The Soldier's Secret Child

by Lee Tobin McClain

  “This is how rumors get started.” He squeezed her hand a little, then could have kicked himself. Was he flirting? With the one woman he could never, ever get involved with?

  “That’s true,” Lacey said briskly, looking away. “And we’ve obviously done a good job of starting a rumor today. So...”

  “So what?” He squeezed her hand again, let go and thought of living at the guesthouse with Nonna and Charlie.

  Charlie could walk to the park, or better yet, ride a bike. Vito was pretty sure there was one in Nonna’s garage that he could fix up.

  Vito could see Nonna every day. Do something good for the woman who’d done so much for him.

  And he could get back on his feet, start his online classes. Maybe Nonna, as she got better, would watch Charlie for him some, giving him a chance to go out and find a decent job.

  Soon enough, Nonna would be well and Charlie would be settled in school and Vito would have some money to spare. At which point he could find them another place to live.

  He’d only have to keep his secret for the summer. After that, he and Charlie would live elsewhere and would drift naturally out of Lacey’s circle of friends. At that point, it was doubtful that she’d learn about Charlie’s parentage; there’d be no reason for it to come up.

  How likely was it that Lacey would find out the truth over the summer?

  “Maybe you could stay for a while,” she said. “I’m opening the guesthouse this fall, officially, but until then, having a long-term guest who didn’t mind noise would help out.”

  “How about a guest who makes noise? Charlie’s not a quiet kid.”

  “I liked him.”

  “Well, then,” Vito said, trying to ignore the feeling that he was making a huge mistake, “if you’re seriously making the offer, it looks like you’ve got yourself a couple of tenants for the summer.”

  Chapter Four

  The next Wednesday afternoon, Lacey looked out the kitchen window as Charlie and Vito brought a last load of boxes in from Vito’s pickup. Pop music played loudly—Charlie’s choice. She’d heard their good-natured argument earlier. The bang of the front screen door sent Mr. Whiskers flying from his favorite sunning spot on the floor. He disappeared into the basement, where his companion, Mrs. Whiskers, had already retreated.

  Some part of Lacey liked the noise and life, but part of her worried. There went her peaceful summer—and Nonna’s, too. This might be a really bad idea.

  She glanced over at the older woman, relaxing in the rocking chair Lacey had put in a warm, sunny corner beside the stove. Maybe she’d leave the chair there. It gave the room a cozy feel. And Nonna didn’t look any too disturbed by the ruckus Vito and Charlie were creating. Her eyes sparkled with more interest than she’d shown in the previous couple of weeks.

  “I’d better get busy with dinner.” Lacey opened the refrigerator door and studied the contents.

  “I used to be such a good cook,” Nonna commented. “Nowadays, I just don’t have the energy.”

  “You will again.” Lacey pulled mushrooms, sweet peppers and broccoli from the fridge. “You’d better. I don’t think I could face the future without your lasagna in it.”

  “I could teach you to make it.”

  Lacey chuckled. “I’m really not much of a cook. And besides, we need to work on healthy meals. Maybe we can figure out a way to make some heart-healthy lasagna one of these days.”

  As she measured out brown rice and started it cooking, she looked over to see Nonna’s frown. “What’s wrong?”

  “What are you making?”

  “Stir-fried veggies on brown rice. It’ll be good.” Truthfully, it was one of Lacey’s few staples, a quick, healthy meal she often whipped up for herself after work.

  “No meat?” Nonna sounded scandalized. “You can’t serve a meal to men without meat. At least a little, for flavor.”

  Lacey stopped in the middle of chopping the broccoli into small florets. “I’m cooking for men?”

  “Aren’t you fixing dinner for Vito and Charlie, too?” Nonna’s eyebrows lifted.

  “We didn’t talk about sharing meals.” Out the window, she saw Vito close the truck cab and wipe his forehead with the back of his hand before picking up one of the street side boxes to carry in. “They are working up a sweat out there, but where would I put them?” She nodded toward the small wooden table against the wall, where she and Nonna had been taking their meals. Once again, she sensed their quiet, relaxing summer dissolving away.

  At the same time, Nonna was an extrovert, so maybe having more people around would suit her. As for Lacey, she needed to get used to having people in the house, to ease into hosting a bed-and-breakfast gradually, rather than waiting until she had a houseful of paying guests to feed in her big dining room. And who better than good old Vito?

  “There’s always room for more around a happy home’s table,” Nonna said, rocking.

  “I guess we could move it out from the wall.”

  Vito walked by carrying a double stack of boxes, and Lacey hurried to the kitchen door. “Are you okay with that? Do you need help?” Though from the way his biceps stretched the sleeves of his white T-shirt, he was most definitely okay.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me below the neck.” He sounded uncharacteristically irritable. “I can carry a couple of boxes.”

  Where had that come from? She lifted her hands and took a step back. “Fine with me,” she said sharply.

  From above them on the stairs, Charlie crowed, “Ooo-eee, a fight!”

  Vito ignored him and stomped up the stairs, still carrying both boxes.

  “You come in here, son.” Nonna stood behind Lacey, beckoning to Charlie.

  Lacey bit her lip. She didn’t want Nonna to overexert herself. And being from an earlier generation, she might have unreasonable expectations of how a kid like Charlie would behave.

  But Nonna was whispering to Charlie, and they both laughed, and then he helped her back to her rocking chair. That was good.

  Lacey went back to her cutting board, looked at the stack of veggies and reluctantly acknowledged to herself that Nonna was probably right. If she could even get a red-blooded man and an eight-year-old boy to eat stir-fry, the least she could do was put some beef in it. She rummaged through her refrigerator and found a pack of round steak, already cut into strips. Lazy woman’s meat. She drizzled oil into the wok, let it heat a minute, and then dumped in the beef strips.

  “Hey, Lace.” It was Vito’s deep voice, coming from the kitchen doorway. “C’mere a minute.”

  She glanced around. The rice was cooking, Nonna and Charlie were still talking quietly and the beef was barely starting to brown. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “What’s up?” she asked as she crossed the kitchen toward him. “You’re not going to bite my head off again, are you?”

  “No.” He beckoned her toward the front room, where they could talk without the others hearing. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped. Charlie’s been a handful and...” He trailed off and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “And what?”

  “And...I hate being treated like there’s something wrong with me. I’m still plenty strong.”

  “I noticed.” But she remembered a similar feeling herself, after her miscarriage; people had tiptoed around her, offering to carry her groceries and help her to a seat in church. When really, she’d been just fine physically. “I’m sorry, too, then. I know how annoying it is to be treated like an invalid.”

  “So we’re good?” He put an arm around her.

  It was a gesture as natural as breathing to Vito as well as to the rest of his Italian family. She’d always liked that about them.

  But now, something felt different about Vito’s warm arm around her shoulders. Maybe it was that he was so much bigger and brawnier tha
n he’d been as a younger man.

  Disconcerted, she hunched her shoulders and stepped away.

  Some emotion flickered in his eyes and was gone, so quickly she wasn’t sure she’d seen it.

  “Hi!” Charlie came out of the kitchen, smiling innocently. He sidestepped toward Nonna’s room.

  “Where you headed, buddy?” Vito asked.

  “Lacey, dear,” Nonna called from the kitchen. “I’d like to rest up a little before dinner.”

  “I’m glad she called me.” Lacey heard herself talking a little faster than usual, heard a breathless sound in her own voice. “I try to walk with her, because I have so many area rugs and the house can be a bit of an obstacle course. But of course, she likes to be independent.” Why was she blathering like she was nervous, around Vito?

  “I’ll help her.” Vito went into the kitchen and Lacey trailed behind. “Come on, Nonna, I’ll walk with you. Smells good,” he added, glancing over to where the beef sizzled on the stove.

  It did smell good, and the praise from Vito warmed her. She added in sliced mushrooms and onions.

  For a moment, all she could hear was the slight sizzle of the food on the stove and the tick of the big kitchen clock on the wall. Peace and quiet. Maybe this was going to work out okay.

  The quiet didn’t last long. From Nonna’s room, she could hear Charlie talking, telling some story. Vito’s deeper voice chimed in. His comfortable, familiar laugh tickled her nerve endings in a most peculiar way. Then she heard his heavy step on the stairs. No doubt he was going up to do a little more unpacking while Charlie was occupied. Vito was a hard worker.

  And just why was she so conscious of him? What was wrong with her?

  She walked over to the sink and picked up the photo she kept on a built-in wooden shelf beside it. Gerry, in uniform, arriving home on one of his furloughs. Someone had snapped a photo of her hugging him, her hair, longer then, flying out behind her, joy in every muscle of her body.

  She clasped the picture close to her chest. That was reality.

  Reassured, she moved out the table and located some chairs for Charlie and Vito, almost wishing Buck hadn’t taken her bigger kitchen table with him when he’d moved. She checked on the dinner. Just about done. She found grapes and peaches to put in a nice bowl, both a centerpiece and a healthy dessert.

  “What’s going on here?” She heard Vito’s voice from Nonna’s room a little later. He must have come back downstairs. She hadn’t even noticed. Good.

  Charlie’s voice rose, then Nonna’s. It sounded like an argument, and Lacey’s patient shouldn’t be arguing. She wiped her hands and hurried to check on Nonna.

  When she looked into the room, both Nonna and Charlie had identical guilty expressions. And identical white smudges on their faces. Beside Nonna was a box from the bakery that someone had brought over yesterday. Cannoli.

  “Dessert before dinner, Charlie?” Vito was shaking his head. “You know that’s not allowed.”

  “Nonna!” Lacey scolded. “Rich, heavy pastries aren’t on your diet. You know the doctor’s worried about your blood sugar.”

  “She told me where they were and asked me to get them for her,” Charlie protested. “And you told me I was supposed to treat older people with respect.”

  Vito blew out a sigh. “You just need to check with me first, buddy. And Nonna, you’ve got to stick to your eating plan. It’s for your health!”

  “What’s life without cannoli?” Nonna said plaintively. “Do I have to give up all my treats?”

  Vito knelt beside his grandmother. “I think you can have a few planned treats. But sneaking cannoli before dinner means you won’t have an appetite for the healthy stuff.”

  “I didn’t anyway,” Nonna muttered.

  “Me, either.” Charlie went to stand beside Nonna on the other side. Obviously, he’d made a new friend in Nonna, and that was all to the good for both of them—as long as it didn’t lead to Nonna falling off the diet bandwagon.

  It was up to Lacey to be firm, so she marched over and picked up the bakery box. “Whatever you men don’t eat for dessert is getting donated tonight,” she said firmly. “Obviously, it’s too much of a temptation to have things like this in the house.”

  An acrid smell tickled her nose.

  “What’s that burning?” Vito asked at the same moment.

  “Dinner!” Lacey wailed and rushed into the kitchen, where smoke poured from the rice pan. In the wok, the beef and vegetables had shrunk down and appeared to be permanently attached to the wok’s surface.

  All her work to make dinner nice and healthy, gone to waste.

  She turned off the burners and stared at the ruined food, tears gathering in her eyes. In her head she could hear her mother’s criticism of the cookies she’d baked: you’ll never be much of a chef, will you?

  She remembered Gerry shoving away his dinner plate the first night they’d come back from their honeymoon, saying he wasn’t hungry.

  Nonna was calling questions from her room and Charlie shouted back: “Lacey burned up dinner!”

  The acrid smoke stung her eyes, and then the smoke detector went off with an earsplitting series of beeps.

  This was not the serene life she had been looking for. She was a failure as a cook.

  She burst into tears.

  * * *

  Vito coughed from the smoke and winced from the alarm’s relentless beeping. He turned down the volume on his hearing aids and moved toward Lacey, his arms lifting automatically to comfort her with a hug.

  She clung on to him for one precious second, then let go and looked around like she didn’t know what to do next.

  He needed to take charge. He shut off the smoke detectors, one after the other. Then he opened all the windows in the kitchen, gulping in big breaths of fresh air.

  Lacey flopped down at the kitchen table, wiping tears. He beckoned to Charlie. “Run and tell Nonna everything’s fine, but dinner will be a little late.” As Charlie left the room, Vito scraped the ruined food into the garbage and filled the two pans halfway with soapy water. They’d need some serious scrubbing later.

  Lacey was sniffling now, blowing her nose and wiping her eyes.

  He leaned back against the counter and studied her. “How come this got you so upset? You’re not a crier.”

  She laughed. “I am, these days. And I’m also a loser in the kitchen, in case you didn’t notice. My mom always told me that, and Gerry concurred.”

  “Gerry?” That was a surprise. The man had eaten enough MREs in the military that he should have been grateful for any home cooking, however simple.

  She pushed herself to her feet. “What’ll we eat now? Nonna needs dinner. We all do. I guess, maybe, pizza? But that’s not the healthiest choice for your grandma.”

  “Do you have canned tomatoes?” Vito asked her. “Onions? Garlic? Pasta?”

  She nodded and blew her nose again. “I think so.”

  “Great. You sit down and I’ll give you stuff to chop. I’m going to make a spaghetti sauce.” He might not know what words to say to comfort her, but he could definitely cook her a meal.

  “Spaghetti!” Charlie yelled, pumping his fist as he ran into the kitchen.

  “That’s right.” Vito stepped in front of the racing boy. “And you, young man, are going to do some chores. Starting with taking out this garbage.”

  Charlie started to protest, but Vito just pointed at the garbage can. Charlie yanked out the bag and stomped out of the house with it.

  Lacey chopped and Vito opened cans of tomatoes and set the sauce to cooking. As the onions sizzled in olive oil, the day’s tension rolled off him. When Charlie came back in, he had Gramps Camden, a weathered-looking, gray-haired man, with him.

  Lacey gave the older man a hug, then turned to Vito. “You remem
ber Gramps Camden, don’t you?”

  Vito stood and greeted the older man, who’d been a part of the community as long as he could remember.

  “Wanted to pay a visit,” he said in his trademark grouchy way. “See what you’ve got going on over here.”

  “You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?” Lacey asked.

  “Twist my arm,” the old man said. “Cooking’s good over at the Senior Towers, but nothing beats homemade.”

  Lacey asked Charlie to take a couple of bills out to the mailbox, and he went happily enough.

  A knock came on the back screen door, and there was Gina, the woman Lacey’s brother, Buck, had married, holding a toddler by the hand. “Hey, Lace, are you in there?”

  “C’mon in.” Lacey got up and opened the door for the woman, a rueful smile on her face. “Welcome to the zoo.”

  “Hey,” Gina greeted Vito and Gramps Camden, and then turned to Lacey, holding the little boy by his shoulders as he attempted to toddle away. “Can you watch Bobby for ten or fifteen minutes? I have to run over to the Senior Towers to check out a few facts.”

  Vito’s curiosity must have shown on his face, because she explained. “I’m doing some research on the town and the guesthouse. This place was a stop on the Underground Railroad and has a really amazing history.”

  “Laaaaas,” the little boy said, walking into Lacey’s outstretched arms.

  “Hey, how’s my sweet boy?” Lacey wrapped the child in a giant hug, and then stood, lifting him to perch on her hip. Her bad mood was apparently gone. “Look, Bobby, this is Vito. And this is Mr. Camden. Can you say hi?”

  Bobby buried his face in Lacey’s neck.

  “Taking off,” Gina said, and hurried out the back door.

  Lacey cuddled the little boy close, nuzzling his neck, and then brought him to the window. “Look at the birdies,” she said, pointing toward a feeder outside the window where a couple of goldfinches fluttered.

  “Birdie,” Bobby agreed.

  “You’re a natural,” Vito said, meaning it. Lacey looked right at home with a child in her arms, and the picture made a longing rise in him. He wanted a baby. More than one.