by Connie Mann
Some kind of signal passed among the four men before they headed back to the party.
Sal took off his fisherman’s cap, and Jesse was surprised to see a bald pate and nothing but fringe where his thick curly hair had been. Ten years had taken their toll.
“I can’t deny you the slip, Jesse, but you know they won’t make it easy.” He sighed. “Clarabelle left you her share in the marina, too?”
When Jesse nodded, Sal shook his head. “Safe Harbor folks don’t like strangers in their midst. Especially not rich ones. Or ones who, well . . .”
“Have been in jail?” Jesse finished.
Sal nodded. “Your arrest was big news here. I’ve always thought you were a good boy, Jesse. Least you were when you spent summers here. Clarabelle never did believe a word of what went on.” He shrugged. “I figure everyone makes mistakes and is entitled to a second chance. But I wish you’d picked somewhere else for yours.”
“I’ve always loved this town.” Jesse decided to keep his plans to himself for now. Sal already looked rattled. He wasn’t sure how he’d handle the news that Jesse planned to start his own vintage racing team right here at the marina.
“Sasha’s coming home,” Sal said.
The words hit Jesse like a fist to his heart. He kept his expression bland. “Really. When?”
Sal smiled ruefully. “She should have been here already. Don’t rightly know how long she’ll stay. Rosa is . . .” He scrubbed a hand over a face more lined than Jesse had ever seen it. “She’s got the cancer.”
“I’m sorry, Sal. Is there—” He stopped, unsure what to say next.
“They have her on some experimental treatment now.” Sal shrugged. “We hope. And we pray it will work. My Rosa, she’s a fighter.”
Sasha now had a better understanding of how the prodigal son felt walking that last mile toward home. After a five-day cross-country trip in her un-air-conditioned Jeep Wrangler, it had taken two hours of roadside pacing and internal debate before she managed the last twenty miles.
Which made her two hours late to the party. Not that that would surprise her family. What caught her off guard, though, was the number of cars crammed into the marina parking lot and lining the gravel drive. She’d no sooner made the final turn leading to Pop and Mama Rosa’s place—home—and parked the Jeep when she heard barking, a female shout of “She’s here!” and then hurried feet on the porch stairs. After all these years, she hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this, and it made her stomach clench and her hands shake.
Way before she felt ready, Pop yanked open her car door and pulled her into his strong arms before her feet even hit the ground.
“Ah, Sasha, it is so good to see my beautiful baby,” he whispered, rubbing a callused hand up and down her back. He pulled back, cupped her face in his hands, and kissed one cheek. “Tesora mia,” he murmured. My treasure. He kissed the other cheek, then tucked her against his chest.
For a moment, Sasha couldn’t respond past the wave of emotion that threatened to swamp her; she just absorbed the familiar, steady feel of Pop’s work-hardened arms around her, the salty, Old Spice smell of his leathery skin. When she pulled back, tears shimmered in his dark eyes, and she had to look away for a moment, get her own emotions under control. They studied each other, and she saw the additional lines time had etched beside his eyes. He’d lost weight, too, something she’d have to tease Mama Rosa about. Mama’s motto was simple: food was for family and family was about food.
Pop stroked her cheek with the back of his hand.
“We’ve missed you, Sasha. It’s good you’ve come home.”
“I don’t know how long I’ll be—”
He ignored her to pet Bella, who had hopped out behind Sasha and was prancing at his feet, fluffy tail wagging.
“Who is this beautiful girl? She looks like our Bella from years ago.”
Sasha smiled and shrugged. “I thought so, too, so I named her Bella. I found her as a pup.” No need for ugly details now.
“Sasha, is that you?” Before she could turn all the way around, she was swept up into Captain Demetri’s arms, wrapped in the familiar smell of his Cuban cigars.
He set her at arm’s length.
“Let me look at you.” He kissed both of her cheeks. “Beautiful.”
“Hey, Sasha,” Captain Roy broke in, elbowing his friend aside to collect his own hug. And then Captains Bill and Jimmy arrived, and more hugs were exchanged.
She stood in the circle of these men who’d been such an important part of her life, and grinned like an idiot. Past and present collided and made her feel she’d finally come home.
“Sasha!” Her foster sister Eve appeared, nudged Pop out of the way, and pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. “It’s about time you showed up, you crazy tomboy.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Sasha saw Pop and the other captains ease away, giving the sisters some room.
She pushed back another unwelcome tide of emotion and hugged her sister close, acutely aware that her sweaty T-shirt and cargo shorts would muss and wrinkle her elegant sister’s silk tank top and white linen pants. She should feel bad about that, but didn’t. Funny how family could make you revert to your twelve-year-old self in two seconds flat. She eased back and took in the carefully tamed black curls framing Eve’s perfect cheekbones and her beautiful, chocolate skin. Eve could have been a model. She was that gorgeous and always made Sasha feel like the ugly stepsister by comparison.
She held Eve’s shoulders and grinned.
“How’re things in DC with the environmental wackos?”
Eve rolled her eyes before she turned and grabbed one of Sasha’s bags from the backseat.
“They’re fine, thanks. You shouldn’t judge, oh fearless captain, since without environmental wackos like me fighting the good fight against industrial fisheries, you’d be out of a job.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Sasha shot back, her earlier nerves easing at how quickly she and her sister fell into familiar banter. She grabbed her duffel in one hand and Bella’s bed in the other and stopped short. “Where’s Mama?”
Eve looked away, and alarm skittered up Sasha’s spine.
“Eve? What’s wrong? What don’t I know?”
Eve huffed out a breath, seemed to come to a decision, then turned back to face her. “You’ve been gone a long time, Sash.”
“Right. So have you. What does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t live here, but I stay in touch, visit.” When Sasha opened her mouth to protest, Eve’s hand shot up. “I know. You live in Washington State. Not exactly next door. But . . .” She stopped, chewed the inside of her lip, then nodded. “OK, here’s the deal. Mama’s sick. Cancer. Has been fighting it for a while. They thought they had it licked, but it’s come back.”
Sasha stumbled backward as though her boat had been slammed by a rogue wave. She struggled to stay upright. Mama couldn’t be sick. She was invincible. A short round bundle of tough love and fresh cookies. She couldn’t be sick.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Sasha turned on her sister, her fear seeking an outlet. “Why?”
Eve planted her hands on her hips. “If you bothered to turn your cell phone or computer on every once in a while, you would have known sooner.”
Sasha opened her mouth to lash back, but the anger seeped out of her, replaced by a hard knot of guilt. Yeah, that was on her. She got tired of solicitors and spam and unwanted calls and regularly left the phone at home, turned off. She also forgot to check her messages and email for a month or six at a time. When she’d turned the phone back on last week, she’d found the voice mail from Pop to come home for Mama’s party. And her laptop netted another two emails from Eve to go with the previous six.
“What kind is it?” she asked.
“Breast cancer. She’s had a double mastectomy, so be prepared.”
“Wait. What? How long has all this been going on?”
“Over six months.”
Sasha swallowed hard, slapped again by how much time had passed and how much she’d missed. “No reconstruction surgery?”
“Not yet. They—”
“Hey, Sasha. Welcome home!”
Sasha found herself hugged again, and she searched for a name to go with the face. But when he grinned, the dimple did the trick.
“J. R. Renzo, is that you?” He’d been the high school heartthrob and never could understand why Sasha didn’t want to go out with him. “Are you still working on the water?”
“Yep, Pop says he’ll sell the fishing business to me when he’s ready to retire.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Oh my,” Eve murmured, and Sasha looked up to see the two very attractive men who’d arrived with J. R.
“Oh, hey, Eve. Good to see you, too,” J. R. added. “This is Nick Stanton, with the Safe Harbor police, and Chad Everson, the high school football coach.”
Eve and Sasha shook hands all around, and Sasha wanted to laugh. She’d thought they were brothers. Both were dark haired and dark eyed, but Nick came with lots of lean muscle, while Chad’s linebacker build would have pegged him as a football player even without an introduction. The fact that J. R. practically ignored Eve also had Sasha biting back a grin. Men generally ignored Sasha, not Eve.
“Mama’s waiting for you. She sent me to get you.”
Sasha turned at the unfamiliar voice and found herself staring into a pair of angry green eyes, much like the ones that had looked back at her from the mirror for years. Tall and skinny, with bright-blue hair shorn on one side and piercings all over, the girl couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen. The way she stood with her arms folded and chin jutting out, she wasn’t rolling out the welcome mat.
But scared-with-attitude was a breed Sasha knew well. She’d had to get past the same when she’d found Bella. She turned to the men.
“If you’ll excuse us?”
She waited until they went back to the crowd before she stuck out her hand.
“Hi, I’m Sasha. Thanks for letting me know. Are you new around here?”
She knew instantly it was the wrong thing to say.
“No, you are. I live here.” The girl turned and stomped off toward the house.
“Charming, isn’t she?” Eve said, laughing. “That’s Blaze, their newest foster child. Sort of reminds me of another stray I used to know.”
Since Sasha had been thinking the same thing, she smiled, though her insides quivered at what she’d find inside the once-familiar old house.
“Guess we’d better get this over with.”
Eve reared back. “What does that mean?”
Sasha sighed and shook her head. “Not what you think. I meant I have to steel myself to see Mama, not say the wrong thing—which I’m obviously still skilled at doing.”
That drew a small smile from Eve. “I’ll be right behind you.”
The old cracker-style house looked exactly the same as it had the day Sasha left ten years ago. Hipped tin roof, white clapboard siding, porch that ran all the way around. Inside, a wide-planked hallway ran down the center of the house straight to the back door, with rooms opening up on either side. She stopped a moment to let her eyes adjust, cataloging familiar furniture, eyeing the narrow stairs leading to the big upstairs bedroom under the eaves she’d shared with Eve and Cathy.
“Where’s Cathy?”
Again Eve looked away. “She goes by Cat now. And she’s . . . she couldn’t get away this weekend.”
Which meant Cathy/Cat still hadn’t forgiven her. Sasha wasn’t really surprised, but a foolish part of her had hoped they could finally move on. Looking through the back doorway, she could see the crowd of people who had come to her mother’s party, smell the burgers and chicken on the grill, hear the laughter and country music blasting from a boom box. Pop’s choice, no doubt, since Mama would have preferred Italian opera.
Preparing herself, Sasha followed Eve down the long hallway to the back door.
At her first sight of Mama, Sasha froze, one hand on the screen door. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. No matter what Eve had said, she hadn’t been prepared. This frail, sickly woman wearing a colorful scarf because she’d lost her hair to chemo couldn’t be Mama Rosa. Dear God, no. Abject fear and a hefty dose of guilt slapped her, hard. She was tempted to turn around and run for her Jeep. But she wouldn’t. Not today.
She forced the tears back, took a deep breath, and dug deep for a smile. For Mama, she could do this.
Jesse Claybourne had just taken a sip of his drink when the screen door opened and the star of all his teenage fantasies stepped out. He nearly choked as he realized, yes, it was in fact Sasha Petrov, the prodigal daughter come home. After all these years. And by all accounts, Mama Rosa and Sal had certainly killed the fatted calf.
Without conscious thought, he moved closer. She looked good, he decided, if a little tired and ragged around the edges. He supposed having a mother fighting cancer would do that to you. Beside her, Eve looked the same as ever: elegant and sophisticated, but with a heart as big as all outdoors. Sasha, of the amazing mane of hair and athletic body that begged to be touched, would as soon bite your hand as let you pet her.
She tried to laugh at something Eve said, and even through the strain in her voice, the rich sound slapped him hard. Yeah, he’d always been a sucker for Sal and Rosa’s oldest.
The sisters moved down the porch to where Mama Rosa sat in a white wooden rocker in the shade. Sasha swallowed hard, twice, before she grabbed the gold mariner’s cross she always wore to keep it from hitting Rosa as she carefully bent to kiss her mother on both cheeks.
He understood her shock. This was not the robust fireball who’d chased him off with a broom for stealing cookies.
Mama Rosa grabbed Sasha’s hands when she would have pulled away and whispered something that made Sasha nod and take a careful breath. He waited a moment before he eased up onto the porch, pretending he didn’t see Sasha turn her back toward her mother and close her eyes as she rubbed her heart.
“Happy birthday, Mama Rosa,” he said. “Had I known it was your birthday, I’d have brought you flowers.” He leaned in to place his own kiss on her cheek, smiling when she held his face in her hands.
“Jesse Claybourne, let me look at you.” She scanned him from head to toe, then patted his hand. “You’re a good boy. You can bring them next time.” She hitched her chin toward Sasha. “At least you’ll come to visit me.”
Sasha blanched.
“That’s because you’re the best cook around.” He glanced skyward. “No offense, Aunt Clarabelle.”
“Thank you, Jesse.” Rosa shrugged. “We all have our talents. Your Aunt Clarabelle was a good woman and a fine schoolteacher. She will be missed.”
Jesse nodded and, out of the corner of his eye, watched Sasha casually check him out. When their eyes met, he winked, and a lovely flush spread over her cheeks. Clearly uncomfortable, she wrapped her arms around her middle as she stepped in his direction.
“Surprised to see you here, Money-boy.”
He sent her his best smile. “And miss the chance to hassle you? Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She huffed out a breath. “Some things never change, I guess.”
“You’d be surprised,” he drawled, matching her stance.
Pop stepped up onto the porch, gave Mama’s face a quick scan, and gently kissed her cheek.
“Jesse is moving into Clarabelle’s cottage while he works on his vintage powerboat. Big race coming up in Clearwater.”
Jesse saw the interest spark in Sasha’s eyes before she carefully masked it.
“Want to go for a ride one day?”
She snorted. “Ride? With you? Please.” She propped her hands on her hips, head cocked at a saucy angle. “Not unless I take the helm.”
Now it was his turn to snort. “In your dreams, Petrov.”
“Sasha is a licensed boat captain,” Mama said. “She’s been working—”
“Friends, thank you for coming and for celebrating with us today. God has granted my Rosa sixty years, and we are thankful. For her. And for all of you who have shared our lives.”
His eyes filled with tears as he tugged Sasha’s hand and walked over to the rocker with her. He took Mama’s hand in his other one and kissed it tenderly. Eve stepped over and held out the enormous sheet cake with its two candles displaying 60. Blaze stepped up beside her and held the other end. Sasha started “Happy Birthday” with her lush, off-key voice, and everyone joined in, all eyes on Mama Rosa, who smiled a huge smile and finally blew out the candles on the third try.
Jesse watched the scene play out, smiling, then stiffened when that familiar itchy feeling crept up his shoulder blades. He was being watched. Not surprising, really. It was only a matter of time before his recent incarceration became public knowledge. He glanced around, but he didn’t see any obvious scowls aimed his way. Nor worse, someone fingering a weapon. But the feeling persisted, so he slipped away. No way would he bring the ghosts of his past here. The Martinellis had enough to worry about.
The standard summer thunderstorm blew in about three o’clock and broke up the party. Sasha watched from a corner of the porch as families rushed to their cars amid shouts and waves, holding towels over their heads, casserole dishes tucked under their arms. Within minutes, the driveway cleared. Fifteen minutes after that, the storm blew out to sea, leaving behind sunny skies and slightly cooler temperatures. At least for a little while.
She wished her own emotions could be swept away as easily. It had taken every bit of her inner strength to keep from rearing back in shock when she first spotted Mama. Her throat closed up again, and her hands clenched with the need to punch something in frustration. This couldn’t be happening. How could she not have known?