Then There Was You Page 3

  “You firefighters can’t wait to rush to a great fire, can you?” Colton said.

  Rafe laughed. “At least no one’s shooting at me. Or making me chase them under barbed wire fences. Your arm OK?”

  Sara helped Nonna put the rolls in the oven, then watched Nonna disappear into the dining room to fetch a platter. She sneaked a glance at Colton, whose response to Rafe was a shrug and a smile. Today, as in the ER, he seemed to take pains to downplay the danger of his job. She wasn’t sure if he was just cavalier or if maybe time had humbled him a little. Probably the former. He always had been Mr. No Big Deal.

  He sat there talking shop with her brother, looking the picture of masculinity in his navy-blue uniform, his hands grasping his coffee mug. Sara couldn’t help but notice the sinewy muscle that ran the length of his tanned arms, and the elegant, long fingers curled casually around his cup.

  “I heard you were in the ER,” Rafe said. “Hopefully your doctor did a nice job fixing you up.” Rafe gave Sara a wink.

  “Yeah,” Colton said, “my doctor did a nice job but also gave me a nice pain in the ass. But I guess that’s OK, because she also complimented me on it.”

  Sara dropped the mixing bowl she was carrying into the sink. “I did not compliment you on your ass.” There was no way she was going to let him get away with that in front of her brother.

  “Maybe not, but I could tell you wanted to.”

  What an ass. Literally. “That is the most ridiculous—”

  Nonna shuffled back into the kitchen. “Sara, be a dear and pour Colton some coffee, would you?” Nonna asked.

  “Can I put arsenic in it?” she mumbled as she took the coffeepot out of its holder.

  “I heard that,” Colton said quietly as Nonna proceeded to wipe off the counters. “So much for the Hippocratic oath.”

  “That only applies to patients,” Sara said.

  Colton slid his cup toward her as she approached the table. “You did sew up my arm, so I guess you are my doctor.”

  “A one-time visit to the ER does not make me your doctor.”

  “You’re right. I’m not a one-night stand kind of guy.”

  Rafe laughed. “That’s not what I heard.”

  Colton’s face turned red. Sara was surprised he was capable of a good strong blush. “I could tell stories about you, Rafe,” Colton said, “but out of respect for your grandma I’ll refrain. Besides, you’re listening to too many rumors.”

  Rafe patted Colton on the back. “They’re not rumors, Colt my man, they’re legend.”

  Sara made an involuntary gagging noise.

  “Sara, are you choking on something?” Nonna asked.

  “Just the thought of all those poor women,” Sara said so only the men could hear. “I’m fine, Nonna,” she said louder.

  “Don’t feel bad for those women,” Rafe said. “They were all very…happy.”

  Colton gave Rafe a cease-and-desist look. “Rafe, so help me God, if you do not shut up, I’m going to tell everyone about the time we all went out for your birthday and you decided it would be fun to take a little dive into the river buck naked with that—”

  “Hey, Nonna,” Rafe said loudly, “those rolls ready yet? I sure am hungry.”

  These guys and their fish stories. Sara found it interesting that Colton seemed so eager to downplay his reputation. Rafe had told her once that the firemen and the town’s one deputy police officer jokingly referred to Colton as the Revolver, and it wasn’t because of his gun.

  “Oh, you boys go out and have fun together, do you?” Nonna asked, bringing the sugar bowl to the table.

  “Yes, Grandma,” Rafe said. “Colt and I go out all the time.”

  Sara was happy to take a seat at the far end of the old oak table and tune out their banter. Since she’d been gone, it seemed Colton had become part of the family. She hadn’t counted on negotiating that now that she was home to stay.

  A big bay window overlooked her gran’s backyard and a giant old oak tree that she and her siblings used to climb. In the years when her grandpa was alive, they used to swing on a swing he’d hung from the lowest branch, which was now much higher than she remembered. The swing was long gone. Even the dirt patch underneath, worn by little feet pushing higher and skidding to a stop, had filled in with grass.

  Sara supposed she’d have to get used to such change. After all, this was not the world of her childhood, or even the world she’d left behind when she left town for college and med school. Or, for that matter, the world she’d left last year when her engagement went bust.

  “I can’t find that darn pot holder,” Nonna said, rummaging through a drawer.

  Sara got up to help, found the pot holder on top of the toaster, and pulled the rolls out of the oven.

  “Would you like some cream, Colton?” Nonna asked.

  “No, thanks, Mrs. Faranaccio. I take it black,” he said.

  Sara helped Nonna ice the cinnamon rolls. When she returned to the table, she noticed a full, steaming cup of coffee sitting at her place.

  Nonna couldn’t have poured it. Rafe was at the other end of the table, near the back door. That left Colton.

  She must have looked a little puzzled. He passed her the cream, chatting to Rafe about some kind of potluck the police and fire departments were going to host.

  How did he know she took cream?

  “Colton, would you like cream, dear?” Nonna asked again as she brought the rolls to the table and sat down.

  “I’m good, thanks, Mrs. F,” Colton said politely.

  Sara caught his gaze across the table. He hadn’t embarrassed Nonna or pointed out that she’d asked twice. Still, Sara got busy stirring her coffee, unwilling to let him see her concern.

  Every little slip-up Nonna made caused a little trickle of dread to churn in her stomach and gave her a tip-of-the-iceberg kind of feeling. Nonna, however, was in a great mood, laughing and joking with the guys.

  After polishing off half the cinnamon rolls, Rafe said, “I gotta run.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Sara said, following him out the front door and closing it behind her.

  “What’s the deal with you and Colton?” he asked as soon as they were out of earshot. “You were busting his chops.”

  “You know what the deal is.”

  Rafe’s brows pulled down as he frowned. “He’s a good guy.”

  Sara crossed her arms. “Legends? Antics with women? And you pal around with him.”

  “You certainly seemed amused about his dating history,” Rafe said. “Maybe you’re a little jealous?”

  “Jealous? Of the Revolver? You’re…you’re nuts!”

  “Right. Well, you know how I feel about things,” Rafe said. “Tagg got his just deserts, if you pardon the cake pun. All he thought about was himself. Good riddance.”

  “God, Rafe, I wish you’d have more conviction about things,” Sara said, smiling. He’d always been a straight shooter, and he’d always been quick to stand up for her, even when they were kids. She had to admit it felt really good to have her grown-up little brother defend her. But that didn’t mean she was going to agree with him about Colton.

  “Anyway,” Rafe said, “give Colton a chance. He might surprise you.”

  “Um, last time I checked you were my much younger brother, and therefore it goes against natural sibling order for you to offer me advice. You’re forgetting I’ve known Colton longer than I’ve known Tagg. Once a jerk, always a jerk.”

  “Geez, give the guy a break, OK? People can change.”

  “Dad swears most of his patients still have the same personality they had when they were thirteen.”

  “That’s fatalistic,” Rafe said.

  “So is dating a different girl every week,” Sara said, tossing him a pointed look.

  “I said people can change—if they want to. I, however, have no reason to, seeing as I’m in my sexual prime. See you tonight for Sunday dinner?”

  “Yeah.” She kissed her brother on the
cheek. “See you.” Sara couldn’t be too critical of her brother’s dating habits. His longtime girlfriend had died in an accident when he was just twenty-one, and for years he’d barely dated at all. She supposed the fact that he was dating now and joking about it was a big improvement. She just wasn’t sure how much of his attitude was bravado.

  She watched from the front porch as Rafe got into his shiny black F-150 with custom chrome rims and drove away. Colton came out of the house carrying two rolls in a baggie. No one ever left Nonna’s house without a full doggie bag.

  “Thanks for letting me stay for breakfast,” he said.

  She shrugged, although she was secretly surprised he’d bothered with a thank-you. “Not my choice. It was Nonna’s.”

  Colton was standing very close. So close she couldn’t help noticing the vibrant blue of his eyes, a cross between summer sky and Caribbean ocean. Man, the guy had been kissed by the gods in looks. A real heart-stopper.

  Not that he stopped her heart or anything.

  “Bye, Mrs. Faranaccio,” he called to her grandmother, who was still in the house. “See ya, Red.” His gaze flicked quickly up and down Sara. “I tend to agree with your shirt. You do get an A in Anatomy. But it’s a shame, because the rest of you is a little salty.” He gave Sara one last sweeping look, put on his hat, and headed out into the rain.

  Chapter 3

  At four forty-five p.m., Nonna’s kitchen smelled like spaghetti sauce and freshly baked bread. As Sara pulled the homemade rolls out of the oven, she silently declared Nonna’s house ready for Sunday dinner.

  “Nonna, where’s Gabby?” she called to her grandmother, who was in the dining room setting the table.

  “Oh, I don’t know, dear,” she said as she set two forks by one plate. Before Sara could intervene, Gabby’s voice called from afar.

  “I’m up here!”

  “I’ll grab Gabby and be right back to help you finish setting the table,” Sara said.

  “Take your time,” Nonna said, lining up yet a third fork near the other two.

  “Here” turned out to be the attic, up the pull-down ladder at the top of the stairs to a space under the dormers lined by old crossbeams and layers of fluffy pink insulation. A solitary light bulb hung on a chain from the central roof beam.

  Sara climbed halfway up the ladder, her head at floor level, debating going the rest of the way up. “Hey, Gabs, dinner’s in fifteen minutes. Can you come down and help? Nonna needs some help setting the table.”

  “Oh, sure,” Gabby said, crinkling up her cute nose. Gabby was Sara’s closest sister, in age and in bonding. They were only fifteen months apart, and they told each other nearly everything. Gabby was one of the big reasons being back home was tolerable.

  “Come up here, I’m scared,” Gabby said, exuberantly holding out her arms. Did Sara mention she was the dramatic sister as well as the imaginative one? “I need my big sister. Especially since I’ve barely seen you since you’ve been home. Besides, Nonna sent me up here to look for those pretty dessert plates with the white scalloped edges, and I can’t find them. Remember those?”

  Sara hauled herself up the remaining rungs and sat down near Gabby on a couple of stacked wooden crates.

  “This place always creeped me out,” said Gabby, who was sitting in the middle of the wooden floor surrounded by open boxes. “Rafe used to tell me terrible stories about families forced to live in the attic—like in those novels everyone was reading years ago, remember?—and I believed every word. I never wanted to come up here as a kid.”

  “You always had the biggest imagination too,” Sara said.

  Despite being a wills and trusts attorney, Gabby was a dreamer, and Sara wouldn’t be surprised at all if she’d gotten caught up in rifling through Nonna’s stuff, completely losing track of time.

  Sara took a glance around under the dim light of the solitary bulb. For an attic it was pretty meticulous: Boxes lined up and tidy. Rolls of fabric propped in one corner, covered in plastic. An old wooden rocker and a baby bassinet hanging from hooks, plastic zipper bags containing old curtains, an old aluminum washtub that they used to wash their dog in.

  “Maybe while you’re at it you can find my thirteenth-birthday present.”

  “You still haven’t given up on that, have you? God, we looked everywhere for that.”

  Sara shrugged. Her mom had been very sick on her thirteenth birthday and had died just a week later. “Mom was really good about that. She never forgot a birthday. Maybe she just hid it so well we never found it.”

  “Well, I’m happy to keep looking. And while we’re at it, you can help me find Mom’s journals.” Gabby dug into a nearby box and took out something wrapped in yellowed newspaper. “Wow, look at this.” She held up a ceramic flamingo standing on one pink foot. “Fabulous. I might need this for my apartment.”

  “Nice,” Sara said. “Mom had journals?”

  “She was always writing in spiral notebooks, do you remember that?” Gabby said. “They have to be here somewhere.” She pulled out another box. Also filled with newspaper-wrapped objects.

  Sara reached in and unwrapped one. “Oh, Nonna’s Fiestaware!” She dug through the box. “In all colors of the rainbow. I remember this stuff!” A thought suddenly occurred to her. “Does Dad know where Mom’s journals are? Maybe he’d have them instead of Nonna.”

  Gabby shook her head. “I’m checking here first. I mean, when Dad married Rachel, he probably gave most of Mom’s stuff to Nonna. That makes sense, doesn’t it? You wouldn’t keep your dead wife’s personal belongings in your attic, would you?”

  Sara had no idea. What she did know was that even now, her dad said very little about their mother. He never talked freely, and when questioned gave the briefest answers possible.

  Sometimes she longed to sit down with him and have a heart-to-heart. Ask him about their mom, their childhood, happy memories. With Nonna’s memory fading, she wished her dad would share more about her mother.

  Actually, she wished her dad would share more, period. With her mother gone, her dad had turned into a man who was very involved in guiding and shaping their life decisions as he saw fit. Without their mother’s more relaxed and intuitive attitude, her father sometimes pushed for things he felt strongly were right but weren’t necessarily so.

  “Have you asked Nonna?” Sara asked.

  “All she says is, ‘Your mother was always scribbling in those notebooks of hers.’”

  “Maybe someone got rid of them. Jane Austen’s sister burned two-thirds of her letters, did you know that? Presented to the world only a certain scrubbed version of events. Some people claim she ruined her sister’s legacy.”

  “I’d call that a good sister,” Gabby said.

  Sara laughed. “Maybe so. But Gabby, journals are private. Maybe Mom wouldn’t want us reading them.”

  “I need them,” Gabby insisted. “Don’t you ever feel you wished you knew her? Not how we knew her as children, but how she was as an adult?”

  Sara got up and hugged her sister. It was a relief to know she had as many questions about their mom as Sara did. “I wish that all the time.” She sat down next to her on the floor, pushing aside a box of recipe clippings. “I wish Dad would talk to us more about her.”

  “Dad has a different life now. He hates talking about Mom, and I always feel uncomfortable bringing it up in front of Rachel.”

  “Well, I think looking for her journals is a great idea, and of course I’ll help.” Sara examined the old box of cut-out recipes, for sure Nonna’s doing. “So, everything going OK with Malcolm?” Gabby had reconnected with her college sweetheart, who was a hedge fund manager they’d all been very relieved she’d stopped dating years ago. At the time he’d spent more time exercising than being with Gabby, and that about said it all.

  Gabby flashed a bright smile. A little too bright, but maybe that was just Sara’s imagination. “Things couldn’t be better. Malcolm is awesome. He showers me with gifts and never fails to tell me
how much he loves me. In fact, he’s planning to come out to dinner with the whole family sometime soon. Are you free some Friday or Saturday?”

  “For you, I’m free anytime.”

  “Great. You know, we’ve gotten pretty serious.”

  Sara raised a brow and tried hard to put a nonjudgmental expression on her face. “Really?”

  Gabby nodded. “I know you didn’t like him that much, but he’s changed. Grown up. I think you’re going to really like him.”

  Sara’s recollection of Malcolm was that he was always into things. Bigger, better, more expensive things. One look at Gabby’s face and Sara realized her sister was waiting expectantly for her to say something. Screaming Get out while you can! probably wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

  “Gabby, my main objection to Malcolm back then was that he was really into himself. He spent a ton of money on you, but it seemed like that was all part of his image. I hope that’s changed.”

  “Malcolm’s very ambitious. Dad would love that. He’s a hard worker but he still finds time for me. He doesn’t beat children or kill cats. Plus I’m twenty-nine. He’s not perfect, but who is? Maybe he’s as close as I’m going to come.”

  “Oh, Gabby.” Sara hated the idea that Gabby seemed to be talking herself into believing how great this guy was. “You’re not over the hill yet.”

  She shrugged. “Not yet. But it’s getting really hard to meet nice guys who aren’t already taken, going through nasty breakups, or who aren’t just plain weird.” She paused. “Oh, and who also meet Dad’s criteria for a good spouse: educated, makes good money, worthy of his daughters.”

  Sara laughed but had to admit Gabby was right about their father. He definitely had certain expectations about the men he wanted them to marry.

  “Also, I have one more bit of news: I just got promoted to partner, but that’s less thrilling. Overall, life is great!” Gabby worked for a law firm in downtown Cleveland and had a gorgeous loft apartment there.

  “How come you didn’t tell us about the partnership? That’s fantastic! Another reason to celebrate.”

  “The money’s good, but it’s dullsville, Sara. I’m working eighty hours a week, and every single minute, I feel like pulling all my hair out one strand at a time.”