by Kent, Alison
“I have something for you,” he said as she slowly came back.
This time her better judgment, well, knew better. “I can’t imagine what that might be.”
“This,” he said, and reached into his pocket, pulling out a check he held by the edges. It was signed. It was made out to her. It nearly bubbled with zeroes.
Her heart bubbled, too, but she knew better than to start shopping. “What’s this?”
“A donation.”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
Frowning, he turned the check around and looked at it, then looked back at her. “Even I wouldn’t laugh at this kind of money.”
“And you’re just going to give it to me. For the center.”
“I’m not a fool, Luna,” he said, adding a sarcastic huff. “I’m buying, not giving.”
“Buying what?”
“The truth. You tell me where Oscar was that weekend, what he was doing, and the money’s yours.”
No mention of Sierra. Or of her. Hardly surprising. The Gatlins were interested only in the Gatlins. “I don’t think so,” she said, reversing course. Again.
“I’ll double it.”
She stopped. Again. Looked back. Oh, the things she could do with a donation that size. “You may be buying, but I’m not for sale.”
He ground his jaw, folded the check, stepped toward her, and pushed it into her pocket, the familiarity as unexpected as it was strangely desperate. “Keep it. Think about it. As soon as I get what I want, I’ll release the funds and the money’s yours. Books, paints, computers, cellos. Whatever you need.”
She didn’t want it. She certainly didn’t want to touch it. To hold it. To have it in her hands. Arms crossed, she held his gaze a long, tortured moment—her torture she knew, but his?—before he broke the contact and walked away, never looking back, not even when he stood beside his car to shove his sunglasses in place.
“What did he want?” Angelo asked, snagging Luna’s attention. She hadn’t even heard him approach.
She looked down the long driveway to where the other man was climbing back into his car, shifted, and felt the crinkle of the check in her pocket. “Nothing good.”
“What all does he know?”
More than he needs to, she wanted to say, but instead said, “Not as much as you do.”
“Does he know about the adoption?”
“He doesn’t even know about the pregnancy. At least, I don’t think he does. He hasn’t mentioned it anyway.”
“Just now, you mean?”
“Now, or at the cemetery.”
“You saw him at the cemetery?”
“He came by the other evening when I was there.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. She didn’t want to be having this conversation. “To cause trouble, I guess.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Whatever kind he can stir up. He’s a Gatlin. Isn’t that what they do?” she asked, though what she’d seen in Oliver’s eyes told her it was more.
“Has he been bothering you like this all these years?” Angelo asked, frowning as he watched Oliver’s car disappear down Three Wishes Road.
“I can’t even tell you the last time I saw him.”
“And now you’ve seen him twice in a couple of weeks. Something’s gotta be going on with him.”
Something was going on. But it wasn’t a something she was going to share. Though even as she had the thought, she realized Angelo could be an ally. He knew about the pregnancy. He knew about the adoption. But he didn’t know everything, and for some reason that kept her from telling him what Oliver had found.
“Can we not talk about Oliver Gatlin? Or anyone in that family? Please?”
“What about Oscar?”
“What about him?”
“Do you ever see him?”
“No,” she said, the admission shaming her.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I guess because seeing him would only be for me, and I don’t need to see him for what I would want to say. I can say it all to myself.”
“What would you say?”
Things I can’t tell you. “That I’m sorry I haven’t visited him, but that he’s never far from my mind. That I wish things hadn’t happened the way they did.”
“Would you tell him about Sierra? Do you think he knows?”
“I have no idea what he knows, if he’s had any awareness at all since the accident, or if it ended his life, too, just in a different way than it did Sierra’s.” She lifted a hand to shade her eyes, needing a better look at Angelo’s expression. “Why are you so curious about Oscar?”
“Because I’m trying to decide what his brother wants, turning up all of a sudden.”
“The way you turned up all of a sudden?”
“That’s different.”
“Why have you never come back before?”
“No reason,” he said, and she tried not to flinch. “I didn’t stay in touch with anyone but you after I left for school.”
“Not even any of the guys you played football with?”
His mouth pulled into a smirk. “I played football for the girls.”
“Sierra hated that, you know. The girls calling, driving by and honking. Hanging panties on the mailbox. But I’ll bet you loved it.”
“The parents weren’t thrilled about the panties, but the rest of it was a lot of fun.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you ever hang a pair?” he asked, lifting a brow.
“Of panties? Are you kidding?”
“You didn’t have to, did you? You spent the night with my sister and eventually got everything all the panty-hangers wanted.”
“I didn’t spend the night with Sierra just so I could hook up with you.” Good grief. “And why are we talking about this?”
But he answered with his own question. “Did you turn down boys from St. Thomas?”
“I went out with two or three. Before you. Why?”
“So being with me cost you what? Homecoming? Prom?”
Really? “I couldn’t have cared less about homecoming or prom.”
A soft smile passed over his face. “We could’ve gone together, you know. If we’d told everyone—”
“If we’d told everyone, I wouldn’t have been allowed to spend the night with Sierra.” And even then she’d only sneaked up to Angelo’s room when Sierra had sneaked out with Oscar. “Where is this coming from?”
He shrugged, a boyish gesture. “Just wondering if those four years were worth it.”
She’d loved him, as much as anyone could love someone else as a teen. “I can’t even believe we’re having this discussion.”
“So they were worth it,” he said, glancing at her from the side.
The man was going to drive her insane. “You’re awfully full of yourself.”
“It’s the football player in me,” he said.
“I might believe that if you’d gone on to play college ball.”
He walked back to the porch and sat on the steps. “Never had any interest. Besides, as it turned out, I wouldn’t have had time. I had to work to pay for school and expenses. Mine and a lot of my family’s, since my parents took my working as some kind of signal that they didn’t have to as much. Kinda took the fun out of leaving home.”
Wow. This she hadn’t known. “It wasn’t all bad, was it?”
“No. Before Sierra called it was actually pretty good. Even after she called. That summer anyway. But that’s when I went to Rome.”
“Tell me more about Rome. What did you do?”
“I did everything,” he said, smiling. “If it wasn’t included in the Cornell in Rome program, I did it on my own.”
“Is the Sistine Chapel as amazing as it looks in pictures?”
“You wouldn’t believe.”
The way his eyes lit up as he talked, telling her things about the trip he’d omitted in the past…
“I’ve
never been out of the country,” she said as she sat beside him. “I haven’t even been out of Texas but once to go to LA, and once to go to New York, both times for work.”
“I would’ve expected the Luna Meadows I knew to be more adventurous.”
She had been adventurous with him. “Seeing your two best friends go down a ravine in a convertible tends to be sobering.”
“Is that why you still live at home?”
“Part of it, I guess. I feel safe there. My parents have made it easy for me.”
“Easy to stay? Or easy to not have to get on with your life?”
“Easy to get on with it at my own pace. It took me a while to get back on my feet, if you’ll remember. And I mean that literally. I didn’t even get to go to school until the second semester of my senior year.”
He braced his elbows on the step above the one where he sat and leaned back. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Thank you.” The words were automatic.
“I mean it, Luna. I am sorry.”
“I don’t know why,” she said, uncomfortable for some reason with his being so nice. “I had a senior year. Sierra didn’t. Oscar didn’t. What I went through, the physical pain, the emotional suffering, for myself as well as my friends, it was nothing. I was here, alive. Going to school. Doing homework. Passing my exams. Graduating.”
“You never told me why you didn’t go to college.”
She shook her head. “I hadn’t decided yet what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go. I wasn’t a musician, so I wouldn’t be going away like Sierra and Oscar. And then later, weaving took up most of my time. I stayed busy. I stayed safe. My parents saw to that, building out the house so I’d have my own suite of rooms. Enabling me because it made things less worrisome for them.”
“Wait a minute.” He pushed up to sit straight, then stood and hovered over her, his hands at his hips. “Sierra was going away? Did she get a scholarship? Or a grant? Because I know she didn’t have money for college. And I can’t imagine her working her way through school with all the practice her music required.”
“I just meant…” She paused, searching for something to say to get her out of this mess. “I assumed she’d continue studying music. I chose my words poorly.”
“Or you told the truth. That Sierra and Oscar had plans to go away together. And you were the only other person who knew.”
Luna could backtrack all she wanted, Angelo mused, shouldering open the front door, but she’d said what she’d said before walking away, and her explanation didn’t hold water. Sierra had been planning to go away with Oscar, which sounded a whole lot like she’d never planned to be a mother to her child at all. But that made no sense in light of the rest of the things Luna had told him. If his sister had no money for college, and no scholarship, what was she expecting to do? Tag along while Oscar went to class? Play on street corners for tips? Be the little woman at home?
He straightened from stacking on the porch yet another box of crap he didn’t recognize. Things he’d found in the room Felix and Emilio had shared. Bits and pieces of toys he couldn’t remember them playing with. Proof of life in the Caffey house going on without him. He’d missed so much of their growing up, and all because he’d chosen to stay with Luna after the accident, to not blame Luna as his parents had done.
At least until the day his parents disowned him.
It was pretty clear he hadn’t known Sierra as well as he’d thought. Just as it was pretty clear Luna had known her intimately. He and Sierra had attended different schools, so they had no gossip to snark on, teachers to rag on, assemblies to bitch about, campus shortcuts to figure out. She had her music, and he had his sports. Most of their bonding had been as the oldest two of six siblings. Still, he’d been closer to Sierra than to any of his brothers or sisters, or as close as their lack of shared interests and sixteen years under the same roof allowed.
“I’m so sick of Isidora’s idea of washing dishes. I have to scrub them again when I rinse.”
“Try sharing a toilet with four- and eight-year-old boys. I’ll take doing the dishes any day.”
“At least they don’t play with your makeup without asking.”
“Makeup, no. Stereo, yes. You should see the sticky fingerprints all over my CDs.”
“I’m looking for Luna Meadows.”
Angelo looked up and stepped off the porch to meet the man he hadn’t heard arrive. “And you are?”
His visitor held out his hand, a big, broad hand as scarred up as Angelo’s own. “Tennessee Keller. I’m the building contractor working with Luna on the arts center.”
“Something going on?” Angelo asked, shaking it.
Tennessee frowned. “Can’t say. She asked me to meet her, so here I am.”
Angelo canted his head toward the porch. “She’s inside.”
Just then, the front door opened and Luna walked out with a big bag of trash. She tossed it on top of the growing mountain waiting for the second Dumpster to arrive. “Ten, hey. I thought I heard your voice. I see you met Angelo.”
“Not really,” Ten said, glancing from Luna to Angelo again.
He gave a nod of apology. “Angelo Caffey. This was my family’s place. I’m just back to see what’s still here before Luna tears it down.” Though that wasn’t the reason he’d come back at all.
“That’s why I asked Ten to stop by,” Luna said. “I’ve been thinking about not tearing it down.”
“What?” Ten asked.
“Will came by the other day,” Luna said. “He asked if we’d thought about keeping the house and building the center around it. Like you did with Kaylie’s house and the café.”
“Will seemed to think the house could be saved,” Angelo said.
“Not just saved, used.” Luna looked from one man to the other. “Basically, why go boxy and utilitarian when we could design something that would complement the house and be an extension of it? The rooms here could be used for administration and faculty offices, and the new structure would house the classrooms.”
“By we designing something,” Angelo said, “I’m pretty sure she means you.”
“Well, yes,” Luna replied. “Ten’s the contractor. But you are an architect. This is something we could work on together.”
Even though she knew he had no plans to stay. Even though she’d asked him about doing so. “And that we means…”
“Me. You. Ten. Maybe Will.”
Ten rubbed a hand over his nape. “What does the nonprofit think? About starting from scratch so late in the game? Because you’re asking for a lot here with all the subcontractors’ schedules.”
“How long would it take to change things up? And would something less… square take more time?”
“There’s also the money to consider,” Angelo said before Keller could answer.
“I’ll cover any overage,” Luna said, dismissing his concern.
“You will?” both men asked at once.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said, her hand going into her pocket. “And Will said he’d do up the blueprints and throw in his time for free.”
“Don’t say it’s not a big deal,” Tennessee said. “You haven’t seen my quote yet.”
“It doesn’t matter. This is about Sierra and Oscar. And I’m so glad Will made the suggestion. Saving the house where she lived will make the center that much more of a memorial to her.”
Ten took a minute to consider the option. “I’ve got all the specs on the house at the office. Give me a few days and I’ll see what I can come up with. Not saying I’ll be able to come up with anything, and not saying it’s a bad idea, but I’m going to have to think about it. And I’ll have to get an inspector out here to take a look at the house.”
“Talk to Will,” Luna said. “See if you can make sense of what he was saying.”
“Yeah.” Tennessee huffed. “Making sense of anything Will says can try a man in a whole lot of ways.”
Funny, but after a few minutes
in Will’s company, Angelo understood exactly what Ten was saying. Then he thought about the other things he shared with the contractor, and motioned over his shoulder toward the buildings out back. “You know, all of my father’s woodworking tools are still in his shop. I’m going to keep some, but if there’s anything that would make your life easier, you’re welcome to it. If Luna doesn’t mind.”
“Not at all,” she said, regarding him curiously.
“Thanks. I’d love to take a look. A man can never have too many tools,” Ten said in response, causing Luna to roll her eyes. “What? It’s true.”
“I’m going to have to side with Ten on this one,” Angelo said.
“Hey, I’m not arguing,” Luna said. “I’m thinking about the pegboard in my father’s shearing barn.”
“If it’s as jam-packed as the pegboard in your weaving shed,” Ten said, “I bow to the man.”
“You have tools in your weaving shed?” Angelo asked, not quite sure why she would.
But she shook her head. “No, just skeins of yarn. They hang on a pegboard.”
“Wait,” Angelo said. “You weave in a shed?”
“You haven’t seen it?” Ten asked. “You really need to see it. It’s less shed, more studio, but very, very cool.”
Luna looked from Ten to Angelo, smiling. “My father converted it for me when he built his new barn a few years ago. But I’ll be moving soon, so the weaving will be moving with me.”
“That’s right,” Ten said. “Kaylie mentioned you were moving.”
“Did she say it was about time?” Luna laughed as she asked. “That I’m too old to still be living at home with my parents?”
“Kaylie wouldn’t say anything like that. But if I don’t get going,” Ten said, tapping the face of his watch, “she will tell me I’m late. I’m taking her to Gruene for lunch. It’s Mitch’s birthday. She wanted to surprise him.”
“Oh, that’s right. He and Dolly are having dinner tonight with my parents.”
“How’s your mom feeling?”
“Not great, but she’s a trooper.”
“Tell her hello.”
“And the plans for the center?” Luna asked.
“Give me till after the weekend. Call me Monday if you haven’t heard from me.”