Page 4

I saw him in my mind’s eye, shirtless. Moving smoothly from yoga pose to yoga pose.

Whoa. How shallow was I?

It’s just distraction . The answer bubbled up from a calmer place inside my head. He was eye candy, and my eyes were hungry. Gawking at a beautiful man was a way not to think about the piece that had been torn from my life. And the ragged hole left behind.

Oh shit. Now my eyes were fogging up. The guy’s mouth was moving, and I’d just been staring. Mouth open, no doubt. I hadn’t followed him at all.

“… Mrs. D’Onofrio here? I had an appointment with her this morning.”

Oh, God, not again. Irrational anger flared inside me.

Why was it my goddamn job to announce this catastrophe to the whole world?

I’d been the one to find Lucia’s body. I’d been the one to call the cops.

I’d been the one to call my sisters. I’d gone up and down the block, telling neighbors, activating their community phone trees.

I’d told the delivery people, I’d dealt with the funeral home, I’d written the obit.

Could somebody else please take a fucking turn?

Not his fault , I reminded myself. I shook my head. “Lucia’s dead.” My voice was colorless.

His face went blank with shock. “Oh, my God. When?”

I rubbed my wet eyes under my glasses, took a deep breath, and tried again. “A few days ago,” I said. “The funeral was yesterday.”

He was silent for a long moment. “I am so sorry,” he said gently.

There was no good response to that. I’d learned that this week, to my great cost. I just nodded. “Yeah. Me, too. So who are you?”

“I’m Liam Knightly. I’m the carpenter. I’m here to start the work on the house.”

“Work? On the house? What work?”

“She didn’t tell you about the renovations she was planning?”

I shook my head. “I hadn’t spoken to her for a couple of weeks before she died.”

“Neither did I,” he said. “We set this date weeks ago.”

I shook my head. No clue what to do about him and his plans for Lucia’s house. He was an ambassador from that alternate timeline, the wonderful one that would have existed if Lucia hadn’t been ... no. I had to stop the what-if thinking. It didn’t help.

Liam Knightly wiped the rain off his face. “Would it make you nervous if I stood under the porch roof with you? I’m getting drenched.”

“Uh, that’s fine,” I said distractedly. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you before. Do you want to come in? For a cup of coffee, or tea? If Lucia has tea. Or had, I guess I should say.” Damn. Babbling again. I did that when I got nervous.

Knightly’s eyes showed the subtle gleam of a smile. “Thank you, yes. Wait just one moment. I’ll go tell Eoin to wait.”

I watched him run lightly down the walk and concluded that his ass was as fine as his quadriceps had suggested that it might be. “You could both come in,” I called.

“No, he’s shy. He’ll be fine in the truck.” Knightly jerked open the driver’s side door and exchanged a few words with whoever sat on the passenger side. A few long, loping strides brought him back up to the porch.

It took me forever to get the locks open. My hands felt clumsy and thick. When the door finally swung wide, the smell of the funeral flowers was intensely strong.

Knightly followed me through the house. His footsteps were weirdly quiet for such a big man walking on such old, creaky floors.

I snapped on the kitchen light and had a bad moment when I remembered how we’d trashed the place last night.

Every surface was covered with spilled flour, shreds of dough, and the odd grape here and there, squished on the floor and the countertop.

The scorched crusts of the schiacciata looked sad and unkempt on the fine china serving plate.

Sticky port bottles lay empty and forlorn, both on and under the table.

He must think I was a total lush. A slob, too.

“We had a wake for her last night,” I felt compelled to explain. “Me and my sisters. Up all night with port wine and Tuscan pastry.”

Knightly nodded. “Sounds like an appropriate thing to do.”

I touched my aching head with my fingertips. “It seemed that way at the time,” I said dully. “So what was I... oh, yes. Coffee. Or tea.” I started rummaging in the kitchen drawers, feeling shaky and rattled. “Which do you prefer?”

“Tea, please. If Lucia has it. Had it.”

“I thought you’d pick tea,” I told him. “What kind? Green? Herbal?”

“Black tea if you have it,” he said. “With sugar. And milk if possible. I’m Irish. I get the tea thing from my folks.”

“I’m Irish, too,” I confessed.

His eyebrows lifted. “Really? With a name like D’Onofrio? Wasn’t Lucia ...”

“Italian? God, yes. Down to her toenails.” Nancy yanked a green canister of Irish Breakfast tea out of the drawer. “Will this do?”

“That’ll be fine.”

“She adopted us,” I went on, rummaging for the teakettle.

“She took us in when we were foster kids. I was the first one she found. I was thirteen. Nell and Vivi came later. My name was O’Sullivan, then.

” Pans rattled and clanked as I shoved them around.

“O’Sullivan was my mother’s name. I don’t know about my father.

He could have been Italian, for all I know.

The way things went, I was lucky to have a surname at all. ”

“Hey,” he said gently. “You seem upset. You don’t have to tell me all this?—”

“I was so glad when Lucia finally adopted me.” I couldn’t stop talking, although there was a tight quaver in my voice.

“It was a dream come true. I was so proud she wanted me. I’ve been a D’Onofrio for more than half my life now, so I guess that means I’m Italian now too, whether the Italians want to claim me or not.

” I yanked out a kettle that was nested in some other pans and ended up pulling the whole cluster out of the cupboard.

They hit the floor with an ear-splitting clatter.

I stared down, the kettle clutched in my hand. I felt Liam Knightly’s big, warm hand at my elbow, gently steering me toward a kitchen chair, turning me around, then nudging me steadily backward until I lost my balance and was forced to sit down on it.

“Let me.” He took the kettle from my numb fingers.

I just sat there, speechless, and let him do it. He ran water into the kettle, set it on the stove, lit the gas. He gathered the pans and slid them back into the cupboard without so much as a sound. Without seeming to search for anything, he assembled sugar, mugs, spoons, milk. Damn, he was smooth.

He gently pushed the clutter aside on the table and draped a tea bag in each mug. Hot water gurgled pleasantly as he filled them. Steam rose.

Knightly put the kettle down and sat, waiting patiently. I was so embarrassed at my little freak-out. When I made no move to drink, he finally stirred some sugar and milk into both cups and nudged one toward me.

“Go on,” he urged. “Tea helps with everything. My mom always used to say that.”

I tried to smile. Took a cautious sip. It must have been the hot steam against my face, but suddenly tears were slipping down. They tickled my face, dangled from my chin, filled my nose. Damn that nose. Already puffy and red from yesterday’s tears.

“She was a wonderful lady,” Knightly said. “Pure quality.”

Right then, I wished desperately that I’d left my hair down, unwashed or not. I would have loved to tilt my head forward and have curtain of hair to hide behind.

But it was not to be. My hair was slicked back cruelly tight, every wisp smoothed, with my pale, wet face naked and exposed in the cold, gray light of morning.

“Yes,” I said. “She was. The best. In every way.”

The sounds of the morning smoothly shifted into the foreground as the silence lengthened—cars passing by, rain sluicing down the window glass. Steam curled up from the two cups.

Liam Knightly reached out and took my hand.

My first instinct was to yank it back, but I didn’t want to be rude, and he’d been so nice about the tea. Besides, he had a nice hand. Big, warm, callused. His gentle, careful grip made my own hand tingle.

“I lost my mother six years ago,” he offered. “I couldn’t breathe for weeks afterward.”

“Oh. So, um. You know,” I mumbled. “How it is.”

“Yes, I know.”

Tears blinded me again. He just sat there, sipping tea, clasping my hand. In my usual tense and anxious state, any kind of silence felt like dangerous emptiness that needed to be filled.

But Knightly’s silence was different. It made space for me. He didn’t seem embarrassed or put off by my little breakdown. He was in no hurry. He didn’t seem to be wondering how quickly he could get away from the whacked-out, grieving girl.

My hand felt good in his. Warm.

It occurred to me suddenly that this was the most intimacy I’d had—besides hugs from my sisters—since my last fiancé’s defection.

And maybe a good long time before that, if I was honest. Maybe he was just being nice, but the patient way Liam Knightly held my hand, witnessing my tears without flinching, was more subtly erotic than anything I’d ever shared with Freedy.

Or any of the others either, for that matter.

I mopped my eyes with a crumpled napkin, then felt a soft square of cloth tucked into my hand. A handkerchief, of all things. I looked at it, bemused. “Wow,” I said. “I didn’t know people still used these.”

“I’m old-fashioned,” he said. “My father liked them. It’s an artifact from a bygone age. One I happen to like.”

I dabbed my eyes with the crisply ironed cotton, wishing I looked prettier, and feeling stupid and childish for wishing it.

He squeezed my hand gently. “I don’t mean to touch anything painful, but could you tell me what actually happened to Lucia?”

The question jolted me out of my self-absorption. “Oh. Yeah. A thief broke into the house while she was here alone. The shock and fear must have provoked a heart attack.”

His mouth tightened. “That must have been so terrible for you.”