Chapter 9
Beth
“Th my God, Bethany, these dresses are perfectr
rfect Holly Monroe twisted in the 3–way mirror to get a better look at the red velvet Christmas dress. Her daughters had identical, miniature versions of hers, all of them trimmed in fair white for, with black sashes. “Take a picture, please?”
She handed me her phone, and then she posed in front of Charke’s fireplace with her three daughters: I took a few snaps and then handed her back the phone. She grinned happily as she swiped through the pictures. “Theme are great! I’m going to post them on all my social media accounts. I’ll be sure to tell them that these are Bethany Segretta original
I smiled shyly at her praise.
“You know, my brother is getting married in February, and his fiancée still hasn’t found a gown she likes. Do you think you could make a custom wedding gown in that short a time?”
My eyes flew to the calendar “That’s a pretty short time frame,” I said, “I would have to see what kind of dress she has in mind, how complicated the design But, I drew in a deep breath, “January is usually a slow month for me, I could probably do it”
“Awesome, I’ll text her right now to see if she’d be interested her thumbs flew over her phone, and then she slipped it into her purse and pulled out her checkbook I sighed with relief as she wrote the sum and scribbled her name on the bottom. She tore out the paper and handed it to me. I accepted it reverently, with two hands. It was a small amount, just one order, but every little bit helped.
Thank
you so much, Holly,” I said, tucking the check into my account ledger. 1 really appreciate your business”
“Of course, sweetheart Okay Jennifer, take the dress off, and help your sisters. We don’t want to spoil them before the party, right? We are going to look so pretty” She clapped her hands, and her oldest daughter, Jenny, started pushing the smaller girls into the bathroom to change out of their new dresses
Holly turned around and pointed at her back, indicating that I should undo the zipper for her. She didn’t bother going into the bathroom, but stripped off the dress right there in my sewing workroom. Of course, if I had a body like hers, I wouldn’t be shy about getting naked either. It was hard to believe she’d delivered three babies.
She pulled her t–shirt back over her head, and then pushed her arms into her sweater. “I saw on the news that Raphael is back,” she said, like it was just an offhand comment. I had a feeling she’d been dying to bring up the subject since she’d arrived.
“Yes, he is,” I said, taking the
the dress she had removed and putting it back on the hanger. I put the plastic cover over it and laid it on the back of the
“You two used to be quite the item back in high school, she went on, pulling her hair out of the collar of her sweater and giving me a conspiratorial
I smiled back politely, but it was starting to hurt
“Well, you know.. now
That
my cheeks
“That was a long time ago”
you and Gabe are divorced..” She winked at me,
It was clear what she was hinting at, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Raphael Segretto hated me. Seven years h heart.
had done nothing to soften his
The girls came out of the bathroom, and I smoothed out their dresses and put them back on hangers, and then handed the bundle to Holly. “Thanks again, and Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too.” I walked Holly to the front door, and held it open while she ushered her brood of beautiful children back out to the minivan. While she was pulling out, sleek black car was pulling in. I saw Holly’s mouth shape itself into a little round O as she recognized the driver.
Raphael was back
My hands started to sweat. I quickly glanced back down the hallway to make sure that Lucy was busy at her desk. She was cutting out snowflakes from glstery paper to hang in the windows, scattering little bits of paper all over her worktable and the carpet, but at least she was occupied. Nana Charlie was in the kitchen, flipping through a large–print magazine.
Raphael parked in front of the garage, and struggled to get a large package out of the back seat. I stood frozen in the door, hyper aware that I was letting the heat out and the cold in, and there was no money left in the account to buy another hundred gallons of heating fuel for the big house,
He balanced the box and walked up the steps, and then stopped in front of the door, “Um, hi” He said, trying to hold the big, wrapped box to one alde “Can come in?”
Chapter 9
I stepped aside for him to enter. “It’s your house,” I muttered under my breath, “it’s not like you have to ask.”
He narrowed his gaze at me, those intense honey–colored eyes, identical to Lucy’s. 1 was just trying to be polite”
“Of course.” I waited until he had passed through the foyer, and then I shut the door. The shiver that ran down my s
spine had little to do with the chilled and everything to do with the sense of impending doom. I hugged myself around the middle and stood, rooted in the doorway, while he took the box and placed it beside the Christmas tree. It was too big to fit underneath.
He stood up and looked around. “Where’s Mom?”
“She’s in the kitchen”
I stood back as he passed me. I watched silently as he greeted Charlie with a kiss on her cheek and then pulled up a chair next to her “Hi, Mom. How are you feeling today?”
Seeing that this was a personal moment for them, I retreated to my sewing room in the back. I picked up a pair of men’s pants that I was supposed to be hemming, but my fingers felt too numb to roll the cuff. My eyes wouldn’t even focus, and my chest was so tight it hurt to breathe.
I wasn’t going to do that. I was not going to have a panic attack in front of Raphael Segretto. I would face this eviction like a dignified adult. I would nod my head, and politely ask if he could give me time to pack our things. Surely he needed a day at least, to find a replacement caregiver for Nana Charlie…
I heard him moving down the hall, and braced myself for the inevitable, but instead of coming directly to my workroom, he stopped in the study. I heard his deep mellow voice speaking to Lucy.
“Hi” Lucy’s greeting was not in the least bit warm or friendly.
- e. I’m your uncle.”
“I didn’t do a very good job of introducing myself the other day. I’m Raphael. But you can call me Rafe. I’m
Father, not uncle, but neither of them knew that. My heart squeezed so painfully, I thought I might throw up.
“Yeah, I know,” Lucy said. Her little voice was cold. She had the famous Segretto temper, and a long memory. She did not forget, nor did she forgive easily. Tim Lucy, but I guess you know that, too.”
1 figured” he said.
I couldn’t help myself. I moved out of my workroom to stand in the shadows outside the study, where I could watch them, unseen. He was squatting down next to her desk, balancing on the balls of his feet, and she was still focusing on her snowflakes, like the big man was not worth her attention 1 wanted to apologize for the way I behaved,” he went on. I haven’t been home in a long time, and I was really upset when I saw how your grandmother was.
Lucy tipped her head up at him. “You shouted.”
“Yes, I did. And I shouldn’t have done that”
“You almost made my Mom cry, she accused.
I grimaced, I tried to hide my feelings from her, but she was too perceptive.
“I shouldn’t have done that, either.” Rafe said contritely.
Lucy nodded, and continued to snip little shapes with her scissors.
“You aren’t going to make this easy for me, are you?”
Her little brows knit together. “Why should I make it easy?”
“Will you forgive me?”
She laid her materials down carefully. “Maybe. If you promise not to do it again”
“Okay, I promise
She pushed back her chair. “You shouldn’t make promises that you aren’t going to keep!”
“Who says
I’m not going to keep them?”
her fists on her hips and looked at him harshly. “You look like him. But you are b
bigger, and your eyes are gold
“My Daddy doesn’t keep them. She put he like mine”
Chapter 9
look alike doesn’t mean we are going to act the same.” He stood up with a groan,
“We are brothers, so yeah, we look a lot alike. But just because we lo like squatting had hurt his knees. 7 try to keep my promises.”
“Okay, if you say so.” She stuck out her tiny hand, like they were shaking on a deal. And Raphael grasped it, enveloping it in his large one, and shook it solemnly.
“Now that we are friends again, I brought you a present.”
I stiffened, not liking the direction this conversation was going. I had assumed the big box he had carried in was a gift for Charlie, not for my daughter
“A Christmas present?
“Yeah.” He looked at me, like he had known all along I was there, watching them. “But if your mom says it’s okay, you can open it today!
I pressed my shaking hands into my sides. He’d put me on the spot. Lucy was looking at me with an eager, hopeful expression that was almost comically mirrored by the man. There was so little I could give her. How could I deny her a gift from someone else?
A gift from her father.
“Yeah, sure, why not?” I tried to sound casual, but the words stuck in my throat and came out roughly
Lucy jumped with excitement and tore off toward the living room, Raphael came out and put his hand on my arm. It was just a casual gesture, one of those Italian things, the need to physically touch the person they were talking to. It didn’t mean anything. But my body jolted at the contact, and liquid heat seemed to travel from his fingertips, up my arm
“Bethany,” oven the way he said my name made my spine tingle. “We need to talk”
