Footsteps (34 page)

“No, you will not.” Carlo and Luca both
stood straight and turned to see Uncle Ben and Aunt Angie standing
at the door to the mudroom, which led from the back door. “We came
in to say goodbye. Wait outside, Ang. I’ll be out in just a
minute.”

Aunt Angie nodded, and she, Carlo, and Luca
said a polite goodbye.

“Uncle Ben, this isn’t—” Carlo stopped when
his uncle put up a firm hand.

“It
is
a family matter, obviously.
But I seem to be coming into this story in the second act. Or
perhaps the third. Jenny is here? Or was?”

Luca cleared his throat. “Was.”

The look Uncle Ben sent Luca shut him up. He
directed his next question to Carlo. “She left willingly?”

“On her own power, but no.”

“Luca, pour me a scotch, will you?
Straight.”

“Sure, Uncle.” Luca turned and headed to the
dining room, where the bar was.

Uncle Ben sighed heavily and smoothed his
heavy mustache. “You didn’t let her see him. And from what I hear,
you’re ready to commit murder to prevent it. You’d rather do that
than ask for help from family?”

“Family? Or business?” Still fighting his
rage, Carlo didn’t catch the words before they were out, or the
combative tone in which they were uttered. Uncle Ben’s narrowing
eyes were chilling enough for him to get control of himself.

“You and Luca owe a business debt already,
boy. You put your nose in our business with your brother, and that
puts you in our business.
That
we’ll talk about on Monday.
At the warehouse. Your problem with this vagabond woman, that is
family. I told you once before I would put her back where she
belongs.”

Luca came back with Uncle Ben’s scotch, then
got himself and Carlo another beer each.

Carlo took it with a grateful nod and poured
a long swallow down his throat. “I don’t want her back, Uncle.
She’ll only hurt and confuse Trey. He and I need to move on.”

“With Sabina?”

“Yes. I hope so. Uncle, I’m not asking for
help. Not yet.”

“I’m not offering help yet. I need to know
more before I do. I might have somebody look into a few things—just
information gathering. What I am telling you is that before you
resort to murder, I would hope that you would come talk to us. We
have other options. And, if it comes to it, we’re better prepared
for…every eventuality. Family, not business. I love you and your
boy. Sabina is a delight. A good Catholic girl, too. Now putting
Jenny where she belongs means getting her away. When she signed
those papers, she was done in this family. You
should
move
on.”

Carlo nodded, feeling guarded and relieved
in equal measure. “Thank you.”

Uncle Ben nodded. “You both—in my office
Monday morning. Ten sharp—that should give you time to check in at
your job sites first, Luca. Then we talk business.” He finished his
scotch. “Your father has excellent taste. I’d better get to your
aunt, or I’ll be hearing for the rest of the night about how I made
her sit in the car. Good night, boys.”

When they were alone in the kitchen, Luca
leaned against the counter. “We just got called to the
woodshed.”

“Yep. There’s a chipper in that shed. I am
going to go unwire Joey’s jaw so I can break it again. Fucking
ass.”

“Easy. What did we do wrong? Helped our
brother, made sure the Uncles got paid. How bad could our trouble
be?”

“He says we owe a debt.”

Luca dropped his head. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” But that was a worry for Monday.
Now, Carlo just wanted to get his arms around his kid. He finished
his beer and went back to the party.

~oOo~

That night, Trey slept in his shark pajamas
and his shark socks, inside his shark sleeping bag, hugging his
giant stuffed shark while an undersea fantasy undulated in light on
his walls and ceiling. He was a happy, exhausted four-year-old with
a life as full as it should be.

He’d fallen asleep halfway through his first
story. Carlo kissed his forehead and gave Elsa’s head a pat. Before
he pulled the door to, he stood in the doorway and just watched as
the waves of light from the new projector rolled over Trey’s
sleeping form.

Things were coming back together. Trey was
happy here. Carlo had signed him up for part-time preschool. His
design had made the second round for the Connelly job, and that had
backed Peter off from his snit-induced intent to kill their
company. They’d had a decent—or, at least, not hostile—conversation
when Carlo called him with the news. And Ken Jeremy had gotten the
office work done in four days.

And Bina. He’d had a moment of insanity this
evening, proposing to her out of the blue, but she hadn’t been
overly freaked out. He’d just been so overwhelmed by the simple,
astonishing
beauty
of her choice to learn a skill just to
make Trey a gift. Maybe it was silly, but it had moved Carlo in
ways beyond description. That and her silly cake—she was trying,
without seeming to know she was trying, to learn to be his son’s
mother.

She didn’t seem to see it, but Carlo
certainly did. He loved her all the more for trying, and for not
knowing she was.

If Jenny fucked with any of it, he would
tear her into pieces and throw the chum into the ocean to attract
Trey’s beloved sharks.

When he went downstairs, Rosa and Carmen
were cleaning the kitchen. His father was taking out the trash.
Carlo was surprised not to see Bina—she was usually in the midst of
the work that there was to be done. “Where’s Bina?”

He felt a low-grade jolt of worry that she
had left. She had her car here, so she could have gone. Why she
would have, though, he didn’t know. In their brief, whispered
discussion about his confrontation in the living room, she had
seemed more concerned for him than anxious about Jenny.

Rosa turned from the cabinet where she was
putting glassware away. “She was out back, last I saw, collecting
wrapping paper and stuff.”

He found her sweeping the flagstones, her
little skirt swaying with her hips, and he walked up behind her.
“Hey, Cinderella. Got a date for the ball?”

Holding the broom in one hand, she turned in
his arms and blinked coyly at him. “I was hoping the handsome
prince would ask me.”

“He did, baby. You told him to wait.” Damn.
His fucking mouth. Her sweet smile faltered a little, but she
recovered quickly. She dropped the play, however.

“Is Trey asleep?”

“He is. All sharked out. He’s going to boil
in all that gear tonight, but he was blissed.” A breeze kicked up,
and in it Carlo smelled the rain that had threatened since the
morning. “Think it might finally let loose.”

“Yes. I felt a drop or two already. I should
go.”

“Bina, stay tonight. Just tonight. After
everything, I want to be with you tonight.”

“Does Trey know?”

“No. But you’re
his
, too. Remember?
He’ll be okay if you’re here in the morning. He’ll be happy.”

The rain started, dropping gentle beads on
the canvas tenting over the patio.

“And if I’m not here every morning? Carlo,
you tempt me. Do you know how much I want to say yes? To
everything? Every day you offer me this life that I love. But I’m
not ready. I want to be strong enough. You say you’ll give me time
for this, to be strong, but—”

He kissed her quiet. The events of the
evening had focused some things in Carlo’s head, things he needed
to say. When he pulled back, he took her hands in his. “Come sit
with me. We need to talk.” He led her to the settee and sat with
her. “Bina, why do you say you’re not strong enough?”

She looked down at their twined hands for a
long time. Without looking up, she finally said, “Not so long ago,
I didn’t understand even how to make a phone contract. I’m only
learning how to live.”

“I don’t think that’s true. Stuff like
apartments and phones—that’s minutia. I think you know better than
most how to live. I think living the life you lived and coming
through it and being who you are shows that your strength is
practically superhuman. Bina—you still trust. You’re still quick to
love. You’re kind, and you’re not suspicious or cynical—all things
you have every fucking right to be. Do you understand how
miraculous that is?” He wanted her to understand. He willed it at
her.

But she shook her head. “I let him do those
things to me. For years, I let him do those things—to hurt me, to
control me, to take my body from me. To take motherhood from me. I
thought I was strong to live it, but I feel now so much that I
missed. So much of myself had to die to live that way. I don’t want
to join with you before I recover what I lost. I’m sorry, Carlo. I
need that. You say I am yours, and Trey’s, and my heart…my heart
swells at that. It’s so much of what I want. But I want to be
mine
, too. Do you see?”

He saw. He wanted her to see what
he
saw—the strength she showed even now, in pushing him back. Seeing
Jenny must have put what he’d had in this short time with Bina in a
new perspective, a stark contrast, because he felt a frenzy
building up. He was impatient. She was right—it was all too fast.
But he didn’t fucking care. He wanted his family intact. He wanted
her in it. And he wanted her to fucking see how right they were,
and that he would not get in the way of her having herself, being
who she wanted to be. He wanted to shake her and make her see.

He dropped his head and took a deep, shaky
breath. He was a man on the edge tonight. “Just for tonight. I need
you. I need to feel you with me. We can talk to Trey in the morning
about how sometimes you’ll sleep over and sometimes you won’t.
He’ll roll with it. Already you’re here sometimes and sometimes
you’re not. I can’t sleep alone tonight, and I can’t be gone when
Trey wakes up, because I was here when he went to sleep. I need you
here with me.” He looked up. “I’m asking you to save me, Bina.
Tonight, I need you to save me.”

That was the right thing to say; he saw it
in her eyes, and, when she brought a hand to his cheek, he felt it
in her touch. “Trey’s mother—”

“She’s not his mother.”

She nodded. “Jenny. She said something to
worry you. Yes?”

With his cheek resting in her soft palm, he
nodded. “Yes.”

“She wants to be his mother again.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s not, and she won’t
be.”

“But still you’re worried.”

“I’m…guarded. Paying attention. Bina, you
understand? She’s a problem to deal with, but she’s not a
threat.”

“You will go to Uncle Ben.”

“If I have to, yes.”

She was quiet, and he could sense her
thinking about that—what he meant. “Our lives are very
complex.”

“Yes. And complicated. Will you come to bed?
I want to be simple with you. Just you and me, and all the rest of
it just gone for a while.”

“Simple—it means also ‘stupid,’ yes?” She
was smiling, though, and he knew she wasn’t leaving him. Not
tonight, and not later.

“Yep. Let’s just be stupid. I want to be
simple and stupid.” He lifted her onto his lap, and she settled in,
draping her arms around his neck and resting her head on his
shoulder.

“I would like to be stupid tonight.”

~oOo~

The house was quiet when they went in, so
Bina went up ahead of him while he stayed down to turn out the
lights and lock up. They’d had a quick strategic meeting about
which bedroom to take—his or the guestroom—because all the other
bedrooms were on the second floor, and Bina got a little loud.
Which he loved wholeheartedly. But he wasn’t sure his father
would.

Not that he hadn’t had sex in his bedroom
before. There were ways to keep the sound down.

The bigger concern was Trey. In the end,
Carlo decided he’d rather risk Trey coming in in the morning and
seeing them in bed together than risk him coming in and finding his
room empty. One would provoke curiosity, the other panic. Not
really a hard choice.

When he got up to his room, she was already
in his bed, naked and sitting with the covers pooled around her
waist, her beautiful, full, dark-tipped breasts bare and waiting.
As he watched, with her eyes steady on him, she curled her hands
around those perfect mounds and grazed her thumbs over her nipples.
Her eyelids fluttered and closed.

“Jesus God, baby.” His voice cracked roughly
and he stripped to his skin as quickly as he could. The sheets were
cool, but her body was hot, and he wrapped her up and moved to roll
her under him. He wanted to taste her.

But she locked her arms and pushed him back.
“No. I think tonight you lie back.” He let the pressure of her
hands on his shoulders push him until he was on his back. Then she
straddled him, and he lifted his hands to take her breasts. She let
him, arching back as he fondled and teased, and then she took his
hands in hers and laced their fingers together. She leaned forward
until his hands, still caught with hers, were on the bed at his
shoulders, and she was hovering over him, her breasts grazing his
chest.