But first I had to figure out what his younger brother was doing spending so much time with my vulnerable best friend. I made my way to the counter, where Jenna stood bug-eyed across from Bubba, drinking in his every word. From the looks of things, she’d had one too many. The poor girl could hardly walk a straight line. I’d never seen her in such a state. Were she and Bubba two birds of a feather?
“Jenna tells me you two have been best friends since junior high,” Bubba said, flashing a smile my way.
“Mm-hmm.”
Instead of looking my way, Jenna continued to stare at him. “Bubba, I think that story you told me about your best friend in elementary school was so cute. Anyone would be lucky to have your friendship.”
“Well, thanks.” As he swallowed some soda, his cheeks turned crimson.
I settled onto a barstool near them, determined to get to the bottom of this. How did they know so much about each other?
I spent the next hour trying to figure that out. Turned out Bubba had spent nearly two hours at the restaurant already—most of that time gabbing with Jenna. And it looked like they still had a lot to talk about.
By the end of the conversation, I’d pretty much decided these two were destined to marry and have at least a dozen children. I only had to wonder if Bubba would sweep my best friend off to Splendora-land, where she would convert from the staid life of a Methodist to the somewhat more rambunctious independent charismatic. Would she raise a passel of children in the piney woods of east Texas? Would she return to the island occasionally to show off her brood all decked out in cowboy attire, clutching blue ribbons for hog calling from the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo? If so, how would I adapt?
Overcome with the image, I forced myself to sing “Volare” to lift my spirits above the madness going on in my overactive imagination. What the Lord chose to do with Bubba and Jenna was his business, not mine. Mostly.
Coincidence number six proved to be one of the happiest of the day. My cell phone rang at 5:17, just as I headed out the door of Parma John’s. I recognized D.J.’s voice right away.
“Hey, you!” I said, not even trying to disguise the joy in my voice. “What’s up?”
“Well, hey Bella.” The momentary silence that followed concerned me a little. “I, um, must’ve punched the wrong number. Meant to call Bubba.”
Bubba. Bella.
I could see how it could happen. But on a day like today, with so many other ironic things transpiring? Likely the Lord had guided D.J.’s finger to this heavenly misdial.
“My brother Nick and his wife Marcella invited Bubba to dinner,” I said. Should I mention that they’d invited Jenna too? That Bubba and Jenna would probably be engaged by the night’s end, the way things were going? That Jenna’s poor boyfriend, who worked offshore, had no idea his fiancée-to-be had fallen head over heels for D.J.’s baby brother?
Nah. Better skip all that.
D.J. laughed. “Bubba’s always had a knack for winning folks over. He’s got a great personality.”
He’s not the only one in the Neeley family with an amazing personality.
“It’s hard to believe we’ve only known him a couple of days,” I said.
And harder still to remember I haven’t known you much longer.
Silence rose up between us, and then D.J. said those magic words, the words that caused me to believe this coincidence was almost too good to be anything other than divine intervention. “So, what are you doing tonight?”
“Who, me?” I played it cool. “Oh, just hanging out with the family, I guess. Maybe watching a DVD with Sophia. How come?”
“Well, I was thinking . . .” He went on to describe his plan. He could swing by and pick me up around seven. We could go to a great little steakhouse that had just opened on the seawall. One he’d actually played a role in building. Wow. The boy could grill a steak
and
build the restaurant to serve it in. Pretty impressive.
I agreed to be ready at seven. When I got home, Sophia, excited by my news that D.J. and I were going out, helped me choose an appropriate outfit. I settled on a gauzy teal blouse and snazzy dark jeans, which Rosa had lightly starched and creased. Sophia then loaned me her favorite necklace and earring ensemble and advised me on hair and makeup.
I finished at exactly 6:55 and stood in front of the mirror, gazing at my reflection. Though I normally questioned nearly everything about my appearance—my unruly curls, my skinny legs, my too-pointy nose, I had to admit she’d done a good job of transforming me.
Sophia stood back and whistled her approval. “You’re gonna knock his socks off.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She gave me a warm hug and then whispered, “You deserve the best, Bella. You really do. That D.J.’s a keeper.”
My heart swelled at her words of kindness. Now, if only we could locate a “keeper” for Sophia as well.
D.J. arrived at seven on the dot and stared at me as if he’d never seen me before. Perfect reaction. I’d sufficiently wowed him. And I found myself so wowed by his appearance in a dress shirt and dark slacks that I could hardly say hello without stumbling over the word.
My gaze shifted up to his handsome face, then up again.
“Wow, you’ve done something with your hair.” The sandy-colored waves had been perfectly tamed.
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Thought it might make me more presentable.”
I wanted to say, “You’re more than presentable, regardless,” but decided not to. Frankly, I was too distracted by his tan. The sun had kissed both his cheeks and the tip of his adorable nose. The coloring in his face accentuated his blue eyes. They drew me into their grasp and refused to release me. Until he took my hand in his and kissed it. Then I very nearly stopped breathing.
“You look beautiful today, Bella,” he whispered.
I wanted to respond, but the words stuck in my throat. Did he really think my face matched my name?
We said our good-byes to the family and headed over to his massive Dodge 4x4. Its sheer size took my breath away. Seemed just right for a man with a presence as big as D.J.’s.
“Your chariot awaits!” he said.
I had to laugh, because his words reminded me of the upcoming medieval wedding. “Thank you, kind sir!”
I took his extended hand and tried to get into the oversized cab. Scrambling up inside proved to be difficult but not impossible. And once inside, I felt like the queen of the world. Or at least the queen of Galveston Island.
As we made our way down Broadway toward the seawall, I peered down at all of the other vehicles below. Riding in a truck this size was a real power trip. Reminded me again of the lyrics to “Volare”—the part about flying up to the clouds. Sitting here with my deejay cowboy next to me, I felt like I’d been transported above the madness, just as the song suggested. I was floating, flying, reeling. A girl could get used to this. In fact, as I peeked at D.J. out of the corner of my eye, I realized there were a great many things a girl could get used to.
“So, tell me about this place we’re going to,” I said.
He flashed a smile. “It’s called the Prime Cut. It’s a pretty high-end beef eatery. The guy who owns the place is an old friend of mine named Mark. He lives in Kingwood, not far from my parents in Splendora. He’s determined to help Galveston get back on her feet and thought this new restaurant would be just the ticket.”
“And you helped build it?”
“I did.” D.J. grinned. “We wrapped up the job last month. Mark threw a great party to celebrate. I’m sorry you missed it.”
“Me too.”
“They’ve got the best steaks on the island,” D.J. added. “You’ve got to trust me on this.”
My mouth started watering right away. Suddenly I could hardly wait to get there.
Coincidence number seven truly caught me off-guard. D.J. and I had just ordered our steaks, and I sliced a big, juicy piece and popped it into my mouth. He chose that moment to tell a funny story about his brother, and somehow the chunk of steak went down the wrong way and lodged itself in my throat.
At first I didn’t panic. Then, when I realized I couldn’t force the piece up or down, I started that frantic wave that so often accompanies near-death choking experiences. The waiter came running, but D.J. nudged him out of the way. My cowboy hero pulled me out of my chair, and with the whole restaurant looking on, he performed the Heimlich maneuver with the precision of a trained EMT. The piece of steak dislodged immediately and shot across the room, landing in a woman’s water glass. She jumped to her feet with a shriek and proceeded to pitch the glass from the table as if it were a snake, soaking the man across from her.
“I–I–I . . .” I tried to apologize, but words wouldn’t come, at least not yet. Finally I managed a weak, “Sorry!”
After several gasping coughs on my part, the shaking kicked in. I thought for a second I might faint, but D.J. held me upright. Locked in his secure embrace, I didn’t care that fifty-plus strangers stared at me as if I’d put on the show of the century. I’d lived through the incident. That was really all that mattered. Well, that, and the realization that God, in his amazingly unique way, had propelled me directly into D.J.’s waiting arms.
Not that I was blaming God for choking me, necessarily. No, I had to fault D.J. for that. He’d chosen the wrong moment to tell a funny story. But what a lovely coincidence.
Now, as I stared into his baby blues, the trembling in my body slowly dissipated. He drew me close and placed a gentle kiss on my forehead. For the first time, I noticed the tears in his eyes.
“You scared me to death,” he whispered.
My deejay cowboy gazed at me with such tenderness, I thought my knees might buckle. Blame it on the lack of oxygen from nearly dying, but as D.J. leaned toward me to place a kiss sweeter than tiramisu on my lips, heaven and earth collided. I felt myself floating above the clouds once again, only this time I didn’t want to return to earth. In fact, it didn’t matter if my feet ever touched down again.
As the kiss intensified, I closed my eyes, given over to the passion of the moment. Who cared about the crowd? Who cared that I’d just made a fool of myself? All that mattered was this man, this moment. And in that moment, as I melted in his embrace, I’m pretty sure I heard a heavenly “badabing, bada-boom!” along with the stirring of angels’ wings overhead.
And that’s exactly when coincidence number eight occurred.
Just as D.J. and I came up for air, I caught a glimpse of someone familiar out of the corner of my eye.
Tony DeLuca . . . approaching with fire in his eyes.
The morning after my run-in with Tony DeLuca, I received a UPS delivery—one that was destined to change my life forever. I’d never seen so many cowboy boots in my twenty-nine years on Planet Earth. And thanks to a glitch—the address on the Visa card being my home address and not the wedding facility—the boots arrived on the doorstep of the Rossi home. There would be no hiding this mistake from my very large and overly intrusive family.
Naturally, Pop and Joey were working in the yard, weeding the front flower gardens. Marcella had just dropped off Nick and the boys before heading to the restaurant to help Jenna, so the gang was all there. My brothers looked up, stunned, as Eugene, our regular UPS guy, started unloading the boxes. Marcella dropped off Nick, then headed to the restaurant to help Jenna. Deany-boy and Frankie were up to their usual tricks, tormenting the driver as he tried to unload the forty boxes. He took it all in stride . . . at first. However, after a few trips back and forth to the truck, I could tell his patience was wearing thin. I called for Rosa, who bribed the boys with an offer of Italian cream cake. They did not refuse.
Within seconds, I felt the cloud of curiosity settle over the Rossi clan. One by one they all joined me on the veranda to watch Eugene as he continued to unload his truck. The barrage of questions kicked in, but I fended them off. There would be plenty of time later to explain my little faux pas. For now, I simply nodded and smiled and acted as if I’d ordered all eighty boots on purpose.
Everyone looked on in a daze. To say the Rossis were unfamiliar with cowboy boots would be putting it mildly. Maybe my brothers had worn a pair or two over the years. I couldn’t say. But the rest of us were boot virgins. We didn’t know one brand from another. However, with the pictures on the front of most boxes, we could see the incoming product just fine. We saw black boots, brown boots, pink boots, and red boots. We saw boots with animal skins, boots with buckles, and boots with intricate detailing. We saw pointed-toed, square-toed, and rounded boots. We saw traditional Western boots in black, fancy rodeo boots in turquoise, and buckaroo boots in yellow and rust. I’m pretty sure I even saw a goatskin boot in the mix, and another hand-designed appliquéd model unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
More than anything else, though, I saw Eugene frazzled and exhausted. The afternoon heat caused beads of sweat to rise up on his forehead, but he continued on, as if bringing eighty boots to a family of wedding facility owners on Galveston Island was an everyday thing.
When Eugene finished—approximately fifteen minutes after arriving—Rosa brought him inside, as always, and offered him a large glass of iced tea and a slice of cake. He thanked her and even accepted a second glass of tea before heading off to his next delivery. After he left, we all stood in the front hallway, staring at the boxes.
“So, what are you going to do with all of these?” Uncle Laz turned to me with a worried look on his face. “You didn’t buy them to wear, did you?”
“No. I, um . . . hmm. I’m going to use some of them for the wedding.” Forcing my voice to sound more confident, I added, “Sharlene wants boots on the tables. For centerpieces.” Hopefully that would be enough to satisfy them.
Wrong.
“Boots on the tables?” My mother’s elevated eyebrows showed her take on the idea. “But there are only twenty tables, right? What will you do with the rest?” Her gaze shifted to the rows of boxes, and I could see her mentally counting them.
“Well . . .” I sighed. “Sharlene and Cody are getting married outside in the gazebo, so I’ll use several for decoration. You know . . . around the perimeter? They’ll be perfect.”