“So you had to hide the evidence before you could open the door?” Nick asked, looking around for a sign of the culprit. “Where is she?”
Sonny laughed and cleared off a chair for Nick to sit down. “No, I was just working on something. A…project for school.”
“Oh, yeah?” Nick asked, still suspicious. The strong scent of oil paints wafted through the air, and he saw a palette lying on a table, blotted with various colors of fresh paint. “I didn’t know they did home projects in electrician school.”
Still wearing a wry smile, Sonny straddled a chair backward and propped his hands on the back. He evaluated Nick with a critical eye, then sighed. “If I tell you something, do you promise you won’t tell nobody? Pop would bust a gut, and Grandma would fake a heart attack or something. Ma would just martyr up like Joan of Arc.”
Nick laughed. “Come on, I can’t stand the suspense.”
Sonny took a deep breath, apparently struggling with some monumental confession. “Well, I’ve been, sort of…playing around with paints and stuff.”
The confession was uttered with as much shame and guilt as if he’d admitted to a drug addiction. “You mean, you’ve been painting? Like I do?”
Sonny stood up, running his fingers, blotched with dried paint, through his hair. “Yeah, just like you, Picasso. Only not as good. Not anywhere near as good.”
A glint of pleasure and surprise illuminated Nick’s eyes, and he sat up straighter and scanned the room. “Well, let me see.”
“No, I can’t,” Sonny said, suddenly wilting. “It’s pretty terrible, really.”
“Sonny, let me see,” Nick told him. “I’m not a critic.”
A self-conscious smile tugged at Sonny’s lips, and he crossed his arms and stared at Nick for a long moment. Finally, he went to his bed, got down on one knee and pulled a wet canvas out from under it, along with the collapsible easel he’d hidden there. Mechanically, he set it up.
In vivid color, Sonny had captured the house he lived in, stroking its character and history in every line and hue, from the crooked mailbox on the front corner to the laundry line strung up on the side. His chin propped on two fingers, Nick studied the painting with a lump of emotion in his throat, then turned back to his nephew. “Why didn’t you tell me you could do this?”
Sonny gave a half laugh. “Guess I thought if I didn’t tell nobody, I’d get tired of it after a while and lose interest. No harm done.”
Nick knew that feeling. “It doesn’t go away, though, does it?”
Sonny sank back down to his chair. “Pop thinks I’m gonna finish Vo-Tech and keep working with him as an electrician. His pride’s all caught up in it. I don’t really have a choice, you know?”
“No,” Nick said. “I don’t know. Everybody has choices.”
“Aw, man, that’s easy for you to say. You’re already doing it. Nobody’s ridin’ you about it.”
Nick’s laughter came as a surprise to them both, for nothing about the subject was funny. “You think my pop liked what I did? When I went to college to study art, he swore I was just loafing. I was supposed to work in the shoe store with him. The family business. He was going to rename it Marcello and Son Shoes, just for me. To this day Ma says she’s glad he didn’t live to see what I’ve done with my life. Like I’ve gone to work for the Mob or something.”
“No,” Sonny said with a wicked grin. “In this family, that would be a lot more respectable than being an artist.”
“You’re right.” Nick looked back at the painting, wondering at the raw talent smoldering just below his nephew’s tough-guy façade. “Look, have you had lessons or anything? Any kind of training?”
“Just what I learn from books,” Sonny said. “But what I wouldn’t give to learn more.” His eyes lit up, as if sharing his secret with Nick had set him free, and he’d just discovered the power to ask for help. “Nick, you could teach me, couldn’t you? I mean, you were a teacher.”
“You got it,” Nick said without hesitation. “Only problem is, I’m about to be working long hours for a while at the church. But if you want, you can use my studio anytime you want. I’ll give you a key.”
“You mean it?” Sonny asked, his eyes as wide as a kid’s half his age.
“Yeah. And the reason I came up is to ask you if you’d want to work with me this summer on the windows. If Brooke agrees to work with me, she and I are needed for the most complicated part of designing. There’re a lot of things that we need help with.”
Sonny’s eyes sparkled with surprise and a touch of amusement. “Brooke? Not the one…”
Nick swallowed and held out a hand to stem Sonny’s question. “She’s an artist too, Sonny. The best I’ve run across in stained glass. It’s strictly business.”
“I know. I didn’t mean nothin’.” Sonny’s voice faded, and he dropped his gaze to the floor. “Stained glass,” he whispered with awe. “Man, if you think you can use me, I’ll be there. Pop’ll kill me if I quit helpin’ him in the afternoons, but I could help at night until school’s out. But I’ll never convince him to let me do it in the summer. He was counting on my working full-time for him.”
“Try,” Nick said with a grin. “Maybe he’ll change his mind. Now, you get back to work on that. I have to go watch Bogart with Ma.”
Sonny smiled with a new sparkle of excitement in his eyes that Nick hadn’t seen before. “Thanks, Picasso. If Pop says yes, I won’t let you down.”
“Yeah, well,” Nick muttered as he started out the door. “You’re not the one I’m worried about.”
CHAPTER
IT WAS EARLY MORNING WHEN Brooke loaded her suitcase into her car and left the house without saying goodbye. A strange feeling of déjà vu crept over her, but she told herself there was no other way.
She drove through a takeout window at a fast-food restaurant and got a cup of coffee. Staring out the window, she sat in her car to sip it until the cup was empty. She had to tell Nick. She couldn’t just leave town without thanking him for the job offer. She had to tell him why she couldn’t take it.
With dread, she cranked her car and headed toward St. Mary’s.
When she pulled into the back parking lot of the decrepit building, his Buick was already there, along with several pickup trucks, a cement truck, and various other commercial vehicles, indicating that the renovation was already underway. Gathering all her courage, she got out of the car and slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans.
She stepped into the church and saw the activity already beginning. Men were up on ladders, removing the old windows and replacing them with boards covered with plastic in case of rain. Others were stripping the walls, while still others worked on pulling up the old flooring. It would have been exciting had Brooke been a part of it all.
Brooke stepped over some thick electrical cords and around some machinery and headed for the office behind the sanctuary. The light was on, and she knew that he would be there, waiting for her to bring him an answer…expecting it to be the one he wanted. Dragging in a shaky breath, she forced herself to step through the doorway.
Nick looked up. “Brooke, you’re early.” His voice, once again, held a tentative note, as though he held back for fear of frightening her away. She hated seeming so fragile.
His eyes swept her baggy T-shirt and old jeans, then rose back to her hair, long and neglectfully straight. “And you’re dressed for a hard day’s work,” he said. “Does that mean you’ve decided to—?”
“I’m not taking the job, Nick,” she cut in quietly. “I’m going back to Columbia today.”
Nick’s face fell. At first he registered disappointment, then benign nothingness. It was almost as if he’d rehearsed the response he would give if she let him down. He’d expected it, she realized. “I see.”
“I think it’s best for everyone,” she said.
“Everyone?” he asked. “Who is ‘everyone’?”
She sighed. “My parents. My sister. You.”
“Me?” he ask
ed, raising his eyebrows with the question. “Why is it better for me?”
“You can find someone else to do the windows. Someone who won’t bring a dark cloud to the project. Someone who won’t start everyone in town talking.”
Nick stood up slowly. “Do I look like I care what anyone says?” he asked. “I’m the one who stayed in town, remember? I’m still here, Brooke. They haven’t sent me running, yet.”
She leaned back against the door’s casing. “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “It wasn’t just you and me who were hurt seven years ago. There were other lives affected.”
Nick came around his desk and took her shoulders, his eyes trapping her with such force that she couldn’t look away. “Listen to me, Brooke. We didn’t do anything. I wasn’t some dirty old man taking advantage of a child. Neither of us deserved the pain they put us through. And if people were hurt by it, that wasn’t our fault.”
Those tears that had badgered her all night rushed forward again, and she caught her breath on a sob. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it was,” she said. “What matters is that it has to stop. And my working here with you isn’t going to stop it.”
“Wrong, Brooke,” he said, not allowing her to look away from him. “Think of yourself for a change. You’ll never find peace as long as you keep running away.”
“I’ll never find peace as long as I keep making the same mistakes,” she corrected.
He gazed at her for a moment, processing those words as if they held some hidden meaning. “Maybe you’re right,” he said finally. “But be sure you know what the mistakes really were. If you don’t take the time to figure that out, then you can’t help but repeat them. Why can’t we put it behind us and go on with our lives? We shared something important back then, Brooke. A love of art. Together we can create something that people will come from miles around to see. This is a career-maker, Brooke. It’s too big to pass up.”
She turned away again and tried not to let his tone sway her. Anguished, she ran her fingers through her hair. He took a step toward her and gazed down into her face. “There doesn’t have to be any intense involvement between us. You’re not a kid with a crush on me, and I’m not your teacher. We can be friends and partners. And we can show them all what we’re made of.”
“What is that, exactly?” she asked. “I’m not sure what I’m made of. That’s part of the problem.”
“Well, maybe I can help you find out. Come on, Brooke. Say yes.”
Suddenly, someone in the doorway cleared her throat, and Nick and Brooke turned to see Abby Hemphill, standing before them just as she had seven years earlier, smiling with I-might-have-known smugness. Her permed, platinum hair was styled in a short bob, and the roots were slightly darker than the rest. Mrs. Hemphill might have been pretty if not for the antagonistic, ready-to-pounce expression she always seemed to wear and the shrewd arch of her pencil-thin brows. Her body was in good shape, though the suit she wore—too severe and authoritative—distracted from her appeal. She smiled now, though Brooke couldn’t remember ever seeing a smile so lacking in grace.
Nick crossed his arms. “Hello, Abby.”
Mrs. Hemphill pursed her lips and stepped into the small office. “Sorry I interrupted,” she said, her silver eyes sweeping critically over Brooke. “If it isn’t Brooke Martin. You certainly haven’t changed.”
Brooke lifted her chin, accepting that with the sting that was intended. “Thank you.”
Nick grinned and looked at his feet.
Mrs. Hemphill’s mouth grew tighter. “I heard you were back in town,” she said. “And that you were going to be working here…together.” She regarded a long, acrylic fingernail, then brought her eyes back to Brooke. “I thought it was only fair to warn you that I intend to oppose the church’s commissioning you for this project. I’m going to appeal to them to find another artistic development director.”
“It’s too late,” Nick said. “They’ve already commissioned me and approved my budget. They gave me authority to hire anyone I choose.”
Mrs. Hemphill laughed…a cold, hollow sound, and she leaned back against the doorway and regarded Nick again. “They may have hired you, Mr. Marcello, but that decision can be reversed. My family’s money keeps the church afloat. If we protest, you can rest assured that the committees will listen.”
Brooke flashed a furious look to Nick—silently asking if Mrs. Hemphill’s threats could be carried out—but Nick only smiled at the woman, undaunted. “Do what you have to do, Abby,” he said. “There are plenty of others who support the church.”
Her smile was a threat in itself, a promise that things would not go as smoothly as he thought. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?” she asked, then made her exit, leaving Brooke gaping after her, furious, and Nick only shaking his head in disgust.
Brooke spun around. “You see? I told you! I haven’t even taken the job, and already it’s started.”
Nick dropped to the corner of his desk and gave a helpless shrug. “The way I see it, if it doesn’t make any difference what we do, we might as well do what we want.”
“That’s not the answer!” Brooke cried. “You know it.”
Nick looked down at the desk, cluttered with papers and blueprints and measurements for the windows. He picked up some of the papers, tossed them up haphazardly and watched them flutter back down to his desk. “What I know is that I can’t afford to lose this job. I was counting on this, Brooke. And it’s not likely that I’m going to find anyone else to come in here and work under Abby Hemphill’s threats to pull the money. And yes, she’d threaten that whether you were here or not, because she has it in for me. I can’t do the windows by myself because stained glass isn’t my specialty. I guess if you decide to walk away from this, it’s over for me too.”
The words shattered Brooke’s resolve, and she knew that if he lost this job, it would be the second he had lost because of her. Fresh guilt surged through her. Her family would be disgusted and ashamed if she stayed. Nick would be hurt again if she didn’t.
Between those two options was a haunting cry in her heart that told her, unequivocally, what she really wanted. She wanted to take the job, create this masterpiece with Nick, and show Mrs. Hemphill and the whole town that they could knock her down, but they couldn’t walk on her. It was time she got back up.
Suddenly, her decision seemed clear.
“You won’t lose your job,” she told Nick finally, glaring out through the door where the woman had stood only moments before. “She won’t get away with this again. We’re going to fight her tooth-and-nail this time. And I’m going to tell her that right now.”
Without saying goodbye, Brooke stormed out of the office.
CHAPTER
If BROOKE COULD HAVE SKETCHED the smells of old dust and mildew, she would have drawn Hayden City Hall. She walked down the hall, the heels of her sandals clicking on the cold Formica floor. A small sign on one corner directed her toward the left wing, where the town council members had their offices.
As she passed the office marked Records, she wondered if her sister, Roxy, was working yet. Because she only needed three more classes to graduate, the school allowed her to co-op and leave school early each day. If Roxy was already here, Brooke hoped her sister wouldn’t see her.
Unfortunately, just as Brooke passed Roxy’s office, she stepped out into the hall carrying an armload of papers and looked up in surprise. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice echoing in the wide hall. “I thought you had left again.”
“You thought wrong,” Brooke said, not slowing her step. “Where is Mrs. Hemphill’s office?”
“Over there,” Roxy said, breaking into a trot to keep up with her. “But Brooke, you can’t go in there. You’re asking for it if you do.”
“Asking for what, Roxy?” Brooke asked. “Gossip? Lies? I get those no matter what I do.”
Roxy fell behind as Brooke pushed into the cubicle-like office with Abby Hemphill’s name on the door. The
woman, sitting behind her desk with the phone to her ear, gasped when Brooke burst in. She dropped the phone and shoved back her chair.
“No need to get up, Mrs. Hemphill,” Brooke said, leaning over the woman’s desk. “I won’t be here long. I just came to tell you that it’s open season on Brooke Martin. So go ahead. Take your best shots. I have to warn you, though—it won’t be quite as much fun sparring with a grown woman as it was with a high school senior. I’m not as easily intimidated now.”
Abby Hemphill bolted out of her chair. “How dare you speak that way to me!”
“I’m going to design the windows for the church because I’m good at what I do,” Brooke said, “and because I need the career boost. And no thanks to you, this town will have something to be proud of when I get through. Whether they deserve it is another story. Whether Nick and I do is without question. So I’ll be seeing you around, Mrs. Hemphill. The next few months should be interesting.”
And before Mrs. Hemphill could catch her breath to reply, Brooke had turned and left the office, pushing past Roxy, who stood stunned and speechless in the hall. But Brooke was sure as she passed her that the tiniest sparkle of admiration shone in her eyes.
For the first time in seven years Brooke felt good about herself.
Abby Hemphill sat paralyzed for a moment after Brooke had gone, trying to contain the raging emotions Brooke had incited. Then her last thread of control snapped, and her arm swept across her desk, knocking off her telephone, her can of pencils, her calendar, her calculator.
“That slithering little tramp!” she bit out through her teeth. She set her face in her hands, felt the heat seething there, and knew that she had to get out of the office before something inside her exploded.
Grabbing her purse, she went to her car, then drove like a maniac to the superintendent’s office, adjacent to the high school. There were few cars in the parking lot—it was a school holiday, and only a handful of counselors and teachers were present. Slamming her car door, Abby walked as fast as she could in her high heels.