Betting on Grace

by Salonen, Debra

  Not giving up on the hope of deflecting her sisters’ attention from her impetuous—and obviously premature—announcement, Grace said, “Delicious pastry, Kate. Did Jo make it? Maybe we should promote her to assistant chef. I know you’re finicky about who you let work at your side, but she does have a way with cream cheese.” She spoke so fast a bit of raspberry filling lodged in her throat, causing her to cough.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Alex scolded, giving Grace a look designed to stop even the most fearless four-year-old in his tracks. “Besides, diversion isn’t going to work. You can’t casually toss out, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m thinking of opening a second restaurant with Charles,’ and not expect us to react.”

  Grace knew that. She’d planned to share her idea in full once she’d ironed out the details with Charles, but his call this morning had left her wondering if she’d made a mistake by suggesting they could do business together.

  Charles Harmon was an old family friend and Grace’s occasional dinner date. He was also a lawyer and part owner of the Xanadu, a small, shabby off-Strip casino where Grace had hoped to locate her new venture. She’d been in the shower when he’d called and he’d left a message asking her to drop by the casino to discuss her plan. Nothing in his tone could have been construed as ominous or threatening, but a chill had passed through her body as if she’d been dunked in Lake Mead in January.

  “If you didn’t want our feedback, why’d you say anything?” Liz asked, filling the electric teakettle with water. Four sisters, four beverages of choice: coffee, tea, cola and whatever strange brew Liz currently favored.

  “Because…well, because you know me. I have a bad habit of speaking before I think things through, right?”

  Her sisters agreed with a combination of groans and sighs.

  Before any could comment, she continued. “Last week, I floated an idea past Charles. Why not remodel the Xanadu’s ridiculous excuse for a coffee shop into a satellite operation of Romantique? Can’t you see it as a hip bar with an exposed kitchen where Kate could really show off her stuff? I even came up with a name for it. Too Romantique.”

  Alex and Liz, who were six and a half and five years older than Grace, respectively, exchanged a look Grace had seen many times.

  “It’s a very clever name, Grace,” Alex said. “But I have to go on record as being against this. I’m not comfortable with you doing business with Charles. There’s something about that man that makes me nervous.”

  “Yeah,” Grace said, snickering softly. “We know. That’s why you set him on fire.”

  The standing joke for years had been that their father, Ernst, had brought Charles home to meet Alex, who’d accidentally dropped the cherries jubilee and singed Charles’s beard. Charles had been clean shaven ever since.

  “I agree with Alex,” Liz said, tapping her foot as she waited for the water to boil. “You’re talking major remodeling. That isn’t going to be cheap. Where are you getting the seed money? I know Charles is pretty well-off, but he does have two partners. Are they game for this?”

  Leave it to Liz to ask the tough questions. Everything about Liz was functional, from short-sleeved denim blue shirt with a rainbow embroidered just above her name to khaki pants and thick-soled shoes. Her shoulder-length ebony hair was pulled back in a scrunchy.

  She poured boiling water over several scoops of some greenish powder resting in the bottom of a juice glass. Grace didn’t bother asking what medicinal properties the concoction contained. Liz went through health fads the way some people did diets.

  “Well…” Grace said, stalling. “That particular issue didn’t come up. But since I’m the one who brought the idea to Charles…I thought I’d ask Mom to let me invest the money in my trust fund.”

  Alex groaned. Liz choked on her partially swallowed swill. Kate let out a sound of pure disgust.

  “Are you nuts?” they said simultaneously.

  Grace felt her cheeks burn. “Like I said, this is just in the chatting-up stage. I tossed the idea on the table last week when Charles took me to dinner. His call this morning is the first I’ve heard back from him. Didn’t MaryAnn tell us he was wrapped up in some pro bono insurance claim business?”

  MaryAnn Radonovic, their cousin Gregor’s wife, had been Charles’s personal secretary for just over a year. Gregor, who was Liz’s age, was the girls’ paternal uncle’s son. In addition to being part of the family, Gregor and MaryAnn were also neighbors, living just two houses down from Yetta.

  Liz blew out a sigh and turned to the sink to rinse out the green residue in her glass. “I can’t vouch for the pro bono aspect of his business, but I know we’ve been seeing a lot of referrals from Charles’s group lately at DesertWay Medical.” She’d joined the staff at DWM after her ten-month sojourn in India. “But you’re trying to change the subject again and it’s not going to work. You know what Dad had in mind when he set up the trust accounts.”

  Grace knew. A wedding. As old-fashioned as it sounded, Ernst had always referred to the four trusts he and Yetta had established for their daughters as “dowries.”

  “Well, none of you used your trust money for that purpose. Why should I have to?” Grace asked.

  She’d known the question would come up and she’d given the matter some serious thought. Alex’s money had been earmarked for a wedding until her plans fell apart at the last minute. Then she’d drawn from the fund to buy a house and set up The Dancing Hippo Day Care and Preschool. Liz’s nest egg had paid for grad school, several trips abroad and the down payment on her house. Kate’s money had been invested—and lost—by her scoundrel ex-husband. Only Grace’s trust remained untouched.

  “Listen,” she said, trying to sound businesslike, “Mom has final say on how I spend the money since she’s the trustee. I just thought I’d feel you guys out first. You know how distracted she’s been lately.”

  “Boy, that’s true,” Alex said. “I wonder how much of that has to do with our new guest.”

  “Yeah,” Kate said after taking a swig of Coke, which, as usual, she’d tried to disguise by putting it in a coffee mug. “I have to say I’m not wild about some stranger moving next door.”

  “Did anybody do an Internet search on him?” Liz asked.

  “I did, and nothing came up. Nada. Which is probably a good sign, right? But I still don’t know why I’m the one picking him up,” Grace said, relieved that the focus of conversation had finally shifted away from her obviously unpopular declaration.

  They might not approve of her idea, but, at least, she’d managed to keep mum about the weird dreams she’d been having lately. Talk about disturbing. In one, a sinkhole opened up in the street and was slowly swallowing the entire neighborhood. Grace was frantically trying to talk Kate out of her car, which was slipping trunk first, down the hole, when a stranger grabbed Grace from behind and pulled her to safety. She’d awoken, heart pumping and breathless—not because of the catastrophe but because of the stranger. She came from a long line of Gypsy fortune-tellers and she knew one thing: Strangers were never a good omen.

  CHAPTER TWO

  YETTA RADONOVIC PAUSED just outside the threshold of her kitchen, where she’d been listening to her daughters’ weekly breakfast summit. Eavesdropping, she’d learned, was by far the best way to find out what was going on in her family.

  “The reason you’re meeting Nikolai’s plane, Grace, is because Elizabeth is taking me shopping,” she said, walking into the room. Her daughters all stopped what they were doing to look at her. “Alexandra has a doctor’s appointment and Katherine will be busy preparing a feast to welcome Nikolai.”

  Her daughters. Her four beauties. Each a unique individual with her own strengths and weaknesses. Of course, Ernst had never believed his princesses were anything but perfect. For a smart man, he could turn a blind eye to the truth when it suited him, she thought, frowning. And, now, we might all pay the price for that foolishness.

  “Mom’s right, Grace,” Elizabeth said after gree
ting Yetta with a smile. “You’re the logical choice and it would seem kinda cold not to meet his plane.”

  Her second-born daughter rarely passed up a chance to help others, although those altruistic tendencies had changed since Liz’s last trip to Eastern Europe. Yetta had yet to get to the bottom of that, but she pushed the thought aside. She had more pressing issues to worry about at the moment.

  “Besides, aren’t you the one who was carrying on the other night about our need for new blood in the family?” Katherine chimed in. “Like we were a vampire cult or something.”

  “I was only making an observation,” Grace said stiffly. “Mom, tell them. In olden days, four unmarried daughters would have been considered a liability. It would have been our duty to marry strong, wealthy men with big oxen.”

  Even Yetta had to laugh at that, although she didn’t feel much like smiling. Her most recent dream had been vivid, if not easily interpreted. One of her daughters had been in great danger. Help from the outside was their only hope, even if that meant keeping secrets from her girls. She only hoped they’d forgive her when the truth came out. As it would.

  “Oh, Grace, you are too much,” Alexandra said with a laugh. Yetta looked at her eldest daughter with pride. Others might have given up or turned bitter after being cheated out of the life they had planned. Not Alex. But such bravery came at a price.

  “Yeah,” Elizabeth agreed. “No offense, but when it comes right down to it, we’re descended from a group of nomadic wayfarers who were in the wrong place at the wrong time and wound up spending several centuries being slaves.”

  Grace looked at Yetta and sighed. “They’re hopeless, aren’t they? Tell them, Mom. You’re the one who’s imported a long-lost family member from Detroit. This guy must have something special going for him if we’re letting him move in next door.”

  Oh, he had something. He had a badge and a gun and the right connections to local law enforcement. But for Nikolai’s safety, her daughters would need to remain unaware of his true identity and his reason for coming to Las Vegas. At least, until the threat to the family had been eliminated. Then Yetta hoped Nikolai would make peace with the past and her daughters would understand her need for secrecy.

  “Nikolai was lost to us as a child,” Yetta said, recalling Jurek’s suggestion that she stick as close to the truth as possible. “I’ve hoped for years that he might return to us. And now that he is coming back, I expect you to do whatever it takes to make him feel welcome.”

  Yetta waited for someone to speak. She knew her strident tone probably surprised them, but she’d been muffled by grief long enough. She blamed herself for the current state of disharmony within her family, and she’d taken steps to rectify the situation. She only hoped she wasn’t too late.

  Alexandra cleared her throat and said, “I might be a few minutes late to lunch. I have an appointment with my ob-gyn this morning.” A sudden presence—fear—entered the room. “Just routine,” she added, with the barest quiver in her voice.

  Yetta walked to the cupboard so no one would see her face. Alexandra had been the first to disappear in her dream. Not swallowed by the snake, like the others, she’d simply faded away. Almost as if she’d never existed. At no time in her life had Yetta felt so impotent and frustrated, not even as she’d watched her beloved husband give up on life. She refused to lose another member of her family. And, though she doubted she could make her daughters—or Nikolai, for that matter—understand, Nikolai’s arrival signified hope.

  Grace concentrated on folding her napkin into a perfect triangle. Alex put on a brave face, but Grace knew that her sister was worried. For months now, Alex had been experiencing severe pain and nausea around the time she was ovulating. Six years earlier, she’d undergone surgery to remove a cyst on her ovary. The relatively routine procedure had been a success but Alex had developed a serious infection at the wound site. Now she dreaded the thought of another surgery, but the possibility was all too real.

  As her sisters debated whether women made better ob-gyns than men, Grace thought about her current dilemma. Did she dare gamble on a second restaurant? Her instincts said yes.

  In just two years of business, Kate and Grace had turned a profit with their restaurant, a feat most had claimed was impossible. Kate’s reputation was steadily growing, but the only way for a chef to play in the big leagues in Vegas was to move closer to the heart and soul of the tourist industry: The Strip.

  The Xanadu offered that possibility.

  The only impasse to her plan, as far as Grace was concerned, was Charles. Lately, he’d been acting differently. And the last time they’d dined together he’d seemed a little too attentive. Almost as if he was interested in taking their friendship to some other level.

  Grace didn’t understand why, since there’d never been even a hint of sizzle between them. Plus, as Charles knew, she was on a hiatus from romance.

  Thanks to Shawn Bascomb. Her first love…and first heartbreak.

  Shawn. Drop-dead gorgeous snowboard instructor and white-water raft guide. Free spirit. A Prince-Charming-in-the-making just waiting for Grace’s love to bring out the hero in him. Or so she’d convinced herself. Only after Kate revealed that Shawn had cheated on Grace several times during their relationship had Grace been able to admit that shoulder-length dreads and well-defined muscles were his most charming attributes.

  In part, Grace blamed her mother for Shawn. Yetta had filled Grace’s head with nonsense at the impressionable age of ten. “You’re going to marry an honorable man who doesn’t know he’s a prince. Your love, Grace, will help him find his true self.”

  Had Grace believed this? With all her heart. After all, her beloved father put complete faith in her mother’s visions, so why shouldn’t Grace?

  And she had. Until recently…

  Grace studied her mother as she moved around the sunny, east-facing kitchen. Petite and fine boned like Liz and Kate, Yetta was a study in contrasts. Shoeless, yet dressed in a tan, Anne Klein business suit with a skirt that stopped an inch below her knees, she seemed a regal peasant. The dull fabric was offset by the vivid scarlet, gold and teal of her flowery blouse, which wasn’t tucked in. Her lush silver hair fell well past her shoulders.

  “Are you hungry, Mom?” Liz asked. “Grace—the pig—left you a small piece of pastry.”

  Grace dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her folded napkin to prove her sister’s dig didn’t bother her.

  Yetta waved away the suggestion. “I ate hours ago with Maya. She helped me organize the seating chart for the luncheon today. I want Nikolai to meet everyone.”

  Maya was Kate’s daughter, who’d turned four a few days earlier. Grace glanced at Kate, who had complained to Grace only yesterday that Maya spent more time with her grandmother than she did with Kate. Grace had tried to be sympathetic, but mostly she was relieved to see Yetta returning to her old self. If hanging out with Maya helped, then Grace was all for it.

  The family was fast approaching the second anniversary of Ernst Radonovic’s death. For the better part of a year after he passed away, Yetta could barely bring herself to leave her bed before two in the afternoon. She’d wander around between television talk shows and games of solitaire on the coffee table in the living room—sitting in the chair Ernst had favored.

  Grace missed her father and visited his grave often, but she hadn’t been allowed the luxury of disappearing into her grief while the world spun around her. She immediately felt guilty about her mean-spirited thought. Her mother was starting to come out of her fog and some of that renewed energy had to be credited to Nikolai Sarna’s impending arrival. Grace wasn’t sure she understood why it had taken a stranger to lure her mother out of her depression.

  As if reading Grace’s thoughts, Kate said, “You’re making quite a fuss about this guy, Mom. He’s not visiting royalty, is he?”

  “He’s family,” Yetta replied. “He’s six months younger than Alexandra. I took care of him when his mother first went back
to work. She was a dancer.”

  “A dancer? Really? What kind?” Alex asked. Back when the Sisters of the Silver Dollar—as Grace and her siblings had called their amateur dance troupe—had performed for their father, Alex had been the best.

  Yetta peered into her mug, as if the answer were to be found in the chamois-colored liquid. “It was a long time ago. Lucy was very beautiful. Long legs and blond hair. All the men in the compound fell in love with her.”

  “Even Dad?” Grace knew her sisters were thinking the same thing, although none of the others voiced the question.

  “No. Ernst was too busy with his job and his beautiful new daughter,” Yetta answered, giving Alex a tender smile. “And he had his hands full keeping Jurek—Nikolai’s father—out of jail, as well.” She shook her head sadly. “Trouble followed that man like a worthless dog.”

  “Are you talking about George?” Alex asked. “He’s the one you just went to visit in Laughlin, right? Didn’t you tell me he spent time in a Nazi concentration camp?”

  Yetta nodded. “Jurek changed his name to George when he came to America, but he’s always been Jurek to me.”

  “How come we’ve never met this guy?” Grace asked.

  “He’s pretty much kept to himself. Except when he first married Nikolai’s mother. If things had been different…” Yetta’s voice melded into a sigh. “Well, it’s his way.”

  “It’s not the Romani way,” Grace insisted. “What turned him into a hermit?”

  After a slight hesitation, Yetta said, “Shortly after I was born…back in the old country…there was a fire in our family’s camp. Jurek was partly to blame. As punishment, he was sent to live with his grandmother. His mother was Polish, not Romani. His father was my uncle’s wife’s nephew.”

  Grace tried to picture their family tree but gave up when her mother went on with the story. “A few months later, Hitler invaded Poland.” Yetta shook her head sadly. “The Americans liberated the camp where he was held, and, eventually, the Red Cross helped him reach New York where my family had settled. My parents invited him to live with us, but he was practically an adult by then. He took a job in Atlantic City instead.”