Always Be True (25 page)

Natalie wanted to stomp her foot in frustration. Her favorite relative was being a royal pain and refused to explain himself. “Look, you asked me to stop by for no particular reason knowing full well I have work to do, and now you won't let me leave. Why?”

“Because I said so.” Cyrus glared at her one last time before wheeling his chair around to disappear back into his library.

“But, Granddad—”

She started after him, when the doorbell cut her off mid-protest. Rather than follow him, she called out, “I'll get it, Esther.”

Her grandfather was back. “Well, it's about time.”

Who was stopping by that had her grandfather fuming like that? Only one way to find out. She opened the door and then wished she hadn't. What was Tino doing standing on her grandfather's front porch? She hadn't seen him or heard from him in over a week. Yeah, he'd told her he had some things to take care of, but he could've kept in touch by email or sent her a text message. Heck, even a tweet would've been better than total silence. Surely, she deserved that much.

And yet he'd clearly been in communication with her grandfather.

Her mood took another turn toward the dark side. She picked up her purse and jacket. “Well, Granddad, look who's here. I hope you and your chess partner have a long and happy life together.”

Tino muttered something unintelligible, most likely a string of curse words he hadn't really meant her to hear. Her grandfather joined in. “Dammit, Natalie, don't go off half-cocked. We can explain, or at least he can.”

She rounded on her grandfather, ready to really rip into him, when Tino planted himself right in front of her. “Don't be mad at Cyrus. This is all on me.”

Right now, she was in no mood to play favorites and gave each of them a dirty look. “You're obviously here to see him and not me. Fine. Pretend I was already gone before you got here.”

Because if she stayed another minute, she would either start crying or throwing things. Maybe both.

“I don't blame you for being angry, Natalie, but let me explain.” Tino crooked his finger under her chin and lifted her face so that she had no choice but to look at him when he added, “Please.”

She'd always been a sucker for his dark eyes. That didn't mean she had to surrender completely to his whims. “Fine, you get five minutes. After that, or if I don't like what you have to say, I'm out of here.”

Her grandfather rejoined the conversation. “Why don't the two of you go into my library to have your talk.”

Natalie kept her eyes pinned on Tino, but she didn't hesitate to let her grandfather know she wasn't any happier with him. “So you can sit outside the door and eavesdrop?”

When he didn't immediately respond, she glanced in his direction. His guilty expression said it all. Esther joined the conversation. “I'll take him back to the kitchen with me and ride herd on him as long as necessary.”

At least one person was on her side. “Thank you, Esther.”

The old man clearly didn't appreciate having his plans thwarted, but at least he surrendered to the inevitable. “Fine, I'll go. Tino, that package you were waiting for is on my desk in the fancy bag.”

Then, with one last defiant look at her, Cyrus wheeled his chair around and took off toward the back of the house with Esther following right behind.

When they were out of sight, Tino stepped back and swept his arm in the direction of the library door. “Shall we?”

Now that the two of them were alone, her anger was replaced by something more akin to stage fright. She didn't know what part she'd been assigned in this play, and she clearly didn't know her lines or how she was supposed to act. Once they entered the library, Tino closed the door. “This might take awhile, so I think you'd be more comfortable sitting down.”

Tino waited until she was situated on the leather sofa before continuing. Rather than look in her direction, he stood in front of the fireplace and stared into the flames. What was he seeing there? Whatever it was, it clearly wasn't making him happy.

Finally, he spoke. “I've owed you an explanation for a while now. But before I could do that, I needed to find answers to some pretty hard questions I've been asking myself.”

After checking his watch, he glanced back over his shoulder in her direction. “No matter how this plays out tonight, I appreciate that you're willing to listen at all.”

The five minutes she'd promised him were ticking away far too quickly. Maybe she'd been too rash. “Don't worry about the time limit, Tino. That was my temper talking. I'm here for the duration.”

“Thank you for that, Nat. I appreciate it.”

He drew a deep breath and started talking. “As you've probably guessed, Marlene Lukash and her late husband weren't my birth parents. My real folks were killed in a car wreck when I was a kid. After that, I got passed around to various relatives until the last one finally turned me over to the state.”

She gasped and then immediately regretted it when Tino quit talking. “I didn't mean to interrupt. I know this can't be easy for you.”

Tino shrugged. “It is what it is. As things turned out, getting thrown into the foster system at that point was the best thing that could have happened to me. My relatives didn't want me, but Joe and Marlene did. They'd already found Jack, and it wasn't too long afterward that Mikhail moved in with us.

“You've met Jack and know we don't look a thing alike. Mikhail has blond hair, blue eyes, and looks like some damn Viking who just parked a dragon-ship out in the Sound.” Tino's expression turned fierce. “We don't share the same DNA, but we're still brothers down to the bone. There's nothing I wouldn't do for them, and that road goes both ways.”

She believed him. In fact, she was a little jealous. As an only child, she'd always wanted a brother or sister of her own. “It was easy to tell that you and Jack are close.”

“Yeah, we are. He's four months older than me. Mikhail is six months younger than me and the baby of the family.”

Natalie tried to picture having three sons all so close in age. “Your poor mother! I bet the three of you were a handful.”

Tino didn't bother denying it. “Yeah, I'm guessing we each gave her a few gray hairs along the way, but Marlene was up to the job. Besides, Joe made damn sure we showed her the respect she deserved.”

“He sounds like an amazing man.”

She figured he had to be. After all, look how his sons had turned out. The one she was most interested in had drifted back to staring at the fire. “We all went into the military because of him. He said the army had been the making of him, and we all wanted to be the same kind of man he was.”

After a slight hesitation, he added, “But that wasn't enough for me. I actually wanted to
be
him.”

“And that was a problem?”

“Yeah, because if I couldn't be Joe, I didn't know who I really was.”

With that blunt statement, Tino paced the length of the room before returning to the same spot by the fireplace. After a few seconds, he started talking again. “When my parents were alive, I knew who and what I was—the absolute center of their universe. After they died, I lost my identity. My relatives didn't want me at all, but they did want the small trust fund my parents left for me. I have no idea how they got full access to it, but they burned through the money pretty damn quickly.”

His smile was bitter. “I tried so damn hard to fit in, to make them accept me as just another one of their family. I acted like their kids, talked like them, even deliberately failed in class just like them. In the end, all that gained me was a bad school record and an even worse attitude. How pathetic was that?”

This strong man looked so darned lost and alone that she could no longer sit still. She joined Tino in front of the fireplace and leaned against him, offering what comfort she could. “But all that changed when you moved in with Joe and Marlene.”

“Yeah, it did. Joe gave me what came to be known as The Talk, outlining their expectations of me and what I would get in return.” His arm slid around her shoulders as he pulled her in closer. “I've never once regretted accepting the deal he offered me.”

He laughed just a little. “In fact, Jack offered those exact terms to the teenager he and his wife adopted. Since we were already in our teens by the time Joe and Marlene formally adopted the three of us, they thought we should keep our original last names. However, Jack didn't give Ricky that choice. His mother and stepfather didn't want the kid, so we made him ours instead.”

Her heart hurt for Ricky, but also for the man standing next to her. “I'll never understand some people.”

“Me, either. Which brings me to why I've been missing in action. As my mother has kept reminding me, it's past time for me to decide what I want the rest of my life to look like. I've been working on figuring that out.”

The flickering light from the fire revealed the lines of exhaustion that bracketed his stern mouth. She would support his decision whatever it was, but she was almost afraid to hear what he had to say if it had been such a hard one for him. “And have you?”

“Yeah, I have.”

“Okay, Gianelli, lay it all out for me.” She aimed for bright and cheery but wasn't at all sure she'd succeeded.

“See, the problem was I've always made a habit of trying to fit the image of whatever it was I thought people expected me to be. For my folks, I was the perfect son. For my relatives, I was a pain in the ass, just like their kids. For Marlene and Joe, I cast myself in the role of being just like Joe.” He stopped for a second. “In my defense, we all three did that to some degree. We all went into the military to honor the man who had given each of us a second chance.”

“I'm sure Joe was just as proud of his three sons as they were of him.”

“I really hope so. But now I've left the military behind, and there's no one telling me who I should be next. Hell, I even considered turning myself into another Benton. You know, so I could fit into your world. As it turned out, I couldn't stand the thought of being such a selfish prick even if I totally rocked that tuxedo.”

Maybe she shouldn't have laughed, but she did. “You're right about the tux, but I shudder at the thought of there being two of him in this world. So if you're not going to be Benton the Second, what did you decide to try next?”

Natalie held her breath as she waited for him to answer. If he had reenlisted, she would support his decision even if she couldn't stand the thought of him leaving Seattle to serve in some dangerous place on the other side of the world.

“I enrolled in college this past week. I had to take a bunch of tests and get the transcripts from the online classes I've taken over the years to figure out where I'll be starting out.”

“That's great!” Especially because it meant he'd be remaining in the area. “What are you going to major in?”

“A few things happened to point me in the right direction. The first one was coaching the team with Jay. The second was working with those kids to fix up the basketball court, and the last was when those three idiots attacked you in the parking lot at the center. Two of them are being treated as adults, but the third one is a juvenile. I want to help kids like him get a fresh start on life, and maybe help others keep from getting into trouble in the first place.”

All of that came out in a rush, as if he wasn't sure how she'd react. “That's perfect, Tino. It's clear that you have a way with kids. And because of your own background, you also have a far better understanding of what at-risk kids are going through.”

He definitely looked relieved. “I'm glad you feel that way, but there are some downsides to this plan.”

“Which are?”

“Depending on how soon I can get into the right classes, it could be as long as three years before I get my degree. While I'm in school, I can only work part-time, most likely for Jack in the family business. Even when I graduate, I'll never get rich.”

What could she say to that? Knowing Tino, honesty was the only way to go. “My grandfather taught me that some things are more important than having money, Tino. He would give up every dime he has to have even one more day with my grandmother. I'm sure your mother feels that same way about Joe. Doing what you can to offer other kids like you and your brothers a better life is a far better legacy to leave the world than a pile of cash.”

He stared down at her. “I hope you mean that, Natalie.”

“Of course I do. Why do you think I work so hard to stretch every dollar my grandfather's foundation spends to help as many people as possible?”

“What about your parents? Didn't they want a different life for you?”

Yeah, they had. She was struck by a sudden truth. “Maybe you're not the only one who tried to take on a role that didn't really fit. I think that's what happened when I accepted Benton's proposal. Marriage to him would've been just the first step in becoming someone I never want to be. Looking back, I realize that for a short time I lost sight of the real me.”

Tino clearly wasn't convinced. “But you seemed at home that night at the country club. Those people are your peers.”

“The truth is that I'd rather hang out with Clarence and Rosalie at the community center. Even if my folks might have chosen a different path for me, I know they just want me to be happy.”

In a sudden move, Tino lifted her up in his arms. It wasn't the first time, but she suspected she would never get tired of him sweeping her off her feet. He deposited her on the sofa. “Stay there.”

When he seemed satisfied that she'd obey his abrupt command, he walked over to the desk and picked up a small bag. He carried it as if it was fragile or maybe precious to him. Rather than joining her on the couch, he planted his feet right in front of her.