Miraculous. There was no other word for it. In the still of the morning, Lance had reached out. Bathed by the golden shaft of sunlight in the dormant Sonoma garden, Rese had taken his hand.
After their strife and disappointment, that small connection felt huge, extraordinary. It was more than he'd expected from Rese Barrett, the woman who'd infuriated and intrigued him, the one he'd given up for a cause, who even now doubted his sincerity, his fidelity. He drew her close, tucked his finger under her chin and raised her face, knowing better but unable to stop the magnetic draw of her mouth.
Her lips parted. "I hope you're not burning that frittata."
He jolted back to reality. This was Rese, and if he thought he was off the hook that easy, he could fagedda-bout-it.
"Have I ever burned anything?" Besides his bridges, time and again.
"Now isn't the time to start."
He threaded her fingers with his. "I won't."
She reached up and touched the moisture under his eyes. The breeze had almost absorbed it, but not quite. He wasn't sure where the tears had come from or why, hadn't really known they were there. Before, he'd have made excuses. Now, well . . .
"Lance, last night . . ."
He looked across the garden. "I guess God wanted to do something." Her stoic face was more than half skeptical. "It wasn't me, Rese."
"The baby's palate was cleft."
He nodded. "The lip looked split."
"Looked?"
"Well, then it wasn't." He spread his hand, recalling his shock when he'd lifted it from the baby's face. Maybe bad light or panic had made them jump to conclusions. Or else God had done something amazing, something heartbreakingly beautiful and terrifying.
Whatever the case, it wasn't a place he could stay. Too sublime, as the psalmist said. He needed something real. "Let's take the Harley for a spin."
"Now?"
"Star can feed the troops."
She sighed. "Lance . . ."
"Just a ride." He needed the road, the speed, the distance. He needed her, but didn't say so. "Baxter can chaperone."
At the sound of his name, the spaniel-retriever mix trotted over and stuffed his nose between their joined fingers.
"That would be animal endangerment."
He rubbed the dog's head. "We'll let him decide."
Rese snorted. "As though he has anything like free will where you're concerned. As though anyone does."
Star stepped through the doorway, her head a white-blond blizzard after the drug-crazed hacking she'd given her hair in the Bronx. He didn't know who had held her prisoner and fed her the cocktail that had left tracks on her waifish arms, but he could see the healing that had occurred here at Rese's Sonoma villa. Not as dramatic and instantaneous as Maria's baby, but real and lasting he prayed.
She rested her forearm across her head and asked, "Is breakfast ready?"
"Nearly." He no longer expected to solve the problems of the world, just to make his piece of it better if he could and get through each day without messing up too bad.
Rese stepped back. "Come inside, Lance."
In the warmth of the big stone kitchen, Rese studied the still-nameless newborn. From his shaggy black hair to his swaddled legs, Maria's baby lay in Lance's forearms, giving off a sweet, yeasty aroma. He had his young mother's flat, square face and low forehead, and his small dark eyes looked up at Lance as though he had all the answers in the world.
Maria, ravenous after last night's delivery, devoured her meal as though she might not receive another. Lance didn't tell her they weren't revoking her meal card. He obviously enjoyed the gusto with which she inhaled his food.
Beaming at the baby in Lance's arms, Antonia cooed, "Such a good strong boy."
How could she know that, when the baby did nothing but stare at Lance? Behind them, Star placed a filled plate on a tray, along with a glass of juice and a foamy latte. Mom wasn't coming down?
This was hardly the uncomplicated environment Rese had envisioned when she'd brought her mother home from the mental health facility, but it wasn't good for her to isolate from the real world. She'd better check in. "I'll take it up."
"That's all right." Star lifted the tray. Somehow she had become Mom's primary caregiver; Star, who'd once believed a dead mother better than her own supremely selfish one. Of course, Mom had not really been dead. That was only the lie people had told to the daughter she'd attempted to kill.
With a sigh, Rese took a bite of the savory frittata and gave Lance the appreciative smile he expected. For him, a meal was more than food in the stomach. It was a cultural event of connection, acceptance, and relationship. His cooking made that comprehensible.
She got up and washed her plate at the sink. Maria brought hers over, uncertain what to do next, though the wet circles on her shirt were an indication. Rese told her, "I'll wash it." The words meant nothing to the Hispanic girl, but she used them anyway.
Maria turned back to Lance, her eyes wonder-lit. He smiled, reducing the girl to mush. Rese shook her head as Maria padded back upstairs to the room originally furnished for guests at the inn, and Lance followed with the infant.
Maria didn't seem to realize she was allowed in the rest of the house, even though Lance had told her she was. She was used to being crammed into a single room. At least instead of six men, she only shared this one with her baby.
Rese turned back to the sink and scrubbed the frittata pan in the hot sudsy water.
Moments later, Lance's breath warmed her neck. "Yes."
She tensed. "Yes what?"
"I want kids."
"What?" Had he forgotten his ninety-year-old grandmother sitting at the table? By Antonia's chuckle neither one of them had. But then his whole family aired their private matters for all to hear.
"You asked me in New York how I felt about kids." He turned her around. "Now I'm telling you."
"You hold one baby—"
"I've held tons of babies."
She expelled a hard breath. "Can you see I'm washing dishes?"
"You look good in suds." He circled her waist with his arms, and her heart took off running. His magnetic gaze turned her to putty, worse than Maria. Amusement deepened the corners of his mouth. Why was he so infuriatingly charming?
Lance Michelli made her feel and think and do things she'd had no intention of doing. He'd broken through her insulation and made her care—not just for him, but his family, his friends, even her own friends in a different way, and most of all herself.
He'd shared his faith, his strength, his doubts, his weaknesses. She was so seriously in love it hurt. And it was the hurt she couldn't get past.
His phone rang. With a sigh, he answered it. "Sof. How you doin'?" He raised his brows at his grandmother. Antonia, too, seemed surprised.
It must be his sister Sofie, the only person in his family who hadn't shared her life story—though the one thing she had confided haunted.
"Yeah, sure," Lance said. "Let me call you back." He disconnected and turned. "What would you think of Sofie coming out?"
"To visit?"
"Maybe stay awhile."
Stay. In addition to him and his grandmother, Star and Mom and a teenage mother and her baby. She'd thought she wasn't running an inn! Thought she'd made that clear. But it didn't matter what she thought. Lance always found a way around.
"Isn't she in school?" A doctoral program no less. Sofie's focus had seemed as tight as her own. She couldn't want to leave that.
"Her dissertation's been approved. She can write it here, then go back to defend it."
"Oh." Rese rubbed her temples and did a mental room check: Star in the Rain Forest, Mom the Rose Trellis, Maria and the baby in Jasmine. Her own suite was downstairs off the kitchen. Since Lance and his grandmother were in the carriage house, that left Seascape for Sofie. Or she supposed Sofie could room with Antonia as she had in the Bronx, and Lance could be back in the room where he'd started—that fateful day he'd walked onto her work site with his earring and his swagger and the cross of Christ tattooed on his shoulder blade so he'd never forget to carry his own.
"It's kind of a big deal, her asking." Lance rubbed his palms together. "She hasn't left home since . . . for a long time."
Rese nodded. Another mouth, another bed. Lance was used to chaos. He fed on it. She was used to solitude, and while she didn't exactly feed on it, at least it didn't overwhelm her. Now she felt like a Jenga tower with one more support beam removed.
"I'm sure she'd kick in something toward expenses."
Or not. Lance was generous, as she'd seen with the change bowl back in his Bronx apartment. He and Chaz filled and Rico drained. Lance wasn't employed at the moment, but with all he did at the villa, he earned his and Antonia's keep many times over.
Dad's life insurance paid for Mom's care; Star applied her trust money from the heiress mother she despised. For Antonia's part, there was still a cellar full of Prohibition-vintage wine, valued up to a couple thousand dollars each bottle. Maria had yet to contribute anything except the infant everyone doted on.
Rese didn't mind being the only one with an actual income. She'd worked since she was just a girl tagging along to Dad's renovations. He'd developed her skill, and she'd made it her craft. Her life.
Buying the villa to renovate and run as an inn had been a knee-jerk reaction to his accidental death. An ill-fated attempt to fulfill his dream of a bed-and-breakfast—a dream he would never have actualized either. They weren't people persons. Yet she was being asked to provide shelter to one more wayfarer.
Of course, with Sofie in the last available room, she could honestly say no to any more strangers. Relieved at the thought, she nodded. "Okay."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure." Renovating priceless old buildings took her away and provided hours alone in her zone. The physical labor helped her breathe. Dad's tragic death had almost destroyed it, but little by little she'd reclaimed her birthright. If Lance wanted another body to tend at the villa, it was fine by her.
M
att Hammond stood outside the door. He wasn't responding to a domestic violence call, but the hollering, screaming, and breaking glass didn't sound like a tea party. He speed-dialed 9-1-1 on his cell and gave the address, his name, and position. Another crash followed fresh screams. He banged the door and hollered, but it wasn't likely he'd be heard above the din.
He tried the knob and went in, searching through the front rooms, down low where children might crouch. The noise came from farther back, probably the kitchen, and he caught sight of three kids huddled beneath the drop-leaf table. His shoes crunched broken glass and ceramic shards.
The hulking man swung around, brandishing the jagged edge of a broken beer bottle. "Who are you? Stay back."
"Matt Hammond," he said calmly. "I'm here about the kids."
Donald Price pivoted to get a glimpse, then swung back. "What about them?"
"Why don't you put down the bottle so we can talk."
"Why don't you put yourself outside my house?"
"I can't do that." Not with three kids in danger.
"Show me your badge."
"I'm not a cop."
"What are you?" Price swayed.
"I'm with Child Protective Services."
"Some flunky with the county?"
He'd been called worse.
"Well, this is my house, and these are my kids. So get out."
A woman who had to be Vivian Price appeared in the other doorway of the kitchen, glaring at her husband, a wad of tissue pressed to her cheek. The shaking in her hands could be fear, drugs, or DTs.
Matt told her to stay back. He'd rather deal with a drunk than a meth head.
Scrawny and uptight, she bore the startled look of a recent face-lift. "What's going on?"
"Shut up," Price snarled, then back to Matt, "Go stick your nose somewhere else."
"I need to see the kids."
Price raised the bottle, looking more like a thug than a successful real-estate broker. "I said get out. Leave my family alone."
"Put down the weapon, Price."
"Weapon?" He looked at the edge. "I dropped this. We're cleaning up the mess." He glared at his wife. "Isn't that right, Viv?"
Her tight-lipped nod told another story.
Matt frowned. "What happened to your cheek?"
Her eyes smoldered. "Cut it."
"You cut it?"
Her shaking increased.
"That's what she said," Price barked. "Now leave."
"I need to follow through on some concerns for the children." Matt looked around the kitchen. "How long since they've eaten?"
Price scowled. "What are you talking about?"
Matt looked down at the children. "Are you hungry, kids?"
Two were young enough to nod. The third stared warily at his dad.
"Neighbors saw them going through the trash."
A mewl emerged from Vivian's throat.
"That's a lie." Price raised the bottle menacingly.
"He won't give me the money," Vivian whined. "What am I supposed to feed them?"
Price's lip curled. "I left her with money when I went to the convention. Ask her what she did with it."
With a shriek Vivian launched herself at him. Price brought an elbow down on her shoulder as Matt grabbed the bottle-wielding arm at the wrist to keep him from slashing her again. He should not have been the first one on the scene. Where were the cops?
Price flung his wife to the floor, and Matt slammed the man's wrist against the counter. The bottle flew out of his grasp and smashed on the floor tile. Price lost his footing and went down.
Matt crouched between the angry man and his frightened children. "Listen, Price. You and your wife can fight it out, but not in front of the kids. I'm taking them to a safe place."
"See what you've done?" Vivian yanked a towheaded toddler from under the table and shook her over Price on the floor.
"Enough!" Matt snagged the screaming tot and sat her on the table.
One of the boys crawled out and grabbed his leg, crying. The sharp scent of urine joined stale smoke and spilled beer. The oldest—maybe six?—hung back, wheezing. Asthmatic?