Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
BIANCA
“Nonna Rose, may I speak with you in the sunroom, please?” I say tightly.
She doesn’t argue, for once. In fact, as soon as we’re alone, she spills the entire story.
The sunroom boasts an epic view of the Christmas tree half of the farm—a canopy of unchanging green.
It’s usually a breathtaking view, but right now, I’m struggling to breathe through my Murphy temper.
“So, let me get this straight. After Nonna Francesca called you, you visited Theo’s fake psychic ex for guidance, and she told you to invite your mortal enemy and her grandson to live with us? ”
I’m definitely going to exact payback on Theresa. Maybe I’ll bribe the barista at A Latte a Day to slip normal milk into her next drink.
“Not my mortal enemy.” Nonna Rose waves a hand dismissively. “It was a silly argument. Our blood was up.”
“And what was this silly argument about?” I ask. Both I and all of Apple Ridge would still like to know.
“Water under the bridge. The point is that I called Francesca back after talking to Theresa, and we worked everything out.” She squeezes my hand. “It’s good to have her here. Like being reunited with a sister.”
To be fair, my little sister has also thrown apples at my head and told me she wants to spit on my grave. I feel myself soften about Francesca’s presence, not Giovanni’s. “You realize Miles isn’t going to suddenly run home because he hears his old bestie is hanging out with us.”
She gives a world-weary shrug. “The Lord God works in mysterious ways. Miles adores that boy. Don’t you remember how he used to follow Giovanni around everywhere like a puppy dog?”
“Miles broke his arm because of it.”
I don’t mention that I also caught them drinking Grandpa’s old whiskey behind the apple barn. It would seem petty after fifteen years.
Nonna Rose touches my arm. “You bear more grudges than I do.”
She’s not wrong.
Hurt me, fine. Hurt someone I love, and I’m not so quick to forgive and forget.
“Miles will come back when he comes back, Nonna. We can’t twist his arm. He’s twenty-nine.”
She sighs and clucks her tongue. “And still sowing those wild apple seeds.”
“Can we please stop calling it that?”
She studies me with sad eyes, probably because she knows I have a weakness for puppy dog stares. “At least Francesca’s oldest boy has chosen a wife. I have four grandchildren, and none of them are even close to settling down.”
“Good for Francesca.” I’m dangerously close to pouting and know it, so I add, “You know it’s a good thing Rhett and I broke up. He’s a jerk.”
She shrugs, pursing her lips to one side. “Your grandfather was one too, and we had a very productive marriage.”
“Excuse me if I don’t want a ‘productive’ marriage. And quit trying to change the subject. Don’t you think it’s weird that Giovanni packed up his whole life to come here? He’s up to something.”
“Yes, he’s being a loving grandson. Those other boys tried to get their grandmother to let a strange woman move into her home and take care of her. A home helper, they called her. Francesca went along with it at first, but when the time came, she couldn’t bear it. I don’t blame her one bit.”
“Nonna, you know I basically am a home helper, right?”
She cups both of my forearms, wine nearly sloshing out of the glass she’s still holding. “You didn’t go to school for all those years to become a home helper. You are a nurse.”
“Who spends her days getting puked on, peed on, and—”
“Not before dinner, cara. You go take a shower and relax.”
I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that, knowing Giovanni is lurking downstairs, wandering around without any supervision.
Who knows what mischief he’ll get up to.
Although, if he tries sneaking any whiskey, he’ll soon realize it’s the same bottle he watered down nearly two decades ago.
I only drink outside of the house, and Nonna Rose never drinks at all, other than right now.
I’d feel better if Theo were here to keep watch.
I study my grandmother. “Theo doesn’t know about this, does he? You didn’t tell Isabella either.”
She takes a sip of the wine. “This is still my house, is it not? Whoever I ask to stay here is my business.”
“But Theo runs the farm now.”
“Miles owns half of it, and I’m sure he’d be overjoyed to have his friend helping out. You know those high schoolers Theo rounded up to work at the pumpkin patch on the weekends are no good. Theresa said they’ve been selling weeds.”
I sigh. “Nonna, you grew up in the 1960s. You know what weed is.”
“You treat me like an old woman,” she scoffs. “You don’t let me speak.”
“Okay, sorry, go on. Theresa had a vision of them selling weed, so now you want to replace them with the strange man you invited to live in our house.”
“She saw them selling it last weekend. With her own eyes, not in a vision. They couldn’t even be bothered to answer her questions about the pumpkins.
Giovanni would be much better. Theo can put him in charge of the pumpkin patch before the full-time schedule starts next month, and I would love for Francesca to help me with all the baking.
It gets lonely in the kitchen all by myself. ”
“I’ll get you a dog.”
“And who’s going to vacuum the fur?”
I recognize a circular argument when I’m stuck in one. “Yeah, okay. I’m going to go take a shower. But I’m telling Theo and Isabella about all of this. They deserve to know.”
“Very well. But wait until after dinner. I don’t want their fuss ruining our spaghetti,” she says with a sigh, as if she planned on keeping a six-foot-something man, his grandmother, and their Range Rover hidden. Knowing her, she just might have managed it.
I take a long shower and then pull on a fresh outfit, relieved to throw today’s scrubs into the dirty clothes basket. I step into the hallway, ears attuned to the sounds of our guests.
A low rumble of conversation drifts up the stairs, along with the smell of the sauce. I turn the corner toward the staircase, my toes burying into the soft runner, and smack into a hard body.
Alarm lights up every synapse, and I don’t think—I lift up both hands and shove.
Horror floods me as my human brain catches up. Giovanni was standing at the top of the steps, and now he’s teetering, his eyes rounding with alarm.
He grips the old carved banister at the same moment I fist handfuls of his shirt and pull him toward me.
He steps onto the landing, into my space, and even though he’s safe now—no chance of being accidentally murdered—I don’t release his shirt.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Oh my God.”
He raises his arm and soothes his big hand up and down my back, seemingly unbothered by my wet hair.
I’m so relieved he’s okay that I lean into him, feeling his firm, warm chest beneath my fisted hands.
He must have been driving all day, but somehow he still smells like a spicy forest. I burrow into him for a few seconds, letting him run his hand down my back, until he whispers into my ear.
“I knew you wanted me gone, but I didn’t think you’d resort to murder this fast.”
I don’t push him. I’m not about to make that mistake twice within thirty seconds, but I shrug out of his embrace and step away until my back hits the wall, covered in wallpaper so old there are multiple pockets where air has gotten in. “It was an accident. You crept up on me.”
His big grin spreads easily across his pretty face. “I’m a six-foot-three man who lifts weights. I don’t creep up on anyone.”
I suck a deep breath, letting it ease out, and slide down the wall until I’m sitting. “Of course you had to mention you lift weights.”
“What’s the point of doing it if no one notices?” he asks, taking a step toward me.
“What are you doing here? Be honest.”
He approaches and sits against the wall beside me, his knees nearly touching mine. I want to pull away, but if I do it’ll feel like some kind of tell.
It strikes me that we’re sitting against the wall next to the stairs, the way two children might do if they wanted to spy on a grown-up party.
“Here in North Carolina, or here on this landing?” Giovanni asks.
“Both.”
He gives me a sidelong look, his face a disconcerting echo of the boy I remember.
He was softer then and so much smaller. It’s wild to think that this same rug was on the floor the last time I saw him.
The same paper was covering the walls. He’s been transformed, but this house has not, as if time marches slower here.
Do I truly look the same? Am I as unremarkable to him as this old, creaky house?
Finally, he says, “I’m up here because your grandmother asked me to see what was taking you so long.”
A half laugh spills out of me. “That was quick.”
“What was?”
I shake my head, bemused, and run a finger across my bare ring finger. “I broke off my engagement about a year ago, and she’s impatient. She’s trying to play matchmaker.”
Truthfully, I would have married the asshole if Kitty hadn’t saved me. You have to be the worst kind of snake in the grass to have your own flesh and blood, not to mention a sweetheart like Kitty, warn people to run from you.
After I checked her vitals one morning, she gripped my wrist, the pressure surprisingly strong, and said, “My darling girl, my great-nephew asked you to take care of me because he was hoping you’d spy on me. He thought you’d feed him information about who I was leaving all of this to.”
All of this being her considerable fortune.
“Kitty, he wouldn’t do that,” I objected, but she gave me one of her classic bless your heart looks, and after that, I paid more attention to the way he talked about her.
It wasn’t the fond way you’d talk about a beloved great-aunt. No, he was hungry. The Gallaghers had plenty of ancestral money, but Kitty had married a wealthy man and never had any children.
When he flat-out asked me if I knew what was in her will, I told him the truth: she planned on pouring the majority of her money into a fund for the town’s children and elderly. He looked me in the eye and said, “You have to help me convince her not to do that.”