I heard, frowning when my mother called me. I turned, dropping the expression from my face. She moved toward me, Mateo squirming in her arms. “That Paris girl is gonna be late again. Maggie is going to get the lunch shift started and I’ve got to clean up. Take the baby, yeah?”
I didn’t hesitate. Didn’t blink. Mateo came to me. Ma left, patting Dino on the shoulder once in greeting before she moved back toward the table and I held the kid to my side, letting him mess with the crucifix on my chain, something that always seemed to make him happy.
“Call Benny,” I told Dino, picking up the conversation like we hadn’t been interrupted. “He’s got a few guys in the city that know what they’re doing. If Benny can’t find Kat, then no one can. I’ll put some calls in with Wilson. He owes me more than a few favors and that tap on the bakery is not gonna lead anywhere.” Mateo yawned, rubbing his face against my shoulder before he leaned his head down and I took the hint, settling the kid against my chest with my hand on his back. When he was tired, he like to be held, wanted a little comfort, and I could respect that. Sometimes a man needs a little reassurance. Didn’t bother me, so I patted the kid’s back, still trying to think of where Kat could have gotten off to before I noticed Dino’s cocked eyebrow and how the man glanced at my hand on Mateo’s back and then the slow, soft snores coming from his nose.
“What?”
Dino didn’t answer me. Instead, my man looked away, glancing to the kid, then over my head, toward the dining room where Dario and Dante stood, their attention on me. Dante grinned like an idiot and I doubted that look was just about the mimosas he’d downed at brunch. Dario, though, held his cell in his hand, his thumb hovering over the screen, but his gaze was locked on me as Mateo stirred and I rocked the kid up my shoulder to be more comfortable.
“What?” I mouthed, not appreciating the stares those assholes gave me.
It wasn’t until I caught my father’s narrowed eyes and my mother’s smug, satisfied smile that I realized what an idiot I was and how this shit probably looked to all of them.
“Oh, look how cute,” I heard, my attention shooting to the three women moving through the dining room. Two of them I knew—Mrs. Lulling, the librarian and her sister-in-law Mrs. Williams, the other one, a good twenty years younger than them, I’d never seen before.
“Ladies,” I greeted, stilling my hand on Mateo’s back.
“Mr. Carelli,” Mrs. Williams said, resting a hand on her chest. “How are you today…and the baby?”
“We’re good,” I started, eyes squinting when the woman I didn’t know moved to my side and smiled at the kid.
“Your son is so beautiful,” she said, jerking her gaze back to the older, laughing women behind her. “What?”
“Nothing, my dear,” Mrs. Lulling said. “Let’s leave Mr. Carelli to his business and get a table.”
My son.
I stretched my neck, not looking at Dino when I spoke, trying to ignore the sensation that crested in my gut. “Call Benny. Find Kat.”
“I’ll get on it,” he said, hesitating before he turned. “I…wanna check the West dock. There was nothing off in White Plains like I told you when I called last night, but I sent Will this morning to the West dock and still haven’t heard from him. I’m…kinda getting worried.”
“Go,” I told him, not bothering to watch him as he left. He had a job to do and so did I.
My son, I thought, rubbing the kid’s back again, moving away from my family’s stares as that sensation in my gut moved up my chest, wondering why I didn’t hate the way that sounded.
Wondering why the idea of being Mateo’s father didn’t scare me like I knew it should.
4
Maggie
Smoke didn’t look like the gangster he was, walking around O’Bryant’s General Store in a pair of faded Levi’s 510s and plain-toe black Timberlands. In fact, he looked more like the men pouring concrete by the new park entrance next to my building than the smooth “businessman” everyone in town thought him to be as we neared the checkout.
But he looked as relaxed in those jeans and tight Yankees tee as he did in the designer suits that filled his closets. Truth was that the man looked good in anything he wore, and