Dramatic, Mushy, Complicated Love Read online

  “And you don’t?”

  Chuckling softly, I reached out, and because I couldn’t stop myself, I touched my fingertips to hers, needing just the smallest of touch of her skin again.

  “Five women in one house? Yeah, I got out of there and moved into my own place a few years ago. Kayla, the oldest of the girls, works for me, so I decided a man can get too much of a good thing,” I admitted ruefully. One of Meadow’s fingers was tracing a line from the tip of her fingers up to her palm and back again. I had to touch her.

  “Families hey, can’t pick ‘em, can’t bury ‘em in the bush.”

  I stared at her for a second before bursting out laughing–Meadow’s colourful and different way of describing the joys of family catching me off guard.

  “I have never met anyone like you, Meadow …?” I paused and raised my eyebrows at her, waiting for her to fill in the blank.

  “Tessler,” she informed me, “Meadow Lavender Tessler. My parents are extremely weird, unfortunately for my siblings and me.”

  “Hippies?” I asked, smiling.

  “No, just weird,” she quipped, laughing.

  “You know Spring, her middle name is Fawn, and I have a brother Brecken, who has the distinct middle name of Wolf. Needless to say, we were mercilessly teased when we were younger.”

  “Well, I think Meadow Lavender is a beautiful name, fits the beautiful woman behind the beautiful name.” Folding my hand over hers, I squeezed it gently.

  “Luca Massimo Donatella, oldest of five. Half Italian, half French.”

  Meadow smiled hugely at me, returning my squeeze.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you officially, Luca Donatella. Welcome to Second Chances.”

  That might be the name of her store, but I didn’t miss the double meaning.

  Meadow forgave me, now all I had to do was not fuck up with her again.

  Not a problem there.

  The atmosphere of the restaurant Luca chose for us to meet at was casual-cosy, which worked rather well with my outfit of bootcut jeans, a black, sleeveless halter top with soft straps of silver beading winding around my neck. I topped off my ensemble with red cowboy boots on my feet, a slew of silver bangles on my arm and cubic zirconia chandelier earrings that tickled the tops of my shoulders. I was dressed up but not enough to look out of place amongst the other diners.

  “You know, I drive past this place at least three times a week and never once have I thought about coming in,” I admitted, looking back at Luca to find him staring intently at my arm.

  “Is something wrong,” I asked quickly, holding out my arm, turning it over and back to see if I had a mark or something on my skin.

  “No, I was just admiring your ink work. That is one hell of a tat you have there.”

  “It was a bold choice for my first tattoo, painful too,” I remarked, looking down at my left arm and smiling at the lion there, which covered my entire upper arm, down to my elbow. It has an elaborate Native American headdress and a fancy collar around the lion’s neck, with a capital T for my surname and the favourite of my tattoos.

  “How old were you when you got it?” Luca asked, picking up his beer and taking a sip.

  “Seventeen. My mum gave me written permission and I couldn’t get to the tattoo studio fast enough. That started a love affair with ink that is still a work in progress.”

  “Seventeen! Is it even legal to get a tattoo at that age?”

  Sipping on my own drink of water and ice, I shrugged.

  “Probably not, but my parents aren’t normal, remember. We had a family friend that was an artist and he did it out of work hours off the books. As long as I didn’t tell anyone who did it, he was happy to pop my ink cherry.” Then I laughed when Luca choked on the mouthful of beer he was in the middle of swallowing.

  “Popped your cherry?” Luca coughed, in between fits of laughter.

  “Just my ink cherry,” I affirmed sassily, enjoying that Luca wasn’t offended by my openness. Most guys I knew got embarrassed by my forthrightness, preferring a woman to be more subdued and ladylike. I had those qualities when needed, but I also had Trish as a mother and role model.

  “What else have you got?” he asked, indicating my arm with his chin.

  “Just some roses on my forearm with some pretty scrollwork and an old fashion fob watch. Um, let’s see, I have a ribbon of butterflies down the length of my back with a fairy in the middle of my spine. And a whole leg of my favourite cartoon characters and a tiny one on my toe because that shit hurts. All my tats, except for my backpiece, are only on the left side, nothing on the right.

  “How come?”

  Surprised by his question and interest, I thought about telling him some bullshit, but that felt wrong. I liked Luca a lot, and I wanted to explore this intense bond of chemistry between us. Feeding him crap was not a good way to start.

  “I started out wanting to have two full sleeves and legs tattooed, but I kind of like leaving one side free of ink. Sort of like an explanation of who I am, I guess.” Shrugging like it was no big deal, but it really was. Not even Spring or Mum knew why I had not gotten around to doing my right side, plus they had not even asked me. I thought it funny that Luca asked, and straight away too.

  “And who are you, Meadow Lavender Tessler?” Luca leaned over the table and held my gaze with an intensity I didn’t want to pull away from ever.

  Biting my lip, I leaned forward too, our breaths mingling, our nose so close to touching.

  “Sometimes I’m a good girl, and sometimes I’m not,” I whispered, my voice husky and flirty. This was how we were that night at the pub, two strangers not worried about last names or the worry about the truth. I liked that, but this sharing was pleasant too.

  “What about your tat, Luca? From what I saw at the pub, it doesn’t look finished.”

  Taking another few seconds to tease him this close, I touched the tip of my nose to his, then sat back in my seat. Secretly happy at the way his eyes hooded over for a minute before shaking his head to regain his focus.

  “Yeah, I got that when I was eighteen. First time away from home, at Uni with my mates and a free man. Then I had to leave and come home after six months, and the tattoo is an unfinished project that will most likely remain that way.”

  Intrigued by his tone as he told me his story, I couldn’t help surmise that Luca did not want to come home or was all that happy about it.

  “You don’t sound too pleased you had to go. What made you leave?” Taking the menu off the table, I opened the leather binder and absently surveyed the food available while waiting for Luca to answer. When I got to the mains section and realised that he was still silent, I looked back at him to see a cloud of sadness filling his bright blue eyes.

  Shit! Was my question too personal? Did I offend him by asking?

  “Luca, I am s—” My apology was cut off by his hands reaching for one of mine, covering it warmly.

  “My dad passed away the day I was out drinking and getting this tat,” he replied quietly, looking down at his arm. His shirt was a long-sleeve button-down with the sleeves rolled up over his elbow, the bottom of the unfinished ink job poking out just an inch.

  “One minute I was enjoying my freedom, and the next I was back home, transferring to a local university and working part-time at the family business all while looking after my mum and younger sisters.”

  Luca looked over my shoulder, and I could tell he didn’t seeing anything interesting behind me; rather, he looked like he was lost in his memories.

  Suddenly, I didn’t like the distance between us, the table a hindrance now rather than a necessary buffer to keep me from throwing myself at him as I did at the pub. When I said yes to this date earlier when Luca came to my shop to explain, what I initially thought was his rude behaviour, I gave myself a good talking to and came up with a plan to take things slow. We had sexual chemistry; that much was obvious. Being compatible sexually was not the only important aspect of a relationship, however. My last rela
tionship had been the opposite; we clicked in the conversation department and lacked in the sack, so to speak. With Luca, it was important to me to see if we had both.

  Replacing the menu back on the table, I covered his hand with my free one, threading my fingers through his, and as I hoped, Luca’s attention turned back to me.

  “You mentioned that your mum is … fragile, was it? What exactly do you mean by that?” I asked, genuinely interested.

  “Mum is French, I think I told you that.” Nodding a yes, he continued. “She is an emotional woman, always has been. Dad was a red-blooded Italian. They met when she went for a summer holiday to Rome. They met, fell in love and married all within two months. Her parents disowned her when they found out their only daughter married the son of a poor fisherman. Mum had been at university studying art, she is a painter and they had big dreams for her to be the best landscape artist of her time. Instead, she married and immigrated to Australia with her Italian husband. A couple of my father’s relatives followed soon after and a couple of years later, Mum’s older brother and his family arrived in Australia.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a bad decision to me.” I decided immediately, loving the beautiful love story of his parents and the way he told it. I could hear the affection and respect Luca had for his parents. Not so different from how I felt about my parents, just different ways of seeing them.

  “That is what I think too.” He smiled warmly at me. “Anyway, Dad did everything for Mum. She was his queen and he worshipped and waited on her every need. He got a job as a brickie’s labourer and went to night school to learn English. His boss saw that he was more than just a lackey, so he sponsored him to go to uni, and Dad eventually got his engineering degree while working a day job and classes at night.”

  “Did your Mum work?”

  “Not in the traditional sense. She taught painting to school kids in exchange for English lessons at a local TAFE. But her job as she saw it was to keep her husband happy and well-fed, the house kept perfect and raising her kids.”

  “Huh,” I said non-committedly, accepting that was once the way to do things back in the day. Now it was a different world, and I could just imagine Trish sitting back and letting her husband take care of her every whim–not.

  “Well, my parents are slightly different to yours,” I chuckled, “very different in fact.”

  “Tell me about them,” Luca encouraged, his hand clasping mine tightly.

  “Oh lord, where do I start explaining Lennie and Trish to someone who doesn’t know them? Hmmm.”

  “Lennie and Trish? You call them that?”

  Nodding, I laughed, “Oh yes, they insist on it. They were very young when they had me, eighteen both of them. They aren’t traditional in any way, shape or form. Lennie is an interstate truck driver and is away from home for a fortnight at a time. He has been driving trucks since he and Mum found out that the condom failed miserably, their words by the way, and Trish currently works in an art gallery. She probably won’t last the year at that job. She has a habit of getting bored, she calls it itchy feet. I call it ADHD.”

  “Explain, please,” Luca pressed, looking completely engrossed in the history of Lennie and Trish.

  “Trish gets bored easily, and it doesn’t matter if it is a movie she just started watching, eating a meal or a job. She can’t sit still, she has a problem with sticking to her decisions. For example, in the last two years, she has worked at a chicken farm as a chicken inspector and a forklift operator at a recycling plant. She painted over graffiti on overpasses on the highway outside of town for two weeks,, but she hated that she was covering over peoples’ artistic artwork, so she quit. Then she worked at an animal pound, but they sacked her because she initiated a sit-in protest for the animals. Her reason, she didn’t like the size of the cages.”

  That had been a hilarious time for the family, Trish got arrested for disturbing the peace, and Spring and I had to bail her out because Lennie was in Far North Queensland hauling heavy machinery to a remote gold mine at the time. Spring had not found it funny, but Dad and I had.

  “Arrested?” Luca gawked, then grinned.

  “Yep,” I cackled, shaking my head at the memory, “Trish is not your typical cupcake-making mother. It made for an interesting childhood having Lennie and Trish for parents.”

  “Sounds like fun, try having parents that pushed you to excel at everything they chose for you; sports, education, friends. My mum and dad drove us to be the best we could be. Me in particular, being the only male child.”

  Luca’s tone bordered on resentment, but his eyes held a warmth as he spoke about his parents. I got the impression he was torn, his respect for his deceased father and sense of responsibility to his mum not allowing him to speak his inner truth.

  “You know, my brother Brecken is the only male child, and trust me, Mum and Dad wouldn’t trust him with feeding the dog,” I told him, chuckling, “some people are meant to be leaders, and some aren’t. It must be a heady thing, looking after a family, stepping into your father’s shoes and all.”

  “Up until recently, I thought that, yeah,” Luca answered thoughtfully. “But it gets a little annoying when it spills into my private life. That is why I moved out, Mum was always looking over my shoulder, setting me up with her friends’ daughters, constantly asking for grandchildren, shit like that, you know?”

  “Actually, I don’t. Trish and Lennie aren’t exactly the grandparent kind. Their philosophy in life was to let the kids find out and see if they learn from it. I moved out of home at eighteen, so did Spring. Brecken still lives at home, but he takes after our parents. To quote Spring, ‘he is an airhead’.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Just turned twenty-two, there are three years between he and I and only seventeen months age difference between Spring and me. Don’t get the wrong idea, our parents love us. A lot. They cared when we fell over and hurt ourselves, and I lost count of the amount of times Lennie stood out front of the school gates looking tough and scary when he heard about kids picking on our names. They just didn’t force or molly-coddle us; if we wanted to do sport, we could. If we didn’t, they were fine with that too.”

  Huffing out a laugh, I shook my head ruefully. “I have painted a picture of a crazy family life, haven’t I? You probably wish you had not asked me out and started this ‘get to know one another’ conversation.”

  Honestly, I was expecting Luca to laugh, maybe try and assure me he was having fun while secretly waiting to go to the restroom and sneak out. What I wasn’t expecting was a low, manly growl and for his fingers to tighten around mine, not quite painfully but close.

  “Look at me, Meadow,” Luca ground out, sounding almost angry. Of course, I lifted my eyes to stare back at his fiery blue ones.

  Damn, he is hot when he is pissed.

  “What’s wrong?” I blurted out, suddenly worried. Was the story about Trish getting arrested too much of a share for a first date? Maybe I should have just gone with sleeping with him first and said fuck dinner.

  “Stop what you are thinking because it is more than likely whacked, Meadow.” Luca leaned over the table, his large frame blocking out the people sitting behind him. With him this close, memories of a week ago filtered through my mind. The same cologne scent filled my nostrils, the same clean and fresh breath tickled my face. And the same overwhelming thought that this man was my one bombarded me. Even angry, he was mesmerising.

  “Family is family, and everyone is different. Don’t for a second think I regret asking you one question about your mum and dad. I want to get to know you on every level, baby, so don’t think that your mum getting put in the lock-up is going to scare me off. No chance of that happening.”

  I sucked in a breath when he dropped the endearment. He used that at the pub, but I put it down to the beer and heat between us to take it seriously. Hearing him say it now, with such intensity … yeah, that was hot. I liked pet names, obviously calling him spunk rat before I even knew his nam
e might have given that impression. The difference between using a pet name and an endearment, to me, spoke volumes about how that person felt about you.

  Matt rarely called me anything but Meadow; occasionally, he would toss out a babe or hon, but they sounded flat and out of place coming from him. I often wondered, not now, but the first few months after we broke up, just how much I really had meant to him. Then I stopped worrying about that and thought about how and why we’d wasted so much time on our relationship. When in reality, neither of us were truly attracted sexually to each other. Matt was a pretty boy, with an okay body but not a voice with anywhere near the same class as the man staring at me now.

  Luca? He was a whole different pussy-soaking experience. His deep gravelly voice owned me already, throw in the sexy way baby left his lips, and I could very happily be his slave for life. Biting my bottom lip in an attempt to keep myself from moaning out his name, I looked at him through hooded eyes.

  “I accept that, spunk rat.”

  Luca’s beautiful lips transformed into a gorgeous panty-melting grin, making it impossible for me to get up from my seat without concern for the fabric. I never thought I would be lucky enough to find a man that could turn the tables on me and have the upper hand. Not that I was ever going to let that titbit common knowledge, but it was nice to be on the other side for a change of scenery.

  I always secretly craved to fall to my knees for the right man. I just honestly didn’t think it would ever happen.

  “Good girl,” Luca breathed, bringing his mouth closer to mine, his lips so close, the temptation too much for me.

  Lifting my chin, I gently pressed my lips to his, supremely aware that our display was most likely already bringing attention to us. I ended the chaste kiss before Luca could react and take over.

  Our chemistry was never in question, and my only problem was the reason for him breaking off and leaving me. Now I knew that I believed him and wanted to explore if there could be an us, it was time to let my brain take over and lead my heart and libido.

  “I want this thing between us to take off Luca,” I told him truthfully, ignoring his delicious mouth hovering close to mine. “Our short time at the pub proved that we have a spark, heat, something sensual. I want to know how amazing and special I believe it could be.”