“What did you whisper to Miss Caterina, Riley?”
Riley stood up and took his hand. “It’s a secret, so I can’t tell. And neither can she. But don’t worry, Daddy, it’s a good secret.”
A couple of minutes later, Cat pressed her cheek against one of the front windows. She watched Liam pull out of the parking lot. The glass pane felt cool against her skin. The late afternoon sun cast shadows across the front lawn where their footprints zigzagged through the snow.
Through uneven, lump coal eyes that hovered precariously over a stub of a carrot nose, a snowman with a too-fat middle and a too-small head surveyed the battle scene of the make-believe kingdom Riley had invented.
Cat smiled lightly at a young girl’s imagination and the secret she’d shared that still whispered in her head. “Maybe you can be my new mommy and live at my house. Then we wouldn’t have to say bye. But don’t tell Daddy I asked. I’m not s’posed to ask people for stuff unless he says it’s okay first.”
What would Liam think if he knew what his daughter had said to her? Would it bring them closer? Or would it open a chasm too wide to ever cross again?
LIAM BRAIDED RILEY’S wet hair after her bath that evening.
“Can I watch one show before bedtime, Daddy?” She stood in front of him in her Wonder Woman pajamas, giving him the pleading look she’d mastered when she knew she was pushing the boundaries and was trying to work on his sympathies.
“No, pumpkin. It’s already past eight.”
“Just a short one?”
“Nice try, but you have to get up early tomorrow, and you had a big day today.”
“I liked playing outside and making the marshmallow stuff. That was fun. And Miss Caterina’s really nice. I like her a lot.”
“I kind of like her a lot too.”
Riley cocked her head. “Do you think she’s pretty?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Do you think she’s prettier than your friend with the red hair? The one when we had pizza?”
Liam thought a moment. “Oh, her. Yeah, I think Miss Caterina’s way prettier than that.”
Riley nodded. “Me too.”
“Just remember, Riley—”
“I know. Pretty on the outside’s nice, but pretty on the inside’s nicer.”
He put the brush on the coffee table and stood up. “That’s right. And now, time for you to get to bed.”
After reading Riley a story and tucking her in, Liam went back out to the living room and settled down on the couch with a beer.
He hoped he hadn’t made a mistake.
Dropping in on Caterina with his daughter had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. He hadn’t seen her for several days, and as he sat in his living room that morning while his daughter played with her dolls, he realized he missed her.
It hadn’t taken more than a mention that they could drive to the Bonaveras’ to see Caterina, for Riley to be all in. “If she isn’t cooking, maybe we can build a snowman,” she’d suggested hopefully.
“Maybe we can,” he’d agreed, amused at the thought of Caterina building a snowman. Of course, it would have to be perfect—its hat, scarf, and other accessories precisely coordinated. She would want to plan out how they put it together before they got started, so everyone knew exactly what needed to be done, what the end product should look like. He’d been surprised when she didn’t try to redo their somewhat sad-looking snowman, but he suspected she’d wanted to.
Funny how Riley had immediately associated Cat with being in the kitchen, involved in some culinary activity, when he’d thrown out going over to see her. And interesting she hadn’t asked why, when he’d never included Cat in any of their plans before, that they’d spent most of the day with her.
Had he intended today to be a test drive? Something he’d been leading up to without consciously thinking about it? Riley was the most important thing in his life. By taking her with him to see Caterina, he’d risked the possibility that his daughter might form an attachment.
She already talked about Cat as if she was their new best friend. She talked about wanting to be a chef when she grew up, like Miss Caterina. She was going to wear pretty clothes when she got big, like Miss Caterina. And Miss Caterina was going to teach her how to walk in high heels…she said so.
Cat was nice to Riley. She seemed to genuinely like and enjoy spending time with his daughter. Accepting his daughter had to be the number one criterion for any woman he had a serious relationship with. It was nonnegotiable.
He wanted more than a relationship with Caterina, though, more than an occasional night out when he could get a sitter, or Riley had a sleepover at his brother’s house. The truth was, he’d fallen for her. Hard. Why deny it? He loved her. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, although he suspected he’d been stumbling in that direction for a while.
Did he want to marry her?
Liam stretched his arms behind his head, rolled his neck. Did she want to marry him? She enjoyed their relationship, he felt sure of that. And she liked his kid. But did she love him? Would she want to build a life with him, help him raise Riley, maybe have another kid or two together?
He rubbed a hand over his jaw. She’d better, because he intended to take a page from her book. Come up with a plan, and make it happen. And once he set his mind to something, he could be as damn stubborn about getting what he wanted as she could.
“Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.”
Sophia Loren, actress
Gathering for a meal, Cat thought, as she glanced around the table at the faces of the people she held most dear, was, at its most basic, an expression of love. It was a celebration of the senses, of coming together at the end of the day—to laugh, to share, to comfort, to take time out to connect with those who mattered most in life.
When she prepared food, she wasn’t just mixing things together, tossing in a few herbs, a dash of salt, a splash of balsamic—she was sharing a part of herself. She’d graduated from a premier culinary school, had mastered technique, won numerous competitions against chefs with years more experience, and worked in one of New York’s top restaurants. Anyone could learn technique, how to cook, but what she had was rare. With her, cooking was an art. It was her gift. She knew. When she cooked, she did so not from her head, but from her heart. And she did it with passion.
She sunk into the warmth of the evening, content. The conversation flowed around her as freely as the cabernet, mingling with laughter and the affectionate teasing so common in close-knit families like theirs.
“I remember meeting Rosa at your nonni, Rodrigo and Sophia’s, shortly before she and your uncle Gino left to come to the States.” Vincenzo DeLuca, Antonio’s grandfather, lifted a piece of baked eggplant with tomato and mozzarella onto his plate, just one of the assortment of antipasto Caterina had made to celebrate his visit.
Vincenzo had traveled from Cortona, Italy, and arrived that morning for a three-week stay, his second trip to the States in less than a year. Antonio said that Lucia and her sisters had bewitched the old man with all their spoiling, because little could tempt him to leave his beloved homeland.
“Una bella donna.” He added two arancini, filled with minced veal, onion, tomato purée, and fresh thyme leaves; a piece of olive crostini, and some insalata caprese.
“Yes, Rosa was a very beautiful woman,” he repeated in English as he picked up one of the arancini and took a bite. He closed his eyes, kissed his fingers to his lips. “Delizioso!”
He looked at Caterina with eyes so blue they would put a summer sky to shame and put a hand over his heart. “If I were ten years younger, I would marry you.”
Caterina’s smile came quickly. “It’s clear where Antonio gets his charm.”
“I hope I’m a little subtler than that,” Antonio said with a teasing grin for his nonno, “but I can’t fault his appreciation of the meal, Cat. Everything is exquisite.”
“Ummm, it is.” Eliana dabbed her napkin to the corner of her lips. “You sho
uld come more often, Vincenzo. In addition to the fact that we all adore you, we get to eat things Cat doesn’t usually make just for us.”
Cat gave El a meaningful glance. “If you’re complaining about the meals I so selflessly prepare for this family on an almost daily basis, my dear sister, you could learn to cook.”
El was quick to respond. “Oh, I’m not complaining. Just saying this is all so good, it’s nice to get to try some of the delightful creations you can make, things that we don’t usually get to sample.” She gave Cat a beaming smile.
Cat shook her head. “Suck-up. I already told you I’d bring meals over from Serendipity for you and Marcella after we open. I’d feel guilty if I didn’t, knowing you’d be living on boxed cereal or takeout, and Cel would probably end up in the hospital from malnutrition because she’d be too tired to make something for herself after working herself to the point of exhaustion in the fields during harvest.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Eliana said with a sigh. “You’re my favorite sister.”
“You told me I was your favorite sister yesterday when you and Damien got back with a pizza from your outing, and you asked me to select the perfect red to have with it,” Marcella reminded El.
“And yesterday you were,” Eliana said without a trace of guile.
Lucia laughed. “As you can see, Vincenzo, little has changed since your last visit.”
“No. You are all as delightful as I remember.”
“What do you remember about our aunt Rosa?” Marcella asked, returning to his earlier comment. “Did she ever mention anything about the man she was engaged to before she met our uncle?”
Vincenzo shook his head. “No. I never knew she’d been engaged to someone else until years later, after your nonno and nonna came here to settle the estate. Rodrigo told me the story— that Rosa’s ex-fiancé had been the one to commit the murders.”
“That’s right. There was a witness, a friend of Rosa’s who’d driven her home after the two of them had gone into town together. Rosa had forgotten her purse on the floor of the car. Her friend saw it as she was driving away and turned around to return it. When she got to the front door, she saw Rosa and Uncle Gino lying on the floor, dead, and her ex-fiancé standing over them. Apparently, Rosa walked in on the murder, so he killed her too. Whether he intended to kill them both, he never confessed. Aunt Rosa’s friend escaped before he saw her and went straight to the police to tell them what she’d witnessed. According to the newspaper articles I found, it was an open-and-shut case,” Caterina confirmed.
“We found some of her diaries in one of the old trunks that were stored in the attic,” she said. “We haven’t had a chance to go through them yet because everything’s been so crazy the last few months, although I’ve glimpsed a couple of entries. We’re hoping we might find something in them that will help us understand why she’s still here.”
Cat picked up her fork, swirled the last bite of spaghetti puttanesca around it. Antonio had told her it was his nonno’s favorite. She’d nailed the sauce. The rich, intense flavors of anchovy, Kalamata olives, and capers, perfectly blended with garlic and onion, seduced the mouth, each bite promising more pleasure. The dish was appropriately named, Cat mused, being a derivation of puttana, the Italian word for whore.
“We were planning on getting together tonight to start reading them,” Cat said, referring to the diaries, “before we found out you were coming for a visit.”
“And I have ruined your plans.”
“Oh no, not at all. The diaries aren’t going anywhere, and you know we’re delighted you’ve come. We’re all secretly in love with you, Vincenzo, don’t you know?” Cat gave him an affectionate smile, accompanied by a flirtatious wink she knew the elderly man would get a kick out of. “Rosa can wait.”
The lights in the solarium where they were enjoying their meal blinked off and on twice.
Lucia glanced around the table and then up toward the ceiling. “She didn’t mean you’re not important, Rosa. We’re not going to forget about you.”
The lights flickered again.
“I don’t see why you can’t get started this evening,” Vincenzo suggested. “And if none of you object, I’d like to join you. I’ve been curious about the woman ever since the morning she appeared at my bedside during my last visit.”
“I’m in,” Antonio said, slinging an arm around the back of Lucia’s chair and giving her shoulder a squeeze. “You?”
Lucia nodded. “Why not? It’s still early, and none of us made any other plans for tonight.”
“If that’s the case, I’ll get a couple more bottles of wine.” Marcella pushed her chair back, stood up to go get them.
“Pick out something to go with dessert while you’re at it,” Caterina suggested.
“Okay, what is it?”
“Tiramisu.” Cat looked at Vincenzo. “Antonio told me it was your favorite.”
Marcella nodded. “The 2015 Viognier. Not too sweet, with nice aromas of peach and honeysuckle.”
“She doesn’t even have to think about it,” Eliana said as their sister walked out of the solarium. “How does she just know so quickly?”
“Her gift,” Caterina mused. “Plus, she’s got a catalog in her head of every drop she’s ever produced, and I guarantee she remembers the characteristics of every one of those drops better than she can remember the names of the guys she’s gone out with over the last few years. And there weren’t that many to try to remember. If I can find a sommelier who’s half as good as she is for the restaurant, I’ll be ecstatic.”
She picked up her wineglass, finished off the red she’d had with dinner. “Since I made the meal, the rest of you get to clean up. While you’re doing that, I’ll get some of the diaries. Should we reconvene in the library?”
“I thought we were having dessert first,” Antonio was quick to say before Cat could leave the table.
“Don’t worry, handsome, we’ll have it in the library. None of us would want to deny that sweet tooth of yours.”
Her soon-to-be brother-in-law flashed one of his killer smiles, and for one brief moment, Caterina almost felt sorry for Lucia. The man was heartbreakingly handsome. But then she remembered that her sister didn’t have a jealous bone in her body, and even if she did, Antonio was so gaga over Luch, Cat wondered if he even noticed all the women who salivated as he passed them by.
“LISTEN TO THIS,” Eliana said from where she sat sideways in one of the library’s club chairs, her legs draped over one of the arms, swinging back and forth, in perpetual motion.
Dear Diary,
I’ve fallen hopelessly in love. It is the last thing I would have dreamed would happen when I decided to come to Italy. I can still barely believe it. I thought I knew what love was, but I’ve never felt anything like this before. His name is Gino, and he wants to marry me.
“Oh my God,” El said, gushing, “isn’t that romantic?” She held the open diary against her chest with a faraway look worthy of a Disney princess.
“Yeah, romantic,” Marcella mimed, with noticeably less wistfulness and none of the dreamy quality their dependably imaginative sister had put into it.
Amused by each of them because they were both so true to form, Caterina grinned. “That’s the first entry anyone’s found where she mentions Uncle Gino. What does it say next?”
“Okay.” Eliana held the book up and began reading again.
I should be thrilled, and I am. Truly I am, except for one problem. My engagement to David. Of course, I intend to end it. In addition to the doubts and concerns that led me to come here in the first place, I realize now I couldn’t have been in love with him. What I felt for David doesn’t begin to compare to the love in my heart for Gino.
I fear what Father will say. He and David are close, even if Mother never warmed up to him, the way she does most people. Perhaps if I’d tried to find out more about her reservations, I wouldn’t be in this situation. But then, if I’d broken up with David sooner, I might neve
r have come to Italy. And I never would have met Gino. So maybe I had to travel that road to get here.
I’ve often wondered about why things happen the way they do. How much of it is fate versus choice, and if we make a choice that veers us off our intended path, does fate intercede to give us another chance, to make another choice? A better choice?
When I’m with Gino, it seems so right. I can’t help believing we were meant to be together, that destiny brought me to Italy, so we would meet, and I would see the truth of it in my heart.
Lucia looked at Antonio, who returned her gaze, and smiled. “Any of that stir a sense of déjà vu for you?”
“I do recall a similar conversation several months ago that included another bottle of Viognier, some lovely meats and cheese, and some incredibly sexy, lace lingerie.” He grinned wickedly.
Lucia slapped his shoulder. “Focus on the conversation, sweetheart,” she said, but gave him a peck on the cheek and elicited a chuckle from him by adding, “We can revisit the setting later.”
Marcella leaned forward, cut a small slice from the remainder of tiramisu on the coffee table, and put it on a plate. “You had a conversation that related to Rosa’s diary entry?” She scooched back onto the couch. “We didn’t even know about them until a few weeks ago.”
“Destiny, child.” Vincenzo, who sat next to her, patted her knee. “They’re talking about destiny. Your nonno and I knew, when they were both born on the same day as us, that it was a sign they were meant to merge our families. Antonio fought me on it. I had to trick him into even coming to meet Lucia.”
Vincenzo wagged a finger at his grandson. “But we were right. All anyone need do is look at the two of them to know they were meant for each other. Stubbornness can’t trump fate, not when it’s given the chance.”
As Rosa had written in her diary, Caterina wondered, did destiny really play a part in our lives? Lead us to different forks along the way that would in turn change its course based on which ones we chose?
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