Page 61 of His Wicked Wants (West Coast Mobsters #6)

CHAPTER 56

GAbrIEL

Nero pulls his Bugatti into the curb and turns off the engine. “Is this it?” I ask after a moment. Because he’s just sitting there staring at the house. It’s a modest California bungalow, the stucco exterior framed by a trellis of bougainvillea. The front yard has a white gravel walkway bordered by small flowering plants—marigolds and geraniums and poppies, though they’re starting to droop onto the walk. On the small porch sit two Adirondack chairs.

The sight of them sitting there empty gets to me, and I have to look away.

“This is it,” Nero confirms.

“She’s expecting us,” I tell him gently. “I know it’s hard for you, but?—”

There are times when Nero just can’t stand having his masculinity threatened by the suggestion that he might be emotionally invested. This seems to be one of those times. He shoves open the car door and gets out. I climb out my side, carefully balancing the young olive tree that I’ve brought with me as a gift.

Visiting Linda Ventura was Nero’s idea, but I’m pretty sure he’d rather be anywhere else right now. I suspected he might feel this way, so I suggested I come along with him. I bump him gently with my shoulder now as he loiters on the sidewalk. “We better go up.”

The front yard is slightly less immaculate than I was expecting…and then I feel awful as I realize that Ray Ventura’s widow probably doesn’t feel much like gardening right now. It’s only been a month since he died. And that gets me second-guessing the gift I brought for her, but it’s too late—Nero is knocking on the door.

It opens almost immediately, and a neatly dressed, middle-aged woman with silvering strands in her hair gives us a brave smile. “You must be Nero,” she says. “My goodness, when Ray described you I didn’t quite believe him, but you look exactly like he said,” she goes on, her eyes on Nero’s throat. “And this is Gabriel, the gardener?”

Nero and I glance at each other, but I just smile, and say, “That’s right. The gardener. I actually brought this for you, an olive tree. I hear Ray liked olives.”

“Oh, that’s lovely of you,” she says, but I notice that her smile has dropped a little. “Yes, he did like olives; he used to eat his way through whole buckets of them while he watched his team—” She breaks off, her voice breaking, and covers it up with a cough. “Come in, please.” She leads us through to the front sitting room, where she’s already made a pot of coffee and laid out some homemade cookies.

I feel even worse now, making a new widow entertain. “We don’t want to keep you too long,” I begin, but Linda leans forward and offers me a cookie.

“You’re not keeping me,” she says firmly. “If anything, I’m relieved to have someone here. I need to keep busy because as soon as I slow down, I get…well. I just want to keep busy for now.”

Nero leans forward to take one of the cookies. “Thank you very much,” he says. “I wish we could have met under very different circumstances.”

Linda blinks rapidly. “Ray was just full of stories about you,” she says quickly. “He was so happy recently, just really…happy.”

Our hostess misses the wince Nero gives, but I don’t. He only admitted to it out loud last night, but I’ve known since it happened that he feels incredibly guilty for Ray Ventura’s death. Not just because Ray took a bullet that was meant for Nero, but because Nero was the one who had encouraged Ray to take a few more risks in the first place.

“If I’d let the old fool live quietly, like he wanted to—if I’d never taken him to the Chateau—never made him break the rules—maybe he’d still be alive,” he’d said last night after I woke him from a nightmare.

I’d pulled him to me, cradling him while I stroked his hair, and pointed out, “And maybe then you wouldn’t be alive. I never got to know the man, but I’ll always be grateful to him.”

That was when Nero had asked me if I wanted to go with him to meet Ray’s widow.

And seeing Linda now, I feel a little teary myself. I look around the room, trying to distract myself. The last thing I want to do is make the poor woman feel like she has to comfort me, some random guy who never even met her husband. My eyes land on a familiar pair of pink gardening gloves. “Oh, we sell those ones at GreenSpace,” I blurt without thinking.

Linda follows my gaze and gives a sad smile. “Yes,” she says, “Ray bought those for me not long ago.” There’s still that catch in her voice. And I remember that day, of course, when Ray bought the gloves. I’d been focused on Nero, but Ray Ventura had been there, too. And Ray had been thinking about his wife. “I have to admit,” Linda sighs, “I haven’t been able to bring myself to wear them since he... Well, I’m afraid I’ve let the garden go a little. I’m sure you must’ve noticed, being a gardener yourself.”

“The thing about gardens is, they always bounce back,” I tell her. “You can let it run wild as much as you need, Mrs. Ventura. It will always be waiting there for you when you’re ready for it.” I pause, and then say, “But if it would help you out, Nero and I would be happy to do some yard work while we’re here.”

Nero sends me a slightly alarmed glance, but Linda is already taken by the idea.

“Do you know, having some help would be wonderful. I think the reason I’ve been avoiding the garden is because Ray and I used to work in it together. Just feels so lonely without him. Perhaps we could plant the olive tree while you’re here?”

And that’s how we find ourselves out there in the garden, me supervising Nero digging a deep enough hole to plant the olive sapling, and Linda cheerfully trimming the hedges behind, wearing her pink gardening gloves. Nero rolled up his expensive sleeves without hesitation, though he did mutter something about having had a lot of practice digging holes that made me give him a warning glance.

Once the hole is big enough, I announce it’s time to plant. Linda’s eyes grow damp as Nero and I settle the small tree into the hole, and she asks, “Do you think we could spread some of Ray’s ashes among the roots? He always said he wanted to be buried right here in the garden so he could bug me every time I came out.”

I’m getting teary myself, so I’m grateful when Nero puts an arm around Linda and says, “I think that would be a wonderful idea.”

We watch as Linda tips out some of the ashes from the urn and then crosses herself. Nero does the same, and then I do, too, a moment later. It’s not a gesture that I’ve made since childhood, but it feels appropriate here as we pause for a moment of silence for the man who saved the love of my life.

As we’re leaving, I mention that GreenSpace has a new community event coming up soon, and Linda seems very interested. I just about fall over when Nero gallantly offers to pick her up in his own car and escort her there himself. She seems delighted, and we leave feeling much better about the world than when we arrived.

“That was very kind of you,” I tell Nero.

“Don’t you dare tell anyone, little gardener. I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Your secret is safe with me. But seriously, Nero—if you keep doing philanthropic things, people are gonna start thinking you’re a philanthropist. Like that ‘anonymous donation’ to expand the community gardens that turned up a few weeks ago? Yvonne nearly passed out when she saw the amount.”

Nero shrugs. “A good investment, that’s all. The Family benefits from having legitimate community ties.”

I know better. I saw how he lit up when Yvonne showed him around the new children’s garden plots. We’ve done a few more successful guerrilla gardening missions, too—authorities now mysteriously look the other way, even in broad daylight. And Yvonne has become something of a local hero after speaking at a city council meeting about urban renewal and food security.

“Fine,” I tell him. “You’re a bad, bad man.” I slide my hand over his thigh and smile at him.

And silently, I send a prayer of gratitude out to Ray Ventura, wherever he is, thanking him for his sacrifice, and promising him that Nero and I will keep looking out for his widow for the rest of her days.