Tommy Gabrini 3: Grace Under Fire (The Gabrini Men Series) (11 page)

She
snatched away from him, her face filled with fury.
 
“How can you let her come between us like
this?
 
Does she mean that much to you?”

And
it was only then did Tommy actually stop and see his wife’s distress.
 
Because the answer was no.
 
A resounding no.
 
Compared to Grace, Deena didn’t mean shit to
him.
 
“It’s not about what she means to
me,” he said.

“Then
what is it about?
 
She treated me like a
dog and that means nothing to you?
 
You
expect me to just take it, for old times’ sake?
 
I love you, Tommy, and I don’t want to lose you, but I’ll walk out and
stay out before I let you or her or anybody else mistreat me!
 
I’m not living my life like that!”

There
was a time when tears would be in Grace’s eyes.
 
Whenever they used to argue, she would always end up crying.
 
But not this time.
 
He didn’t see any tears at all.
 
Just defiance.
 
His girl, he realized, was growing up.
 

He
moved up to her, causing her to flinch, as if she was expecting him to inflict
some physical pain on her.
 
He, instead,
placed his hands on either side of her arms.
 
He began to rub her arms.
 
“Some
deal you got,” he said, “hooking up with me.”

Grace
stared at him.
 
“I don’t agree with how
you handled your friend Deena and her situation, but you’re a good husband,
Tommy.”

But
he dismissed such praise.
 
“I’m a good
boyfriend,” he said.
 
“I’m good if you
want an open relationship.
 
I excel at
that.
 
But this husband thing?”
 
He tried to smile, but the pain was too
raw.
 
He, instead, shook his head.
 
“I suck as a husband.”

Grace
smiled and placed her hand on the side of his face.
 
This was the Tommy she knew and loved.
 
This was the man who knew his strengths, but
also was strong enough to admit his weaknesses.
 
This was the side of himself that she knew he never showed to anyone,
but her.

“So
what’s the game plan?” she asked.

“It’s
simple,” he said.
 
“She goes.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight.
 
And you bring your narrow ass back home
tonight.”

Grace
smiled.
 
“She’s not going to like it.”

“But
you will.”
 
Then his look turned
introspective.
 
“And from here on out,
Grace, that’s all that can matter to me.”

Grace’s
heart soared.
 
And he pulled her into his
arms.

But
if they thought Deena Driscoll was not going to go gently into that good night,
they were wrong.
 
She was already packed
and ready to leave when they returned.
 
To Grace, it felt as if the fact that she had shown up and disrupted
their home was all she was after.
 
As if
the disruption itself was the goal.
 
Tommy would not have thought so, since Deena was one of his dearest
friends, but that was exactly how Grace felt.

And
Tommy, to Grace’s delight, made it clear.
 
“No more drop-ins, Dee,” he said to his friend.
 
“I care for you, and I always will, but Grace
is my wife.
 
The care I have for you will
never be greater than the love I have for Grace.
 
And you will respect that.”

Deena
nodded.
 
“Yes, you know I will.”

Grace
was floored.
 
She was behaving like a
totally different woman around Tommy.
 
She even looked at Grace and offered her apologies.

“If I
was in the least disrespectful,” she said with such a sweet smile, “then I do
apologize.
 
I can get overburdened
sometimes and forget my manners.”

“It
was more than bad manners you forgot,” Grace pointed out.
 
No way was this woman going to smile and
minimize what she did just to pacify Tommy.
 
“You weren’t just discourteous.
 
You were rude and hateful and arrogant in the extreme.
 
You may be putting on a good show for Tommy now,
but you put on a hell of a show for me.
 
With emphasis on the hell.”

Deena
laughed it off, and Tommy allowed her that face-saving gesture.
 
But when she finally left their home, and
Tommy pulled Grace back into his arms, Grace smiled.
 
“That woman is probably calling me every name
imaginable right now,” she said.

“She
is,” Tommy agreed.
 
“And where is she
calling you all of those names?”

Grace
laughed.
 
“Outside,” she said.

“Exactly,”
Tommy agreed, and then, still hugging, they headed upstairs.

EIGHT

Tamara
Morton slurped milkshake through her straw and shook her head.
 
They’d been at it all afternoon.
 
And her boyfriend was denying every
accusation she hurled.

“Believe
whatever you want,” he said.
 
“I told you
what the deal is.”

“So
she’s not having your baby?”

“That’s
right!”

“That
DNA test she showed me is a lie?”

“Damn
right it is!”

Tamara
shook her head again.
 
“You are so
trifling,” she said.
 
“You must take me
for a pure fool.”

They
were in Happy Valley, Oregon, on the porch of her mother’s house, and the
twenty-something lovers were trying to repair their disastrous
relationship.
 
But this new news, about
yet another baby mama, was too much for Tamara to stomach.
 

“When
I get straight,” Bobby said, “I’ll take a real DNA test just to prove to you
I’m not that baby’s father.
 
I’ll be
willing to do that for you.”
 
But before
she could cuss him out again, he became distracted.
 
“Damn,” he said, “who’s that?”

Tamara
looked too as the dark red Ferrari stopped in front of her mother’s home.

“Who
is it?” Bobby asked again.

 
But Tamara wasn’t trying to change the
subject.
 
“None of your business, Bobby.
 
Just handle your own business!”

“Who
is it, Tam, stop playing with me?”

Tamara
exhaled.
 
“That’s my half-sister and her
husband, alright?
 
Now can we get back to
this girl?”

But
Bobby was doubtful.
 
“What half-sister
you got?
 
You never mentioned any
half-sister.”

When
Tommy stepped out of the driver’s side and began making his way to the
passenger side of the car, Bobby frowned.
 
“They’re white?
 
Your half-sister
white?”

Tamara
rolled her eyes.
 
How in the world, she
wondered, did she ever get hooked up with this idiot?

Bobby
smiled.
 
“White man in a Ferrari.
 
He must be rich.”

“Duh,”
Tamara said.

“How
rich?”

Tamara
frowned.
 
“None of your business, what
you worrying about that for?
 
What about
the bitch with the baby?”

Nancy
Morton, Grace’s mother, stood inside the screen door.
 
“I thought I told you to call me when they
arrived,” she said to her daughter.

“I
was going to call you,” Tamara said.
 
“They just drove up anyway.”

When
Grace stepped out of the car, Bobby’s look changed.
 
“She’s black,” he said.
 
“I thought you said she was white.”

Tamara
was so up to here with that boy that she stood up and walked to the other side
of the porch.
 
She folded her arms.
 

“What
did I do?” Bobby wanted to know.

“Nothing
at all,” Tamara said.
 
“You never do shit.”

“Behave,”
Nancy warned as her daughter and son-in-law began heading their way.
 
Tommy had his hand in the small of Grace’s
back and held her closely beside him.
 
As
if, Nancy felt, he wanted the world to know that she was his.
 
And Grace.
 
It was still amazing to Nancy how wonderful her oldest child
looked.
 
She had her yellow suit coat
thrown across her arm as she stepped out in a pair of yellow pants and a
sleeveless, tucked-in blouse, revealing her slender but curvaceous shape.
 
She wore shades on her face and her hair was
long and silky straight.

And
the fact that she was CEO of a company now, thanks to Tommy, was yet another
amazement for Nancy.
 
She knew her
daughter was smart.
 
She knew her
ex-husband, Grace’s now-deceased father, would raise her right.
 
But she never dreamed in a million years that
it would lead to this level of success for her.
 
Especially compared to the two daughters Nancy raised.
 
They did nothing but give her constant
grief.
 
Especially when she looked at
their choice of mates.

Grace,
on the other hand, was in the master class when it came to wrangling a good
looking man.
 
Tommy Gabrini.
 
He wore his customary Armani suit and looked
dashing and elegant, Nancy thought, as he walked with her daughter.

But
he was a cheater, Nancy also figured.
 
He
had to be.
 
No man could possibly look as
attractive as he did and not have women falling out of planes to be with
him.
 
Grace declared he was good and
faithful to her, but Nancy wasn’t buying it, she didn’t care what Grace
said.
 

But he
did marry her.
 
That said a lot to
Nancy.
 
She may not have realized it
herself, but her daughter had to be somebody special to get her hooks in a man
like that.

 
“Welcome to Oregon,” Nancy said with a smile
as the couple made their way up the steps.
 
She opened the screen door wider to let them in.

Grace
moved beyond Tommy and hurried to give her mother a hug.
 
“Hi, Mom,” she said as they hugged.
 
They still weren’t exactly close, but they
had at least made a truce.
 
Nancy and
Tommy shook hands.

Grace
looked at Tamara.
 
“Hey, Tam,” she said
to her half-sister.
 
They did not grow up
around each other, as Grace lived in Seattle with her biological father and Tam
lived with Nancy and Ralph Morton, Tam’s father.
 
They barely knew each other.
 
But they kept it cordial.

“How
you doing?” Tam asked.

“I’m
doing good, thanks.”

“You
all right?” Tommy asked Tam.

“Yes,
sir.”

“Is
this the young man you were telling me about?” Grace asked.

Bobby
stood up and extended his hand.
 
“Yeah,
I’m Bobby,” he said.

“You
don’t know if you’re the one I was telling her about,” Tamara pointed out,
prompting Grace and Tommy to laugh.

“Whatever,
girl,” Bobby said dismissively as he and Grace, and then he and Tommy, shook
hands.

“Where’s
Ashley?” Grace asked her mother.

“She
moved to L.A.,” Nancy said.
 
“Talking
about she wants to be an actress.”

“She
might make it,” Tamara said defensively, angry by her mother’s lack of
confidence in any of them.

“Yeah,
she’ll make it.
 
And I’m Tina
Turner.
 
But come on inside.
 
It’s so good to see you two again.”

“We
can’t stay, Ma,” Grace said.
 
“We’re on
our way to Eugene on some business, but we knew it would be late when we were
passing back through.
 
So we thought we’d
drop by and say hello on our way there.”

Nancy
was slightly disappointed, but she maintained her smile.
 
Some would say she abandoned Grace when Grace
was a child, so she knew she should be grateful for any kind of
relationship.
 
“Well it’s good of you to
come by.
 
But you can come in for a few
minutes at least,” she argued.

Grace
knew she and her mother had the kind of history where, the longer they hung
around each other, the more tense their relationship became.
 
She looked at Tommy.
 

“We
have a few minutes,” he said, and they headed inside.

They
sat side by side on the sofa, declined anything to drink, and Nancy settled
down in the flanking chair.
 
She was a
petite woman, attractive even in her fifties, with long brown hair and big
brown eyes.
 
She crossed her legs.
 
“I heard the Gabrini Corporation is looking
to merge with Beltco.”

Tommy
nodded.
 
“That is correct.”

“The
FTC has given the go-ahead?”

“We
haven’t struck the deal yet,” Tommy said.

“If
you do, will the Trade Commission go along with it?”

“We’ll
see.
 
As I said, no deal has been
struck.”

“Formality
surely,” Nancy said.
 
“At least that’s
how the cable news channels have been covering it.”

“You
mean you trust the media?”

Nancy
laughed.
 
“Point taken.
 
So what business do you own in Eugene,
Tommy?
 
Or are you thinking about opening
up a business there too?”

“It’s
Grace’s business, actually.
 
I’m just
tailing along.”

“Yeah,
right,” Grace said with a smile.
 
“I’m
looking to purchase business property over there, for our trucks, and Tommy’s
more than just tailing along.
 
He’s the
chairman of my board.
 
His input will be
invaluable.”

“So
you’re still chairman?
 
I thought she
fired you a few weeks back.”

Tommy
laughed.
 
“She did.”

“Not
really.
 
I told you, Ma, I was just mad.”

“Dogs
get mad,” Nancy said.
 
“Speak correctly.”

Grace
felt a flush of shame, but she didn’t let it show.
  
And Nancy continued, as if she didn’t see
it, either.
 
But Tommy saw it.
 
He knew how much Nancy had hurt her daughter
when Nancy fell in love with a man who didn’t want to raise another man’s
child.
 
So Nancy turned Grace over to
Grace’s father to raise.
 
Thank God he
did a wonderful job.
 
But no thanks to
Nancy.

“How
do you have time to run Trammel and the Gabrini Corporation too,” Nancy asked
him, “with all of the businesses under that umbrella?”

“He
doesn’t have time,” Grace said.
 
“He’s
just helping me out.”

 
“He’s probably running the whole thing,”
Nancy said.
 
“What would you know about
running a company?”

Tommy
looked at his mother-in-law.
 
“Why would
you say a thing like that?
 
She’s done an
excellent job with Trammel.
 
It was
bleeding money, had rarely been profitable, before Grace took the reins.
 
She’s a natural.
 
I’m extremely proud of her.”

And
that small statement shut Nancy up.
 
From
there on out, it was pleasantries all around.

Until
yelling was heard outside.

“What’s
that?” Grace asked.

“That’s
Tam and that boy.
 
They argue all the
time.
 
Don’t even give it a second
thought.”

But
Grace walked up to the bay window and looked out.
 
Whatever she saw caused her to run out of the
front door.
  
Tommy stood up and ran out
behind her.

When
he got out there, they were all on the front lawn.
 
Grace was standing in between Tamara and
Bobby, and Tamara was hitting Bobby by swinging beyond Grace.
 

Tommy’s
heart dropped at the thought that one of those fools could injure his wife. He
jumped from the porch and hurried up to the threesome.
 
Nancy stood on the porch and looked as Tommy
pulled his wife out of the way and allowed Tamara and Bobby to continue their
argument.
 

“Go
inside,” he ordered Grace as he stepped in between the couple.
 
They could argue, was his reasoning, but
Bobby wasn’t laying a hand on Tamara.

And
he didn’t.
 
The argument was circular and
went nowhere fast.
 
Soon, Bobby was in
his Toyota and was leaving the scene, with Tamara shouting about how glad she
was that she found out before she fell for his ass.

But
as soon as they all returned inside the house, Tamara broke down and
cried.
 
She ran to her bedroom.
 
Grace broke away from Tommy, who held her
hand, and hurried behind her.
 
She and
Tam weren’t exactly friends, but they weren’t enemies either.