Secrets (16 page)

The talk this time centered around Sybil and her work as a free-lance columnist. She sipped the Chateau St. Jean Fume Blanc, a local wine she had ordered by vintage. “I’ve always known exactly what to say and how to say it.”

Or as Rese might put it,
I know exactly what to do and how to do it
. Were all the women in the area alpha females? He studied Sybil, the hair falling to her shoulders like the straight drop of a waterfall, fine and soft—he knew just by looking. When she stood to visit the ladies’ room, the space between her shirt and skirt was enough to show her navel ornament. She might be good with words, but she excelled in the subliminal. He curbed his reaction with an effort.

She had taken him by surprise, showing up at the villa, but her manner had been friendly and professional. Now she was slipping back into her previous mode. Or was she simply sensuous by nature? Unlike Rese who …
Rese
. Was she okay? Concern stirred.

Lance seriously doubted she’d lost her balance, but he had no idea what caused the agony he’d seen in her face. Something was wrong, but maybe Star was with her. He frowned. Not much relief in that thought.

Then Sybil was back, gliding into her chair like moonlight on a river. Oh, she had the moves. But what really interested him was her knowledge of the area. What part might she play in his search? Or was she a distraction he didn’t need? She picked up the discussion where she’d left it, the challenge of writing for a small paper with a long and continuous history in a community that rightly, in her opinion, resisted growth and development in disdain for its greedy twin, Napa. Her opinions were crisply stated, well thought out, and obviously intelligent, if one-sided. She cared about her community.

“So you’ve lived here your whole life?”

“I got my degrees at Stanford.”

“Then home to Sonoma.”

Her hair draped her shoulder. “I’m spoiled. My family’s been in banking here for four generations. I couldn’t really imagine living anywhere else.”

“Your family’s got roots.”

“My great-grandfather Arthur Jackson opened the bank in 1921 and had his finger in most every pot in town. We’re in a lot of local history.”

A thrill of possibility warmed his neck. Or was it the hand of God directing his quest? “Do you write about it?”

She rolled her eyes. “I focus on current issues, what matters to people now. Especially politically and civically. Like the moratorium on growth. I don’t know how Rese got her lodging petition through the council, except that men like my father are more interested in revenues than protecting the climate of this city.”

“Rese can be pretty convincing. And since she’s reclaiming an existing property, I suppose that would benefit all except her direct competition.”

Sybil slid her finger down the goblet stem. “Her direct competition are people like the Sebastiani-Cuneos at the Stone Cottage.”

“Prominent families.”

“People who protect what we have here from strangers butting in.”

“Do you fall into that camp?”

Sybil brushed her hair back with one hand. “I want Sonoma to stay the way it is and not sell out to big money like Napa.”

“Rese is hardly big money.” Though how she’d swung a piece of Sonoma real estate he didn’t know.

“A crack in the dam.”

Lance quirked his mouth. “Sounds a little snobbish, but I suppose that’s understandable given your family’s status.”

“I only told you since you seemed interested in history.”

“I am.” At least since Nonna had sent him to Conchessa, and through her to this opposite end of the country. Surprisingly, Sonoma reflected their Italian roots much better than the furor of the Bronx. He had always thought Nonna out of step with the fast-paced, straight-talking New York scene. But this wine country was her birthplace.

“Banking here through Prohibition and the Depression must have been a challenge.”

She shrugged. “Not every banker jumped out the window.”

“So your great-grandfather came through it okay.”

She arched an eyebrow. “He diversified.”

“Rum running?” He’d read how prominent wineries had marketed grape concentrate and yeast with the caution that adding water might result in fermentation—as legal a product as their sacramental wines, but not exactly in the spirit of Prohibition.

With a wry smile, she rested her elbow on the table and bent the wrist like a gooseneck. “My fine upstanding family? Really. Don’t you know my father’s up for mayor?”

“No, I didn’t.” How would he?

“Not that it matters to me. I stand on my own feet.” She rubbed her calf against his shin. “How about you?”

“I haven’t stood on anyone else’s lately.”

She laughed. “I mean
Michelli
. Any Mafia skeletons?”

“You mean the guy in cement shoes in my closet?”

She laughed again. “You didn’t show me your closet.”

He took the check from the waitress and gave her his credit card. No, he hadn’t shown Sybil his closet—had not, in fact, shown her his room, particularly because he hadn’t made the bed or picked up his clothes. “If you do a story on the inn, how would you research its past?”

She shrugged. “Property titles, tax records, anything that might have been published somewhere about the owners.”

He’d already done that.

She drained her wine. “It isn’t the greatest property. There used to be a better villa near it that was torn down.”

“Why?”

“Age, quake damage.” She shrugged. “I don’t know.” And clearly didn’t care.

“This one is well built. It’s stood the test of time.”

She dabbed her mouth with the napkin. “That doesn’t make for a thrilling article.”

He signed the charge slip and tucked his copy into his shirt pocket. “What about the fact that Rese is renovating it herself? Women’s interest and all that?”

Sybil fixed her gray-blue eyes on him. “I was sort of joking when I told her I might do a piece. This area has enough people who all think their inns are original and fascinating.” She flicked her hair back over her shoulder. “Now if there was a scandal there or something criminal, she might get some free advertising that way.”

A protective surge gripped him. “She wasn’t asking. You brought it up.”

“I just wanted you to show me around.” She stood up. “Ready?”

He took the keys from his pocket, wishing he’d made her take her own car. The way she pressed into him on the Harley as he drove back left nothing to the imagination. He came to a stop beside her car and cut the engine.

She straightened a little, but didn’t let go of his waist. Instead she rested her chin on his shoulder and spoke into his ear. “You could show me your room.”

“Too many skeletons in the closet.” He slid out of her grasp and got off the bike.

She climbed off slowly, letting the skirt slide up her thigh.

Lance looked away. The lights were on in the front parlor. He could see Rese at work, still up on the scaffolding, no sign of dizziness. He’d seen her on the roof, the ladders. She was like a cat. She didn’t lose her balance.

Sybil slid a hand across his waist and gripped his shirt. “If you show me your room, I’ll show you mine.”

He looked back at her. “Sybil, I’m not looking for a relationship.” Relationships got him in trouble. Big time.

“In the morning I’ll pretend I don’t know you.” She caught her thumbs in the waist of his jeans.

The physical attraction was tempered by a vague repulsion. He stepped back, breaking her hold. “I’d have to confess it.”

She crossed her arms, pressing her chest up and out. “What does it take to absolve you?”

He gave her a smile. “Divine decree?”

She cocked her head and eyed him. “This
is
a challenge. A saint who’s sexy as sin.”

“I’m not saying that. I just don’t want complications.”

“Well then…” She took her keys from her purse and turned to her car. “I’ll see you around.”

He nodded, but hoped it would not be too often. Intelligent and beautiful as she was, predatory women did not attract him. Not even one from the ruling class of Sonoma, California. Releasing a long slow breath, he went into the house.

Baxter scrambled up and slid on the wood floor to meet him. Lance had wondered why the dog didn’t come bounding the moment he heard his bike on the drive. “Hey you, con dog. Got her to let you in?” He glanced up.

Rese leaned on the railing. “He was upset you left without him.”

“Thanks for easing his distress.” He eyed the wall of shelves she was building. She was meticulous—no slapping it together for Rese Barrett. And no simple utility. The shelf was a lovely piece of work; nicely grained wood, trim pieces decoratively routed.

“He’s good company.” She climbed down to her worktable.

“Hear that, Baxter?” He squatted down and rubbed the dog’s head. “The lady likes you.”

She measured a piece of trim. “Dogs are easier than people.”

Interesting thought. He stood up. “Let’s take him for a walk.” Where did that come from?

She pulled her safety goggles over her eyes. “I want to finish.”

Fine. He’d go upstairs and ponder his close call. But when she finished routing the piece, he was still there, watching. Her hands were sure and strong and reminded him of the street artists in Italy. She remounted the scaffolding with ease, not even looking where she stepped. She might have gotten dizzy earlier, but he doubted it. Something had upset her.

Rese checked the fit of the piece, then, satisfied, climbed back down. He met her at the bottom, took the goggles from her head and tossed them lightly to her worktable. “Baxter needs a walk.”

She looked down at the dog.

“Tell her, Baxter.” The dog barked.

She laughed, then shot him a scornful look. “It’s just a trick.”

Undaunted, he nodded toward the door, and she capitulated. Outside, Baxter frisked like a pup, but Rese grew stiff and silent as they started down the lane, her hands shifting around until they hung like wooden posts at her sides. Her unease amused him, in light of her usual bullheaded confidence.

It was a little like seeing a bouncer sweat, or a lifeguard snubbed.

He eyed her. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” She rubbed the back of her neck, let the hand drop. Lance caught it in his, more to constrain it than anything else. She pulled away. “I’m not blind.”

“Just as stiff and salty as Lot’s wife.” He grinned.

“Because I’m not mashing myself against you?”

Whoa. No soft-pedaling there. An instant recollection of Sybil on his bike. Was that what had Rese so uptight?

“Your shelf is coming nicely.”

She looked over her shoulder to the villa. “I should be working on it.”

“Need a break sometime.”

“Why?” She looked at him. “If you’re doing what you’re meant to, why should you stop?”

Good point. If you knew what you were meant to do. But he wasn’t going there with her. “Too much of a good thing?”

She proceeded in silence. He would obviously carry the load of this conversation—if they had one. “So why renovation?”

“My dad.” Her arms tightened around her.

A chilly breeze caught them, and she shivered. With anyone else he would slip off his jacket and put it over her shoulders. With Rese, he might get his head taken off. “He taught you well.”

She brushed aside the branches of a mimosa leaning into the sidewalk. “He was an incredible craftsman.”

Lance caught the past tense and the stitch it gave her voice. “I can see that by your work.”

“We did some very famous homes, a lot of jobs on Nob Hill. His love was taking something really old and making it new without changing the heart of it.”

“As you’re doing with the inn.”

Rese nodded. “He was trained by his father and he trained me.”

“No brothers?”

She shot him a glare. “Are you saying if there were boys, he wouldn’t have trained me?”

“Something like that.” Let her think him sexist; he’d faced his pop’s and brother’s ribbing, spending so many hours with Nonna in the kitchen. He knew how it worked.

She shook her head. “No brothers. My mother died when I was nine.”

At least that grief wasn’t raw, like the other. “Who took care of you?”

“My dad. I spent all my free hours on his work sites. I learned more by watching and questioning there than everything they taught in school.”

“Not a great student, huh?”

She stopped. “What makes you think that?”

He whistled Baxter out of someone’s yard. “Well, if sawing and hammering were your best subjects…”

“You forget the mathematics and engineering and physics and symmetry and calculating and designing that go into construction.”

“True.” He picked up a stick and tossed it for the dog. “You don’t read, though.”

“How would you know?”

He grinned. “Only a nonreader would put something the length of
Moby Dick
in a weekend room. You can’t know the angst of leaving a story midstream.”

She took the stick Baxter brought to her, instead of him, and tossed it. “It matched the theme.”

“And the parlor bookshelf?”

“I’ll fill it for people who like to read.”

Lance ducked under the branches of a bottlebrush tree and studied the yard planted with lilies and snowball bushes. “We ought to clean up the garden.”

She nodded. “I was going to ask you to. I don’t do well with plants.”

“Really?” He picked a windblown umbrella seed out of her hair. “You’re sprouting.”

She half smiled.

“Hey, that’s better.”

“What?”

“You almost look like you’re enjoying this.”

She tucked her hands into her pockets. “I like to walk.”

“Some girls might add ‘with you’.”

Rese slanted him a glance. “You mean Sybil?”

“Oh, man.” He must have looked funny because she laughed, that great laugh that rarely happened. He was tempted to tell her he had hoped Sybil would help him dig into the past, but that might reveal too much. Then again … “How much do you know about the inn?”

She shrugged. “It’s structurally sound, much better constructed than any house along this street. Whoever built it made it to last, earthquakes and all.”