Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,81

great!” Mikey burst out. “I’m happy for you.”

“It’s the nicest surprise,” Paul confessed. “We’ve been trying for a long time, but, well, nothing happened and I thought maybe we couldn’t have kids. It wouldn’t have mattered. I love her so much. I’d rather have her and no kids than the biggest family in the country with any other woman.”

“I know how that feels.” Mikey put his cup down. “I wanted them with Bernie. Never with anybody else. Even with her limitations, she could carry a child. I asked a doctor.” He flushed. “There are medicines she can’t afford that I could have bought for her, and they would have helped. She could have private duty nurses, anything she needed. I’d have...taken care of her.” He stopped, choking up.

“It isn’t too late.”

Mikey looked up, with the saddest expression Paul had ever seen. “Yes, it is, Paulie. It’s too late. And I did it to myself, by not telling her what Jessie said and giving her a chance to tell me what she felt.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“Even you aren’t in my class, cousin,” Mikey said. He leaned back in the chair. “At least you’re having that happy ending people dream about,” he added with an affectionate smile. “You got lucky.”

“I wish you had, too.”

Mikey shrugged. “Let’s just hope that Cotillo doesn’t.”

* * *

They were prophetic words. A day later, the story broke on all the major news networks. A New Jersey mob figure named Anthony Cotillo was found dead in his apartment of apparently natural causes. A friend said that the man had no apparent health problems and that it came as a shock to his associates.

“Can they detect an air embolism?” Mikey mused. “It doesn’t matter—they’ll have people in the coroner’s office to make sure that doesn’t go into the report.”

Paul sighed. “Well, it’s a novel way to take care of an interloper without getting the government all stirred up,” he agreed. “No mess, no blood trail, no nothing. But I wonder who hit him?”

Mikey smiled. “Marcus Carrera has many friends from the old days,” he pointed out. “Some of them owe him really big favors.”

Paul’s eyebrows arched.

“Really big,” Mikey emphasized. And he smiled.

* * *

Tony Garza came home to New Jersey amid promises from an obscure New York outfit family that the loose association of bosses, the one that had existed since the Five Families were scattered by pressure from the feds, had no problem with him. They assured him that no more problems were expected, and that they had several people making sure of it. The message was clear—Carrera might not be a mob figure any longer, since he’d gone straight, but he was still a power to contend with in the States. A lot of people were afraid of him. Tony was going to be safe.

“So I guess I’ll go home now,” Mikey said sadly, when he was having supper with Paul and Sari. “I’ll come back for the christening, though,” he teased.

“Wrong church,” Paul teased. “We’re Methodist. Although, Reverend Blair does have a sort of christening ceremony, but not like the one you’re thinking of.”

“We can pretend. I’ll come anyway.” He toyed with his food. “So I guess Jessie and Billie worked for the New York boss.”

“I guess so,” Paul said.

“Carrera was a terror when he was younger,” Mikey remarked with a smile. “You could just say his name ten years ago and people would start running for the door.”

“It shocked everybody when he went legit,” Paul said. “Even the feds. Now he’s got a wife and two sons and he’s the happiest man on earth.”

“Families are nice,” Mikey said absently.

“You should get married and have one,” Sari said firmly.

“Chance would be a fine thing.”

“You never know,” she replied. “Strange things happen when you least expect them.”

He smiled at her. “They do, don’t they? What do you guys want, a boy or a girl?”

“Either,” Paul said.

“Both,” Sari said, and grinned.

“No twins on our side of the family, cousin,” he told Paul.

“But there are loads on my side,” Sari laughed. “Distant cousins, but at least three sets of twins among them.”

“Son of a gun! You could have your whole family in one year.”

Paul laughed. “Who knows?” he teased, and he looked at his wife with eyes that absolutely ate her. She looked back at him the same way.

Mikey felt more alone than he ever had in his whole life. Much more, although he was happy for his cousin. But he was leaving town. His heart would stay here,