“I made stuffed flank roll.”
That was special company food. “Which old boyfriend did you invite this time?” Since Christmas, enduring her mother’s fix-ups had become a Jersey City survival show. She didn’t want to spend another dinner next to some guido with gelled hair who smelled like the last decade’s leftover body spray.
“Nobody. Family.” Her shrug was utterly unconvincing.
Theresa tipped her head and shoulders almost to the far side of the bed, but she couldn’t escape the brush of the woman who thought nothing stood between her daughter and a wedding Mass except a bad hair day. “I take it your expected guest doesn’t wear a ring?”
“How did I raise such a cynical daughter?”
The bristles caught a tangle. “Ouch, Mom!”
That caused a frown, but not a cease-fire. “You have to put your best foot forward.”
“Not much choice there.”
Her mother shook the brush. “You know what I meant.”
“Give me that already.” She reached up and finished her hair herself.
“Why don’t you try on that new sweater I bought last week? The pink angora one.” She opened drawers. “And some earrings and lipstick so you feel festive.”
“I’ll feel itchy.” At her mother’s next tag sale, she’d probably list one daughter, as is, price: full carat or best offer. “Please say you didn’t invite one of your bunko partners’ sons.”
“You are so suspicious.” Her mother didn’t turn around. “Nobody’s coming to dinner.”
The doorbell rang.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As Wulf waited on the porch for someone—Carl, Jeanne, Theresa, a chihuahua—to answer the bell, he knew that Ivar’s guards were filming his arrival. He hoped his brother was watching the video link as he balanced a pink pastry box and two motorcycle helmets. Anything that connected Ivar with the world beyond his dark, dead-bolted town house was a plus.
“Wulf! My boy, welcome, welcome.”
Without crushing the cake box, he fielded Carl’s massive hug. At least one member of Theresa’s family was rooting for him. Apparently a New Jersey real estate company owned by Beo Holdings had tipped Carl a generous recycling contract.
“Let me take these for you.” The helmets dangled from Carl’s meaty fingers as he led Wulf into the foyer. “I haven’t told Jeanne or Theresa who was coming tonight.”
When Wulf saw Theresa’s mother bustling down the stairs, he prepared to drop the pastry box if necessary to catch her, but her spiky heels didn’t snag the thick carpet and she arrived without tripping. Her zip-tie grip hauled him into the wedding-cake-white living room. “Don’t I recognize you?”
“The hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, ma’am.” He stood very still, suspecting that if his boots smudged the carpet, he’d be ejected. “But I’m out of the army now. Plain Wulf Wilson these days.” His new surname didn’t feel natural yet, and he hoped they wouldn’t recall his old one.
“After that, where did you go?” Based on the way her tight cheeks pretended to smile, she was considering tossing him out. Perhaps he should offer to vacuum.
“Jeanne,” Carl warned, “that’s his business.”
Her lips thinned to a single line, as sharp as concertina wire.
“I brought this, ma’am, hoping to share better circumstances at this meeting.” He garbled his planned speech, but the cake box seemed to have survived the trip strapped to the rear of his bike. He tried to present the gift, but Jeanne didn’t drop his arm. “May I set this—”
“You!” Theresa’s voice sounded exactly like it had at Caddie when she went toe-to-toe with him. Maybe when he turned around everything would be the same. Please.
He turned.
She stood in the doorway, wearing a pink sweater that begged to be stroked. Some dark strands of her hair caught in the nubby fabric across her shoulders, and others crackled loosely around her face. Her eyes wanted to incinerate him in the middle of her mother’s living room, but she was on her feet, hands on her hips, and damn if she didn’t lick her lips.
He took a step, ready to sweep her against his chest and seize the greeting he’d dreamed of, the welcome he needed after everything he’d seen and done in Morocco, but Jeanne tightened her grip and muttered, “She’s very angry.”
“We should go.” Carl yanked on Jeanne’s other arm.
They made a human chain, Carl pulling Jeanne, who held Wulf, as if they could prevent him scooping his woman in his arms. He’d missed her for seven months. Seven months without touching her warmth or seeing her smile, and now she was this close.
“Let’s go to the kitchen, Jeanne.” Carl tugged again.
“But—”
“Strolling in here like nothing happened!” The sparks shooting from Theresa’s eyes weren’t the welcome he’d imagined, but they were totally part of the woman he wanted.
“I smell food burning in the kitchen.” Carl dragged his wife through the other doors.
Theresa crossed the room as if unaware that she was moving, as if they were magnets, north and south, drawn toward each other. If he hadn’t relived the moment when she’d stormed away from him and climbed into that SUV every day for seven months, he might not have seen the difference, but her gait carried less authority, less confidence. His mistakes had stolen her stomp.
“Then you waltz in after six—or is it seven? I forget—months.” Gold hoops emphasized her soft earlobes as she grabbed a motorcycle helmet from the chair where Carl had dumped them. The red helmet, the pink sweater—she infused this white room with colorful, buzzing life.
He saw the windup start and held the cake box above harm’s way.
“Not a call.” The helmet glanced off his ribs and thankfully didn’t rebound into her chin.
He remembered her lethal kicks at Montebelli, but really, she had the worst girl arm. “Guessing you didn’t play as much softball as soccer.” Skīta, that was a mistake.
She yanked the bakery box from his hands. “Not a word.” The best chocolate-blackout cake in Manhattan, a bid to win her mother’s approval, was about to become part of this fiasco. “Not even a fricking postcard.”
“Theresa, I’m sorry.” He’d anticipated groveling, but he had no idea how to defuse this level of anger. “Please—”
“Don’t take that fake soothing tone with me.” Five layers of chocolate came out of the box at an angle that resembled the last moments of the Titanic.
“Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He balanced on the balls of his feet, hands out, ready to dive to catch the cake. “Please, please—” he’d be trounced before he began if that chocolate-custard-frosted missile launched, “—think of your mother’s carpet.”
She looked at the cake as if weighing the consequences of gooey chocolate, white wool pile and Jeanne. The calculations must have clicked because she carefully set the cardboard circle and its listing cargo on the glass-topped table.
“Thank you.” He told his body to stand down, relax, because he still had a chance. Perhaps no greater than Lord Cardigan’s Light Brigade, but he’d worked with less.
Then she hefted a cut crystal vase from a table and tossed its white silk lilies next to a bowl of decorative seashells.
Oh no. “That’s probably your mother’s—”
“If she knew you like I know you—” she gripped the vase with both hands and lifted it over her shoulder as if preparing to chop wood, “—she’d totally approve.” The weight pulled her shoulders past her spine until she teetered. “Underneath the mascara, she’s that kind of lady.”
“She seems very gracious.” He reached forward, ready to haul her into his arms if she tipped further. “I’m sure she doesn’t condone violence.” Actually, he suspected Jeanne would spike his balls with her pointy heels if he hurt Theresa, but he knew enough not to say that to her daughter. Theresa didn’t need suggestions.