Behind The Red Doors (Santori Stories #1)(35)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

It was becoming an unfortunate tradition.

She pushed herself to her feet and put on her coat, boots, hat and scarf. Trudging to the front entrance, she turned off lights as she went. She nodded to the new armed security guard—she’d hired a security firm to provide bonded, licensed guards around the clock.

The man unlocked the main entrance to let her out, and then bid her good-night. She pulled on her mittens, turned, and stared. She blinked, trying to absorb the scene in front of her: white carriage, driver, horses, man.

The man.

“Carter?” Her voice was muffled by the thick scarf she’d wrapped around her head.

He stood at the curb, dressed in a suit and tie and dress coat, holding a dozen snow-covered red roses and wearing an anxious expression. “It’s me, all right.”

She gestured to the carriage as gracefully as one could in twenty pounds of clothing. “What’s all this?”

He gave her a tentative smile. “If you’ll let me, I’d like to make up for last year.”

Her heart was running like a racehorse, but she crossed her arms. “Why would I let you?”

He ran a finger around his dress-shirt collar. “Because.”

“Because?”

“Because…I love you, Faith.”

She stood watching snow gather on his newly shorn dark head, and curbed the urge to run and fling herself into his arms. “Funny—I thought you were on the verge of proposing to another woman.”

He withdrew his wallet, handed the driver a bill and said something to him. The man took the bill and shook the reins, urging the horses forward. The clip-clop of their hooves hitting the snow-covered pavement carried in the moisture-laden air.

Carter stepped closer until he was only an arm’s length away. “I told him to drive around the block.”

She lifted her chin. “You were about to explain yourself, I think.”

He nodded. “I’m an ass.”

“Yes, you are.”

“And a moron.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I don’t deserve you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“But I’m begging you to give me another chance.”

She studied her mittens for several seconds, recalling all too clearly the humiliation she’d experienced at the station. “Why did you lie to me?”

He sighed, his breath frosty in the cool air. “When you walked out on me last year, the last thing you said was that I wasn’t commitment material.”

“You’re not.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You are now?”

“I think so.”

“You were saying?”

“I was saying that your words stuck with me, bothered me. When I saw you again, I wanted to make you think you were wrong about me, and I said the first thing that came to mind—that I was in a serious relationship.” He grimaced. “Then we started working together, and you offered to help pick out a ring, and I had to keep lying to maintain my other lies. It was stupid.”

“You made love to me under false pretenses.”

“I’m sorry. You don’t know how sorry.”

She angled her head. “No, I don’t.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “I know you don’t believe me, but that night in the vault changed my life. The day you were at the station, I had decided to come clean with you about everything and see if you still had feelings for me.”

“Who said I ever had feelings for you?”

He balked. “Nobody.”

She pointed to the roses. “Are those mine?”

“Yes.” He shook them off, then handed them to her. “And there’s something else I’d like for you to have.” He withdrew a familiar blue ring box from his pocket, and her heart lodged in her throat.

“Carter.”

He got down on one knee a little awkwardly due to his wounded leg and the thick carpet of snow. She bit back a smile.

“Faith, this ring was meant for you. I love you, and I don’t want to waste any more time. Marry me, Faith. Or at least…think about marrying me.”

Tears filled her eyes, and her heart was ready to explode. She took a deep breath and said, “I can’t, Carter.”

His shoulders fell and he looked down.

“Unless…”

He looked up. “Unless?”

“Unless you give me your heart, willingly and completely.”

“It’s yours for as long as it’s beating,” he said earnestly. “Take all of me, all I have. Do you like dogs?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I can’t live like this anymore, Faith.”

“Like what?”

“Without you.”

She cleared her throat. “You mentioned a ring?”

He took the ring out of the box and held it up, dazzling under the streetlights. “Marry me, Faith.”

She struggled with her mitten for what seemed an eternity before she managed to get it off, then extended her shaking hand. “Yes, Carter, I’ll think about marrying you.”

His face lit up with a grin. He slid the ring onto her finger, a perfect fit. It was as if she were meant to have this ring.

He tried to stand, but apparently kneeling in the snow on the sidewalk had compromised his muscle control. She reached out and helped him to his feet after a bit of slipping and sliding. They laughed, and her heart was near bursting. He pulled down her scarf and kissed her soundly, holding her face between his hands. He wrapped his arms around her and rocked back and forth. She wanted to remember this moment forever, to pass along to the child or grandchild who would someday inherit the ring.

At the sound of the carriage approaching, they pulled apart and held hands until the driver stopped.

“Shall we?” Carter asked, then helped her into the carriage seat.

Faith couldn’t stop smiling, couldn’t believe the turn her life had taken. Her heart was bursting with inexpressible joy. She settled into the seat and allowed Carter to spread a blanket over her knees. The carriage rolled forward, along the nearly deserted Michigan Avenue. The snow muffled any sounds of traffic and gave the streetlights glowing halos.

What a perfectly magical night. What a perfectly magical Valentine’s Day. The snow was falling faster now, and her cheeks were frosty cold. He put his arm around her, and she snuggled into his warmth. But she felt something on the seat under her hip and reached down to withdraw a bulky manila envelope that felt like it contained a videotape. “What’s this?”

He patted her hand. “Something to watch on our honeymoon.”

She pursed her mouth, intrigued, but was distracted by another thought that flashed into her head. “Oh, Carter, don’t let me forget to call a newspaper reporter first thing tomorrow.”

He kissed her temple. “Sure. Why?”

Faith leaned against his shoulder and sighed. “Something about a happy ending to a story.”

SHEER DELIGHTS

Leslie Kelly

To Jim & Lena Kelly. Thanks for raising such a

wonderful son. And Mom, thanks for letting me

“borrow” your big Italian family for this story.

And finally, to Vicki & Steph.

This has truly been an honor.

PROLOGUE

December 23, 2002

“NO. FOR THE LAST TIME, I am not buying your wife thong underwear for Christmas.”

Joe Santori didn’t go so far as to shake his finger in his brother Tony’s face, but he shot him a glare that said their argument was over. Tony had been needling him for twenty minutes about what Joe should purchase for his wife. Joe had drawn her name in the annual Santori family Secret Santa exchange.

“Come on, it’s not like I’m asking you to kill somebody. Just get her something hot—maybe a teddy—to make her start thinking that way again.” His brother frowned like a kid who’d had his favorite toy taken away. Tony, the oldest of the six Santori children, had been dubbed “the little prince” by their mother on the day of his birth, and had taken the title to heart. He wasn’t used to being told no. Joe mentally snickered. Apparently, lately, Tony’s wife had been the one saying it.

“Please? I’ll pay for it and I’ll throw in an extra hundred bucks. Do it ’cause I’m your big brother, huh, Joey?”

“You’re sick,” Joe said as he reached for his beer. They sat at a table at the crowded pizzeria their parents owned. All around them, people called out greetings and holiday best wishes at an ear-deafening level. He leaned closer to the table to make himself heard. “Why don’t you just buy them for her yourself?”

Tony groaned. “Because then I’ll be a sex-craved pervert who doesn’t respect the ordeal she’s gone through.” Tony seemed to shrink in his seat as he continued. “I’ll hear all about the worst pregnancy ever, the thirty-hour labor and the four months of being enslaved by my demanding, colicky son. And I’ll add another month of celibacy to my sentence.”

Joe hid a grin. Tony Santori—the Mack truck of the Holy Name High School football team a few years ago—was completely whipped by a woman who stood no taller than his chin.

No thanks. None of that for him. No matter how hard his family pushed brown-eyed beauties in his path to try to rope him into marriage, Joe was staying free and clear. Not that he had anything against brown-eyed beauties. Hey, he’d gone out with two different ones in the past few weeks. But he didn’t like the hearth-and-homey women his mother, grandmothers and sister-in-law kept coming up with.