CHAPTER TWENTY — GIFT FOR NICK
The big man staggered against the wall and then hit the floor with a bone-crunching thump. Nick reached over with the hand that wasn’t now throbbing like a bitch and grabbed Sammie, pulled her past the sprawling, groaning pervert, and hauled her out of the house.
“What the fuck were you doing here?” he demanded, dragging her along in the salty air. Without waiting for a reply, added, “Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head, all huge eyes and paper-white skin.
“Can you drive?”
“Yes!” She lurched along beside him until they reached her car. He bundled her in and waited until she’d fired up the engine.
“Pull over onto the shoulder of the main road as soon as it’s safe.” He slammed her door and ran for his Ferrari.
A few minutes later he swerved in behind Sammie’s little hatch and braked. He leaped out with scant regard for his own safety, squeezed his tall frame in beside her, and cradled her face in his hands. Her pupils were still huge, and she’d wrapped her arms tightly around herself as though she was freezing.
“Bastard!” he ground out, hoping she’d soon relax and curl those tense arms around him instead.
“I’m fine.”
His veins ran white-hot with wrath. “And if I hadn’t arrived?”
“I don’t think...he’d have done anything.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
“He was only sort of flirting.”
Nick wasn’t having any of that. He stroked his thumbs down her cheeks and growled—a deep enraged rumble of fury and possession. “Getting you out to a deserted house? Making sure Brendan wasn’t there? Bailing you up like a bird in a cage?”
She hitched a shoulder. Then two fat tears brimmed over and escaped to slide down her cheeks as far as his thumbs. Her frightened eyes squeezed closed. “Thank you,” she whispered, reaching a tentative hand in his direction.
He grabbed it and pulled her close. “You need looking after.”
“No I don’t.”
Still being brave even when you’re scared stiff?
“I’m not happy about you traveling alone.” He kissed the tip of her nose as something twisted and swelled deep inside his ribs. Right where his heart would be if he had one.
Sammie flicked her eyes open and sought his. “I’ve had to depend on myself for years. Don’t worry—I’ll be fine.”
And what if I don’t want you to go?
He hid his concern behind a pithy inquiry. “So why the hell did you come out to the house?”
“I’m not stupid, Nick. Evan rang and said some of the plans had blown over the cliff and he needed duplicates. And he might have done—how could I know for sure? You were at the law office and not answering.” She drew a sudden sharp breath and her eyes went round as marbles. “What if you’ve killed him?”
Nick pulled her closer and tucked her head in under his chin. “No chance of that. He was still making plenty of noise.” He drew his bruised hand away from Sammie’s face and flexed it experimentally. Bright drops of blood seeped from a couple of small splits.
“Nicky!”
“It’ll heal.”
She looked far from convinced, and ran gentle fingers over it. “And your house? What if he vandalizes the place?”
“Hopefully he didn’t see it was me.”
She pulled the corners of her mouth down and shot him a disbelieving look. “So who else?”
Nick shrugged and grinned. “Face that one when we come to it, eh? Building contracts aren’t too easy to come by in the current economic situation, and mine’s a big job with reasonable money attached.”
“He could do a lot of damage.”
“Let’s hope he can see he behaved like an animal and knuckles down and does some work instead.” He changed the subject abruptly, hoping she’d leave it alone. “So did we confirm dinner at Bonnie’s tomorrow?”
He watched as she considered his invitation. Curiosity, pleasure, and indecision flitted across her still-pale face.
“If she really wants me,” she finally said.
“Good. I’ll follow you back to town.”
She sent him a small grin at that. “You’ll be obeying the speed limit then.”
“Yeah, yeah—anything for you, Ms. Law-abiding.”
On Friday night, Sammie changed out of her work clothes and into a short emerald green dress, bronzy high-heeled sandals, and Grandma’s very old, very beautiful gold link necklace with the enameled butterfly pendant. She brushed on peachy blusher and made up her eyes with care, wondering if tonight she’d find the courage to tell Nick she’d booked her flight out.
When he collected her, his inspection started at her frosted apricot toenails, progressed leisurely up her legs, and stopped for a while on her flirty skirt. His slow smile broadened as he raised his head to appreciate her smoky eyes and newly streaked hair. Everywhere his gaze rested her skin sparked with sensation, as though a warm breeze had just whispered by. It was like being eaten alive. Yet again.
“You look too good to share with a guy who’s younger than me,” he said. “And far too good to share with his mother.” He pulled the apartment door closed behind her and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm as though she might need support in her precarious heels.
“And you look like a hottie worth making the effort for,” she teased, tilting her face up for a hello kiss as they waited for the elevator. She slid her hands around his hips and squeezed his gorgeous butt. “I’m going to miss you over the weekend.”
“But you’re doing things of your own?”
“Visiting Ray and Anita so the boys can show me their new puppy, catching up on my grandmother’s old diaries...going to a sexy underwear sales evening...”
She waited a beat as he sorted the sex from the family stuff.
“Yeah?” Not so much a question as a growl of approval.
The elevator door slid open.
“Maybe.” She grinned at his hopeful expression and then chose her words carefully when she found two other passengers already heading for the ground floor. “Something Heidi arranged.”
“My Heidi? The one with the muscles, who lives in black Lycra?”
“The very same. So you never can tell...”
On Sunday morning, Sammie and Zorro lay curled on the sofa with another of Grandma’s diaries, browsing on past church suppers and hours spent painting flowers from the garden for a local watercolor exhibition. Although the family history fascinated her, her mind kept wandering back to Tuesday in Sydney. Nick had arranged her sight-seeing as promised. A minibus had transported them across Sydney to the historic Rocks area, dropped them for a harbor cruise, and collected them again in time for a dizzying trip up the Centrepoint tower and lunch. She’d adored being somewhere new and different—even with a crowd of camera-laden tourists.
He’d been warm and relaxed, and well pleased with a couple of the buildings they’d viewed with Rod. Was this her parents’ true secret? That they’d found their ideal partner to spend time with—far more than the actual traveling? Yes, they’d been happy together. Two halves of the same puzzle. Two interlocking pieces of a jigsaw. No wonder she’d been sold on their travel dream.
And now maybe she’d found her jigsaw match in Nick, but he was far too busy and career focused yet to recognize it, and she was still at least half convinced she needed to leave New Zealand and see more of the world. If she stayed with him, it wouldn’t be a forever thing. She bowed her head and squeezed her eyes closed, smoothing her face against Zorro’s soft flank. No point hoping for the impossible.
The options warred in her brain, giving her a headache and knotting her tummy into fizzy cramps. Should she delay going overseas and try for a few more weeks’ happiness with Nick, or go before he got tired of her and dumped her? She’d be heartbroken either way, but getting out first would at least leave her pride intact.
Yes, she’d take the damn flight—and tell him as soon as he returned
from his fishing trip.
She sighed and turned her eyes down to the diary again.
January 11th, 1983. Silvia and I walked to the far end of the orchard early this morning. The slow walk and fresh air are good for us both. The river is so low during this drought that even with her advanced pregnancy, Silvia and I were able to wade across and look for wildflowers on the piece of wasteland Erik never bothers with.
Sammie sat bolt upright, dislodging Zorro who made her displeasure known with a hiss.
Silvia pregnant?
Feverishly she read on.
Her botanical paintings are far more polished than mine. I found strange flowers I’d never seen before and she teased me about not recognizing cannabis. Erik would be horrified, but she has sworn me to secrecy for the moment because she feels she can use this to bargain with a man we found lurking there watering the plants.
She trembled as a huge wave of excitement and dread rushed through her. Marijuana on the wasteland at the orchard? Who was the man—and what was the bargain?
April 4th, 1983. Silvia has been safely delivered of a son.
Her heart began to pound in earnest. Brian Sharpe’s description of ‘a little foreign fruit-picking girl’ ricocheted around in her brain.
Silvia? Her grandmother’s shy Italian housekeeper might be Nick’s mother? She scrambled up and grabbed the funeral photograph. Silvia was mostly concealed by her hat and dark glasses, but when Sammie trawled through her memory she remembered ebony hair, large expressive dark eyes, clothes always black or grey.
She began to turn the dairy’s pages furiously, hunting for further clues.
April 16th, 1983. Silvia has made her bargain. Mr and Mrs Sharpe have been unable to have children and have offered to adopt her son. We have used Mr Sharpe’s cannabis crop as a lever to obtain permission to see the boy now and again. I cannot see any good coming of it. Silvia is heartbroken, but resigned to this being the best arrangement she is likely to manage without losing contact with him entirely. She assures me the cannabis will be gone from our property in another week.
Sammie sat stunned. Nicky had been bargained against a cannabis crop? And her law-abiding grandmother had known about it and kept silent?
November 1st, 1989. Mrs Sharpe is having trouble keeping her two younger boys in order and has asked if we will take Nicky every school holiday to give her some respite. Silvia is, of course, overjoyed. She has made a slow if incomplete recovery from the terrible depression that laid her so low after losing him. I finally confessed the whole sorry story to Eric. While disapproving, he knows that Silvia is a very great friend to me, and is prepared to overlook the no-doubt illegal adoption because six years have gone by without incident. He is good with Nicky, maybe seeing him as the son I could never give him.
“Oh Grandma…” Sammie groaned. “Don’t put yourself down like that.”
So here was the answer that had lain buried for thirty years. She couldn’t wait to tell Nick. Couldn’t wait to acquaint him with his real history.
Unfortunately she’d have to. His all-male fishing weekend was at a beach so isolated and remote there was no cell-phone coverage. Wouldn’t it pucker your panties!
She prowled the room, hugging her big secret with glee and cuddling Zorro just to have contact with another living being.
“So what we do next, Puss, is find all the important pages in the dairies and make copies on Kelly’s scanner for him. And go through the boxes and find the photo albums and see if there are any pictures of Silvia he can have.”
She did a joyful little dance and set the protesting cat down. Then went across to the kitchen to find a knife to attack the other boxes with, because packed away in one of them was a small treasured birthday gift—an exquisite watercolor less than six inches square. Sylvia had painted two grey and lemon butterflies dancing over sprigs of blue forget-me-nots and given it to her when she’d turned ten. Sammie had always loved it, hated the thought of giving it up, but it would be more precious to Nick than to her—something his mother’s own hands had created.
She wiped at her leaking eyes. Surely they were joyful tears rather than sad ones?
By two o’clock, she’d skimmed through the last of the diaries, copied the appropriate pages and several photos, and located the painting. It was signed in neat square letters ‘Silvia Giordano’.
So now, perhaps he had a name as well? Nick Giordano. She repeated it softly several times. It felt right for him.
She swiped at a fresh trickle of tears as she made coffee and grilled some cheese on toast for a late lunch. The last of the ‘Nick’ pages in the dairies had been tough to read. Grandma had written about the Sharpes’ move to Wellington, and Silvia’s distress after losing touch with her only and much-loved son.
Silvia’s puritanical father had died just weeks later, and she’d finally felt free to return to Italy to visit her grieving mother. Finding her in even worse health than Grandma, she’d stayed to do her daughterly duty. There was a postcard tucked between the pages to mark that place. The same obsessively neat writing. And a tiny address—many years out of date, but a place for Nick to start.
Grandma’s diaries ended less than a month later.
Sammie sipped her coffee and checked her watch. Nick expected to return around midnight, and had said he’d see her on Monday.
To make her eventual move from the apartment easier she decided to repack the boxes and stash them in Ray’s garage. Then buy a thank you gift for Kelly, and wrapping paper and ribbon so she could tie up her extraordinary gift for Nick. She yearned to see him again now, and itched to see his reaction.
She found him in the reception area when she arrived next morning, ever-present cell phone clamped against his ear. He gave her a broad grin and blew her a kiss. An incoming call claimed her attention at the desk and she watched him with new eyes as he wandered through to the main studio while she attended to the client. Today he wore stone colored chinos, a darker grey sweatshirt, and casual suede boots. She could practically see the Italian blood pumping through his veins as he paced back and forth behind the big glass wall.
Nick Giordano for sure.
“I want to show you something,” he said as soon as she was free.
“That makes two of us.”
His phone immediately shrilled again and he glanced at the screen and flipped it open. “Can you get my keys? Desk drawer?”
If he planned to rush out, she’d have to save her surprise until a little later. Something so important shouldn’t be hurried, but she was fiercely disappointed all the same. She bit her lip with annoyance as she stowed her bag in her locker and headed for his office.
Which drawer? She opened the top one; no sign of keys. She tried the second. The glinting bundle jeered at her from on top of a pair of skimpy crimson panties. Rearing back, she sucked in a hard fast breath, stumbled over his big black swivel chair, and only just stopped herself from falling by grabbing one of its arms and sitting down hard.
Me and who else?
She clamped a hand over her mouth, sick at the thought of sharing him. Yes, they probably belonged to a girlfriend from the past. But he hadn’t thrown them out or given them back. Did he still have feelings for whoever owned them?
Nicky, I thought I was the only one right now. Was I wrong?