If Ever I Fall (Rhode Island Romance #1) (7 page)

“All finished for
now,” Veronica said, standing up from the table. “Why don’t you go and relax
with your friends, Willa. We’re going to be here for about another hour packing
up. And the guys are taking measurements and doing a more thorough appraisal of
the overall condition of the house. I’ll be in touch with you in a couple of
days to schedule the visit to their office. Okay?”

As Veronica left
the kitchen via the hallway, the girls swooped into the room, drawing Willa
into their collective embrace.

“Veronica let each
of us go inside the video truck for a few minutes,” Mercy shared excitedly. “I
was watching when you were talking to the brothers in the dining room. That
Tony was flirting with you.”

“
Shh
,”
Audrey scolded, nodding her head towards the hallway. “They might hear you.
Come on, Willa. Let’s go up to your apartment. We can watch everything from
there.”

Shirley lagged
behind. “I want to get a closer look at that cameraman. He was kind of cute.
Such big shoulders…”

Once Collette had
dragged Shirley out of the kitchen and they were all ensconced in Willa’s
living room, the four women started talking at once.

“When you were in
the bedroom—”

“I saw the way he
looked at you upstairs—”

“We should’ve
washed those curtains—”

“Damn. Those two
are HOT!”

It was Mercy’s
words that drowned out the others. Everyone looked at her, mouths agape, before
bursting into ribald laughter.

“If only I was
twenty years younger,” Shirley said with a mournful sigh after the laughter had
died down. “I’d be all over that Tony like butter on toast.”

“Who says you need
to be twenty years younger?” Audrey asked, smoothing a hand over her sleek
blond hair.

Of the four women,
Audrey was what Collette called the “sophisticated one”. Tall, slender,
polished and poised, she had the bone structure of Audrey Hepburn and the voice
and mannerisms of Kathleen Turner. After graduating from RISD, she’d left for
New York to start her own jewelry design company, which she’d since moved to
Rhode Island. She had a factory in Pawtucket and a retail shop on Thayer Street
in Providence.

Collette wagged her
finger. “Back off, Aud. Those boys only have eyes for our Willa. The way they
were both looking at her, you could’ve been in the room stripped naked and
licking a lollipop and they wouldn’t have noticed you.”

Audrey gave an
affronted sniff.

Willa blushed. “I
don’t know what you mean.”

Collette shot her a
look of disbelief. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see the way they were staring at
you. I was watching the video feed when you all went upstairs. That older
brother, especially. Joe. Talk about burning looks. I heard Veronica telling
the cameraman to zoom in for a close-up.”

Willa dropped her
head in her hands and groaned. “I signed up for a home remodeling show, not a
dating show!”

“No wonder Veronica
was so excited when she first saw you,” Collette went on. “She knew how this
story would play out as soon as you opened that door.”

“She’s assured me
that that’s just the way the brothers are. Tony puts on the charm with all the
homeowners.”

“Is that what she
called it?” Mercy muttered.

Willa lifted her
head. “I’m backing out. I’ll go talk with her right now. Tell her this isn’t
what I thought it would be.”

“And why would you
do that?” Shirley asked. “What’s wrong with letting two handsome guys flirt
with you? You should be flattered.”

“I’m not used to
it.”

“I don’t believe
that,” Audrey said. “You’re very pretty, Willa.”

Willa rose jerkily
to her feet and began pacing the room. “Looks don’t matter. As soon as guys
find out about me, how weird I can be, they act like I have some contagious
disease.”

“Then they don’t
deserve you,” Collette retorted, ever Willa’s staunch defender.

“Have you ever been
in love, Willa?” Mercy asked hesitantly.

The girls had never
broached the subject with her before. They had no reservations talking about
every little detail of their own romantic relationships—some details that Willa
would’ve preferred not to know!—but had been respectful about Willa’s
boundaries in that area.

For some reason,
Willa now felt the urge to unburden some of the emotions she’d kept concealed
for far too long. A whisper inside her head questioned how much this desire had
to do with the strange feelings that had washed over her the second she’d
opened her front door to Tony and Joe Rossetti.

“The longest
relationship I had lasted three weeks,” she confessed, words long-buried
suddenly pouring out of her. “I lied to him about my background and my job. I
tried to change everything about myself, the way I dressed and spoke, just so I
could fit into his world. I made myself physically ill trying to keep who I
really was a secret.”

Audrey jumped up
from the sofa and stood in Willa’s path. She put her hand on Willa’s arm,
gently bringing a halt to the restless pacing. She lightly set her other hand
on Willa’s shoulder and looked Willa straight in the eye. “Listen to me, Willa
Cochrane. Don’t ever change who you are for someone else. There’s a man out
there for you who will understand that love isn’t about changing someone, even
if he thinks it’s for your own good. Real love is about finding someone who’s
already the perfect fit.”

Soaking
in the claw-foot tub that evening, Willa idly rubbed her right arm, from wrist
to elbow and back again. She encircled her wrist, pressed her thumb against her
pulse, felt its accelerated tempo.

She reflected on
the things she’d shared with the girls today. She could almost laugh about it
now. It’d been impossible for the four women to totally conceal the relief in
their expressions upon learning she’d had sexual relationships. The way she’d
refrained from participating in any of their past conversations around that
subject probably had them wondering if she was a virgin or asexual.

She would never
share with them that she’d treated losing her virginity like one of her
research projects: methodically and logically, mapping out each step that would
get her from point A to point B. She read books, poured over issues of
Cosmopolitan
,
eavesdropped on conversations amongst the females on campus.

That they viewed
sex so casually had been alarming to her. Surely there should be some level of
trust between two people, some degree of liking, of fondness, if not love? The
notion of jumping into bed with someone simply to scratch an itch disturbed a
deep place in her heart, an empty place that had never been filled, a secret
place that yearned for something more.

Yet, to enter into her
twenties with the title of virgin flashing in her head like an obnoxious neon
sign—that she couldn’t do. It would be just one more thing to set her apart
from her peers, another oddity that would fester and grow as the years went by.
She wanted to get rid of it and be done with it.

She imagined losing
her virginity would transform her somehow—a prison break, a sea change—that she
would suddenly blossom into a worldly creature, confident in her femininity, finally
owning that power that she sensed in some of the female students, as if they
held the secrets of the universe between their legs, wielding it over the young
men who ogled and posed.

On her nineteenth
birthday, her father had given her a car. Her first car. With it had come a
short-lived sense of freedom. One afternoon, in a coffeehouse on campus, she’d
overheard some freshmen students talking about a party that was happening in
Berkeley that night. She’d thumbed in the address on her cellphone and found
her way there. There’d been a boy—dark, brooding, stoned. He’d cornered her,
convinced her to take a puff. She mimicked the mannerisms of the other girls at
the party, played cute and coy. He’d led her into a back bedroom and locked the
door.

It had been quick
and not as painful as her research had led her to believe. She’d lain quietly
on the bed, studying the boy as if from an observation window in an operating
room, watching the twist of expressions that played across his face as he moved
swiftly inside her before grunting his release.

She’d brought
herself to orgasm in the privacy of her own bedroom a few hours later.

There’d been a few
others since him, but no real connections, no relationships aside from that one
guy she’d tried to change herself for—if that brief, three week affair could
even be called a relationship. What she didn’t share with the girls was that
part of his allure had been the fact that he’d enjoyed going down on her,
giving her the first orgasm she didn’t achieve by her own hand.

But the
transformation she was hoping for hadn’t happened. If anything, her inability
to maintain any kind of long-term relationship with a man had only further
shaped her belief that she would very likely go through the remainder of her
life without forming a real connection with anyone.

The girls were
helping to change that mindset. She felt more comfortable being herself with
them than she had with anyone before. But could she find that same ease, that
same sense of kinship and security with a man?

The bathwater was growing
cold. She pulled herself out of the tub and dried off. She used a corner of the
towel to rub the condensation from the mirror above the sink. Blue eyes set in
a pale, oval face framed by a damp mass of long, wavy brown hair stared back at
her. She had a high forehead, straight nose, a mouth that Audrey had called bee-stung,
all the features that the conventional world considered attractive.

“You’re so smart
for a pretty girl!”

She still
remembered that television interview, after all these years. It was one of the
first her father had dragged her to. A man with an ugly tie and a jowly face
had spoken those words to her and laughed as if he’d said something brilliantly
funny.

Her father hadn’t
been amused. He didn’t want the interviewers focused on his daughter’s looks;
he wanted them to be astounded by her intelligence. Out went the frilly dresses
and the ribbons in her hair; in came the khakis and polo shirts and, later, the
lab coats. If she hadn’t gone into hysterics, he might even have cut her hair
into a bob. She wouldn’t let him get close enough to try. In her mind, her hair
was linked with her mother; her most tender memories were of her mother
brushing Willa’s long hair every night before tucking her into bed.

Her father had
never brushed her hair. Her father had hardly touched her at all, other than to
give her subtle pinches and pokes during interviews when she lapsed into one of
her daydreams.

She wasn’t allowed
to daydream. She wasn’t allowed to cry or complain. Her life was centered on
books, formulas and equations. Nothing else was allowed to matter.

If her father had
heard her today, he would’ve gone into seizures. A
teacher
? After all
those years of work, all that he had sacrificed for her,
that
was the
only title she chose to give herself on national television?

Willa smiled at her
reflection. It was a Collette smile: wicked and brash.

Take that, old
man
, her smile said.

While the water
drained from the tub, she slipped into a clean pair of sweatpants and a baggy
cotton shirt, mopped up the damp spots on the floor, hung up the towels.

Turning off the
light, she made her way through the kitchen to the backdoor. As if of their own
accord, her feet carried her over to the wall unit. She stretched out her hand,
traced her fingers along the surface of one of the shelves, then down to the
top right drawer.

Funny how Veronica
had thought Willa would have trouble understanding that Rhode Island accent.
When it was spoken in a low, gruff voice, she loved it even more.

Veronica
called on Thursday evening to ask Willa if she was able to come to the Rossetti
Construction office the following afternoon to take a look at the design
options.

“They drew them up
that fast?” Willa asked, astounded.

“We had to make
some adjustments to the schedule for the North Providence project. They had
some free time.”

“Can I bring
Collette with me? I’d like a second opinion.”

“That actually
might work well. She’s quite the character. I think the viewers will like her.”

Collette literally
jumped out of her chair when Willa asked her to come along. “Are you kidding me?
Wait until the girls hear about this. What should I wear?”

Acting as
Collette’s impromptu wardrobe consultant helped ease some of the tension that
had been ratcheting inside of Willa since Monday.

Clearing out
Pauline’s house had helped a little bit too, keeping her mind and energy
focused. She’d finished boxing up all the small items in the living room and
was now working on the dining room. According to Veronica, the interior
demolition would begin a few days after Willa approved the designs. The construction
crew would haul out the larger furniture items and appliances, but everything
else was tasked to Willa.

The weather had
continued to warm as the week progressed, and Willa had opened up all the
windows and doors, letting the fresh spring breeze blow out the musty smells. A
vision of what she wanted the new interior to look like began to take shape.

She wondered if the
Rossetti brothers’ vision would be similar to her own.

She’d thought about
both of them a lot since Monday. She thought about the things she’d said, the
way they’d both looked at her. She wondered if they thought she was odd. That
thought dropped her into brief moments of depression that were intermingled
with sudden, curious sensations of joy, when she felt as though something
passionately and mysteriously beautiful was about to happen to her.

She, with her
sharp, analytical mind, couldn’t describe these feelings to anyone, let alone
explain them to herself. She didn’t like not understanding things. Thus, the
tension.

After reassuring Collette
for the umpteenth time that the purple eye shadow looked better than the
silver, Willa set her mind to the simple pleasure of baking cookies.

Back in February,
she’d discovered her aunt’s recipe box tucked in a kitchen cupboard. Of all the
things Pauline had baked, it was her cookies that Willa remembered most
vividly. Crisp on the outside with soft, chewy centers. Oatmeal and raisin.
Chocolate chip. Snickerdoodles. Willa tried every recipe her aunt had written
down.

There was a science
to baking that intrigued her. Currently, she was working on fine-tuning the
ingredients for a mixture that could potentially become the base for a dozen
different cookie recipes. Her detailed, vigilant notes now filled almost every
page of a previously blank journal she’d found in the nightstand next to her
aunt’s bed. Note: try half teaspoon of salt on next variation. Note: see what
happens if I switch vegetable oil with coconut oil. Note: sea salt and milk
chocolate, salty and sweet combo. Note: Cornflakes?

Good thing she
didn’t eat all of the cookies she made, or she’d end up being one of those
people hauled out of their home on a forklift. Every week, she sent Collette to
her job at the library with a few dozen cookies. Sometimes Mercy took a batch
or two to her church choir practice. Audrey would take a plate to set out for
customers at her jewelry store. Shirley was waiting for Willa to come up with a
gluten-free recipe. That was next on Willa’s to-do list.

She found herself
getting lost in her baking the way she’d once gotten lost in her books.

Tonight, she
decided to add chocolate chips and walnuts to the base. Men liked chocolate,
didn’t they?

The
interns, Sam and Tiffany, greeted Willa and Collette when they arrived at the
building that housed the Rossetti Construction office. It was a three-story red
brick structure just off Chalkstone Avenue in Providence. Willa, still not
comfortable finding her way around, had asked Collette to drive.

“Veronica’s
upstairs talking with the guys,” Sam explained. “She wanted us to walk you through
the shoot. Jake will get you mic’d. Do you mind if Tiffany touches up your hair
and make-up?”

While he was
speaking, he led them into a small conference room just off the lobby. Jake,
the audio technician, was waiting inside with the microphone equipment.

“I just want to add
some powder,” Tiffany said. “It can get hot under the lights. This will cut
down the shine.”

Collette and Willa
stood still while Jake attached their lapel mics and did a sound check, and
Tiffany applied the face powder.

Sam flipped through
his notes. “This will be pretty simple. We’re going to walk upstairs in a few
minutes. The cameras will shoot you entering the room, the guys greeting you.
You’ll sit down at the conference table. The designs will be projected from
Tony’s laptop to a screen. Feel free to ask anything you want. Take your time
reviewing everything. Don’t worry about long pauses. We’ll have those edited
out. Once you select the design you like the best, we’re done.”

“I can talk,
right?” Collette asked.

“Sure! Willa can
introduce you when you first walk in. Just be natural, like the cameras aren’t
even in the room.”

Collette fluffed
her hair. “I’ll do my best, kiddo.”

Sam eyed the tin
container Willa had been clutching to her chest since she’d stepped out of Collette’s
car. “What’s that you got there?”

Willa lifted the
lid. “Chocolate chip cookies. Have one.”

Sam grabbed a
cookie and bit in. His eyes turned into saucers. “Oh, wow! These are awesome.”

Willa gave him a
questioning look. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. This is
the best cookie I’ve ever tasted.”

Jake sidled closer.
“Can I have one?”

His reaction was
almost a mirror image of Sam’s. “Oh, my God. You made these?”

“She doesn’t
believe me when I tell her how much all my co-workers rave about her cookies,”
Collette said, beaming proudly. “She could open a bakery, don’t you think?”

“I’d be the first
in line,” Jake said, grabbing another cookie. He offered it to Tiffany first,
who winced. “Can’t,” she said. “I’m vegan.”

“I’m working on
vegan and gluten-free recipes,” Willa said.

Tiffany’s cellphone
chirped, signaling a text. She glanced down at the screen. “Veronica says they’re
ready for us. Let’s go.”

She and Sam led
them upstairs, pausing on the landing outside a wide, wood-paneled door. A
discreet brass sign next to the door displayed the words Rossetti Construction.
Tiffany thumbed a text, waited a few seconds and then gave Willa a nod. “Go on
in.”

“Hang on a sec,”
Collette said. “Let me catch my breath after going up those stairs. Is my face
shiny again?”

Seeing Collette’s
nervousness helped settle some of the butterflies in Willa’s stomach. “You look
lovely,” she soothed.

Collette’s face
relaxed into a cocky grin. “So do you.”

Heeding Veronica’s
advice, Willa had chosen to wear a lightweight lavender tunic sweater over
black leggings. Black pumps added three inches to her petite frame. She’d
pulled her hair back in a loose ponytail. She tucked an errant strand behind
her ear. Her fingers only shook a little bit.

Tiffany’s phone
chirped impatiently. “Ready now?” she urged.

Exchanging another
look with Collette, Willa straightened her shoulders and reached for the door
handle.

Stepping inside the
room, her initial glance took in a large, high-ceilinged brick and beam
interior with floor-to-ceiling windows along the exterior walls and a maple
hardwood floor. But the warm surroundings faded as her gaze zoomed in on the
two men walking towards her.

“Hello, Willa,”
Tony said, extending his hand. “Good to see you again. How are you?”

Willa cradled the
cookie tin in her left arm and held out her right hand to shake Tony’s. She
kept her attention concentrated on him as she released his hand and gestured to
Collette, who was hovering slightly behind her. “I’m well. This is my next-door
neighbor, Collette. She was friends with my aunt for over twenty years. I
brought her along as an advisor. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Tony
said enthusiastically. He offered his hand to Collette. “Great to meet you,
Collette.”

As he exchanged
pleasantries with Collette, Joe moved closer. “Hello, Willa,” he said.

His raspy voice
grabbed her low.

“Hello.”

He held out his
hand. She placed hers in his grasp. His grip was warm and firm. She looked down
at their hands, struck by how small her hand appeared in his. All coherent
thought escaped her as her gaze slid from his hand to his body. He was wearing
a cobalt blue dress shirt tucked inside black slacks. Her eyes flickered from
the silver on his belt buckle to the buttons on his shirt—there were six of
them—then slowly drifted farther upwards, noting how the perfectly tailored
shirt emphasized the breadth of his chest and shoulders.

His grip tightened,
and she looked at his face, her eyes tangling with his. She swallowed, alarmed
by the intensity she saw in his expression, all directed at her.

Tony said
something. Joe slowly released her hand. He turned to Collette, said something
as he shook her hand. Then both brothers returned their attention to Willa.

Flustered, she held
out the cookie tin. “I made cookies,” she said bluntly.

Both men appeared
caught off guard as they looked at her and then down at her offering. It was
Tony who spoke first. “You made these for us? Are you sure you want us to have
them now? You haven’t seen the designs yet. You might change your mind.” He
laughed with mock self-deprecation.

“Yes, I made them
for you,” Willa said, frowning at the question. “They’re fresh. I made them
last night. Have one.”

Joe smiled at her.
He took a cookie and bit into it. His eyes lit up. “Oh, my God.”

Tony nudged him
aside. “Let me at them.” He took a bite and let out a groan. “Oh, my God is
right.”

“Willa,” Collette
said with a chuckle, “I think you have a name for that recipe: Oh my God
Cookies.”

“These are wicked
good,” Tony raved. He chewed slowly, puzzling out the flavor. “What’s this interesting
ingredient I’m tasting?”

“One cup of sugar,
one cup of brown sugar, a cup of butter, one egg, oil…” Willa’s words, spoken
in a clipped tone as if she were reading the recipe from her journal, drifted
into an awkward silence as she recognized the befuddled look Tony was giving her.
He cocked his head to one side, brow wrinkling. It was the kind of look she’d
received too many times to count over the course of her life.

She felt her cheeks
turning red. She wanted to dig a hole and crawl inside. Panic looming, she shot
a helpless look at Collette, who gave her an encouraging smile.

She felt a hand
touch her arm, drawing her attention to Joe, who’d stepped closer. His brown
eyes crinkled at the corners; his face creased in a warm smile. “Oil, you said?
That’s interesting. Any special kind?”

She swallowed.
“Safflower oil. I tested the recipe using coconut oil, but the cookies didn’t
have the same consistency. They were too dry.”

“Whatever you put
in this recipe, don’t change it. They’re perfect.” Joe nodded at the cookie tin
and held out his hands. “Why don’t I take those for now, before my brother eats
them all.” With a light tug, he took the tin from her. He swept his hand toward
the far corner of the room. “Let’s go to the conference area. We have a couple
of different designs for you to look at.”

Collette stuck
close to Willa’s side as they followed the brothers across the room to an
oblong conference table. “Stop worrying,” Collette whispered. “You’re doing
fine.”

Willa gave a curt
nod, suddenly aware of the other people in the room: Veronica, watching them
both with a keen eye, one hand cupping a headset closer to her ear, Curtis, his
camera aimed directly at her, red light glowing, Steve, the other cameraman, in
another corner of the room, lens pointed towards the brothers. She averted her
eyes, keeping her gaze directed toward the conference table where Joe and Tony
stood waiting.

Tony pulled out
chairs for both Willa and Collette and invited them to sit down. He sat at the
head of the table, to Willa’s immediate left. Joe sat directly across from her.

“So, we put
together a couple of design options for you, Willa. Joe and I are really
enthusiastic about this project, in case you couldn’t tell.” He touched the
laptop keyboard in front of him and pointed towards the large plasma screen
attached to the wall facing them. There was the black and white photo of
Pauline and her mother standing in front of the house. “We were curious about
this picture because it shows a portion of the house that’s no longer there. We
were able to get a hold of the original building plans. That extension there
used to be part of the kitchen.”