He looked out from eyes only slightly less hollow than his voice. “There’s nothing for me to do.”
She scowled. “You’re in no condition to do anything. Starving yourself might be very religious, but it’s obviously not very healthy.”
His brow pinched. What good did it do to berate him? His faith had always been radical. He’d just taken it to the next level. So what if he looked like John the Baptist with an earring? She suddenly wanted to cry.
“Star’s warming sausage biscuits. Do you—” She turned as someone brushed against her arm. “Oh. Mom, this is Lance.” She’d forgotten to mention that part.
His astonishment slid from her to her mother. He brought his legs over and stood, a little unsteadily. Then he took Mom’s hand between his own. “It’s great to meet you, Elaine. I’ve waited a long time.”
The sincerity in his face actually hurt. Rese turned away. “Come on, Mom. Let Lance get ready for breakfast.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
A great impression he was making. Fainting on the doorstep; usurping her room. Not that it mattered. He’d had his chance and lost it. They could stay—awhile—but then they’d have to leave. He released his breath. Why had Nonna asked this?
As he headed for Rese’s bathroom, he noticed a cot made up in the office. It must have been Nonna’s bed last night. He sighed. He’d expected it to be rocky, but hadn’t planned on complete humiliation. Fainting at Rese’s feet? Come on, Lord.
He closed the bathroom door and leaned against it, light-headed. Frozen sausage biscuits. He got into the shower, hoping he didn’t pass out in there. He wasn’t as ripe as he might’ve been, but he had slept in his clothes.
The shower felt good to his joints, and the exhaustion was not as deep in his muscles. What hurt most was seeing Rese trying to be so tough again. He toweled off, brushed his teeth, and finger-combed his hair. Then he got into his jeans and sweatshirt that had been stacked on top of the dresser. Maybe Nonna had unpacked them there.
He slipped his bare feet into his Top-Siders and went out. The aroma of frozen sausage biscuits all but gagged him. He prayed he could manage it. Just one. And not look like a fool. You owe me that much. Though he knew it wasn’t true.
Nonna was at the table with Star and Rese’s mother, and he joined them in the only remaining chair. Star slid a plate toward him. Rese wasn’t there.
“She’s gone to work,” Star offered.
Ah. With Brad. Her partner. He lifted the biscuit, eyed the brownish grease leaching into the stiff, floury encasement. He brought it to his mouth, gathered himself, and bit. If he didn’t want to be a burden… . He chewed, swallowed, and kept it down.
As soon as he finished, Star asked, “Want another? There’s one left in the package.”
One too many already. “Do you have any fruit?”
“Peach?”
“Sure.”
Star fetched a peach from a bowl and set it before him. He struggled with the thought of picking it up whole and biting in, the wholemouth experience of savaging even a piece of fruit. Star slid a paring knife onto his plate. He didn’t know if she’d seen his struggle, and didn’t want to know. He cut a thin slice and tore it from the pit, releasing the aroma. He gave it a moment to register, without attempting to eat, giving himself time. Pathetic, but necessary, like reintroducing foods to an invalid. God.
“Rese doesn’t know how to take you being here,” Star said.
He nodded. That was apparent and predictable. He’d done it to her again, maybe on purpose. He could have called and asked to bring Nonna, but he hadn’t because if he did things right and it didn’t work, what excuse was there? He could be empty and broken before God, but with Rese? He was all Italian-American male. Except for the fainting part. That was pure Lance Michelli.
“She’s gone,” her mother said. “Gone, gone.”
The words sank into the hollow of his stomach. He had said he was willing to fail with her, but he hadn’t believed he would, and even now his pride kept him from admitting it. But he was flint to her steel, setting her off just being there. He’d expected the thrashing this morning when she barreled into the room. But she wasn’t quite as hard as she used to be. He raised the strip of peach and bit. The tangy juices filled his mouth. Intense, but easier than the sausage overload.
“Gone, gone,” Elaine said. “The green is with the green. The blue is with the blue. But the brown …” She looked up. “Do you know?”
He smiled at the woman who looked so much like Rese. “I wish I did.” Then he turned to Star. “I don’t want to keep Rese from her bed. Is anyone using the carriage house?”
“No, but …” She looked at Nonna.
He turned. “Do you mind if we stay out there, Nonna, so Rese can have her room?”
She shrugged. “Fine. Bene.” Her color was good this morning; her countenance peaceful. He had meant to watch her carefully, to be sure the strain of seeing the place wasn’t too much. But he’d passed out instead.
Star cut a slice from his peach and ate it.
He left the rest for her and went to the window. “Nonna can have the bedroom out there. I’ll move the cot into the other room.”
Star shrugged. “If you want to.”
He had to. He couldn’t take another night in Rese’s room, and if he stayed out of her way, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for her either. He suspected Nonna intended more than her own healing here, but she didn’t know how utterly autonomous Rese could be.
————
Rese climbed the ladder to the roof of the project they had bid on and won over their main competition. It still gave her a shock to think of Barrett Renovation as something outside herself, and it was a good lesson in not making decisions during a state of crisis. No Barrett was represented by that outfit anymore, though Dad’s reputation carried them.
She would have no problem with that if they even tried to live up to his standards, but the things Brad had told her, and what she’d seen herself in the two public buildings they’d renovated, justified her offering the real thing—Plocken and Barrett. Brad may as well be a Barrett for all he’d learned from Dad and his adherence to it. She respected him more than she’d realized. And vice versa.
But when he looked up from his knees on the roof, she wished he hadn’t known her so long, because his “What’s up?” held more than she wanted to go into. Maybe it was the strap around his hips or the pitch of the tile roof, but she had flashed back to the time Lance climbed up to save her from the turkey buzzards. And now she didn’t remember the question that had brought her up there.
“Rese?”
“What?”
“I’m guessing you came up here for something.” He was in a zone of his own, and she’d interrupted him.
“Umm …”
“Are you okay?”
“Of course.” She stood on the ridgepole and thought of Lance screwing up the courage to let go of the chimney. She had been downright insulting. What had he ever seen in her? But he’d had his own agenda, and then she gasped. The villa.
He and Antonia out there together. Had he decided to fight her for it? Take back what Antonia had lost? He didn’t look up to a fight, but he’d fooled her before. Maybe it was all an act to make her let him in. She couldn’t claim possession if they were all on the premises, both parties having a deed. But that didn’t feel right. Not that she knew what to feel.
Brad caught her elbow. “Hello?”
“I’m …” She shivered.
“Admiring the view?”
“No, I … I’m …”
“In my way?”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Brad seemed oblivious to the chill kicking up as he tapped a cigarette from the pack in his jacket pocket. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing.”
“Second thoughts?”
“No. It’s nothing to do with you or the business. I should get back to work.”
He still held her elbow, and even that made he
r think of Lance.
“Brad, why did your marriage break up?”
He pulled his brows together. “Besides her being unreasonable and pesky?”
Rese winced. He could be describing her.
He shrugged. “Not a good match, I guess. We drove each other nuts.”
“And you haven’t found a better one?”
He put the cigarette to his lips and flicked his lighter. “Haven’t looked.”
“Why not?”
“Because … it wouldn’t compare.”
She stared at him. “You’re still in love with her.”
He pulled a drag, long and slow. “Sometimes it’s like that.”
“Is she married?”
“She was for a while. Number two was even shorter. Got me out of alimony, though.” He stared at the cigarette in his hand. “Not that it stops her asking whenever she runs short.”
Rese studied his face. “Do you give it to her?”
He slid his gaze her way. “I’ve got enough. Just didn’t like a court telling me I had to.”
Rese planted her hands on her hips. “How did I not know this?”
“You weren’t exactly approachable.” He exhaled smoke through his nose. “Vernon thought you might grow out of it, but …”
“Grow out of what?”
“Your need to control, take on the world, whatever.”
Her jaw dropped. “He said that?”
Brad raised a hand. “Don’t get worked up.”
Worked up. Dad had thought her a control freak, and Brad said don’t get worked up? “What else did he think of me?”
“Best natural craftsman—craftsperson—he’d ever seen.”
That part she’d known, though not in those terms.
“He was awfully proud of you, Rese. We all were.”
Her throat grew tight. “Right.”
“Oh, there were a few who couldn’t stand you.” He took a drag. “But you were like our mascot. On the one hand you’re embarrassed to admit it’s cute, and on the other you’d do anything to protect it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Protect? What about all those pranks?”
“All you had to do was show that it bothered you. But you were one tough cookie. Best challenge the guys had going.” He laughed.
She clenched her jaw. “You’d think grown men might be over picking on little girls.”
“When you had it out for them? Making them look bad to Vernon Barrett, the most exacting taskmaster on the planet?”
“I didn’t …” But she supposed she had exposed every flaw she found. Could she help it if she had a good eye?
He sobered. “I’d have fired Sam and Charlie, though.”
Fire rushed to her face. He’d known?
“Problem was you kept it from your dad. Wasn’t my business to tell if you’d handled it otherwise. But I did make sure Vernon took them on his crew when you got the other.”
She gaped. He had looked out for her when she scored the position he wanted?
“Vernon could be pretty blind.”
Tears stung. No way would she let them fall.
“No clue I’d taken a shine to you right about the time you turned eighteen.” He flicked the ash from the end.
She chewed her lip. “Why?”
“Got a weakness for difficult women, I guess.”
She glared.
“My wife had just remarried and …” He stubbed his cigarette butt on the tile, then sent it tumbling down into the gutter. “Oh, I don’t know.”
Rese shook her head. “It’s like we all lived in different worlds. No one communicating anything that mattered.”
He nodded. “So are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
She almost choked. She’d set herself up completely. “It’s not— Lance came back.”
“The guy with the shovel?”
Lance had been working in the yard, maybe with a shovel, the time Brad came. She nodded. “I’m not sure what to do with it.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know.” She squirmed under his scrutiny.
“Well, that’s what you need to figure out.”
She huffed. “That from the man who loves his ex-wife and won’t do anything about it?”
“Too much water under my bridge.”
“Chicken.”
His mouth pulled sideways. “I don’t need advice from a squirt.”
She crossed her arms. “Even when I’m right?”
“Are you ever wrong?”
She swallowed. “Maybe. Sometimes.”
“Wish I’d had that on record a few times.”
She jutted her chin. “You were obstinately inflexible.”
“I suppose you’re silly putty?”
She held up her hands. “Okay. Truce. I’m going down. You’ve wasted enough time already.”
He chuckled. “Right.”
As she reached the ladder she thought of her question and hollered it up to him. He called the answer back, and she swung onto the ladder, recalling the ragged aluminum that had gouged her side when she’d tried to show Lance her mettle. She rolled her eyes. She wasn’t half as tough as she’d pretended.
The crew left at five-thirty. Brad approached her an hour or so later. “Let’s call it a day.”
But she’d found peace with the wood, if no answers, and couldn’t stop yet.
“I don’t like you on the site alone.” He didn’t say it, but she knew he was thinking accidents happened.
If she let her mind go with that, she’d have a panic attack, but she would not let her mind go. “I’ll be careful.” She slipped her safety goggles back into place. “You don’t have to protect me.” Their mascot. It rankled, and yet …
He shrugged, knowing argument was futile. “See you in the morning.”
She nodded, already lining up the next board.
A long time later, she drove the hour and a half home. The house was silent, and she crept in, careful not to walk into anything in the dark. She would just check on them, then go to sleep. She made her way through the kitchen, surprised that the door to her suite was open. But then she found both rooms empty. The shock of it was as painful as his arrival. She pressed a fist to her throat. He was the cruelest, most thoughtless man she’d ever known.
Just because she’d said things weren’t the same didn’t mean— Why had she stayed so late on the site? To prove she didn’t care? She released her fists. Okay, so he was gone. He had probably called a cab to take his grandmother to the airport, then driven his Harley with no helmet all the way across the country with his dog. His dog!
The house seemed painfully empty. No Baxter tapping across the kitchen floor; no Baxter bumping her legs; no Baxter curling up on her bed. She dropped to it, despondent. No Baxter; no Lance. She had driven him off, laying it out that way; her partnership with Brad, the end of the inn.
“There’s nothing for me to do.” His face had shown it all.
When doing was how Lance mattered. She’d shown him that he didn’t. Had he waited, hoping she’d get home so he could say goodbye? She hadn’t even given him that.
She dropped her face to her hands. Hadn’t he thought Antonia might want more time? She closed her eyes. Maybe he just couldn’t take any more. Neither could she. Brad had said to figure out what she wanted. Now it didn’t matter.
She curled into the bed without even changing and realized the sheets had been laundered. There was no scent of Lance, only Summer Breeze. He or Star had washed away all trace of him. And now she cried, soaking the pillow with tears and silent sobs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Lance left Nonna sleeping in the carriage house and went with Baxter into the stone kitchen in the old villa where he’d once planned to be a part of something special. Those plans had changed without him, but he was still compelled to do something. Though it might disrupt their routine, he hoped they wouldn’t mind too much if he cooked. Eating had become difficult, but preparing food for others
always seemed right and good.
The pantry was still stocked with most of the imperishables he’d ordered. He took out flour and baking powder and checked the refrigerator for eggs—enough for the popover batter. He’d caramelize peaches for a filling. Whipping cream would have been nice.
He could go get some, but the Harley was loud. He had driven it yesterday, surprised it started, until Star told him she’d fired it up a few times to keep it lubed. Rese either hadn’t thought of it or had hoped the thing would die a slow and painful death. Once he’d heard its purr, he’d strapped the guitar to his back, whistled Baxter aboard, and taken off. But no matter how many miles they’d covered, how many hours they’d sat on the cold knoll while he composed a new ballad for this stage in his life, his heart had called him back.
He passed a hand over his eyes, knowing he could lose. Nonna had told Rese everything, and it didn’t make any difference. She’d had enough of his kind of trouble. But he was just reckless enough to keep trying.
When he heard the shower in her suite, he cooked and filled her pastry and set it out on the table. Then with Baxter glued to his side, he walked through the brisk, misty morning to see if Nonna was awake. She came out of the bedroom as he entered, one button skipped on her cardigan, but otherwise dressed and groomed.
The long silver braid hung down her back. Momma would have coiled it up, but he didn’t think it mattered. “Good morning, Nonna.” He kissed her cheeks.
She looked him straight in the eye. “Take m … e down.”
“Down?”
She walked over to the trapdoor leading into the tunnel and cellar below. Was she serious? They had stopped at Nonno’s grave on the way in, the meter running in the taxi while he showed her where he’d laid Quillan Shepard to rest, where others had buried her father. She had thanked him with glistening eyes but had not broken down, and he’d sensed her relief and the peace of completion.
Underneath them now was where Nonno Quillan had fallen, where she’d last seen him alive the night she’d been forced from her home. Why would she want to relive that? But her expression brooked no argument. He said, “We’d need a light.”
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