Lucia (The Bonaveras)

by Paris Patricia

  His grandfather would probably push him even harder to honor the agreement. That wasn’t what bothered him most about his current situation, though. What did was what Lucia would think of him when she learned the truth. He couldn’t tell her now, not yet, not when she looked at him with so much trust and affection. He’d have to wait until she knew him well enough to believe his motivations had nothing to do with making love to her before trying to enlist her help with his plan.

  THE GRAHAM THOMAS roses were a riot of blushing gold; the taller branches grew through the rails on the side of the front porch and bloomed in total abandon. Lucia snipped off enough stems to make an arrangement in the antique milk pitcher that her mother would always fill with whatever was blooming in the garden and put on the dining table.

  When she was alive, her mother insisted on always having fresh flowers in the house, no matter what the season, even if it meant driving into town to buy them during winter when the gardens were dormant.

  Lucia had inherited her mother’s love for flowers. She carried on the tradition in part because she enjoyed them so much, and in part because they were a special connection she and her mom had when she was still alive. Having them in the house made Lucia feel like they were still connected.

  Satisfied she had enough for a nice bouquet, she went back inside.

  “Good morning, Lucia.”

  Lucia glanced around. “Oh, good morning, Mrs. Farrell.” She walked over to the reception desk. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “No. We’re going to visit some of the other wineries today. I thought I’d come down and wait for my husband on the porch. I love sitting there. The gardens around the inn are so pretty, and yesterday morning when we took our breakfast out there we saw some hummingbirds. We had a lot of fun watching them. There was one that would sit on the shepherd’s hook you have by the steps and guard the feeders. Whenever any other birds tried to get something to eat, it would zip in and chase them away.”

  “Yeah, we call that little guy Greedy McSweedy. He’s got a small white patch on the shoulder of his right wing. They tend to be territorial by nature, which is why we hang several feeders, but he seems to think every one of them is for his dining pleasure alone.”

  They chatted another minute or two until the inn’s phone started ringing. Mrs. Farrell gave her a wave and went out to the porch. Lucia answered the call, someone wanting to make a reservation for the second week in July.

  She took down the necessary information, and after confirming it and hanging up from the call, she restocked the breakfast bar with pastries, made fresh coffee, and checked to make sure there was still a nice selection of teas for guests to choose from.

  She hummed as she worked—a tune she’d had stuck in her head for weeks—an earworm. She didn’t know if it had a name. If it did she didn’t know what it was. She vaguely recalled her mother humming something similar whenever she’d be working around the house.

  Lucia smiled…another connection perhaps that she hadn’t even been aware of.

  She tended to be upbeat as a rule, but her mood had been even more cheerful than normal the last few days. She had Antonio to thank for that.

  And now, just the thought of him was enough to warm her blood. They’d spent the night together again last night. She hadn’t been able to go out to dinner with him because she’d been too busy, but she told him he could come up and spend the night without his pajamas again if he wanted to.

  And he had, showing up with a pint of Chunky Monkey ice cream. They’d gotten into a conversation shortly after they met about favorite foods, and she’d told him she’d once eaten an entire pint of it by herself.

  When he joined her for their no-pajama party, he brought it and two spoons with him, and they sat on her bed and fed it to each other. It was silly, and probably a little gluttonous, but it had also been one of the most romantic things any guy had ever done for her.

  If she wasn’t careful, she was going to fall hopelessly, no turning back, guaranteed to fall apart when he finished their project and moved back home, in love with him. Maybe she already had.

  Lucia sighed, pushed away the warning to pull back now so she could avert the heartache. Anything could happen between now and then, though. She could die next week, get hit by a car crossing the street, choke to death on an olive, and she would have missed out on all the good times, the wonderful times, the incomparable times she could enjoy while he was here.

  She wasn’t going to deny herself in the now. She’d already jumped into the fire with both feet. If she walked out of it in a year with a few blisters, she’d deal with it.

  Determined to keep all grey thoughts at bay on such a beautiful day, she busied herself around the common areas, and when there was nothing left to busy herself with inside, she went out to water the plants.

  A short while later Eliana got back from her meeting with one of the vendors for the fall festival and said she could take over in reception for a couple of hours if Lucia needed a break.

  She’d been dying to go up to the attic to see what Antonio had done. She hadn’t been up since he returned from Italy.

  “I’d love a break, thanks.” Lucia gave her sister a quick hug. “I think I’ll make some lunch, and while I’m at it, I’ll make some for Antonio, too, and take it up to him. He’s been in the attic all morning working on his office. He’s probably getting hungry.”

  “I’ll bet he is.” Eliana shot her a sinful grin.

  Lucia rolled her eyes. “I swear you and Cat make it sound like all Antonio and I are interested in is sex. At least Marcella can appreciate that we might be attracted to each other’s personality and intellect as well.”

  “Oh, I know you’re attracted to those things, too, but right now it’s mostly about the sex. It always is in the beginning.”

  Lucia waved a hand in the air and headed toward the kitchen. “Fine. I’m going to go make us both a sandwich and head up to see if he has time for a quickie.”

  Eliana burst out laughing behind her. Lucia smiled. Of course, they’d probably indulge in no such thing in the middle of the day, but it was a delicious little thought.

  “THIS IS GREAT, thanks.” Antonio leaned sideways and gave Lucia a quick kiss. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

  “You’re very welcome. Try some of these olives.”

  She’d put together a platter of cheese, sliced apples, olives stuffed with almonds, and then taken half a baguette and made a sandwich with tomato, prosciutto, provolone, salami, some oil and oregano, and cut it into six hand-sized pieces. She’d packed it all in a picnic basket with a half bottle of Petite Sirah, and they were enjoying it now on his new coffee table.

  “Umm, good. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble, though; a simple sandwich would have been fine.” He glanced at her and smiled. “But I’m glad you did. It’s all delicious, and,” he added, wiggling his brows and flashing her another toe-curling smile, “I might get a chance to cop a few feels before you have to go back downstairs.”

  Lucia punched him in the shoulder. “You’re as bad as my sisters.”

  “Why, do they want to cop feels too?”

  She hit him again. “Eat another sandwich.”

  When they finished, Lucia packed the remnants of their meal back into the picnic basket.

  “By the way, I talked to my grandfather this morning and he wants to come for a visit. He’s thinking the first two weeks of August. He’s only visited the States once, about twenty years ago. He said since I’d be here for a while, he might as well come again to see if he likes it any better than the last time.”

  “What does he have against it here?”

  Antonio smirked. “It’s not Cortona.”

  “Boy, does that sound like my grandfather. I don’t remember him—my grandparents both died when I was young—but based on what my parents told us, they acted like Cortona was akin to nirvana, and they would never have even considered living anyplace else. The one time they came here, w
hen he had to come to handle his brother’s estate, they couldn’t wait to get home. When my mom and dad told them they wanted to stay and start a new life here, my grandparents thought they were crazy.”

  Antonio got a strange look in his eyes and she wondered at his thoughts. Her curiosity got the best of her.

  “What were you just thinking?”

  “It was nothing.”

  “It looked like something.”

  He gave her a half grin, amused more, she guessed, by her comment than anything on his mind.

  “I was just wondering what would have happened if your parents had stayed in Cortona. What our relationship would have been. We would have grown up together; I think our grandfathers would have seen to that, but if you’d known me growing up, you might not be too fond of me today.”

  “Why, were you the kind of boy who teased little girls? Pulled their hair and called them names?”

  “I never pulled their hair or called them names, but I might have stuck a frog or two down their shirts or doused them with water balloons.”

  “I assume you’ve outgrown all that.”

  “About the time I turned fifteen and discovered I didn’t find girls nearly as repulsive as I’d once thought them to be. Everything changed after that.”

  “You might not have liked me too much, either.” She grinned over at him. “When I was in eighth grade, I beat up Billy Molton, gave him a black eye and a bloody lip. I got suspended for three days. My parents were mortified and on top of the suspension they grounded me for two weeks.”

  “Good Lord. What did poor Billy do to deserve such a brutal lashing?”

  “He called me fat.”

  Antonio almost choked on his laughter. When he regained his composure, he looked her up and down. “You used to be fat?”

  Lucia hiked her nose in the air. “Chubby. It was during my Charmed days in the nineties. I was obsessed with it and didn’t want to do anything but watch it and write my own episodes, which were awful of course. I got zero exercise, which was compounded by the fact it was also my Oreo and Big Mac and fries phase.”

  He wrinkled his brow. “What do you mean your charmed days?”

  “Not charmed days, Charmed days. It was a television show about these three sisters who were witches. Good witches. There were called the charmed ones. I’d wait all week for the show, and in my free time I’d write my own episodes. Sometimes I wrote myself into them. Well…I often wrote myself into them.” She looked at him and gave him a self-deprecating smile.

  “So I guess in addition to being a big girl, I was a bit of a nerd as well.”

  His eyes sparked amusement, little shots of light dancing in their blue depths. “Maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t know each other growing up. If I’d put a frog down your shirt, you probably would have knocked my lights out and destroyed my male ego.”

  Lucia laughed. “We never would have ended up in bed together.”

  Antonio chuckled. “I never would have discovered how sensitive your ear lobes are.”

  “Yeah, and I’d never have known you have that really sexy mole on your ass.”

  He draped an arm over her shoulder. “I think I’m glad your parents fell in love with Virginia.”

  “Me too.” Lucia leaned against him a moment. “Now, I’ve got to get back downstairs.”

  WHEN HE WALKED her to the door, Antonio saw her looking at the pile of boxes and trunks in the corner with a frown on her face and wondered if she thought he’d been looking through them. He hadn’t, but when he found the screens lying on the floor again this morning, he’d propped them against the wall with the intention of wiring them together so they wouldn’t keep falling over.

  “I hope you don’t mind I moved those screens,” he said in explanation. “They kept falling over for some reason, and I thought if it kept happening they might crack. They seem stable enough, so I’m not sure what the problem is, but I leaned them against the wall until I could secure them better. I could wire them together if you’re okay with that.”

  “That’s fine.” She ran a hand over her hair and looked askance. “You, umm…haven’t had any problems with the door or…the windows, or…anything else up here, have you?”

  “Problems? No, not that I’ve noticed.”

  “Nothing sticking, or…any problems with, I don’t know, temperature control?” She looked up at him through hooded eyes. “Anything?”

  He shook his head. “No.” He hadn’t known her long, but long enough to tell when something was up. And something was definitely up.

  “Okay…well…good then. If you do have problems with anything, just let me know.”

  She turned as if to leave and he caught her by the elbow.

  “Not so fast, amore.”

  He heard her tongue cluck.

  Antonio twirled her back around to face him. “What don’t you want to tell me?”

  Lucia blew out a breath. “Eliana thinks it’s Aunt Rosa. I don’t know what I think. Marcella agrees with El. They’re both convinced there’s no other explanation. Cat’s not so convinced. Like me, she thinks there’s probably a very logical explanation to everything…we just can’t figure out what it is yet.”

  He angled his head, tried to follow the flow. “Okay, wait a minute, back up. Aunt Rosa’s your aunt who was murdered, the ghost.”

  “For the sake of this discussion, yes, the ghost. Some odd things happened when I was up here cleaning last week. Eliana and Marcella don’t have any question it was Rosa messing with me. I have to admit I considered the possibility, but it’s hard to accept one of my dead relatives could actually be inhabiting the house with us.”

  Antonio rubbed his chin. “I wonder if that’s who I saw standing over my bed that morning in my room.”

  Lucia rolled her eyes.

  “So that’s what all the odd questions were about. Nothing bad happened, did it? You weren’t hurt in any way?”

  Lucia gave her head a quick shake. “Yes to the first and no to the second, unless you consider being stuck in the attic for about twenty minutes because I couldn’t get the door open a bad thing. If Rosa’s real, I don’t think she had any bad intentions. My sisters think she was just trying to get my attention.”

  “I wonder why?”

  “I have no idea, or, if she’s been hanging around all these years, why she’s waited until now to start acting out.”

  Lucia wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted up on her toes. “I don’t have time to wonder about it now; I’ve got to get back down to reception.” She kissed him goodbye. “Oh, by the way, tell your grandfather that if he comes for a visit that my sisters and I insist he stay here at the inn. I’d love to meet him, and I know they will as well.”

  “I’m sure he’d like that.” He lingered on her lips a moment more. “Do you want me to come by your room tonight?”

  “I would, but wait until after ten. We’ve got a sisters’ meeting at nine thirty. Marcella came up with a new red blend she wants us to try and give our opinion on. If it’s good and there’s any left, I’ll bring the rest of the bottle up so you can try it.”

  After she’d gone, Antonio went back to his desk and sat down. He swiveled his chair to face the room, trailed his eyes around the space slowly, saw nothing out of the ordinary, sensed nothing unusual, yet still wondered.

  “Are you here, Rosa?” He cocked his ear for any whispered response, turned his head degree by degree, looking for any sign he might not be alone.

  When no rejoinder came after a few minutes, he turned back to the computer to get some work done. He fingered his mouse, dragged it closer, and looked at the screen.

  At the bottom of the checklist he’d been compiling were two words, highlighted in yellow.

  I’m here.

  Magic lives in curves, not angles.

  Mason Cooley

  The wind was up, whipping down the mountains, rapping against the inn’s window panes like an unwelcome squatter, in a mood to whistle and moan—a good day to
talk to a ghost.

  There were no guests in residence, no reason she had to stay downstairs, and nothing to keep Lucia from giving Rosa a piece of her mind. She marched up the stairs toward the attic, as much as it was possible to march in stilettos.

  Antonio had been back for a week and a half. This morning he was out, meeting with a contractor he’d contacted to establish a relationship, see if the man would be willing to refer him to any of his clients in the hope of picking up some additional architectural work.

  With Antonio gone for a few hours, Lucia could confront her prankster of a relative without interrupting him. She threw open the attic door, a woman on a mission. She didn’t wedge it. If Rosa wanted the two of them to be on good terms, she’d need to understand locking her in the attic wasn’t any way to win her over.

  She walked to the middle of the room, her heels clicking against the exposed floor boards, and set her hands on her hips.

  “Okay, Rosa, let’s get a few things straight. First, if we’re going to be living in this house together, then we need to establish some boundaries.”

  One of the Chinese screens fell onto the floor.

  Lucia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know. That trick’s getting old. I’m up here talking to you, right? So I give in, you got my attention, I believe you must exist. Especially after that little note you left on Antonio’s computer last week.”

  The wind rattled the attic windows, making itself known again, as it had been doing since the wee hours of the night. Outside, something banged against the side of the house and Lucia jumped.

  “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and not blame whatever that was on you.” She pulled in a long breath. “So look, I don’t know what you want, or why you’ve started making your presence more obvious, but whatever it is, if you want me to work with my sisters to try to figure it out, then you’re going to have to work with me, too.”