When I Meet You

by Olivia Newport

  “You no need map,” Salvatore said, sliding it from Lynnelle’s lap and folding it. “We take you.”

  “No, that’s not necessary.” Lynnelle’s heart pounded. All she’d accomplished was to ride the streetcar out of the neighborhood to exit Geppetto’s sight as quickly as she could. She’d wasted the time she could have been looking for a telephone.

  “Oh, no trouble,” Annamarie said. “We say hello to Geppetto and Aldo, yes, Sal? He’s a good boy.”

  “You must have things to do,” Lynnelle said, “somewhere you were going.”

  “Plenty of time,” Salvatore said. “We transfer at next stop, take streetcar in other direction, and you be back at hotel in no time.”

  Annamarie grinned mischievously. “I think Geppetto will ask Caterina to marry him soon. His father say he is young, but he send him to us from New Orleans, so we say is okay.”

  “Annamarie.” Sal’s tone turned sharply somber.

  “Is nothing, Sal,” she said. “Many people come from New Orleans for many reasons.”

  The streetcar stopped.

  “Here we are,” Annamarie said.

  “Please,” Lynnelle said, “I don’t want to trouble you.”

  “No trouble! We make sure Aldo do a good job.”

  At least in Cleveland Lynnelle had been allowed to come and go at will. Between the Meades and the Parisis, she had no control in Denver.

  “I thought I would find a telephone while I was out and call my father,” Lynnelle said.

  “Geppetto will let you use his telephone,” Salvatore said.

  “I was told it was out of order.”

  “It comes and it goes. We ask. Come. We don’t want to miss the transfer.”

  Lynnelle would have lost them in the crowd—if there had been one. They were the only passengers to get off, and the Parisis flanked her, extolling Geppetto’s virtues steadily.

  Sighing deeply, but politely hiding exasperation, she stepped back into the lobby of the hotel a few minutes later. Geppetto’s features were both relieved and annoyed, but instantly he put on his mask of indulgent hotelier as he received his aunt’s kiss.

  “Would you still like a cup of coffee?” he said.

  “Yes, that would be lovely,” Lynnelle said evenly. “I met your aunt and uncle while I saw a bit of Denver, but I’ll let you have a visit while I go upstairs and rest.”

  Geppetto snapped his fingers. “Aldo, walk with Miss Bending up to her room.”

  “I am quite capable,” Lynnelle said.

  “Aldo will tell me if you need something.”

  I’m sure he will. Miss Bending. Not very imaginative for a Pinkerton’s operative. Unless that’s not what Carey Meade was.

  In her room, she dismissed the boy, kicked off her shoes, and sat in one of the pink side chairs to await the coffee. No doubt Carey and Willie would get a full report of her escape—unless Geppetto protected himself by withholding the information. Thanks to his aunt and uncle, the evidence remained that she did not escape on his watch.

  Lynnelle answered the knock on the door without getting up. “Come in.” Geppetto had a key. Why should she exert herself?

  He set the coffee tray on the small table. “Mr. Meade will return soon.”

  “Oh? Is your telephone working now?”

  Geppetto bowed slightly and backed out of the room, clicking the lock behind him.

  Lynnelle drank two cups of coffee, splashed water on her face, and paced the small room, periodically standing at the window to peer down at the sidewalk and look for signs of the Meades. She ought to recognize her own hat and traveling suit progressing toward the hotel if they were coming from this side of the building.

  Far from her own city.

  Far from home.

  Far from anyone she knew—or trusted.

  To whom could she draw near? Lynnelle murmured the words where her mother kept the bookmark in the Bible she might never see again. “But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.” She’d never been very good at surrender, but if she must surrender, it would be to God’s mercy and not merely to the scheme of Carey Meade.

  The tall buildings around the hotel began to block the rays of the setting sun, and shadows fell.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was all her fault.

  Her dad told her to tread carefully, and she’d blurted out all the wrong things at the wrong moments. Again.

  Now Drew was gone. Jason Andrew Lawson, Jr. At least she knew his full name now, from looking at his DNA results and the family tree he’d started. For a man of his age, he left almost no social media footprint. She’d looked, under the guise of professional information gathering. Facebook. Instagram. Twitter. Snapchat. Of course she’d looked for any sign of a relationship status, but Drew Lawson was not very self-revelatory online.

  It was crazy to think the way he looked at her meant anything.

  Or that the way she wanted to look at him, to be in the room with him, meant anything.

  After his visit to Canyon Mines with his Aunt Min, he was memorable enough that if he’d tried to book a room at the Inn at Hidden Run, Nia would have sent Jillian a text message immediately. So he wasn’t staying there. Jillian had driven out to the chain motels at the far end of town, where Nia sometimes directed people looking for rooms if she couldn’t accommodate them, to look for Drew’s truck before circling around Canyon Mines a couple of times hoping to spot it. The downtown blocks buzzed with preparations for the Legacy Jubilee to begin the following day. Pop-up vendor booths and food trucks were showing up in the park and some of the sidewalks and parking lot spaces. A temporary outdoor stage and sound system for the nearly continuous schedule of regional bands Marilyn had booked was almost complete. Banners hung from the major shops, and most of the store display windows posted event schedules. Jillian returned the waves of workers and kept driving, looking for any sign of the truck that had turned up twice in front of her home. She even called Veronica, doing her best to sound casual, to ask if he’d dropped by the Victorium Emporium lately.

  If Jillian found him, she’d grovel. She had three different scripts mentally prepared, all with the same theme. It was all her fault. Don’t take it out on Nolan. Please help him. She would eat worms from the backyard if it would change things. Please forgive her. Please.

  But nothing.

  By Wednesday noon, she gave up and straggled home with a peace offering, Nolan’s favorite bacon and avocado sandwich from the Canary Cage and the resolve to do whatever he needed in the kitchen. Hand him any utensil he required with surgical precision. Scrub every pot before he needed it again. Wipe down and disinfect every surface to health department standards. Sweep and mop every crumb and splotch he dropped. The perfect cooking companion had walked right into their house just when Nolan needed him most, and Jillian spooked him right out the door. The least she could do was rearrange her schedule, pull a couple of all-nighters if necessary—whatever it took to make sure her father succeeded.

  She’d closed up the trunk in the living room on Tuesday as soon as Drew left. If it were possible, she would have moved it into a closet. Out of sight. In a dark place. Maybe they should call Rich and schedule a time to return it to the Owens House Museum—but not this week. Not when Nolan was up to his eyeballs in cooking. The impetus of her misjudgment taunting her every time she raised her eyes from her desk or padded through the house only strangled her stomach. Jillian wiped off the whiteboard and snapped down the easel pad sheets still hanging in her office.

  The back porch was lined with the largest coolers they could beg and borrow, and Kristina Bryant’s freezers at the Ore the Mountain ice cream parlor were stocked with bags of ice Nolan could access with a quick phone call no matter what time of day or night he needed to fill one of the coolers this week. Already three were loaded with the frui
t and vegetables Nolan and Jillian morosely washed and packed side by side after Drew left. Nolan hadn’t lectured Jillian. Her silent lecture to herself played on a constant loop.

  Entering the house through the back door now, Jillian expected singing. There should be Italian opera with that Irish lilt only Nolan Duffy could deliver. She’d seen the day’s scheduled activities. By the end of the afternoon, there would be gallons of creamy cucumber soup that could easily be warmed through on Saturday just before serving. The kitchen’s aroma told Jillian the chickens that would provide the base for the broth—Nolan refused to take any shortcuts—were still simmering. He was at the nook table tucked into one corner of the large kitchen with his master recipes spread out in front of him.

  “I brought lunch,” Jillian said.

  “Good.” Nolan looked up. “I thought I might have to make a chicken salad or something, and we don’t have any grapes.”

  “I know you like grapes in your chicken salad.” Jillian removed the sandwich from the sack and set it down in front of Nolan.

  “Nothing for you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t feel like eating.”

  “Jilly.”

  “I’m going to help you, Dad. That’s all there is to it.”

  “You don’t have to do penance.”

  “You need help, and I need to help. I don’t cut fancy julienne strips and stuff like that, and I can’t suggest that you add rosemary to the carrot glaze, but I can fetch what you need and clean up as we go and throw a load of dish towels in the washer.”

  “You mean business.”

  “I do.”

  “Will you let me sing?”

  “I demand it.”

  “Then we have a deal.” Nolan offered a hand, and Jillian shook it. “You know, of course, Min is the linchpin.”

  “Well, duh.”

  “She’s a puzzle even to her own family. Drew made that clear on our little hike. The reason he lives in that cabin in the middle of someone else’s storage is because Min is afraid of doing the wrong thing with ranch documents.”

  “Min has been running the ranch for a long time. She must have mounds of records.”

  “I think we both know there’s more to it than that.” Nolan proffered part of the sandwich. “Here. Eat half.”

  “You eat it,” Jillian said. “I’ll go clean up a little bit and be right back down ready to work.”

  She climbed the back stairs and shuffled to her bedroom.

  From the dresser, the box of family mementos, atop the photocopied dissertation, taunted with shouts of failures that had followed her for years.

  Now that was something she could put out of sight in a dark closet. It should go back in the attic, back in the old trunk, back under the blankets in the unlit corner. For now, Jillian shoved the box onto an overhead shelf in her closet and closed the door. She had an orderly life. Good friends. Work she excelled at. Enough paying clients to keep her more than occupied. A town she loved. Views she never tired of. A decade out of high school, her years of track and cross-country training at high altitude meant she could still outrun anyone she knew. Until recently, she would have said she made good decisions. Slicing her foot open had been a dumb thing to do, but it was nearly ready to run on again, and she wouldn’t allow either of the old trunks to shake her focus like that again.

  And Drew. Well, he was gone. She’d seen to that. Now she wouldn’t have to wonder why her stomach heated up when he was around or why something in her melted when he aimed his smile at her or why a silly dimple had the power to make her go irrationally soft at the center like a piece of chocolate from the Digger’s Delight candy shop. What was important now was supporting her dad through the challenge of two hundred meals.

  Jillian went into her bathroom to splash water on her face and fasten back the mass of dark curly hair. The Parisi hair. The same hair in that old photo in the box.

  No. She wouldn’t think about that. Keep a clear head. That was the goal for the rest of the week.

  Music wafted up the stairwell, her father’s voice. He was singing, which meant he was cooking and happy doing it. Jillian smiled. At the last minute, she decided to change into an older shirt she wouldn’t think twice about if food splashed its fibers and it didn’t quite come clean. The personal concert paused briefly, but by the time Jillian was ready to leave the room, the singing had resumed.

  But it wasn’t the usual Italian opera Nolan favored while he cooked. He did appreciate other music as well. This was Latin and a modern composer—Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music.

  In the hall on her way back downstairs, Jillian realized there were two tenor voices winding around each other in the spellbinding “Pie Jesu.” She crept quietly down the stairs, sitting on a step halfway down, flabbergasted at the sight.

  Drew and Nolan, stopping time as they sang about Merciful Jesus who takes away the sin of the world and grants eternal rest.

  Jillian held her breath. Whether hearing the piece in concert in person or in recording by the many artists who performed it, she’d never been able to breathe normally amid its ethereal loveliness. And now to have it coming from her kitchen, with one of the voices being one she had not expected to hear again. This memory, of how thick her throat was when she didn’t dare breathe for fear of desecrating the moment, would never leave her.

  With the final sempiternal requiem, everlasting rest, Jillian eased air out of her lungs and whispered, “Thank You, Jesus.” Mercy wrapped her spirit, and she yielded to its solace.

  Rest from her own bumbling, tangled pain.

  Rest for her own sweet mother, who might have had answers to Jillian’s questions and might not have, but who was in the arms of her Savior in her own eternal rest.

  Rest for Lynnelle, whatever had happened to her.

  Rest for Drew, who was alive and well—and standing in her kitchen—but seemed to die in himself at times and find himself again.

  Jesus’ mercy covered it all and gave rest for the heavy laden.

  The oven timer went off, and the spell broke.

  “Time to turn the briskets,” Nolan said.

  Jillian stood on the stairs, her movement rustling, and Drew turned toward her.

  “That was beautiful,” Jillian said, eyes misting. “Stunning, actually.”

  “Thank you. It’s a pleasure to sing with someone like your dad.”

  “I’m sure he feels the same.” Jillian pushed out more air, trying to find her normal voice.

  Nolan plopped the first of the briskets on the breakfast bar. “You sing circles around me. I can tell you’ve got more experience than my old college ensemble or a church choir.”

  “Lamont School of Music,” Drew said.

  “At University of Denver?” Jillian and Drew were almost the same age. Their college years overlapped—and they’d both been in Denver, their schools not that far apart. What if she’d met him at a party or a concert?

  “Voice. Performance major,” Drew said.

  Nolan lined up two more of the briskets.

  “What are we doing with these things?” Drew asked.

  “I sugared them two days ago,” Nolan said. “Today we put on more of the good stuff.”

  We. They both said we.

  “My expertise is more in the pastry department,” Drew said. “Show me what to do.”

  With the three of them rubbing the mixture of salt, chopped onions, crushed bay leaves, pepper, rosemary, thyme, and cloves into the meat, the roasting pans were returned to the refrigerator quickly.

  Drew picked up Nolan’s master list. “Looks like you’re planning to work on the make-ahead mixtures today to bake later.”

  “That’s right,” Nolan said. “I don’t want the pastries to get too soggy. Besides, I forgot to buy those puff pastry sheet things, and now I’ll have to drive all over creation looking for enough of them for the cabbage pies and the fruit tarts—or try to persuade Ben at the bakery to make them. And he’ll complain that they take too long.”
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br />   “Nonsense,” Drew said. “That was my specialty in culinary school.”

  “Culinary school?” Jillian said.

  “Johnson & Wales University. Also in Denver.”

  “Before or after the music degree?”

  He toggled his hand. “Sort of a dual time line. My father was concerned singing great music was not actually a way to earn a living but baking great pastries might be. We negotiated a compromise.”

  They all laughed. Jillian scouted the best pastries in Denver during college. Had she passed Drew on the streets, like one of those cheesy scenes in a movie?

  “So these restaurants you worked for?” Nolan asked.

  Drew shrugged. “Started out as master baker and turned into head chef.”

  “And singing?”

  “Let’s just say my father has been pleasantly surprised. Not the fastest way to get rich in southern Colorado, but steady opportunities. Right now, living and working at the ranch lets me take advantage of some possibilities with more flexibility than when I’m tied to a restaurant job.”

  But then Aunt Min, Jillian wanted to say. She didn’t dare. If she was ever to know what had brought him back to the house, it would be on his terms.

  “Nolan, it would be my pleasure to help you cook,” Drew said, “especially the pastries—though I am particular about my flour, and they do require a shocking amount of butter.”

  “Jillian,” Nolan said, “it would seem your services will not be needed after all. You may return to Plan A for your afternoon. But I will hold you to your agreement to let me sing.”

  One side of her mouth quirked in amusement. That Drew had returned to help Nolan was a mercy. That they had sung a song reminding her that her own shortfalls would not hound her forever was another. Today they could sing whatever they wanted and at whatever volume.

  “Thank you, Drew,” Jillian said. “My office is right there. Knock if you need something.”

  “Will do.” He smiled. With the dimple.

  “We shall get the barley and wild rice going and fry up some bacon,” Nolan said. “Once that is accomplished, we shall go in search of this young man’s perfect flour and butter.”