by SUE FINEMAN
She still hadn’t told him she loved him. With everything that had happened, her emotions were still raw, and she wanted to be sure he hadn’t said the words because she was carrying his baby before she made a commitment to him. They’d have to talk about their feelings after she healed and they put this ordeal behind them.
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Sophia put dinner on the table. Jenna had picked up Mattie’s ashes from the funeral home that afternoon, and she and Alessandro were talking about what to do with them. They had the ashes from the cats, too.
Jenna asked Sophia what she’d do with Mattie’s ashes.
“I’d put them on the rocks at Dead Man’s Point or scatter them in the water. That was where she wanted to be.”
“No, she wanted to be in the inn,” said Alessandro. “But Nick’s crew has cleared all that out, and I don’t think anyone wants her ashes under the new homes he’s building out there. He’d never sell any of them.”
“Why don’t you take the boat out and scatter them on the water?”
“The cats’ ashes are going on the beach if I have to climb down that flimsy rope ladder and do it myself,” said Jenna. “But I don’t want to put Mattie’s ashes there.”
Losing the baby had thrown Jenna, and the nasty injury to her head had weakened her, but she was getting her spirit back. Alessandro was still reeling from losing all his work, and there were times when he looked at Jenna with a deep sadness in his eyes. Those times, she knew he was thinking about the baby they’d lost. He’d get through it, they’d get through it together, and someday they’d make more babies.
The plans Alessandro had done for his studio on Beach Road had been approved by the county, but Nick hadn’t said anything to Alessandro yet. He and Angelo and Blade and Vinnie were spending every spare minute clearing the land and getting started, so he’d have a quiet place to work. Nick had the foundation and the septic in, and the framing would start tomorrow. It was a small place, one room with a loft and a single car garage, so it shouldn’t take too long to build. The other boys would have been happy to work here at the house, but Alessandro needed a quiet place to create, a place without a little girl chasing her kitty up and down the stairs.
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The last weekend of September, Al and Jenna scattered the ashes of the cats over the fence along the top of the hill, and the wind carried them out over the beach. The priest had said a prayer for the cats, but Mattie Worthington wouldn’t have a priest or preacher to pray her into heaven. In Al’s mind, she was already burning in hell. Getting rid of the ashes was just a formality.
They boarded the boat and cruised up the sound until Jenna pointed at the rocks at Dead Man’s Point. He put the boat on idle, but didn’t set the anchor. They wouldn’t be here long enough to anchor the boat.
Sitting off shore, where he wouldn’t risk wrecking the boat on the rocks, Al scanned the hill with the black iron fence at the top and the burned trees around the buildings that had been destroyed. Seeing how beautiful the property was from the water, he was almost sorry he’d sold the property.
Almost.
Living here with the ghosts was not an option for him. He had nightmares just thinking about what had happened here.
He glanced at the plastic box in Jenna’s hands. The wind was behind them, so they might as well get it over with. She pulled the top off and held it up. She poured slowly, and the wind caught the ashes in a swirl that carried them toward the rocks. Some fell into the water, some drifted toward the hill, but most of them settled over the rocks at Dead Man’s Point.
“I hope she burns in hell,” said Jenna.
Al put the empty box in the trash bag, turned the boat around, and headed back to the dock. They’d done what they’d come out here to do. Mattie Worthington was gone. The winter rains would wash the rest of her ashes off the rocks and into the water. Maybe she’d haunt the site where the inn once stood.
Only time would tell.
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A week later, Phillip called Jenna. “Are you aware that Mattie Worthington left a will?”
“I assume she did. Who did she leave her money to?”
“Her cats.”
Jenna wasn’t surprised. The only things Mattie had ever loved were the inn and her cats. “My daughter has adopted the only cat that survived.”
“I’m aware of that. There’s also a question as to whether Mattie was in her right mind when she made the will. Therefore, as her next of kin and as the caretaker of her only living cat, I’m sending you a check for the balance of her estate.”
Mattie would roll over in her grave, if she had one. The last person she’d want to have her money was Charlie’s bastard daughter.
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Jenna stayed late at work that evening to catch Nick. “I know you’re building Alessandro’s studio, and I want to contribute something.”
“Jenna, I have it covered.”
“I don’t mean the building. I know you’re taking care of that. I mean the sketches he had hanging on the walls in his office, the ones of the homes he’d designed. Did he give other sketches to you or—”
“We always give a framed sketch to the buyers.”
“If you’ll give me a list of the buyers and their addresses or phone numbers, I’ll take care of it.” If she could borrow the originals, she’d have copies made and framed.
He kissed her on the cheek. “You’ll have the list in the morning.”
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It took two weeks to gather the drawings from Nick’s customers and Tony’s retirement community. She took the drawings to a photo shop and had them copied, then returned the original drawings to their owners. The frame shop promised to get them all done in time for Alessandro’s birthday in mid-November.
The men in the Donatelli family were all working hard on the studio to get it done in time, and the women were picking out furniture and accessories.
Alessandro’s thirtieth birthday would be a day he wouldn’t forget.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Al worked day and night to re-create the plans for Dead Man’s Point. He had three nearly finished when Nick asked him to meet a client at the site where the inn once stood.
He arrived at Dead Man’s Point before the others and walked around. All traces of the inn were gone, the burned trees had been trimmed back, and the lots were all staked out and marked. Without the inn, it didn’t look like the same place.
Nobody had told Mattie they were going to tear the inn out. Would it have made a difference? No, probably not. He and Jenna should have stayed together, but he didn’t realize when he left Jenna downstairs that the fire had already started or that Mattie would attack Jenna. He could have waited on the roof for the paramedics, dropped Katie down to them, and gone back inside to find Jenna, but he couldn’t have gone downstairs with Katie. If he’d brought the little girl down into the thick of the smoke, it could have killed her.
Nick pulled in, followed by a big van. The buyers were a couple with two girls about ten and twelve years old and an older woman in a wheelchair.
“Since Mom came to live with us, we need a bigger house,” the young woman said. “We’ve been living in Canterwood, but it’s not the community for us. We don’t golf and we don’t use the country club facilities. We’d rather have a house with a nice view, and this view is outstanding.”
Al wondered what they’d do when they learned that a woman had killed herself here, and with the disclosure laws, they had to be told. He shared a look with Nick, and Nick nodded slightly.
“You know about the fire at the inn?” Nick asked.
The man said, “Yeah, we read about it in the paper, saw it on the TV news. They said the woman who set it died in the fire.”
“Yes, she did,” said Al. “I was living and working here at the time. I had backups of my work, but they were in my car, and she burned the car, too. I’ve been trying to re-create what was lost, including the plans for these homes, but I’m not quite there yet.”
“We’ve
heard you’re the best architect and designer in the area,” the man said. “Worth waiting for. Show us what you have today, and we’ll go from there.”
Al nodded. “I’ll do that, after we get back to Nick’s office.”
The younger woman put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “We’ll need wider doors, an elevator, and Mom’s bathroom will have to be customized.”
“Not a problem,” said Al. Definitely not a problem. “My mother had a stroke a few years ago, and I’m well aware of the special needs of a person in a wheelchair. My mother is okay now, but when she was in the hospital we were talking about the possibility of having to remodel her house.”
“I was in a car accident,” said the older woman. “The chair is a nuisance, but I can’t complain. The woman in the other car died, and her husband lost his sight.”
Nice woman, thought Al. “Look around the property with Nick, and I’ll meet you back at the office. I’m sure we can come up with a plan that will suit your special needs.”
If Mattie came back to haunt this place, he’d bring a priest out and have him do a cleansing or whatever they called it. He might do that anyway, to ease his mind. Charlie and Mattie had both died violent deaths, and there was an awful lot of evil in Mattie Worthington. He didn’t want that evil hanging around here.
He left the buyers with Nick at Dead Man’s Point and drove Angelo’s old pickup back to the office. While he waited for the others, he thought about the changes he’d have to make to the plan. At some point the older lady might need a nurse or assistant, so they’d need an extra bedroom somewhere. He could put a bedroom and bathroom on the main floor for the woman in the wheelchair and move the library upstairs. That room could open off the master bedroom, so they’d have a private sitting room or study.
Nick’s house had an elevator, and although it was an expensive piece of equipment for a private home, they could add one to this plan, so the wheelchair-bound woman wouldn’t be confined to one floor.
The bigger basement plan would only work on two lots, so Al pulled a copy of the site plan off Nick’s desk and marked those sites with a B.
The buyers pulled up and parked outside, and Nick was right behind them.
After an hour of talking about the various plans and the options he could give them, the buyers chose a lot and wrote a check for Nick to hold it. They wanted a home theater and a maid’s room, and the women both loved the sun room addition.
Al glanced at Nick, who was smiling. They’d lost one of their buyers and gained another. There weren’t many people who qualified to buy a home in this price range, but two out of nine wasn’t bad at this early stage. Not bad at all.
Nick’s reputation for fairness and insistence on quality work, and the fact that he was married to Cara Andrews, made Max and Company the most popular construction company in the area. Al was proud to be associated with Nick, family or no family, but family made it all that much more satisfying.
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Alessandro came home whistling, and Sophia knew things were going well for him again. Jenna looked happier, too. It had been weeks since they’d lost the baby. For some people, a tragedy like that would tear them apart, but for Alessandro and Jenna, it drew them closer together. They’d cried together and they’d healed together.
Her youngest son would turn thirty in a few days, and the entire family had pulled together to give him a special gift. His own studio. One of these days, his new home would be built on the front of the lot, the home he and Jenna and Katie would share.
Sophia would be alone again, but she didn’t mind now that she had Phillip in her life.
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Alessandro’s birthday was on a Sunday, and Jenna and Katie went to church with him that morning. Other than funerals, the last time Jenna had been in church was the Christmas service the week before her parents died. She wanted so much to share every aspect of his life with him, and this was a part of his life.
Katie went home with Sophie after the service, and Alessandro drove Jenna home to his mother’s house. He parked in the driveway and she put her hand on his arm. “Alessandro, wait. I want to talk with you before we go inside.”
He pulled the keys out and turned to face her. After they made love last night, he’d asked her again to marry him and share her life with him. She didn’t answer him then, because she was so choked up with emotion, but she had an answer for him now.
She took his hand and put it on her face. “Alessandro, we’ve been through so much together. In high school I did some things I’m ashamed of, but I’m not that needy girl now. I’m a grown woman who is madly in love with a man who makes my heart sing. We made a baby together, and Mattie’s hate destroyed it, but nothing could destroy the love we have together.”
“Does this mean—”
“I want to build a life with you, have your children, and grow old with you. “
“And marry me?”
“Yes, and marry you.” Her heart melted at the look of love on his face.
“I love you,” he whispered. “How ’bout a Christmas wedding?”
“That soon?”
A slow smile warmed his face. “Or tomorrow. Tomorrow would be better.”
She laughed through her tears, happy tears this time. They had no home and not much to put in it when they built one.
Except love.
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The family gathered at Nick and Cara’s house for dinner. Tony and Catherine had come from California with their two little boys, and Phillip was there with Ma. Although it was a big house, the family continued to grow, and the walls fairly bulged with everyone there. Someone was always taking a kid to the potty or changing a diaper.
After dinner, Nick carried out a big birthday cake, and everyone sang Happy Birthday. Jenna smiled and kissed him. “Happy birthday, Alessandro.”
“What, no presents?” he teased.
“That comes later,” said Ma. Everyone was smiling like they knew something, especially Nick, and he wondered what they were up to.
They ate cake and ice cream, and after the kids were cleaned up, people started leaving. What in the hell was going on?
Nick motioned to him as the others trickled out the door. “Come on, Al. Let’s go for a walk.”
“Now?”
“We have a birthday present to beat all birthday presents, but you’ll have to see it to believe it.” They walked down toward Al’s property, and he wondered what was going on. Did this have something to do with the studio? Nick kept saying the plans hadn’t been approved yet, but the county never took that long on a small plan. “You cleared the site for the studio?”
They followed Jenna and Katie down the road and up the path to the building site for the house and beyond, to the wooded area where the maples leaves were changing colors and the tall, skinny fir trees spiked the sky. There were people up ahead getting out of their cars. He wondered why until he saw the tall window reflect the sunshine through the trees. “You built the studio? How could you hide this from me?”
“It wasn’t easy. It’s a helluva plan, Al, one of the best smaller plans I’ve ever seen. Your work just keeps getting better. Your designs help make Max and Company successful, and building this studio is our way of saying thank you.”
They walked up to the tall window rising between rock walls. It was surrounded by trees, like a giant tree house, only this one was firmly anchored to the ground. They walked around to the little porch, where the rest of the family stood waiting for him to open the door. A hand-carved sign by the door read:
ALESSANDRO DONATELLI
ARCHITECT
by appointment
He ran his fingers over the sign and then Nick handed him the key. Al unlocked the door and walked inside. A desk like the one he’d lost in the fire stood in front of the window that was nearly two stories tall. A leather sofa and two chairs were grouped around a coffee table on one wall, and a round conference table with four chairs sat near the other wall. But the biggest surprise was on
the walls. Sketches of every one of the homes he’d designed hung there. “Where did you get the sketches?”
“Jenna called people, begged people, and then had copies of your sketches made and framed,” said Nick. “Blade and Maria and Tony and Catherine bought the furniture. Angelo and Teresa bought a copier like the one you had. Gina and Will bought the area rugs, and Vinnie and Vickie got the carpet for the stairs and loft. Everyone contributed something to give you a private place to work.”
Al didn’t have to ask what Cara and Nick had gotten him. They’d paid for the construction of the studio.
“The kids’ artwork is hanging on the wall upstairs,” said Cara. “They each drew a house for you.”
He walked upstairs and looked at the pictures on the walls. Some were clearly houses, and others were not so clear. They’d all been signed and dated and framed, keepsakes to cherish.
There was a bed upstairs and a beautiful cradle filled with baby clothes. “The cradle is from your mother,” said Cara. “She said you’d be needing it one of these days.”
He glanced down at Jenna, eyebrows raised. They hadn’t been using any birth control since she’d lost the baby. She smiled and shook her head slightly. They weren’t pregnant yet, but they would be one of these days. And this time they’d be married.
He went downstairs and thanked everyone for their gifts. The studio and everything in it was the best kind of present, because it was done out of love. He glanced at Jenna, and she smiled. “Okay if I tell them now?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
Instead of saying that Jenna had agreed to marry him, Al scanned the room and stopped on his mother. “Ma, you can call the priest now.”
“I already did,” she said. Laughter filled the studio and bounced off the walls.
He gazed into Jenna’s eyes and saw pure, unselfish love reflected in them. Who needed a musty old inn when he had this woman in his life?
It was the best birthday of his entire life.
Other books by Sue Fineman
The Martinson Ranch Series