4.

LUCA

"Give me some space," I ordered as I walked across the wide expanse of the empty dance floor.

Paul and Vinnie stopped to sit at a table that was between me and the door, the two of them positioned in such a way that they could see all angles of the bar. I didn't travel with them often, so they were more vigilant than most of the men I kept close. I appreciated that, but it wouldn't really help my cause today, and I didn't want to have to answer questions about them.

I'd get asked about them anyway, though. I could tell by the look on Tabitha's face when she saw the men veer off toward the table while I walked ahead. She took a few seconds to study them and their obvious alertness as they studied the bar, found the exits, and assessed what few patrons were already inside.

When her eyes came back to me, she had a questioning look on her face that wasn't disarmed by the charming smile I flashed.

Yeah. Today wasn't going to go the way I had planned.

"Good afternoon," I said as I sat down on the stool in front of Tabby. "How are you?"

"You came back."

"I told you I would. Why are you surprised?"

"Why did you come back?"

"To see you."

"You have different friends today."

"I have a lot of friends," I said with a shrug. "Is that bad?"

"Are they actually your friends?"

"Obviously, we arrived together, so . . ."

"Do you want a drink?"

"Yes, please. I'll take a Greyhound."

Tabby's face lit up, and she asked, "Can I see your ID, please?"

"But you served me the other . . ."

Tabby's shrug interrupted me, so I pulled my wallet out and handed her my ID.

"Luca Robono. I thought you introduced yourself as Lucas. Hmm," Tabby hummed as she studied the card in her hand. She tapped the card on the bar as she looked up and assessed me. "Who are you?"

"You tell me. You're holding a little piece of plastic that gives you everything including my blood type."

"You're not just a regular guy," Tabby mused as she looked past me to the table where Paul and Vince were sitting.

"What makes you say that? Why does it matter who I came with?"

"I'm assessing your threat level."

"I'd never threaten you."

She gave me a pointed look and said, "Not just to me, but to the general public."

"Do I look dangerous?" I asked. I pulled on the shirt I was wearing and said, "I'll have to tell my little sister that the shirt she gave me for Christmas makes me look like something I'm not."

"Your little sister gave you that shirt?"

"She did."

"I like it."

"Obviously, so do I," I said as Tabby handed my ID back.

"Do you have any other sisters?"

"No, just the one. Do you have siblings?"

"Not anymore. So, is it just the two of you, or are there brothers in the mix?"

"Three."

"Are you the oldest?"

"No, and believe me, he never lets me forget it." I realized I'd never gotten the information from Zach and just how little I knew about the woman, so I asked, "What about you?"

"I come from a really big family, but they're far away, so they don't count anymore."

That was a bit of a strange comment, but I could tell from the look in her eye she wouldn't appreciate any more questions about it, so I asked, "You're all alone in the big city?"

"I've got friends who are more like family than the one I grew up with," Tabby said vaguely as she slid my drink across the bar. "Why aren't your friends sitting here with you?"

It wasn't the whole truth, but a portion of it, when I said, "I don't want them vying for your attention. You might think one of them is more interesting than I am."

"Can they spout random trivia facts like a gameshow host?"

"I don't think so."

"If they were really your friends, you'd know."

"My skill, if you want to call it that, is a little bit unique."

"Tell me something . . . um . . . something random."

The can light above the bar glinted off the silver charm on her necklace and I said, "You're wearing a love knot."

Tabby's hand came up and touched the charm before she said, "That's an easy one."

"Most people call that a love knot or Celtic knot, but it's also known as the marriage knot or Hercules knot because it was considered a protective amulet in Greece and Rome. It's not just Celtic history because they've found hieroglyphics of that image in the Egyptian pyramids."

"How do you know stuff like that?"

I shrugged. To me, the knowledge I possessed was used as no more than a parlor trick, but it amazed almost everyone who found out about it. "I read a lot."

"So do I."

"Is that what you do when you're not working?"

"I've got plenty of other things that take up my time, so the only chance I ever get to relax and read is before I go to sleep at night."

"A busy woman. Tell me, Lou, what keeps you so busy that you don't get a chance to read?"

Another customer walked up to the bar, and Tabby glanced over at him before she said, "Give me a sec."

I watched her greet the patron like an old friend and heard the change in her accent almost immediately. She was putting on the charm, her accent much thicker than it had been just a few seconds ago when she was talking to me. I realized that was another persona that she switched into easily - the bubbly personality with the backwoods accent there to help fill her tip jar.

Another patron arrived and then another until it had been more than ten minutes since she left our conversation. Finally, as she walked back down the bar toward me, she wiped her hands on the towel that was hooked into the waistband of her leggings and rubbed her hands over her swollen belly with a sigh.

When she was standing in front of me again, I asked, "Are you due to give birth soon?"

"Do you have a pregnancy fetish?"

I had just taken a sip of my drink and choked as I swallowed it down, her question taking me off guard. Through my coughing fit, I answered, "No. I was just curious."

"Good."

"Do you get that a lot?"

"It's come in handy more than a few times, but in this bar, it's not as big of a problem as the one I worked at before."

"You haven't been here long?" I asked, hopeful that was the case and she wasn't in league with the Bovino brothers after all.

I noticed she didn't answer my question when she said, "My close friend is the manager here, so when I found myself needing a job and a place to stay, he stepped up and gave me both."

"Close friend?"

"Yeah. We share everything." Tabby laughed for a second and said, "Well, almost everything."

"It sounds like there's a story there."

"More than one."

"Can you tell me one of them over dinner?"

Tabby looked confused for a second and then smiled. "You want to take me on a date?"

"I do." Honestly, I hadn't planned on taking things that far and had blurted out the invitation, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really did want to spend more time with her. More time without this bar between us or the loud music playing in the background or all these people walking up and interrupting our conversation.

"Shit. Give me a minute," Tabby said before she walked away to greet a customer at the other end of the bar.

When she finally came back, I asked, "So, can I take you out?"

"I'll think about it."

"Okay. I'll sit here and sip my drink while you do that."

"It's getting busier. Tonight is karaoke, and the place gets wild."

"It's probably not going to be nearly as exciting as the show on Thursday night was."

"You'd be surprised."

◆◆◆

TABBY

"He's back!" Simon said in a teasing voice as he sidled up beside me. "And he looks just as delicious as ever."

"He does, doesn't he?"

"Who are his friends?"

"I don't know. They're different from the guys he's brought with him the last few days."

"He's come here to see you for your last four shifts, hasn't he?"

"Yeah."

"Have you decided whether or not you're going to let him take you out to dinner?"

"I'm getting to know him."

"You know more about him than I knew about the last guy I dated, and we were together for three months."

"Because he and I have had more than a few actual conversations, Si."

"My parents taught me not to play with my food."

I burst out laughing and said, "You don't have parents. You were hatched."

"True." I waved at Luca and motioned toward the other end of the bar before I got back to counting the money in front of me. When I glanced up at Simon, he was still watching Luca and asked, "What's the deal with the friends who don't sit with him when he comes in? Do they always brood and growl at a table while he hangs out at the bar?"

"Actually, yeah. I never thought of it like that, but that's exactly what they do."

"And they're always different men?"

"It's always a different duo, never the same ones together."

"I'm curious about that."

"Why?"

"You don"t find it peculiar that he never goes anywhere alone?"

"I try to never go anywhere alone either."

"That's because you're still afraid of the city, Bumpkin."

"True."

"I can tell just by looking at him that he's a native. Besides, he's a man."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"A woman alone is completely different from a man alone on the street at night. He's got danger in him."

"He does not. He's as sweet as grandma's sugar cookies."

"Oh, Bumpkin. You're so cute."

"When you say it like that, I know you really mean I'm stupid."

"A little. What's this guy's name?"

"Luca Robono."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I was curious, so I asked for his ID. And why would he lie about his name?"

"Is Rey coming in tonight?" Si asked as he pulled a clipboard out from under the bar.

"He's closing so he doesn't come in until later. He should be here around nine."

"Will your man still be here then?"

"Um . . ." I looked up at the clock and shrugged. "Sometimes he stays for a few hours, but sometimes he just stays for a bit before he leaves again. When he does that, though, he almost always comes back later."

"What does he do when he leaves?"

"I don't know. I never thought to ask him."

"Ask."

"Why?"

"My radar is going off and. . ."

"No matter how much you want him to be, he's not gay, Si."

"Did you ask him if he is?"

"Well, no."

"If he's not gay, then what was he doing here in the first place, Bumpkin?"

"I wasn't here the first time he came in, but it must have been a quiet night. He said as much the first time I talked to him."

"But when he figured out that this wasn't exactly the place to pick up hot single women, why did he stay?"

"I know I'm incubating your hoagie rolls . . . Shit! Now you've got me saying it!" Simon laughed, and I nudged him with my elbow as I stacked the bills from the final tip jar. "Anyway, I might not be at my peak as far as looks go, but I'm not exactly a troll either. Maybe he keeps coming back because he realized that I'm just that awesome, beach ball belly or not."

"You are, Bumpkin, but there's just something off about the whole situation. I can't put my finger on it."

"Good. I have a pretty good idea where those fingers have been, and I want no part of ‘em."

◆◆◆

Just about the time I realized I was absentmindedly scratching my belly, Simon reached over and smacked my hand away.

"Did you put on some of that oil I bought for you?" Simon asked.

"I did, and it doesn't itch nearly as bad anymore. I think it's just a habit."

"Well, stop. When you scratch your belly like that, you look like you need to be standing on the front porch in a stained tank top with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth while you talk to a news reporter about the twister that came down out of nowhere."

"I've always wondered why it's always that person they interview after a big storm," Rey said in confusion.

"I'll tell you why. So that people who aren't from there look at that person and think there's no reason for them to ever travel to see that place. It keeps the outsiders away, that way the place never grows bigger than a one-stoplight town, and they can all wallow in their self-righteous bullshit and judge all the more progressive people they see on the news."

"Rawr," Rey said as he put up his hands and pretended to claw at me. "Somebody's a little bitchy today."

"I'd rather her claws come out in this pregnancy than have to deal with how she behaved during Ember's."

"Was it bad?" Rey asked Simon.

"Well, I don't know if it was the pregnancy as much as it was the culture shock mixed with heartache," Simon mused as he passed me another bag of lemons to slice. "When Darlene first brought her home, all she did was cry."

"How did you end up in the city anyway?" Rey asked as he scooped up the lemons I'd finished slicing and sorted them out into the containers we used in condiment trays at each liquor well. "I've always wondered that. It's a long way to Kansas."

"Oklahoma," I corrected.

"Same difference," Rey scoffed. "They're light years away from New York City."

"She followed a man here," Simon explained.

"Hold up. That is not the whole story."

"Then what is it?" I heard someone ask from a few feet down the bar. I looked up and realized Luca was nearby and had been listening to our conversation.

Considering that I hadn't told him about Ember yet, I decided that now was as good of a time as any. "When I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, my father kicked me out of his house with just the clothes I could carry. My mom gave me enough money for a bus ticket to New York so I could find Ember's father."

"Did you find him?"

"Yes." Luca tilted his head in question at my short answer, so I finally said, "His wife answered the door."

"Shit," Luca said with an exaggerated wince. His brow furrowed before he asked, "How did you meet a man from New York when you're from Oklahoma?"

"How did you know that's where I'm from?"

"I guessed it had to be either Oklahoma or Kansas because you grilled me on whether or not I knew how to find those states on a map, and a few minutes ago, you corrected your friend when he said you were from Kansas."

"He was a businessman who traveled through my hometown almost every week."

"Needless to say, she didn't stick around when she realized that she and Ember were better off without the asshole," Simon said with disgust.

"Did he at least set you up with a place to live or a job since you were stranded in the city?" Luca asked. His expression was very intent, but I didn't understand why.

"No."

"What kind of business did he do in . . .?"

"Elk City." I laughed bitterly when I said, "He said he worked for an important man who traveled all the time. If I'd had a brain in my head, I would have realized that an important businessman wouldn't be staying over in my small town when he'd have passed through Oklahoma City to get there."

"You were young," Simon excused. He chuckled before he said, "And so very sheltered."

"You figured out how to take care of your daughter, though. That's what's important. That's what a good mother does for her baby," Luca said firmly.

"Personal experience?" Rey asked nosily.

"My mother found out she was pregnant less than a month after my father was arrested. There was no way he would get out of serving hard time, and there was a distinct possibility they wouldn't ever let him out. She didn't know what to do, so she took the only option she had at the time and married a good friend of hers."

"How did that work out?" Simon asked.

"Well, she drives him crazy, but they're still happily married."

"Really?" Rey asked in shock. "Normally, marriages like that don't last."

Luca burst out laughing and said, "Absolutely nothing about my family is normal."

"Do you still talk to them?" I asked.

"Every day." He laughed again and said, "Multiple times a day. I work with my brother, and there's an ongoing text thread with the whole family that makes me have to keep my phone on silent because my mom is always blowing it up and my sister can't let anyone have the last word. Then there's a thread that includes my new stepmother, my dad, and my brother. And don't even get me started on my dad's . . . um . . . I guess you could call them his extended family."

"Your dad got out of prison?"

"When I was almost twenty," Luca explained with a nod. "We've become close since then."

"That's sweet."

"Oh, shit," Si said as he thrust a bar napkin at me. "Here she goes."

"I'm not crying!" I blubbered.

"Of course you're not," Si said placatingly as he rolled his eyes.

"I wish your eyes would get stuck like that just one time," I muttered as I dabbed at my eyes. I sniffed and asked, "How's my makeup?"

Luca didn't exactly answer my question, but what he said made my heart race. "You look beautiful."

◆◆◆

I set the inventory clipboard down on the bar and then fisted my hands and pushed them into my lower back as I leaned backward, trying to stretch out the tense muscles that were protesting from the weight I was carrying around. When I explained to the doctor at this morning's appointment that I hadn't experienced these aches and pains when I was pregnant with my daughter, his response actually made me forget how I was feeling. Instead of cataloging my aches and pains, I had to resist the urge to jump down off the table and choke him to death with his stethoscope.

It still bristled when I thought of his condescending smile as he explained, "Well, you aren't as young as you were when you had your daughter, and this time you're pregnant with twins. There's no reason to complain about a few aches and pains when the end result will be two healthy babies, right?"

First of all, my daughter was not even four yet, meaning I wasn't even twenty-five. And honestly, my age didn't matter - what mattered was that I had aches and pains I didn't recognize and wanted his input, not his condescension. I bet he'd change his tune if he had two buns in the oven he had to lug around day and night, bizarre cravings, swollen ankles, mood swings, and at least a million grown-up responsibilities all while raising a rambunctious and inquisitive child and holding down a job.

Yeah. Keep talking to me like I'm stupid, asshole. Don't mind me while I sit over here plotting your death.

I'd like to attribute my bad attitude to pregnancy hormones, but even though they didn't help the situation, they weren't the root of it. Having my concerns brushed away like they were nothing pissed me off anytime.

However, I was without funds after Rebecca's death, and using a fake ID to get my medical care meant I couldn't apply for financial aid and had to pay out of pocket for everything. It rankled even more, knowing just how much money I was pouring into that man's pockets while he still treated me like a whiny child.

Asshole.

I felt one of the babies kick, and, considering the positioning that the sonographer had shown me today, I thought it may be Baby A. All thoughts of Dr. Disrespectful faded away when I remembered the information he'd given me after he looked at the sonogram. Both boys were progressing well and were well above the target weight for twins at this stage of development, and there weren't any obvious problems at all.

That meant I could keep working, at least for now, and if everything stayed on track, I'd have two healthy baby boys in my arms in six to eight weeks, ten, if I were lucky. And then I'd have to figure out how to raise them alone because I planned to disappear the second the doctor gave them the all clear to travel.

More than anything I wanted to find my friend Brett and talk to her before I left. Hopefully, I could find the words to explain why I had gone against her wishes and become a surrogate for her mother, Rebecca, and then, after she took some time to process that information, she could forgive me. And maybe . . . just maybe . . . she would want to move away with me.

With her grandparents gone, and her mother now dead, too, there was nothing left in New York for Brett. She had her degree and could work almost anywhere. Hopefully, I could work on finishing my degree once we were settled somewhere else and the kids got old enough for me to find a trustworthy sitter to watch them while I was in school.

I knew that if Brett would take a moment to think about it, she'd realize how wonderful having two babies around again would be, especially since they were technically her family. As crazy as it may sound, the twins would be Brett's daughter Coco's uncles, even though she would be four years older than them by the time they were born.

I wanted to believe that Brett would forgive me for my decision to go through with the surrogacy and understand that I had gone into the agreement with the best of intentions and a healthy dose of naivete. That shouldn't be too hard to imagine since she knew me better than almost anyone and understood the life I had come from.

Looking back, I could see the flaws and cracks in the beliefs my parents had instilled in me, especially since they had ignored all those passages in the Good Book that talked about forgiveness and understanding. Time and distance had shown me other ways they weren't living the life my father so fervently preached about too.

I understood now that Rebecca had played to my weakness - the belief that there was good in everyone and that no matter what sin they had committed, a person always deserved a second chance.

Rebecca had poured her heart out to me - or, at least, I believed she had at the time - and told me how much she wanted to make up for the lack of attention she'd paid to Brett as she grew up. She insisted that she had always wanted to be a mother to her one and only child but had been kept away by her ex-husband. The things Rebecca said about Brett's father sounded so much like the traits and behaviors I had seen in my own father after he kicked me out of my childhood home and then refused to acknowledge my existence.

I hadn't spoken to him once since I left that night and only had sporadic contact with my mother. My younger siblings found ways to contact me, or at least, they had before I lost my phone the night Rebecca died. Since then, I'd replaced my phone but didn't have their contact information since my mother adamantly refused to share it with me.

I missed my brothers and sisters more than I could even describe and wanted to maintain a relationship with them if I could, but even more than that, I wanted them to know that they could count on me to help them if they ever found themselves in the situation I had.

Even though I had lost every connection to my family, I didn't regret my actions at all. I had Ember now and wouldn't change a thing. Being her mother was my greatest joy, and watching her grow filled up all the spaces in my heart that had been empty since becoming estranged from my family. Rebecca had played on those emotions and my love for my daughter by pretending that she felt that same grief and loss and convincing me that she wanted to start over and try again.

I had naively believed her until the night that I overheard her talking on the phone with someone and insisting that he up the price he'd offered her for the twins I was carrying because she was deep in debt to someone else for the cost of the IVF transplant and the medical care I'd received so far.

The second I heard her say that the babies were for sale, I knew that Brett had been right. Rebecca had no love in her heart for anyone, if she even had a heart at all. The innocent babies that I was carrying were just a pawn for her to rake in millions of dollars to live on until she found another poor sap and convinced him to marry her. I didn't sleep a wink that night, thinking about exactly what I would say to Rebecca the next morning, but she somehow found out that I had overheard and took steps to keep me quiet and docile. I became a silent incubator for the babies that she didn't care about at all.

However, Rebecca had made a fatal error. She underestimated what a real mother would do for her child, but she soon found out.

Which left me on the run from the Russian mob, who thought the boys should belong to them since they'd paid for the IVF and other medical bills, and some Italian man who wanted to use the boys to get the upper hand against an Italian mafia family he had a vendetta against.

Babies who hadn't even taken their first breath yet were being used as pawns in a game they would hopefully never have to learn the rules to.

The mama bear in me would protect Ember, fighting anyone to the death who threatened her, and I'd fight for these babies, too, because no one else would.

Except maybe Brett once she let me explain.

"Why do you look so sad, Lou?" Luca asked, just barely loud enough for me to hear over the music.

I looked up from the clipboard, wondering how long he'd been sitting there watching me and then shook off the melancholy that had taken over in the last few minutes as I thought about my friend.

I don't know why, but I had the urge to be honest with him, something I hadn't done at all so far.

"My name's not really Lou."

Luca didn't look as shocked as I would be if someone admitted that they'd been lying since the moment I met them and said, "I know."

"How do you know?"

"Simon calls you Bumpkin, and Rey calls you Tabby. Neither of them have ever once called you Lou."

"Oh."

"And when me or a customer calls you Lou, it takes a few seconds for you to catch on that it's you we're addressing."

"But you kept calling me Lou."

"I thought it was kind of funny because that's what my brother calls me." Luca shrugged and said, "Besides, it's what you asked me to call you."

"You can call me Tabby."

"Can I actually call you, Tabby, or do I have to keep lingering around like some sort of barfly?"

I burst out laughing and said, "I think I know you well enough to trust you with my phone number."

"Do you trust me enough to let me take you on a date - somewhere we can sit and have a normal conversation without having to yell while we get to know one another?"

"I'm not going to be in New York for very much longer, Luca."

"Why not?"

"I need to . . . I want to move out of the city. Somewhere west."

"Well, unless you develop gills or suddenly become fluent in Spanish and French, you really can't go east."

I burst out laughing, and Luca smiled, but when I said, "Que te hace pensar que no se otro idioma?" his mouth dropped open in shock, and I couldn't help but laugh again. "Admit it. You just assumed I didn't know another language."

"You speak Spanish?"

"I do."

"Se conosci lo spagnolo è facile imparare l'italiano."

I picked up on several of the words he'd just said, so I asked, "Did you say that if I knew Spanish I could learn Italian?"

"I said it would make it easier for you to learn Italian, so close enough."

"Hmm. I never thought about that, but you're probably right."

I looked down at the other end of the bar and realized I had three customers waiting for me, so I grabbed a pen out of the cup beneath the bar and wrote my name and number on a bar napkin.

"You're gonna get me fired, Luca Robono," I said as I slid the napkin his way. "Let me work."

"What time should I call you?"

"I get off at ten."

"Okay," Luca said as he took my pen and another bar napkin and wrote down his number. "Call me when you leave, and I'll talk to you on your way home."

"That will take all of three minutes," I told him with a grin. "I live upstairs."

He looked shocked at the revelation, and then his face became guarded, and he gave me an obviously fake smile. "Well, then call me when you get home. Or send me a text when you've got a free minute or two during your shift."

"I can do that."

Luca reached out slowly and put his hand on the side of my neck. He rubbed my jaw with his thumb, back and forth with a touch so feather light that it was almost mesmerizing. "I look forward to hearing from you, Lou."

He let go and walked away before I had a chance to respond, and I was glad he did. I'd hate for the man to see me melt into a puddle right there on the bar floor.

But that's almost what I did.