Secrets (27 page)

He turned to leave when Star burst in, arms filled with boxes. What had she done this time? Lance was already moving to lend her a hand. He seemed surprised by the weight of the boxes compared to their size. “What’s in here?”

“You’ll see.” Beaming, Star headed for the stairs. “Come up, Rese.”

Her zone was now obliterated. She may as well see what Star had purchased. Taking the sandwich with her, she followed Lance and Star and the boxes upstairs. They put the load on the bed, and Star immediately opened the first. “Come out, little fella.” She pulled a vibrant orange frog sculpture as large as her palm from the box. “This one’s Tad. He’s the baby.”

It must be made of something heavy, but it looked ready to spring from her hand. Star set it on the dresser, and Rese couldn’t help smiling at the expression on the creature’s face. Lance had opened another box and removed a blackish green frog splayed full length.

Star said, “That’s Leapfrog. They’re the creations of a bronze sculpture artist called the Frogman.”

Rese stared at the outstretched amphibian Lance had freed from its box. “Wonder why.”

Star giggled

“They certainly fit the theme.” Rese would give her that.

“This is Showoff.” Star displayed a green frog in a handstand, then took out the next. “Blue Over the Edge.” Made to dangle from a shelf. Next she lifted a bronze-colored one with gold circles and black feet. “What’s Up.”

Each one was incredible, but as a mob, a little overwhelming. Star didn’t believe in restraint. A rainforest room filled with frogs was just her style. By the time the boxes were emptied, fifteen frogs and one toad perched around the room in every position imaginable.

Star clapped her hands. “Aren’t they wondrous?”

Lance grinned. “They do have personality.”

Star twirled. “I knew you’d love it.” She turned to Rese. “You love them, right?”

Rese nodded and smiled. As long as Star occupied the room it was perfect, but for guests?

“I bought every one in the store.” Star set the frog on a shelf and pointed to the plate Rese had carried into the room. “I want what Rese has.”

Lance nodded. “Okay.” He motioned Star out of the room before him.

Rese stared around the room after they went down, taking in the effect of the frogs. They really were incredible: brilliant, shiny hues in shapes that sprang to life. So Star, so very Star. She lifted Tad and saw the price on the bottom. That quarterly check was gone.

Rese went down, past Lance and Star laughing in the kitchen, back to her work, idly finishing the sandwich. It had seemed like a gift, something special from him to her. But as Star proved, it was simply lunch.

After a while, she heard Lance’s bike revving. She got to the parlor window as he drove away with Star behind him, ruby spirals trailing like ribbons. Stiffly, she went back to work. The tool moved as she directed, freeing slivers of wood and forming the design, but she was wishing she hadn’t shown him how much she liked the meal, hadn’t told him anything about her and Star.

She had given him too much importance, listening and incorporating his ideas. Too much authority even in her own mind. No wonder he acted her equal. She sighed. Why couldn’t it ever be easy?

The shadows were stretching when she heard the Harley return. She didn’t go look. She had finally found peace in the wood. But her chisel stopped as Lance came in alone. “Where’s Star?”

“In town.” He nodded toward the door. “Let’s go for a drive.”

She shook her head. “I told you I don’t—”

“C’mon.”

“Lance, I—”

“Just come out and see.”

Exasperated, she got up and went with him. Then she caught sight of his bike with a shiny black helmet on the seat.

“Star and I went all the way to Santa Rosa for it. Her head size should be close to yours.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“You’d have ridden without one?”

“No…” But she hadn’t intended to ride with one either.

He walked her down to the bike and unstrapped the helmet. She looked from it to the motorcycle. She’d never ridden in anything less rugged than a truck. The bike looked insignificant—Dad had called them road hazards. Lance positioned the helmet on her head, and it fit snugly but not uncomfortably. He pulled a leather jacket from a side pouch, a lady’s version no less.

“Protects you from debris.” He wore his own soft black one.

This was crazy. She put on the jacket, and then Lance was helping her onto the seat. What was she doing?

He climbed on in front and raised her feet to the pegs, bringing her knees against his hips, and said, “Hold on.”

She put her hands on his shoulders as he started the bike with a roar of barely muffled machinery. A whiff of exhaust stung her nostrils as they went down the driveway and onto the street, Baxter barking his disappointment at being left behind. Lance drove sensibly through town out to the Petaluma highway. How far was he planning to take her?

She tapped his shoulder. “Where are we going?” She had to holler over the bike’s engine.

“You’ll see.”

She did not like surprises, but he enjoyed his secrets. Hers, he coaxed out with ease until he knew everything there was to know. Even Mom. Even
Walter
. A seeping dread crept in that Lance could use that knowledge against her. And it was her fault.

They wound through grassy hills dotted with cattle and occasional vineyards, like quilts spread out to dry. It wasn’t the main vineyard road with the gates that invited tourists to view and taste. These fields were mostly natural countryside, and she wished she could enjoy it.

The air smelled of yellow blooms and earth and Lance. A ground squirrel darted toward the edge of the road and back into the grass. The sky blushed with the sinking sun. Vines of a lone vineyard rushed up to meet the fence with dark gnarly trunks in a froth of green, then pale green-gold grass took over again.

Rese felt the road as she never had in the truck. She was vulnerable, even with a helmet. Lance was smooth and sure, but she was completely without control; not a position she accepted well. Peachy clouds stretched through the sky, and shadows sprang long and thin in the westerly light. But the beauty of the evening could not ease her agitation.

When Lance pulled off at the top of a hill, she didn’t know whether to be relieved or more concerned than before. The answer came when he took her helmet, then removed a bottle of wine and a bag of something edible, she guessed, from the bike’s compartment. He meant to share a meal outside the context of the inn.

Striding to the wire fence, he stepped on the bottom and held up the middle.

She looked at the gap. “I don’t think we’re supposed to go in there. It’s private property.” Not that rules or limits meant much to Lance Michelli.

“It’s just to keep the cows in. I doubt they’ll mind us having a picnic.” She ducked through the fence and took in the scatter of amber cows grazing far up a scrubby hill. Cattails and broad leafy reeds marked a moist depression. The grass whispered softly in the breeze.

Lance headed for the single twisted oak a short way inside the fence. “Are you cold?”

She shook her head. She was generating enough body heat to ignite the field.

“Then we should sit on the jackets. I don’t have a blanket.”

They should keep the jackets on and ride back to the house where she had a semblance of control. But he had taken the items from the bag; strawberries, pepper jack with a little cheese knife, a package of sesame flatbread, and plastic goblets for the wine.

She would have forgotten the knife and goblets. And the corkscrew. But he’d covered all the details. She sat down as he opened the wine and filled the goblets. She took the one he handed her, but when he raised his to toast, she said, “Lance.”

He touched her glass with his. “To sharing the journey.”

“This feels like a date, and I told you—”

“Can I say the grace now?”

She looked down at the food. “Yes, fine, and then—”

“Bless us, O Lord…”

His words washed over hers, words to a being no one could see, but who could find an open heart. Her heart felt anything but open. “We need to talk.”

“Over food? Rese, you astound me.” He broke a thin, crispy flatbread and laid a sliver of cheese on it. Handing it to her, he said, “Eat.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“All right, but the flavor escapes in the air.” She took the food, but didn’t eat.

“You’ll like it.” He nudged her hand nearer her mouth.

“I don’t like it. You’re—”

“I meant the cheese.”

“I told you I don’t date my employees.” Her voice sounded tight and hard.

“So it’s not a date. You’re hungry; I’m hungry. Let’s eat.” He bit into his cracker and cheese.

When she didn’t join him, he frowned. “What is it with you? Is everything a contest? Fine, you win.”

“This isn’t about winning. If we don’t maintain a professional distance—”

“What? What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I could fire you.”

“You can’t fire me; I’m on your Web site.” He sprawled out and sipped his wine.

“Did you ask if I wanted to be here with you? No. Do you listen to anything I say? No. Even the thickheaded thugs, as you put it, knew who was in charge.”

“What about Star?”

Rese rested her flatbread on her knee. “What about her?”

“I don’t see you ordering her around.”

“I didn’t hire her.” And Star was unmanageable anyway.

“I thought she was the maid. Oh, and the waitress.”

“It’s not the same.”

He hunched forward. “Of course not. She’s not a man.”

“That has nothing—”

“Oh, come on, Rese. It has everything to do with it. You’re so threatened—”

“I am threatened?” She crushed the flatbread in her fist. “You’re the one playing hot macho lover and backing me into doorjambs and dragging me off on your bike when—”

“Dragging you?” His face darkened dangerously. He tossed the wine from his goblet and hers, corked the bottle, and scooped the rest of the things into the bag. Rese snatched up her jacket as Lance went through the fence without stopping to hold it. She should have known he would take it personally, miss the message in a fit of temper.

She hadn’t expected him to trigger hers. But
threatened
? The day she was threatened by Lance Michelli … She climbed through the fence and met him at the motorcycle, wishing with everything in her they didn’t still have the drive back. But she pulled on her helmet with a stony glare and climbed on behind him.

She held gingerly to his shoulders as the bike roared beneath her, then gripped hard when acceleration tugged her backward. She clung to his leather jacket as he furiously claimed the road, the wind from his speed buffeting them, then gripped his waist hard as they leaned at an angle that felt parallel to the ground. “Stop it, Lance!” But he couldn’t hear her, and he didn’t care. He was one screaming emotion.

It was pure spite and defiance, and she clung, terrified. She would fire him the minute they got back, and the words filled her mind with comforting rage as they covered the miles to the villa, though she wasn’t sure she could stand when he skidded to a stop in the yard. She let go with a jerk, ready to tell him—

Star came flying out the door. “We’re in business!” She waved a paper over her head. “I took our first reservation.”

Rese stared at her. A reservation already? The first day of the Web site?

Lance kicked down the stand, climbed off, and walked away. With Star standing there, gaping, Rese was not going to do any less. She stood up, legs shaking, removed the helmet, and went to see the paper Star waved like a flag.

She was right. He knew it. She had told him the rules, and he’d taken the job anyway. It didn’t matter what she decided to do with Star, or how their relationship worked. Like the workers in the Lord’s parable who came the last hour but got the same pay, Star’s arrangement was none of his business. He’d gone into the job with eyes open, signed on because he wanted access to the property without telling her the whole truth. She had been upfront about her doubts from the start, but he’d pushed through her arguments to get what he wanted.

Lance went into the carriage house and examined the work still to do. In the failing light he couldn’t see well. He needed light fixtures installed. He needed furniture. He … wasn’t even sure he’d be there tomorrow. Rese was spitting mad. He’d heard her hollering, driving back, and ignored it.

He leaned against the wall. He had wanted to be with her, to cheer her up, take her mind off things a little. But she hadn’t agreed to a picnic; she’d barely agreed to a drive. In typical Bronx fashion, he’d bulldozed her. That wasn’t who he was, but Rese made everything difficult, brought out the ugliest parts of him. All he wanted … was to help Nonna? Could he truthfully say that? He’d better, because tonight might be all he had.

He went to the shed for a crowbar and flashlight, but Rese had locked up her tools. He turned back to the carriage house. She might come out any moment and can him, but until then he’d do what he came for if he had to use his bare hands. With the light even dimmer inside his room, he knelt at the edge of the floor just outside the bathroom.
Sorry, Quillan
. With his pocketknife, he pried the first stone loose, then used his fingers to lift it.