Текст книги "Lunch at the Club"

Автор книги: Kate Kane

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 11 страниц)

Chapter 12

Protecting the Family

Jess and Jamie were sitting at the breakfast bar with their laptops out, and were digging through the internet muck to get all of the information they could about Carol Anne Woods.  She’d worked at KEAU (Emotions are Us) radio in Kansas City.  It was a talk radio station dedicated to relationship mumbo jumbo.  Carol Anne had a MS in social work and after KEAU had changed its format, she’d been offered the job. Partially due to the popularity she’d gained as the police spokesperson who talked about relationships, after one of the KC Chiefs cheerleaders had had an issue with a stalker.

“Hey, I have an article here about the stalker case that got her into radio,” Jamie said.  “She’d been working for the police before that, and was catapulted into notoriety because of this interview she gave.  Shortly after that, the radio station made her an offer that she apparently couldn’t refuse and she left the police and became a radio personality.”

“IM me the link.  Have you heard from Jake?  I thought he was going to come help us with this.”

Jamie checked the time.  “He should be here soon.  He was meeting Meg and Abbey for breakfast this morning.”

Jess made humphing noises, thinking that her elder brother needed to get his priorities straight.  Family came first.

A few minutes later, Jake came in. He was carrying a sleeping Abbey; and Meg followed him, as he carried Abbey to Lane’s bedroom.  He was clearly agitated about something.  Jess and Jamie looked at each other.  Jake came into the kitchen and opened the fridge.  Jess looked at him, one brow raised.

“Meg’s getting Abbey settled in Mom’s room.  But we need to talk.”

Meg had come into the kitchen, and Jake asked her if she wanted a DDP.  She’d grown fond of Diet Dr. Pepper working for Lane.  “Sure with ice and a straw, please.”

She sat at the breakfast bar with Jamie and Jess. Jess looked from Meg to Jake.

“Okay, what’s going on?  Let’s get whatever it is out in the open, so we can get down to the business of finding out who killed Carol Anne.”

“We ran into Meg’s ex.” Jake nearly growled.

“I’m not sure I want talk about this in front of everyone,” Meg said.

All three of the Parker kids looked at one another.  What?  Who was this “everyone” Meg was talking about?

“It’s just us,” Jamie said. “We’re sort of like the three musketeers, you know one for all and all for one.  What one of us knows, the others know.  Just as well tell us what’s going on,” he said, gesturing between Jess and himself.

Meg took a breath and closed her eyes.  She was an only child. She couldn’t begin to imagine having siblings, let alone siblings who were as close as she was discovering the Parker siblings were.

“My ex.  His name is Scott. We dated through college.  He’d always been sort of controlling.  Then one day he back handed me, for being what he called disrespectful.”  She stopped, taking a drink of her soda, oblivious to Jake’s jaw clenching, Jamie’s biceps flexing as each hand formed a fist, or Jess’s raised eye brow. “I moved out of my apartment right after that.  Moved back in with my parents to be safe. Didn’t leave a forwarding address.  Quit my job.  And then I found out I was pregnant with Abbey.  I never told him.”

Jake continued, “But he saw her today at Aunt Em’s before I got there.  I came in and saw some sleaze standing with his hands on the table, leaning over her and Abbey, talking in hushed threatening tones.  So I walked over, kissed Meg on the head and picked up Abbey and said, ‘Sorry I’m late.’  Then he looks up at me and says ‘That’s my kid.’ Then he looked at Meg and told her his lawyer would be in touch, before storming out.”  He reached out and touched Meg’s cheek.  “You didn’t tell me he hit you.”

“It’s not something a girl likes to talk about.  I realize he’d been controlling and verbally abusive.  I’ve read a lot about it since.  The experts say that’s the way it starts; they say little things, nasty things, but it always, always becomes physical eventually.  I’m lucky I got out when I did.  Anyway, his family have money.  They’re influential, and he can afford to hire a really good attorney.  I can’t let him have Abbey.  I can’t even trust him to see her.  What am I going to do?”  Then she started crying.

Jake had her in his arms holding and comforting her, as he looked over her shoulder at his siblings.  Jess nodded.  Jamie flexed his shoulders and tilted his head to the side.

When Meg was calmed, Jamie was the first to speak.  “Meg, we’ve got this.  You don’t have to worry.”

“You guys can’t beat him up, that would only make things worse.” Meg had sat back down and looked at Jamie and Jess.

Jess smiled.  “No one’s going to touch him.  What’s his last name?”

“Coyle.  His name is Scott Coyle.  But I don’t understand what y’all are going to do.”

Jake looked at her.  “Do you trust me, Meg?”

She nodded.

“Then trust that everything is going to be okay.”

“I need to make a call,” Jess said, as she stood.  She stepped away from the kitchen and pulled out her cell phone, dialing Ben’s Uncle Vinnie.  Ben’s uncles owed Jess a favor, and Vinnie’s daughter, Daniella, practiced family law at Luciano and Bellini.

“Uncle Vinnie, it’s Jess Parker. It’s time to collect on that favor.”  She explained the situation and asked for Daniella’s home number.

“I’ll make the call, Bella.  She’ll meet you at your mother’s house within the hour, and she won’t be alone.”

Daniella and her father arrived at the Parkers’ house within the hour, as promised. Meg had met Vincenzo Luciano at Lane’s birthday brunch a few weeks earlier.  He looked at Meg and then to his daughter.  “I think the first thing is to order a DNA test, don’t you?”

Daniella nodded.  “If it shows Coyle is Abbey’s father, we’ll file to have all parental rights terminated.”

Meg looked at them in confusion.  “It can’t be anyone else.”  She blushed as she looked at Jake. “I’ve only been with Scott.”

Vinnie smiled.  “You’d be surprised what a DNA test might show.” Then he opened his brief case and pulled out a swab.  “Jake, open your mouth.”  Vinnie swabbed the inside of Jake’s cheek.  He smiled and looked at Meg.  “Now the Bambina.  Where is she?”

Meg went to Lane’s bedroom and gently woke her daughter. Vinnie handed the swab to Meg and instructed her, as she swabbed the inside of Abbey’s cheek.  He handed the two swabs to Daniella.  “Call Pauli.  We need these done right away.”

But Jess, who’d gotten Pauli’s digits the night before, was way ahead of them.  As soon as the DNA swabs came out, she’d called Dr. Bellini.  And now, she was escorting him into the great room.  She introduced him to Meg.

Uncle Vinnie held the swabs out to Pauli.  “Qualcuno si sta insinuando la famiglia,” he said, “Abbiamo bisogno di un test di paternità di Jake è il padre della ragazza.”

Pauli took the swabs and nodded.  “Sì, zio. Mi pare di capire. Sarà fatto oggi.”  He looked at the Parkers and Meg.  “I’ll drop these at the lab today.  We should have results tomorrow.”

Jess smiled.  She knew what had been said in Italian. Pauli had just agreed to fix the results, and she knew it.  Everyone in this room knew Jake Parker wasn’t Abbey’s father, couldn’t be Abbey’s father; but Scott Coyle wouldn’t be a problem, and no one was going to lay a finger on him as long as he let things go with the Luciano DNA test results. She didn’t object, she only regretted that she’d had to call in a favor that the Luciano brothers had owed her since her mother’s birthday.  But she’d done a favor for both brothers.  She smiled.  It was the same favor, but to her way of thinking that meant they each owed her a favor, so she still had one favor coming.

Daniella smiled at Meg.  “Do you have Mr. Coyle’s contact information?  I can call him in the morning.  I’ll draft a Cease and Desist letter this afternoon and get it into the mail today. That’s usually enough.  If not, we’ll go from there.”  She handed Meg her card.  “Don’t worry. He won’t bother you anymore.”

Meg was dumbfounded.  She wasn’t sure what had just happened.  But if it got Scott Coyle to leave her and Abbey alone, that was all that mattered. She thanked both of the Lucianos, and Jess walked them and Pauli to the front door.  “Thanks, Uncle Vinnie.  Daniella it was nice to meet you, and thank you for your help too.”

Vinnie took her by both arms, and kissed each of her cheeks.  “You’re family, Bambina.”

Daniella smiled. “Yes, and above all, we protect our family.”

Jess may not be Italian, but she understood that sentiment.  Above all, the Parkers protected their own too.

Chapter 13

The Proposal

Ben parked the Jag, put on his sport coat and walked around to open Lane’s door.  He held her hand as she got out of the car. He hooked her hand in the crook of his elbow and walked her to the door.  He nodded to his father as they walked through the restaurant.  As they walked past the Board Room, Lane looked around.  Where the heck were they going?  The Bellinis always ate in the private dining room called the Board Room.  Ben approached a set of carved wooden doors that Lane had never noticed before.  He considered having her close her eyes, but that would alert her to the surprise that awaited on the other side of the doors.  He was sure that his father and the staff had created a gazebo with blush and cream tulle and chiffon, and that the florist had found nine dozen roses and the rose petals, and that they had all been delivered and were waiting on the other side of these doors.

The fragrance of roses emanated from the room as he opened the door and escorted Lane inside.  They walked across the rose petals strewn on the floor, toward the table that was sitting in the middle of the room, shrouded in a gazebo like structure of wispy fabric.  She looked up at him as they walked.  She’d never seen anything like this in her life.  There were bouquets of roses on pedestals every few feet, sitting on either side of the aisle formed by rose petals. She counted.  Eight bouquets lined the aisle and inside the gazebo was another bouquet.  She quickly did the math nine bouquets times 12 roses equaled 108 roses.  She had a friend in Omaha whose husband was a florist.  What was the significance of 108 roses?  God where was Nancy when you needed her?  Ben pulled out a chair and held it as she sat down.  Then he genuflected in front of her.

“Lane Parker, I love you.  I love you more than the air I breathe, more than life itself. I’ve wasted the last three years of my life, not realizing that everything I ever needed, everything I ever wanted stood right before me.”  He opened the box and said, “Will you marry me?” Even before she answered, he took her hand and slipped the ring onto her finger.

She caressed his face in her hands and kissed him.  “Yes. Oh God, Ben, I love you. Yes, yes, I’ll marry you.” She was so busy kissing him, saying she loved him that she hadn’t even looked at the ring he’d slipped on her finger.  He stood and poured two glasses of champagne. “A toast, to the most beautiful woman in the world. To my lovely fiancée.”

There was a remote on the table.  Ben picked it up and pressed a button, and the CD he had mixed of his favorite Frank Sinatra love songs began playing. “Dance with me,” he said, as he guided her to the dance floor.

“In Italy, the groom proposes by singing, in the hope of seducing his bride to be into accepting his proposal.  I don’t sing.  I’ll have to seduce you by dancing,” he whispered to her.

“I thought that was what the roses and the gazebo were supposed to do.”

“The roses.”  He kissed her.  “There are 108 of them.  I looked it up, 108 roses mean ‘Will you marry me?’”

As they danced, he remembered that she hadn’t eaten since Sunday evening, and he’d given her a glass of champagne on an empty stomach.  He’d better get some food into her.

The music had been the cue to the wait staff, and they had already come in and had bread on the table.  He knew his brother Tony, who was the chef, was preparing something special for them.  He kissed her.  “Come on, let’s get some food into you.  Besides, I have something for you.”  He guided her back to the table where another bigger, blue Tiffany’s box sat.  He held her chair while she sat, then he sat and held the box out to her.  “It’s an engagement gift.”

She looked at him, realizing she hadn’t even looked at the ring he’d placed on her finger all of 30 minutes ago. She looked down at her left hand.  My God, she thought, it’s a wonder I can walk without throwing out my back.  She knew almost nothing about the four c’s (cut, clarity, color, and carat) of diamond buying, but it was clear the man sitting next to her either knew all about it or had gotten some very good advice.  The stone was a square radiant cut and it was almost the size of a dime.  It sat high and had baguettes on either side forming shoulders. There was a tiny tear drop shaped diamond on the front and on the back of the intricately scrolled seat below the center stone.  The whole thing sparkled like nothing she’d ever seen in her life.

She looked at him.  My God, this must have cost a fortune and now he was nudging another Tiffany’s box toward her.  She opened it.  Inside was a diamond filigree heart pendant with a key dangling from the bail.  He took it from the box and put it around her neck.  “To remind you that you hold the key to my heart,” he said, as he fastened the necklace and kissed the back of her neck.

“You’re going to spoil me,” she said, as she reached for his hand.

“Only for the rest of your life,” he said, as he picked up her hand and kissed her palm.  “I imagine that my father is standing at the kitchen door, waiting to congratulate me and extend best wishes to my beautiful fiancée.”

He reached up and motioned his hand in a come-in signal.  His father came into the room bringing salads.  Dante Bellini took Lane in his arms and kissed both of her cheeks.  “Bella, welcome to the family.  Best wishes for your future happiness.” He turned to Ben and said, “Congratulazioni, figlio,” then kissed both of Ben’s cheeks.

Ben and Lane held hands as they ate.  Feeding each other a bite of this, a nibble of that.  Ben’s phone rang and he checked the caller id.  It was Pauli.  “I need to take this,” he said, standing and stepping away from the table.  Instead of hello or even Pronto, which was the way a phone call was answered in Italy, he said “E' una buona notizia.”

“Sì; favorevole.  Are you engaged yet?” Pauli responded

“Yes.  Are you on your way back to St. Louis yet?”

“Are you trying to find out if it’s safe to bring your fiancée home to celebrate properly?”  Pauli asked laughingly.

Even though that was exactly what he was trying to find out, Ben said “What kind of question is that?”

“Godere, I’m leaving now.”

Ben ended the call and stepped back to the table.  It was one o’clock, they could do a lot of celebrating before the day was over.  He pulled Lane to stand in his embrace and kissed her, coaxing her lips open with his tongue, knowing that she was going to moan, knowing the effect it always had on him.  “Let’s leave.  That was Pauli on the phone and I have a clean bill of health.”  He kissed her again.  “I thought we might leave and celebrate properly.”

In response she simply said, “I’d like that.”

He tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and they walked to the car.  The drive to his house had never seemed so long.

He parked the Jag in the garage, opened her door and carried her to the bedroom, kissing her every step of the way.  He gently lowered her to the bed and was soon lying with her.  Still kissing, still murmuring I love you to each other.  As always, each time their tongues touched, Lane moaned and each time she moaned, Ben was closer to the edge.  He kissed her neck, behind her ear.  She moaned and moved closer to him.  She felt his erection pressing against her thigh.  Oh God, she wanted him, and she whispered.  “Ben, I love you and I want you, now.” He worked his lips from her neck to her shoulder. She was busily pulling at his polo shirt, exposing his washboard abs.

“Red, I’m the only one losing clothes here.  That doesn’t seem right.”  He unzipped her dress and pulled it off exposing the white lace bra and panties she had on underneath.  He traced a finger along the lace cup barely covering her breast.  Reaching behind her back, he expertly unhooked her bra and pushed the lace aside, bending down and taking one nipple in his mouth.

She grabbed his hair with both hands and pulled his face to hers.  “You’ve done it now,” she said in a raspy whisper, as she pulled his lips to hers.  “I’m all wet and I have to get these panties off.”  She’d barely finished the sentence before he expertly removed them and tossed them away.

He moved his hand between her thighs.  Dear Lord, she really was wet, and he could feel her throbbing as he first stroked her and then gently slipped a finger inside.  She gasped even as she raised her hips to meet his probing finger.  She reached down and felt his erection through his Khaki’s.  She struggled with his belt and the zipper of his pants, until she wrapped her hand around him and gasped.  He was huge, and she hadn’t had sex in 18 years.  He was suckling her again and she was gasping for air.  She tugged at his pants and he helped remove them.  He was naked, he was gorgeous and he had the biggest erection she’d ever seen.

Ben had never brought a woman home with him and suddenly he realized he didn’t even have a condom.  He kissed her and whispered, “I don’t have a condom. We can stop if you want to.”  Even as he said it he wasn’t sure it was true.  But he needn’t have worried.  She pushed him onto his back.   “If you think we’re stopping now, you’re crazy.” And she sat up and straddled him, dropping her bra as she slid on top of him, slowly taking him inside.

Ben hadn’t had sex without a condom since he was a teenager and that, coupled with the fact that he’d been celibate for the last three months, had him reciting tort law in his head.  Dear God, he had imagined making love to her so many times over the last three months and nothing in his imagination was anything close to the reality of having her hot and wet and so very tight around him. As she rode him faster and harder, she leaned down and whispered, “Ben … I’m a … screamer … and …I …need you …to kiss me…now.”

He put his mouth over hers to take the scream and at the same time shifted their positions so that he was on top of her.

She’d screamed out his name two more times before he quit reciting tort law and finally allowed himself to go over with her.  And now they lay in each other’s arms, touching, stroking, and kissing. “That,” he kissed her “was” another kiss “amazing” another kiss.   “You were amazing.”

“I might be a little rusty,” she replied, as she ran her fingers up his abs and into his chest hair.

“If that was rusty, I can’t wait for the practiced version.”  He held her hand looking at her engagement ring.  “You haven’t said anything about your ring.”

“It’s beautiful.  Did you just have it lying around waiting for the perfect time?”

“Well, sort of, I got it six weeks ago on my way back from Italy. I had planned to give it to you for your birthday; but you freaked when you saw the Tiffany’s box that your earrings were in, so it had to wait until you were ready to say yes.”  He kissed her.

She snuggled next to him, her head on his shoulder.  “Ben?”

“Hmm?” he answered.

“I love you.  Thanks for not giving up.”

“What have I been telling you?  I love you.  I always have. I was just too stupid to know it.” And he bent and kissed her head.  “By the way, how soon can we get married?  I want to make an honest woman of you.”

“It takes time to plan a wedding. I’m thinking January.  New Year’s Day.  Will that work for you?”

“It’s four months longer than I’d like.  What’s to plan?  You need a dress, I need a tux.  We need to be sure the church is available, we need the kids and we need to invite some people.  The reception will be in the banquet room where we got engaged, and I’m sure it will be available whenever we want it.”  He kissed her.  “I’ve wasted too much time already.  I want to hold you in my arms every night while you sleep.  And just so you know, your youngest has already put me on notice that I’m not allowed to spend the night.”

Lane leaned up to look at him.  “Jamie what?  When?”

“Last night when I asked their permission to propose to you.  He told me it was fine as long as I didn’t think I was spending the night.”  He pulled her to him and kissed her.  “And it wasn’t the first time either.  We had a similar conversation the night I cooked for your birthday brunch.  Both he and Jake separately quizzed me to be sure I was really planning to crash on the couch.”

“I can’t believe...”

Ben kissed her.  “They love you and they want to protect you.  Those conversations were nothing compared to the one I had with Jess.  She called me in June, after we started dating, and told me if I hurt you she’d castrate me.”

He kissed her before she could react and kept kissing.  Until she stroked his growing erection and said, “I think I could do that again.  Feels like you could too.”

Afterward, he held her as she nestled her head on his shoulder.  “I need to tell you something,” he said, as he stroked her hair.  “I’ve never brought a woman home with me.  You’re the only woman I’ve ever made love to in this bed.”

She leaned up to look at him.  How had he known that a month ago, she’d stood in this room and wondered how many women had screamed his name in this bed.

“I don’t know why I needed you to know that.  Except that I want you to think of this as your bed too.”  They made love again.

“Seriously I want to do this every day.”  He kissed her.  “I don’t want to wait for our Friday night date to make love to you, only to have you get up and get dressed so you can go home.  Let me call Father Palmert and see when we can get married.  Jess doesn’t go back to L.A. until Saturday, right?  Maybe we can get married Friday.”

Lane laughed, she’d never heard of a man being in such a rush to get married.  “What will people thing if we rush into it?  Besides, what about Lila?  I thought it was better that she didn’t even know we were dating.  What’s she going to do to me if/when she finds out we’re engaged, let alone married?”

“I’ll take care of Lila.  Since the warrant fiasco yesterday, I think she’s going to have to pursue other suspects.  Hunter could tell it was personal.”

“Okay, call Father Palmert.”  As Ben reached for his cell phone, Lane asked, “What, you have the rectory on speed dial?”

“He’s one of my contacts from coaching little league, so yeah, I do.” He kissed her again.

While he talked with Father Palmer, explaining what he wanted, Lane got up and went into the bathroom.  She didn’t wear much makeup, but she still had mascara black eyes and she tried to clean them up.

“Father Palmert says he needs our baptismal, first communion, and confirmation records and the annulment information for your marriages.  You have those, right? Because if not, getting married in the Church isn’t that big a deal.”

“Benito Giovani Bellini, what are you talking about?  Not getting married in the Church.  Yes, both of my marriages were annulled by the Church.  Which may mean I need to confess something to you.  It’s in the annulment so you’ll find out anyway.  Phillip left me because he had decided or discovered or whatever that he was gay.  I can call the parish in Omaha tomorrow and get the records.”

Ben knew Phillip Parker was gay.  Jake had told him.  Not long after they moved to Kansas, Jake had come to Ben to talk about sex.  He told Ben his dad was gay and that he couldn’t talk to a gay man about girls and stuff.  Ben had never told Lane he’d had the sex talk with both of her sons.  There were some things that she really didn’t need to know, like whether or not her teenaged sons were having sex.  Ben had told each of them that there are three basic rules: 1. No means no and stop means stop; 2. Never have sex with a woman who’s too impaired to be able to say either no or stop; and 3. Always, always, always wear protection.

Ben had just violated the third rule, but then the main reason you wore protection was to prevent STD’s and both he and Lane were STD free and had lab results to back it up.

Lane had retrieved her dress from the floor where it had landed.  She held it up.  God it was wrinkled.  People were going to know it had been thrown on the floor hours earlier.  Ben got up and took it from her.

“Here, let me steam that.  You can’t go out in public looking like you’ve been sleeping in your clothes.  Everyone will know I’ve been ravishing you and we can’t have the kids thinking that we had sex before we were married.”

He took her dress to the bathroom, filled his hand held steamer with water and plugged it in.  Lane smiled.  Her daughter sometimes called her Felix after the neat freak in the Neil Simon play The Odd Couple.  Ben made Lane look like Oscar, but having a man who wanted to steam the wrinkles out of her clothes, she could live with a man like that.  She looked at her engagement ring and smiled.  She was going to live with a man like that.

It was after 6:00 p.m. when Ben and Lane had gotten out of bed and dressed.  They’d had an early lunch, and they’d burned off a lot of calories since lunch.  They talked about going out but decided on going back to Lane’s, where they could tell the kids the wedding plans, which were accelerated.  If they were going to get married on Friday, before Jess went back to L.A. on Saturday, they needed to apply for the marriage license tomorrow.  Kansas had a three day waiting period between application and issuance, so to pick up the marriage license on Friday, they had to apply on Tuesday.