Beneath the Patchwork Moon (Hope Springs, #2) (19 page)

She covered her mouth with both hands and giggled, because she had never seen herself as this woman looking back at her. Did others see her this way? Confident? Playful? Ready for anything? Was this who she’d been all this time while frightened of the past and hiding?

Was this the woman Angelo saw when he’d kissed her? Or was she both women, the one beneath the dark veil of mourning, and the one finally free to cut away the past?

“Well? Say something,” Kaylie demanded, getting to her feet, her phone now on video recording Luna’s reaction.

Caldwell moved in behind her again, fluffing and tweaking and arranging what he’d already arranged. “If you’re not happy with this, we’re going to have to break up.”

“I’m happy,” she said, and laughed, her eyes brimming. “I’m absolutely giddy. I’m in love.”

“With the new you? Or with this mysterious Angelo?” her stylist asked.

Both
, she wanted to say, because it was true. The new her was… sensational. Absolutely stunning. And she’d loved Angelo Caffey since she was fifteen years old. “I’m in love with you,” she said to Caldwell, “because you’re a genius. And I’m in love with you,” she said to Kaylie, “because you let me go through with it instead of talking me out of it, which I know you wanted to do.”

Kaylie opened her mouth and feigned insult. “I never thought once about talking you out of it.”

“I know,” Luna said. “You thought about it ten thousand times.”

“That’s closer to the truth than you think.”

“You know what I need now? New lipstick. And earrings. Pairs and pairs of earrings. I think they’re going to be my new favorite accessory, now that they won’t get lost in my hair.”

“I told Ten not to expect me till late, so…”

“Just give me five minutes to settle up with Caldwell.”

“Perfect. Five minutes is all I need to upload this video to Facebook.”

“You do that, I won’t invite you to my housewarming party.”

“Ooh. Housewarming. I hope you’re ready to shop for more than earrings, because I know
all
the best kitchen stores.”

And she would. “You, Kaylie Flynn, are a woman after my own heart.”

D
AY
F
OUR

FRIDAY

Bear and endure: This sorrow will
one day
prove to be for your good.

—Ovid

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

W
hen Angelo woke, he smelled coffee. Not Folgers. Starbucks. The rich, earthy aroma of espresso, and that of warm milk. There wasn’t a Starbucks, or any coffee shop for that matter, in Hope Springs. The old coffeemaker in the kitchen had, amazingly, still worked, and since Luna had turned on the power and water his first day here, he’d been making do with drip, like he did at home. Though since he ate breakfast at the diner on the way to work, he paid for his coffee by the cup. But espresso…

He pulled on the same jeans he’d worn yesterday, tugged on a clean T-shirt and clean socks, shoved his feet into his boots and tied them. He’d showered before hitting the sack last night, and he couldn’t be bothered with shaving this morning, or running more than his fingers though his overly long hair. Definitely a perk of the life he lived, looking like a bum and getting away with it.

On the other side of the bed, Frank stretched and yawned, then sat up and shook his head, his ears flapping, short white dog hair floating in the morning light before settling onto the navy comforter. “Nice one, Frank. I really love crawling into a bed covered in your mess.”

Frank gave a quick couple of yappy barks, then ran out of the room, his nails clicking on the stairs as he made his way to the first floor. Angelo jogged down behind him, turning the corner into the kitchen and glancing at the countertop, where a new and pretty pricey-looking espresso machine gleamed in some sort of crowned stainless-steel majesty.

Then he looked down at Luna where she squatted in front of Frank, scratching his head. And looked again. And frowned. “What in the hell happened to your hair?”

“Nothing
happened
to my hair. I had it cut,” she said as she stood.

Cut until there was nothing left of it. “I can see that. Why?”

Grabbing her mug from the counter, she crossed the room and opened the back door for Frank. “It was time.”

“Because I asked you about it recently?”

“You don’t have anything to do with my hair.”

He wanted to believe her, but the evidence said otherwise. “If you say so.”

“I do,” she said, turning away from where she’d been watching the dog. “Now, can we get back to doing what we’re here to do? There’s almost nothing left,” she said, and he swore he heard disappointment in her voice. “We should probably be able to finish today.”

And then what? Was he going to leave? Go back to Vermont and build cabinets and porch rockers for the rest of his life? Leave her here to manage the Caffey-Gatlin Academy on her own? With Oliver Gatlin stopping by at every opportunity to harass her?

Get real, Caffey
. Luna could handle Oliver Gatlin. The question was whether or not Angelo could handle walking away. A
question that shouldn’t have been so hard to answer. “Sure, but first… You going to show me how to use this machine?”

“It’s idiot-proof,” she said, lifting a lever that dropped the prepacked capsule of spent grounds into the drawer meant to catch it. Then she opened the cabinet door above, grabbed a new one, and popped it into the slot. “Push the lever down, wait for the flashing light to stop, choose a short or long pull. The other two buttons froth the milk. Or you can do the milk first, and the machine will add the espresso itself. Like I said—”

“Idiot-proof. And we needed this why?” Wait. Had he just said
we
?

“It’s for the center. I have one at home. I wanted one here. I got tired of your idea of coffee.”

He wasn’t going to argue about that. He was tired of it, too. “You might need to run through that again.”

That earned him an eye roll. “Too sleepy to pay attention?”

“Too busy watching your hair.”

Her mouth pulled tight on one side. “And what was it doing?”

“Bouncing. Or not bouncing, but floating. Like feathers.” Not that he knew a damn thing about women’s hair, so feathers could be insulting, and insulting her was not at all what he’d wanted to do. He liked her hair. Liked how it fit her. Liked that it made her seem… all grown up. As if she’d shed the Luna who’d lived in his head all this time. As if, after ten years, she’d reached the end of her mourning.

She lifted a hand to her nape and fluffed at the sharp ends there falling seamlessly into place. “It’s so strange, feeling air on my neck.”

“I’ll bet,” he said, really liking her neck.

“And I didn’t wake myself up even once last night pulling my own hair. That’s a first.” She set a new latte mug beneath
the machine’s spouts and went about brewing him a cup while he watched, while he thought about sleeping with her, getting wrapped up in her hair. “Thank you, by the way. For letting Francisco stay with you.”

He leaned against the counter, his hands at his hips curled over the edge. “He doesn’t snore. He doesn’t take up much room. But that comforter’s going to need an old-fashioned clothesline beating. He loses half his hair every time he shakes.”

She handed him his coffee just as said dog scratched at the back door. “Depending on the reworked plans for the center, we’ll have to find someplace for a doggie door. Letting this one in and out all the time is going to get old.”

And now she’d said it.
We’ll
. Not
I
. A slip, he was certain, because she couldn’t really imagine he was going to stay. Though she
had
asked him about doing so. And he
had
let the idea of doing so linger. “Shirking your responsibility already?”

Pulling open the door, she stuck out her tongue. Frank scrambled into the kitchen to his food bowl. Angelo set down his mug and scooped out the dog’s breakfast from the bag he’d picked up the other night and stored in the pantry. Luna brewed herself another coffee and carried it to the table, where a box from Butters Bakery sat.

He joined her, like they were some sort of couple, drinking their coffee together while watching their dog eat. He liked it. Too much, probably.

“Sierra would’ve loved having a dog,” she said, breaking open a blueberry muffin.

His stomach rumbled. He chose apple cinnamon. “And you know that how?”

“Because she loved Maya. And Maya loved her. She’d curl up in her lap and stay there as long as Sierra would let her.”

He popped a chunk of muffin into his mouth and watched Frank gobble his way through his kibbles. “Six kids, both parents self-employed, meaning no steady income. The maintenance on this house and the land. Affording a dog would’ve meant one of the kids going hungry. Most likely me.”

She sputtered. “Why you?”

“Just the way things worked,” he said, and shrugged. “The younger kids needed more help and attention. Sierra took up a lot of the family’s time. I was pretty independent by the time I was twelve. Before that even. Not complaining. I had everything I needed. I just had to do more for myself than the others.”

“You never said anything. Sierra never said anything—”

He shrugged it off. “She wouldn’t have known. She was busy being… Sierra.”

Luna cocked her head to one side, her hair grazing her chin. “Are we having a pity party?”

“Hardly.” Though he’d feared she would think that. It was hard to explain. “She lived in her own world. You were her best friend. You had to see that.”

“I suppose.”

Was this Luna’s selective memory, or a girl thing? He couldn’t believe she wouldn’t have noticed. Or had Sierra, with Luna, not been the same person she’d been at home? “You had to ask her a question twice or even three times before she heard, never mind getting an answer before she fell back into whatever she’d been thinking. She said she’d do something, like take out the trash for me when I was running late for practice, but never did, so I got in trouble, even though I’d cleaned the upstairs toilet for her.”

“Did that bother you? The getting in trouble?”

No. That wasn’t what had bothered him. “It got old, was all. I quit asking her to switch chores. Or asking her for much of anything. Hard to rely on someone whose head is always someplace else.”

“Sounds like it did bother you.” She looked down, picked at her muffin. “Or like you resented her.”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to think so, but…” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, coffee mug cradled in his palms. “It was more that I just wanted to get out of the house, be on my own. Not have to deal with the constant Sierra drama.” He couldn’t believe he was admitting this. He could
not
believe he was sharing his feelings with the girl who’d been his sister’s best friend.

Especially the things he was ashamed to have ever felt. He hadn’t been ashamed at the time, and he wasn’t even sure he’d been ashamed after leaving. And that was as bad as accepting that he hadn’t thought about his family much once he’d left home.

“She relied on you.” When he didn’t respond, she went on, pushing. “You know that, right?”

“She shouldn’t have,” he said, then lifted his mug to drink.

“You were her brother. You
are
her brother. Of course she should—”

“She needed me to come home. I didn’t come home.”

“Angelo—”

“No, Luna. I let her down.
God
—” It was a prayer for forgiveness, his use of the Lord’s name, even though he would never be able to forgive himself. He left his mug on the table, walked to the back door, pushed it open when Frank came up and asked to go out again, and watched the dog snuffle his way through the yard.

“It wasn’t just that I wouldn’t come home. It was what I said to her. The words. How I said them. I kept cutting her off. Yelling at her.” He turned to look at Luna, her eyes wide and filled with so much sadness he wanted to slam his fist through the wall for putting it there. “She was trying to tell me something, but I wouldn’t let her.”

“Why are you being like this?”

“Like what?”

“A jerk.”

“Because I like my life now without having five kids in my business all the time?”

“That’s not nice. Or fair. None of us asked for this family. You and I got stuck. We’re the oldest. It happens.”

“I’m done with it happening.”

“Angelo, listen to me—”

“No. You listen to me. I’m going to Rome. That’s the only trip I’m taking this year. I’m not even sure I’ll make it home at Christmas.”

“Please, listen—”

“Sorry, sis. No can do.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” she said, her throat working as she swallowed.

“I hung up on her, Luna. How is that not bad?”

She flinched. A quick jerk of her shoulders and head. “She never told me. She told me everything that summer. But she never told me that.”

“And what does that say, huh? She obviously didn’t want you to know.”

“Why wouldn’t she want me to know?”

“Because the last thing I told my sister was that she needed to grow up. That she needed to stop expecting everyone else
to do her dirty work. That if she was old enough to spread her legs, then she was old enough to deal with being so irresponsible that she didn’t make the Gatlin kid use a condom. And if she was old enough to get pregnant, then she was old enough to tell our parents without me holding her hand while she did.”

“She didn’t need you to hold her hand.”

“You don’t think I don’t know that? What she needed or didn’t need doesn’t matter. The last words I said to my sister were, ‘Grow up.’ Then I hung up. I didn’t say good-bye.” He slammed his palm against the screen door. It flew open and bounced against the wall. “I didn’t say good-bye.”

He carried the fact that he hadn’t out the door and into the morning sun. It shone down brightly to warm him, when he didn’t deserve warmth anymore than he deserved light. He didn’t deserve anything more than what guilt handed him.