Barefoot Dreams

  “And someone will die.”

  That shut the two men up. And sent an unnatural chill down Lila’s spine. “That’s…terrible,” she whispered.

  Poppy lifted a thick shoulder. “I told you I believe in God, not sorcery. But many people in Jamaica know this superstition.”

  Lila lived in Cuba a long time before she was able to return to Gabe and finally introduce him to his son. She knew that some of those superstitions were founded in…something. Maybe not reality, but something. And that dream had freaked her out in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. She might not believe in curses and spells, but she respected the black arts and otherworldly powers.

  “I’m the one who’s going to die,” Gabe finally said, breaking the silence, “if those peppers and eggs are not in my belly, stat.”

  Nino chuckled and made two plates. “I have you covered, Gabriel. I’ll—”

  “Mummy! Mummy! Dad!”

  Everyone pivoted toward the patio at the sound of raw panic in Rafe’s voice. He stood in the middle of the patio, holding out both hands, spread wide, a look of sheer horror on his face.

  Gabe launched across the living area in a few long strides, and Lila was right behind.

  “What’s the matter, bud?” Gabe asked, reaching for him.

  “I’m sorry!” he exclaimed. “I’m s-s-sorry!”

  “Rafe!” Lila bent down to him. “What’s wrong?”

  He opened his mouth to talk, but all he could do was suck in some air and wail on the exhale.

  Gabe scooped him up and held him close. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

  He still didn’t answer, looking from Gabe to Lila and back. His eyes, the same blue as his father’s, registered nothing but…fear.

  Lila reached for him, too, automatically putting her arms around both her beloved men, aching to fix whatever made her son so scared. “Honey, it’s okay. Tell us. Why are you crying?”

  “I ruined the wedding!”

  “What?” They both asked the question at the same time.

  Was he worried about not doing a good job? “Rafe, you’re going to be great tonight,” Lila reassured him.

  “No! I t-t-took the rings from the drawer at ho-ho-home,” he managed to say between sobs. “To pra-pra-practice.”

  “You took the wedding rings?” Lila said, inching back in surprise. This was bad—even for Rafe, this was serious.

  “Why?” Gabe asked.

  “So I could hold them.” He wiped some tears and snot with his forearm and shuddered.

  Very slowly, Gabe lowered him to the ground, bending over to stay the same height. “You took our wedding rings from my drawer?” he asked, more disbelieving than angry.

  “I put them in my pocket,” he said, sniffing. Then he shook his head. “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad, bud,” Gabe said, holding out his hand. “But I want them back. Now.”

  Big blue eyes blinked, then shifted up to Lila, still wide with horror. “I lost them,” he confessed on a ragged whisper.

  “You lost them?” Gabe choked the question.

  But Lila slowly straightened, pressing her hand to her mouth as an ice-cold realization hit her heart.

  Something will be lost. Something of great value.

  For a moment, she fought a wave of dizziness, then turned to share a long look with Poppy.

  Chapter Two

  “Son of a…bishop.” Curtailing his language when in the presence of his five-year-old son was always a challenge for Gabe, but never more than when Lila’s diamond-encrusted wedding ring was lost. And the culprit was helpless and howling and scared enough to literally pee his pants.

  “Daddy, I’m sorry!”

  And he was pulling out the Daddy Card.

  “Listen, bud. Stop crying and think.” On his haunches to stay eye level with his son, he dragged his hands down Rafe’s little arms and took both hands in his. “When did you last have them?”

  “I’m so sorry!”

  “Shhh.” He pulled him closer to comfort him with a hug. “I know you are. Everybody makes mistakes, and you’re not in trouble.” Although he shouldn’t have taken the rings in the first place. They’d reinforce that lesson later—after they found the rings. “Did you have them out here? By the pool? Outside?”

  Rafe looked at the gate. “Maybe out there. Maybe here. Maybe…I don’t know.” He shook his head, a quivering lower lip warning of another wail. “I don’t remember.”

  “Well, we’re going to look.” Gabe stood, still holding Rafe’s hand, starting with a cursory glance around the patio. “You and Mom look here, and I’ll…” His voice trailed off as his gaze landed on Lila, who was bone-white and wide-eyed. “We’ll find them,” he promised her.

  “I know, but…” She looked over her shoulder at Poppy standing a few feet away with the same look of horror in her eyes.

  “We’ll find them,” he insisted. “Nino and I will take the grass. You guys look in here, and…Lila, it’s just jewelry.”

  She swallowed visibly. “It’s not the rings,” she said under her breath.

  Then what? And he figured it out. “Oh, for God’s sake, not you, too, Lila.” He narrowed his eyes at Poppy. “Both of you, please. We don’t have time for that insanity. Find the damn rings!”

  Both women seemed paralyzed with fear. Gabe shifted his attention to the one he knew understood common sense. “Lila, it’s crazy and stupid, and you know better than to listen to that.”

  She nodded several times, as if trying to convince herself. “Of course. Go outside and look.” Then she reached for Rafe, and Gabe noticed her hand quivered. “Honey, we’ll find the rings.”

  “Mummy.” Rafe gave in to the lower lip and sobbed. “I wanted to be the Ring Man.”

  “You will be.” Lila folded him into loving arms, closing her eyes. “Great-Grandpa and Dad will look in the grass. And we’ll look out here. He’s right. We’ll find the rings. He’s right about everything.”

  Damn right I am. “Chill, Mama,” he whispered to Lila. “It’s voodoo, not life.”

  “I know.” She flashed him a shaky smile. “It was just that weird dream. And nerves. Go.” She nudged him. “We’ll comb the patio.”

  An hour later, there were still no rings. They’d dug through grass, searched the car, scanned every inch of the patio, and Gabe even dove to the bottom of the pool while Lila took the filter apart.

  Nino had calmed Rafe down with some food, and Poppy had somehow scared up a metal detector from one of the other resort housekeepers. They found a quarter, a paperclip, and a tiny screw from a pair of eyeglasses. No wedding rings.

  “We better go back home and look,” Gabe said to Lila after he dried off from the swim. “He may have picked them up and put them back in the drawer and doesn’t remember.”

  “He said he had them here.”

  “He’s upset and confused,” Gabe said, looking inside where Rafe and Nino sat at the kitchen counter, the older man with his comforting, gnarled hand on his great-grandson’s shoulder. “You want to stay here while I go back to the house and look? Or leave him with Nino and Poppy?”

  She considered that. “He’s calm now, and I really don’t have much to do today. Gussie and the Barefoot Brides team are coming late this afternoon, and I’ve had my mani-pedi.” She wiggled her fingers, drawing his gaze to the diamond engagement ring he’d given her on bended knee in the middle of CIA headquarters. At least she had that ring, if not the wedding band he’d had designed to match it. “I’ll go with you. Poppy and Nino are doing fine with him, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned over to kiss her. “What a way to spend our wedding day, huh? Hunting for rings.”

  She met him halfway with a peck that always turned into more. “Hope that’s the only thing that goes wrong today.”

  He drew back, narrowing his eyes. “Please don’t tell me you are buying that Jamaican black magic, Lila. Rivers of blood, my ass.”

  “I’m not.” But she didn?
??t sound convincing.

  He whispered in her ear, “Come on, let’s get out of here for a few hours. I know how to make you forget.”

  “Mmm. Okay. But we’re probably not supposed to do that before the ceremony on our wedding day, either.”

  “Like hell we’re not. It’s probably bad luck not to.”

  They went inside to tell Rafe where they were going and make sure he was calm. Nino had convinced him they were going to cook something special that only big boys ate on their parents’ wedding day, and Poppy wanted to clean the villa. Which Gabe knew meant she was going to continue looking for the rings.

  A few minutes later, Gabe and Lila were cruising out of Barefoot Bay, headed to their home on the south end of Mimosa Key. The wind whipped through his ancient GTO’s open windows, making Lila’s blond hair fly in the breeze.

  He stole a look at her, noticing how deep in thought she was. Normally, he’d take a few minutes to study the profile and features he’d grown to love. It never mattered that technology and plastic surgery had taken his heartbreakingly adorable Isadora and re-formed her into a woman with sculpted cheekbones and a defined nose. Some days he couldn’t remember the CIA translator he’d fallen in love with and once believed he’d lost. Now, he was head over stinking heels with this version of the same woman.

  But sometimes, he could see Isa fighting to get free. Like now, when she gnawed her lower lip and looked straight ahead.

  “You’re still worried,” he said.

  “Damn dream.”

  “Damn woman who planted that ridiculous idea in your head. Once we find the rings, nothing will be ‘lost’ and nothing will be broken and no one will die.”

  She gave him a sideways look. “It is pretty silly.”

  “Fucking ridiculous,” he said.

  She grinned at him. “I love you, Gabe.”

  “You love when I swear, which is wretchedly rare these days.”

  “I love everything about you.” She reached over and put her hand over his, just her touch enough to stir something low in his gut. “I love that you kept your promise to curb your colorful language around him. And I love that you didn’t get angry at Rafe for taking the rings or losing them.”

  Gabe snorted a laugh. “If I got mad at that kid every time he did something bad, I’d have had a stroke long ago.”

  She smiled. “He’s much better than he used to be, thanks to you, Dad.”

  “Hey, he swims in my troublemaking gene pool. You heard Nino. The claw machine.”

  “But JP put you there.”

  “Because I dared him.” He grinned. “I wanted to go in that machine. What a cool place to hide, huh?”

  “Always a spy.”

  “Always. Plus…” He laughed softly. “I knew my dad would hang JP’s balls out to dry, and I kind of lived for that.” He started to pull into the driveway of their house, but stopped and parked at the curb instead.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “If he dropped the rings in the driveway, I don’t want to run over them.” He turned the car off and let the very real possibility sink in that the wedding ring he’d designed so carefully was gone. He didn’t care about his; it was a simple silver band. But he’d planned to surprise Lila with a stunning ring that he knew would be on her finger until the day she died.

  He swallowed at the thought. “I never want to lose you again, blondie,” he said, his voice surprisingly gruff.

  “What brought that on? Jamaican voodoo?”

  “Love,” he said simply. “I fucking love you so damn much.”

  “As only Gabe Rossi could say.”

  He leaned over the console and reached for her, pulling her closer for a kiss. A real kiss. A prelude-to-much-more kiss. Screw the rings. He wanted her. Now. “Sometimes I think about how close we came…”

  She quieted him with her mouth on his. “Speaking of coming…”

  “That’s my girl. Cheap sex jokes. You’re too good to be true.” He kissed her again, sliding his tongue home to meet hers and letting his hand freely roam the body he couldn’t seem to get enough of. “Inside or backseat?”

  “Backseat?” She choked a laugh. “Gabe, it’s the middle of the day, and we’re on the street.”

  “It’s the middle of our wedding day, and it wouldn’t be the first time for us in this car.”

  She tapped his chest. “You’re crazy. Inside. And we better look for rings on the way.”

  “Speaking of rings.” Gabe reached into his pocket. “Is that my phone buzzing?”

  “No, it’s mine in my purse.”

  “It’s…both of ours.” They shared a quick, silent look that only parents could understand. “Shit,” Gabe murmured, pulling out his phone just as Lila got hers from the side pocket of her handbag.

  “It’s Nino,” he said.

  “Mine’s Poppy.”

  “They found those mother-effing rings!” Gabe stabbed the green button as Lila did the same, both of them putting their phones on speaker, getting a cacophony of Italian and Jamaican accents screaming over each other.

  “One at a time,” Gabe ordered, laughing. “Where were they and who found them?”

  “Gabriel,” Nino said. “You need to come right away. There’s been an accident.”

  “What?” Lila exclaimed.

  “Rafael climbed the mango tree and fell.”

  “Is he okay?” Lila and Gabe asked at the same time.

  “Miss Lila!” Poppy howled. “He broke his arm!”

  Gabe muttered a dark curse, turning the engine back on. “Naples Community Hospital. Get him there now, and we’ll meet you.”

  As he threw the car into drive, he glanced at Lila, who was staring straight ahead.

  “Babe, it’s okay. I broke my arm three times by the time I was five. It comes with the—”

  She turned to him, ashen. “Something will be broken. Something that can’t easily be fixed.”

  “Lila—”

  “The third thing is someone dies.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but then he shut it. Silent, he drove to the hospital.

  Chapter Three

  It didn’t take long for Naples Community Hospital to be crawling with Rossis and Angelinos. Gabe’s entire, massive, noisy, opinionated, and incredibly close family was already in Barefoot Bay to celebrate the wedding of a family member they’d all thought would never get married. With the news of Rafe’s accident, they had merely shifted their presence from the resort to the hospital.

  Lila had gotten to know all of them, to some degree or another. While she was grateful for their concern, love, and ability to distract Rafe from his pain and fear, all she really wanted to do was find Poppy and get more information about this damn superstition.

  She must have gone for coffee, Lila guessed, looking out into a waiting area and not seeing her. Nino and Poppy had met Lila and Gabe in the ER more than an hour ago, and it was the first time Lila had ever seen Poppy cry. Not Nino. He teared up at the sight of a good Bolognese sauce, but Poppy was normally calm in any crisis.

  Poppy was definitely taking Rafe’s fall from a tree harder than Rafe himself. He hadn’t had permission to climb it, obviously, but he’d thought if he was looking down on the grass, he would find the rings.

  When Poppy turned to ask Uncle Nino a question, Rafe had scrambled up before she could catch him. Poppy had warned him to come right back down, and he had. The hard and fast way.

  So Poppy took all the blame, but Lila suspected that wasn’t what brought the usually stalwart housekeeper to tears. It was the dream. The curse. The river of blood.

  Now they’d lost something valuable and broken something that wasn’t easy to fix.

  That left—

  “He’s going to be fine.” Gabe put his arm around Lila and leaned close, whispering the promise he’d made at least six hundred times that day. “One bone, and the growth plate isn’t fractured.”

  “I know,” she said, stepping to the back of the small crowd
in the hospital room.

  “You want to go outside?” Gabe asked. “There’s enough professional security in this room that a crowned prince would be safe, if you’re worried about Rafe.”

  That was for sure. At the moment, Rafe seemed happier, joking with Gabe’s spunky cousin Vivi and her serious—and seriously handsome—FBI agent husband, Colton Lang. The two of them played off Vivi’s brother, Zach Angelino, Gabe’s tall and commanding cousin and co-owner of a Boston-based security firm. Rounding out the family circle was sweet Samantha, Zach’s wife, a Harvard-educated attorney; Gabe’s sister Nicki, the psychologist; and his brother Marc, a former FBI agent and bodyguard. Even the oldest brother, JP, had joined the group, showing that he and Gabe might rub each other the wrong way, but when it came to crises, Rossis stuck together.

  Marc’s wife, Devyn, had stayed at the resort with their three kids and Sam and Zach’s baby, getting help from Gabe’s parents. Someone said Chessie, the youngest sibling, was on her way with Mal and their newly adopted daughter, Gabrielita.

  “I know he’s safe, but…” Lila leaned into Gabe on a sigh. “I want to find Poppy.”

  “She’s out there,” he said, guiding her toward the waiting room. “She’s been on the phone for a while.”

  Lila spotted her, looking out the window, a phone to her ear, nodding as she listened and talked. As if Poppy sensed Lila’s gaze on her, she finished her conversation and hung up with an expectant expression.

  “I’m going to talk to her,” Lila said, pushing up.

  Gabe held her back with one hand. “Be careful what rabbit hole you go down, Lila. There’s nothing to be gained. If you get all wrapped up in that superstitious shit, this day will get even worse.” He held her gaze, love and determination in his deep-blue eyes. “We lost the rings, so what? Rafe broke his arm, what kid hasn’t? We’re getting married tonight, Isadora Winter Lila Wickham. Nothing is going to stop that.”

  She smiled when he used the four names, something he rarely did, but it reminded her of their history, the depth of their relationship, and all they’d overcome to be together.

  “Maybe there’s something we can do. Maybe Poppy knows something.”