Ritter sat lopsided, as if the rocks in the driveway pushed him off-kilter.
“Penelope, offer your hand,” Annie said. “And you, Penelope, you say, ‘Ritter, shake!’ ”
Penelope did as she was told, and when he offered his paw, she laughed into his big brown eyes. “He smiled at me.”
“He loves everybody. People who don’t know him say, ‘It must make you feel safe to have a dog with you all the time.’ But this dog would help the burglar carry out the family silver.” Ritter looked at Annie as if he understood her lament, and she rubbed his head. “Yes, you’re a good boy.”
“He’s not with Annie to protect her; he’s here to assist her, and he does that very well.” Sarah hooked her arm through Penelope’s. “Pretend you’re an assistance dog, and help this old woman into the house. My younger friends have worn me out.”
“I told you to let us know when you got tired,” Annie scolded. “You’re barely out of the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” Sarah said, then admitted, “My arm still aches from the break, and sometimes I get a lingering headache.” She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “I don’t heal as quickly as I used to.”
“You’ve never had a concussion and a broken arm at the same time before.” June directed Annie toward the handicapped ramp.
“The girls had been chomping at the bit to visit, but we told them no, it was still too dangerous.” Sarah glanced at Penelope questioningly. “Noah said he’d told you of our troubles?”
“Yes, and I’m sorry to hear of them.” And not just because she was a coward. She hated to think of Sarah injured and her lovely, pleasant world blighted.
“The girls don’t listen worth a darn.” Sarah glared at the other two girls.
Annie craned to look behind her and around June at Sarah and Penelope. “You scared us half to death, Sarah!”
“I’m a tough old bird.” Sarah and Penelope followed Annie and June up the ramp.
“The operative word being the old part,” June said.
“You girls are mean. Now stop before you scare Penelope.” At the top of the ramp, Sarah turned Penelope to face the valley. “Whenever I need a dose of courage, I come out here and ask myself, How many eons has the river carved the rock? How long have the oaks dug their roots into the rocky soil? How many years have men and women loved, laughed, lived, and died in this place?”
Penelope took a breath. Sarah had divined that she was nervous about going in, meeting the family, being drawn into the relationships she enjoyed before… seeing Noah again. So Sarah had given her the strength she needed to go on.
Penelope’s doubts were nothing but a momentary shift in the winds, and if she kept her composure, behaved with dignity, treated these Di Lucas like the friends they were… her time here would be another layer of serenity and warmth added to the long Bella Valley years.
That was why she was here now, tonight. To face the Di Luca family, to join the human race again, to prove that she had the strength to move on with her life. It only made sense to do it here, in the place where she had tumbled from foolish girlhood onto the long, rocky road to maturity.
Penelope ran down the steps, picked up the box of tortas, and ran back up. “Shall we go in?” she asked.
Sarah pressed her arm. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter 29
Penelope held the screen door open as Annie, June, and Sarah went in. She followed them down the hall to the kitchen at the back, past the living room where the muted television played a baseball game no one watched, past the dining room where the long table groaned under the weight of salads, wraps, and casseroles. From the kitchen, they heard the steady hum of conversation punctuated by the occasional loud argument or metallic slam of a pan.
When Penelope had visited Nonna’s house all those years ago, the party always started in the kitchen. Apparently nothing had changed.
Everyone looked up and greeted Penelope when she and the girls walked in. She recognized Eli, Rafe, and Police Chief DuPey. Sarah introduced Penelope to Chloë as a dear friend of the family, and Eli’s young wife examined Penelope as if she didn’t quite see her.
“She’s writing a book,” Eli explained. “She checks in and out of reality at her own convenience.”
“It’s a good trick if you can do it,” Penelope said.
Chloë’s eyes widened; she nodded. “Good line.” And she typed briskly for a moment.
Sarah’s kitchen looked different, updated with new appliances. And the same, with the big round wooden table where the enthusiastic group was gathered around a pile of red, white, and blue chips in the center of the table.
The general feeling was of ramshackle goodwill and impending fun, except…
Penelope’s gaze zeroed in on Noah.
Damn it.
He looked back, his eyes narrowed, noting her casual wine red button-down shirt, chosen for comfort and for the message it sent—I’m a woman at ease with myself. He skimmed her formfitting blue jeans, noted her red cork wedge sandals and the sheer gloss polish on her toes. He looked at her clothes, but what he saw was… her, naked and vulnerable.
He saw, and she responded with that familiar breathlessness that came from being flung high into the atmosphere.
And he didn’t even have to touch her.
She had told herself that coming to this gathering would serve as a signal to the others—and herself—that she had moved beyond her old fears and desires. That as a mature adult, she could face whatever life threw at her.
Perhaps what she should have remembered was that in less than two years she had suffered great losses. Time was slowly returning her strength and confidence. She was no longer as fragile—but she was still desperately lonely. And a sizzling chemistry still existed between her and Noah. Loneliness around him created a danger to her peace of mind, and maybe her sanity.
How long had they stared at each other? Too long.
The others were watching.
Penelope tore her gaze away from his.
An awkward silence reigned in the kitchen.
Then, to her surprise, Rafe came to the rescue. “Hey, Penelope, I forgot to tell you. Your security check was clean.”
His reassurance was so completely unexpected, she blinked at him in confusion. She snapped into the moment and in a sarcastic voice said, “Imagine my surprise.”
He laughed.
Like a spring, the tension in the kitchen was released.
“You know how it is—Rafe likes his security checks,” Eli said. “Girls scare him.”
“Girls scare any intelligent man,” Rafe said.
He got a heartfelt, “Amen,” from DuPey, and Penelope relaxed as conversation began to rumble along at a normal level.
The poker game seemed to be down to two players—Brooke, holding her cards open and smiling faintly, confidently. And Noah, sprawled in his chair, five cards in his hand, a bottle of beer at his elbow, handsome as hell and just as likely to incite Penelope to sin. If she wasn’t careful. Which she would be.
Luckily for her, he seemed faintly… hostile.
Good. Hostile she could handle.
A thin, delicate-looking young Asian woman slipped silently into the kitchen.
Rafe went on alert. “How’re things out there, Bao?”
“Quiet, but…” Bao spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “Someone’s watching. I can feel it.”
“You can feel it?” Brooke sounded surprised.
“Like a rifle aimed at the middle of my forehead,” Bao said.
Concerned glances were exchanged.
“Bao is my bodyguard,” Sarah said quietly to Penelope. “When I go outside, she watches over me.”
Bao acknowledged Penelope, then seated herself in an empty chair.
“Bao is not inclined to be fanciful,” Sarah told Penelope.
“Oh.” Thus the heightened sense of tension.
Rafe stood, went to the window, and looked out. “No one in sight?”
“I spoke to the men on the perimeter. No. All quiet. No alarm has been tripped.” Bao bit her lip. “Maybe I’m imagining things? Maybe I’ve been on duty too long?”
“Maybe.” Rafe pulled out his cell phone and stepped out onto the back porch. “But just to be safe, I’ll call in more personnel.”
Sarah sat beside Bao, and Bao returned her smile. Yet Bao did look pale and tired, as if the strain of constant vigilance had worn her down.
Penelope recognized a sense of closeness between Sarah and Bao, like soldiers who every day faced the possibility of combat. She didn’t want to share in that possibility, but she had made the decision to stay—she was committed. She rattled her to-go box. “Does anybody want some of the best pork tortas I’ve ever had in my life?”
“Tortas?” Chloë shut her computer with a distinct click. “Eli and I found this little place across the river called Taquería guadalajara—”
“I found it, too.” Penelope opened the box.
The tension in the kitchen slowly, quietly slid to a more manageable level.
Groans of pleasure greeted the heavenly smell of meat and cumin, onions and jalapeños, beans and guacamole.
Noah, the jerk, didn’t react in any way. He sat unmoving, unsmiling, staring at his hand as Nonna got a serving plate. He didn’t stir as Penelope unpacked the tortas. He didn’t glance up, didn’t acknowledge Penelope as she passed them around.
He didn’t eat the food she had brought.
Penelope wanted to smack him. He had asked her to visit his grandmother. She had managed to defuse the tension in the kitchen, and he was thoughtlessly, rudely making everyone uncomfortable.
Or at least… he was making her uncomfortable.
Chapter 30
“Those went fast!” Sarah disregarded Noah as if he were a sulky boy under her care.
That seemed like an intelligent plan, and Penelope resolved to ignore the big spoilsport, too.
Annie laughed. “Sarah likes to see people eat.”
“What? Like you don’t?” Sarah stood and pulled salad makings out of the refrigerator.
Noah probably was mad about something that had nothing to do with Penelope. She needed to remember that the whole world didn’t revolve around her and her feelings.
“Brooke and Noah, we need you out of the way while we get dinner ready,” Nonna said firmly.
Good. Sarah was shooing Noah out of the kitchen. Penelope would stay right here and help the cooks. She wouldn’t have to look at his bad-tempered face anymore.
“We’re almost done, Nonna. Noah’s stalling because he doesn’t want to lose this luscious big poker pot to me.” Brooke curved her arm around the pile of poker chips in the middle of the table and smiled at Noah.
An alarm went off on his watch.
He looked at the face.
“What’s that for?” Brooke asked.
“It’s three thirty-seven p.m.,” he said. Like that mattered to anyone.
Confused glances around the room.
“What’s three thirty-seven p.m.?” Eli asked.
“Another day gone.” Noah shut off the alarm. He ignored Brooke, ignored everyone, and looked up into Penelope’s eyes. “I thought we agreed to avoid each other.”
So he was angry at her for being here?
Last time they’d met, at Rafe and Brooke’s home, he had been charming. Interested. Conversational. He had insisted she promise to come and see his grandmother. The fact that she was here was his fault.
Her own antagonism rose to greet his.
Because really, wasn’t that always the way with Noah? First he loved her; then he hated her. He never knew what he wanted.
With a shrug that rudely dismissed him, she said, “I figured we were both mature adults who could behave in a civilized manner—as long as the group was large enough.”
DuPey laughed, then with a glance at Noah’s expression cut off his amusement.
Noah sat quietly, absorbing her words.
Penelope’s hostility hardened into hatred. Hatred that he had challenged her. Hatred that he dominated the room so that everyone, everyone, watched them as if riveted by this Tin Pan Alley drama he had stirred up.
At last, as she shifted, meaning to turn away, he slid the fan of his cards closed. Put them facedown on the table. “I fold,” he said to Brooke. He stood up. Chips rattled as he pushed the huge pot toward her.
“I knew you were bluffing,” Eli said.
“Then why didn’t you stay in, Eli?” Chloë asked.
“Wait. Look! I’ve got a good hand.” Brooke laid down her cards. “Four of a kind. Sixes! Look!”
Noah paid no heed to his family or to Brooke’s cards. Instead, he fixed his green gaze on Penelope’s face, and like a great hunting cat, he paced toward her.
She refused to back up.
This was stupid. Why antagonize him? He was angry.
About what?
And so what? She was mad, too. Moreover, if his grandmother chose to welcome Penelope to her house, he had no right to behave like the visitor police.…
No, she wasn’t going to retreat.
Although he got very close very quickly, and what from a distance had looked like hostility now looked more like some kind of smoky sexuality, directed at her.
And he loomed in an alarming way.…
About the time he got within three steps, she decided she was being stupidly valiant. She’d taken one large step backward when, with a move so swift she never saw it coming, he took hold of her wrist in one powerful hand.
That grip. Hot. Strong. Sure. Familiar. Intoxicating, despite the defense she tried to put up against him, leaving her breathless.
“Come on.” He turned and led her toward the front door. “Let’s talk about how many people we need around us to behave in a civilized manner.”
“What? No!” She set her heels.
He turned back to her, moved close, way too close, and in a voice pitched only to her ears, he said, “I will pick you up and carry you, Penelope.”
She stared at him, teeth gritted, angry and… and a little afraid.
At least, she thought it was fear. Her heart pounded hard in her chest, her fingers curled into fists, she heard a roaring in her ears, and her eyes hurt from holding them wide. She realized she was holding her breath, and gasped in some much-needed air.
Did she believe him? Did she believe he would pick her up and carry her out of here?
He surrounded her with angry heat. His green eyes sparked with gold.
Oh, yes. She believed him. And how much humiliation could she stand?
“All right. I’ll go.” She let him pull her out of the kitchen, down the hall, and out the front door.
Their exit left a stunned silence in the kitchen.
“Wow,” Chloë whispered.
Annie stirred, turning her wheelchair. “Well. I don’t know about you girls, but I’m going to go watch.” She put the wheelchair in full roll down the hallway.
The rest of the women—and Ritter—galloped toward the front of the house after her.
Rafe, Eli, and DuPey sat around the empty table and shook their heads in manly disdain.
“Honestly,” Eli said. “Women.”
“I know it,” DuPey said.
“They are so nosy,” Rafe said.
“Really. What do they think they’ll see that they haven’t seen before?” Eli asked.
They sat, staring into space, thinking about it.
DuPey looked from Eli to Rafe. “Why do you think Noah’s so buttoned up today?”
“He definitely had a stick up his butt, especially once Penelope walked in,” Rafe said.
The other two nodded.
DuPey morosely shoved the rest of the chips out of the center of the table toward Brooke’s place. “That’s one big pot the little lady won.”
Rafe preened. “What can I tell you? She’s smart.”
“Hey, Eli, look at Noah’s hand.” DuPey gestured toward the little pile of cards sittin
g before Noah’s place. “Because you’re right. He must have been bluffing.”
Eli picked up the cards and looked—and his jaw dropped.
The other two men went on alert.
“What is it?” DuPey asked urgently.
“What’s he got, a pair of twos?” Rafe asked.
One by one, Eli placed the cards on the table.
King of diamonds. Queen of diamonds. Ten, nine, eight of diamonds.
The guys stared at those cards. At the hand that could have taken every chip, that came along once in ten lifetimes.
Finally Rafe whispered, “Noah folded on a straight flush, king high? To make a grab at Penelope?” He shoved his chair back. “I’m going to watch.”
The other men stood.
They rushed toward the door and headed down the hall.
Chapter 31
Noah didn’t pause, didn’t slow.
Penelope’s heart pounded as he dragged her down the steps, across the driveway, and into the front yard. They passed the first tree and moved to the second, a broad, towering valley oak, an oak that lazily rested its longest branches on the ground. He stopped, whirled to face her.
“Not this tree,” she said.
“Yes, this tree. For nine years, every time I walked across Nonna’s yard, I saw you here, your long hair tangled in the branches, your brown eyes staring at me, soft and warm.…” His eyes blazed with heat, anger, and a long, slow unfurling of sweet reminiscences. “The memories are always here, so yes. Most definitely. This tree.”
It was early August, California hot and Bella Terra dry. The summer had almost vanished, each day slipping away before Noah could grasp it in his eager hands. Now he stood on the porch, watched Penelope walk across Nonna’s lawn, and marveled at her figure, her grace, the marvelous way her jeans fit her curvaceous behind, the flow of her straight, dark hair down her back.…
Eli sat on the swing, idly rocking, observing him. “You’ve got it bad.”
“No, I don’t.” Noah knew it sounded like a young man’s pride, that instinctive denial that a young woman could rope him in so easily.
Eli snorted.
That was fine. Better Eli be amused by Noah’s self-deception than for him to suspect the truth—that Noah was violently, wildly in love with Penelope, and soon, too soon, he would send her away.