The Mommy Quest Read online

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be working,” he said. She straightened as if someone had goosed her. “If I can’t do this job, I’ll never be able to go back to my old one. I will not let anything or anyone take away the most important thing in my life.”

  The most important thing in her life was her job. Why did that bother him so much? It wasn’t as if there was a chance in a million she’d say the most important thing in her life was him. He’d made sure she’d never say that again.

  However, Dean understood why her eyes no longer laughed. If farming had been taken from him, he didn’t know what he’d do.

  “I’m sorry, Stella. I wish I could help.”

  She took his hand. The gesture was so natural, at first he didn’t even notice she’d done it. When he did, he was merely glad.

  Mother-grubbing worm food! How was he ever going to be her friend when he loved her so damn much?

  “You’re very sweet,” she murmured. “I never noticed before.”

  “Sweet is not a word usually applied to me. Ask anyone.”

  Without realizing it, Dean had begun to run his thumb over her palm. Her hands were slim, white and soft, while his were big, dark and rough. The contrast made his stomach flutter.

  When had they inched closer? Who had inched closer? Him? Her? Did it matter? He turned his head, and she was so close her breath mingled with his.

  “Dean,” she whispered, and the years fell away. The kiss was light, gentle, a mere brush of lips, not a hint of tongue. More comfort than carnal, nevertheless his heart thundered so fast his chest ached.

  His hands ached as well, to touch the fullness of her breasts beneath the cotton, to relearn the texture of her skin beneath the moon. But so far the kiss could be passed off as a friendly peck; anything more would be decidedly unfriendly. Dean lifted his mouth from hers.

  Her eyes were closed, her face pale and still, as if she were savoring the moment, committing it to memory forever. She reminded him of a sleeping princess from one of Zsa-Zsa’s movies, and he was possessed by the insane desire to be the man who awakened Stella from her spell-cast sleep. Dean leaned in closer and he caught the scent of apple trees in autumn. Her breasts brushed his chest, and lust shot through his blood like a Taser strike. He had to fight not to grab her and make her his all over again right there on the lawn.

  Instead, he feathered his lips over her closed eyelids, pressed a single kiss to her forehead, then worked his way from her cheeks to her chin. She shuddered, her hands clutching his shoulders, pulling him closer, not holding him away.

  His mouth hovered over hers. Her eyes slowly opened.

  Then headlights washed over the yard, freezing Dean and Stella in mid-embrace.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  STELLA SCRAMBLED TO HER feet, feeling once again as if she were seventeen and caught in flagrante delicto by Daddy. From the expression on her father’s face, he remembered.

  Dean stepped in front of her; she shoved in front of him. Her father shut off his car and threw open the driver’s side door.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

  Stella wasn’t sure which one of them he was talking to. Probably both. Nevertheless, she spoke first. “None of your damn business.”

  Dean slid an uh-oh glance her way, but he kept quiet. Good choice. Anything Dean said right now would only make things worse.

  George O’Connell’s mouth opened and shut like a fish thrown on the banks of a lake. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me. I’m thirty-two years old. I can do him sideways on Main Street if I want to.”

  “Sideways?” Dean murmured, going silent when her father glared at him.

  “You’re not taking up with that half-wit again.”

  “Half-wit?” Fury spread through her with such force her hands shook. “He’s got a higher IQ than you do.”

  “What?” Dean blurted.

  Stella shrugged. “I peeked in the files.”

  “Bad girl,” he said, but he smiled.

  “What have you got against Dean?” Stella demanded.

  Her father’s lip curled. “Besides the manure under his fingernails?”

  Dean frowned at his hands, which were perfectly clean.

  Stella sighed. “Never mind. You never could see past the nose on your face.”

  “I didn’t have to look far to find him.”

  “We—” Dean began, but Stella gave him an elbow in the stomach so that he said “oof,” instead.

  She’d walk a block in south central L.A. in the middle of the night before she’d let her father know that she and Dean had agreed to be nothing more than friends.

  The memory of Dean’s kiss arose. Maybe to him that had been friendly—his idea of comfort—unfortunately she’d had a much more than friendly reaction. She should be glad her father had interrupted the interlude before she’d made a fool of herself by wrapping her body around his and begging him to bring her back to life.

  “Stella,” her father said, “you can do so much better.”

  “‘Better’ is in the eye of the beholder.”

  His lips tightened. “You aren’t going to take up with Luchetti under my roof.”

  “We weren’t under your roof.”

  Her father’s face flushed. She needed to stop baiting him before he had a stroke, right on the lawn.

  “Let me put it this way,” he said. “I see him again, you find a new place to live.”

  Stella shrugged. “Fine by me.”

  “Stella—”

  Dean stopped speaking when she narrowed her eyes.

  Her father appeared shocked. Had he actually thought that threat would work? She’d been living alone for ten years. She had enough money even without the Gainsville Elementary principal’s job to rent an apartment.

  Unless…

  “You want me to vacate the job, too?” Stella held her breath.

  Amazingly, she didn’t want to lose the job, and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe because she didn’t want to fail at one thing so soon after failing at another.

  “Of course not,” her father blustered. “I’d never do that.”

  “There is no one else,” Dean muttered.

  He was probably right.

  “Well,” Stella said when no one else spoke, “good night, Father. It’s been fun. I’ll find a place to rent tomorrow.”

  He hesitated as if he meant to say something, then made a disgusted sound and stomped toward the house. “Get your truck out of my parking space,” he growled as he passed Dean.

  Instead of making his usual sarcastic rejoinder, Dean stared at Stella with a frown as her dad slammed the front door. “You’ve been thrown out of the house because of me.”

  “I never should have stayed here in the first place,” Stella said. “I probably never should have come home.”

  “No,” Dean said, and brushed her fingers with his. “I’m glad you did.”

  She did feel better than she had in months, but that was probably just the adrenaline high from telling her father to go…away. Or maybe her euphoria was merely the result of the hormones that had leaped for the first time in years at the touch of Dean’s mouth on hers.

  Either way, she felt good. The nightmare had been returned to the dark where it belonged. Sooner or later she’d have to confront what frightened her, talk about it with someone other than her psychiatrist, but not now.

  “Why didn’t you tell your father we’re just friends?”

  “I didn’t want to.”

  Dean laughed. “You’re getting as bullheaded as me.”

  “Impossible.”

  Stella contemplated Dean’s face as she asked the next question, one that had been gnawing at her for years. “What did you say back then to make him dislike you so much?”

  “I think his feelings had more to do with what I was doing.”

  “Oh!” Stella fought not to blush and lost, so she went for flippant. “Well, no harm, no foul. It isn’t like I wound up pregnant and barefoot and
living in the thresher’s cottage.”

  Dean’s forehead creased.

  “Not that that would be bad!” Stella blurted.

  “Your father would think it was.”

  “But it didn’t happen. So what’s up his butt?”

  Dean tossed his keys into the air, snatched them before they fell to the ground, then turned away. “I can’t imagine.”

  DEAN DIDN’T HAVE TO imagine. He knew exactly what was wrong with Stella’s dad.

  When O’Connell had threatened to have Dean arrested for statutory rape, Dean had told him to piss off. Other than that, Dean had no idea why they weren’t the best of friends.

  He waved at Stella as he wheeled out of her dad’s precious parking space. He had to admit, he’d parked there on purpose. Maybe that was why George wanted to strangle him. Dean couldn’t resist needling him whenever the opportunity arose.

  Not that it arose very often. The two of them had avoided each other ever since Stella had gone away.

  He reached the cottage in minutes. Brian was still on the porch, and there were three beers left.

  “What have you been doing?” Dean asked. “You’re lookin’ at it.” Brian stared at the sky and breathed in and out as if he were practicing yoga.

  Dean frowned “You okay?”

  “Yep. Sometimes I just need a little space, you know?”

  “You were desperate with loneliness because the princess left you, and now that she’s back, you need space?”

  Brian lowered his gaze to Dean’s. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Not me. I’m the one who wanted her to move to Kazakhstan.”

  “You talk big, but you love her.”

  “Goes without saying.” He glared at Brian. “And I mean, without saying.”

  Brian shook his head. Being an only child, Brian had never understood the intricacies of the Luchetti family. Dean and Kim traded barbs, pretending to loathe each other, but she was still his little sister, and no one screwed with her. Not even his best friend.

  Kim and Evan, being the youngest, had stuck together against all the others. Colin and Bobby, the middle children, were bound by strife, even before Colin had married Bobby’s girl behind his back. That had gotten ugly. Dean snarled at all of them; Aaron attempted to make peace.

  They were Luchettis. That was the way things were done.

  But Brian wasn’t a Luchetti, and he never would be. “You and the princess lawyer got a problem?”

  “What do you care?” Brian muttered.

  “Don’t be an asshole.”

  “According to your sister, that’s exactly what I am.”

  “What did you do?”

  Brian glared. “Who said I did something? You’re supposed to be my best friend.”

  “Okay, what did she do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why are you at my house instead of home with her?”

  “She told me to get lost.”

  “I doubt she meant forever.”

  “She doesn’t want another baby.”

  Dean frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Kim.”

  “Are you gonna listen to my problem or keep flapping your yap?” Dean lifted his hands in surrender, and Brian sighed. “Sorry. It’s not that she doesn’t want one, she doesn’t want one now.”

  “She did just finish law school.”

  Brian shot him an evil glare and Dean shut up again.

  “She wants to wait a year, get her practice going. Maybe even two years, so Zsa-Zsa will be in school.”

  Dean kept silent until Brian snapped, “Well, don’t you have an opinion on that?”

  “Am I supposed to?”

  Brian did more yoga breathing. “I’d like to know what you think.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  Because, for a change, Dean agreed with Kim. Kids weren’t easy, and Zsa-Zsa was hard. Besides, Kim had been waiting forever to be a lawyer. Having a baby now would be taking a giant step sideways.

  “I’d like to know,” Brian said quietly. “Please.”

  Dean gave in. “I’m just wondering, what’s the rush?”

  “We lost so much time when she was gone.”

  That wasn’t all they’d lost. The baby no one but Brian and Kim had known about at the time had died before she was even born. Dean couldn’t imagine what that had been like for the two of them—losing a child when they were still children themselves.

  “Kim just frustrates the hell out of me sometimes,” Brian muttered.

  “You, me and very soon the entire legal system. It’s her gift. She’s a lot like our mom.”

  “The idea of your mother being let loose on all those innocent lawyers…” Brian gave an exaggerated shiver.

  “Yeah, but are there really any innocent lawyers?”

  Brian laughed. “Don’t let Kim hear you say that.”

  “Do I seem like I’ve lost my marbles?”

  They were silent for a few minutes, during which the familiar and comforting sounds of the farm washed over them. Sometimes Dean got up in the middle of the night and came out here just to listen. He loved this place.

  “You’re right,” Brian murmured. “We’ve got time. It’s just that she left and I wondered…”

  “If she ever really loved you at all?”

  Brian’s eyes filled with surprise.

  “I’m not as dumb as I look,” Dean said.

  “You never were.”

  In lieu of a hug, Dean socked Brian in the arm. “She loves you, man. And when a Luchetti loves, they love for a lifetime.”

  “Really?” Brian rubbed his shoulder. “So what happened with Stella?”

  Dean scowled. Trust Brian to get to the heart of the matter. He might talk slow and move the same, but he wasn’t dumb, either, and he never had been.

  “We’re going to be friends.”

  Brian leaned back in his chair and stared at the stars again. “Sure you are.”

  TIM WOKE UP at 5:00 a.m. excited about his day with his dad. Dean was always off on Sunday because that was the day Grampa ran the milking machines.

  At the Luchetti farm they had robots to do the work. Well, not robots like in Star Wars. But robotic milking stuff and junk. Because of the “bells and whistles” as Grampa called them, only one guy had to supervise the cows getting milked instead of a whole bunch of guys havin’ to help.

  Tim crawled out of bed, got dressed and tiptoed out of the house, stopping in the living room to let Cubby out of his cage. Then after a quick trip to the outdoor potty, for both of them, Tim skipped through the cornfield with the dog at his heels. He always kept Grampa company on Sundays.

  Tim didn’t find John in the warm, dark cow barn or the bright, shiny milking parlor. Instead, after trolling through the hay, a little manure, the chicken coop and the near pasture where the sheep were all clustered together like…sheep, Tim found him in the pigpen.

  “Hey, kiddo, I was wondering when you’d get here.”

  “Cubby was in the cage all night, and he didn’t go all over himself.”

  “‘Course not. Animals don’t mess where they sleep.”

  “Babies do.”

  “Baby people. Animals are smarter than that.”

  Grampa liked animals—a lot—and he knew more about them than anyone.

  “So where you been, champ?”

  “Couldn’t find you. Whatcha doin’?”

  “This sow had a litter, but the runt isn’t doing very well.”

  Tim leaned over the fence but not too far. He’d learned the hard way to stay away from the big pigs. Once, he’d shoved his hand through the bars and gotten bit.

  Gramma had said, “Well, I told you not to stick your hand in there.”

  Gramma was like that.

  Cubby put his head through the fence, and the sow snorted all over his face. Cubby sneezed and tried to back away so fast he got his head caught. Tim helped him out and saw his grampa watching them.

  “It’s his first week. He doesn�
��t know.”

  So far, Cubby had narrowly missed being kicked by both a ewe and a cow, then he’d been pecked by a hen when he pushed his curious nose into her nest.

  “He’ll learn,” Grampa said. “Probably the hard way.”

  Tim nodded. For him it was always the hard way, which was why he had so many bruises.

  He crept closer to the fence. The pigs fascinated him. Always had. They seemed smarter than a lot of the other animals, and Grampa said that was true. Pigs had more brains than sheep, but then what didn’t?

  “What do ya do with a runt?” he asked.

  John lifted one teeny, spotted piglet into his big, hard, gentle hands and watched as it squirmed and squealed, much more weakly than the others.

  “Usually get rid of runts.” Grampa shook his head. “This one got stepped on a few times.”

  “How do you get rid of ’em?”

  Grampa cast a quick glance his way and Tim knew. Farm life wasn’t easy, and while the animals were their life, there was still a lot of death.

  “No,” Tim whispered.

  “He’s too small to compete with the others for food. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Tim’s lip wobbled, and he bit it to make it stop. “You think that’s what happened to me? I was too small, so they got rid of the runt?”

  “People aren’t pigs, Tim.”

  “I know, but I’m puny.”

  “So was I at your age.”

  “Really?” Tim let his gaze travel all the way up his grampa’s six-foot-plus body.

  “Yep.”

  “What happened?”

  “I ate right, exercised and did all my homework.”

  Tim blew a derisive breath from his lips, which made his bangs flutter upward, then settle back down. “Homework don’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Wanna tell your gramma that?”

  “Nope.”

  The two of them shared a smile. They both loved Gramma Ellie to pieces, but she was…a problem sometimes.

  “Did you ever read Charlotte’s Web?” Tim asked. His teacher had just started reading the book to the class this week. Staring at the piglet in Grampa’s hands, Tim figured that was a sign or somethin’.

  “Can’t say as I have.”

  “Well, Wilbur, the pig in that book, was small, but he was special.”

  Grampa John smiled and ruffled Tim’s hair with one hand, while continuing to hold the piglet in the other. “Like you?”