She stopped in front of the narrow cottage isolated by lush vegetation, with window boxes where bright golden marigolds grew. “Here we are—Millionaire’s Row, home to the priciest places on the property—and me. And now you. Yours is the next cottage on the left. Is there anything else that you need from me?”
Yeah, but you’re not going to give it to me.
“No. Go rest.” He stripped off his leather biker jacket, revealing for the first time his white T-shirt stained at the pits, grimy at the neck—the red, healing line of his newest scar slicing up his arm and over his elbow. “I’m going to get cleaned up, and I’ve got work to do.” He walked down the path and out of sight, knowing she was watching him . . . and wondering. Wondering what work he would do. Wondering why he hadn’t muscled his way into her cottage to look the place over, and maybe to look her over, too.
She was smart and wary and curious.
And that was fine with him.
A
t seven that evening, Brooke walked into Sarah’s room wearing a smile and carrying a bouquet of wildflowers Zachary had sent.
She stopped short.
Nonna wasn’t in the bed.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Then the bathroom door opened, and a strange woman helped Sarah out.
Sarah looked good, dressed in her robe with her hair damp.
The stranger was a brunette, diminutive, and supporting Sarah with her arm around Sarah’s thin waist.
“You’re stronger than you look,” Sarah was saying.
“I work out a lot,” was the reply.
Brooke noted a few things: Sarah looked tired, but she looked happy, too.
And the stranger resembled an Asian martial arts instructor, with beautiful, smooth, tanned skin. With a single pass, her eyes cataloged everything about Brooke and dismissed her as unimportant.
No, not unimportant. Nonthreatening.
“Brooke, dear, how good to see you!” Sarah called as the stranger maneuvered her toward the bed. “This is Bao. Rafe sent her over to help me so you and the nurses don’t have to.”
Brooke came over, put the flowers on the table, and helped Bao ease Sarah onto the mattress. “Nonna, I like to help you.” She was, she realized, calling Sarah “Nonna” to emphasize their warm relationship. But it stung, being replaced so easily.
“I know you do, dear, and I love having you.” Sarah settled on the pillows, then took Brooke’s hand. “But you’re running yourself ragged with everything you’ve got to do.”
“Did Rafe tell you that?”
“No. But I could read between the lines. He’s worried about you. He’s so thoughtful, my Rafe.”
Brooke contained a burst of explosive laughter.
Bao did not. She laughed long and hard. In perfect English, she said, “Thoughtful he isn’t.” She spoke to Sarah, but met Brooke’s gaze, sending her a wordless message. “He wants to make sure you remain safe and secure, Mrs. Di Luca, and you don’t suffer any setbacks in your recovery.”
Brooke made the leap of logic.
Rafe had sent Bao to be Sarah’s bodyguard.
She looked at Bao again.
Bao was a dangerous woman. She had calluses on her hands, the kind a martial arts expert developed from breaking bricks. Even in here, in the confines of a California hospital room, she wore close-fitting jeans, boots, a dark button-up shirt, and a jacket, and somewhere underneath those clothes she hid weapons, and knew how to use them.
Brooke had two choices: Be resentful. Or recognize the good sense of having someone to help and protect Sarah here at all times.
Brooke was, above all things, reasonable—even when she didn’t want to be. “I understand. Rafe really is very thoughtful.” She picked up the vase with its wilted flowers. “Let me throw these away and replace them with the new bouquet.”
Bao took the vase away. “I’ll do this. You sit down and chat with Mrs. Di Luca. She’s been waiting for you to come.”
So while Bao arranged the flowers in the vase, Brooke sat and talked to Sarah, who looked better tonight than she had since the attack, alert and in some nebulous way herself again. Brooke told herself it was Rafe’s arrival that made the difference, but when she got ready to leave and leaned over Sarah to kiss her cheek, Sarah caught her shoulder in her good hand and held her still. With a grin that looked like the old, mischievous Sarah, she said, “I’m so glad not to be a burden on you, Brooke, and I hope you’ll visit even when you don’t have to help me pee.”
“Next time I come, maybe we can find some Australian football on TV,” Brooke said.
“I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.” Her grip tightened. “Today I’ve been talking to Annie and June.”
June Di Luca lived at the family’s southern California beach resort. Annie Di Luca lived at the family’s resort on the wild Washington coast. The three women were very different, but for as long as Brooke could remember, Sarah and her sisters-in-law had always formed a little female cadre of support known as “the girls.”
“What have you been saying?” Brooke asked.
“The girls think I should tell you what happened.”
Brooke’s nerves grew taut. “What happened . . . you mean when you were attacked?”
“No. What happened a long time ago. I don’t want to. I’d thought we’ve moved beyond it. I’d rather hide my head in the sand.” For the first time that evening, Sarah got that soft, out-of-focus expression. “But they’re right. When Rafe has a moment, bring him up to visit me.”
“He always has a moment for you, Nonna.”
“Eli and Noah, too, I suppose. Everyone needs to know.” Sarah let her go. “But not tonight. I’m tired. Bring them tomorrow. In the afternoon. I feel sharpest in the afternoon.”
“Tomorrow afternoon for sure.”
With a sigh, Sarah settled back and closed her eyes. “Good night, dear.”
“Good night, Nonna.” Brooke pressed a kiss to her cheek, then lingered over the bed.
Yes, Sarah was better, but that moment of confusion when she mentioned the past . . . it worried Brooke. What was so awful that Sarah herself said she wanted to hide her head in the sand? That her sisters-in-law had to insist she tell them?
Bao leaned against the wall by the door, her sleepy appearance at odds with the nod she gave as Brooke passed.
As Brooke headed for the parking lot, she pulled out her cell phone and called Rafe. “Nonna wants to see you and your brothers tomorrow afternoon.”
“We’ll be there,” he said.
“She wants me to be with you.”
“Is she matchmaking?” Like the jerk he was, he laughed.
Brooke was not amused. In fact, she thought she’d completely lost her sense of humor. “No. It’s moral support. For her. And while we’re talking, who’s Bao?”
“You didn’t figure it out?” His voice was deep, warm, soft.
The sound sent an unexpected shiver up her spine. “You couldn’t have warned me before I went over?”
“I thought you’d want to meet her, assure yourself that Nonna was in good hands.” However many times Brooke talked to Rafe, she was always aware of that undercurrent that flowed between them, like foreplay for the mind, like verbal sex.
But she could ignore that; right now, the words were more important. “Nonna seems to think Bao is a nurse-companion.”
“My original intention was to send one of my men in to keep her safe, but when you told me she needed help only a female could give, I called Bao and asked if she was up-to-date on her aide license. She is, so she went in to take care of Nonna.”
Brooke heard it in his voice; he liked Bao, and he was proud of himself. “You have a bodyguard who’s a nursing aide?”
“Most of the people who work for me can at least fake their way through a couple of jobs,” Rafe said patiently. “Don’t worry about Bao doing anything to accidentally hurt Nonna. Bao’s grandfather was the South Vietnamese karate champion, fought for our side in the war, survived five years in one of their prisons. Her father was born on a beach over there while the family was boarding a boat into the South China Sea. The whole bunch of them is tougher than nails, but I’d trust Bao with my most precious possession—and in fact I am.”
That smartly put Brooke in her place.
He continued. “Bao doesn’t have the creds to take care of Nonna when she goes home. Then we’ll have to hire a real nurse, but Nonna will know Bao, so she won’t fret when she sees Bao hanging around.”
“Providing security.”
“Exactly. Until we find our perp, she’s going to have round-the-clock security.” His voice changed, got stern. “In the meantime, you can visit Nonna and not worry about whether she’s going to want a shower or needs to go to the bathroom. Now go see your mom. I’m sure she’d like a little more time with you.”
He was right. But that didn’t make her happy about his high-handedness. Snidely, she asked, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to have a drink with my brothers.”
L
ike three old-time gunfighters, the Di Luca brothers hunched over the bar in the Luna Grande Lounge in the main building of the Bella Terra resort.
Unlike old-time gunfighters, they each selected a bottle of the family wine to sample and share.
The wall behind the wine bar rose two stories to the ceiling, a gleaming display of fine wines, each one chosen by Eli or their bartender, Tom Chan. The series of glass panels covered the gleaming bottles, red, white, and rosés, and each variety was cooled to the correct temperature. The bar’s computer kept track of the location of each bottle and, when the right code was entered, unlocked the necessary panel. The most expensive reds were high on the wall, and watching Chan roll the library ladder into place, slowly ascend, and with a flourish retrieve a bottle endlessly entertained the patrons, leading to more wine sales and more profit.
Now Tom opened and decanted the reds, and set out nine glasses before them. A genial man, part of the extensive Chan family, Tom had tended this bar since it had opened twenty years ago. He was a veteran of the Gulf War who’d lost part of his left foot on a mine, he was the man who gave a second opinion when Eli asked about blending his wines, and he had been Eli’s best friend for many years.
The Di Lucas paid Tom very well to keep their bar and restaurant among the top in rankings and awards online and in print in the United States.
Rafe swirled their Bella Terra Zinfandel, sniffed and swirled again, then tasted it and leaned back with a sigh of pleasure. “Eli, you are a genius.”
“Our basic zin, retails for less than twenty dollars a bottle, and it’s had a rating of ninety or above for the past three years.” Noah lifted the bottle in front of him and poured a little into three clean glasses. “Try the Luna Rosso Meritage. It’s brilliant. I’ve never had better in my life.”
Rafe swirled, sniffed, swirled, and tasted. “What’s the undernote?”
“He doesn’t care for this one as much,” Eli said solemnly. “He doesn’t like licorice.”
As soon as Eli said that, Rafe identified the flavor. “That’s it! Licorice. You’re right; it’s not my favorite, but still—a very good wine. Warm and rich.”
Tom leaned across the bar and murmured, “Fan approaching on your left.”
The brothers turned to face the flushed young woman standing beside Rafe. She stood wringing her hands, staring at Rafe adoringly, and her voice quavered. “Excuse me, I hate to interrupt, but I just had to say, Mr. Di Luca, how much I loved your movie. The one with the dragon?”
“Yes, that’s the only one I did.” Rafe nodded.
“When I was a kid, I watched it over and over, and I pretended I had a dragon, too, but that I never grew up. Even during my teenage years, when I was all . . . stupid and pimply, I watched that movie because it made me feel like I would make it through without just, you know, killing myself.” She was really flushed now, feeling foolish but unable to stop babbling.
“Thank you. The story was wonderful, truly magical, and it means a lot to me to know you liked it.” Rafe knew the right thing to say—he’d said it hundreds of times. He glanced at the piece of paper she clutched. “Would you like me to sign that for you?”
She glanced down at the cocktail napkin she’d crumpled in her nervousness. “Oh, I’m so stupid! I was nervous. I was afraid you would, you know, snap at me.”
“As long as he’s well fed, he never snaps,” Noah said.
She looked at Noah, so taken aback by his interruption he might have been Rafe’s dragon.
“We’ve got lots of napkins.” Eli plucked one off the stack and slid it in Rafe’s direction.
As Rafe signed the napkin, the girl shifted her gaze back to him and stared adoringly.
He handed her the napkin, she thanked him and hurried back to her table, and, knowing full well what was about to happen, Rafe turned to face his brothers. His damned, smart-ass brothers.
In a falsetto whisper, Eli said, “Oh, Rafe, you’re so big and tall and handsome.”
“You make me swoon, you hunk of a man.” Noah’s voice was as high and as quiet as Eli’s.
“I hate you both.” Rafe turned to Tom. “Aren’t you going to talk in a girly tone, too?”
“No way. They’re jealous. Besides, you’re some kind of big fighter guy. You can rip off a man’s pair of family jewels with a flick of your wrist.” Tom grinned at the other brothers’ chagrin. “Drink your wine, guys. Not everyone can be a movie star and the real James Bond all wrapped into one.” He wandered down the bar to pour a drink.
“Yeah, fine. I’m jealous,” Eli said.
“When I’m around you, it’s the only time I feel invisible,” Noah said.
Rafe shrugged. “It’s not about me. It’s movie magic.”
“It would help if you’d get a paunch,” Noah said.
“I’ll work on that.” Rafe grabbed a handful of nuts from the bowl in front of him and ate them one by one.
Eli poured the last bottle. “Okay, movie star, this will be your favorite.”
“What is it?” Rafe asked.
“You tell me.” Eli waited.
“You know I haven’t got your palate.” But Rafe swirled and sniffed, swirled and tasted—and smiled. “Sangiovese.” He tasted. “Primarily sangiovese. But cabernet, too.” He sipped again, and rolled it across his tongue. “Fruit forward—black cherry and plum. Nice spice, and a kick of pepper.” He sighed with pleasure. “You’re right. It’s my favorite.”