The Spia Family Presses On - By Mary Leo Page 0,27
raced through me. How could I have been so stupid! “I’ll run back and get it. Stall them,” I told her.
“How? I don’t even like Leo, remember?”
“Just tell him I’m bringing out a few bottles of oil for him, or tell him about your latest book. I don’t know. You’re the writer. Make something up.”
She cocked her head, shrugged and spun around towards the door.
I started to turn back, but it was too late.
“Hey, kitten,” Leo said, suddenly appearing in front us, his voice all sexy and low, reminding me of how much I missed him.
And that’s when it hit me—when I saw Leo standing next to a tall, curly haired stranger with the sapphire blue eyes. I flashed back on that afternoon, seeing Leo standing out on his veranda with another man, an older man, a man in a golden shirt, the man who had slapped Leo’s hand away. That man had been my cousin Dickey.
The stranger said, “You hiding something from us in here or what?”
Fainting is a curious thing. It comes upon you in a rush of darkness and in that instant before you lose consciousness you’re absolutely sure somebody has turned out all the lights.
The good news was I didn’t actually faint, at least not flat out on the floor. I merely lost my balance for an instant, slumped, and fell into Leo’s eager arms. If I had planned this moment of feminine weakness, the game couldn’t have gone better. My “episode,” as it would later be referred to, caused one of those turn of events that truly amazed me.
“Let’s get her outside for some air,” Nick Zeleski said.
And with that, my entire outlook brightened, plus it gave me a strong lesson in feminine wiles. A trait Aunt Babe had always professed as our strongest defense against male dominance.
I played the part well, allowing Leo to slowly walk me out of the barn while I leaned into his fabulously muscled body. I felt safe and warm walking next to him surrounded by his familiar scent—a mixture of red wine, sweet grapes and a whole lotta trouble. The grape scent was even sweeter as I pressed my body up against his. I wanted to be swept up and taken off to his bed and made love to until my bones ached and I could no longer breathe.
The truth was that whenever I saw Leo all I ever wanted was to be in his bed, part of my irrational Leonardo obsession, my therapists had said. Right now, separate from the desire to be naked with him, I wanted to tell him about dead cousin Dickey, and I wanted to ask him what went on during his conversation with Dickey that morning.
But mostly, as I leaned into him and felt his arm around my waist, and his playful fingers pressing against my body, I wanted the two of us to be back together again.
Lisa must have sensed what was swirling around inside my head because when I gazed over at her once we were out of the barn she threw me one of those “you can’t be serious” looks and it was then that reality hit me right between the eyes.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, moving away from Leo and my momentary delusions. “I feel better. Must have been something I ate.”
“Or drank,” he joked, but I didn’t react. My drinking problem wasn’t up for ridicule, especially not with him.
“Always the wise guy,” Lisa quipped.
“Hardly, I believe that title better suits some of the characters who just bugged out of the barn. I’m just a lowly wine maker who sometimes oversteps his bounds.” He turned to me. “Sorry, Mia, but you had me worried for a minute. I guess a bad joke is my way of breaking the tension. I can be a real ass, but then you already know that.”
I gave him a guarded nod and let out the breath I’d been holding. That’s when I finally realized he was clean shaven. No beard or unkempt hair like I’d seen that morning. He was back to his usual, neat self.
We were now standing in my mom’s front yard. Everyone had gone except for my mom, Uncle Benny and Aunt Babe who sat in white rocking chairs on my mom’s porch talking, laughing as if they were oblivious to the fact there was a murdered cousin in our barn and a cop standing not more than ten feet from