The Inheritance (The Donatelli Series) (10 page)

“Yes.”

“Put Daisy in the kennel. She needs a time out.”

“How do you know this much about dogs?”

“Hey, I haven’t lived in a vacuum. I worked for an animal psychologist once. She was a little weird, but I learned a thing or two. Dogs are pack animals, and they obey the alpha dog, the leader of the pack. If you let them know you’re the alpha dog, they’re all yours. Right now, this little mutt isn’t sure if the alpha dog is you or Fluffy.”

Maria pulled Daisy’s old kennel off the shelf in the garage, put it in the laundry room, and locked Daisy inside.

“Leave her alone, kids,” said Blade. “Her jail sentence has to be served in solitary.”

“She didn’t mean to,” Andy said again, his standard defense.

“Yes, she did. She’s a dog, and this is what dogs do. They chase cats. Next time she goes out, take her on the leash.”

The boys went back outside. “Poor Daisy,” Jimmy said.

“She’s in jail,” Andy said before the door slammed behind them.

Maria sighed. She’d told the kids a hundred times not to slam the door. Turning back to Blade, she said, “I thought you didn’t know anything about kids and dogs.”

“Dogs I can handle. Kids I’m not so sure about. Do you lock them in a kennel when they disobey?”

“No, but that’s not a bad idea. Do they come in kid size?”

Blade smiled, the first time he’d smiled since he’d come in. “I always feel better when I’m with you, Maria. Why is that?”

“Maybe because you’re looking for a mother instead of a wife.”

“Honey, you may be someone’s mother, but you’re not mine. I’d like to take you home and—”

She held up her hand. “Don’t say it.”

I want to make love to you, Maria. I want to hold you and kiss you all night long.

He gazed into her eyes forever, and she couldn’t look away. She was falling in love with a biker, a man who punished the dog, a son who couldn’t forgive his mother.

Maria couldn’t let him know how she felt. He needed a wife, and she wouldn’t marry again. He didn’t like kids, and she had four. The boy inside him desperately needed love, but the man was afraid to let anyone get that close.

Blade was too wild to be tamed by any woman.

What she wouldn’t give for one night alone with him.

Chapter Six

W
hen Sophia got home from her doctor’s appointment, she saw Jimmy and Andy playing in the front yard, but no Daisy. After the last time, the day of the two baths, Sophia was afraid the dog had run off again. “Andy, where’s Daisy?”

“She’s in jail,” he replied.

“Where?”

“In the house. Blade locked her up because she chased Fluffy again.”

“He’s mean,” said Jimmy.

Sophia walked inside, where she found Maria and Blade in each other’s arms. From the way they looked at each other, she knew something had happened. Maria was comforting him, and he held on as if she was his only chance for survival. There was so much pain in the man it nearly broke her heart, like Nicky when he came to her so many years ago.

Maria spotted her and backed away from Blade. “What did the doctor say, Mom? Everything okay?”

“Everything is fine and I don’t have to go back for six months. Did you start dinner?”

“Tonight, I’m taking all of you out for dinner,” said Blade. “Is Mexican okay?”

“Fine with me,” said Sophia. “What’s this about Daisy being in jail?”

The kids had followed her inside and they talked at the same time. Blade whistled and they stopped talking and stared at him, eyes big. “One at a time,” he said. “Jimmy first.”

When Jimmy ran down, Blade said, “Your turn, Andy.”

“Can Daisy get out of jail now?”

Maria retrieved Daisy from her kennel and hooked her leash on. “Take her outside for a few minutes, but don’t let her off the leash. She has to learn not to run off like that or she could get hit by a car.”

“But it was Fluffy’s fault,” said Andy.

“I know Fluffy likes to tease, but it isn’t safe for Daisy to run free. If she won’t stay in the yard, she can’t go outside without her leash. And keep her out of the mud.”

The boys were partly awed by Blade and partly afraid of him, and Blade didn’t know quite what to do with them. He might not be an experienced parent, but his instincts were good. It took a firm hand and a lot of love to handle kids. Blade could handle the firm hand part, and he had a lot of love to give, but he wasn’t comfortable in a family situation.

Maria was half in love with Blade. She had a big, loving family, and he’d always been alone. Their relationship was doomed before it began. Sophia wanted to hug the little boy inside him and tell him everything would be all right, but nobody could make things all right until Blade could open up and let someone love him. The poor man couldn’t even love himself.

Although Sophia felt sorry for Blade, she didn’t want him with Maria.

He’d break her heart.

<>

After promising to be back at Maria’s house in an hour, Blade walked home. Jimmy and Andy tagged along until he said, “That’s far enough, kids. Go back home, and I’ll see you in an hour.”

The kids turned back, and Blade walked the rest of the way alone. He didn’t know if Sunny had come here alone or with someone, and he didn’t want Maria’s kids near his house. Innocent kids didn’t belong around Sunny and her friends.

Now that Sunny knew where he lived, he couldn’t stay in the house. If she didn’t come back after she was released from jail, she’d most likely send someone after him. Either way, he didn’t want to be here. Criminals had moved in and out of the house frequently when Blade was a kid, and he couldn’t believe that Sunny had severed her relationship with those people. She was still drinking and using, and she was probably still partying with the dregs of society.

Sunny loved the excitement of being on the fringes and living vicariously through the people who bounced in and out of jail. One of her male ‘friends’ had tried to molest Blade when he was eight or nine. Sunny laughed it off, and Blade knew he was on his own. He stayed with a friend for two nights, and when he came home, he slept with a knife under his pillow until the man left the house. But he’d never told anyone else what happened. Like the rest of his childhood, he’d buried it deep inside him where no one could touch it.

Blade walked through the house, trying to figure out what to keep and what to leave behind. He could buy himself a new computer and have the data on the hard drive of the old one transferred. That left the new clothes he’d bought in New York and his favorite jeans, his personal papers, his books, and the Harley. The old pickup had seen better days and wasn’t worth fixing, and he’d bought his furniture second-hand. Thirty-nine years old, and he still lived cheap, like a kid just out of college.

He had a stack of collapsible file boxes in the garage from when he’d moved here two years ago. He carried some of them inside and put them together. If he worked most of the night, he’d be ready to leave here in the morning. The books could be put in a storage locker for now, and he’d leave enough of his clothes for it to look like he was still living here. When Sunny came looking for him again, maybe she wouldn’t notice he’d moved out.

Before he started packing books, he called the emergency number for his credit card and cancelled it. The Visa card was the only one he carried, and he intended to pay it off tomorrow. Sunny would stop at nothing to get the money for her next fix. If she’d passed the number on to someone, they could be charging on his card right now.

As he showered and dressed to go out to dinner, Blade thought of one other thing he needed to do. He needed to find an attorney and make a will. If he died tonight, Sunny could end up with the money in his bank account, the house in New York, and the house in Florida. No way in hell would he let that happen. No matter what happened to him, he didn’t want to reward her for the way she’d treated him.

<>

Maria got the kids cleaned up. “We’re going out to eat tonight,” she told them, “and I want you to be on your best behavior.”

“Pizza?” asked Robbie.

“Mexican.”

Jimmy grinned. “Mmm.” He loved Mexican food.

Andy and Jimmy thought Blade was awesome because he drove a motorcycle and mean because he put Daisy in jail. Robbie’s mind was in a book, as usual, and Molly’s was on a new pair of jeans she just couldn’t live without. They were low slung and had slits in the knees and in the butt. Molly knew her mother wouldn’t let her go to school with her underwear showing, but she wanted them anyway. Bad enough to have so much skin showing between her jeans and shirt. Molly wouldn’t wear something like that in public anyway. She just wanted to see how much she could get away with.

Blade tapped on the door and Andy ran to open it. Daisy ran outside. Blade hollered at her to get back here right this minute, and the dog came running to him and cowered at his feet.

“She didn’t mean to,” said Andy.

“Does she have to go back to jail?” asked Jimmy.

Blade’s eyes sparkled, but he didn’t laugh out loud. “Yep,” he said. “Lock her up.”

“You’re mean,” Andy said through his pout, but he and Jimmy put Daisy in the kennel in the laundry room.

“Does your mom let you run out in the main road?” Blade asked the boys.

“No,” said Jimmy. “We’re not allowed to go that far.”

“Daisy isn’t allowed to go outside the yard unless she’s on her leash,” said Maria. “Every time she runs in the street, she has to go in her kennel until she understands it’s wrong.”

“Can she come out now?” asked Andy.

“No. She’ll be all right while we go out to eat.”

Blade gazed into Maria’s eyes.
We could get a bigger kennel and put Andy in there with her.

Maria was still laughing when they left for the restaurant.

After pouting for a few minutes, Andy warmed up to Blade. Robbie talked about the stock market game the kids in his class had played. Robbie had done better than anyone else in the class. No surprise there. Maria wondered how long she could hold him back in school. He’d already skipped one grade, and with his mind, he could skip junior high and never miss a beat. She’d kept him back for social reasons, and Robbie wasn’t the least bit interested in socializing. His mind was like a sponge that soaked up every bit of knowledge, and he was bored in school. Robbie could handle the work if she let him jump ahead another grade, but she didn’t want her little boy in high school with his big sister. Molly would hate it, and so would Robbie.

Molly kept glancing around. A boy from school sat at a nearby table, and Maria knew her daughter had a crush on him. The boy was nice looking, in a fourteen-going-on-fifteen fashion, but he was thinking about his brother’s car, not Molly.

Sometimes this ‘gift’ of reading thoughts was more of a curse.

<>

After Maria brought her family home after dinner, Blade stood on her front porch and said, “I’m moving out of my house. You have my cell phone number, so keep in touch.”

“Tell me you aren’t leaving for good.”

“No, the sellers on that property have agreed to my price and terms. Don’t give up on me, Maria.”

“I thought you wanted me to help you find a wife.”

He pulled her into his arms for a big hug. “Too bad you don’t want me.”

She snuggled in closer. “It’s the other way around, Blade. You don’t want a family. You don’t really want a wife, but you want the money more than your independence.”

He stood holding her for several seconds before asking, “What would you do with ten million dollars?”

“Find a bigger house. Send Robbie to a private school for gifted kids. Buy a new car. Take my mother to Italy so she can see where her parents were born.”

“Sounds nice.” More than nice. Maria had people who loved her, a family to share her life with, and all he’d ever had was himself.

He pulled back, kissed her, and said, “Goodnight.”

Maria watched him walk down the street. It sounded like he was saying goodbye. She wanted to call him back, but she couldn’t. Better to break it off now, so he could start looking for a woman to marry. A woman who didn’t have kids or pets. A woman who would give him the love he so desperately needed.