* * *
By the time Keely had loaded three plastic bags of groceries in the trunk of her car and returned to the house, she had forgiven Jack. It was hard not to forgive Jack, which was one of the reasons she’d still been angry with him until she got to the candy section and broke down, buying him some M & M’s.
She wondered when mothers had time to think. In the past twenty-four hours she’d been offered a chance at another shop in Manhattan, been attracted to Jack, been rejected by Jack, made a fool of herself, been kissed by Jack, and had dealt with Candy’s reaction to her first baby shots. She’d washed two loads of clothes—one of Candy’s, another of towels—cooked one dinner and one breakfast, argued with Jack (again), and run to the grocery store... and it was time for her to cook dinner once more. Who could think? Who’d have time to think? It had to have been a man who’d come up with the term Bored Housewife Syndrome, because it sure couldn’t have been a woman!
If she did have time to think, she’d think about that kiss. Definitely. She’d think about her reaction to it, and the look on Jack’s face when it was over. She’d think about how maybe he had been about to say what she’d thought he was going to say.
And she’d think about how she would have answered him if he had turned into David Hasselhoff and she into Valerie Bertinelli.
“They probably would have gone to commercial, to give her time to learn her lines,” Keely muttered to herself, walking up from the garages with her head down, two plastic bags hanging over one arm, her other filled with purse, the last bag, and a big bunch of carnations she’d bought on impulse as she stood in the checkout line.
“Keely. Psst—Keely. Over here.”
She looked up. “Aunt Sadie?”
Sadie Trehan was half-hidden by a holly bush, the top half of her, the part that could be seen, decked out in a lime green sort of tent with bright orange bull’s-eyes on it. If it was Aunt Sadie Season, and she was trying to hide from the hunters, the woman was definitely out of luck.
“Come here, come here,” Sadie urged as she frantically waved Keely forward. “We’ve got trouble.”
“Trouble?” Keely’s thoughts went immediately to Candy. “What do you mean?”
“I mean trouble,” Aunt Sadie repeated. “With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pipsqueak. Oh, all right. Joey Morretti. It stands for Joey Morretti. Hey, cut me some slack. I’m working under pressure here.”
Keely unconsciously lowered her voice. “Two Eyes? The Mafia one? Cecily’s brother from Bayonne?” she asked, crouching beside Sadie. “What’s he doing here?”
“Nothing good, I can tell you that. He says he’s come to get Candy. Petra was up at the house, looking for you, and she overheard Jack telling him to go to hell. It’s trouble, Keely. I just know it. With a capital T and that rhymes with P and—”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it, I got it,” Keely said, straightening once she realized she’d actually been hiding behind a holly bush. She squinted toward the house, as if it were an enemy bunker she was about to assault, armed only with a bunch of carnations. “I’m going in. You want to come along?”
“Me?” Sadie’s eyes got wide as she stepped back a pace, pressed both hands to her chest. “Would I be out here if I thought I belonged in there? I don’t think so!”
“You’re afraid of him?”
Sadie patted her curls. “Of Joey? Don’t be silly. I just don’t want to be in the way when Jack tosses the little twirp through a window.”
“Oh, boy,” Keely breathed, starting for the house at a dead run, quickly skirting the pool, all but slamming into the back door before she could get her hand around the handle, let herself in.
She put the bags on the table, not caring if the butter brickle ice cream melted, and tiptoed toward the den. It was empty. The whole house was quiet. Too quiet.
Where was Candy? Oh, God, where was Candy?
Keely raced for the back staircase, holding her breath until she opened the door to the nursery and saw Candy’s rounded rump stuck straight up in the air as the baby slept in her crib.
“Thank God,” she breathed, collapsing against the doorjamb.
“Cute little button, isn’t she?”
Keely nearly jumped out of her shoes. “What? Who?” She pushed the door open the rest of the way and saw a mountain sitting in the rocking chair that had been delivered two days earlier. She crazily tried to remember if the thing was made of solid oak and could hold his weight if he started to rock. “Who are you?”
The mountain stood up, and as he was standing between the window and Keely, his large frame just about blocked all the light coming in through the window, as if there’d been a sudden total eclipse of the sun. Keely looked up, and up, calculating that the strange man was at least six feet six inches tall and probably weighed about as much as a compact car.
He had legs like tree trunks, shoulders the width of a love seat, and his huge hands hung like hams at the ends of his immense arms. And yet he wasn’t fat. He was just big. Really, really big.
Bald as a cue ball. Young, no more than nineteen or twenty. He smiled, and on anyone else his teeth would have been beaver-sized. On him, they were almost little, and there was about a half-inch gap between his top front teeth.
He held out his hand, and Keely, not knowing what else to do, took it, felt her hand being swallowed up whole. “Please tell me you aren’t Joey Morretti,” she squeaked, as the bones in her hand sort of crossed over each other.
“No, ma’am,” the giant said, his voice completely at odds with his size, for it was rather high, and quite soft. Almost gentle, even reassuring. “I’m Bruno, ma’am. Bruno Armano. But you can call me Sweetness. Everybody does, even my old Granny, rest her.”
“Oooh-kay. Sweetness,” Keely said carefully, happy to recover her hand, unable to refrain from cradling it against her until the blood flow returned to her fingers. What was that old saying? Just keep being nice until you can find a big rock? Yeah, and a stepladder, so she could climb up it to hit him with that rock. “So—Sweetness... what are you doing here?”
Sweetness pointed behind her, toward the doorway. “We really should go outside, ma’am, so as not to wake the little princess. I fed her and burped her and changed her, and she needs her sleep now, don’t you think, ma’am?”
Keely stepped aside and watched Sweetness exit the room, bowing his head so that he could make it under the arch, then followed after him. This man had fed Candy? Burped and changed her?
Good God. Jack must be lying somewhere, in three or more pieces. Because he certainly wouldn’t have allowed Sweetness—what kind of name was that for a mountain?—anywhere near Candy if he was still alive.
“Um... where’s Jack?” Keely asked as brightly as possible, once she and Sweetness were standing in the hallway, several feet away from Candy’s bedroom.
“Mr. Trehan?” Sweetness smiled. “I always wanted to meet a real major league baseball player. They never let me play baseball, only football. I was the center. Coach said I was the center, and both sides of the offensive line.” He frowned when Keely didn’t respond. “It was a joke, ma’am. But Mr. Trehan? He’s downstairs somewhere, with Mr. Morretti.”
Keely’s head was beginning to pound. “And you came here today with Mr. Morretti because...?”
Sweetness bobbed his huge bald head up and down, finishing her question for her. “... because he’s my owner,” he said rather proudly. “I’m his fighter. Heavyweight division. Mr. Morretti calls me the Beast of Bayonne. Had it sewn on the back of this really neat black satin robe he bought me and everything. But you can still call me Sweetness.”
“And welcome to the Twilight Zone, ladies and germs,” Keely muttered under her breath, then smiled up at the Beast of Bayonne. “Tell you what—Sweetness. You stay here, guarding Candy, because that’s what you’re doing, right? And I’ll just go on downstairs and say hi to Jack and Two—to Mr. Morretti. Is that all right with you?”
“Sure!” Swe
etness agreed happily, nothing if not the obedient sort. “Mr. Trehan already told me who you are, which is why I didn’t have to coldcock you or nothin’. You just go downstairs and don’t worry about the little princess. She’ll be just fine, long as I’m here.”
Keely fought back a whimper. “Thank you, Sweetness. I really appreciate that. The baby-sitting, the not coldcocking me, all of it. Yes, well, then... bye!”
She didn’t break into a run until she got to the main staircase, at which time she all but flew down the stairs, then aimed herself toward the living room.