The Home Court Advantage (18 page)

“Yeah, he’s doing really well. He’s getting big. And Stan has a regular gig at The Blue Moon too now, you know. He’s a hit,” I said and my voice caught.

“I love you so much, Gabrielle,” he said and his voice was filled with emotion too.

“I love you too, Braden and I think this might be the answer we’ve been looking for.” I yawned. The swimming and the sun and alcohol, not to mention all the sex we had the night before, had tired us out and we fell asleep like that, content in the knowledge that we would figure it out together.

Sometime later there was a knock on the door that woke us up and I heard a familiar voice call out to tell us that it was almost time for dinner. I sat up and jumped out of bed.

“Hi, Beth! I thought you weren’t coming home until Sunday!” I said throwing the door open to Braden’s beautiful blonde younger sister who gave me a big hug.

“I came home early because I want to spend time with you guys and meet your friends.” Braden got up and came over to hug his sister too. The Pierces were huggers. Bruno yipped and jumped down to greet her and she immediately fawned all over him which, of course, made her very popular, very quickly, with Bruno.

“Have you met them yet?” I asked.

“Well, I already knew Mark and Adam,” she said, smiling up at me from where she was crouched lavishing Bruno with affection, “but I’ve met Jess and Lily too now and I love them.”

We caught up with her for a few minutes and then we all went downstairs to join the others for dinner. Theresa had made some terrific paella and we had a lively meal trading stories and filling Beth in on everything that had been happening. She was intrigued to find out that Lily was an author and it turned out that she too was a fan of spicy romance novels. She begged Lily to tell her what her pen name was and when Lily whispered it in her ear, Beth got all excited.

“Oh wow! You’re kidding, right? I can’t believe you’re sitting right here at my parents’ dining room table.” I saw Adam roll his eyes, but mercifully, he didn’t comment. The tension between them seemed to be escalating. No way was that all based on bad bar Mitzvah memories.

“Thank you but I’m no great novelist,” Lily said and glanced over at Adam like she was expecting him to agree. “Although I would love to become a great mystery or thriller writer someday.”

“Well I like the hot romance novels! I’m learning all kinds of new things!” Beth said with a laugh. She blushed a little which made her look even prettier.

“I don’t want to hear this!” Braden cut in, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“Me neither!” Drew agreed looking equally uncomfortable, which I found kind of ironic considering how comfortable he had been teasing Braden and me about our sex life.

“I do,” Mark said with a flirty smile which earned him deadly looks from both Braden and Drew and a laugh from Adam. Beth glanced up at him and blushed even deeper.

“I have to ask, how do you come up with these ideas? I mean that scene in the last one with the …” Beth went on. Apparently we had
all
read
that
scene.

“Not listening!” Braden cut in urgently.

“Yeah, come on,
Beth
!” Drew said. “It’s one thing to make fun of your brother and his girlfriend for knocking down a wall but hearing your
sister
talk about sex is just wrong.”

“I was just talking about her
books
! It’s not like I was going to give you play by play from my last date,” Beth said, rolling her eyes. “I’ll talk to you later,” she said conspiratorially to Lily. So, this is what it was like to have siblings.

After dinner we headed out to the festival, leaving Bruno at home with Theresa to guard the house. We arrived at about seven and I saw that the whole center of town was shut down for the event. After parking we walked around for a while. The summer air was warm and fragrant with the smells of fried foods and lemonade. There were tents and pavilions set up in various locations where musical groups of many varieties performed. We went from location to location listening to musical styles ranging from Australian Aboriginal to Zydeco with performers playing everything in between, including Bavarian guys in lederhosen playing huge horns, a barbershop quartet and a doo-wop group. As I walked along, though, after a while, I got that now familiar feeling. The back of my neck started to prickle and the hair on my arms stood up. It just felt like somebody was watching me and I casually looked behind us several times.

“What’s the matter?” Braden asked after the third time I did it. I guess I wasn’t that casual.

“Nothing. Just looking around,” I answered with a smile, not wanting to worry him. After all, it was probably just my imagination. Like Mark said, the power of suggestion was very strong and now it was almost like I expected to get that feeling.

We went to see the blues act that he had mentioned and they were quite good but still not like my friend Stan, who was the real deal. While we sat watching the group play the feeling of being watched got stronger. I glanced around again and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Evan, the guy I had met the other night. He was talking to another man whose back was to me, but he seemed to be occasionally glancing over his shoulder in our direction. Still, he wasn’t staring directly at us and it wasn’t odd to see him here since he grew up in this area. I was losing it. I needed to get a grip.

I settled back in to try to enjoy the music but the feeling didn’t go away. I looked off to my left and something else caught my eye, a figure standing off in the distance in a baseball cap whose attention seemed to be focused right on us. I waited a couple of minutes and then checked again. He was still staring in our direction. I wanted to go see who it was who was so interested in what we were doing but I wasn’t about to get up and wander off on my own again.

“Braden,” I whispered in his ear. “Don’t look but there’s someone over to the left in a baseball cap and I think that he’s watching us. I’m not positive but I think it’s the guy I saw before.”

“Are you sure he’s not watching the band?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s us.”

“I’ll ask Adam and Mark to go check it out.” He leaned over to grab Adam’s attention and whispered something to him. Then Adam whispered something to Mark, they got up and walked off to the right. I tried not to look, even though I was very curious. The band finished up the last song a few minutes later and we stood up to get ready to go. There was no sign of Adam and Mark and when I turned toward where the figure had been standing I saw that he was gone too. We decided to walk in that direction to try to find our friends. Not long after, we saw them walking around searching the crowd.

“What’s going on?” Braden asked as we approached them.

“You were right. Somebody was watching you. At least it seemed like it,” Mark answered.

“We didn’t get a good look at his face. He had a hat pulled down pretty low and never looked directly at us,” Adam said. “He was a white guy, though, and he seemed like maybe he was in his twenties or thirties, average height, average weight, average.”

“We came up behind him and asked him what he was looking at and he turned part-way around and mumbled something about ‘the band’ but he was looking at where we were sitting,” Mark added. “He started walking off really fast. We tried to stay with him but we lost him in the crowd.”

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it right now,” Braden said. “I’ll tell the police about it on Monday and I’ll pass along what Felicity said, too, for what it’s worth.” I saw him glance at his watch.

“That reggae band is probably still playing,” Adam spoke up. “I think we should go check it out. Wasn’t there a violinist you wanted to see though, Braden?”

“Yeah, there was. Should we meet up at the theater afterward?”

“Sounds good,” Mark said. Braden took my hand to lead me off in the other direction.

We walked for about five minutes until we reached a small wooden pavilion off to a side. It was strung with lights that were twinkling in the rapidly darkening night. A lone violinist stood at one end playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata while two couples danced to the sweet romantic music. We stood listening until the song ended and then he squeezed my hand and asked me if I would dance the next one with him. We went up the stairs as the other two couples descended. It was getting late and I knew this would likely be the last song.

Braden took me into his arms gently and smiled down at me as the violinist began to play Clair de Lune and we started to dance. Feeling him lead me around the floor to the strains of the beautiful song while lights twinkled around us and the moon shone overhead seemed like a moment that couldn’t possibly be more romantic. I knew that I would remember this dance for the rest of my life. At that moment no anonymous letter writer, conspiracy nut, kinky politician, or naked drunk driver mattered. It was like Braden and that violinist and I were alone in the universe. As the last few notes faded we slowly stopped dancing. I was about to turn to leave when Braden got down on one knee. Oh my God! I would
definitely
remember this dance for the rest of my life! I held my breath as I looked down into his eyes.

“Gabrielle, will you marry me?” he asked softly.

“Yes, I will,” I answered with tears in my eyes. And with that he slid the most beautiful diamond ring I had ever seen on to my finger. It was a square-cut center stone on a band embedded with smaller diamonds that sparkled in the moonlight like the city lights that I loved.

“So Ms. Robbins, you’re saying that Mr. Petrillo is your ex-boyfriend?” Adam asked the buxom redhead on the stand. I was kind of surprised. I thought he would be acting like Mr. Suave with this chick but he actually seemed kind of annoyed with her.

“Yeah, he’s my ex and he’s harassing me.” She shot an angry glance at my client, who flinched and hung his head. I had a feeling that this was a lovers’ spat turned into criminal case, which was probably why Adam seemed so unmotivated to impress Big Red up there.

“What do you mean by that?” Adam asked, sounding like he could care less.