Secrets (33 page)

He stroked her arms. “Not today.”

“Why not?”

“You’re in shock.”

He was right. Her whole system felt stunned, scorched, as though something had blown up inside and burned its way out through her skin. She gripped her hair. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Give yourself time to catch up.”

He was right. Her thoughts and emotions were ragged. She had to get it under control. She needed a plan, but she couldn’t plan until she had the shock behind her. She had acted irrationally after Dad’s death, and … Fury surged again. He had lied to her!

“Hey.” Lance brought her back. “You can’t do anything this weekend.”

This weekend. She’d been in a stew over the opening, the arrival of her first paying guests. Now … She clenched her hands, grasping for something familiar. The weekend would be interminable. “I can’t do
nothing
.”

He considered that a moment, then nodded. “Okay.” Catching her wrist, he started for the door.

She resisted his tug. “What are you doing? Last time I went with you—”

“I’ll behave.”

She did not believe that for a moment. The question was whether her common sense was demolished enough to succumb. He pulled her outside and headed for his bike.

“No way.” She dug in her heels.

He turned and clasped her elbows. “Just to town, slow and easy.”

“No, Lance.” She didn’t want to ride with him again. Not just because he’d been reckless. She could excuse kissing him in her hysteria, but holding him now? That was premeditated torture.

“Come on.” He drew her with him.

Adrenaline surged when he pressed the helmet onto her head. She wasn’t scared; she just preferred to be shielded on four sides, not dangling behind a capricious daredevil on a screaming machine with a mind of its own. But she climbed on and gripped his shoulders.

“It’s better if you hold my waist.”

Better how? A sensation seized her like a too hot shower that you bear until it feels too good to get out. She did as he requested, just hands to his sides. He pulled out and down the lane, then rested his left arm over her thigh and cupped her knee in his palm, a comforting pose that made her heart scamper worse than the drive.

He was exceptionally careful, not slow exactly, but so smooth and aware that she had no worry at all. And she realized now the other drive had been equally masterful in execution… intended to terrify. Yet she’d been safe. Could she trust him now?

They parked at the plaza and he strapped her helmet to the seat, then took her hand and walked her into the park that formed the center of the square. She had obviously undone every professional barrier. One didn’t blubber all over the cook and recover easily. How could she hope to regain control? But with his hand solid and warm around hers, did she want to?

Her life was imploding, her entire reality. Waves of angry confusion. Mom alive! In a mental hospital, and they had never once gone to visit. Sorrow. Anger. Fear. She seethed. Wincing, Lance freed his hand and circled her shoulders instead.

Warmth and strength. Compassion. Even after she’d almost fired him. She didn’t know how to take that. They passed beneath a stand of massive eucalyptus. As they came out of the shade, she glanced sidelong. The sun glinted off the diamond in his ear, and she tried to recall the scorn she’d felt at their first meeting. A man with an earring. Total emotion. Trouble. She couldn’t find any of it.

He met her eyes. She had never been so out of control in her life. But he released her gaze and squinted up through the branches of an old majestic oak. “Tell me about your mom.”

A rush of gratitude. The subject had been studiously avoided for so long, no one asking, no one mentioning her mother except for Star’s dark comments. It might help to talk now, to tell him what she remembered. To try to understand. But where to start? Once again the memories clashed, good with bad. “She was wonderful and terrifying.”

Lance’s thumb stroked her shoulder. It shouldn’t feel so comforting. Wasn’t she the rock? If anything else dashed against her now, she would dissolve like sand. But she wouldn’t show it. She had to pull it together and somehow make sense of it all.

A green-throated mallard waddled near, tipped its head to ogle them, then jabbed a fallen bud with its beak, shook it, and passed on. Children scampered about the small playground, laughing, pretending.
Pretending
.

She sank into her memories. “She was always waiting when I got home, ready to play, to dance. One time we danced on the roof. Well, it was the flat part between two peaks, but someone told Dad and he told me not to do it again.” Funny he hadn’t told Mom.

“Sometimes we drew pictures. She taught me to draw.” Rese could see Mom’s face taking stock of her picture, then proclaiming it a Picasso or Cézanne or Kandinsky. She didn’t realize until later that those artists didn’t tend to get the shapes right. But it didn’t matter, because she believed she could draw, and that developed into the sketches that became her carvings.

“Some days I didn’t even go to school.” Mostly the days when Mom was sad and Rese was afraid to leave her. She was the strong one these days, most days. “We didn’t tell Dad. There were a lot of secrets.” Some darker than others.

Dad’s stern face. “Did Mommy burn Mrs. Walden’s rosebush?”

“No, Daddy. She wouldn’t do that.”

But why had Mom come in giggling as with the greatest joke after Mrs. Walden left the house angry? Rese hadn’t seen her burn it, but she didn’t tell about the giggling or the smell of smoke in Mom’s hair and shirt.

Her throat squeezed. Had the dishonesty begun with her? No. She remembered Mom’s finger held to her lips.
“Don’t tell Dad. It’s our secret.”

Had he known? All the things they hadn’t told—had he known anyway and used them to justify his lie? Pain. How could he? She missed him so much, but now rage and betrayal grew inside her like redwoods stiffening her spine.

Lance squeezed the nape of her neck—sensing her tension? She wished he wasn’t so intuitive, but would she be here with him if he wasn’t? His hand communicated comfort, support. Dad had hugged her when she was little, when she’d impressed him, a kind of sideways hug with a pat to her arm. Lance’s touch drove every thought away, made her want it to last forever.

She went on, “Mom could play, really play. We invented all sorts of games. Fairies one day, giants the next. One time we pretended to be earthworms.”

That got raised brows from Lance.

“Her imagination was incredible.” Imagination? “But sometimes the pretending got scary.”

“When the invisible friend came?”

She nodded. “Walter was mean.”

He didn’t contradict that, just asked, “Do you know what’s wrong with her?”

“Some disorder, I guess.”

He stopped and eyed her. “Your dad didn’t tell you?”

She expelled her breath. “Why would he tell me that, if he couldn’t tell me she was alive?” She clenched her teeth as the betrayal slapped her again.

His eyes softened. “I know you’re hurt.”

“I’m mad.”

“Yeah, well, mad is a secondary emotion.” His brow pinched. “Mad is what happens when you don’t process sad well. What gets you handcuffed in the back of a squad car for crashing an anti-war demonstration, carrying your brother’s picture from the 9/11 victims’ wall.”

She stared at him. “Your brother?”

The tendons in his throat tightened. He looked away. “Tony.”

NYPD. The brother in the station who set him straight? “Lance, I’m so sorry.”

His jaw clenched. “No blood for oil? It wasn’t oil in Tony’s veins. And they hadn’t seen my mother, my sisters, his wife and kids, and the whole city lighting candles, crying … or maybe they just didn’t care.”

She felt pain rising from him like heat waves on blacktop. For a moment it overwhelmed hers. No one would tell him his brother was alive. Ground Zero had yielded no survivors.

He turned back with a grim smile. “That’s mad.”

She could picture him provoking the protestors, doing what he thought was right, but ending up in handcuffs. “Exactly how many times have you been arrested?”

“Never actually booked.”

She cocked her head. An evasive answer if she ever heard one.

“Since I spoke for most of the force that time, they let me go with a
‘Keep it cool, little brother.’
”

As if he could. As if Lance Michelli ever cooled the fires that drove him.

He drew her close. “You know what I think?”

“I’m not sure I want to.”

“You need to do something daring, something really outrageous.”

She snorted. “Right, Lance. Like what?”

“Let’s get your ears pierced.”

“What?”

“Twice.”

“No way.” She pulled back.

“Okay, once.”

She shook her head. “I’m not getting my ears pierced.”

“Ever put a staple through your finger?”

“Yes.”

“It’s nowhere near that bad.” He pulled her down the path.

“Pain isn’t the issue.”

He checked the street then jogged across with her in tow.

“Lance…” They headed down Napa Street a couple blocks to a shop that advertised piercing. The poster in the window could have been Sybil from ribs to hips. “You’re not listening.”

“I’m not saying it’s pain free.” He pulled open the door. “But I survived

it.”

She bristled at the challenge. He could take something she couldn’t?

With a hand to her elbow he brought her to the counter where a girl who looked all of twelve sported more metal than flesh in her ears. Not to mention the ring in one nostril and who knew what other body parts.

“I’d go with gold over surgical steel.” Lance pointed to a display.

“I’m not going with either. What is it with you and earrings?”

But he was already choosing from the velvet board the girl had set on the counter.

She snapped her gum. “It doesn’t hurt. I just did, like, a three-year-old a minute ago.”

Lance turned to her. “A three-year-old, Rese.” She glared. “That is not the point.”

“What’s your birth month?”

“July.”

He pulled off a card with two red stones encircled in gold. “You’ll have to wait for real rubies until after you can take out the starter studs.”

She took the card and stared at the sparkly red earrings. No way they were going in her ears.

The girl swung a gate open. “Sit on the stool there, and I’ll get the gun.”

Gun? Rese pictured the compressed air gun she used to drive nails, but the girl came back with a handheld thing more like a stapler. That was still not the point. She had no intention—

Three-year-old,
Lance mouthed, and held the gate open. It was Bobby Frank all over. He thought she was afraid. He’d done it, but she couldn’t. Her blood surged. She didn’t have to prove anything, but she stalked through the gate and took the stool.

The girl made a mark on each earlobe, then loaded the first post and held it to her ear. Rese raised her chin.
Pop
. Not as bad as a staple through a fingernail, but she winced in spite of herself. It was nowhere near the shock the phone call had given her. She almost welcomed this pain. It was the physical kind she knew how to deal with.

Lance grinned, and she glared as the girl set up for the other ear. She jumped at the sting and the noise of it. She had just put metal through her body. Years of caution with every kind of tool, an accident or two, but never intentional….

Lance took out his wallet and paid the girl. Rese felt suddenly branded, as though he’d bought and marked her. But when the girl held up the mirror, she stared at the red stones glittering in her earlobes, looking feminine and … pretty.

Lance’s face joined hers in the mirror. “Looks nice.”

She couldn’t argue but was thankful that Brad hadn’t seen them.

Lance thanked the clerk and took the little card with care instructions and a bottle of ear-care antiseptic. “They’ll be tender for a while.”

She reached up to one burning lobe and felt metal. “I don’t believe I just did that.”

“You can’t resist a dare.”

She stopped and faced him. “You intentionally baited me.”

He smiled. “Now, you have guests coming tomorrow. You don’t want to greet them in painter’s pants and a T-shirt.”

She drew herself up. “Why not?”

“You have a beautiful historic villa. People are paying hundreds of dollars to stay there. You have to look the part.”

Look the part? Like playing a role, like … She stiffened.

His eyes narrowed. “What’s the matter?”

“I can’t do that. I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not.”

His smile pulled gently. “How do you know you’re not, until you try?”

Her chest tightened.

“Just a skirt, Rese. A skirt and blouse.” But he was studying her with a pucker in his brow. He didn’t understand. How could he?

“I didn’t tell you about Alanna.”

He cocked his head. “Another friend?”

Rese shook her head. Why was she baring all this? “Alanna wasn’t someone who came. Mom actually became her … for Walter.” She watched his comprehension dawn.

He said, “I didn’t mean anything like that. Just dressing appropriately. Something softer to greet your guests in.” He didn’t say
our
guests, didn’t say
we
. And she missed it.