If Ever I Fall (Rhode Island Romance #1) (10 page)

“What do you mean?”

“This television
series. We’re going to make a lot of money if it takes off. I want my brother
to have the financial security he’s never had. It was a huge struggle after my
parents died. Joe grew up helping my dad with the construction company, but he
sure as hell wasn’t ready to take on managing it on his own. He made mistakes,
the company almost went under. But he kept at it. He worked his ass off. And it
was never for himself. He never wanted to take over the family business. He
only did it for us. For me and Sylvie.”

She was shocked to
see a gleam of tears in Tony’s light brown eyes. She didn’t know what to say,
so she kept silent as he quickly pulled himself together.

“Joe put me through
college. I got a business degree. As soon as I graduated, I began working for
the company fulltime, took some of the burden off my brother. See, I
did
want to work with my Dad. That was his plan for me. That I’d take it over
someday. He knew Joe wasn’t really interested.”

“I looked at your
company website. You co-own the business with Joe, right?”

“Yes. But he brought
me into that partnership; it’s only a verbal agreement. I didn’t buy my share.
Not yet, anyway. As soon as I have enough ready cash, I’m going to make it fair
and square.”

Willa remembered
Veronica telling her that it hadn’t been Joe’s idea to do the series. Tony was
the one who’d sent the audition tapes to the network. “I don’t think your
brother really wanted to do this series,” she said. “He’s only doing it for
you.”

Tony flinched. “Damn,
you’re smart. I think the same thing, too. I pushed hard for this. But Joe
never said no to the deal. He’s given me one hundred percent all the way, just
like he always has.” He grimaced, suddenly looking torn. “And here I go,
talking behind his back.
Christ
. What if there
is
something
deeper here... What right do I have to interfere, after everything he’s done
for me?” He gave a harsh exhale. “But what about Julia?”

Willa felt the
beginning of a headache at the base of her skull. Their conversation had
introduced a wild array of emotions into her system; it was way more than she
could handle all at once. She needed time and space to process everything Tony
had shared with her. “You’re mistaken in what you saw,” she assured him,
anxious to be alone for a while. “I’m…glad you told me about your family and Julia.
I feel like I know both you and Joe better now. And I
do
trust you.”

It seemed like Tony
wanted to say more on the subject. But he must have picked up on her anxiety
because he relaxed his features into his customary, charming smile. “Don’t
speak too soon. You haven’t been in a car with me yet.” He nodded towards the
park and the paved area that abutted it. “I drove down here. Trust me to get
you back to your house in one piece?”

Willa forced a
laugh. “If you don’t, Veronica will beat you up.”

“She’s not the one
I’m worried about,” she heard him mutter darkly as he followed her.

The
front yard was swarming with people as Tony pulled his car in behind the remote
video truck that was parked along the curb. “We’ve got a bunch of our guys here
today, too,” he explained. “We only have this one day to gut the place out.”
His eyes traveled over Willa’s attire. “In case Veronica didn’t tell you, you
need to wear jeans, close-toed shoes and a shirt you don’t mind getting dirty.”

“Okay,” Willa said.
“I’ll go get ready.”

Through the
windshield, she saw Joe striding towards the car with an unreadable expression.
He came to the passenger side and opened the door. He held out his hand to her.
Without a second thought, she placed her hand in his and let him draw her out
of the car.

“Hello, Willa.”

“Hello.”

He stood close to
her, keeping her hand in his. She had to arch her head back to look at his
face. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking over the roof of the car,
his eyes narrowed on his brother. “Where were you?” he asked Tony, his voice
sharp and intense.

“On the beach,”
Tony said, sounding defensive. “Collette told me Willa was there taking a walk.
I brought her coffee.”

Joe’s thumb rubbed
across the inside of Willa’s wrist. She gave a little start. He pulled his
glare off his brother and looked down at her. His eyes glittered strangely as
they swept across her features.

She felt her
headache expanding, clawing upwards from the nape of her neck. Her body felt
taut, stretched like the strings on a violin. Her face must have revealed her
tension, because Joe leaned closer, his face softening with concern.

“Hey, are you
okay?”

“I have a
headache,” she said stiffly.

“Have you had
breakfast?”

“No.”

He tugged at her
hand. “Come on. Veronica brought in craft services today since it’s going to be
an all-day shoot. Let’s get you something to eat. And an aspirin.”

“No.” She tugged
back until he slowly released her hand. “No, I have medicine upstairs. And I
need to get ready.”

She lowered her
eyes from his searching, worried gaze.

“Okay,” he
conceded, taking a step back, giving her space to move away. “We’ll see you in
a little bit then.”

She felt both men
watching her as she walked to the garage and up the staircase. Once behind the
closed door, she released an agonized breath and brought her hands to her face.

It wasn’t fair. It
wasn’t right. Why did Joe look at her that way? Why did he talk to her that way
if he was engaged to be married?

Through the window
screen above the kitchen sink, she heard Joe’s raised voice, then Tony’s. It
sounded like they were arguing.

She lowered her
hands, walked over to the window and stared at the street below. Joe was
shaking his head as Tony spoke to him in a quieter voice. She couldn’t hear
what the younger brother was saying. Joe flung up his hands in a gesture of
denial, stepped away from his brother. He paced, and then stood still, hands
fisted on his hips, looking at the ground as Tony continued talking to him.
Then Joe’s shoulders sagged as if in defeat. He gave a curt nod of his head, appearing
to agree to something, before walking away. Tony stood there for a while,
watching his brother. He rubbed one hand across the back of his neck, his own
shoulders drooping as if carrying a heavy weight.

Willa closed her
eyes, but that only made her headache worse. She searched through a cupboard
for her prescription medicine, filled a glass with water. It usually took a
half hour for the medicine to kick in. She forced herself to eat half of a
banana and a cup of yogurt. Then she headed for the shower.

Someone was
knocking at the door when she emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later.
Tightening the belt on her robe, she went to the door, relieved to see it was
Veronica peering through the window.

“Hey, there,”
Veronica said in a cheery tone as Willa opened the door. “How are you feeling?
Tony said you have a headache?”

“It’s almost gone,”
Willa said truthfully. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

“We’ve got some
time yet.” Veronica scanned Willa’s face. “You look really pale. We’ll get some
extra foundation on you. What are you going to wear?”

Willa led her into
the bedroom and waved towards the closet. “I was planning to wear jeans and a
shirt. You can pick out the shirt.”

Willa slipped into
her underwear and jeans while Veronica sorted through the closet.

“It has to be
something you don’t mind getting dirty or torn. How about this?” Veronica said.
She held up a tangerine-colored, long-sleeved polo shirt. “This color will help
warm up your skin tone.”

Willa shrugged.
“That’s fine.” She pulled on the shirt, then stood at the vanity table and
brushed out her hair in front of the mirror.

“Willa, are you
okay? You seem…down.”

Willa tugged her
hair back into a ponytail. “I
am
feeling down. Tony told me about their
parents dying in a fire. Do you know that story?”

Veronica stood
behind Willa, frowning at her own reflection. “Yes. That came up during the audition
process. But we aren’t bringing that into this series. We’re introducing Tony
and Joe as two brothers who inherited the business their father started.”

Willa turned
around. “You need to honor their parents somehow. Maybe have a picture of them
in the credits? A dedication?”

“Not a bad idea,”
Veronica said consideringly. “I’ll ask the guys if they’re okay with that. Is
that
all
that’s bothering you?”

“Yes.”

Veronica pursed her
lips, studying Willa with a storyteller’s eye. Then she sighed. “Alright, then.
Let’s get you in make-up and do the sound check.”

She paused on her
way out the door. “I’ve asked Collette to be on the shoot today. The guys
really like her. I think the viewers will get a kick out of watching her work
with the crew.”

“Okay,” Willa said.
“I know Collette will enjoy that.”

“Besides,” Veronica
continued, an edge to her voice. “She’s the comic relief. Something tells me
we’re going to need that today.”

Whomp
!

Willa hefted the
sledgehammer over her shoulder again and swung it against the interior wall
between the dining room and the bedroom.

Whomp
!

Plaster shattered.
Particles of dust and debris flew into the air.

She paid no
attention to Steve the cameraman standing in the corner. All her focus was on
this wall. She was going to tear it down. Yank out every nail. Rip out every lath.

With each stroke of
the sledgehammer, every blow against the stubborn wall, she felt another brief
flare of satisfaction, another small release of an anger that was so deep she
wondered if she’d ever reach the bottom of it.

At its core was her
father. Visions of him swam in front of her eyes as she swung the hammer. His
face loomed close to hers.
“Think, Wilhelmina. Use that brain of yours. That
brain I gave you. Stop playing games.”
But she’d wanted to play games. She
had wanted to get lost in her pretend stories of knights and magicians and
strange, mystical lands. She’d wanted to play outside with the other girls and
boys that she had seen from her bedroom window.

Whomp
!

She felt the tight
grip of her father’s hand, his fingers digging sharply into her arm.
“What
did I say about reading those ridiculous fairytales? You won’t win the Nobel
Prize if you allow that fluff to clutter your mind. You’ll read what I tell you
to read. Do you understand? Look at me, Wilhelmina. Stop daydreaming.”

She’d tried once to
recall any memory of him where he’d been warm and kind. But there were none. Any
softness of character that he might have possessed had died along with her
mother.

Whomp
!

Take that, all of
you people that didn’t see, or chose not see: neighbors, her father’s
colleagues, her teachers and professors, those primping, fatuous television
interviewers.

Whomp
!

Who was this Julia
Kelly? What was she like? What did she look like? Was she pretty? Gentle and good?
She must be. Willa couldn’t envision any other sort of woman for Joe. This Julia
sounded like a veritable saint. She’d been there every day to take care of Tony
and Sylvie. Had she made their dinner and packed their school lunches and
washed their clothes? Had she waited at the door every night for Joe—tired,
hard-working Joe—to come home?

And she owned her
own business now. She must be smart. Not as smart as Willa. But Julia probably
had street smarts. The kind of smarts Willa wished she had. Julia was probably
like the girls in those chick-flick movies: pretty, witty, and flirty—a bright
young thing. She didn’t take practically every spoken word literally like Willa
did, didn’t have to weigh and consider and analyze. She probably had a lilting,
lovely voice, not one that usually came out flat and stilted.

Whomp
!

Damn Tony Rossetti
for telling Willa about Julia. For killing the fragile seed of a dream Willa
had only just acknowledged to herself today.

Whomp
!

Damn Joe Rossetti
for holding her hand that way. For treating her with a kindness and tenderness she
had never known. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

Whomp
!

And damn herself
for allowing herself to fall under his spell.

“Willa.”

A hand pressed
against her shoulder.

She spun around,
the sledgehammer falling from fingers that had gone numb.

Tony jumped
backwards, the sledgehammer missing his foot by inches. “Hey, now. Watch it
there.”

He kept a grin on
his face as he slanted a quick look at the cameraman and then back to Willa.
But the grin didn’t reach his eyes; they were filled with worry. “You need to
take it easy, Willa. You’re going to injure yourself.”

Her chest rose and
fell with her heavy breaths. She wiped a hand across her forehead, feeling the
damp tendrils of hair clinging to her skin. “You asked me to take out this wall,”
she pointed out to him.

“Yeah. And you’re
doing a fantastic job. But why don’t we let one of my guys take over now? I
need to show you something in the kitchen.”

“Okay.”

As she followed him
down the hall, she was startled to see how much of the interior had been torn
out already. The interior living room wall was down, the carpets were ripped
up. Workers were knocking out the tile in the bathroom and laundry room.

Joe was in the
kitchen with Collette. They were both covered in plaster dust. Collette looked
like a squat mushroom next to Joe’s muscular physique. Safety goggles covered
half her face. Her silvery blond hair was sticking up in comical angles. She
was grinning from ear to ear.

“Isn’t this fun?”
she crowed. “Joe was telling me I could be a permanent member of his crew. Wait
until the girls hear that!”

Willa pulled off
her own goggles. She brushed a hand through her hair.

“We should’ve given
you a hat to wear,” Joe muttered.

She looked at him.
“I was going to wash it tonight anyway.”

For a moment, so
brief she almost missed it, she saw a flash of heat in his gaze before his eyes
went flat and distant. His voice was cool and professional as he directed her
attention to the wall unit. “I have good news for you, Willa. We were able to
detach this from the studs without doing any significant damage. Before we go
any further, I wanted to ask you if you’d like to keep this as one piece. There
isn’t anywhere we can put it in the house. But, maybe you’d like it in your
garage? I’d have to build an enclosure for it, of course.”

“Why? I don’t need
a cabinet in the garage.”

“Storage?”

“This wood is too
pretty to be in a garage.” She felt a familiar anxiety rising to the surface.
“You said you’d make something out of the material.”

“Yes, I did. I just
wanted to check with you first.”

“That’s what I
want. I want you to make something that will keep my aunt in this room. Like
you said you would.”

“And I will.” The gentle
patience was back in his voice again. But his expression remained obscure.

Willa simply stared
at him. She couldn’t find any more words to say.

Tony moved forward.
“Well, it looks like we’ve answered that question. Let’s get out of the way now
and let the crew haul this outside. Willa, do you want to help me rip out the
carpet in the upstairs bedrooms?”

Willa chose to stay
for the day, although Veronica told her she didn’t have to. But if Willa needed
to be available anyway in case the guys needed to point something else out to
her, she might as well keep busy. Better that than to crawl into her bed and
pull the covers over her head.

She didn’t talk
much, only to respond to Tony or one of the crew when they showed her how to do
something. Collette’s upbeat chatter filled the voids. Willa envied the older
woman’s ease as she bantered back and forth with the entire work crew, just as
if she were one of the guys. Amidst the joking and laughter, her voice rang out
with frequent “get outta here’s”, “that’s what I’m talking about’s”, and “stop.
You’re killing me’s”.

But every now and
then, Collette would send a questioning look Willa’s way, her eyes expressing
concern.

Finally, at four
o’clock on the nose, Veronica called an end to the shoot. The television crew
packed up, but the construction crew remained. Tony told Willa he was determined
to get the place completely gutted before they left for the day.

“We still have a
couple of hours of work here,” he told her and Collette as he walked them to
the door. Joe was nowhere in sight. “It’ll be a few days before we’ll be back. We’re
at a critical phase with the North Providence project. It could be Friday, but
most likely Monday.”

Collette reached up
to give him a quick hug. “I haven’t had so much fun in a long time. Thanks for
letting me help out.”

Tony grinned. “The
work seemed to go a lot faster with you here, Collette. I think half my crew’s
already in love with you.”

Collette glowed.

He turned to Willa,
started to hold out his hand, but then bent forward and wrapped his arms around
her, pulling her in for a hug. “Thanks for hearing me out this morning,” he
whispered in her ear. “I know today was rough. It’ll get better.”

Willa gave him an
awkward pat on the back, her body stiff. “I’m fine.”

She stepped back. With
a beckoning nod to Collette, she walked out the door.

“What the heck was
that all about?” Collette hissed as they walked across the yard.

“This morning Tony
told me that Joe is engaged.”

“Get outta here.”

“He’s known her all
his life. He asked her to marry him last Christmas.”

“Then why was he
giving you those looks? A man who’s in love shouldn’t be giving another woman
those kinds of looks.”

“I don’t know.”

They stopped at the
bottom of the apartment steps. Collette turned to face Willa directly. Her
expression was a mixture of anger and bewilderment. “Something’s not right
here. I can feel it.”

“Maybe he was just
being nice to me. He’s a kind man.”

Collette rolled her
eyes. “Some of the looks I saw him give you weren’t about kindness, hon. Those
were looks from a man who wants to drag you into his bed.”

Willa flushed.

Collette shook her
head. “Something’s not right,” she said again. “I’m going to talk with the
girls about it.”

“Please. Don’t
waste your time.”

“Do you like him,
Willa?”

“I do. But he’s an
engaged man.”

“He’s not married
yet.”

“I don’t condone cheating.”

Collette sighed. “I
don’t either. Though my asshole ex didn’t have a problem with it. But, hon, if
there’s something real there between you two, it’s better for all of
you—including his fiancée—to discover it
before
, not after the wedding
vows.”

“You make this sound
like some grand passion. Maybe he
was
just flirting.”

Collette reached
out and gave Willa a fierce hug. “I
know
what I saw, hon. Don’t give up
on this just yet.”

That
night, Willa woke up in tears, feelings of profound loss overwhelming her. These
emotions had nothing to do with her father, nothing to do with regret over her lost
childhood. She’d been dreaming about Joe. He’d been holding her hand, his head
close to hers as he whispered something in her ear. She couldn’t remember what
he said, but it had made her heart beat like crazy.

She didn’t
understand why she should feel such powerful emotions for a man she’d only just
met. A man she’d never had a private conversation with, other than that brief
exchange at Tony’s car.

It simply wasn’t
logical.

She swiped the bed
sheet over her damp face, forcing the tears to stop. She practiced her deep
breathing exercises. In through the nose. Hold. Out through the mouth. Slowly.

Sleep eluded her.

Finally, she got of
bed, threw a sweater over her cotton pajamas, and headed for the kitchen.

One cup of sugar.
One cup of brown sugar. Blend in the butter, add one egg…

Think of what an
amazing and wonderful challenge
that
would be,
Audrey’s voice sang in her head.

Willa didn’t know a
damn thing about running a business. What the hell was Audrey thinking?

Here’s a space
next door with all the equipment already in place. It’s almost one hundred
percent turnkey.

It was ridiculous.
She wasn’t a people person. Not really. Okay, maybe she’d emerged from her
shell a little…a lot…since January, thanks to the girls. But she’d never be a
social butterfly. She could just see herself behind a bakery counter, stiffly
counting out the cookies in a monotone as she placed them in a box.

Who said she’d have
to be the one doing the actual selling? She could remain in the kitchen,
researching, experimenting.

It wasn’t as though
she didn’t have enough money to buy half a dozen bakeries if she wanted to,
with just as many employees at each one.

Her father may have
been tightfisted when doling out her monthly allowance, but he’d never stolen
from her. Upon his death, she’d discovered that he’d invested her earnings
wisely. Combined with the profits from the sale of his house and the smaller
inheritance she’d received from her aunt’s estate, Willa could choose to not
work for the remainder of her life.

But was that what
she really wanted?

Fold in the flour.
One teaspoon baking soda. One teaspoon salt.