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She wiped her hands on the apron. “Great minds think alike.”
Steam rose from the bowl of pasta, filling the air around Sylvie with the mouth-watering aroma of oregano and tomatoes. They’d finished cooking and settled on opposite sides of her tiny table to enjoy the fruits of their shared labor. She sneaked a peek at Tony twirling the long strands of spaghetti around his fork. Ignoring her earlier advice, her girls sat up and took ardent notice of the way he sucked the thin noodles into his mouth.
The sunset’s last soft amber rays filtered in through the west-facing window that overlooked Harbor City’s crowded skyline. How often had she gazed out at that scene from the other side of the harbor, resigned to the fact that people only wanted to adopt the youngest or the cutest? Too often. More depressing still, her existence had severely limited any interest potential parents had in her baby sister, Anya.
The first time Henry and Anton had shown up at the adoption day event, they’d spent an hour chatting with Anya. Sylvie had stayed off to the side, not wanting to kill her sister’s opportunity for a family. The need for a chance of her own had squeezed her lungs tight, but she’d loved her sister too much to ruin her chances yet again. The hotdogs and corn on the cob had barely been served when the two men had sought out the adoption counselor.
She’d known the instant the counselor had told them Anya had a sister. Even worse, she’d imagined the counselor saying, it was an older sister who had a learning disability and a temper. The whole world had stopped turning and the bite of hotdog in her mouth lost all flavor. Sylvie had wanted to scream and break things to avoid hearing the rejection again, and having to see the tears in Anya’s eyes. Instead, the strangest thing had happened. Henry had smiled right at her and gave her a little wave from across the picnic grounds. The small, sweet-natured gesture had shattered the boulders chained to her shoulders, and for the first time in a life full of aching disappointment, she’d felt something different.
Hope.
“I promise I didn’t poison the gravy.” Tony’s deep rumble popped her bittersweet memory balloon.
She took a deep breath, regaining her footing in the here and now. “I hope not. That would make you a complete failure as a bodyguard.”
He flinched, a grimace twisting his lips for a second before the expression slid away, replaced by a mask so studiously neutral she wondered what could possibly be lurking behind it.
Her cheeks burned. “Sorry, bad joke.”
He gave her a curt nod and went back to eating.
Searching for something to say and failing miserably, she took a bite of spaghetti dripping in sauce. The oregano, garlic, and tomato mixed together on her tongue like a present from above. “Oh my God, this is so good.”
“You should try my Nonni’s gravy. Puts this to shame.”
She swirled her finger through a red dollop on the plate’s edge and sucked it clean, closing her eyes to fully appreciate the savory goodness. “If it’s better than this, your Nonni should open a restaurant.”
“She says it’s only good when you make it for someone you care about.”
She opened her eyes and sighed. “Ah, a romantic.”
“Something like that.” He laughed and relaxed back into his seat. “Poppi says that when she’s mad at him, she won’t let him have any gravy.”
Sylvie giggled and raised her glass of red wine. “To Nonni.”
“Yes, to Nonni.” Tony clanked his glass against hers.
During dinner they talked about their favorite restaurants, his vintage motorcycle collection, and the bronze fox lamp in the living room she’d found at a flea market in Connecticut. Conversation flew as they devoured crunchy garlic bread and spaghetti. By the time they finished the pasta and a bottle of Malbec, a supercharged relaxation had seeped into her bones, leaving her as contented as an old dog sleeping in the late afternoon sun.
The tension had evaporated from Tony’s body, too. The deep worry lines in his forehead were gone and his full lips had lost their grim line, instead curling up at the corners. He’d pushed up the sleeves of his gray henley, showing off his sinewy forearms dusted with dark hair as he made broad gestures to emphasize his stories. In her world, almost every man she knew had a personal waxer, so the sight of something so undeniably testosterone-driven set off a flare of interest that had her twisting in her seat.
“You know all about my family. Tell me about yours,” she prompted.
He shrugged. “Not much to tell. I grew up in Waterberg with my entire family living within five miles of my Nonni’s front door.”
For the first part of Sylvie’s life it had just been her and Anya. They’d never known their father. She had gossamer-like recollections of their mother. Mostly her soft laugh, punctuated by the memory of their final, terrible night together and the bottomless despair in her mother’s green eyes when she’d shut her daughters in the closet. The gunshot that followed had changed everything.
Sylvie washed the ever-present heartache down with a gulp of red wine. “Brothers? Sisters?”
“Two of each.”
“And they still live here?”
“Yep.”
“What do they do?”
“They’re all cops, like my dad and my uncles—except for one sister.”
