Secrets (57 page)

Lance let go of Star’s hands and rested his forearms on his knees. “Listen, Star. I don’t want Rese to know about this. She has enough to deal with right now.”

Star searched his face. “She’ll want to know. You can’t just leave it there.”

Lance held her firmly in his gaze. “She will know. Just not now. Not until I figure it out.”

She looked at Rico. “What’s happening?”

He said, “Lance has it under control.”

Right. He tried to look as confident as Rico made him sound.

“Is this about the painting?”

He frowned. What could her picture…?

But she turned and stared at the portrait instead. “Who is he?”

Lance felt a slow sinking in his belly. “Vittorio Shepard.”

She turned back and fixed him with her gaze. “Who is he to you?”

Her eye was too good. He should have known. Star with all her sighs and Shakespeare had nailed him. He sat back on his heels. “My greatgrandfather.”

“That’s him in the cellar?”

Lance shook his head. “One more generation back. Quillan Shepard.”

“Why won’t you tell Rese?”

“I’m going to tell her everything. I just have to do what I came for first.”

Star gripped her hair. “So you don’t really love her?”

That must be how it seemed, that he would fake a love affair to get what he wanted. “I love her. That’s why I have to do this right.”

Star shook her head. “She will not be happy.”

An understatement for sure. “I’ll make it right.” For everyone. God only knew how.

Star seemed to accept that, or maybe he’d done enough for her that she owed him.

“Just don’t say anything, Star. Give me a few days to learn what I can.” Even if it meant going to Sybil? With things unraveling so badly it might come to that. He couldn’t hope to hold Rese off forever. But she’d been shaky earlier, and he didn’t imagine seeing her mom would improve things. The last thing she needed now was to doubt him.

Lance stood up and met Chaz’s eye. Unspoken was his misgiving. He would have done it all up front. He would have gone to the door and explained everything to Rese from the start. Maybe it should have been that way. But she’d been so hostile. What if she had said no and gave him no chance to help Nonna?

He’d done what he thought was right. But when had it ever worked that way?

Lance was there as she drove in, looking as though nothing mattered more than her and that, even though she had refused his company that morning, he was not deserting her. Rese parked the truck, wondering what she would say. If their roles were reversed, he would tell her everything. He kept nothing back, even the things that hurt. Everyone else in her life had hidden things, but Lance gave her truth. Could she do the same?

Looking into his face as she climbed out, she said, “Her hair is white. She’s only forty-six and her hair is white.” What a stupid way to begin, as though that was what mattered. Rese swallowed hard. “She didn’t know it was me.”

Lance closed the door behind her. “It’s been fifteen years.”

And she had changed. They both had. “Brad knew it all. I asked him.”

Lance frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s like some macabre joke.” If it didn’t hurt so much. Her mother’s words,
“Poison gas. Breathe in, breathe in…”
Pain tore through like the flame from an acetylene torch. And Dad and Brad thinking she’d turn out the same? Would she be sitting like that in twenty years, laughing at death and seeing the president with gas bombs in his teeth?

Lance took her in his arms. “You don’t have to handle it well.”

She snorted. “I’m Vernon Barrett’s daughter. I only do well.”

“Not here in my arms. Here you do whatever you want. You can holler and scream and call me names. You can even pinch and bite and bruise my sides.”

He meant it too. If she totally lost it, he’d be there taking the bruises without a word. But she didn’t want to hurt him. She was tired of hurting people. What had she ever done but mess things up for everyone in her life? Dad could have kept Mom home; Mom wouldn’t have needed to be rid of her. Brad could have had his crew, and the crew the boss they wanted. She had tried to be what everyone wanted, but no one had wanted her—until Lance.

The thought was both bleak and overwhelming, and with it something fractured inside. She took hold of his face and kissed him, nothing held back, no barriers. She sensed his surprise and his response. For once in her life she was wanted. It might not be much, but whatever she had she would give him. He kissed her back until the shock of her mother’s laughter, the dread of her possible future, the ache of loneliness and grief vanished in the need of him.

But he drew back. “Rese…”

“Don’t stop. We can—”

“Don’t.” He pressed her shoulders hard into the truck, a fierce expression contorting his face. A blood vessel pulsed in his neck, and he seemed to fight for words, something Lance Michelli rarely struggled with. And then it hit her—he didn’t want her either. Before she could react, he pulled her abruptly away from the truck and dug for his keys.

She knew what he intended. “No, Lance.” If he didn’t want her, he should say so, not take off on the bike using miles and motion to say it for him. “Forget it.” She tugged free, but he scooped her up and sat her down hard on the bike. She tried to get off, but the engine roared to life. She clutched onto him, hollering, “No!” until they hit the open road and accelerated so fast the wind caught her hair and trapped her breath in her throat. No helmet. No jacket. Only Lance and the road and the rage.

It was a long time before he sensed the anger leaving her. The Petaluma highway wound and dipped and flew beneath his tires, a two-lane road forcing him to concentrate, to take the focus outside himself. What did she think she was doing?

He had expected to comfort her, to drag the words out if he had to. He had even expected anger, an explosion of hurt. He had not expected ardor, but he should have. He was the one who first comforted her with a kiss. She couldn’t help it if this hurt required a passion he could barely restrain.

Lord!
He would keep driving until he hit the coast, lose himself in Muir Woods and the rocky cliffs, take a sailboat into open water, into the heart of the Pacific Ocean and dissolve into the rhythm of the waves. But Rese was with him, and as far as he went, the desire for her would come too.

After Tony’s death, he vowed chastity, poverty, humility, whatever it took to be what Tony would have been. He’d left the band and that lifestyle, thrown himself into serving wherever he found need, and he’d found plenty of it. Nonna’s need had brought him to Sonoma. Now there was Rese.

Don’t think about it
. How could he think of anything else? It wasn’t like Sybil plotting to use him. Rese was artless, responding to what he’d started that night in her kitchen, trying to take away a bad experience. Now she thought he would do it again, only she didn’t know what he knew, that once they went there, there was no going back.

It hurt to think of it. It hurt not to. He wanted her so bad, but not like that. Yes, like that. Any way at all, and how was he going to stop it? Too much access; too much chemistry. Didn’t she realize the restraint he exercised every time he kissed her?

He wasn’t steel; he was flesh and blood, and right now his blood was running hot.
Lord, help me.
There were two ways around this that he could see, and she would have to choose. He ran onto the shoulder of the road, skidded to a stop, and got off.

Rese swung her leg over and erupted from the bike like a wildcat ready to spring. Well, he had some adrenaline of his own. He’d misgauged the dulling of her anger.

“Do you want to marry me?” he shouted.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Her eyes shot fire. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Answer the question.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Her hands shook as she clenched them into fists.

He gripped his hips. “A fine submissive wife you’ll make.”

She grabbed a chunk of pavement and threw it at him.

He ducked. “Yes or no.”

She threw another chunk. “No.”

“Then new rules.”

Her arms stiffened at her sides. “What rules?”

“No kissing.”

She huffed her breath. “Right.”

“I can stand it if you can.”

She glared. “Fine. No hands.”

His brows jerked up. “By that you’d mean neck rubs, hugs, walks handin-hand?” Because he hadn’t touched her in any way he shouldn’t, and not for lack of desire.

She drew herself up. “You’re Mr. Rules.”

He looked at her angry mouth and wished he hadn’t started it. But next time he wouldn’t be able to stop. “Fine. Get on the bike.”

She stood there, arms stiff, glaring as though she could melt him into a pile of lead.

“Yo, Nails. I said get on the bike.”

She flounced back on, planting her hands with such force on his shoulders he would have laughed, but she’d take his head off. His energy was dissipating as what he’d done sank in.
“Do you want to marry me?”
He was seriously thankful she hadn’t said yes, even if there was a twinge of regret. Okay, more than a twinge. It had been a crazy, impulsive urge, but the only way he could think to handle the situation. With Rese it was all or nothing. But she’d been awfully quick to choose nothing.

They stormed off the bike in opposite directions, Rese to the shed, where she would no doubt imagine a piece of wood his head, and Lance into the house, where Rico stood at the foot of the stairs with Star. Neither spoke as he stormed past, but the peripheral glimpse he got suggested symbiosis. Unlike him and Rese. Opposites might attract, but theirs was an energy equaling nuclear reaction.

Chaz was ensconced in the kitchen with a Bible expository the size of a suitcase. His legs were crossed at the ankles and the spicy fragrance of his Good Earth tea rose from the cup. The bag was wadded up on the saucer squeezed by the string, and that was just about how Lance felt. He tossed his keys on the table and barked, “Make yourself at home.”

Chaz looked up from the book. “Did you tell her?”

He opened the pantry and began to assemble ingredients for minestrone. “No.”

“Then why do you look like a palm tree in a hurricane, mon?”

“I asked her to marry me.”

Chaz studied him with a commendable aplomb. Rico would have greeted that announcement with a feigned coronary. Chaz said, “Why?”

Lance expelled his breath. “I don’t know. It made sense at the time.”

“Not much foundation for a lifetime decision.”

“Yeah, well, she said no anyway.”

Chaz nodded. “Therefore the hurricane.”

“Listen.” Lance planted his hands on his hips. “I don’t know what Nonna wants, and I don’t know what Rese wants, but I’m totally sure they both want something.”

“You might try honesty.”

“You think I don’t want to?” Lance spread his hands. “If I tell her now, she’s going to doubt everything else I’ve said and done since I got here.”

Chaz nodded. “A logical assumption, mon.”

“Fine. But the truth is I do love her, and I do care how this turns out.” He swallowed. “I made a promise to Nonna. She’s done so much for me my whole life. Now she’s weak and incapacitated. Do you expect me to just drop it?”