaccaros, where the summertime smells of freshly cut grass and seared meat and beer taunted him with their overtones of joviality and predictability and normalcy. Trying to ignore the hot, sudden sting of sexual awareness, he scanned the crowd of husbands and wives and kids—laughing and arguing and fussing at each other—jealous as all hell and not even trying to deny it.

  “Why’s Lili here?” he said, more sharply than he probably should’ve.

  “Is a long story,” Magda said with a tinkly wave. “You can esk her yourself, later. For me?” she squealed, when another of her kids arrived bearing grandchildren and presents.

  She’d barely floated off when a hearty clap on Tony’s shoulder blasted him out of his thoughts—Rudy Vaccaro, big as a damn mountain and the cousin closest in age to Tony. They’d hung out a lot together, both as kids and after, and Tony had really missed the bastard since he’d moved. Rudy pressed an ice-cold, and very welcome, Bud into Tony’s hand. “Good to see you, man.”

  “Yeah. You, too. Only don’t even think about asking me how I’m doing.” Rudy would understand the warning. And not question it. Still, below a buzz cut that should’ve made him look a lot scarier than it did, sympathy swam in sharp blue eyes.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said as Violet, his still-new, cute-as-a-bug wife came up beside him.

  “C’mere, you…” Violet yanked Tony down for a hug, her mess of orange curls ticking his chin before she let go, giving him a shrewd look. “How’re the girls?”

  “Doin’ okay,” Tony said, scanning the crowd for Lili. Not having a clue why. “Considering.”

  “Saw the baby earlier,” Violet said. “Celeste was showin’ her off like she was her own. God, she looks exactly like you. Except for the blond hair, obviously,” she added, having no idea her words were like an ice pick to the heart.

  Rudy lifted his own beer to Tony. “You and the girls should come up for a cuppla days—”

  “Absolutely!” Violet said when Tony demurred. “We’re booked most weekends, but we sometimes have openings during the week. And you’re off from school all summer, right? It would do the girls good. And the boys would love it!”

  “Yeah, Stace would be in heaven, havin’ all those kids to boss around. God, I thought thirteen was a pain-in-the-ass, that’s nothin’ compared with fourteen. If we ever have another kid?” Rudy pulled his wife close. “And it’s a girl? I’m seriously considering shipping her off to boardin’ school between the ages of twelve and eighteen.”

  “Oh, right, you’d curl up in a ball and die if Stace wasn’t around…”

  Violet’s jabbering faded to white noise when Tony spotted Lili creeping out onto the deck, arms crossed and eyes darting around the yard, and the stinging started up again, bad, real bad, bad enough to sound some heavy-duty alarms—

  “Excuse me, I need to, uh…”

  Run like hell. Throw up. Have my head examined.

  Rudy and Violet’s
heads turned as one, then back. Matching grins. Hell.

  “Hey,” Rudy said, “you should bring Lili with you. She said she’s never been to New Hampshire.” Tony gawked at the man like he’d lost it. “What? It’s not like I’m suggesting something untoward or anything. And anyway, in a cuppla weeks,” he added with a discreet nod toward his mother, “she might need some serious rescuing.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll think about it, thanks,” Tony muttered, giving Rudy a final arm slap and heading toward Lili—who’d clearly seen him—before she could bolt.

  Except…this was nuts, this was just Lili, for God’s sake, all that stuff about her getting him—or whatever—was just his sleep-and-sex-deprived, shocked brain shorting out. Playing tricks. Really dirty tricks. So he’d talk to her, right? Clear this whole crazy thing up.

  Except as he closed the gap between them, he saw her take a deep breath, then smile, a smile that said, I don’t understand, either, and a little voice inside him said, Maybe not so crazy. Which could only mean he was one step removed from certifiable.

  And yet, he kept walking.

  Lili stood, frozen, watching Tony charge toward her, telling herself she wasn’t afraid of him, exactly, it was her own messed-up feelings—feelings perhaps dismissed a bit prematurely—giving her pause.

  Especially when he marched up to her, all dark in the face, growling, “Why’d you run off?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, I didn’t—”

  “Like hell. And I’m guessing you’re fighting the urge to do it again.”

  “Just as you fought against coming over here?”

  Her face burned again, at her own boldness. At the sudden spark of something close to self-hatred in his eyes. “You have no idea,” he said softly, and she thought, This can’t be happening.

  Lili glanced around, but nobody seemed to be paying the least bit of attention to them. Then she met Tony’s eyes again, and her stomach jumped at the way he was looking at her, as though he was being ripped apart inside.