Together Again: Book 3 in the Second Chances series (Crimson Romance) (2 page)

“Welcome home, counselor,” he said.

“Tony?” She stopped, her eyes searching the row of houses. “Is that you?”

Tony Alessandro — Anthony Salvatore Alessandro to the DMV, Detective Alessandro to his employer, the Philadelphia Police Department — stepped out of the shadowy entry of the house next to the Keyes’ residence. The boy-next-door for all of Margo’s childhood, Tony had grown up into one of the best looking men she’d ever known — classically handsome features that would be at home in a Roman temple; hair so dark it was almost black; brown eyes that could make her knees buckle with one look. A mouth that made kissing a sacrament.

He came down the steps with the easy grace of an athlete and met her at the end of the short walkway to his mother’s house. Greeting her with a hug and a lingering kiss on the cheek he said, “It’s been a long time since Mary Ellen’s wedding last fall.”

And there it was, the last thing making her nervous about this trip. Mary Ellen’s wedding. When he’d danced with her all night before sneaking her out of the parish hall to a dark Sunday school classroom where he proceeded to kiss her senseless, making her mouth burn for his, her breasts ache for him to touch them and her whole body melt into a wet and wanting puddle. If his nephew hadn’t dragged him away, she was sure they’d have ended up naked in his bed. Or on the floor of the classroom.

But she hadn’t heard from him since.

She knew the blush that was the bane of her existence was now creeping up her neck but hoped the dusky light concealed it. “Yeah, you weren’t around when I was here in April.”

“I was in DC, meeting with this task force I’m on. I hear you’re back for our class reunion.”

“My mother’s doing, not mine. She signed me up. The half-dozen people who emailed saying how great it was I would be there made me feel guilty enough that I didn’t have the nerve to back out.”

“Not like you to give in to social pressure.”

“Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age.”

“Better work on your argument, counselor. No one who’s ever met you will believe that one.” He’d kept his hand on her shoulder and was studying her face. “You look great. West Coast agrees with you, doesn’t it?”

“It does. As much as Philly agrees with you. Every time I see you, I wonder if there’s a portrait turning wrinkled, soft and flabby in an attic somewhere. I swear to God you still look like the guy the yearbook described. Let’s see: best athlete in the class with the body to show for it. A smile that would melt glaciers. Brown eyes every girl wants to get lost in.” She glanced over his broad shoulders and trim body in jeans and a denim jacket, and up at his handsome face. “Yup, all still there.”

He dropped his arm, laughed and made a very Italian gesture, one that even a non-Italian, at least a non-Italian from Philadelphia, would recognize. “Jesus, Margo, leave it to you to remember that shit.” He motioned toward her empty hands. “Not to change the subject but, no luggage? You’re not staying with your mom?”

“Impressive analytic skills. No wonder you made detective on your first try. Congratulations on that, by the way. Where’re you working?”

“Thanks. I’m working with the white-collar crime unit.”

She looked embarrassed. “Good choice. You had a running start on the subject fifteen years ago, didn’t you?”

“Are you evading my question about where you’re staying, Madame Prosecutor? Can’t imagine you let witnesses do something like that.”

“No, sir, Detective Alessandro, I do not. I’m staying at the Bellevue. Between a conference in Center City next week and not wanting to go to the reunion feeling like the twelve-year-old I seem to turn into when I stay here, I thought it best.”

“Sounds like neither one of us is too anxious to go to this thing.” He looked away from her and stuck his hands in his jeans pockets.

“Why are you worried? I thought you went to all our class reunions.”

“This time, Nicole will be there.”

He didn’t need to say more; she knew the story. Nicole, who’d been his off-again, on-again high school girlfriend and then fiancée, broke their engagement to elope with a much older — and definitely richer — man, banging up Tony’s pride badly. Neighborhood gossip said it could only have been the promise of life on the prestigious Main Line that had won Nicole away from Tony. But then, the neighborhood always favored the Alessandro side of any story.

“I didn’t think she did reunions, either.”

“Not ’til this one.”

“I hope you have a supermodel lined up to go with you.”

“No date. You?”

“Surely the grapevine,” she nodded toward their mothers’ homes, “has already told you I don’t.” She pulled her gaze away from his and took a deep breath before blurting out, “Listen, not that I’m a supermodel, but I brought this fairly outrageous dress to wear with my new Manolo Blahniks. It might, I don’t know, give our classmates something to talk about other than her if you arrive with the woman no one’s seen in fifteen years, even if it is just me. And I wouldn’t mind having company when I walk into that restaurant. It’d just be, you know, old friends … ”

He held up his hand. “Slow down. So, you’re volunteering to be my date?”

“I just think it might be advantageous for both of us if we went together.”

“That sounds more like an offer to carpool.”

“Really, just old friends doing each other a favor.” She searched his face trying to anticipate his answer. “So … yes? No?”

“Now why would I turn down the chance to walk in with the class mystery woman in an outrageous dress and expensive shoes? Pick you up … when? ”

“How about I pick you up? I don’t think my new dress would fare well on your motorcycle.”

“I’ll bow to your transportation preferences. But the Bellevue’s right around the corner from my apartment. I’ll walk over so you won’t have to look for a parking space.”

“Great. Maybe come by at five and have a drink before we go so we can catch up?” The offer slipped out before she could think about it. “I’m in suite 832.”

“I’ll see you at five.” He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Say hi to your mom for me.”

At her mother’s door, she dug around in her purse for the key, listening for the sound of Tony’s cycle taking off so she could relax. Her mother opened the door before Margo could get it unlocked. “Hello, dear.” She reached up and kissed her daughter. “Was that Anthony I heard?”

“Yes, Mom. He said to say hi.”

Dolores Keyes’ eyes lit up. “I’m glad you had a chance to talk with him. Did he say anything about the reunion? I hear he’s going alone.”

“He was, but we just made arrangements to go together.”

“Oh, good.” She pulled at her daughter’s hand. “How silly to stand on the doorstep talking! I like your hair. It’s a little longer than before, isn’t it?” She closed the door after Margo. “Oh, and don’t let me forget to give you the sticky buns I got for you.”

The evening had begun the way visits with her mother always did — a comment about her hair and a bribe of sticky buns. It continued in its usual trajectory with Margo talking about Portland and her mother talking about friends and family in Philadelphia.

There was no mention of what had obsessed Margo every time she thought about this trip. But then they never discussed
that
subject.

In the fall of her senior year of high school, her father had been arrested on federal racketeering charges along with some of his clients, members of the Philly mob. All through that year, as one trial after another hit the headlines, Margo and her mother had dealt with the humiliation of learning that Kenny Keyes was not the kind of lawyer they thought he was. He’d been convicted and sent to federal prison. Dolores Keyes hadn’t uttered his name since.

After they cleaned up the kitchen, Margo left, promising to join her mother and aunt the next day for lunch. But once at her hotel, she couldn’t settle down. She tried convincing herself it was jet lag or maybe nervousness about seeing people she hadn’t seen since high school. Eventually, she had to admit it was Tony keeping her awake.

Born a month apart to next-door neighbors, they’d been childhood playmates as well as high school classmates. His sisters were her best friends; she’d learned to dance with him when they were barely teenagers. He’d made sure she had fun down at the shore the summer after her father’s trial. They hung out when she was back in Philly between college and law school. But somehow they never got beyond a close friendship, dinner-and-movie dates and some unforgettable kissing.

Maybe it was geography. They had spent most of the past fifteen years on opposite coasts, after all. Maybe they were never in the same place in their lives at the same time. Whatever it was, she’d always told herself settling for a warm, affectionate friendship was a good thing. After all, a relationship between a police officer and the daughter of a mob lawyer probably wasn’t a match made in heaven.

Then his sister Mary Ellen got married.

Her all-too-short night ended when the maid who wanted to make up the room knocked on the door. After a quick shower, Margo dressed and grabbed her messenger bag, heading downstairs to forage for caffeine and to make a stab at organizing her speech. A coffee cart provided her with her drug of choice; a phone call to her office should have gotten her the help she wanted. But her boss, Jeff Wyatt, wasn’t around, as he usually was on Saturday mornings.

Instead she got Kiki Long, her favorite paralegal and friend, who was making a rare weekend appearance at work. No help in the speech-writing area, Kiki kept asking why Margo sounded so sleepy. Rejecting jet lag as an explanation, Kiki decided that Margo had met a man on the plane and fallen into his bed when she got to Philadelphia where she’d spent the night having the best sex of her life. As she always did when Kiki speculated on her life, Margo let her ramble. Then she left a message for Jeff.

On her own to get her presentation started, she went through her files again and made a few notes before noticing the time. Breakfast coffee had run into the lunch date she had with her mother and aunt.

Pushing through the door to Broad Street, she was greeted with both temperature and humidity already in the nineties, normal for Philly but rarely seen in Portland and never in June. Rose Festival, the city’s annual celebration of all things floral, often took place in weather referred to as “June-uary.” Any self-respecting Portland rosebush, not to mention the Rose Princesses’ hairdos, would wilt in Philly’s June weather.

The restaurant where she was meeting her mom was near City Hall, a building she’d always loved, elegantly presiding over the crossroads of Broad and Market Streets. With a statue of William Penn on top and the forty-five-foot Oldenburg clothespin across the street, it outshone Portland’s more modest civic headquarters and its nearby elk statue. On the other hand, she could have done without the din of the six lanes of traffic adjacent to her path. Her adopted hometown’s narrower, tree-lined streets were quieter and much more gracious.

Sometimes, though, she admitted as she strode toward her lunch date at a very un-Portland-like pace, she missed the more intense energy Philly generated. Portland’s low-key, polite atmosphere sometimes made her grit her teeth. Sometimes laid-back was just a little too … well, laid-back.

Back in her hotel by mid-afternoon, she wondered where the day had gone. All she had to show for it was a credit card receipt for lunch and a bottle of her favorite Scotch. The nap she planned and a long soak in the tub afterwards would, she hoped, clear her head before the reunion.

After an hour’s sleep, she filled the tub and turned on the jets. The bubbling was soothing and she relaxed into the warm water, her head back on a folded towel. She was on the edge of another little snooze when the phone rang — Jeff Wyatt returning her call. They discussed ideas for her speech for long enough that, when she hung up, she saw she had only a half hour before Tony arrived. She hurried to get dressed, to get the papers tidied up in the living room of the suite and to get ice cubes.

Seeing herself in a full-length mirror after donning her new dress, she wondered if what had seemed like a good idea in Portland looked a bit sluttier than she’d intended. Cobalt blue to set off her dark hair and dark blue eyes, the dress hugged her body like a second skin on the way to a hem that almost brushed her knees. One shoulder, both arms and a good part of her back were bared. All she could fit under it, other than herself, was a pair of black bikini panties.

She shrugged. Too late to back out now. It was either this, court clothes or casual pants. After slipping on the black, peep-toe
Manolo Blahniks, she tamed the layered waves of her hair with a brush, dabbed on makeup, made a pass at her lashes with a mascara wand, applied lipstick, sprayed on perfume, pushed an armload of silver hoop bracelets over her hand and called it good. She was putting on some dangly earrings when there was a light rapping at the door. She glanced at the clock. Five, exactly. Tony, as always, was right on time.

And, also as always, he looked gorgeous. In place of the denim of the night before, he wore cream-colored trousers and a black linen jacket, a white shirt open at the neck, and what she was sure were Italian loafers. His short, dark hair was brushed back from his face except for the cowlick where a part might be if he had one. A curl from the cowlick punctuated his hairline with the tail of a comma. She wasn’t sure if it was the curl or the spicy-sexy stuff he’d splashed on after he shaved, but something made her want to bury her hands in his hair and do things with his mouth she shouldn’t be thinking about.

Realizing she needed to say something, she got out, “Oh, hi.” She could feel herself begin to blush. “I mean, come on in.”

He was so busy staring at her, he didn’t seem to notice her stumbling over her words.

“Holy Mother of God, Margo.” His voice was so low and hoarse she thought he might have picked up a cold since she’d seen him. “‘Fairly outrageous’ hardly does it justice.”

“Too much, do you think?” she asked, smoothing the dress across her hips.

“Absolutely not. Not from where I’m standing.” The kiss he gave her was definitely not perfunctory and made her wonder if he could read minds. Even more uncomfortable now, she moved away and walked to the bar.