Echoes (17 page)
She raised an eyebrow. "In what way?"
He was glad for the shadows. "I don't haunt women's doorsteps. Or cry on their shoulders." Twenty years' worth of guilt and despair must have needed an outlet. He leaned against the rack. "Some friends of mine are breaking up and I'd spent half the night with each. I just had to get out of the house, walk it off. I don't even know how I ended up outside your window."
"Somnambulism?"
He sighed. "I don't want you to think I'm stalking you or am otherwise unbalanced."
"You feel unbalanced?"
So much so he could topple at any moment. "People unburden themselves to me all the time, but I didn't realize how much I needed to. Now that I have—"
"You think you're through?"
He forked his fingers into his hair. "I hope so."
"Because in my experience grief is layered."
In his experience too. But he was doing his utmost to minimize the damage.
"I heard what happened to your brother, but not to you." Her soft voice sent a wrecking ball to his illusions of finality.
"To me? Nothing." He looked past the light into the crouching darkness that filled with her silence. "Nothing happened. Things . . . got better."
"Jacky's death made them better?"
He closed his eyes, unwilling to agree.
"Your father stopped bullying?"
"Not exactly, but with me it was a weird mix. He took pride in the way I stood up to and even surpassed him. Educationally for instance." His throat tasted bitter. "In a way the boasting was worse."
"You felt guilty he was proud?"
He opened his eyes to find she'd closed the space between them. "He should have been proud of both of us."
Jacky should have had the same chance Webb gave his favored son. But that was long ago, and he couldn't change it. This was now, and he wanted the past behind him, behind them both. All awareness of Jacky slipped away. There was only Sofie, and she didn't hold him responsible.
He slid his fingers into her hair, its honey softness sheer delight. He hadn't asked last night, but this time he had to. "May I?"
She slid her arms around his waist, and he felt exonerated as her lips found his.
Playing with fire could get her burned. But it had been so long since someone had held her like that, kissed her like that. So long since someone had looked at her with desire instead of worry. There, alone in the shadows, she wanted to kiss him and he wanted to kiss her. All of the whys and shoulds flew away, and only their wanting remained.
"Sof?" Lance called through the tunnel.
She drew back and steadied her voice. "I'm here. Showing Matt the bat cave." Penetrating the dark chambers of his soul that for some reason, he'd opened to her. Exploring the dangers of her own.
Lance approached them through the tunnel with a smaller flashlight that flickered unreliably. "We ought to wire this with ceiling bulbs." He held out her phone. "You have a call." With a wry look, he mouthed
Momma
.
She took it. "Hi, Momma."
"You're there all this time and you don't call?" Her voice carried into the cellar. "How are you? How is Nonna? Is Lance eating? He says he's fine, but is he eating yet?"
She smiled. "Yes, Momma. Lance is fine; I'm fine. We're all fine."
"He's getting married."
"Yes, he is."
"I prayed so hard he would find a nice girl and settle in the neighborhood."
"Rese is a nice girl."
"But so far away. How can I plan a wedding all the way across the country?"
"Let Rese and Lance plan it?"
"You sound like Pop. He wants to know how your paper's coming."
Behind her mother's voice she heard Pop call it a report. "Fine, Momma." It wasn't technically a lie, because she had been working the first few days and might still. "Tell Pop don't work too hard."
"Your sisters miss you. The children miss you. When're you coming back?"
She swallowed a sudden ache for them all. But the thought of walking those streets again, seeing all the familiar faces, and looking, always looking for the two that weren't there . . . "I don't know."
"You sound tired. Are you sleeping?"
She was tired, she suddenly realized. "I've been caring for an infant." Matt had come over after Diego's last feeding, and she'd been up ever since.
"What infant?" There it was, the shock of concern. Flags going up for her in a way they wouldn't for her sisters.
"One who needed care. He'll be leaving soon, and his mother is back now." She glanced again at Matt. "You sound good, Momma. How are things?"
"I could use a teacher for the beginning students. You used to like the little ones."
Sofie smiled. She had loved teaching the young dancers, but she'd made a break from the old neighborhood, the old memories and hurts. She had to give this a chance. "Put out an ad."
Momma groaned loudly enough that both Lance and Matt laughed.
"I have to go, Momma. It's nice talking to you."
"Don't take so long to call next time."
"I won't. I love you." She hung up and looked from Matt to Lance. "So."
Lance hung his hands on his hips. "I was just telling Matt we'll be sending most of these bottles to auction."
Matt scrutinized the space. "What will you do with the cellar?"
Lance shrugged. "Hadn't really thought about it."
Neither had she, but all at once an idea rushed in, maybe from talking to Momma about something that hadn't been spoiled. She imagined the space without the racks, big and open. Mirrors on the walls, a polished wood floor . . . Could Sonoma County support a New York–style dance studio?
As they went back through the tunnel and up into the carriage house, Lance explained how he'd convinced Rese to let him reclaim the stony ruin, what he'd done to make it livable, and best of all, how he'd discovered the cellar beneath. Matt's face mirrored Lance's excitement when he described the cache they'd found under one of the racks. Lance mentioned only the bundles of silver-certificate bills stashed inside, not the dossiers and other personal items. Matt wasn't family.
But it eased her heart to hear them talking. Maybe now Matt would see Lance was a man like any other—except when it came to serving God. In the last year especially, he'd had episodes like today's where he got carried away, oblivious to what was happening around him. But that didn't make him a person of concern as Matt had seemed to think. What he thought now, she couldn't say.
Lance left them in the garden, and Matt turned, catching her in the full scope of his gaze. "I'd really like to see you, Sofie. Not about Diego, and not for a shoulder. Would you want to go out with me?"
Ironic timing after their interludes in the cellar and on the porch the night before. She'd seen it coming, considered it herself. But kissing him in response to some inner urge was not the same as a deliberate decision to spend time together. The reality of forming a relationship threatened her as his arms and lips had not. Relationship was where she failed. "I'm not sure I can, Matt."
"Because . . ."
I'm broken
.
"You're not attracted to me?"
Could he think that? What she felt for him was not the mind-numbing, toxic attraction she'd had toward Eric. It was a recognition of his qualities, and a reckless disregard for their differences.
He ruffled his hair. "If you've hated every minute—"
"Of course not. It's just that the last time was destructive."
He searched her face. "I can't undo that."
"No one can."
"But I could buy you dinner. No expectations."
What would that even look like? Eric had been nothing but expectations, spoken and assumed. She had anticipated his wants, deciphered his moods and desires and met them with all her heart.
Matt folded his arms, uncertainty and disappointment touching his features. "It's okay to say no."
Then why didn't she? They were almost finished with Maria and Diego. It was unlikely their paths would cross again. She had provided an outlet for his grief; he'd allowed her to feel desirable in spite of everything. They could leave it at that.
She drew a strained breath. "Dinner would be nice." Another step toward letting go, more monumental really than leaving the neighborhood, when Eric wasn't even there anymore. That was a matter of geography. This step could change the landscape of her heart.
He smiled. "Seven?"
"Fine."
No, no, no
. What was she doing? She'd found her equilibrium.
"Okay, then." He brushed her cheek with his lips. "I'll see you tonight."
It was only dinner. Except she'd been raised in the ritual of breaking bread. Coming together at the table meant shared lives, and she was not sure she could share hers the way he wanted. Heart pounding, she watched him walk away, then went into the kitchen.
Nonna opened her eyes. "Nice man."
"Matt?"
"Who else?"
Sofie leaned on the counter. Matt was nice. He'd weathered tragedy and come out kinder, stronger. Nonna had softened toward him as she never had Eric. But she knew her grandmother didn't judge lightly.
She had endured a brief and fiery courtship, the flight for her life, and a precipitate marriage. Nonno Marco had been an unknown entity, and Nonna had entered the relationship in grief and fear, learned temperance, sound judgment, and abiding love. If anyone understood the terrain of the heart it was Antonia DiGratia Shepard Michelli.
Sofie looked at her beloved grandmother. "Are you all right here, Nonna? Do you miss everyone? Do you want to go home?"
Nonna folded her hands in her lap, blue eyes glistening. On her face the expression Sofie had treasured since her earliest years, wise and mischievous. "What makes you think I'm not?"
M
att hadn't been this anxious since he'd sat at the counsel table and looked his first jury in the eyes. Why hadn't he let Sofie refuse? If that last relationship had been so bad, he understood her reluctance to try again. How could he think he was the one to bring her through it? Had he brought Jacky through?
For a while he'd been Matthew Hammond, attorney-at-law, with prospects for a sickeningly prosperous future, and even that hadn't been enough to clear away the taint of failure. Now he was just a guy trying to make a difference in one county for a few hurting kids. Some days he wasn't even sure he did that.
What if she'd said yes because she didn't want to hurt him, because she thought he couldn't handle a rejection, because—he gripped his steering wheel—he'd cried on her shoulder. Cried. He almost hit the brakes and turned around.
Since coming back to Sonoma, he hadn't asked anyone out in anything more than a casual way. Now he'd found someone who could be really special and annihilated his chances by baring his soul. She'd bared hers, too, but so much more gracefully.
Once again, the urge to turn around almost took over. But something stronger than anxiety kept him going. He wanted to see her. And it was only dinner, a casual meal with no expectations. Then why did his heart kick like a billy goat inside his chest when Sofie came to the door in black slacks and a soft gray suede jacket?
"Hi." He ran his eyes over her. She wouldn't have made the effort to look that good if she didn't want to go out with him.
"Hi."
"Hungry?"
She nodded, but he caught a whiff of something cooking inside as she closed the door. Steep competition, if that one sniff told him anything. Well, The Girl and the Fig at the Hotel Sonoma served delicious fare. Besides, he told himself again, there were no expectations.
"I like your hair that way." Clipped up in the back with careless chic. Less temptation to his fingers than when she had it lying loose.
"Thanks."
He let her into his Pathfinder. "How's Maria settling in?"
"Fine, though she had a tense time when Cassinia came by. She's convinced the woman wants to take away her baby."
If Cassinia had revealed anything close to that, it violated their code of conduct. Parenthood was constitutionally protected, and Diego's citizenship bestowed that protection upon Maria. But Cassinia did not believe Maria should be strapped with the offspring of her rape, and she may have let it show.
"She scheduled Maria's psych evaluation?"
Sofie nodded.
"What's your assessment of her mental and emotional health?"
"I hadn't seen much of her before she left Diego, but what I've seen of her since seems remarkable. I would never have guessed she's been through that kind of trauma."
"Dissociation?"
"I don't think so. She told Cassinia Lance healed her baby and healed her too."
Great
. "Did Lance agree?"
Sofie shrugged. "Cassinia got pretty hostile when he tried to explain. It upset him enough that he took off on his bike with his dog."
"Where did he go?"
"Far enough to think."
"You have to admit it's farfetched. If Lance is miraculously healing people, why won't he say so?"
She shook her head. "Because he's not. Not the way everyone's making it sound. He's not trying to."
"You said intentions were measured by results."
"Okay. He did intend to put himself in God's hands. And he wants to help people." She glanced over. "He's not sure how the healing happens, only that sometimes when he touches people he feels an intense outpouring of love."
"And then whoever he touches is healed, cleft palates and all."
"It appears that way."
"And you think that's what happened to Maria. Lance touched her and all the emotional fallout went away."
"I only know that she doesn't seem destroyed. And she's bonded with Diego, strongly enough to put herself at risk in order to protect him. You tell me if that's the normal pattern."
He couldn't say it was. Not even close. But he was not ready to accept her explanation. Maybe Maria was so deeply in denial, she hadn't begun to face the pain. That made more sense than someone healing her by mistake. But what was he trying to do, pick a fight before they even got inside?
He parked in the plaza near the hotel and went around to get her door. Either she was comfortable being cared for or she'd been raised to expect courtesy—or the guy she'd been with got off on control. The spectrum of women who fell prey to abusers included professionals with advanced degrees and even tough policewomen.