The Promise

Chapter Sixteen What a Miracle She Was

I grabbed my workout bag from the bench in the locker room of the company gym and hit the Go button on my phone.

I walked out of the locker room and then out of the gym, listening to it ring.

I got voicemail while I was waiting for the elevator.

“You got me. Now tell me why you want me,” my sister Cat’s voicemail greeting I knew all too well said in my ear.

When I got the beep, I spoke.

“I want you ’cause I’ve called you a gazillion times in the last month, and I called you seven gazillion times before that, and I have not heard from you, Cat. Things are happening with this family and Enzo told me he can’t get a hold of you either. Seein’ as somethin’ went down and Dad isn’t talking to me, and I’m not talkin’ to him, I don’t know if you’ve heard from him. There’s stuff you need to know, but you’re not returning my calls, so now I’m worried.” The elevator doors whooshed open and I finished with, “Call your big sister, Cat, please.”

I disconnected, got in the elevator, and hit the button, thinking my sister Cat took middle child syndrome to extremes.

Sure, she had a case for this, even if she brought it up every single time she got her feelings hurt, which was often. Her case being Dad had a favorite: Enzo. Ma also had a favorite: Nat. I was the oldest, so I was about responsibility, spending my time looking after my younger siblings, and not thinking about all the ways I could feel injured that Ma and Dad didn’t dote on me.

Then again, all our grandparents thought I was the shit, likely because they were good, loving people who had no idea where they went wrong with Enzo and Ninette and looked to me as salvation that they eventually had some small hand in creating something that went right.

This was not, of course, the way I felt my whole life. This was what occurred to me since being with Benny and him pointing out I was a Concetti by name, but I was Frankie because I was just me.

That said, my grandfather was the ultimate Concetti. He was awesome. He adored me and it sucked he moved all the way to Arizona (a choice that took him far away from my mother, who was not his favorite person) and that we’d lost Nana Concetti, because she was awesome too.

In the Concetti-offspring-having-it-together scale, Cat was right behind me. She worked for a construction company and had for a long time, meeting her husband, Art, there. Art had even managed to hold down the same job for more than a decade, a feat when it came to anyone involved with a Concetti.

Art was very hot and he was also very hotheaded. With Cat also being the last, this meant they fought like crazy. It didn’t help that they were both just shy of being not-so-healthy big drinkers. The booze came out, Cat and/or Art could get talkative and funny, or irritable and mean, and they took both to extremes. In the end, it actually wasn’t pleasant experiencing either one, because even if they were being talkative and funny, they didn’t shut up so you could get a word in edgewise and that always got annoying.

Cat, like every member of my family, was prone to drama, and it was not unheard of that she could get hurt and hold a silent grudge for ages.

But this was extreme.

And I did not lie on the phone—I was worried.

Both of Enzo Junior’s women had had his children, a boy and a girl, and although this usually was joyous news, it was not going well for my brother. From Enzo’s point of view, they’d both tried to trap him with their pregnancies, and honestly, it sounded like one of them did. The other one I’d met and liked and she’d adored Enzo. I felt for her at the time because she thought she was in it for the long haul, this being because Enzo gave her that impression.

So one was pissed she didn’t get what she wanted, ended up with a kid, and was intent on making him pay. The other one was bitter, and bitter was way worse.

Enzo was fucked.

Though, he’d texted pictures and the babies were adorable.

The elevator doors opened. I headed out and nearly stopped dead when I felt the vibe—a vibe that was buzzing in an unhappy way across the entire floor. I slowly walked into the space, seeing people in huddles, a few directors behind closed doors in an office, nearly all faces shocked.

Something was wrong.

I hit my assistant, Tandy’s desk. When I stopped there, she jumped and looked up at me.

“Frankie,” she greeted.

“What’s up?” I asked quietly.

“Paul Gartner was murdered.”

I stared at her, stunned, even though I had no clue who Paul Gartner was.

So I asked, “Paul Gartner?”

“Dr. Gartner. Scientist. Research and development. He was lead on Tenrix,” she told me.

Tenrix was a new product to treat high blood pressure we were gearing up to launch. Just the week before, Randy had chaired a team meeting, telling us all about it.

Randy had been excited in a way that, for a guy who was not often in a good mood and all other times was a dick, made the meeting weird.

It was weirder because it didn’t seem genuine. After ages of testing, the different phases of trials, the millions and millions of dollars sunk into that, all of which could be flushed down the toilet at any stage if a product didn’t work, excitement that something new, cutting edge, and reportedly very successful in combating high blood pressure didn’t need to be faked.

I had to admit, I didn’t get a good feeling about the meeting, but I hadn’t been at the company during any other product launch so I figured maybe that was always Randy’s way when he had to be in a good mood about something.

That said, all the other directors and managers at the team meeting were giving each other looks after it, which didn’t make me feel better. At the time, I put it down to the fact that, with the way people avoided him, the consensus of the team matched my opinion that Randy was a dick.

But the death of the man behind that new product after that weird prelaunch meeting didn’t sit real great with me.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know. The police are investigating. They came in and talked with Mr. Barrow and Mr. Berger. Mr. Berger kinda scares me, but he came out of the meeting with the police and did the rounds with the vice presidents and directors, looking like someone told him his dog just got run over.”

As he would.

This was not only because I suspected Travis Berger was a decent guy. It also was because, when he got to where he was right now on the company food chain, he’d gone all out, talking our president and CEO, Clancy Barrow, into aggressively headhunting and claiming the top biomedical scientists in the industry. Wyler had paid a fortune in signing bonuses, stock options, and salaries in order to ascertain products currently in testing and new products to be developed would be the best they could be.

One of those scientists biting it meant we’d lost a huge investment.

What also didn’t surprise me was that Berger went out and shared the news. I’d only seen Clancy Barrow in passing on a handful of occasions. He was not hands-on. He let Berger do day-to-day and pretty much everything else. Whereas Berger was visible, aggressive, driven, and hardworking, Barrow, surprisingly for someone in his position, was practically invisible, letting his executive vice president be the face of Wyler on a variety of fronts.

There was, of course, another way to look at this. That being, if something went wrong, it would be Berger who would likely take the fall, even if it wasn’t on him what went wrong.

“Do they know how it happened?” I asked Tandy.

She looked uncomfortable for a second before she said, “Details aren’t making the rounds, but I do know he was shot.”

She also knew I was shot and I remembered what I remembered every day about fifty times a day. This being that I liked Tandy. She was funny. She wore kickass clothes. She was a hard worker and totally on the ball. But also, she was sweet.

“That’s terrible,” I pointed out the obvious.

“Yeah. I didn’t know him, but still, it’s terrible,” she said, her eyes drifting across the office floor. They came back to me and she went on, “Anyway. The Tenrix stuff is on your desk. Chelsea brought the files around while you were working out.”

Something about this coincidence sent a chill sliding up my spine, but I nodded, murmured, “Thanks,” gave her a smile, and went to my office.

I had a million things to do, but after I dumped my workout bag, I reached right for the file on Tenrix. A lot of it I didn’t get because it was about chemistry and biology and we’d been told we’d have someone (though, not Dr. Gartner, obviously) explain it to us in detail.

What I focused on were the mock-ups of the glossy brochures and pamphlets that had Proof stamped on them in big red letters. I read them and, in doing so, read what Tenrix promised to do.

And from knowing Randy Bierman promised the same in the team meeting, weirdly, I didn’t believe a word.

My phone ringing took me out of the Tenrix file.

I stayed out of it, doing half a million of those million things I had to do, when close to five, my phone beeped.

I looked at it, picked it up, and smiled.

It was a text from Benny that said, Thinking about you, baby. Call me when you get home from work. I’ll take a break.

It had been just over a month since the scene with Dad.

Unfortunately, that month included a lot of me traveling.

Fortunately, one of my trips was to Chicago, a territory rich in prospects and a trip whose primary purpose was to bring my rep to heel. He might have had more pharmaceutical experience than me, but he was my only rep not only not exceeding his numbers, but not making them.

I’d extended that trip, working from Benny’s for three days and then having the weekend with him.

I liked this. I liked being at Benny’s and playing house, falling into a pattern that included him having nights off to be with me and him also working. I didn’t mind him working. I went to the pizzeria with friends and saw him, or I stayed at his house and vegged.

But it was more.

What we had was not normal. Any relationship was work, but being separated, that work was harder. I never liked leaving him or him leaving me, but each time it was getting harder.

When I was working at Benny’s, it felt normal. His house felt like home. Our schedule felt natural. Like the life and times of any average couple. I liked that. I wanted that.

The same could not be said for when Ben came to see me.

When Benny came to see me, it was definitely a visit. Not him coming home. Not natural. Not normal. Not anything but good to be with Benny.

I loved being with Benny any way I could be.

Still, I wanted more.

In order not to take advantage and make Manny or Vinnie work the kitchens on their busiest nights of the week, namely weekends, in the last month, Ben had attempted a two-day visit during the week.

This did not go great. Mostly because he showed in the morning when I was at work and all I could think about was coming home to him. While I worked, he putzed the days away at my place and hung with Cal, who was living in a house with his woman this close to having his baby, plus three females who were planning a wedding.

Ben was a reprieve for Cal.

For me, Ben was in Brownsburg and I was at work and I didn’t like that, the limited time we had, the fact that it felt like he barely got there and then he had to leave.

In other words, this wasn’t working for me.

The problem with that was, I didn’t need a résumé that said I jumped jobs every year. Possible employers needed to get the hint that they weren’t going to dump the money and time into a hiring and training process for someone who didn’t have staying power. So I felt I had at least another sixteen months with Wyler.

The other problem with that was, although Ben seemed just as disappointed to watch me leave or leave me, he hadn’t mentioned our future and what it might bring, or the fact we might need to plan to bring it to normalcy. That including being together more than a few days a month and then such impossible dreams as wedding, kids, and family.

I wasn’t exactly getting younger. In fact, my birthday was a few weeks away.

Ben wasn’t either.

I didn’t know how to bring it up. If Ben was good with what we had, after nearly fucking us up in the beginning, I wasn’t big on rocking that boat.

But this didn’t mean the fact that Ben hadn’t even mentioned it wasn’t beginning to worry me.

I did not include this in the text I sent back, which only read, Okay, honey, I’ll be leaving in a few.

I focused on getting as much of the last half a million things I needed to do done so I could get home and call my man, have a brief conversation with him that would leave me wanting more, and then eat alone, hang at my house alone, and go to bed.

Alone.

I was closing in on feeling I’d done what I needed to do when my phone rang and I saw the time on my computer said that it was after six. In other words, I’d lost track so it wasn’t the “few” I’d told Benny it would be.

He was probably worried and this was my thought when my eyes went to my cell.

My brows drew together when I saw the screen said, Keira Calling.

I grabbed the phone, took the call, and put it to my ear.

“Hey, honey.”

“Mom’s havin’ the baby!”

My heart thumped hard in my chest and I came right out of my seat.

“Right now?” I asked.

“Yeah!” she cried, then chanted. “Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod.”

“Where are you?”

“At home. Kate is, like, freaking! Joe called. They were out pickin’ up dinner and it just happened. He took her right to the hospital. We gotta get her bag. We gotta get gas ’cause Kate says she’s almost out. And we gotta call everybody.”

“Stop right there,” I interrupted. “Kate’s in a state and she’s drivin’ you?”

“We gotta get going!” she shrieked. “And I got, like, seven million calls to make.”

Hurriedly, I went about turning off my computer. “Do not leave that house, Keirry. I’m comin’ and I’ll take you both.”

“You got a two-seater,” she pointed out.

“We’ll take Vi’s Mustang.”

“Oh, right,” she muttered.

I kept closing down and grabbing shit as I said, “Listen to me. Are you listening to me?”

She sounded like she was hyperventilating when she said, “I’m listening.”

“Get the keys to your mom’s car. Make sure she has everything she needs for her and Angela in her bag. Grab some waters, some pops, and some snacks ’cause we probably got a wait ahead of us. Make your calls. Deep breathe. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I was rushing through the mostly deserted floor on my way to the elevator when Keira replied, “It’ll take you forever to get here.”

“It takes a while to have a baby, honey. Just try to keep calm. I’ll get there as fast as I can and we’ll get to your mom and Cal.”

“Okay, Frankie.”

“Mawdy’s bag doesn’t have nightgowns!” I heard Kate screech from a distance through Keira’s phone.

I tagged the elevator and smiled.

With Ben in Chicago, and Cal, Violet, and the girls the only friends I had close, I spent time with them. Dinners at their place, dinners at mine, dinners at Frank’s Restaurant in town. They were the only things keeping me sane, being so far from Benny and everything I knew.

Doing it, I’d gotten to know the Winters–Callahan family.

And now I knew that Kate, who was normally level-headed, lost it when her mom was about to give her another sister.

“Well, get her one!” Keira yelled back.

“Keirry, honey?” I called.

“Yeah, Frankie?” she asked.

“Deep breathe. Calm. It’s all gonna be great. It’s gonna be amazing. Something beautiful is happening. Yeah?”

I heard the rush of breath come with her “Yeah.”

“Be there soon,” I promised.

“Okay. See you soon, Frankie.”

“’Bye, honey.”

“’Bye, Frankie.”

I disconnected. The elevator opened. I dashed in, hit the button to the parking garage, and as the doors were closing, I didn’t fuck around with Recents. I just dialed Ben’s number right into the phone.

“Hey, baby,” he greeted.

“Vi’s delivering Angela right now,” I told him.

There was a hesitation before he asked, “Come again?”

“Vi…is…delivering…Angela right now!” I was near on shrieking myself when I finished.

“Jesus, that’s fuckin’ great,” Ben replied.

“Uh…yeah,” I agreed. “I’m off to pick up the girls. They were driving themselves, but they were freaked. I don’t want them behind the wheel.”

There was another hesitation, this one weighty, before he whispered, “My Frankie.”

“I don’t have time for you to be sweet right now, Ben. I only have time for you to tell me you’re coming down as soon as humanly possible.”

There was a smile in his voice when he said, “I’m comin’ down as soon as humanly possible.”

“Awesome,” I whispered as the doors opened.

“Be safe with you and those girls,” he ordered.

“I will.”

“Okay. Love you, baby.”

I stopped dead on my mad dash to my Z.

“’Bye,” he finished.

“Uh…’bye, Benny.”

He disconnected.

I stood there, frozen.

Love you, baby.

Oh my God.

Love you, baby.

Oh my God!

Ben told me he’d never loved a woman.

And now he’d just told me he loved me.

What I did next, I didn’t care that security probably saw me doing it on the monitors and would rightly think I was crazy.

Cal and Vi were having their baby.

And Benny Bianchi loved me.

I did a war whoop and a big feet-thrown-back cheerleader jump. In pumps. Holding my phone, my computer bag, my purse slung over my shoulder. Just like a woman in a commercial who successfully got through her stressful day as an executive and did it without getting underarm stains.

Fortunately, I landed firm on my feet.

Then I ran right to my Z.

***

I was sitting in the maternity waiting room of Hendricks Regional Health.

Next to me sat Kate, who was wired and fidgety.

Across from me sat a man who’d introduced himself as Pete Riley, Vi’s father. He’d arrived not very long ago from Chicago.

Standing and swaying a sleeping baby named Jack in her arms was Keira.

The baby belonged to two other people who were there. Kate introduced them as “Colt and Feb,” and I knew them because Vi talked about them as her neighbors, though I hadn’t met them (until then).

I also knew them, because a while ago, they were all over the news when a serial killer had gone on a killing spree in Feb’s name. Obviously, she did not want this or the attention it garnered after he’d killed a slew of people and committed suicide by cop. But still, shit happened in life and you got on with it.

In Feb’s case, she got on with it by finally marrying her hot guy and high school sweetheart, namely Colt, and giving him a baby.

There was also another woman there. Her name was Cheryl. She had a lot of blonde hair, showed a lot of skin, what skin she didn’t show she still hinted at since everything she was wearing was skintight, and she had a lot of attitude. I liked her immediately and wished there would be a time when I could introduce her to Nat (if I ever started speaking to her again) so she’d be inspiration to be what you were, not give a damn, but not be a skank doing it.

She had her son with her, Ethan, who had long since fallen asleep in a chair, his weight slanted sideways and resting on Colt, who had his arm around the kid.

Colt and Feb had brought an enormous bucket of KFC. Cheryl had brought “everything they had left” from Mimi’s, a kickass coffee shop on Main Street in Brownsburg that I’d discovered a couple of weeks before. This meant a plethora of cookies and brownies.

Thus, the snack stash Kate and Keira brought was unnecessary.

Calls had been made and a number of people would eventually descend. Before I got a chance, Keira had called Vinnie and Theresa. They’d also (weirdly, to my way of thinking) called Vi’s dead first husband’s parents, who, apparently, were tight with the new family, including Cal. Not to mention they’d called their grandfather, who wasted no time getting there, and a variety of other people, as evidenced by Colt, Feb, Jack, Cheryl, and Ethan being there.

So all was in order.

Except no word from delivery.

We did get an update, procured for us by Colt, who was a cop, since he arrived when we’d been there over an hour and hadn’t had one. He’d flashed his badge and we’d found out that Vi’s water had broken in Cal’s truck and things went fast. Fast, as in, upon arrival, she was nearly fully dilated. A hint that things would continue to go very swiftly.

But that was hours ago.

“Is this okay?” Kate asked quietly from beside me, and I saw Keira’s head whip around when Kate asked the question.

I reached out and took her hand. “Yes, honey.”

“It seems to be taking a long time,” she noted, her voice uncertain and shaky.

“That happens,” I told her.

“On TV, people can visit a woman in labor for, like…ages before she goes into delivery,” she informed me.

This was true and it happened not on TV as well.

I didn’t tell Kate that.

I said, “Like all babies are different, all births are different. Sometimes it takes time in delivery.”

“I don’t like it,” she whispered, and I squeezed her hand.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I told her, my eyes on Keira and suddenly, Feb moved, getting up quickly and going directly to Keira.

My head turned the other way when I felt movement there, and I knew why Feb went to claim her boy.

Cal, in scrubs, was coming our way.

He looked haggard and my heart skipped a beat, but he didn’t even get to a full stop before he announced in a gruff voice, “Vi’s good. Angie’s good. Everybody healthy.”

Kate shot out of her seat and, almost simultaneously with Keira, did their best to take Cal off his feet when they hit him full on. They did their best, but Cal was a big, powerful guy. He rocked but stood strong.

It was then I received one of those unexpected but precious gifts life could send your way, that being watching Cal wrap both girls in his long, strapping arms, drop his dark head, and kiss the hair on both of theirs, murmuring, “It took Angie a while to wanna join us, but now it’s all good, babies.”

I heard Kate’s choked sob, but Keira just burrowed closer into Cal.

I stood with everyone else and we approached—but didn’t get close, giving them their moment—stopping and huddling.

“You wanna see your mom and sister?” Cal asked the girls, his focus totally on them. No one else was in the universe (except, of course, Vi and his new daughter).

“Yeah,” Keira said unsteadily.

“Absolutely,” Kate said croakily.

Finally, his eyes came to the gathered crowd and he murmured, “Be back.”

He shifted the girls, turned them, and moved them in the direction from where he’d come.

I watched them go. Then I gave jubilant smiles to people I barely knew, who returned them just as jubilantly, and I went right to my purse.

I grabbed my phone and called Benny.

Only when I heard his deep, easy, sweet voice saying, “Give me good news, baby,” did I start crying.

But my tears were jubilant.

***

Benny parked in Frankie’s guest spot, shut down the Explorer, and jumped out, turning toward Frankie’s apartment only to see her hustling his way, hair big, makeup heavy but sweet, wearing a bright orange sundress that showed skin and cleavage. This was paired with some sexy, high-heeled sandals. She was carrying a huge basket covered in cellophane that had a massive pink bow and looked to be filled with a gigantic mound of baby clothes, all pink. She was holding it awkwardly to the side so she could see him.

“Please tell me you didn’t dress that way for work,” he remarked when she was ten feet away.

She gave him a look.

It was two days after Vi had Angela. Two days too long for Frankie, who had wanted him down immediately. But Vi had had Angie on a Tuesday, so he waited for Thursday when he could push it into a long weekend with his woman.

And anyway, his folks went down first and left Brownsburg to go back to Chicago this morning so they could help out at the restaurant while Ben was away. It was also so his pop could get Theresa away from Angela because, as reported direct to Benny from Cal, “You’d think the woman pushed her out herself, she’s hoggin’ her so much.”

This Ben read as Cal not getting enough time with his woman and girls, especially the new one.

Now it was near on six o’clock, Frankie was done with work that day, and Benny was there to stay.

For three days.

Which was not near long enough.

Still giving him a look, Frankie ordered, “Ass back in your truck. We’re goin’ directly to Cal and Vi’s.”

“No welcome to Brownsburg kiss?” he asked as she veered to the passenger side.

He in no way liked it when she didn’t turn her ass right around to give him what he wanted.

Instead, she opened the back door to his truck, dumped the basket, slammed the door, and climbed right in the front seat.

He angled in the driver’s seat and turned to her to tell her precisely how he felt about her non-greeting. The minute he did, she latched onto either side of his head, yanked him to her, and laid a hot, wet one on him.

She broke away but didn’t let go as she whispered, “Welcome to Brownsburg, Benny.”

He grinned at her and replied, “That’s the way I like it, Frankie.”

Something even more crazy-beautiful than the crazy-beautiful she always was lit in her eyes before she kept whispering, “She’s so beautiful, you would not believe.”

He knew what that crazy-beautiful was and he wondered, when she gave him their babies, how much more crazy-beautiful it would be.

“Then let me go, baby, so I can meet her,” he whispered back.

She grinned and let him go.

Ben turned to the wheel, started her up, and put her in gear.

He was backing out when she declared, “By the way, that gift’s from you and me.”

“Good, seein’ as I’m never shoppin’ for a girl baby. When they have their boy, I’ll kick in. Though, sayin’ that, I’m not kickin’ in in a way I’ll go shoppin’. I’m kickin’ in in a way where you call me and get my approval before you buy anything.”

To that, he got silence and this silence lasted until he was at the gate to her complex.

So he called, “Frankie?”

Her voice was soft when she said, “That’s a deal.”

He’d stopped to make the turn on the main road so he turned his head and looked at her.

Her gaze was directed to the side, but he saw that smile on her face. He liked all her smiles, but that was the one he liked the best. It was the one that said she had a secret.

And it was a good one.

But Frankie didn’t have any secrets, except the ones buried deep inside, planted by the whackjobs who were her family.

“What you thinkin’, cara?” he asked and she looked to him.

“I’m just glad you’re here, Benny.”

That wasn’t it, but he’d give her that play. He had a cousin to meet and he was hungry. But also, he knew she’d give it to him when she was ready.

So he just gave her a smile, checked the street, and made the turn when it was safe.

He parked in Cal and Vi’s drive, got out, and made his way around to grab the basket. He held it in one arm, Frankie’s hand in the other, and they headed to the front door.

Frankie knocked, but she barely quit doing it before the door was open and Cal stood there, his arm lifted. In it was cradled a little bundle with a tiny, light green cap on her head, her baby body wrapped up tight in a soft, pink blanket.

For a second, Benny couldn’t move. This was because this wasn’t the first time he’d seen his cousin holding a baby just like that. The last time was nearly two decades ago with Cal’s little Nicky, a beautiful baby boy that Ben was pretty certain Cal had convinced himself the world revolved around. A beautiful baby boy that Cal’s junkie ex-wife let drown in the bathtub.

His eyes went from Angela to Cal and he whispered, “Cugino.”

Cal grinned a grin Ben had never seen before from him. He’d seen it though. It was the kind of grin his father aimed at his mother. The kind of grin he was starting to see from Manny.

It was the grin of a man content in the knowledge he had everything.

“Get your asses in here,” Cal offered as an invitation and stepped out of the door.

Ben pulled Frankie in and was accosted directly by Keira, then Kate. Keira took the basket from him after hugging Frankie. Kate went in for hug from Francesca and Ben moved to Vi, who was lying on the couch.

“I’d get up, but I’ve had kind of a long day,” Vi explained, lifting her arms to curl them around his shoulders as he bent into her to brush his lips against her cheek and round her with his arms for a quick, light squeeze. “Theresa and Vinnie left and Joe practically threw Dad out. I had to intervene.” Her voice lowered. “Joe doesn’t know, but Dad’s at a hotel by the highway, giving us some space.”

“You don’t have to get up for me and I won’t say a word,” he said in her ear and straightened, feeling her arms slip away while letting her go, all this smiling down at her as she beamed up at him.

And there was the look of a woman who had it all, lost most of it, and found herself again having everything.

He then turned to Cal. “I wanna meet my cousin.”

Cal came to him and stopped two feet away. He looked down at this daughter and said, “Angie, Benny.” He looked to Ben and finished, “Ben, my baby girl, Angie.”

Benny waited and started chuckling when his cousin just stood there and didn’t offer up the baby.

“You gonna let me hold her?” he asked through his laughter.

“You know how to hold a baby?” Cal asked back.

“Uh, yeah. Carm’s had three, and at one time, they were all babies.”

Cal hesitated. Ben stopped chuckling and started laughing, hearing himself joined by four women.

Kate pushed in, got close, and took control, gently taking hold of Angie and turning with her toward Benny.

“That’s my baby, baby sister,” she declared, handing Angie to Benny.

Ben wrapped both arms around her, cradling her against his chest. Her mouth was puckered and her eyes lazily opened, then closed and stayed that way when Ben settled her close.

Staring down at her, he saw Frankie was right. She was so beautiful, he couldn’t believe.

“I’ll get you a beer, Benny,” Keira called, then asked, “Frankie, do you want Joe to open you some wine?”

“That’d be great, honey.” He heard Frankie reply as he moved to an armchair and sat down.

“Joe, that’d be your cue to get Frankie some wine,” Keira prompted, and Ben looked up to see Cal scowling down at him, legs planted, arms crossed on his chest.

“She’s safe with me, cugino,” he assured his cousin, fighting back a smile.

“He’s that way with everybody,” Kate said, going to sit at her mother’s feet and promptly picking them up and putting them in her lap. “I thought he’d belt Granddad a good one when he hogged Angie.”

Ben could believe this. Not because Cal was insanely protective of his brand-new daughter. Because Cal had been insanely protective of his son, he was a man who took protecting his loved ones seriously, and he’d lost Nicky when he wasn’t around to keep him safe.

Ben figured anyone around Angie was going to have to deal until Cal worked that out.

“Joe, I could open a bottle of wine,” Keira offered.

Cal’s body jerked and he turned her way. “I got it, Keirry.”

Ben looked from his cousin to Vi and said quietly, “You did a good job, honey.”

She grinned proudly, her eyes dipping to her daughter in Ben’s arms before she looked back at Benny and stated, “I know.”

Ben looked meaningfully at his cousin in the kitchen with Vi’s daughter and back to Vi before he repeated, “You did a good job, honey.”

Her face got soft and her grin went sweet and she, too, repeated, “I know.”

Ben smiled back before he sat back and turned his attention to the baby he held in his arms.

He felt Frankie sit on the arm of his chair and he didn’t have to bother looking up because she bent over. He smelled her hair, her perfume, and felt the side of her tit press against his arm as she got close and peered at Angela.

Her head turned and her eyes caught his. “What’d I say?” she asked quietly, eyes so warm, he could feel their tenderness on his skin.

“So beautiful, I don’t believe,” he answered.

She smiled.

Then she bent deeper and kissed Angie’s little hat. She moved and kissed Benny’s jaw. After that, she sat up, turned to Vi, and asked, “What’s for dinner and can I help?”

“Shanghai Salon,” Vi answered. “We’re bein’ lazy.”

“Perfect,” Frankie replied.

“I’ll get the menu!” Kate cried as she slid out from her mother’s feet and dashed to the kitchen.

This was when Keira came in, holding a glass of wine she gave to Frankie and a bottle of beer she set on a coaster on a table beside Ben.

And this was when Cal moved to his woman and didn’t sit at her feet. Like she was crystal, he lifted her in his arms, turned, sat, and adjusted her so she was ass and legs to the seat, the weight of her upper body resting against Cal’s chest, his arm around her ribs.

Vi’s head fell naturally so the top was tucked in Cal’s neck and her eyes fell on Ben with her daughter.

Taking in Cal with Vi, holding the love he saw on that couch in his arms, Ben looked back down at Angela, wondering if she’d ever know in the miracle that was her, what a miracle she was.

He wondered it.

But he hoped not.

***

Ben felt every muscle in his body turn to stone.

Somehow, though, he managed to get his mouth to move in order to say, low and slow, “What?”

Frankie was next to him in her kitchen. It was Saturday morning and they just got back from the bakery, a place called Hilligoss. A place Vi shared had the best donuts perhaps anywhere in the world. A place Frankie took Benny frequently when he came down to see her.

He’d had some good donuts, but Vi was right. Hilligoss was worth considering opening a second Vinnie and Benny’s Pizzeria right next door.

Now, Frankie was opening a white box that contained a dozen donuts they would hoover through in the next two days, wishing they had more.

She was also talking.

“I know. Crazy. Murder. Killed in his own house. Shot right in the head.”

Ben did not have a good feeling about this, mostly because he never had a good feeling about murder.

He also didn’t have a good feeling about this because Frankie just told him an employee at her company had been murdered, and Frankie was a magnet for drama. It wasn’t her that did anything, unless she was crazily following some goons who’d kidnapped three people a state away.

That didn’t mean she didn’t attract more than her fair share just by breathing.

People went their whole lives without, say, their boyfriends getting whacked. Or themselves getting shot. Or working at a place where someone took a bullet to the brain.

Frankie had all three.

And then some.

“The thing is,” Frankie went on, “I’ve got a weird feeling.”

This did not make him feel any better.

“A weird feelin’ about what?” he asked as she plucked a powdered sugar, chocolate-cream-filled donut out of the box and turned to him.

“Dr. Gartner getting murdered.”

“Babe, he was murdered. That’d give anyone a weird feeling.”

She took a bite, chewed, and swallowed, and he reached for a glazed as she continued.

“He was lead on a big product we’re launching. It doesn’t go live for a while. They’re designing packaging, brochures, leaflets. Organizing presales talk ups through the reps. Shit like that. But his boss, the big cheese of research and development, gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

And Ben again did not feel better.

“How does he give you the heebie-jeebies?” he asked, taking his own bite.

She moved to the coffeepot and started filling the cups they’d left there when they went to get donuts, doing this one-handed, the other hand holding her donut in the air, saying, “He’s a dick.”

Ben’s body got tight again.

“A dick, how?”

She looked to him. “How’s a dick a dick? He’s just a dick.”

“He a dick to you?”

“Not directly. He just spreads his dick-ness wide.”

“And so he’s a dick…” Benny trailed off on a prompt.

“I don’t know,” she said, grabbing a mug and bringing it across to him where he stood at the bar that delineated the kitchen from the dining area. She set it on the counter by him and went back to get her own. “The whole thing just gives me a weird feeling. He’s all over this product, as he would be. Pharmaceutical companies dump a shitload into development, so they like the happy place of rolling it out and finally making money on it. I just get…” She shook her head, lifted her cup, took a sip, dropped it, and caught his eyes. “A weird feeling.”

“You have anything to do with development and this dick guy?”

“Not really.”

“Don’t have anything to do with development or this dick guy,” Ben ordered.

Her eyes narrowed and she stated, “I have to work with him, Ben.”

“Right. I get that. But stay away from this. Stay away from talk about this man who was murdered. Put your head down. Do your job. Let whatever happened blow over.”

Her eyes stayed narrowed as she replied, “I kinda was intending to do that already.”

“Take the ‘kinda’ outta that and we’re good.”

“Benny!” she snapped.

“Baby, you and murder and dicks…not a good combination. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. Let it play out not havin’ anything to do with you.”

“It can’t have anything to do with me, Ben. There’re rumors it was a professional hit. Obviously, the guy got into someone for money or pissed someone off he shouldn’t have. I mean, it’s shocking but shit happens. It has nothing to do with me.”

“Keep it that way.”

At that, her brows shot up. “I’m hardly gonna start my own amateur investigation.”

“Good news.”

“Benny!” she snapped, louder this time.

“Cara, this guy got murdered and he worked for your company. My brother was murdered. My woman was shot. You live in Brownsburg. I live in Chicago. Not easy for me to keep an eye on you the way a man should keep an eye on his woman, and I don’t like that normally. When professional hits are carried out on your coworkers, I really don’t like that. Cut me some slack here, yeah?”

She glared at him as she announced, “And this is yet another time you’ve made protectiveness annoying.”

He grinned, lunged, caught her around the back of her neck, and pulled her to him so she slammed into his body.

Luckily, she’d put down her mug.

Also luckily, she tipped her head back to say something smart so he had his target and he aimed.

His tongue sweep encountered donut, coffee, and Frankie. Getting that, even though he’d fucked her before donuts and coffee, he wanted her again.

On her knees.

First, fucking her face.

After that, taking her pussy.

So he ordered, “Finish your donut. In the mood to fuck you again.”

Her eyes widened, her body melted into his, but her mouth said, “So annoying.”

“We could spend the day at the pool,” he suggested.

“Annoying.”

He grinned. “You want me to fuck you.”

She glared and snapped, “Annoying!”

His hand tightened on the back of her neck and he dipped his face close to hers. “You want it.”

“Benny, you’re making it impossible to eat my donut,” she shared.

He put his mouth to hers and whispered, “Finish it quick, baby. I want you to drop right here and take my cock in your mouth.”

Again, her eyes got wide right before her lids went hooded.

Since he talked her through it, there was nothing in bed that fazed his Frankie. She was up for anything with no hang-ups.

Now, all attitude gone, sweet wonder was in its place when she asked, “Are you hard?”

“Oh yeah.”

She slid a hand over his hip and he touched his tongue to her lower lip when she felt for herself.

“I can eat my donut later,” she stated and proved this true, putting it on the counter.

Ben could eat his later too and knew he’d be doing that when Frankie dropped right down to her knees in front of him, opened his fly, pulled him free, didn’t hesitate a second, and took him deep.

Ben’s head fell back at the brilliant feel of the sweet pull when she slid him out and the sweeter glide when she took him back in.

He looked down and watched her work and that didn’t last very long before he slid his fingers into either side of her hair, pulling it back, and then taking over.

She held on to his hips as he watched and fucked her face. He did it slow at first, but after he got her first moan vibrating against his cock, he went faster. Finally, he watched her body start moving with his rhythm, coming up and down on her knees like she was riding him with her pussy with each stroke, and he knew she was liking this near as much as he was when he saw her hand move toward her panties.

That was when he pulled out, reached down, yanked her up, and pushed her against the kitchen counter, facing it.

“Baby,” she breathed.

He yanked up the skirt of her dress and tore her panties down to her thighs. She spread her legs and tipped her ass.

Fuck, Frankie. Ready. Wanting it. Probably so wet she was drenched.

He drove in.

Totally soaked.

Fuck.

Frankie.

He kept thrusting into her wet, tight pussy, bending over her to put a hand on the counter and press his chest into her back, face in her neck, smelling and feeling her hair, fucking her cunt, hearing her gasp and whimper, everything that was his world centered on his woman.

She tipped high and pressed up into his chest, her hips into his, moaning, “Benny.”

He slid a hand over her belly, down, and found her clit.

“Benny,” she gasped, her body jerking, one hand moving to cover his on the counter and curl over the top of it.

He bent his knees and powered deep.

Her neck twisted and her back arched as her cunt tightened around his cock and she cried out when she came.

He took his finger from her clit, wrapped his arm around her belly, held her steady, and drove in deeper.

She whimpered through it, clutching him tight with her pussy until she took him there. He shoved his face deeper into her neck and exploded on a grunt against her skin.

He kept taking her, gliding his hand back down her belly and in, cupping her, feeling his cock slide in and out slowly, how wet she was, how deep she was breathing. Fuck, he couldn’t even see her face and everything he had from her was crazy-beautiful.

She slid a hand down his forearm, his wrist, then covered his hand between her legs, holding there lightly but shifting her index finger so she could run it along his cock as he pulled it out and glided it back in.

He buried his face deeper into her neck.

Finally, he twisted his hand, taking hers from between her legs, and slid out. He straightened, put his hands to her hips, and turned her to face him. He pulled up her panties and pulled down the stretchy skirt to her sexy-as-fuck, threw-it-on-like-it-was-nothing, straight-from-the-pages-of-a-magazine tight black dress.

He righted himself while brushing his lips against hers, her hands curling into the waistband of his jeans as he did.

Finally, he lifted his head and said, “You can finish your donut now.”

Her eyes were still hooded and sated from her climax.

But still, pure Frankie, she whispered, “Annoying.”

***

“Don’t court that either, Frankie.”

Lying on top of him on her couch, she lifted her head from his chest and looked down at him.

They had been winding down after dinner, about to watch a movie, discussing which one to watch as Benny shuffled through Netflix, and somehow they got to the fact that Frankie had not heard from Cat since before the shooting.

“Ben, she can disappear, but she’s never disappeared. I’m worried.”

“Francesca, the last time I saw Cat and Art was at Vinnie’s wake. Before that, every time I saw them, they were half a step away from bein’ functional alcoholics. They were hammered at Vinnie’s wake, and watchin’ them, I figured they took that half a step but took out the functional part. They tried to leave with Art havin’ the keys to the car. Pop intervened. Art lost his mind and Manny and I had to step in, get ’em into a taxi.”

Her eyes had grown wide while he talked, and when he was done, she asked, “Really?”

“Yeah,” he answered.

“How’d I miss that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was because your man had a hit carried out on him. He was dead at thirty-two. You were understandably beside yourself, grieving. And your sister, who should have been at your side holdin’ your hand, was downing vodka tonics like they were gonna outlaw vodka the next day.”

“Oh, yeah,” she whispered. “That’s probably how I missed it.”

He shook his head and muttered, “Unbelievable.”

“What?” she asked.

“You nearly imploded us, thinkin’ you were gonna bail on me, and you hold tight to anything you got, no matter that it’s not good for you.”

“She’s my sister, Benny, and Dad’s havin’ a baby any day now. Enzo’s already had two. Enzo says she’s not answering his calls either. And Nat says she hasn’t heard from her in longer than I haven’t heard from her.”

He felt his brows snap together. “You’re talkin’ to Nat?”

Her head tipped to the side. “Not exactly. I’m keepin’ tabs on her through Enzo.”

“Thought she was dead to you,” Ben noted.

Frankie bit her lip for a moment before she said, “She’s dead to me, but she isn’t actually dead.”

Jesus.

Frankie.

“Leave it at that,” he ordered.

“I can’t,” she returned, her voice rising.

He tightened his arms around her and pulled her up his chest so they were face-to-face.

“I get it,” he said quietly. “You didn’t have a lot to hold on to growin’ up. It would stand to reason you not growin’ up with anything solid, that you’d hold on to anything you can get. But you gotta learn when to cut shit that is not healthy for you loose.”

Her face softened and her tone lightened as she slid a hand up to curl it around his jaw and said, “Ben, I’m seein’ things clearer now, but I am who I am. And I need you to see that’s how I am. I also need you to see that how I am is okay now. It’s better. Because now I do have something solid, so when the unhealthy part comes, I can deal.”

She dug her fingers in on her emphasized “do,” but Benny felt her words in his gut in a way he liked.

So he let it go.

Mostly.

“So, let me guess, you’ve talked to Chrissy,” he noted.

“Yes,” she admitted.

“How many times?”

Her eyes got squinty. “Twelve thousand seventy-three.”

He fought a grin, gave her a squeeze, and repeated, “How many times?”

Her eyes slid to the side before coming back to his. “Seven.”

“She doin’ okay?” he asked.

“Things are not great with Dad because she’s a little freaked he wasn’t there for me and she’s giving him another daughter, so it would stand to reason he won’t be there for my baby sister. But pregnancy-wise, she’s good.”

“Holdin’ on to anything you can in a way that you even grab on to new shit that’s gonna do your head in.”

She rolled her eyes and muttered, “Whatever.”

When they rolled back, he held her gaze and made his point even clearer when he asked, “How’s Sal?”

She pressed her lips together.

“He still in touch?” Ben pushed.

She unpressed her lips to answer, “Actually, he phoned a while back, but it was the day Dad came calling, so I got lost in that and my newfound ability to give amazing blowjobs, so I forgot to mention it to you.”

Ben felt his body shake under hers at her comment about blowjobs, but it didn’t deter him from their conversation.

“And?” he prompted.

“And, well…the last time I was up there, I called so I could chat with Gina, maybe set up lunch with her. Gina answered, but she answered from Tuscany. They were in Italy on vacation.”

Ben did not like that.

“You hidin’ that shit from me?”

“No,” she returned immediately. “It was just that she wasn’t around for me to have lunch with, so since there was nothing to get into it with you about, I decided to avoid the hassle. If she’d have been around, I would have told you.”

If he was her, he’d also take that play so he relaxed.

“We’re eventually gonna have to have that conversation,” he noted.

Her eyes again slid to the side as she murmured, “We’re eventually gonna have to have a lot of conversations.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

Her eyes took their time coming back and he didn’t think she was giving it all to him when she declared, “My birthday is in three weeks.”

“Yeah, and you need to have your ass at my house when it comes.”

Her eyes got big again and she asked, “Really?”

“Meant to tell you, you gotta come up. Not me comin’ down. So do what you gotta do at work to make that happen.”

Her gaze grew alert and her head tipped to the side. “Why?”

“Benny and Frankie livin’ together in relative harmony, it comes to birthdays, Valentine’s day, anniversaries, and Christmas, you don’t ask questions.”

Her body relaxed into his and a smile lit her eyes before she said softly, “I can do that.”

“Benny and Frankie livin’ together in relative harmony, it comes to those days, we’re together. No work. No nothing. No excuses. You gotta travel for work, you plan trips around those days. And for that part, I’ll add Easter, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July.”

Her lips curved up as she stated, “I’ve finally stumbled on a time when I don’t mind you bein’ bossy.”

He grinned through his, “Shut up, Frankie.”

She dropped her head to touch her mouth to his and pulled back, declaring on a complete lie, “I’m back to a time when I mind you bein’ bossy.”

He grinned again and asked, “What we gonna watch?’

“You pick,” she offered.

“I pick, you can’t bitch.”

Her brows shot up. “What’s the point of givin’ up my pick if I can’t bitch about yours?’

Ben looked to the ceiling and sighed.

“All right, I won’t bitch,” she gave in and he looked back to her. “You want popcorn?”

“Yeah.”

“You queue up the movie, I’ll make the corn.”

“Deal.”

She smiled down at him, then dropped her head again but went low, touching her lips to his throat. Then she pushed up with her hands in the couch and angled off him.

After watching her ass in her tight skirt moving to the kitchen, he turned his attention to the TV, thinking that that conversation didn’t go too great. She didn’t back down from keeping people who treated her like shit in her life and maneuvered him so he’d let her.

At least he got her to agree to important holidays spent together.

It was something.

And with Frankie, he’d take it.

Then again, with Frankie, he’d take anything.

***

“I hate this,” Frankie whispered into his chest.

“Yeah, baby,” Benny whispered into the top of her hair.

He felt her draw in a deep breath and let it go. After that, she tipped her head back to look at him.

“You’ll call me when you get home?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, Benny.”

She lifted up in her heels and pressed her mouth to his.

He slanted his head, took it, and took his time doing it. He memorized her taste, the smell of her, the feel of her in his arms. Only when he had it etched deep so it could keep him going for weeks of being away from her did he let her go.

She gave him a squeeze, a smile she didn’t mean, and pulled out of his arms.

She bent and got her computer bag from the sidewalk where she’d dropped it, and Ben stood in front of her house and watched her walk to her Z.

She waved before she got in.

She waved as she reversed out.

And she waved as she drove away.

Ben watched her, doing it the whole time smiling.

And he watched until her car disappeared.

He moved only to walk down the sidewalk to look around her unit, then he stood there, eyes on the straight Indiana street that led to corn country one way and right into the heart of a city the other.

He did this no longer smiling.

And he thought this shit had to end—Frankie leaving him or him leaving Frankie. He was done with it three months ago.

But he knew it couldn’t end. She was good at what she did, she liked her job, and he loved her. He couldn’t fuck that for her.

So he had to be patient and wait for her to get to the time when she felt she could come to him and end this long-distance thing.

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

And he didn’t.