Chapter 2 #2
Kayden swallowed deeply and took a shaky breath. Keeley saw the tears in her brother’s eyes—and suddenly she was crying too.
Quietly. Without sound. Nothing but shiny lines of tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
She quickly wiped them away, waiting for the inevitable. She was smart and observant, with a heart the size of Texas.
She doesn’t deserve this, Gio thought. Neither of them did.
“Say it,” Keeley croaked, before clearing her throat. “You can say it, Kayden. It’s okay.”
She knew what was coming, and the incredibly brave girl didn’t cower, didn’t scream, didn’t try to deny it. Instead, she found a way to give her brother the strength to speak the words.
“Mom and Dad aren’t coming home. Their plane…the storm…” Kayden said.
And then, as if he’d bid it to come, lightning pierced the sky, followed by a loud peal of thunder.
Keeley flinched, and Gio crossed the room to her while Rafe stepped closer to Kayden. He eased her back down to the couch, afraid her trembling body wouldn’t support her for much longer.
Kayden came and sat on the other side, reaching out for her, and the two of them sat there, locked together, crying out their grief for hours, the storm raging outside, as he and Rafe silently stood sentry by the couch.
“I know it’s stupid to be afraid,” Keeley said. “I mean…we’re perfectly safe in here.”
“It’s not stupid,” Rafe assured her.
Gio didn’t like how pale she’d gone. What she needed was a distraction. “We all have irrational fears. For me, I’m afraid of hospitals,” Gio admitted.
Keeley smiled slightly. “I don’t think anyone likes hospitals, Gio.”
He chuckled, though the sound held no mirth. “Yeah, well, I think it’s a little more than dislike. I was thirteen when my mom died of cancer.”
“Thirteen?” Keeley asked.
He nodded. “I spent the better part of my eighth-grade year at Hopkins, either waiting while she went through treatment, or sitting next to her hospital bed whenever she was admitted due to complications. I hated the sounds—the constant beeping of machines—and the bright, relentless fluorescent lighting, and the smells. God, they were the worst. Antiseptic and bleach and…sickness.”
Rafe still held one of her hands, so Keeley placed the other on his thigh. She gave his leg a squeeze. Another flash of lightning lit up the restaurant, and Keeley jumped.
He placed his hand on her nape, gently caressing the soft skin beneath her long hair, hoping it would soothe her. “Nowadays, I avoid hospitals like the plague. I couldn’t tell you the last time I stepped foot in one.”
“I never knew all that,” Keeley said. “I mean, I knew your mom passed away, but I never knew how. I should have asked long before now.”
Gio waved away her guilt. “We lived in Baltimore at the time. I didn’t meet Kayden until we moved back here shortly after, just before my freshman year of high school.
And you, little one,” he said, chucking her under the chin, “were barely in elementary school and too young to remember any of that anyway.”
“Yeah…but still,” she said.
They sat quietly for a few moments, simply listening to the sound of the rain beating on the roof. If he wasn’t mistaken, he could hear hail pelting the windows as well. It was a violent, nasty storm, but sitting here with Rafe and Keeley, he could almost forget about it.
With anyone else in the world, Gio might have tried to fill the silence between them, kept the conversation going with light chatter. This lingering quietness would have felt awkward in a different crowd, but right now, with them, it felt peaceful.
“What are you afraid of, Rafe?” Keeley asked after a few minutes.
The dark room, lit only by the flickering light from the candles and the occasional flashes of lightning, created an almost…
well, if he was the fanciful sort, he’d say romantic atmosphere.
There was something about the coziness and the closeness, the three of them huddled together in the booth, that seemed to invite the sharing of deep secrets and the kind of intimate conversation that could only be shared between friends who’d known each other forever.
“I’m afraid of the ghost currently haunting that house I’m living in,” Rafe joked.
Or at least Gio thought it was a joke.
He and Keeley laughed.
Rafe did not.
Keeley leaned toward Rafe, nudging his shoulder with hers. “Seriously?”
Rafe winked, finally breaking into a grin. “No. Not really. I mean, I hear a lot of bumps and creaks in the middle of the night. Personally, I blame Grandpa Albert for planting the ghost story seed.”
“Sounds like your grandpa,” Gio observed. “I loved the guy, but he was definitely…”
“I think the word you’re looking for is eccentric,” Rafe finished for him.
“I thought he was awesome. He always had cinnamons in his pocket, and he said I reminded him of his wife. Said she was a looker too,” Keeley confided with a fond smile.
“I never met Grandma Marta, but I’ve seen plenty of pictures. She was very beautiful…just like you,” Rafe said, brushing a stray hair away from Keeley’s face.
“Why did he think his house was haunted?” she asked.
“Grandpa Albert lived in that mausoleum of a house for nearly fifty years. He bought it for Grandma Marta as a wedding gift.”
“A house as a wedding gift. How sweet,” Keeley gushed.
Gio grinned. She had a romantic streak a mile wide, and he vaguely wondered if that was why she’d always had such a hard time finding a boyfriend. None of the yahoos she and Liza had ever dated seemed capable of sweeping a woman off her feet. Not in the way Keeley deserved.
“You’ve seen the house. If you think that’s romantic, then sure,” Rafe teased. “Anyway, Marta died a few years after the wedding, in childbirth with my mom.”
“Oh no. That’s so sad.”
“Yeah. It is. But Grandpa always insisted Marta never left the house, or him. That her spirit remained behind, waiting for him to join her.”
Keeley was completely enthralled by the ghost story. “And now they’re together.”
“Suuuure they are,” Rafe replied sarcastically.
Keeley gave Rafe a wide-eyed, exasperated look, as if he was missing the obvious. “Of course they are. They’re living in their mansion—the home he bought for her—together at last, forever, in the spirit realm.”
Rafe lifted one shoulder casually. “That could be true. Or maybe this just felt like the right time and place for a ghost story.”
Gio laughed. His friend wasn’t wrong. With a little imagination, it wouldn’t be hard to pretend they were all sitting around a campfire.
Rafe continued, “I’m pretty sure if Grandpa had left the house to Mom, she would have had the thing knocked down five minutes after his funeral. She’s always hated the place.”
“That’s probably why your grandpa left it to you,” Keeley said. “He knew you’d keep his and Marta’s home safe.”
“I’m going to regret telling you that story, aren’t I?” Rafe joked.
“Your mom calmed down yet?” Gio followed up. “Still upset about the will?”
Rafe shrugged. “I haven’t talked to her much since he died.
The whole thing just…caught us both unaware.
Though now that I’ve had time to think about it, I understand why Grandpa did what he did.
He was a workaholic who’d given his life to building up his business.
Meanwhile, my mom has maxed out her credit card no less than twenty times in her life. ”
“Twenty times?” Keeley asked, aghast.
Rafe nodded. “Mom’s not good with money.
She’s spent the last thirty-five years as a secretary.
She makes an okay salary, but none of it stays in the bank for long.
In my mom’s mind, the way to a man’s heart is either through his stomach—hence an overstuffed fridge of food—or with toys, like computers or big-screen TVs or PlayStations.
As a result, her problem with spending was usually the source of her divorces.
The first three guys couldn’t handle being buried under her heaps of debt.
The fourth one left when she ran out of money to support him. ”
“That’s terrible,” Keeley said.
“Yeah. Things would get bad, my stepdad of the moment would cut and run, and then she’d go to Grandpa for help. And he always bailed her out. So I’m sure he was afraid that if he left his estate to her, she’d squander all the money and his legacy would be gone in an instant.”
Keeley shook her head in disbelief. “That’s kind of…”
“Sad,” Rafe filled in for her. “And you’re right. It is.”
Gio looked at the front window. Though the thunder and lightning had died off, the rain was still coming down in sheets. “Doesn’t look like the storm is going to let up for a while.”
Rafe stood and walked over to the bar. Tucking a bottle of wine under his arm and a corkscrew in his pocket, he grabbed three glasses and returned to their table. “I don’t mind hanging out for a little longer.”
He deftly opened the wine, pouring each of them a glass. “Sort of cool owning a restaurant,” Rafe admitted. “Unlimited booze…and cheese fries.”
Keeley narrowed her eyes, pointed a finger at him, and launched into a fake lecture.
“If I come to work for you, there will be none of that. You, Mr. Finance, know what it would do to the bottom line if you started feeding this one,” she said, crooking her thumb toward Gio. “He’d eat you out of house and home.”
“Take the if out of that threat,” Rafe said. “You are coming to work for me, Kiwi.”
She didn’t deny Rafe’s assertion because it was clear she wanted the job.
Gio was happy for the two of them, pleased that Keeley would have a good job and Rafe would have the help he so desperately needed.
However, the job would ensure that Rafe and Keeley were together all day, five days a week. And there was a small, silly part of him that felt…left out.
Keeley lifted her wineglass. “To Albert and Marta. Together again.”
The three of them tapped their glasses together and took a sip.
“I miss that old guy,” Rafe confessed.
“He was a character.” Gio had always been fond of Rafe’s grandfather.