“They’re a great family.”

“You just don’t feel like they left enough room on the couch for you.”

He paused with a snort. “Again, I wish you listened to your own advice. It’s really good advice and you need it. What are you going to do about your mother?”

“There’s nothing I can do. I can’t make her leave him as you pointed out. I can’t stop her from going to Spokane. She’s forty-three years old. She managed to survive all this time.”

“You’ll be here when she needs you. She’ll remember that when she has to,” Duke said.

Carmella breathed him in at the crook of his neck. “I can see why you like to sniff me here. This is a nice place for all your sexy smell to collect.” She nipped the skin there. “I don’t want her to go. I’ll worry about her. If something happens, I’m going to blame myself.”

“I know. And you’ll be wrong. I’ll tell you so. I expect your uncle and aunt will too. Sometimes the best option is still a shitty option. I’m sorry. I wish I had better advice to give.”

“Aren’t we a pair?”

He flipped her to her back, looming over her. “We are. Who else gets me the way you do? Who else truly knows me and never turns away?”

“Would you like me to come with you when you go down to see your brother?”

“I would. But then I’d be worried about you and if they were being nice enough and I wouldn’t be focused on Danny and getting down to the bottom of this problem.”

Which was what he needed. Though she wanted to be there to soften what would likely be a tough visit, she knew she couldn’t do this for him any more than she could live for her mother. Thank goodness he only had a penchant for driving too fast and fistfighting.

“You know I can entertain myself. But I get it. I’m here if you need me. I can be on the next plane down there.”

CHAPTER Twenty-nine

Carmella smiled at the bouquet of roses on her dresser. Next to the vase sat a brown paper sack that, once opened up, appeared to hold more bulbs.

“He’s really slick, that guy.” PJ came in. “I’m assuming those are from Bradshaw?”

No card had been necessary. She’d known they were from him.

“Yes.”

He was coming home that day. With his parents, and they were all going to dinner in an hour.

Duke had left nearly two weeks before. The morning after her mother and Steven had driven away from Seattle in a rickety truck she wasn’t sure would make it over the pass, but that wasn’t her problem anymore.

She worried, though, and couldn’t deny how relieved she was when Virgie had called to say they’d arrived in Spokane. She’d even said she loved Carmella before she hung up.

PJ was there to help her pick out what to wear as she had zero meet-the-parents experience.

“I think that black dress with the embellished collar. It’s feminine and fits you so well. You can bend over and your boobs won’t pop out. Black hides it if you get a little food flecks here and there. And it makes your hair look even more red.”

Carmella changed into the black dress and PJ helped her zip it up.

“I’ll do your makeup. I promise it’ll be pretty.”

Carmella put on her robe while PJ did her makeup and hair.

When she was done, she got pretty close to what she hoped a woman who deserved Duke looked like.

“You look gorgeous. Asa said he and Mick talked to Duke day before yesterday and all he did was moan about how much he missed you.”

Carmella smiled. “Good. Because I’ve missed him too. I’d rather that than have him realize he really just isn’t that into me after being gone for two weeks.”

PJ got on the floor with Ginger. “As if. Take it from me, Duke Bradshaw is totally in love with you. You. Not the idea of you. Or only while you’re around. This is the real deal for him.”

“How do you know? I mean, he’s got everything on the ball and I don’t. I’m a glorified secretary renting a house and he owns a business and has, like, eleven cars.”

“Where the hell would the world be without secretaries, Carmella? And anyway, you’re not a glorified anything. You’re amazing. And smart and really organized. He loves you.”

Carmella hoped so because she’d begun to really believe it. And to believe she loved him too. Which was scary!

Carmella hugged PJ, who’d stood and was giving her the once-over.

“Perfect. You look classy.”

“Classy works. I should get going. I said I’d meet them all downtown. He took them to their hotel and was getting them checked in.”

“Why don’t I drive you and drop you off and you can catch a ride back with him?”

Twenty minutes later she walked through the front doors of Metropolitan Grill and was being shown to the bar, where they were all waiting for a table.

She saw Duke before he’d noticed she was there. He sat at a high-top table with the people who had to be his parents. His father was an older version of Duke, only softer in the middle and clean shaven. His mother was a woman Carmella bet had her nails done at least once a week, had her hair done every six weeks without fail, and would never be caught dead at the grocery store without full makeup.

He was so beautiful and certainly she wasn’t the only one who noticed. Women all over the place checked him out but he didn’t notice them at all.

As she approached, his gaze flicked up from the beer in his hand to Carmella and there was no other way to put it than that he lit up when he saw her.