Rooted (The Pagano Family Book 3) (3 page)

Yeah, she needed to stop checking him out.

“Theo. You say your command of English is good. So listen up.” She spoke slowly, as if he were in fact
not
a speaker of English. “You are not welcome at this table. I am not interested. Find somebody else to pester.”

Before Theo could respond to that, Marc came to the table. Carmen expected him to ask after her meal, at least, but he turned to her intruder instead. “M. Wilde, I may bring your dinner to this table, yes?”

All at once, Carmen knew why he’d looked familiar. “Wait. You’re Theodore Wilde?”

That was victory he was beaming at her now. Dammit. “Yes. You know me?”

She was remembering his author photo. “I read
Orchids in Autumn
a couple of years ago.” She’d had some issues with it, but overall, she’d loved it. Lyrical prose and a moving story. A memoir. About the death of his wife.

Marc was still standing there, his question unanswered. Theo lifted an inquiring eyebrow at her. Oh, fuck. What the hell. “Yes, Marc. You can free up M. Wilde’s table.”

“Very good.” Marc gave a little bow, just a tip of his head, and moved quickly to bring Theo’s food and drink to her table. Carmen looked around and realized that the café had filled up almost to capacity.

She gave Theo a one-sided smile. His method of getting over here was still lame as hell, so he didn’t deserve the full wattage. “I guess you get to go home tonight. That’s a still a shitty line, though.”

“It’s not a line. I actually made a promise. I might have embellished with the part about how long I’ve been trying, though.” As she closed her tablet and slid it into her leather bag, he added, “What are you reading?”

“
Infinite Jest
. Trying to, anyway.”

Theo chuckled. “That’s a commitment, it’s true. But I really liked it. It’s a brilliant book.”

“Are you one of those people who say they’ve read it, but in reality only got fifty or so pages in?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them he said, “‘I’m just afraid of having a tombstone that says HERE LIES A PROMISING OLD MAN.’ That’s one of my favorite lines in the book.”

She smirked. “I like that line, too. I just read it tonight. But I’m only about two hundred and fifty pages in. Point not proved.”

“I could spoil the ending for you. Or are you one of those readers who reads the last page first?”

“No, I’m not. I hate spoilers. Fine. I’ll give you the point.” She remembered something and cocked her head. “Who’d you make the promise to? If that wasn’t just a stupid line.”

He had just bitten into a piece of roll from a basket on her table. Speaking around a mouthful of bread, he answered, “My sons. They think I’m alone too much.”

Ah, right. The lonely widower. With kids, no less. This guy was trouble.

On the other hand…summer fling? Oh, that had to be the wine talking.

A summer fling would be a bad idea. This summer was about connecting with Rosa and doing some research for work. “Are you and your sons on vacation?” Wine, shut up.

“I’m on sabbatical, actually. I have a writing grant. I’m here into December. The boys will come and go.” He dimpled at her. “You?”

“The summer.” She stopped there, her sober self pushing back into her head and telling her to keep personal details to herself. Better to keep him talking. “Sabbatical—you teach?”

“Yes. Creative writing and American literature. At a little private college in Maine.” He put his elbows on either side of his plate and leaned forward. “You’re from New England, right? I can hear it in your voice, just a tad. Boston?”

“Close. Rhode Island.”

“Ah. Wicked.” His grin had a sheen of mischief.

She laughed. “I don’t hear Maine at all in yours. You haven’t said ‘ayuh’ once. You’re pure California, aren’t you?”

“Nope. Born and bred in Wyoming.”

“A cowboy?”

“Not exactly. But I know my share.”

Carmen realized that she was enjoying herself quite a bit and, moreover, that she was spending an inordinate amount of time noticing things like his eyes, or the way his hair moved, just a little, when he shook his head. The way his throat moved when he spoke. The hint of golden hair in the open triangle of his shirt.

Shit.

She had two things in her life she focused on: her work and her family. She dated, a little. No—scratch that. She made booty calls which occasionally included takeout in bed. Some of the guys on her booty-call list were good friends, too, but for the most part, men, once they decided they wanted some kind of connection beyond friendship, bored her. She’d had two serious relationships with men who had
not
bored her. And they had both eventually forced choices on her about the balance in her life between them and her work and family. Carmen had a rule: the person who gave her an ultimatum would always lose.

What she didn’t do, then, was whatever was going on here. She wasn’t going to take him to bed, so what
was
going on here?

She emptied her wine glass again and set it down. He lifted her bottle and waved it as a question. When she nodded, he filled her glass, emptying the bottle into it. She’d had every intention of drinking the whole bottle—she was only across the street from the flat. But she’d also had every intention of drinking privately, with minimal opportunity for stupidity.

She’d also drunk more quickly than she would have under the conditions of her original plan. Carmen wasn’t usually much of a drinker. She didn’t even keep booze in her house at home. When she wanted something, she went out. So she was drunk. Not sloppy drunk, but boy-you-know-this-guy-really-is-hot drunk. Damn.

Theo was drinking hard liquor, straight, which Marc had kept fresh while they talked. Bourbon, she thought; it had a dark, reddish tinge. She thought that was bourbon. And he was eating a bloody steak. Or he had been; he’d clearly been well into his meal when he’d come to her table, and he’d been eating as they’d talked, so there was little left on his plate now.

Her meal was still only half-eaten. She took a couple of bites now and washed it down with the rest of the wine. Whoo. Okay. She should go. Absolutely. She belched quietly and covered it by clearing her throat.

When she turned her eyes to Theo, though, he was smiling at her over his glass. “Are you okay?”

No, actually. This night had upended at some point, she knew not where. “I think it’s time for me to go. Thank you for…taking my dinner hostage.”

She grabbed her bag and stood. As she hooked the bag across her chest, the room tipped slightly. And oh—she needed to pay. She fumbled for some bills.

Theo raised his hand. “No, let me. It’s the least I can do, since I took your dinner hostage—and you helped me keep my promise.”

She shook her head and kept trying to work out how much to leave. Euros were hard; they took too much math and had too many important coins. Finally, she gave up. “Thank you. That’d be great.”

He gave her another dimpled grin and, pulling his wallet from the front pocket of his jeans, gestured to Marc. He’d bared just a little bit of belly as he’d moved his un-tucked shirt out of the way of his pocket. Firm belly. Little happy trail of golden hair. Ooookay.

Carmen used that opportunity to make her escape.

When she got to the sidewalk, she stopped and let the cool evening air clear her head somewhat. It was full dark, which meant it was getting late—after ten, at least. She took another couple of deep breaths. Feeling again like she had her feet under her, she turned toward the flat.

“Wait! Um, beautiful girl?”

Oh no, he didn’t. Seriously? She turned and saw Theodore Wilde, winner of the National Book Award and purveyor of ridiculous come-ons, walking toward her with long strides.

He was smiling. As he reached her, he said, “You never told me your name.”

“Nope. Good night.” He was hot, and possibly slightly charming, but no. Trouble.

“How are you getting home? You’re not driving, I hope?”

“I’m just right down the block. I’m all set. Good night.”

As she turned away, he caught her hand. “May I walk with you?”

His hand really was nice, and she suddenly wasn’t in all that big a hurry to take hers away. “I’m not that drunk, you know. Capable of crossing the street on my own.”

“Yes, you are that drunk. And crossing the street? I’m definitely walking with you.” He kept hold of her hand, and she let him.

When she stopped in front of Izzie’s building, he squeezed his hand around hers and pulled her to face him. “Hey—you said you read
Orchids
. What did you think?”

She had to look up a bit to see into his eyes. Carmen was five-ten. A lot of times, she looked guys straight on—or downward—but Theo had a few inches on her. Maybe three or four. It was nice to look up to a man she wasn’t related to. “I thought it was beautifully written. But it’s a little crass to profit off somebody’s death like that, if you ask me. Which you just did.”

He blinked in surprise. It occurred to her that he’d written powerfully about his own grief, and she felt a flutter of guilt for her directness. “Sorry if that’s harsh. I know that was your real life.”

“No, no. It’s fine. I wrote it four years ago. The feelings in it are still there, but they aren’t fresh.” Then his grin spread wide, deepening his dimples unfairly. She really liked dimples—the long ones that framed a smile. Like Theo’s. Damn. “You know, people have written similar critiques, but no one’s ever had the balls to say it to my face before. I don’t agree, by the way. Maybe someday we’ll hash that out.” He got an impish glint in his eyes, which looked violet in the glow from the streetlights. “Beautifully written, huh?”

She rolled her eyes. Like he didn’t know it was awesome. “Okay. Well. Nice to meet you,
monsieur auteur
.” Now she did try to free her hand from his, but he held on and pulled, bringing her chest to meet his. With his free hand, he cupped her face. For a second or two, he simply looked into her eyes, and she knew he was giving her a chance to back away.

Fuck it. He was hot. She was drunk. It was just a kiss. Plus—kind of a celebrity encounter, for book geeks, at least. She smiled, and his mouth came down and lightly, not intrusively, moved over hers like silk. Then his tongue slid between her lips. He was much better at this kind of French. Carmen’s chest got that ache—familiar, but maybe not as common as she’d like—that spoke of the way interest and arousal had quickened her heart and enlivened her body. She hooked her free hand in the crook of his elbow and let herself lean on his chest, just a little.

Summer fling. Maybe. How bored could she get with a guaranteed end in three months?

Before he pulled away, he placed a light peck at the corner of her mouth.

“What’s your name, beautiful girl?” His voice was low and gruff.

Buzzing from the kiss as much as the wine, she briefly considered keeping up with the coy, but decided it was stupid. “Carmen.”

That grin had become downright obnoxious in its cockiness. “Beautiful. Well, Carmen, you were wrong.”

“About what?”

“This
was
our Woody Allen meet-cute.”

~ 2 ~

Theo stood on the sidewalk and watched Carmen walk, not
too
unsteadily, into the building. When she went in the front door, he looked up and scanned the windows. About half of them glowed from the interior lights of their apartments. He wondered if the lights were already on in hers. He wondered, too, if it meant he was stalking her if he stood where he was and waited to see if new lights came on.

She really was a beautiful girl. He’d found himself studying her as he’d sat across the little table. Her beauty was the kind Italian Renaissance painters had tried to capture. Botticelli, maybe. She looked Italian, too. Long, straight, thick hair, so dark brown it was nearly black. Olive skin. Big, brown eyes under naturally arcing eyebrows. High cheekbones. And a mouth—God, that mouth. Full lips, with just the slightest downward turn at the corners—that mouth and those eyebrows gave her an intelligent, sardonic aspect, one which apparently suited the intelligent, sardonic personality behind the beautiful face.

She was tall—taller, he thought, that any woman he knew. And though she’d been dressed casually, in jeans and a light pullover sweater, she’d filled out both perfectly.

He was filling his own jeans out pretty well at the moment, too.

It had charmed him to no end to watch her ease from cold aloofness—hostility, even—to warm good humor as her wine had worked its magic on her. Her wit was sharp and quick, a no-bullshit approach to conversation, even after the ice had melted. He liked that. Since
Orchids
had become a critical darling with modestly successful sales, he most often was told what people thought he wanted to hear. After a while, that had created as much of a complex in him as hearing nothing but criticism would have.

He could certainly go home and tell Elias and Jordan that he had spoken with a beautiful girl.

And kissed her, too.

It wasn’t that he’d been a monk since Maggie’s death nearly five years ago. In the past couple of years, he’d let friends, colleagues, or Jerry, his agent, fix him up occasionally. For functions and dinners and whatnot. But he hadn’t felt much of anything for the women he’d been paired with. He’d kissed them goodnight and left them at their doors. Just now, with the mysterious Carmen, was the first time he’d had his tongue in anyone’s mouth since he’d become a widower.

There might have been some monkishness, actually.

That had been a kiss worthy of throwing off the horsehair shirt, though. Wow. Carmen was here for the summer. He’d like to see more of her, he thought. Maybe a few weeks in Paris with a beautiful girl, with no commitments or complications, was the thing he needed to dispose of the monkish trappings completely.

His boys were right. He spent too much time alone.

A light went on at the top floor of the building. A few seconds later, Carmen came to the window and pulled the draperies closed. Flush with his stalkery success, Theo turned smartly on his heel and headed back toward the flat he was staying in, which was only a few blocks away.

~oOo~

He woke the next morning to the aroma of baking cinnamon. Eli was up, then. Theo tossed back the comforter and walked to the en suite bathroom. He was naked; his boys were grown and, anyway, knew to stay out of his bedroom.

When he was done in the bathroom, he grabbed his jeans from the floor near the bed and pulled them on, closing them as he left the room.

He’d been staying in this huge apartment now for nearly a month, and he’d almost lost the urge to roll his eyes every time he came through the living room—or, as Hunter Anders, its owner, called it, the
salon
. The décor was ostentatiously opulent, and this western boy who’d been raised in a dilapidated bungalow on the wrong side of Cheyenne was still afraid to sit on the furniture, most of which looked like it had been looted from Versailles. Not his taste at all.

But beggars shouldn’t be choosers, and he was here on Hunter’s euro. The grant that was paying the bills for Theo to focus on writing his next book had Hunter’s signature at the bottom. The apartment was an added bonus, because he’d made some kind of favorable personal impression on the old man, who lived primarily in Manhattan and rarely traveled far from home anymore.

Theo turned and looked out the central window of the
salon
—which was filled from top to bottom by the Eiffel tower. The window was surrounded by a golden, rococo frame, like a portrait.

It was shitty to grumble about a few florid, gilt chairs when
that
was his view while he was sitting on them. He shook his head at himself and headed to the gourmet kitchen.

Elias, his eldest child, all broad muscle and virile blondness, stood at the tall oak island, wearing nothing but grey sweatpants, beating the bejeezus out of a bowl full of eggs. He’d developed a love of cooking when he was still young enough to need to stand on a chair next to his mother while she taught him her tricks. They’d watched the food channel together for years and had yelled at the television during Iron Chef, or whatever those competition shows were called, sounding like he did on Sundays watching the Broncos.

Eli also sat with him on those Sundays and yelled just as loudly about football as he did about foodies. He’d played ball in high school and in college. Now, he was working in a cubicle at an investment company in Augusta, Maine, hoping to make his finance degree worthwhile.

As Theo came in, pulled a large mug down from one of the open cupboards and made himself a cup of coffee, Eli looked over his shoulder. “Morning, Dad.”

“Morning. Cinnamon rolls?”

“Nah. Crumb cake. And herb and brie omelet.”

“Wow. You stay here long enough, I’m going to gain fifty pounds.” One thing he still had to work out about being in Paris was how to work out. He’d be fifty in August. He knew he looked considerably younger, but staying fit was a big reason for that, and he was vain enough to be worried about skidding toward visible age.

“Want to talk to you about that.”

While Eli poured the eggy concoction into a skillet heated on the range, Theo took his coffee to the table at the side of the room. “What’s up, E.?”

Without turning from his work at the skillet, Eli answered with a question. “How long can I stay?”

He and Jordan had arrived three—no, four—days earlier, for a two-week vacation. Or so Theo had thought. “Don’t you need to get back to work?”

His son shrugged his wide shoulders. “Can I stay a while?”

Theo set his mug down and went to his son’s side. He laid his hand on his shoulder. “As long as I can, E. What’s going on?”

“Fucked up. I got fired.”

“Wow. I’m sorry. You want to talk about it?”

Again, he shrugged. “Not much to say. I missed something important, lost a client a boatload of cash—real money. There are no apologies or second chances when a multimillionaire is screaming for your head.” He picked up the skillet and tipped it, letting egg run to the sides of the pan.

“What can I do?” Knowing that his son wanted distance more than comfort, Theo dropped his hand and went back to the table.

“Let me hang out while I figure it out? I hated that job, anyway. Like you said, it was a mistake to pick a career for money. Mom would’ve kicked my ass when I changed majors.”

Theo laughed. “Yeah, she would have. Archeology is definitely more interesting than finance.”

Turning the fire down under the skillet, Eli opened the door to one of the wall ovens, and a thick rush of cinnamon scent billowed almost visibly into the room. Theo’s mouth watered.

Eli set the glass pan full of cinnamony goodness on the counter and closed the oven door. “It’s not like jobs in archeology open up every day. Or every year. I just didn’t want to end up working at the sporting goods store for the rest of my life.” He chuckled without humor. “But I’m never going to get an investment job again, so it looks like it’s retail for me, anyway.”

Theo got up and pulled plates and silverware from the cupboards. As he set the table, he asked, “What about food? You love this, what you’re doing right now. Be a chef. You could apply to the big school here, what’s it called—”

“Le Cordon Bleu, Dad. It’s pretty famous. And I bet I’d need to speak French a lot better than
où est les toilettes
.”

“It’s pronounced like a long ‘a,’ not ‘ehst.’”

Eli grinned as he brought the skillet over and slid a third of the enormous, fragrant omelet onto the plate in front of Theo. “My point exactly.”

Theo intended to rebut that with an argument that his embarrassingly rudimentary French had not yet impeded him; nearly everyone he encountered spoke far better English than he did French, and as far as he had seen, the reputation of Parisians as rude and supercilious had been vastly and unfairly overstated. But before he could, Jordan came into the room with a flourish.

“
Bonjour, ma famille. C’est une très belle journée, n’est-ce pas?
”

Jordan was so different from either Eli or Theo that people often expressed shock that they were not only related but by the closest possible blood. Both his sons had his blue eyes. Eli had his height and his rough, ruddy blondness. But Jordan took much more after Maggie. He was small—five-eight and slender—and had his mother’s fair, brunette coloring. At twenty, he was five years younger than Eli but seemed, in some ways, older. He was comfortable in his own skin. He knew what he wanted from life. Already.

He’d come out to his parents and brother when he was twelve years old. Just set his fork down on his plate at dinner one night and announced, “I’m gay. Thought you should know.”

No one had been surprised. He’d been playing with his mother’s makeup since he was two, fastidiously assembling and accessorizing his outfits since he was three, and none of his tastes in any regard were what one might call ‘macho.’ When he went to his brother’s football games, he watched the cheerleaders, but not for the reason the other boys were. He was critiquing their style and moves.

That night, Maggie had looked across the table at him, said, “Yep. Pass the rolls, would you?”

And exactly nothing had changed in their family, because they’d already known, and he’d never pretended to be anyone but Jordan.

Now, he was standing in the doorway with one hand high on the jamb and the other on his hip, wearing a gold and black brocade dressing gown and a jade green ascot, the pants of jade green silk pajamas underneath. His hair was styled in a perfect quiff, and his eyeliner was already in place. He certainly had a flair.

Theo grinned. “Morning, gorgeous. How’d you sleep?”

With an irritated huff, Jordan came to the table. “Dad! We’re in Paris. Speak Parisian! And
j’ai bien dormi
.”

With Eli’s life concerns dwarfed by his little brother’s extravagant enthusiasm, the three Wilde men sat at the table in their borrowed Parisian kitchen and ate a gourmet breakfast, chatting about their plans for the day. Theo was writing. Eli and Jordan were going to do a sightseeing circuit, walking or using the Metro to catch the biggest highlights, starting with a ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower and ending at the Louvre.

Theo finished his omelet and pushed his plate aside. That crumb cake was calling to him. Maybe he’d write for a couple of hours and then take a run to burn off his son’s cooking. “Let me know when you’re heading to the Louvre. I’ll meet you. I know a secret way in—no line.”

Jordan clapped. “Dad has the goods. Okay, we’ll text. And I want dinner out. With wine.”

The mention of wine brought Carmen back. He’d gone to sleep thinking about that kiss—first he’d jacked off thinking about that kiss—but this morning his thoughts had been of his usual variety: his work, his sons. Now, he smiled as he recalled watching her become charmingly inebriated and increasingly, correspondingly friendly.