When would she learn to say no? It had never been an issue until the dark-eyed spellbinder strode into her inn with a gilded tongue full of ideas that turned her simple plans upside down. And the worst part was, she’d let him—as she had now, and probably would again.
This was not her normal mode. This was the havoc of Lance Michelli. She shifted the bag and looked up at the red-brick building— circa 1935 judging by the Art Deco motifs: white brick arches over the highest windows with a prominent keystone that hinted of Mayan and Egyptian influences emerging from the Paris Exposition of 1925.
The same white-brick motif formed a linear design beneath the top story and decorated the edges of the middle two stories. The lower windows were crowned with a boat-shaped header with the same elongated keystone for continuity. Somehow the metal fire escape running down the front didn’t ruin the effect.
Hoisting his pack, Lance led her past a storefront with an awning that read Bella Tabella to a metal scrollwork door beside it. He unlocked the door, and she followed him down a bike-strewn hallway, cracking where the walls met the high ceiling that bore a painted pipe along its length—a plumbing addition or repair done in the most cost-effective and least aesthetic way. Rese’s fingers twitched. The old place deserved better.
Still, there were some nice features. The marble staircase at the back had geometric designs on the newel post, in keeping with the period, and the Beaumont-glass light fixtures appeared to be original. With some TLC, it could be brought into prime condition.
But what was she thinking? She was out of renovation, into hospitality, which was why she needed Lance, why she’d agreed to speak with his grandmother to clear up any impediments. This was about the Wayfaring Inn. She had to keep that foremost in her mind.
They climbed the first flight, walked halfway down the hall to the second door, and Lance inserted another key. So this was his place, the apartment he shared with Chaz and Rico. Though not as grim as some of what they’d driven through, this whole scene was not what she’d pictured for him.
Inside the door, he set his pack in the corner, stacked hers atop, and hollered, “Momma! I have someone for you to meet.”
Rese stiffened.
Momma?
A woman stepped out from a side room into the hall, one hand fluffing her hair as she approached. “What, you don’t tell me you’re bringing someone? You don’t want me to look nice when you bring me someone to meet?”
He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You look nice, Momma.”
More than nice. The woman was shapely in a classic hourglass way, with olive-toned skin and shoulder-length mahogany hair laced with silver. Sophia Loren in a housedress. Rese’s throat closed up.
Lance drew her forward by the elbow. “This is Rese Barrett.”
“Rese?” His mother’s brow puzzled.
“Theresa, but she goes by Rese.”
His mother turned to her. “Therese the little flower, or Teresa of Avila?”
“Just Rese,” she managed. They were supposed to be meeting his stroke-ridden grandmother, explaining about the inn, making a business plan. Now his mother had fixed her with the expectant look of a cat on a mousehole.
“You’re the secret he’s been keeping, ay?”
Death by bludgeoning. Where was a hammer when she needed one? “I’m sorry this is unexpected.”
“Ah, well.” The woman closed her into a hug and kissed her cheek. Rese stood like wood as she moved to the second cheek, planting kisses on a person she’d never laid eyes on, then turning to her own offspring with a glare. “So I would have had a nice meal planned; I would have gotten dressed.”
He grinned, and Rese could see the little boy he’d been, the boy who lied just to see if he could get away with it—and the man who lied to her. Or was it keeping secrets? He hadn’t told her anything untrue; he just hadn’t told her everything—as he hadn’t told his mother they were coming.
“How’s Nonna? Can I see her?”
“Sleeping. I just left her.”
He nodded. “I’m taking Rese upstairs. We’ll see you in a while.” He hefted his pack, and she snatched her tote and followed him back down the hall to the stairs.
As soon as they reached the next floor she hissed, “You didn’t tell her I was coming?”
He set down his pack. “I was saving her.”
“What?”
He unlocked another door. “If I told her I was bringing you home, she’d have scoured every inch of the building, had her hair colored, lost five pounds, and bought enough food to feed you for a year.”
Rese opened her mouth, but no retort came. She couldn’t fathom anyone fussing like that over her. “Well … she … I don’t know her name.”
“Doria, but just call her Momma. Everyone does.”
Rese glared. “You didn’t say I was meeting your mother. You said we were telling—”
“We are. But I could hardly take you upstairs without introducing you. Frankie saw you, so the neighborhood knows, and Momma will have heard eleven different versions within the hour.”
Rese frowned. It wasn’t so much what he did as how he did it. There was no time to duck.
He pushed open the door and let her into a narrow room with a high plastered ceiling and linoleum floor. As in the rest of the building, the doors and trim were coated in seventy years of white paint, under which she could sense the wood smothering. A navy couch sat in the center with two ecru chairs and glass tables with steel frames. The eclectic art on the walls looked original but hardly museum quality. Lush red and beige rugs saved the apartment from being hard and cold. And of course, in the corner sat a drum set, keyboard, and other musical paraphernalia.
She stopped her gaze at the end of the room. “Kitchenette? Lance Michelli with a kitchenette?”
He shrugged. “I mostly cook downstairs.”
“In your mother’s kitchen?” She was getting a strange picture.
“All the way down. Bella Tabella, Nonna’s restaurant.” He went to the window that looked out over the street. Its twin to the left had an air-conditioner, but it wasn’t turned on.
Lance tugged the window open, letting in the scent of traffic and pavement. “Not much happening down there now, but when the restaurant opens for dinner, people line the walk waiting for their tables. It’s like a family gathering. From up here you get squabbles and boasts and pretty much everything that’s happening to everyone. More than you wanted to know.”
Everyone’s business shared like the flu.
Lance leaned a hip against the frame. “Still mad?”
“I ought to be.” He had obviously not improved in the communication department. With as much as he talked, you’d think he would tell people the important things like
“I’m bringing a guest”
and
“You’ll meet my mother the minute you set foot in my neighborhood.”
“You should have told us.”
He spread his hands expansively. “It’s going to get crazy once word spreads. I thought it would be easier for you if the whole troop wasn’t waiting at the door, pushing and shoving to kiss you first.”
“How bad will it be?”
“About thirty curious people’s worth. I thought you’d rather meet them little by little.”
She had to recognize the logic. The only alternative would have been to give her all the facts, and that, of course, was beyond him.
“In the meantime, you can settle in.” He led her to three doorways at the opposite end of the room; a bedroom that must be for Chaz and Rico, a bath, then another bedroom that might have been his, but was now clearly Star’s. Brilliant hand-sized tropical frog sculptures stretched, perched, and dangled from a dozen spots, and piles of flimsy, colorful clothes adorned the rest.
“Looks like Star’s in here. You can share with her. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
She felt suddenly claustrophobic. She’d spent many nights with Star, growing up, but not in confined spaces such as these, with five of them in the same apartment. It had been only Dad and her for a long time in their house, and even at the inn, the guests were upstairs and her first-floor suite was her own private haven.
He looked toward the hallway. “Unless you’d rather try upstairs with one of my sisters, but they’re pretty maxed out.”
“They live here too? Your whole family?” He might have said that, but she hadn’t imagined them all packed under one roof.
“Monica’s family splits the top floor with Lucy’s. Sofie lives with Nonna across the hall. The two rooms in the back are for Dom and Vinnie. They’re not family, but they lost their rent control, so Pop fixed them up.” He pointed to a bent woman in a black veil sitting in a lawn chair on the sidewalk. “Stella lives across the street, but she likes the shade on our side better. Some people call her Strega Stella, but I’ve never seen her fly, with or without a broom. She just feeds the neighborhood cats.”
Rese stared at him. From the moment they’d stepped out of the taxi, he had taken on mannerisms and speech that matched his surroundings and made her question all over again who he was. No wonder he was so good at fooling people.
“Except for Nonna, who keeps watch on her restaurant and everything else that happens on the street, we put the old ones in the back so they can look out on the courtyard. Come on, I’ll show you.” He took the duffle bag from her shoulder and dumped it in the bedroom, then led her back into the hallway. A child cried upstairs as he took her down the stairs to a back door and turned the two dead bolts to exit.
The courtyard had a tree. Three of them actually, though two were spindly, and none had much in the way of foliage. The yard was a narrow, brick-paved space between the surrounding buildings, and a portion of it had been built up into garden beds similar to those Lance had made in her yard at the inn. She was no expert on growing things, but they looked more like vegetables than flowers. Pigeons bobbed and pecked around a metal bench in one corner near a plastic turtleshaped sandbox.
Overhead a window opened, and a woman called, “Lance! Say hi to Nicky so he’ll stop screaming and let me tie his shoes.”
Lance craned his head back and hollered, “Ay, Nick. What’s with the noise?”
A little face appeared at the fourth-floor window, and even at that distance Rese could see him beam. “I want to play wif you.”
“Then get your shoes on and stop giving your mom a hard time.”
The window below that one opened, and a gray-haired man leaned out with a stump of cigar between his teeth. “Now, there’s the pot calling the kettle black.” Smoke wafted out around his head. “Your mother’s a saint.”
“That’s my job.” Lance smiled. “Getting Momma into heaven.”
Rese glanced away when the old man saw her watching.
“Who’s that?” He gestured with the cigar he pulled from his teeth.
“Rese Barrett. My business partner.”
“Business! Whatsa matter? You don’t got eyes?”
“I got eyes.”
The old man shook his head, jammed the stump back in his teeth, and closed the window. Rese tried not to imagine what the smoke was doing to paint and textiles.
Lance turned. “That was Vinnie, and my sister Monica is on her way down with my nephew. She’ll try to ditch him with me and get you off alone for every detail of our relationship.”
Which would be a feat, since the details were definitely undefined. Rese met his eyes. “You told Vinnie it was business.”
“Want to change that?” He’d assured her he would not be able to respect her professional barriers, but in the two weeks since his reprieve, he’d been acutely appropriate.
“We came to talk to your grandmother.” To settle things with the Wayfaring Inn that used to be his grandmother’s home but now belonged to her. At least on the deed she held. But of course there was also the deed with his grandmother’s name.
“Right.” He smiled with only a hint of disappointment, which she was not taking responsibility for.
The door burst open, and the child tore over to strangle Lance’s legs, his sneakers neatly tied, but his hair a mess of blond curls. He stepped back and punched Lance’s thigh. “I missed you.” Then he grabbed hold again and squeezed.
“If you hit him hard enough, maybe he’ll stick around.” The sister Monica came out, shaking her head.
Lance snatched up the boy and pointed to his own chest. “Give me your best shot.”
Nicky punched him again.
“You’ll never make it to the ring that way. Better go to college.”
He wrestled the boy’s head, then blew an ugly noise on his neck. Laughing hard, the child squirmed and jerked until Lance let him down. Then Lance kissed his sister and said, “How you doin’?”
“I’m losing my breakfast every morning and napping longer than Nicky.”
“When’re you due?”
“Not for seven more months.”
“You want me to take Bobby down, tell him quit messing with my sister?”
She laughed, then turned, and Rese got her first good look. Monica was at least a decade older than Lance, and the features that were striking on him were a little hard on her. But her figure was soft and shapely and would obviously be filling out more in the next seven months.
Lance spread his hand. “This is Rese Barrett. Rese, my sister Monica.”
Rese held out her hand to shake, but Monica leaned in and kissed her cheeks.
Nicky pressed in between them. “Me now.”
Rese thought he wanted his mother’s affection, but when Monica picked him up, he lunged away and planted his kisses on the stranger too.
Monica rolled her eyes at Lance. “He’s like you, kissing every girl that breathes.”
Lance winced. “Thanks.” He turned. “You can’t believe what people say in this neighborhood. It’s all
scherzi
.”
“No joke.” Monica knuckled his arm. “He kept count on his wall.”
“Hey, Nick.” Lance chucked the child’s chin. “I think Momma wants to dig in the sandbox, ay?”
“No, you.” Nicky lunged for Lance and would have tumbled out of his mother’s arms if Lance hadn’t caught him.
“Sure, you little traitor. Gang up on me.” He carried the child off to the sandbox.
Monica watched them for a minute, then said, “Have you set a date?”
Rese turned. “For what?”
“You mean he hasn’t proposed yet?”
Proposed? A scene came to mind so vividly it brought a flush to her cheeks, Lance on the side of the road, hands on his hips, hollering,
“Do you want to marry me?”