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“Yep. I married her sister Marie a couple of weeks ago.”
“Congratulations,” Nick muttered, and silently wished the poor guy luck. He’d need it if his new wife was anything like her sister.
“Thanks.”
He didn’t want to insult the man’s family, but damned if Nick was going to stand there and not defend himself, either. “Since you’re related to her, you should know what Gina’s like.”
“Charming?” Davis suggested. “Beautiful? Funny?”
All of the above, Nick thought, and plenty more. “Don’t forget to add annoying, shrewish, bossy…” He paused, then asked, “Do I have to go on?”
“No,” Davis said on a laugh. Shaking his head slightly, he added, “I think I get the picture.”
“I’m not sure you do.”
“Look,” Davis said, “Gina said you’ve been giving her a hard time, so I thought I’d talk to you about it.”
Disgusted, Nick said, “Strange, she didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who needed someone else to fight her battles.”
“She isn’t,” Davis told him, and his smile was gone. “But she’s family now. And I look out for my family.”
Nick took the man’s measure and slowly nodded. He could understand family loyalty. “I’d do the same.”
“Then you’ll lighten up on Gina?”
“I’ll fire only if fired upon,” he said solemnly.
Davis smiled again. “Sounds fair enough to me.” He held out his right hand once more, and Nick took it in a firm shake. “Good to meet you, Gunny.”
“Same goes, Gunny,” Nick said.
But as the other man walked off toward his own car, Nick’s mind was racing. Gina Santini had called in reinforcements. Oh, maybe she hadn’t come right out and asked her brother-in-law to talk to him, but she’d probably expected him to. That meant she wasn’t retreating, only regrouping.
She may have won the first battle, but as far as Nick was concerned, the war was still on.
Three
Family-dinner night at the Santinis’ was always interesting. At least one night a week, no matter what else was going on in their lives, the Santinis came together over the dinner table. And for a couple of hours they caught each other up on the news, argued, laughed and ate themselves into a stupor.
Gina glanced around at the faces of her family and smiled to herself. Mama, of course, lonelier since Papa’s death two years ago, but still vibrant and deeply involved in whatever her daughters were up to. Then there was Angela, the oldest Santini sister. A widow herself, Angela and her son, Jeremy, had moved back home after her husband’s death three years ago. Jeremy was a great kid, Gina thought as her glance slid in his direction. And it was doing him a world of good to have Davis, Marie’s new husband, in the family. Jeremy’s father hadn’t been much good at the “family” thing. He’d made all of their lives miserable, and if anyone here was willing to admit it out loud, they’d have to say that Angela was actually happier as a widow than she had ever been when she was married.
But naturally no one would ever admit it.
Then there was Marie. Gina smiled to herself as she looked at the middle Santini sister. Since meeting and falling in love with Davis, Marie had really come into her own. Oh, she was still a great mechanic, and spent most of her time happily involved in some greasy job or other. But there was a sparkle in her eyes and a glow about her that hadn’t been there before Davis.
So basically, she told herself with an inward frown, every Santini at the table looked happy as a clam. Except of course, for her.
“I saw your Gunnery Sergeant Paretti today,” Davis said, and reached for the bowl of pasta.
Well, that came out of nowhere.
Gina looked at him. “He’s not my anything,” she said, and forked up a bite of salad.
“Yeah, well, I had a little talk with him, anyway,” her brother-in-law told her. He looked pretty pleased with himself about it, too.
Eyes wide, she hurriedly chewed, swallowed and said, “You talked to him? When? Where? What do you mean? What did you say?”
Davis shrugged, smiled at his wife, then looked back at Gina. “To answer your questions in order…after work, at the Staff NCO club, and I just told him you were my sister-in-law and I’d appreciate it if he’d back off.”
“Oh, great.” She dropped her fork with a clatter and sat back in her chair.
“Wasn’t that nice?” Mama asked no one in particular and reached out to pat Davis’s hand fondly.
“Nice?” Gina said, staring at her mother. “You think it’s nice?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Marie demanded. “Davis was just trying to help you out.”
“If he wanted to help,” Gina said, glaring at her sister, “then he should have simply run the man down in the street.”
“Oh,” Angela piped up, “there’s a plan.”
“Run who down?” Eight-year-old Jeremy asked.
“A nice Marine like Davis, dear,” Mama told him, and handed him more garlic bread. Unflappable, Mama let nothing interfere with dinner.
“No he’s not,” Gina said quickly.
“Nice?” Mama asked.
“Like Davis,” Gina clarified.
“What’s the big deal?” Angela asked as she poured her son more milk. “So Davis talked to him. You’re overreacting, Gina.”
“Big surprise,” Marie muttered.
“I am not overreacting,” Gina snapped. “How does this look? Now he thinks I went crying to my big brother-in-law wailing for help.”
“You did,” Marie reminded her, rising to her husband’s defense like a lioness defending its den.
“I did not,” she argued hotly, and shifted her gaze from Marie to Davis. “Did I ever ask you to talk to the man? Did I plead for your help?”
“No, but…” Davis squirmed in his chair.
Ordinarily Gina might have felt sorry for him, surrounded by women, the only other jolt of testosterone in the room coming from a boy too small to be on his side. But not tonight.
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