Reflection Point: An Eternity Springs Novel (39 page)

“Or me,” Sage Rafferty declared.

“Or me.” Ali Timberlake folded her arms.

Each of their husbands nodded their agreement. When Celeste Blessing failed to chime in, the other visitors looked at her. “I wasn’t scared. I knew they’d both make it. And, speaking of angel wings, I think we should get on with our presentation before the nurses come looking for Zach.”

“She’s right,” Sarah added. “Besides, I ate too many enchiladas, and I need to walk around.”

They cleared the tables and tossed the paper goods in
the trash as Celeste took her place in the center of the room. “Cam, would you wheel Zach over here so that everyone can see?”

“I can walk,” he grumbled.

“No!” a dozen voices said at once.

“Nurse Ratchet will have our asses,” Cam added as he hurried to do Celeste’s bidding.

She took a small silver box from her bag and smiled at Zach. “My dear, dear Zach. As you know, I award the official Angel’s Rest blazon to those who have embraced love’s healing grace. The friends who have gathered with you today to witness this presentation each overcame great wounds of heart to earn their wings. One might argue that you’ve been blessed to avoid such emotional heartache.

“However, I contend that sometimes, wounds exist that remain hidden even from ourselves. If you look deeply, you may recognize such injuries within yourself. They may be different, more subtle, but just as real.”

Zach leaned toward Savannah, who had taken a seat beside him, and spoke from the corner of his mouth. “What is she talking about?”

“Hush,” his beloved scolded. “Pay attention.”

Celeste continued, “Zach, I award you these wings today in recognition of the innate strength of character you possess that has allowed you to overcome these lifelong trials and to acknowledge that love’s healing grace isn’t limited to emotional wounds. Is there any doubt that love compelled you and assisted you in your fight for survival?”

“No,” he answered honestly. “Not at all.”

Celeste opened the box and removed the angel’s wing pendant hanging from a heavy, masculine silver chain. She bent and fastened it around Zach’s neck, murmuring in his ear, “Feel the weight of this award in the coming hours, my friend. Draw strength from the knowledge
of the joys that life has to give … if only you’ll open your heart to it.”

She kissed him on the cheek, then swept from the cafeteria. Zach sat in his wheelchair pleased, a bit embarrassed, and more than a little confused as, couple by couple, his friends from Eternity Springs offered their congratulations and wishes of good luck as they followed Celeste from the cafeteria.

“Okay, that was weird,” Zach said once he and Savannah were alone. “Why do I get the feeling that something else is going on here? What’s up, Savannah? Did the doctors find something unexpected when they were digging around inside me? Am I dying, after all?”

“No. That’s not it at all.” She wheeled his chair around and began to push him back to his room. “However, once again, your instincts are spot on. There are some people waiting for you back in your room.”

“People?”

“It’s a good thing, honey,” Savannah said as they approached his door.

“What people?”

She sucked in a deep breath, then said, “Your blood type is AB negative, which is quite uncommon. Have you stopped to wonder where they got all of that rare red stuff that they pumped into your body?”

His hospital room door opened to reveal an obviously nervous Gabi Romano. Savannah squeezed Zach’s shoulder and guided him on into his room where three men stood in front of the window. Zach recognized them all. Max Romano had come to his office. Anthony and Lucca Romano were college basketball coaches of some renown. Lucca Romano had been on the news quite a bit last year when he’d been involved in a tragic team bus incident that had taken the lives of two of his players.

Zach braced himself against the expected pain and
stood. “Deputy Romano, why are your brothers congregated in my hospital room?”

Gabi clasped her hands in front of her, drew a deep breath, and said, “Because our blood runs in your veins, Zach.”

“Oh.” He smiled and extended his hand. “You donated blood for me. Thank you.”

“Yes, we did, and you are welcome,” Max Romano said. “But that’s not why we are here. Zach, we are your birth family. You are our brother.”

Savannah watched his face grow pale. She stepped forward, saying, “Why don’t we all sit down.”

Zach resisted returning to his bed—the hardheaded idiot—so she shot the Romano men a glare. Once they took seats in the three additional chairs that had mysteriously appeared in Zach’s room during lunch, Gabi sank into the bedside chair. And Zach chose to sit on the end of the bed, probably because that kept him higher than the others, Savannah thought.

Leaning against the door, Savannah glanced from one Romano man to the next.
Wow. They do look alike. Even Gabi
. She and Zach had the same eyes. How had she missed the family resemblance in the past?

Zach’s gaze, too, shifted from one to the other. Finally, his voice tight, he said, “Somebody explain.”

The guys all looked at Gabi. She shook her head, blinking back tears. Lucca went and sat beside her on the bed, his expression tender. Understandably, Gabi had been a bit shaky ever since the shooting.

Max leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and began. “It’s not an uncommon story, but it’s one we only learned about in March when our father died. I saw Mother add something to Dad’s casket right before they closed it. After the funeral, I asked her sister, our aunt Bridget, what it was. She’d had too much wine and
she spilled the beans. It was a baby’s footprint. The baby Mother had given away.

“Our parents were teenage sweethearts from opposite sides of the tracks. Her parents were wealthy, her father an Irishman who owned a string of filling stations in Philly. Dad’s family were recent Italian immigrants doing whatever they could to get by. Mom was fifteen when she got pregnant. Her parents sent her away to have the baby and give it … give you … up for adoption. After Mom returned to Philly, she continued to see Dad on the sly. She never told him about you.”

Zach’s gaze sought Savannah’s. He patted the bed next to him, and when she sat, he took her hand.

“On Mom’s eighteenth birthday, they ran off and got married.”

“And had four more kids,” Zach said, and Savannah wondered if he heard the bitterness in his voice.

Gabi spoke up, her tone anxious and entreating. “Aunt Bridget said Mom has always mourned you, that every year on your birthday, she’d call Bridget sobbing for Giovanni. That’s what she named you. Giovanni Liam, the Italian and the Irish. All our names are that way. She said Dad wouldn’t have forgiven her, and that’s why she kept the secret. She was only fifteen, Zach.”

Zach’s thumb stroked over Savannah’s hand. She gently leaned against him, careful not to jostle him, silently offering comfort. Zach looked at Max. “This was the reason for your visit earlier this year? You came to check me out? Did I pass muster?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Max said, looking a little guilty. They all looked a little guilty. “It’s all about Mom. She hasn’t been the same since Dad died. It was unexpected. A heart attack. Mom has been … lost. She dropped thirty pounds she couldn’t afford to lose. She stopped leaving the house. Aunt Bridget browbeat her into going
away—a sisters’ trip to Europe that they’d promised each other for years. They’re due back next week.”

Zach looked at Gabi. “Does she know about the shooting?”

Gabi shook her head. “That’s news better imparted in person.”

“So how did you track me down? I went through all my parents’ papers after they died. I didn’t see anything about my birth parents.”

The Romano men shared a glance. Lucca said, “This person who helped us could get in a lot of trouble if you wanted to push it.”

“I won’t.”

“A priest at Mom’s local parish helped facilitate the placement and adoption,” Max continued. “He knew where you were. Apparently, when Mom got pregnant with the twins, she talked to him about telling Dad and trying to bring you home. But he told Mom you were happy in a good place with a family who loved you. She decided it wasn’t right to disrupt your life.”

“So this priest has kept tabs on me all these years?”

“No. But he cares about our family and he gave us the Turners’ name. We tracked you down.”

Anthony said, “You have to understand that our mother’s grief is … well, it’s beyond what is normal. We are truly afraid it will kill her. Aunt Bridget says the trip hasn’t helped as we’d hoped. We are hoping that you might be the medicine she needs.”

“But we’re not going to force it, Zach,” Gabi assured him. “If you don’t want to be part of our family, then no harm, no foul. Mom will never know a thing about it.”

“Despite the fact that our sister took a life to save yours,” Anthony added.

Gabi snapped, “Tony!”

He shrugged but met Zach’s arched brow stare with a challenging gaze of his own. Gabi added, “The two have
nothing to do with one another. It’s my job. I’m good at it.”

“She is,” Zach said. “One of the best deputies I’ve ever had, though, apparently not the most honest.”

“I never lied to you, Zach,” Gabi said, her voice fierce.

“You didn’t tell the whole truth.”

She lifted her chin. “I saved your sorry butt, though, didn’t I?”

Zach offered her a warm smile. “So I understand, Deputy. So I understand.”

The room fell silent as Zach took some time to think. Throughout, his thumb continued to stroke Savannah’s hand. They had never had that talk that had been due the day of the shooting. She didn’t think it mattered anymore. Everything that needed to be said had been said with those three oh-so-important words.

“You’ve been quiet, Peach.”

“I’m listening to you think out loud.”

His lips flirted with a smile. “What am I saying?”

“That despite it all, the most important thing is that you’ve been offered a gift—a family. Whether you choose to accept it, though, is your call. Only you can make the choice.”

She had no doubt about what he would decide. She’d told Gabi as much when Gabi had confessed the whole story in Savannah’s hospital room. And yet Zach deserved the opportunity to make the decision. Savannah had demanded as much during one of those horrible, touch-and-go days when Gabi had been a mess and wanted to summon her mother back from Europe to be at her eldest son’s side “while she still can.”

Savannah forgave Gabi that comment due to extenuating circumstances, but she’d banished her from the hospital until she rid herself of every last negative thought. Irish and Italian. No wonder Gabi’s emotions ran the gamut!

“You all need to understand that I had parents. Great parents. I loved them very much. And I have a family—brothers and sisters of my heart—in my friends in Eternity Springs.”

“You are a lucky man,” Lucca said.

“Believe me, I know that. Because I also have two extraordinary women in my life whom I love. Savannah, soon to be my wife, who threw herself in front of a bullet for me, and—”

Savannah jerked up straight. “What? Excuse me? Did I miss something here? I don’t recall receiving or accepting a marriage proposal.”

Zach just grinned and continued, “And Gabriella, my calm, cool, collected sister, who had my back when it counted.”

Calm, cool, collected Gabriella burst into tears.

The Romano men—all four of them—smiled. Zach said, “So how do you want to do this? Do you want me to go to her? Do you want to bring her to me? I don’t want the shock to kill her. Can she handle this?”

“Mom needs to come to Eternity Springs,” Gabi said through her tears. “It’s special. What we heard about it at first … it’s true. Actually …” She gave Zach a bravely sassy smile. “Eternity Springs will probably heal her heart all on its own. She doesn’t need you.”

Zach rolled his eyes in mock disgust and met his brothers’ gazes. “Sisters.”

God’s paintbrush set the mountains aglow with wide swaths of gold, orange, and crimson as autumn settled on Eternity Springs. The promise of snow was in the air as Zach pulled his Range Rover to a stop at the parking area for Lover’s Leap.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Savannah told him. “It’s a rough trail. What if you slip and fall?”

“No one is going to slip and fall, Peach. We have each other to lean on, don’t we?”

She let out a huff. “You are impossible. It’s too soon.”

“If we wait another week, it’ll be too late. The snows are coming. I need to see the season off from up here. It will fortify me for what’s ahead. Now, come along with me, Savannah, and quit your fretting. I’m the one who gets to be nervous. I’m the one meeting my mother this afternoon.”

Savannah took his hand and squeezed it. “It’ll be okay, Zach. No matter what.”

“I know. I’m nervous, but excited, too. I’ve thought about it a lot. I don’t resent her or her decisions. I think it all happened the way it was meant to happen. I had a great childhood. Mom always said I was hers and Dad’s greatest joy. Mrs. Romano did that for them. For us.”

“Mrs. Romano?”

He shrugged. “She may be my mother, but she’s not my mom. I didn’t even ask what her name is.”

“Maggie,” Savannah said.

“Oh.” Zach drew in a deep breath, then sighed. “It’s a little overwhelming. To go from having no family to having a mother, the Three Stooges, and Gabi.”

Savannah laughed. “Three stooges, huh? Now there’s a brotherly sentiment.”

He grinned and changed the subject. “Let’s go. I didn’t drive up here to sit in the car and talk. Although, if you wanted to sit in the car and neck, I could be persuaded.”

“Now there’s a shocker. No necking, Turner. I know you, and you wouldn’t want to stop at necking. But you’re not going any further until you’ve been cleared by your doctor.”

“Spoilsport.” He leaned over and kissed her, then climbed out of the Range Rover.

She wrestled the picnic basket away from him and fretted every minute of the hike up to the point, watching
him like a hawk. The man was pushing himself too hard during this recovery. He simply didn’t use good sense. This picnic he’d insisted on was a prime example. By the time the picnic bench came into view, she was a nervous wreck.