The Bachelor Takes a Bride (Those Engaging Garretts!) Page 3

  Five-year-old Anna’s face lit up when she saw him in the doorway. “Uncle Marco!”

  “Unca Mahco!” Bella, her three-year-old sister, echoed the greeting.

  He set the paper bag containing the desserts on the seat of the deacon’s bench inside the door so that he could catch the two little girls who flung themselves at him. As Renata had said, they were both in their pajamas—coordinating outfits with ruffled cuffs and hems: Anna in purple and Bella in pink.

  “We haven’t seen you in forever,” Anna lamented.

  “Fo’eva,” Bella agreed.

  He squeezed them both tight. “Has it really been that long?”

  “Uh-huh,” Anna said solemnly, and her sibling nodded.

  He usually stopped by to see his sister and her family at least once a week, but he’d been so busy working on plans for the new restaurant that he’d been unaware more than three weeks had passed since his last visit. Until now. And he felt a sharp tug of guilt to realize his nieces had noted the absence.

  “What’s in the bag?” Anna asked. “Did you bring us a surprise?”

  “A ’pwise?” Bella echoed, looking at him hopefully.

  “It’s tiramisu for your mom,” he told them.

  His nieces wrinkled their noses in identical expressions of displeasure.

  “And a cannoli for each of you—if you go sit up at the table.”

  They raced to the kitchen to comply with his request.

  Nata took two small plates out of the cupboard, setting one in front of each of her daughters so that Marco could distribute the pastry.

  “I wike cannowi,” Bella told him.

  “I knew that about you,” Marco agreed, kissing the top of her head.

  “Your uncle Marco spoils both of you,” Renata said.

  He lifted his brows as he handed her the bowl of tiramisu.

  “Uncle Marco spoils all of us,” she amended.

  “Sit,” he told her, nudging her toward a chair.

  “I was going to get you a cup of coffee.”

  “I can get it,” he said, moving over to the counter. He selected a pod, inserted it into the machine, then pressed the button to start it brewing.

  “Can we have milk?” Anna asked her mother.

  “Of course.” Renata started to rise from the table.

  “I’ve got it,” Marco told her, easily locating the girls’ favorite plastic cups and filling them with milk, then pouring a glass of the same for their mother.

  “Thank you,” they chorused, when he set the drinks in front of them.

  Marco carried his mug of coffee to the table and sat down beside his sister.

  “So how are you feeling these days?” he asked her.

  “Hungry.” She dipped her spoon back into the bowl.

  He chuckled. “I guess that means the morning sickness has passed.”

  She nodded.

  “Mommy’s got a baby in her belly,” Anna said, in case he’d somehow forgotten that fact. “And it’s gonna grow really big and she’s gonna get really fat.”

  “Wike dis,” Bella said, stretching her arms out in front of her as far as they could reach to demonstrate.

  “Well, hopefully not quite that big,” Renata said drily.

  “But Daddy says that just means there’ll be more of her to love,” Anna added.

  Marco had to give his brother-in-law points for that response, because he knew his sister was already self-conscious about the weight she’d gained and she was only four months into her pregnancy.

  “And soon, you’ll have another sister or a brother to love,” he said, hoping to shift their attention away from their mother’s belly and to the baby she carried.

  “I wanna sisda,” Bella said. “I don’ wanna be da widda sisda anymo.”

  “I wanna brother,” Anna countered, rolling her eyes in the direction of her younger sibling. “Sometimes one sister is one too many.”

  “I want both of you to go wash the powdered sugar off of your faces and hands, and then brush your teeth,” Renata said.

  “We aweady bwush our teef,” Bella sad. “Befo Unca Mahco comed.”

  “Which was also before you ate the cannoli he brought for you,” her mother pointed out with patient firmness.

  “Oh.” Bella sighed as she slid off the chair to follow her sister upstairs to the bathroom they shared.

  Nata pushed her mostly empty bowl aside and rubbed her tummy. “Hopefully that will settle him down for a while.”

  “Him?”

  She shrugged. “Nonna hasn’t been wrong yet.”

  “Are you hoping for a boy?”

  “I know I should say that I just want a healthy baby—and I do. But if I had a choice, yeah, I’d like a boy this time.”

  “Well, you and Craig make beautiful babies, so if it’s not a boy this time, there’s no reason you can’t keep trying.”

  “Even if this one is a boy, we’re probably going to go for one more.”

  “You’re a brave—or maybe crazy—woman.”

  His sister laughed. “Probably both.”

  He heard the water running in the bathroom upstairs, proof that the girls were brushing their teeth again.

  “Can I tuck them in when they’re ready?” he asked.

  “They made you feel guilty about not visiting for so long, didn’t they?”

  “It hasn’t been that long,” he protested.

  “More than three weeks.”

  “But who’s counting?”

  “We missed you,” she told him.

  “Rebecca—the new waitress—asked for a couple of weeks off in July to go home to Minnesota because she hasn’t seen her parents since Christmas.”

  “Because they live in Minnesota,” she said, stating the obvious.

  “Maybe I should move.”

  His sister chuckled. “As if. When you moved out, Mama cried for three days, and you felt so guilty, you almost moved back home again.”

  “No one knows how to guilt a man like his mother,” Marco agreed.

  “We done bwushed our teef,” Bella called down.

  “Uncle Marco’s on his way up to tuck you in,” Renata told her daughters. Then, to him, “They’re going to want a bedtime story.”

  “I haven’t forgotten the routine in three weeks,” he assured her, already heading for the stairs.

  He sat on Anna’s bed, between both of the girls tucked under the covers, and read them a bedtime story. They giggled at the different voices he gave to the characters and responded with gasps and sighs in appropriate places. When the story was finished, they were both fighting to keep their eyes open. He slid off the bed, returned the book to its shelf, kissed Anna’s forehead, then scooped Bella up and carried her across the room to tuck her into her own bed.

  He loved sharing the nighttime routine with his nieces—and with his nephews, when he was at Tony and Gemma’s house. But it was always a little sad to go home to his too-quiet apartment afterward and crawl into an empty bed.

  It wouldn’t be much of a hardship to find a woman to share his bed for one night or even a few. The harder part was finding the woman he wanted there for the long term. He wasn’t one of those commitment-shy guys who was only looking for a good time—he wanted to fall in love and get married and read bedtime stories to his own kids at night. But until that happened, he had be content spending time with his nieces and nephews.

  When he returned to the main level, Renata was in the living room folding a load of laundry with the news on TV.

  “Are they asleep?”

  “You know they won’t fall asleep until their mom kisses them good-night.”

  She pushed herself up from the sofa. “Then I’d better go do so.”

 
While she was upstairs, he busied himself washing up the plates and cups the girls had used.

  “You’re going to be a great father someday,” Renata said when she came back downstairs. “And a great husband to some lucky woman.”

  “You’re only saying that because I’m tidying up your kitchen.”

  “And because you brought me tiramisu.”

  “At least you’re honest.”

  “The right woman is out there,” his sister said.

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “I just don’t want you to get discouraged—wondering when you’re finally going to meet her.”

  “I already did.”

  She considered that as she picked up a towel to dry the dishes he’d washed. “So when are the rest of us going to meet her?”

  “Not for a while.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I want some time and space to get to know her better before the family scares her away.”

  “We’re not scary,” she protested.

  “Are you kidding? I was born into this family and I’m terrified by major holiday events with the whole clan.”

  “If she’s going to be the mother of your future children, she’s got to meet us someday.”

  “Someday,” he agreed.

  Nata sighed. “Are you at least going to tell me her name?”

  “No.”

  “Does she really exist?”

  “Of course she exists.”

  “That’s what you said about Tessa Wheeler, your make-believe girlfriend in high school.”

  He glanced away. “She was real.”

  “A real person,” his sister acknowledged. “But she wasn’t really your girlfriend—she didn’t even know you existed.”

  “I was a sophomore,” he pointed out in his defense.

  “And while I would certainly hope you’d outgrown manufacturing fantasy girlfriends, you should appreciate how your refusal to give me a name is cause for concern.”

  “If I’d made her up, don’t you think I would have made up a name for her?”

  “And what name would that be?” she challenged.

  Renata was nothing if not relentless, and he knew she wouldn’t quit badgering until he gave her something. He decided her name was harmless enough.

  “Jordyn,” he finally said.

  Her brows lifted. “Jordyn Garrett?”

  He frowned. “Where did that come from?”

  “Ohmygod—I’m right. It is Jordyn Garrett.”

  “I never said it was Jordyn Garrett.”

  “But you didn’t say it wasn’t.”

  “How do you know her?” he finally asked.

  “Duh. She’s a bartender at O’Reilly’s and Craig plays on the Brew Crew, the team they sponsor.”

  He’d forgotten that his brother-in-law played recreational baseball—but he should have remembered that his sister knew almost everyone in Charisma.

  And the way she was worrying her bottom lip right now made him suspect that she knew something that she wasn’t telling him.

  “What’s your objection to my interest in Jordyn?”

  “I like her,” Renata assured him, though her tone was cautious.

  “But?” he prompted.

  “But she’s always seemed a little...guarded,” she decided. “And I don’t want you to get your heart broken.”

  Again.

  Although she didn’t say the word, they both knew she was thinking it. As he was, too. But this time, he was confident there wouldn’t be a sad ending but a happy beginning, because Jordyn Garrett was the woman he’d been waiting his whole life for.

  Now he just had to help her see that she’d been waiting for him, too.

  Chapter Three

  Jordyn dreamed of him—and woke up feeling restless and out of sorts because of it.

  She didn’t remember the details of the dream, except that her heart had been pounding with anticipation and her body aching to feel things that she hadn’t felt in a very long time. And she’d awakened thinking of Marco. The sweet and sexy bartender with the melted-chocolate eyes and the dimple at the corner of his mouth. It might have been her sister’s description, but she couldn’t deny that it was an accurate one.

  She hadn’t dreamed of anyone but Brian in a lot of years. More significantly, she hadn’t even dreamed about her former fiancé in more than a year, which she figured was a sign that her heart was finally healing. But his disappearance from her dreams worried her, too, because she didn’t want to forget about him. She didn’t want to forget how completely in love they’d been or how her heart had been decimated by his death. And she especially didn’t want to be attracted to another man, to even consider moving on with her life with someone else or hope for the future that she’d once believed she would have with Brian.

  She’d told Tristyn that her date with Cody the night before had been a disaster—but the fact that it had been such a disaster was also a relief to Jordyn. Her experience with Cody reassured her that she wasn’t missing out on anything by not dating and reinforced her belief that she’d rather spend her free time alone than with a man who obviously wasn’t right for her. Because no man who wasn’t Brian was right for her.

  Then she’d walked into Valentino’s and come face-to-face with Marco Palermo. And she’d felt...something.

  She wasn’t sure what it was—maybe a spark of awareness or possibly a tingle of desire—she only knew that it was more than she’d expected or wanted to feel.

  She’d pushed it aside, refusing to delve too deeply inside herself. So she’d met a guy and she’d felt a tug of something—so what? It didn’t have to mean anything, because she wasn’t ever going to see him again.

  Except that she instinctively knew that wasn’t true. Whatever she’d felt, she was certain that he’d felt it, too, and she didn’t doubt that their paths would cross again—probably sooner rather than later. And when they did, she’d be ready to let him down easy. There was no other option.

  Tristyn was drinking coffee and reading the news on her tablet when Jordyn finally ventured into the kitchen after her shower. She brewed herself a cup of French vanilla, added two teaspoons of sugar and a generous dollop of cream, then took a seat across from her sister.

  “How much wine did I drink last night?”

  Tristyn looked up from her tablet. “No more than I did. Why?”

  “I feel like crap this morning, and I had some weird dreams.”

  “Any special guests in those dreams?” her sister teased.

  Jordyn scowled at her over the rim of her coffee mug.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”

  She sipped her coffee and willed the caffeine to jump-start her system—or at least her brain.

  “It’s a good sign,” Tristyn said gently.

  “What’s a good sign?”

  “That you’re thinking about him.”

  She swallowed another mouthful of java.

  “Brian’s been gone for more than three years.”

  Three years, two months and sixteen days. But of course she didn’t say that aloud, because she knew that Tristyn would get that familiar little line that appeared between her brows whenever she was worried about something. And her family had worried about her enough already.

  Instead she only nodded.

  “It’s time for you to put yourself out there again.”

  “Isn’t that what I was doing with Cody last night?”

  Tristyn shook her head. “Cody was a setup that was never going to work, because you had it in your mind before you even sat down at the restaurant that you weren’t going to let it go any further than dinner.”

  It was both a curse and a blessing to have a sister who knew her so well.
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  “Maybe that’s why meeting Marco made more of a lasting impression on you,” Tristyn continued.

  “Or maybe I made it into a bigger deal than it was,” Jordyn said, considering that he’d never asked for anything more than her name.

  “Maybe you did,” Tristyn allowed. “But you won’t know for sure until you see him again.”

  * * *

  It was almost two weeks later before she did.

  Ten days to be precise. And not a single one of those days passed without her thinking about him at least once. After the first week, she considered stopping by Valentino’s—just to see if he was working—but she’d ignored the impulse.

  Because if he was working—what then?

  It was her inability to answer that question that kept her away from his family’s restaurant. But it didn’t stop her from thinking about him.

  On Tuesday night, just a couple hours before closing, he walked into O’Reilly’s.

  She was wiping down the bar when she looked up and saw him come through the door.

  Even from across the room, she felt the hum of something between them—or maybe, nearing the end of a double shift, she was just overtired.

  He nodded to her as he took a seat farther down the bar.

  “Hey, Jordyn,” Bobby Galley called out, snagging her attention. “What’s your number?”

  For the first six months that she’d worked at the bar, every night that Bobby came in, he would ask for her number. And every night, she would refuse.

  The familiar banter grew tiresome after a while, until one night, when he asked for her number, she said, “One hundred and forty-six.” He’d blinked, wary of this unexpected response, and she’d told him it was the number of times he’d asked her out and she’d turned him down. Not that she’d actually counted, but her recital of the random number sounded credible.

  After that, it had become something of a game. Although he hadn’t stopped asking, he had given up hope that she would ever answer him with her actual phone number.