Beautiful Bounty(22)

“I know what you mean, Mom,” she ducked out of her embrace and steered her mom back into the house.

As Ronnie made her way inside, she was engulfed by Ana, and a very pregnant Monica as well. She thanked them profusely for their help in securing her release.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, baby cakes,” Ana muttered against her cheek, and let her go.

She turned around then to face the room full of grim faced Marinos. They stared at her, and then Andreas’ voice boomed out over head. “Nikko outside, now.”

Ronnie turned to see that Nikko just entered the house, but he gave her a small smile before turning on his heel and heading back outside. She did notice as he turned that his smile quickly disappeared. Apparently the eldest Marino was not too impressed with his baby brother’s delivery being four hours delayed.

Ronnie was ushered to a seat in the living room, the recliner Andreas just vacated, and Lou was bringing her a coke. She just made out Andreas’ words as the door shut behind them. “What the hell were you thinking?” He hadn’t even bothered to lower his voice.

The other Marinos looked around uncomfortably, but no one moved to leave or follow Andreas out. “So . . .” Ronnie started and left her statement unfinished.

Blaze was the first to speak. “Yeah . . .” And he let his sentence go uncompleted too. Gio laughed and it broke the mood, and soon she found herself explaining what transpired again, but all the while wondered how the conversation outside was going.

“You took her to eat, didn’t charge your cell, got a flat, and God knows what else. Nikko, it shouldn’t have taken you four hours to get here. What the hell?”

“Hey, you told me to talk to the girl. Get some information in case she ran. Places and such she might go. I took the longer route figuring she would be uncomfortable talking to me at first. I was just doing what you told me to do. How was I to know that road would have a ton of construction and I’d pick up a nail?”

“Why would she not want to talk with you?” Andreas’s hands raked his hair as he paced the gravel drive. He immediately seized on the one part of Nikko’s explanation that made no sense to him.

Nikko never told his brother about last summer. Shit! And, he wasn’t about to go there. “I . . . figured the girl just got out of jail. She might need some time to loosen up. It’s maybe twenty, thirty minutes longer.”

“Okay, but why stop to eat. You could have gone through a drive through window for Christ sakes.” Andreas’ wasn’t buying this story. He had seen them dance at the wedding, and although Blaze had said nothing transpired, he still wasn’t sure.

“Okay,” Nikko held up his hands. “Yes, we could have. She was opening up, and then she asked to stop and eat, she saw the barbecue place. What was I going to say? No. The girl was talking.” He didn’t tell his brother he practically forced her to eat by teasing her with the aromas when he rolled down his window. He would definitely be keeping that little tidbit of information to himself.

Andreas looked at his brother hard. “The phone?”

“The car doesn’t have a phone charger. The heat at lunch, outside, must have drained the battery. By that time, we were only MIA an hour and half. How the hell was I supposed to know I’d pick up a nail, and get a flat? Come on bro, you really going to rake me over the coals for this. I was doing my job. We called as soon as we got the Cutlass to the garage. Ronnie offered to help me put the bubble on, but then a tow truck came by. I didn’t want to drive her on the bubble, and knew we needed to call so I figured getting the new tire would give me more of a chance to get Ronnie to open up.”

Again Andreas looked at his brother hard. It all made sense. It did seem Nikko had been doing the job, circumstances had just gotten in the way. “So, what did you find out?” he asked abruptly.

“I got names of some friends. I got places she hangs out. A cabin her granddad has. That sounded like a likely place. She mentioned loving it there.”

“Okay, good. That’s good.” Andreas nodded. Maybe Nikko had listened to him last week about taking on more responsibility. He nodded at his brother. He’d let him off the hook this time. But, there better not be any more screw ups.

Nikko held up his hands in surrender. “We good?”

“Yeah, we’re good. Let’s get back in there. Since I’m here, I still need to go over some things with Louisa and . . . Ronnie, is it?” He arched one eyebrow up gauging Nikko’s reaction to the girl’s nickname.

“Yeah, she likes to be called Ronnie. Only her mom calls her Veronica, I guess.”