Unforgotten (19 page)
“Grazie.”
She smiled.
“Prego.”
He handed the package over with a kiss to his sister’s cheek that was embarrassing in its tenderness.
Sofie only said, “Hug Nonna for me.”
“I can’t go in for a while. She’ll get worked up if she sees me and I haven’t done something she wants.”
“So do it.”
“I can’t yet.”
She studied his face. “Okay.”
Again Rese noted Sofie’s restraint. She didn’t try to pry out more than Lance wanted to say. She respected the boundary—an anomaly in this family.
“Thanks for breakfast.”
Rese returned the quick smile sent her way as Sofie left. Lance watched after her a moment longer than he might have. Something was up with Sofie, but Lance didn’t say what. He came back and began flipping the omelets onto plates. Rese carried them, precariously, to the dining room where Lucy swooped in to help disperse the servings.
Bobby raised his face from his hands and took the plate Rese handed him. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Hope your head’s better.”
“Only thing’s gonna help my head is a little peace and quiet.”
“It’d be quiet at the office,” Monica said.
“That’s what you think? You think telemarketing is quiet? All day people yelling in my ear, hanging up on me.”
“You’re used to that; you been doing it fifteen years. Top sales.”
“You think I like it? All day people complaining?”
“You’d be right at home.”
“Oh, that’s funny. That’s real funny.”
Rese ducked back inside the kitchen. “Are they always that way?”
“Only when Monica’s not meeting Bobby’s needs. Then he drinks too much and regresses.”
Rese raised her brows. “Isn’t that their business?”
“Does it sound like they’re keeping it that way?”
“Not exactly.”
“There aren’t many secrets around here.”
Unlike Sonoma, where secrets seemed to breed. Rese fingered the hair at the nape of her neck. “There’s Sofie.”
His brow puckered. “That’s different. We don’t talk about it because she doesn’t.”
Rese nodded. “It’s not my business anyway.”
“Come here.”
She went to stand before him.
He raised her chin, his fingertips emitting an energy barely held in check. “It’s all your business. I wanted you here, in the middle of it.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
Rese stared into his face. He’d said he cared, even that he was falling in love—but “I love you”? The last person to say that put her to bed and disabled the furnace.
“Go to sleep, Theresa. In the morning everything will be different. I love you, sugar. You know I love you.”
She had blocked those last words, refused to connect her mother’s love with the actions of that night. But not anymore. She was facing things now. No more deception, even in her own mind.
Lance’s eyes took on a midnight intensity. She knew what he wanted to hear, what came so easily for him, the love and affection that infected every relationship he had. He was in love every week, he’d said. Well, she wasn’t, even if her heart was imitating Rico on the bongos.
He let go and turned to the stove. “You ready to eat?”
“If you’re cooking.” She’d disappointed him, but she couldn’t help that. Two and a half months might be long enough for him to decide he was in love, but what mattered to her was stability, longevity, security. What mattered was truth.
“Thought you were the expert in the kitchen now.”
She snorted. “I’m no chef.”
He expelled a slow breath. How could empty air say so much?
“What?”
“I’m not either.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t have credentials. I learned from Nonna and my second cousin twice removed, Suar Maria Conchessa. But … no chef school, no degree, just old-fashioned apprenticeship.”
It shouldn’t matter. It didn’t change his ability. It was only a title, a paper. Had he ever called himself a chef? She had billed him that on the Web site, and he hadn’t corrected her. Lance, like everyone else, letting her believe a lie.
Anger flashed. “I’ll have to change your billing.” She had taken him off the Web site altogether but intended to reinstate him if they ever got back to the inn.
The tendons of his neck flexed. “Maybe you should get someone else.”
What? First he loves her, then he’s welching on their deal? “I’m not happy you lied to me, and I’m wondering how much more there is, but you’re my partner, Lance.” And she’d hold him to it.
He banged the pan down on the stove. “I can’t just do the job. I told you that.” Emotion rose from him like heat waves on pavement.
“I know you’re upset, and everything’s up in the air. Let’s just—”
He grabbed her by the arms. “I said I love you.”
Emotion seeped in, then rushed, then flooded. She slapped up her walls as fast as they tumbled. “You’re confusing love and tragedy.”
“I’m not confused.” His hands softened on her arms. “I am upset.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell the difference.”
“Lance …”
“I want you with me in everything. Here in my crazy family. In our business in Sonoma.”
Had he said “our”?
He caught her neck between his hands, braced her chin with his thumbs. “I want to fight with you like Bobby and Monica. I want to know you so well …”
She stiffened. “Don’t do this.”
“You want me to pretend?”
She scowled. Her whole life was the make-believe of someone else’s creating. “I’m not ready.”
“I’m not either.” He slid his hands up to cradle her face, and the muscles of his throat worked. “I never will be.”
What?
“I’m not going to get it right. I’ll never have it together. But I’m willing to fail with you.”
She stared into his face. That was a good thing?
“I’m willing to mess up again and again. To do it wrong and torque you off.”
Her throat tightened. When what he wanted most was to find his purpose and do it right?
“I’ve never kept a relationship long enough for someone to see that I’m a screw-up. I left them wishing for what they thought they saw, left them believing the myth.” He let go. “I want to be real with you.”
No words could come. She’d been waiting for him to prove himself trustworthy, reliable, constant. Solid like Dad. When Lance Michelli could no more be solid than she could be Star’s light and rainbow.
He was offering her something else. Reality.
“Come to me, my melancholy baby.
Cuddle up and don’t be blue.
All your fears are foolish fancy, maybe.
You know, dear, that I’m in love with you!”
T
he song runs through my head as monotonously as the rumble of the engine while my gaze drifts within the space that has defined my life for days. Marco’s hands are long and angular, wrapped over the steering wheel, his shirtsleeve creased at the elbow, the navy blue suspender twisted on his shoulder.
He glances over with a smile. “The whole country’s gloomy, Antonia. Let’s not be.”
He’s right, but how can I help it? “I’m sorry. It’s just …”
“Did I ever tell you about the two-legged dog I had?”
I lower my brows skeptically.
“It’s true. He was sort of a brindle mix, white and brown, fur so wiry you could scrub the kitchen with him.”
“Was it his front legs missing or his back?”
“One of each, and luckily opposite sides.”
I don’t believe him but can’t resist. “How did he lose them?”
“Don’t know; I found him that way, down by the train yard. His owner must have hopped the line, and the dog couldn’t make the jump.”
“So you took him home?”
“Sort of. Momma wasn’t fond of dogs, and this one being less than pretty would’ve had a tough row to hoe. I fed him in the alley until he knew he could trust me.”
“That’s more than many boys would do. How old were you?”
“Oh … it was several years back.”
I raise my brows. “You were all grown? I mean, a man already?”
He grins. “Yes, I’ve been grown for some time now.”
“How old are you?”
“You’re interrupting my story.”
I settle back into my seat.
“Pretty soon that dog took to following me around as I made deliveries and such.”
“For the people with lots of jack?”
“That came later. These were preliminary positions, so I conducted business on the docks and train yards. In fact, it was at Grand Central that the little dog saved my life.”
I sink against the door and give him a truly withering look.
“You don’t believe me?”
“How did he walk?”
“Just like you and me. One foot in front of the other. He’d learned to balance and compensate so well he could almost walk a tightrope.”
“Marco …”
He raises his hand and drops it back to the wheel, then drives in silence so long I give in.
“How did he save your life?”
“Threw himself in front of a train.”
I gasp.
“Why do you care, if I’m just making it up?”
“But you’re not, are you?”
He reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I’m not. And he didn’t get hit by a train.”
Relief and exasperation.
“He did tear out the Achilles tendon of a man whose knife was perched against my throat.”
“Why?”
“I fed him pretty well.”
“No, why did someone have a knife to your throat?” I shove his arm and we swerve a little in the road.
“Oh, that. He wanted my delivery.”
I watch his face for clues. “Is that why you have a gun now?”
“Come to think of it, that was about the time.”
I laugh in spite of myself. “You’re impossible. What happened to the dog?”
“I sold him to the circus.”
“Oh!” I throw up my hands.
“I did. They taught him to walk on a ball. He couldn’t really manage the tightrope, but he was amazing on that big red ball.”
I punch my thighs. “I don’t know when to believe you.”
“You should always believe me. I hated to lose that little mutt, but I had landed a new position that would take me away too much. With the circus he had plenty to eat, a safe place to sleep, and he got to be special two shows a day.”
My brow creases. “How could you part with him?”
He turns his attention back to the road. “That’s always the hard part, isn’t it?”
Yes,
she thought.
Yes.
A hand on her shoulder brought Antonia to the present. She looked into the plate presented on a tray. Lance had to have cooked the omelet. Though Monica brought it up, she would have overpeppered, and the eggs would be thick and spongy. She cooked like her mother.
This omelet had Lance’s trademark nipetella accenting the porcini that were softly saut
ed, a thin golden edge and fragrant aroma to tempt her appetite. Monica settled down beside her and dug the fork in without appreciating any of that. But she was kind and willing as she brought the fork up, and Antonia was thankful for little things. She couldn’t say so, but she hoped they knew. She hoped they all knew.
————
Lance pressed his fingers to the strings, hammering and pulling the notes up the neck, then ending with a feather-soft touch to ring the harmonic pure and sweet. As it faded, he started the rhythm, and then the words, thankful they were automatic since he couldn’t focus. The morning had started out fine, then ended with him saying more than he’d intended, more than Rese wanted to hear. Her partner; her
business
partner. Why couldn’t he get that into his head? Chief cook and bathroom washer.
That was what she’d offered when he tried to sever ties.
“I need a maid, but I’ll settle for a partner.”
Why did he take that term and run? Partner … wife, lover, mother of his children. Right. When she couldn’t trust him as far as she could throw.
The attraction had gripped him even with her baggy shirts and construction boots, her short hair that set off the bones of her face, the stony expression he’d learned to see beyond. It wasn’t stony anymore but engaging and enigmatic. In the same way he might begin to see the thoughts of a figure carved in marble, he had learned to read her.
He just didn’t like what he was reading. If she was a girl from the neighborhood, three months? She’d be his. But Rese was no pushover. She had him pegged with a cement nail. And it was his own fault.
He’d stopped trying to wow her, to be everything she needed. He was letting her inside, showing her the real Lance Michelli.
Here’s how I live. Here’s how I am. I sweat in my T-shirts; I talk in my sleep. I cried at
Bambi
and Pop smacked my head
.
Maybe Rese was right, that his worry for Nonna had made him want connection this morning. That he’d confused the hurt and guilt over her relapse with the longing he thought was love. Maybe he didn’t get it at all.
He tried to focus on jamming with Rico and Chaz, letting the music take him away, but his mind stayed on Nonna, on the things he’d found that she didn’t want to talk about and the way he’d forced the issue—as he’d forced his way in with Rese and hurt her too. He missed the cue for his solo, but Chaz filled in on the keyboard.