Rese hid her own behind her fist. It was satisfying to see Lance steam- rolled for a change.
Chaz bowed his head her way. “Is that all right with you?”
Turn away his friends? She would not have offered the attic; maybe the carriage house with Lance, but he’d spoken first. She shrugged. “No one’s using that space.”
“Except the ghosts.” Lance sent Rico an incorrigible smile of his own.“Was it moans you heard, Rese?”
“It’s been quiet lately.” And she’d been way too stressed to even think of ghosts. She looked up at the attic window.
Lance took his guitar from the van, but he didn’t offer to help with anything else. A contradiction of emotions emanated from him. Excitement and affection, irritation and strain. When he started for the carriage house, she told the others, “I’ll show you the attic.”
She hadn’t been up there since Lance finished cleaning it out, and it spread before her now with surprising size and emptiness. The others walked in and eyed it.
“Wow. We could set up at the end and have tables and a dance floor— our own private club.” Rico did a quick shuffle and spin that, even laden with his luggage, displayed a fluid motion. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he considered the possibilities.
Chaz looked down on them both, his shaved head the most perfectly shaped she’d ever seen. Hair would spoil it, just as hair gave Rico his rakish look, and Lance his style. All of them so different from those she’d worked with. Or maybe she hadn’t noticed the defining characteristics before.
But these were Lance’s friends, people who mattered to him—who proved he was real? “Have you known Lance long?”
“A while.” Chaz set his things against the wall. “Ricardo grew up with him.”
Rico shrugged. “We didn’t nurse at the same breast, but most everything else.”
They had behaved like siblings, like people with history and familiarity.“So I guess you know about Tony.”
Rico fixed her with a stare that confirmed Lance had not made that up. Had she doubted it? The pain he’d shared was too real.
But Rico was reassessing her now. He shot a glance at Chaz. “Gotta be a record.” He thumped his bags down by the window and looked out.
“What record?” She asked Chaz.
He spread his hands. “Rico says crazy things. Don’t listen to him.”
At the window Rico just laughed.
Lance took the top three stairs at a jog, stopped and eyed the sound equipment and instruments set up at the far wall. Not déjà vu exactly, but something close. Rico tapped an air brush on the cymbal he’d just tightened into place. “Great jammin’ room.”
Lance hadn’t thought of that when he’d proposed the attic, only a place they wouldn’t find too comfortable. As good as it was to see them, he couldn’t encourage Rico. One note of eagerness, and the man would pounce.“You’re wasting your time.”
Rico laughed. If he was getting ideas, this would not be pretty. Only Rico would think he could drive out there with the setup and lure him back in.
Chaz leaned against the wall. “You look better.”
Compared to when they’d last been together? Seeing Nonna incapaci- tated, knowing she needed something from him, had caused a strain he hadn’t bothered to hide. They’d have seen through his attempts anyway.
“He ought to.” Rico did a roll on the snare with his fingers and ended with the brush on the cymbal. “He’s got a hot mama.”
“It’s not like that.” Lance frowned. He’d put his arm around Rese to warn Rico off, not give the impression he’d obviously gotten.
“Man, you had me searching my conscience in sackcloth and ashes with all that ‘finding the meaning of life’ talk.”
“I meant it. And there’s nothing happening with Rese.”
“She’s eating out of your hand.”
“I’m the cook.”
Three inches shorter than Lance and weighing the same as he had at fifteen, Rico still faced off like a pugnacious Chihuahua. “You told her about Tony.”
“So?” But Rico knew he would never have shared that with someone who didn’t matter. He was pressing an advantage. With their fiery natures and Rico’s quick trigger, they had ended up in a clench too many times because Rico baited him as he was now.
“I care about her. But there’s nothing happening.”
Rico snorted, reminding him of Rese.
“I meant everything I said before. I still do. You’re wasting your time.”
Chaz opened his bag and took out a water bottle. “The Lord has called him out of darkness.” He took a long drink.
Rico scowled. “I’m not talking darkness, Chaz, just fame and success. Not listed in the seven deadly sins.”
“They should be,” Lance said softly. “They sure lead to them.”
“Only if you let them.” Chaz had said that before, but Chaz didn’t have the same temptations. The oldest son of a minister in Kingston, Jamaica, he’d seen degradation, violence, and iniquity—and had been chiseled into a pillar of integrity Lance both envied and admired. No lifestyle, no surroundings, no temptations shook him from his course. At least that Lance could see.
They had met on a coordinated effort with Chaz’s father’s church, and in the evenings, after days of sweat-soaked labor, there had been music for the soul. How many guys played Mozart on a steel drum? Chaz’s talent and Lance’s sponsorship had brought him to New York, and the money he sent home kept his family and most of their church alive.
The three of them shared an apartment in the building his family had owned for years. They contributed enough rent to cover the property taxes and they provided all the maintenance. What the three of them couldn’t do themselves, they paid for. It was a good arrangement for everyone. But the guys had come to Sonoma now, and Lance knew why.
“You can find another guitar, Rico.”
Rico shook his head. “It’s not the same.” He held up two fingers stuck together.
Yes, they were close, closer than he’d been to Tony. From the time they could walk, he and Rico were inseparable—which was the main reason Lance had found so much trouble. The sisters had learned quickly that alphabetical order sat them next to each other and scrapped that method of seating. But nothing could really separate them, except for the life-changing impact of Tony’s death.
Lance rubbed his face. “Have you guys eaten?”
His friends shared a look, and Rico grinned. “And spoil your fun?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Lance shook his head. Having grown up on Nonna’s fare, Rico said nothing derogatory when Lance took up where she left off. He knew a good thing when he saw it. Lance didn’t miss the irony of their coming to Nonna’s old house just as he’d switched focus back to Rese. But it was one more complication in a situation already spinning out of control.
Evvy had not thought of Ralph’s stories in a long time. But waking from her nap with the name Quillan Shepard on her lips put her in mind of the man Ralph had said his family revered like a saint. She didn’t go in for any of that, but she understood a debt. According to Ralph, his father, Joseph, owed Quillan Shepard his life, and that was somehow connected to the villa next door.
He never did tell her the nature of the debt or how exactly it came about. She suspected Ralph didn’t know, or he would have enjoyed the recounting. But when she teased him about leaving the old place since it was too big for him, he’d say there was only one thing that could get him out of there. One thing….
Evvy shook her head. In the end, it was something else, something he hadn’t wanted but couldn’t stop. His own son’s plans. There should be a lesson in that, but never having children of her own left her without insight into that particular aspect of life.
She had thought once that she was missing something, but she’d obvi- ously not missed motherhood too much, or she’d have made it happen. Childbearing might be a noble cause, but there were other ways to fill up God’s kingdom—like reaching ou
t to the offspring of other wombs. She didn’t have to bear them to be burdened by the souls around her, so when she stepped outside and saw Rese and the dog near the end of the driveway she started toward them.
She’d been bitten by a nasty bulldog as a girl and never cared for dogs since. But this one didn’t bark or bite that she could tell. It did push its snout into her hand. No manners at all in the entire species. But she’d bear with that to have her say.
Evvy opened her mouth to inquire about the condition of Rese’s soul when a coughing spasm seized her such that even the dog backed off. Rese reached out a hand to steady her. “Are you all right, Evvy?”
There the girl goes stealing her line. She wanted to know if Rese was all right with the Lord yet, if that doubting Thomas of a cook had spoken his piece, but she guessed he must have more to say, because once again the Lord had shut her up. “Fine,” she gasped between coughs.
Rese called the dog away from her hydrangeas and made him sit. Kind of a pleasant animal in a loppy-eared sort of way. “What is he?”
“Golden retriever and cocker spaniel, according to Lance.” Rese rubbed the dog’s head. “Smaller than a pure retriever, and you can see the spaniel in the eyes.”
“I suppose.” Evvy wouldn’t know a spaniel eye from a retriever eye, but she’d take her word for it. “You like dogs?”
“I love them. I always wanted one.” Rese squatted down and hugged the dog like a child. “Of course, Baxter is Lance’s dog.”
“You wouldn’t know it by the look on his face.”
Rese smiled. “He’s just a big pushover.”
“Like his master?”
Rese quirked her gaze up. “Hardly. Lance is more trouble than anyone I’ve known. Well…” She glanced toward the villa. “I guess that’s not really true. I’ve known some real jerks, and Lance isn’t. It’s just…” She shrugged.“I don’t know.”
Evvy laughed softly. “Sort of gets under your skin, doesn’t he?” She wasn’t sure if it was his boyish respect or his brazen disrespect that attracted her more. Someone had done a good job on that young man, Evvy decided, though Lance himself couldn’t see it. “You could do worse than that.”
“That’s what makes me wonder.” Rese stood up.
Evvy almost asked what she wondered, but she supposed she knew. Rese was insecure in her own worth. She didn’t know who she was and couldn’t see what Lance saw, what the good Lord saw.
With the dog wagging at her side, Rese turned. “I’d better get back. Lance’s friends are here from New York.”
“Don’t let that worry you.”
Rese looked puzzled, but didn’t ask. If she had, Evvy would have told her Lance was not the sort to be swayed by others, but Rese needed to see that for herself. A little of the edge was coming off, but she had so much to learn. Evvy didn’t know her story, but she saw a fierce determination and fortitude. The Lord could use that, if the girl would let Him. But would she?
Rese said, “It was nice talking to you.”
The dog slurped Evvy’s hand as she turned back to her house. She’d need a thorough washing, and she didn’t even have anything to show for it. Some- times she thought God was a great big jokester, giving her a hunger for souls, then making her nibble at the edges.
When she’d seen Evvy coming Rese had expected her to complain about the dog or something. Maybe she was paranoid, but where neighbors were concerned, she expected the worst. If they minded their business, she’d mind hers. But Evvy … well, Evvy was different. Why had she said that about not letting Lance’s friends worry her?
Did it show when she mentioned them? Did she sound possessive or insecure? Two things she despised and flatly rejected. Frowning, she left Baxter at the door and joined the men inside.
After a long evening of Bronx-style conversation—fast, overlapping, and punctuated with hand gestures—Rese sat in the small armchair they had brought up to the attic from the parlor. Strains of music coursed over her.
She did not have a very musical ear, but she could tell they were good. Lance and Rico’s harmony resonated. He had griped about Rico bringing the red guitar, but he played it now with loving fingers, and the energy between the three was mesmerizing.
She would let them live there free if they played Saturday nights, but she suspected that was not Rico’s plan. As close as they obviously were, there was tension between him and Lance, and it made her uneasy. What was that Mr. Samuels hungry for? Lance?
She dropped her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. He had been overqualified before she even saw this side of him. Multi-talented. What if Chaz and Rico had come to lure him back? Last night she had suggested he cut his losses and go, and he’d refused. But now?
Rese opened her eyes when the song ended. Rico looked ready to start another with the click of his drumsticks, but Lance slipped the strap over his head and set the guitar in its case. She had no idea how late it was, but she was tired. “All done?”
“You are.” Lance extended his hand.
She stood up. “I’m enjoying it.”
“You’re tired.”
She didn’t want him to exclude her. She had the feeling that, if she left them alone together, they might all be gone by morning.
They walked down and stopped outside her door. She groped for some- thing to say. “You guys sounded great.”
“Yeah, well, Rico and I’ve sung together since fifth grade. Chaz joined us four years ago. Another couple guys fill in as needed, but this is the core.”
And he loved it. She’d seen that the night he played alone, but it was magnified now. “Why did you break up?” She’d gathered that much from the comments over dinner.
“It’s not a lifestyle I want.” His brow pinched slightly.
There was more to it, she could tell, but she didn’t ask. Mostly because he was kissing her. Her heart rushed as she gripped his shirt. “I thought I would hate this. After Charlie, I thought I’d hate to be kissed.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
She laughed. “As if you would.”
“If it bothered you, I would. If it made you think of that. I want to erase it, wipe it out of your memory.” And he was doing a good job of it because, even though her chin was still tender, she did not want him to stop.
He drew back. “Will you sleep?”
She shrugged.
He glanced behind him at the kitchen table, reached down and snagged the Bible they’d left there. “How about a little light reading?”
If it had mattered enough for him to bring it on his bike when he had so little else, it might be worth a look. “All right.”
He studied her a moment. “Are you okay?”
He was reading her again like the open book she’d become. She nodded toward the attic. “What do they want?”
“Something that’s not going to happen.”
“You?”
He held her waist and considered his answer. But before he could say anything, she asked, “What are you doing here, Lance?” Showing up on her doorstep like a stray dog with nothing to show for all his talent.
For just a second his gaze wavered, then he said, “Looking for answers.”
Days ago she would not have understood that. Now she had so many questions she didn’t even want the answers. She looked into his face. “I hope you find them.”
Rese had asked, and he’d answered. But he’d told her nothing. Why was he there? To prove her property belonged to his grandmother? To claim a cellar full of vintage wine and whatever else might be down there? To vindicate a murdered man he’d never known?
Or maybe two. There was Quillan’s skeleton as well. Had he been shot in the tunnel? But he discounted that immediately. No assassin would arrange him so carefully, and why hide his body and leave Vittorio’s? As he’d told Rese, he did need answers. But when he found them, what would he do?
Lance sat down on the floor under the eaves in the attic. Rico had used most of dinner to complain about Steinbrenner
losing half his starting rotation and, that in spite of a lineup that compared to the ’27 Murderers’ Row, they’d probably lose the Series again. Lance just believed that every time his team put on the pinstripes they would take it all. He’d been there opening day almost every season he’d been alive. The memory brought a pang now that added to the unease created by Rese’s questions. Who would he be if Antonia had not been run off her land, chased to the other side of the country?
He rested his forearms on his knees and watched Chaz and Rico roll out their beds. “So how’s the family?” His people were as much family to these two men as their own. Rico’s dad had spent more time in jail than out, and his mom had more than she could handle with her brood. She hadn’t known or cared where Rico was most of the time. Chaz’s parents were solid, but economic reality forced a geographical separation and loneliness that Lance’s family had eased.
Rico shook out the foot of his bag. “Your pop’s doctor says he works too hard; he should slow down.”
Lance smiled. “Fa-get-about-it.” The day Pop slowed down they’d be holding his visitation.
“Momma’s worried about you, says you took Nonna’s stroke too hard. She don’t know what’s going on, but she’s not happy her mother-in-law sent you all over the world on some secret quest.” His mother had worried every day of his life, and she’d always been a little resentful of his relationship with Nonna. But Rico was expressing his own frustration as well. Lance hadn’t told him his business, and Rico wasn’t used to being shut out.
Lance swallowed. “And Nonna Antonia?”
Rico held his gaze, trying to break through the barrier between them.
“She sent a message.”
Lance straightened. “She’s talking?” That had to be a recent breakthrough. He’d called regularly, but no one had said she could manage more than a word or two.
Rico rocked his hand to mean so-so.
“What’s the message?”
“Jack’s son.”
Secrets Page 36