The rhythm of her pulse changed from the adrenaline rush of seeing her parents’ new look to the insistent surge of desire for the man kissing her so thoroughly. A soft moan rose from her throat.
Tony lifted his mouth a fraction from hers. “That was…excellent,” he said, his breathing uneven.
Her father’s voice penetrated her fog of sensuous enjoyment. “If you’ve completed the tonsillectomy, Doctor, maybe we could get on our way toward Sedona.”
Lynn felt the blush rising as she pulled away from Tony.
“Lynn.” Her mother could get more reprimand into one syllable than anybody alive. “For heaven’s sake. Show some breeding.”
That made Lynn chuckle as she turned toward her mother of the lime-green fashion mistake. “Mom, Dad…” She took a deep breath. “I’d like you to meet the father of your future grandchild, Tony Russo.”
“Cleanse your conscience, my friends,” intoned a familiar voice.
With a feeling of foreboding, Lynn looked over to find Jeff standing on the outskirts of the group.
Tell them you’re gay, Jeff mouthed. Then with a smile and a wave, he started down the terminal.
As Tony muttered an oath, Lynn glanced quickly toward her mother, a legendary reader of lips.
“Gay?” Gladys looked from Lynn to Tony. “Who’s gay? I thought you were pregnant and he was the impregnator?”
“I am. He is,” Lynn said. “Forget it. Let’s go.”
Bud ignored his daughter and put a protective arm around Gladys’s shoulders. “I wish I didn’t have to be the one to tell you, Gladys, but I’ve learned a few things, living as I have in the soft underbelly of the city.”
“Take your arm off me,” Gladys said. “There’s no telling where that arm has been. And I want no more of that soft underbelly talk. It’s indecent.”
“Indecent?” Bud looked sad as a basset hound. “Try this one on for size. Our little girl and this…Tony person, have become what they call bi.”
Lynn choked. “Dad, we’re not! That guy—”
“By? By who?” Gladys looked completely at sea.
“AC–DC.”
“Look.” Tony sounded agitated. “You’ve got it wrong. We—”
“Isn’t AC–DC one of those rock groups?” Gladys asked.
“I’m trying to tell you they’re bi sexual, Gladys.”
“Saints preserve us.” With that invocation, Gladys slipped to the floor in a dead faint.
4
TONY REACTED instinctively. Dropping his duffel bag, he crouched beside Gladys and supported her head and shoulders against his knee. “Lynn, get some water,” he said. At least Gladys’s pulse was strong, he noted as he placed his fingers against her carotid artery.
“Take your hands off her, you pervert!” Bud squatted and tried to wrestle Gladys away from Tony. His gold chains dangled in her face as he pulled her toward him.
“Gladys, dammit, did you put on another one of those strapless gut-buster things? If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times—”
“Gut-buster?” Tony looked bewildered.
“We’re talkin’ serious underwire.” Bud put a hand on his wife’s midriff. “Yup, she’s trussed up like a turkey. Gotta get her out of that thing so she can breathe.”
“Here?” Tony croaked.
“Can’t. She’d kill me.”
“Uh…” Tony glanced around nervously. Quite a crowd had gathered around them.
“Here’s the water,” Lynn said, handing him a plastic bottle. “But all she needs is to get her bustier off and she’ll be fine. She always is.”
“Go clear the women’s rest room,” Tony said, scooping Gladys up in his arms and standing in one clean motion.
“Dad, get the bags,” Lynn said as she hurried off.
Bud picked up Tony’s duffel and grabbed the handle of Lynn’s carry-on before running after Tony. “That was some bench press. Like a human forklift or something. Do you work out?”
“Yeah, some.” Tony aimed for the nearest sign reading Women. Then he remembered the image he was supposed to project. “A hard body impresses the hell out of the chicks,” he added.
Bud’s eyes narrowed. “Hey, I forgot, I don’t want you touching my wife!”
“Better let him carry her, Dad,” Lynn called over her shoulder. “Or you’ll throw out your back, like you did the last time.” Then she ducked into the rest room.
“Last time?” Tony glanced at Bud. “This happens a lot?”
“Not a lot. Five, maybe six times. When she wears her gut-buster.”
“I think I’d burn the gut-busters, Bud. Can I call you Bud?”
“No.”
“Have it your way, Dad.”
“All clear!” Lynn called from the bathroom entrance.
“Dad, you stand guard with the luggage while Tony and I take care of this.”
“Make sure you do the unhooking, not hotshot, here.”
“I promise, Dad.”
Tony winked at him. “Me, too, Dad.” The look on Bud’s face told Tony that he was coming across just the way he needed to. He’d seen that look on the faces of several fathers during his high-school days. He’d also noticed how protective Bud was of Gladys. These two would only need a few more nudges and they’d be back together, just the way Lynn wanted.
Inside the rest room, he lifted Gladys to the sink counter. Her bottom fit neatly in one of the sinks, while her feet in the platform shoes eased nicely into the adjoining one.
“Don’t look,” Lynn instructed, moving in beside him and pulling her mother’s tank top from the waistband of her shorts.
“Not in a million years.” He supported Gladys with an arm around her shoulders and gazed up at the ceiling. He’d known this trip would involve some surprises, but he’d never pictured himself standing in the women’s bathroom holding an unconscious Mrs. Morgan while Lynn took off her mother’s underwear.
“You’re as sexy as they come, aren’t you?” muttered the woman in his arms, a challenge in her voice.
Tony glanced down but made sure he kept his attention firmly on Gladys’s face. “Excuse me?”
“Just as I thought! Bedroom eyes,” she said, gazing up at him. “My little girl never had a chance, did she, Romeo?”
Her evaluation that he was a predatory male out to ruin her daughter bothered him more than he’d thought it would, but it was exactly what she was supposed to think. He forced himself to give her a cocky smile.
Gladys reached up and pinched his ear.
“Hey!” He tried to resist, but she had a practiced motherlock on his earlobe. His own mom wouldn’t have been able to do it better.
She