Footsteps

The Pagano Family Series

Book ONE

Susan Fanetti

Published by Susan Fanetti at
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Copyright 2014 Susan Fanetti

Footsteps © Susan Fanetti 2014

All rights reserved

Susan Fanetti has asserted her right to be
identified as the author of this book under the Copyright, Design
and Patents Act 1988.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or
locales are entirely coincidental.

 
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ALSO BY SUSAN FANETTI

The Signal Bend Series:

(MC romance)

Move the Sun
, Book 1

Behold the Stars
, Book 2

Into the Storm
, Book 3

Alone on Earth
, Book 4

In Dark Woods
, Book 4.5

All the Sky
, Book 5

Show the Fire
, Book 6

Leave a Trail
, Book 7

To the women who walk this journey with
me.

May we never find a destination.

I love you.

The face of all the world is changed, I
think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
And this…this lute and song…loved yesterday,
(The singing angels know) are only dear,
Because thy name moves right in what they say.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Sonnets from the
Portuguese
, Sonnet VII

The Veterans Memorial Auditorium was aglow
and festooned with light and glitter. All the prettiest people of
Providence and its environs were in attendance for a command
performance of the Rhode Island Philharmonic in honor of one of the
city’s most cherished citizens, James Auberon—philanthropic lover
of the arts, of animals, of the sick, the poor, the downtrodden by
night, high-powered developer and cutthroat businessman by day.

Carlo Pagano stood outside in the humid
late-May night. The air was still warm; it had been a warm spring,
promising a hot summer. That would be good for Quiet Cove, Carlo’s
hometown. But right now, during the intermission, he yanked at the
stiff collar of his tuxedo shirt and silently lamented his presence
at this ridiculous event. It was like a masquerade ball without the
feathered masks. Every person he saw was encased in some obscenely
uncomfortable getup—the men, like him, bound up in black ‘summer’
wool and a fucking black silk noose; the women all sparkly and
laden with makeup and hairspray, all walking like they were in
shackles, nothing natural, everybody sort of toddling around.

This was not his scene. Not remotely. But
Peter had demanded that they show. He’d been right, of course.
Auberon was an important developer, an important person, and
Pagano-Cabot would never get established if they didn’t network.
That was Peter’s strength, though—the schmoozing. He was great at
bullshit and flirting and what the fuck ever people did to get
other people to like them.

Carlo was better on his own, at his drafting
table, in jeans and a chambray shirt. Flannel in the winter.
Timberland boots. Not dressed like Bruce Wayne. With one last look
at the glittering building full of glittering people, he sighed and
slouched back inside. Better get to schmoozing.

Once inside, swallowed up by the crush of
formalwear and the truly oppressive miasma from mingled scents of
different five-hundred-dollar-an-ounce perfumes, Carlo turned
toward the bar, thinking he’d wedge himself in and get a couple of
quick, free scotches in his belly before he had to smile at any of
these people. Peter was at the bar, his grin wide and
blinding-bright. In his element. He was talking to…Anderson Temple.
God, Carlo hated that old, fat bastard. Deciding he wasn’t ready to
deal, he hooked a quick right and serpentined through the crowd and
into the men’s room.

He’d been to the symphony many times—his
mother and his father had both been big classical music and opera
buffs. His father was still, though he didn’t go as often since
Carlo’s mother died. Never in all the times Carlo had been in this
building had there been an attendant in the men’s room. Yet there
was one tonight, tricked out in livery and holding a stack of
crisp, white towels.

He didn’t have any actual business to
conduct in here; he was just looking for a quiet place to be, and
other than someone in one of the stalls, and the attendant in his
red jacket, Carlo was alone. He washed his hands and checked the
mirror. His hair had a mind of its own. He’d tried to make it lie
down smoothly—actually, Natalie had tried to make it lie down
smoothly, right after she’d tied his stupid bow tie—but it stuck up
at weird angles. Normally, he barely noticed, but Nat had fussed
and said he looked like a mad scientist had sewn the head of a
psycho survivalist onto James Bond’s body, and then she’d stuck
some weird shit in his hair. Now it was crunchy, and it still stuck
up.

He washed his face and smoothed his
beard—that always lay nicely, at least—then turned to the attendant
and took the towel he’d offered. “Thanks, man.” The attendant
nodded but did not speak. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to.

When his hands and face were dry, he dropped
the towel into the hamper next to his silent buddy, laid a couple
of bills onto a gold tray on the counter, and went back out into
the fray.

He ran headlong into a woman charging—to the
extent anyone trussed up in a getup like that could charge—down the
hall. Toward the ladies’, Carlo assumed.

“Oh! Excuse me.” A soft, accented voice.

Carlo had braced his hands on her bare
shoulders when they collided; now he took a step back. “No, I’m
sorry. I should’ve looked before I came out.”

She smiled vaguely and then, with a terse
nod, stepped around him and continued on her way.

By the time he managed to get himself to the
bar, he figured intermission was down to its last few minutes.
Already the crowd was thinning out, as people began to head back to
their seats even before the blinking of the lights that would alert
the attendees that the second half of the evening’s program would
commence five minutes hence. Auberon would be getting a plaque or
something—no, something more impressive than a plaque, probably
some crystal doodad—before the orchestra picked up its second
act.

He stood next to Peter and ordered a scotch,
neat. The bartender nodded and poured from a bottle of top-shelf
Macallan. At least the free stuff was the good stuff. Auberon rated
only the best. Philanthropist that he was and all.

Of course, Carlo had it on some damn fine
authority that there was more than a drop of blood in the cement
around Auberon’s impenetrable reputation. But who was he to
judge.

“Where the hell have you been, bro?” Peter
lifted an irritated eyebrow and waved his empty glass at the
bartender. “I’ve been talking you up, but the whole point of this
was for us to make nice-nice with these people.
Pagano-Cabot
? That’s
two
names. And I’m not even the
first one. So why am I the only one out here grinning like a
moron?”

“Because you do grinning moron so well.
You’re a natural.”

“Fuck you.” An elderly woman draped in
diamonds like some kind of zombie chandelier, standing just to
Carlo’s other side, gaped at Peter’s language. “Sorry, ma’am. Buy
you a drink?” The woman pursed her lips and turned away, just as
the lights blinked.

Carlo downed the Macallan and asked for
another.

Peter clapped him on the back. “Hey—I saw
you go face-to-face with the Queen of the Evening. Did you cop a
good feel?”

With no idea what his friend was talking
about, Carlo only gave him the look that said he was crazy.

“Coming out of the bathroom. You ran right
into Auberon’s wife. The Mega-Hottie from Down Under?”

The woman he’d run into had had an accent,
but it hadn’t been Australian. “What are you talking about? That’s
Auberon’s wife? And I don’t think she’s Australian.”

“You talked to her? What are you talking
about, Australian? I didn’t say Australian. She’s from some South
American country. Like Panama or something like that, I think.”

“Down Under means Australia, moron.” Having
no intention of giving his friend a further geography lesson about
the difference between Central and South America as they headed
back toward the theater, Carlo sighed. “And I just bumped into her
and said I was sorry. I didn’t get her life story, and I didn’t cop
a feel.”

“Shame to waste a chance to get a grope of
that rack, but it’s probably for the best. Auberon is not the kind
of guy you want to piss off.” He cast a slant look at Carlo. “But
that probably wouldn’t faze you much.”

“Don’t be an ass, Pete.” They returned to
their seats, well back from the really glittery folk, and waited
for the rest of the program to start.

There was a simple, Lucite podium positioned
in front of the conductor’s more substantial one. The mayor of
Providence, resplendent in his own penguin frippery, crossed from
the left and stood at the clear podium. As he began his remarks
extolling James Auberon’s multitude of personal and professional
virtues, Peter leaned over and muttered, “Did you see Auberon
earlier?”

Carlo turned slightly and muttered back,
“What?”

“Right. Probably not. You never see anything
unless it’s made of brick and steel. Beginning of intermission. He
was at the bar when I got there. Was practically finger-fucking
some little blonde in a tiny white dress that looked like it was
made of ribbons or something. Right there at the bar.”

At that, Carlo’s attention was caught. “I
thought you said the woman in the hallway was his wife.”

Peter turned up one corner of his mouth
slyly. “And that means what, exactly? Aren’t you an expert in how
little that means?”

Carlo winced and turned his focus away from
his friend and back toward the podium, where, now, James Auberon
was accepting his token—yep, some crystal dust-catcher. The woman
he’d run into was standing a few steps back and to the left of the
podium. Carlo and Peter were seated at about the midpoint of the
theater, so he didn’t have a close-up view, and he hadn’t paid much
attention when he had been close up. But she was clearly,
obviously, fantastically beautiful. Wearing a strapless, dark
plum-colored dress that was sequins from its skintight top to its
flowing bottom, and long earrings with faceted golden stones
catching the spotlights that were aimed at her husband, she had her
hair done in a simple ponytail, a long, chestnut fall of hair lying
over one shoulder, and down onto a splendid, exemplary chest. Her
skin was a golden tan; it glittered faintly, as if she were wearing
some kind of shimmery something over it. Pixie dust, he thought,
and chuckled quietly.