Lucia (The Bonaveras)

by Paris Patricia

  This would be a lot easier if she could see the woman. At least then she’d know in which direction to look. She screwed up her mouth as she turned and scanned the attic for any indication Rosa might be hovering nearby. A shimmer, a glow, a flicker of light, whatever it was a spirit did to show itself.

  “For starters, no more locking me in a room. I’m a busy woman, I’ve got guests to take care of and things to do, and you’re going to have to respect my time more than that. And those Chinese screens weren’t cheap, so stop throwing them around when you want attention; they might break. You want to drop the temperature a few degrees to let me know you’re there, fine, but the other crap’s got to end starting right now.”

  Another crack sounded outside making Lucia jump again. She huffed. Wasn’t trying to talk to a ghost enough to put a woman on edge?

  She was going to go out there when she went back down to see if she could locate the problem. She hoped it was nothing worse than a tree branch banging against the side of the house and not a loose gutter or something worse.

  Lucia glanced to her left, to the right, looked up toward the ceiling.

  “So, that’s all I’ve got for now. If you’ve got anything you want to let me know, maybe some clue about what you want, feel free to speak up or whatever.”

  Rosa remained silent. Maybe her relative was hanging out in another part of the house.

  “Okay, since I don’t even know if you’re here, I’m going back downstairs. I hope we’ve got an understanding now. You respect me and I’ll respect you, and if we figure out what you want from us we can…well, I’m not sure what we can do, but we’ll try to work with you.”

  Lucia wasn’t sure what she expected. After all, this was the first time she’d ever tried to talk to a ghost. Maybe it took a lot more energy for the spirit world to communicate with the living and Rosa had used up whatever ectoplasm or power source needed to materialize or make her presence known at the moment. It was also possible she was just being difficult.

  Whatever, she’d done her bit, said her piece. It was up to her aunt now to decide if she’d accept Lucia’s olive branch.

  She walked out of the room and closed the door behind her. As she rounded the landing to take the stairs, she heard a soft humming. Her earworm. The same tune she’d had stuck in her head for the last month.

  “HOW’D YOUR MEETING go?” Lucia asked when Antonio got back to the inn a few hours later.

  “Even better than I’d hoped. Liam, the man I met with, owns a construction business with his two brothers, whom I got to meet as well. They started the business about eight years ago, and from the research I did before contacting them, they’ve got a good reputation.”

  The lock of hair that tended to fall across his forehead did its thing and Antonio pushed it back, his long fingers used to the habit. Lucia swallowed.

  “Liam’s meeting with some potential clients Friday afternoon. He doesn’t think they’ve hired an architect yet, so he’s going to see if they’d be interested in meeting me at the same time.”

  “Wow, that’s great. You two must have hit it off pretty quickly for him to make that offer.”

  “We did, and…” He gave her a sheepish look. “I told him I’d put in a good word for him with you and Cat to see if you’d reciprocate by interviewing him for your job.”

  “If you think we should talk to him, then we will. I trust your opinion, and you’ve already done some vetting, so sounds like a no-brainer.”

  “Thanks. I got a good feel for him. The final decision is yours and Caterina’s, of course, but I wouldn’t have recommended someone I didn’t think would do a good job. Especially since I’ll have to work with whomever you hire.”

  “Did you tell me you’re meeting with another contractor on Friday?”

  “A guy in Silver Springs.”

  “That’s a bit of a hike.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t realize it when I made the appointment, one of the problems with not being familiar with the area yet. I don’t mind driving an hour to a job, but I’d prefer to stay more local. That meeting’s at ten, so I’ll go straight from there to the one with Liam.”

  “Well, if you meet anyone else you think we should talk to, let me know. Cat got a referral from one of the regulars at Caulfield’s. We thought we’d talk to him since it came from someone she knows.”

  “You should probably talk to at least three builders.”

  Lucia grinned. “That’s what we told ourselves about architects.”

  “Having regrets?”

  “No. When you know you’ve found the right person, why waste time looking any further?”

  Caterina came walking into reception on her way to the kitchen.

  “Hey, you two, what’s up?”

  “Antonio just got back from a meeting with a contractor he thinks we should talk to.”

  “Okay.” Cat looked at Antonio. “When can you arrange it? I’m anxious to get a team in place.”

  “I’ll call him this afternoon to let him know you want to set up a meeting.”

  “Sounds good.” Caterina pulled out her cell phone and checked her calendar. “I’ve got Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings open next week. What’s your schedule look like, Luch?”

  Lucia smiled over at Antonio as she picked up her own cell from the desk. In addition to being a perfectionist, Cat was a taskmaster. Give her a box of junk and she’d organize it. Give her a to-do list and she’d prioritize it. Give her an open-ended plan and she’d hand you back an itinerary.

  “I can’t do Monday because we’ll still have guests, but I’m good for Tuesday or Wednesday evening.”

  Her sister pointed to Antonio. “Do it, handsome. You’re planning on being there, aren’t you?”

  “As I told your sister, I’ve got a vested interest since I’ve got to work with them, too, so I’ll be there.”

  “Marcella and Eliana will want to come too,” Lucia said. “Whatever we do impacts them so they should be in on the decision.”

  “Of course they’ll want to be there,” Cat agreed. “When you confirm which night he can meet with us, Antonio, let Lucia know and she can tell El and Marcella to save the date.”

  Antonio saluted her and Lucia laughed.

  “Hey, someone around here needs to keep this family on track, and unless we want to leave everything to chance, that means me.” Cat slid her phone back into her pocket. “I’ve got some chocolate chip cookies in the oven and they need to come out now or they’re going to get too crisp.”

  “Who are the cookies for?” Lucia called after her, hopeful there might be some extras. “You know we don’t need to do a setup this afternoon; the guests have all checked out.”

  “I know. I was just hungry for chocolate chip cookies,” Caterina answered as she left the room through the solarium doors.

  “Oh…that’s not good.” Lucia nibbled her bottom lip. “Whenever Cat gets sugar cravings, it means there’s a storm blowing in. Oh, speaking of which…” She wrapped her hair into a long tail and pulled it over her shoulder. “Any chance you’ve got experience reattaching gutters?”

  “You mean like the one I saw in the grass on the side of the house when I got back?”

  “That’s the one. I don’t know if it was already coming unfastened, but the wind ripped it loose and was playing lift and drop with it all morning. I went out about an hour ago and attempted to secure it with some line, but when I tried to pull it over to tie it to the downspout, it came all the way off.”

  “I could try, but I’d need someone to hold it while I try to reattach it, and a very tall ladder to get up onto that roof.”

  “Never mind. I’ll call someone who does that for a living to come take care of it. I wasn’t thinking you’d have to get up on the roof. I’d probably be a nervous wreck if you went up there.” She pulled the local business directory out from the top drawer.

  Antonio leaned a hip against the desk. “I was thinking since you’re guest free, I might be able to conv
ince you to get dinner out with me tonight.”

  Lucia smiled up at him. “I’d like that. Would you be interested in making it a foursome? If my friend Jenna can get a date, we could meet them somewhere. She’s been bugging me about meeting you.”

  “That’s fine with me. Anything I need to know so I don’t embarrass you?”

  “You won’t embarrass me. I just hope Jenna doesn’t embarrass you.”

  He leaned over the desk, brushed his lips over hers. “Don’t worry, I don’t embarrass very easily.”

  Lucia watched him walk away, enjoying the view. When he rounded the reception doorway into the hall, she stood up and headed for the kitchen to talk to Cat, the smell of warm cookies filling her nostrils as she walked into the solarium.

  “I’M SORRY!” CAT said the following Wednesday afternoon. “I have to go in. Jerry’s wife went into labor and Mitch is in Philadelphia. There’s no one else to take the shift.”

  “Okay, fine. What do you want us to do? Should we try to reschedule?” Lucia looked at her watch. “I mean…the guy’s supposed to be here in two hours.”

  “Just go ahead without me. I don’t want to drag things out now that Antonio finished the second set of drawings. If we reschedule, I could end up having to work at the last minute again.”

  Cat sighed heavily, her frustration evident. “Look, I trust you guys, so if you think he’ll do a good job, tell him to give us a proposal.”

  Lucia preferred to have her sister at the meeting, but she was right. They might reschedule only to have her called in again, something that had been happening more and more. She could understand Jerry needing to take his wife to the hospital, but what the hell was Mitch doing in Philadelphia when he was supposed to be Jerry’s backup tonight and knew the guy’s wife was about to pop? Her sister had to be furious.

  “If you’re sure,” she said, not wanting to upset Cat any more than she already was.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Just go get ready and don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I got bent out of shape earlier.”

  Caterina waved Lucia’s apology off. “It’s okay. I’m just as frustrated about it as you are.” She ground her teeth, and Lucia could see her sister was boiling beneath the surface. “I’ll be so glad when we open Serendipity and I don’t have to—”

  After her sister was gone, Lucia wondered what had been going through Cat’s mind that she didn’t finish saying. If she were a betting woman, she’d put money down it had something to do with Mitch.

  Why not go out on a limb?

  That’s where the fruit is.

  Mark Twain

  Liam Dougherty showed up in a pair of blue jeans, a tear in one knee and a rip in the thigh of the other. His black tee shirt stretched over well-formed, hard muscle that would make most women salivate. He stooped down to untie his work boots and then stood up and toed them off.

  “I apologize for showing up like this for our first meeting,” he said, making eye contact with each one of them. “I got held up on a job and didn’t have time to go home to get cleaned up and changed before coming over.”

  “No problem,” Antonio assured him.

  “Yeah, no problem,” Lucia chimed in, and glanced over at Marcella and Eliana.

  Her two sisters looked as if they might start drooling any second. She wasn’t surprised with El, but it usually took a lot more than hunky good looks to get Marcella’s notice. Okay, really, really, really hunky good looks, but still…

  Lucia didn’t think he was as gorgeous as Antonio, but he was pretty damn close. Antonio’s looks were more sophisticated, cultured, and debonair, mixed in with a healthy dose of elegant sex appeal she found irresistible.

  Liam’s were rougher, brooding, and more rugged, but she certainly understood their appeal. She looked at her sisters again and nudged Eliana with her elbow.

  “No problem, right El?”

  “Uh, yeah, you’re fine,” El said, coming out of her lust-induced haze.

  “Why don’t we go in and sit down?” Antonio suggested, shooting Lucia an amused glance.

  Once they were situated in the library, Liam gave them a brief history of Dougherty Construction, the company he’d formed with his brothers, and talked about a couple of projects they’d done that showcased their work. When he finished, he asked them to tell him what they were looking to do.

  Lucia took the lead. “We want to build a boutique hotel with fifteen to twenty guest rooms, and a full-service restaurant. I’ll be running the hotel, and my sister Caterina will manage the restaurant. I’m sorry she couldn’t be here; she got called into work at the last minute.”

  “Should I set up another meeting with her?”

  Lucia shook her head. “No, that’s not necessary. She said she trusts us to make a decision without her. Antonio’s done an amazing job of capturing what we want to do. It might be easiest to look at what he’s done and go from there.”

  As Antonio went over the design, he and Liam got into more of the specifics. Liam asked a lot of questions, many of them technical that Lucia and her sisters didn’t understand, so most of the discussion was between him and Antonio. Lucia appreciated that both of them paused here and there to explain what they were talking about, or to ask if she or her sisters had any questions.

  When they were finished reviewing the plans, Antonio sat back and looked at Lucia. She interpreted the move as a silent handing of the meeting back over to her.

  “Thanks for meeting with us, Liam. I think we all feel comfortable you’d do a good job on our project.” She glanced at her sisters to make sure they were in agreement and got two head nods. “I wish Caterina could have been here as well, but I feel confident if she were, she’d agree. So if you’re interested, we’d like you to give us a proposal.”

  “I’m interested, and after seeing what Antonio’s done, it would be refreshing to work with someone who understands how to design something that isn’t going to be an engineering nightmare. I’ve worked with one or two architects in the past whose designs were so fffu—” He shifted and backpedaled. “I mean so—”

  “So futilely unworkable as to be laughable,” Lucia suggested with a grin.

  Liam’s lips twitched. “Yes, ma’am. That’s what I was going to say.”

  She laughed. “Okay, so you’ll write us up a proposal. How long do you think that will take?”

  “I can get it to you within a few days.” He turned to Antonio. “Can I get a copy of these drawings?”

  “I printed this one for you. I’ve got other copies.” Antonio rolled up the plans and put the rubber band back around them. “I haven’t finished the spec drawings yet, but I should have them done in another week.”

  Liam took the plans. “These are detailed enough that I should be able to put together a realistic estimate.”

  “We’d like to get a couple of other bids,” Lucia said, thinking she should clarify that they hadn’t made their final decision.

  “I figured as much.” Liam stood and shook everyone’s hand. “It was nice to meet all of you, and thanks for giving me an opportunity to bid on the job.”

  Lucia and Antonio walked Liam to the door. He put his boots back on and before walking out leaned past Lucia and gave an abbreviated hand wave to her sisters. When he was gone, she turned around and looked at them.

  “I would have offered him the job on the spot,” Eliana declared. “Imagine getting to look at that butt every day.” She jockeyed against Marcella. “Right, sis?”

  Marcella grinned. “It wasn’t bad.”

  Lucia tilted her head to face Antonio. “You know if we hire him he might have his hands full with a lot more than a hammer and some wall studs.”

  “I doubt you’ll get any complaints from him if that happens,” he said, amusement clear in his tone.

  THEY INTERVIEWED TWO other builders the following Monday. Fortunately, Caulfield’s was closed and Caterina made both meetings. By Thursday they’d received all three bids.

  Lucia wanted
to hire Liam, hands down. Antonio, Marcella, and El all agreed they thought he’d be the best choice. Cat conceded to the majority, even though she hadn’t met him yet.

  His bid came in right between the other two. Antonio thought the price seemed fair for the scope of work, and they trusted his experience.

  Friday morning Lucia called Liam to tell him they wanted to hire him. He came by the winery Saturday afternoon to leave a contract for her and Caterina to review and sign off on. Lucia was tied up with a guest and didn’t have time to talk, so she motioned for him to put it on the reception desk and mouthed a thank you.

  After reviewing the contract with Caterina and Antonio, Lucia scanned it Monday morning, and since Serendipity would be a new business, sent it to her friend Laura Taskins, who also happened to be the family’s lawyer, to go over it as well. Laura called just before noon to say she had no problems with it, and satisfied everything was fair and in order, Lucia and Cat both signed off on it.

  “I can drop it off with Liam if you want me to,” Antonio offered later Monday afternoon when Lucia told him they’d gotten a thumbs-up from their lawyer. “Now that you’ve got a signed contract, and I get Liam the construction documents, he can apply for a work permit to get the process rolling.”

  “That would be great. You don’t mind making a special trip?” Lucia asked.

  “I’m not. Liam’s brother Shawn invited me to visit another potential client of theirs. You’ll get to meet him and their brother Burke at some point. Liam’s going to be your lead contractor, but they all spend a little time on every job so they’re familiar with them in case they need to fill in for some reason.”

  “Oh, that’s good. I hope it goes well and you get some more work out of it.” Lucia put the contract back into the envelope it came in and handed it to Antonio.

  “If we’re done here, I’m going to take advantage of the rest of my day off and run some errands,” Cat said.

  Eliana got back from wherever she’d been as Cat was leaving.

  “We just signed the contract to hire Liam,” Lucia told her. “It looks like things are going to start happening very soon.”