Romancing Sal Gabrini 2: A Woman's Touch Read online

  But Sal was serious. “It was gravy, what are you talking? Her body was nothing more than gravy to me.”

  “If that body of Gemma Jones is gravy to you,” Reno said, refusing to back down, “I’ll bet you’ve been sopping it up dry since your plane touched down.”

  Sal had to smile on that one.

  “I’ll bet you’re down to the bone of that meat,” Reno added, and Sal laughed out loud.

  “Fuck you, Reno,” he said, but this time far more affectionately.

  EIGHT

  Sal and Reno remained in the club, laughing and talking and waiting for their ladies to return from the restrooms, until the very image of the kind of woman that used to be the object of Sal’s affections, a blue-eyed blonde bombshell, walked pass their VIP section. She gave Sal one of those I see you looks, and Sal, also, noticed her as she walked pass. He didn’t realize Reno had seen him, but he had.

  “Don’t worry,” Reno said. “It gets easier.”

  Sal looked at him. “What gets easier?”

  “Wondering if the grass is greener on the other side. With other women. Wanting your cake and eating it too. It gets easier.”

  Reno had it all wrong, but Sal had too much on his mind to try and school him. He, instead, leaned back and listened to the band.

  When Trina and Gemma finally returned to their couch, the conversation, such as it had been, shifted. The blonde Sal had eyeballed was lost in the crowd, and the music also changed. It went from slower, melodic jazz, to Herbie Hancock’s Rockit, a kind of techno-funk, upbeat jazz. When the band started playing Rockit, with its hip synthesizers and its rollicking dance beat, the place started jamming for real. Many more people hit the floor. Including Gemma.

  “Come on, Sal,” she said, without giving him an option, as she stood up, took his hand, and pulled him out onto the dance floor too.

  “Good luck with that!” Reno yelled, knowing for certain that Sal and dance could not possibly mix.

  But to Reno and Trina’s surprise, Sal did not buck the call. He went out on the dance floor with Gemma and actually danced. To their shock, he not only danced, but he danced very well. Even better than Gemma! Reno and Trina looked at each other, dumbstruck, then they looked back at Sal.

  He was so good that many people were commenting about how good he was, for a white boy, and more than a few of the other couples on the floor began to stand back and let him and Gemma do their thing. Gemma laughed so hard, and was having so much fun, that Trina, too, was enormously happy. Gemma was one of the hardest-working women she knew, a woman who often got her heart broken rather than lifted. A woman, like Trina used to be, who rarely ever got any breaks in this life. But meeting Sal, who seemed full of wonderful surprises lately, might just be that big break Gem needed. Just as meeting Reno changed the entire trajectory of Trina’s life.

  After the band wrapped up their version of Hancock’s Rockit, Sal and Gemma stuck around and danced to the slower beat of Chuck Mangione’s Feels So Good. But after that song, it was Gemma pulling for Sal, not to stay on the dance floor, but to take her off of it. She, not he, was the one drained now.

  And when they sat back down, Reno and Trina could do nothing but stare at Sal.

  “What?” Sal asked them.

  “You can dance?” Reno asked him. “You can dance,” he added, not as another question, but as a fact.

  “Yeah, so?” Sal responded. “You got a problem with that?”

  But Reno was still awe-struck. “Sal Luca can dance. Sal Fuck You Gabrini can actually bust a move! Wait till I tell Tommy about this!”

  This alarmed Sal. “If you tell Tommy anything about this night, Reno, I swear I’ll never speak to you again!”

  “Really?” Reno asked. “Where’s my phone, Tree? He said he’ll never speak to me again. Let me call Tom right now!”

  They all laughed. Reno was such a card.

  After the laughter died down, Trina started telling them about some oddball customer she had to deal with today at Champagne’s. As she spoke, that same beautiful blonde who had appraised Sal earlier, walked by again. Only this time she looked at Sal and motioned for the exit. Although she was supposed to be subtle, and she was, Gemma nonetheless caught wind of her motion. But she held her peace and waited.

  And sure enough, within mere seconds, Sal was rising from his seat. “I’ll be back,” he said to her, and made his way toward the exit.

  Trina stopped talking and looked at Gemma. “Where’s he going?”

  But Gemma was staring at Sal.

  Then soon, within seconds herself, she was up too, and heading for the exit.

  “What’s going on with them?” Trina asked.

  Reno didn’t respond. He hoped Sal wasn’t up to his old tricks again. But with Sal, who had never even considered settling down before he met Gemma, it was always a crapshoot. Sal being faithful to one woman, even a woman as gorgeous and talented as Gemma, was always going to be against the odds. Million to one odds, if you asked Reno.

  But it was Gemma’s opinion about those odds that mattered most. And they weren’t looking too great to her either. Especially when she walked out of the club and saw Sal, with that beautiful blonde, standing there in what appeared to be a deep conversation. Sal’s arms were folded, and the woman was doing most of the talking, but the scene was undeniable. Sal was chatting up some female right under Gemma’s nose. Her heart pounded against her chest.

  She turned around, went back inside, and grabbed her purse. When Reno and Trina asked her what was wrong, she told them she’d call them later, and headed back for the exit. Only this time, she didn’t just stand there. She began heading toward the Valet station to call for her car.

  Sal, who had only saw her through his peripheral vision, had to do a double take. When he realized it was indeed his woman walking away, he broke away from the blonde and hurried to Gemma.

  “Gem?” he yelled as he hurried.

  But Gemma didn’t bother to turn around. She didn’t have to. Sal easily overtook her, grabbed her arm, and turned her around himself. “What the fuck?”

  Gemma broke away from his grasp.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Sal grabbed hold of her again.

  “Let me go, Sal,” Gemma said, fighting back tears. She wasn’t about to let this man have her crying in public like this. But it was a battle not to cry.

  Sal was dumbfounded. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked. “Where are you going?”

  “Home. Now will you please let me go?”

  “Why are you going home all of a sudden?”

  But Gemma knew he had to know why. She would only stare at him. He was breaking her heart, but by the strong, determined look on her face, he would never know it.

  Sal exhaled. “She works for me, all right?”

  Gemma expected him to give her an excuse, but not that one. “She works for you? At the Gabrini Corporation?”

  “No.”

  “At Diamante’s?”

  “No.”

  “Taste of Southern?”

  “No, Gemma.”

  “Then what other business do you own? I’ve run out of options.”

  Sal looked at Gemma. “She works for me, Gem,” he said.

  Gemma hesitated. She was no rocket scientist, but she caught on quick enough. “You mean like Chazz Charski and that Will person works for you?”

  Sal nodded. “Yeah. She works for me. She was giving me some intel. She tracked me down to the club.”

  Sal could tell Gemma was still doubtful. “Come here,” he said to her, taking her by the arm and escorting her to where the blonde woman was still standing.

  “Kira,” Sal said, “this is Gemma.”

  Kira smiled. “Hi.”

  “I need you to tell her exactly what you were just telling me.”

  Kira looked at Sal.

  “Go on,” he urged her.

  “Everything?” Kira asked him.

  “Everything.”

  Gemma could tell Kira wa
s still hesitant, but she did tell it. “I was telling Boss that we found Patty.”

  Gemma frowned. “Patty?”

  “Patty Pacheco, Gem,” Sal said.

  “You mean Mikey’s father? The guy who---”

  “Served time in prison for me, yes,” Sal said. “Kira knows the story.”

  Gemma was still confused. “But why would anybody need to find him? Isn’t he in prison?”

  Sal exhaled. “He’s supposed to be. But he’s not.”

  Gemma immediately regretted going down this road. She was an attorney, for crying out loud, and they were talking about what? A prison break? A convict on the loose?

  “She can tell you more,” Sal said, “to convince you that she’s working for me, not fucking me, but I’m not sure if you want to hear more.”

  Willful ignorance, Gemma thought. To be with Sal she would have to engage in willful ignorance. Which, given her position, was going to be one of the worse things she could engage in. But for Gemma the alternative, which was to not be with Sal, was far worse.

  “I’ll wait for you inside,” she finally said, and began to head back toward the club entrance.

  Sal knew what that decision meant. He went to her before she entered the club, and pulled her into his arms.

  And Gemma broke down. She couldn’t help it. Because she, too, knew what her decision meant. She cried in Sal’s arms.

  After dinner, they said their goodbyes to Reno and Tree, with Sal leaving Reno’s Bentley at the PaLargio, and drove home in silence. Sal was behind the wheel of Gemma’s BMW, and Gemma was sitting quietly on the passenger side. Sal had her hand in his, but it was Gemma who was squeezing his.

  And when they arrived at her house, and pulled up into the garage, they didn’t have a repeat of their first night together. Sal, instead, let her out on the passenger side, unlocked the house door, and they entered the quiet space, not as two sex-starved lovers, but as two very tired people who just wanted some peace.

  Sal, however, continued to hold her hand as he locked the door and they made their way upstairs. After running her bath water, and while she got into the tub for a long, relaxing bath, he laid on her bed, grabbed her home phone, and called Tommy. He asked about their various businesses, and then he told him what Kira had reported to him.

  “Well at least they found him,” Tommy said on the other end.

  “Yeah, at least that.”

  “Are they going to turn him in?”

  “Hell no!” he said too loud, and then glanced toward the bathroom. The door was closed and he could still hear Gemma in there bathing. But he lowered his voice all the same. “I told you what the man did for me. I can’t turn him in. I just want them to keep an eye on him, that’s all. Keep him out of trouble until the heat is off.”

  “That could take months,” Tommy reminded him. “The guy broke out of prison, for crying out loud. The authorities aren’t about to forget about him.”

  “I know. But that’s the best I can do right now.”

  “But if your people found him, what’s to stop the cops from finding him?”

  “Don’t insult me like that, Tommy,” Sal said. “Those cops couldn’t find Shaquille fucking O’Neal if he was to be standing right in front of them. There’s no comparison.”

  “Okay, you, a former cop, hate cops. What else is new?”

  Sal exhaled. Closed his eyes. “I’m just tired, I guess. Tonight didn’t go so well.”

  “What happened?” Tommy asked.

  “Gemma happened. Kira was hanging around and motioned for me to come outside to talk. Gem saw it and followed us out there.”

  “Kira’s ass should be fired for even approaching you like that.”

  “If she wasn’t so good and valuable, don’t worry, she would have been. But she’s good.”

  “So what happened?” Tommy asked. “Gemma assumed it was a love affair?”

  “Yeah. The only way I could convince her that it wasn’t was for Kira to tell her what we were talking about.”

  “Ah,” Tommy said. “Not good.”

  “Not good at all. Now she’s got to be wondering if I’m worth all this shit. She’s got to be thinking hard about that! And tomorrow we head to Indiana to meet her folks. This is getting to be too much. I don’t know how to handle it.”

  “The only way you can handle it,” Tommy said. “Slowly.”

  “I am taking it slow.”

  “Take it slower,” Tommy said. “You don’t want to scare her away. See how it goes this weekend. Then you’ll know if there’s any hope.”

  Sal’s tired blue eyes opened. “You talk like there might not be any hope.”

  “You have to face facts, Sal. You have a lot going on in your life. A lot of positive, but a lot of negative too. Would you blame her if she doesn’t want to take all of that on?”

  Sal frowned. The truth hurt him to his core. “No,” he said truthfully. “I wouldn’t blame her.”

  “Then hope for the best,” Tommy said, “but please be prepared for the worse.”

  Sal said that he would be, talked a few minutes longer with his brother, and then hung up the phone. But after he hung up, he didn’t get up. He got down, on his knees, and found himself doing something he rarely ever did.

  He prayed.

  NINE

  The plane landed in Indianapolis and Sal and Gemma un-boarded and walked across the tarmac to the waiting sports Mercedes. Although Gemma chose to dress casually, in a pair of jeans, tennis shoes, and a Gap t-shirt, Sal wore a double-breasted suit. This was a matter of business for him. He felt he needed to make the best impression he could.

  Gemma’s parents lived forty miles out of Indianapolis, in a bedroom community called Rosemont, and Sal drove fast all the way there. Gemma was certain he was worrying about absolutely nothing, her parents, in her eyes, were the sweetest people on the planet. But like Sal, she didn’t take any chances either. She silently prayed too, as they drove.

  Sal eventually glanced at her as the hay fields and long, winding roads began to resemble the previous hayfields and long, winding roads they’d already traveled. “Any pointers?” he asked her.

  Gemma smiled. “Just be yourself, Sal.”

  “Ah, come on, Gem. You know your folks. What is it that I need to avoid, at least tell me that?”

  There was one thing. But Gemma didn’t quite know how to say it.

  “Just tell me,” Sal insisted.

  Gemma looked at him. “Legit,” she said.

  Sal frowned. “Legit?”

  “Avoid the word at all costs. My father is a banker. Anybody who goes around talking about how legitimate their business interests are, the more suspicious a man like him will become. A legitimate businessman will never have to say they’re legit. So avoid it.”

  “Legit, I got it.” Then Sal smiled. “Now that wasn’t hard, was it? I tell you I’m a quick study.”

  Gemma smiled, Sal returned his attention back to the road ahead and his own internal thoughts, and silence ensued.

  Until they turned onto Destin Drive, where the Joneses lived.

  “What the,” Sal started, when he saw the big, upscale, split-level houses that seemed remarkably similar to one another.

  Gemma looked at him, surprised by his language. “What the what?” she asked him.

  “This is nuts. They all look the same!”

  “What look the same?”

  “These houses! They all look the same!”

  Gemma looked at the houses, realized what he meant, and then she laughed. “They do not, Sal.”

  “They do! You can go to the wrong house easily!”

  Gemma couldn’t stop laughing. She’d never heard such an idiotic thing before in her life. “I doubt that, but okay.”

  “They’re nice houses, though,” Sal said. “Don’t get me wrong. Very whatta you call American-looking. Very suburban.”

  Gemma was glad that he was pleased. Besides, it wasn’t a bad compliment, she thought, from a man who owned th
e luxury apartment building he lived in.

  But then Sal said “wow” and Gemma looked at him again. “What’s amazing you now?” she asked.

  “Are those your folks?”

  Gemma looked as they turned into her parents’ driveway. Her mother and father were standing outside, on the wraparound front porch of their big brick, colonial-styled home. “Yes.”

  “They look like a Normal Rockwell painting. Give your old man a pitch fork and they got it down pat.”

  Although Gemma laughed, it only disheartened Sal. How in the world, he wondered, were salt of the earth people like this going to take to a crude man like him?

  Then, to make matters worse, as soon as the car stopped rolling on the driveway and parked behind a big, black SUV, Gemma abandoned him. She jumped from his car and ran to greet her parents, her slender body making that run effortless.

  By the time Sal got his big self out of the car and made his way up to them, the daddy had already hugged and lifted her off the ground, and the mother had already given her a kiss and a hug as well. Now they were all eyeballing Sal.

  But Sal was no stranger to stares. He knew how to show strength. His eyes stayed on the father. On Rodney Jones. He was the leader of this family, and the one Gemma talked about the most. As the father went, Sal figured, the family went. He wiped his hand on his suit, and then extended it. “Mr. Jones,” he said as they shook, “I’m Salvatore Gabrini. It is an honor to meet you, sir.”

  Rodney Jones, Gemma’s fifty-year-old father, returned the compliment. “Honor to meet you,” he said as they shook.

  “Gemma has told me so much about you.”

  “And Gemmanette has told us a lot about you, too,” Rodney said, his eyes glued on Sal as well.

  Sal smiled when he heard Gemma’s full name. She told him that name once, when they were in bed one night, but it sounded strange hearing it on somebody else’s lips. Gemma-nette. He smiled.

  “And nice to meet you, Mrs. Jones,” he said, extending his hand to the mother when he and Rodney concluded their handshake.

  But her mother would have none of that. “I’m a hugger,” she said with a wry smile and wrapped Sal into her small arms. Gemma smiled. So did Sal.