He breathed out an annoyed sigh. “Fine, but when you’re done here, I’m taking you upstairs.”
“It’s only been seven days since they released you from the hospital. The doctor said to wait fourteen days.” He wasn’t the only person who wanted to have sex again, but that didn’t mean I’d risk his health. “Think about if it were me.”
Frankie went completely still. “Don’t make me imagine you ever being injured.”
I settled and placed the last bandage strip as I relaxed back into his lap, being met with a hard appendage between his legs. One eyebrow ticked higher. “I mean it. If it were me, you wouldn’t let me leave the house.”
Frankie laughed, hearing the truth in my words. “I don’t plan to let you leave the house ever again now.”
“That’s too bad. Because Martha brought home six bakery cupcakes and I promised the girls I’d stop in to see everyone. I’m planning to go this afternoon.”
He grew completely still at my words. His grip tightened on my hips as if he didn’t plan to let me go. “Why are you calling them ‘the girls’?”
I shrugged. “It seems like something you’d call them. There’re the girls of the bakery. They even call themselves that.”
“Cara Mia, your cousin and I have settled into a truce. We can finally have a little peace and maybe do that shopping trip to New York. You don’t need to go to the bakery.”
“But she has the best pumpkin spice cupcakes in the entire world, and you know it’s a seasonal item.” Fall was hitting Pelican Bay fast, and if it was anything like Chicago, we knew there’d be snow in October. I had to eat as many pumpkin-flavored things as possible before it became peppermint season—a good choice, but clearly second to pumpkin.
Frankie shook his head. “I forbid it. Absolutely not. You’re not allowed to go to the bakery.”
I tilted my head to the side to stare at him and make sure he’d said what I thought he said. “Excuse me?”
“I said you’re not allowed to visit the bakery.”
I nodded. “Yes, I thought that’s what you said.” I poked at the bandage, causing him to wince again. “We talked about this, Frankie. You don’t tell me what to do.” Only in the bedroom, but he didn’t need to be reminded of that. Not at the present time.
“You don’t understand. The women of the bakery are bad news.”
I tilted my head to the other side. “You’re the leader of Maine’s Italian mob syndicate.” I wasn’t one to judge, but if one was judging, Frankie definitely shouldn’t.
He had bad news written all over him.
“They cause all kinds of trouble in town.”
I blinked and then blinked again. Was the leader of the mafia trying to steer me away from a few women who worked at a bakery in a small town? “A week ago, you gave me a dead man as a present.” Surely when it came to trouble, Frankie was the leader.
My mention of the dead body didn’t sway him in the least. His fingers gripped my hips as if he’d never let me go. I swore he had fear in his eyes. “You know what they call them on the police radio?”
“They have a police call name on the radio?”
Frankie nodded wrongfully, thinking he might sway my opinion. Even Westley didn’t have a call sign. This made them way cooler. “They call them the bakery bandits.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “You’ve gone soft, old man.”
Frankie Zanetti ran one of the most horrible mobs in Maine, took out enemies for me, yet bristled at the idea of me spending an afternoon at the town’s bakery. It really was the Twilight Zone in Pelican Bay.
“They brought me cupcakes and invited me to hang out with them. I can’t turn down that offer.” I was a new girl in town and looking for friends. There were girl rules. I didn’t turn my nose up at the first people who were nice to me.
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I can’t. If you want me to stay here, I have to make friends.”
Frankie smiled as if he had a genius idea. “We’ll compromise. I’ll drive you by the bakery and you can wave.”
The doctors cleared him and his injuries, but in that moment, I contemplated taking him back to the hospital for another brain scan. “Absolutely not. Besides, Vonnie wants to show me her new car.”
She showed up a few days earlier driving a brand-new Camaro doing a sliding, twisting turn into Frankie’s driveway and kicking up gravel from the road while squealing so loudly I heard it with her windows shut. Frankie refused to let me outside to look at it, and Big Tommy even slammed the door in Vonnie’s face when she tried to gain entrance.
