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Frankie got busy at the espresso machine while Jules settled Evan on her lap. He curled into her neck and breathed deep. She loved when he did that, when he gave these little signs of need. She knew to enjoy it while she could. Like all kids, he’d eventually go through a phase of despising the ground his mother walked on.
As Francesca worked her magic with dexterous fingers, Jules looked around the DeLucas’ warm, homey kitchen, which seemed to be steeped in a permanent aroma of just-baked biscotti. Her memory receptors flared—thoughts of those early, terrifying days of her pregnancy flooding her brain. Knocked up, ignored by her aunt and uncle back in London, barely communicating with Jack. Wishing Simon would come charging in on a white steed to whisk her away.
He hadn’t come and now she was glad. Finding the inner strength to solve her own problems, even if it meant admitting she needed Jack’s help, was a lesson she needed to learn. In this kitchen, she had made her tentative peace with her brother and found a family to love and love her back.
“So how is the party planning going?” Frankie asked.
“Party?”
“Yes, the surprise party for our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.” She bathed Jules with her impish grin. “Did you think I did not know?”
“No idea what you’re talking about, lady,” Jules threw out with a mischievous grin of her own.
The family was planning a whopping great shindig at DeLuca’s Ristorante next month, or rather, Cara was planning it with the military precision of D-Day and everyone else was following in lockstep. Jules was not going to be the one who officially spilled. Boldly, she held Frankie’s stare until the older blonde laughed and returned to her coffee-making task.
Jules’s gaze fell to the table and a sheaf of pages held together with spit and string. Handwritten in a curly yet neat script. A little flare of excitement ignited in her stomach. Recipes.
“Is this a family cookbook?” she asked as Frankie put the espresso down in a cute demitasse cup with the twist of lemon on the saucer. Jules dropped the twist in while Frankie grabbed the tin of homemade almond-cranberry biscotti off the counter.
“It belonged to my sister-in-law, Genevieve.”
Tad’s mother, better known as Vivi, who had died in a car accident with her husband about ten years ago. Tad had been nineteen, his sister Gina a year older. Whenever their names came up, there was no missing that hollow look in his eyes.
“She was a marvelous cook. Better than her husband, Raphael, Tony’s brother.” She laughed softly, a private tickle of a sound. “Better than Tony, though don’t tell him I said that.”
“Tad doesn’t talk about them.”
“It was hard for him when they died,” Frankie said, her voice low. She took a sip of her espresso, then dipped a stick of biscotti in the tobacco-colored liquid.
Tad shared stories about Gina, his childhood with Lili and Cara, but not about the people who had raised him. Jules never pressed. Her own upbringing had been marked by a cool sense of obligation on the part of her aunt and uncle. They hadn’t been interested enough to know what to do with a girl who failed miserably in school and was destined for a job where intellect was unnecessary. She had fulfilled all their expectations and more—up the duff, careerless, living off the welfare of her brother.
Jackpot.
Which was why Tad’s offer had been so enticing in spite of the clear emotional danger. Knowing that her work—oh, that wonderful word,work—had the potential of value was worth the extra few cranks to her pulse rate every time she saw her friend. Besides, while she would be in the kitchen, Tad would be off doing wine bar owner things.
“May I look?” Jules asked, her fingers itching. Francesca nodded sagely.
The pages were worn and dog-eared, no doubt had been used over and over again. There were a ton of stories in here, between the lines, in the margins. Each section began with a folksy Italian proverb. It took her a few re-reads but she soon figured them out.
A woman is not capable of friendship, she knows only how tolove, started the appetizers.
Another one pronounced,If your life at night is good, you thinkyou have everything.Preach it, sister. Sounded like advice from one bad girl to another.
There was even a message addressed to Tad above a chocolate tart recipe:Taddeo, make suremore chocolate gets in the bowl than in your mouth!Jules couldn’t help her smile. This woman who had meant so much to her friend had put her heart and soul into these pages.
Gingerly, she turned the pages, stopping wherever she recognized a word.Pastafagioli.That was an Italian white bean soup and she recalled seeing it on the menu at DeLuca’s.Arugula. Formaggio.
“What’s this one?” She pointed at the recipe with the familiar words.
“A cheese and onion tartine. Quite a nice antipasto.”
Yes, it would be. She could see it on Vivi’s bar menu now, a mouthwatering mix of caramelized onion, thyme and oregano, perhaps some piquant red peppers or chili flakes to give it some heat.
“What kind of bread should this go on?”
Francesca’s lips curved. “A thinly sliced herbed focaccia. Vivi’s focaccia was legendary.” She pointed to a section below the words Jules had recognized. “Perhaps you would like to borrow this? I could translate the recipes you are interested in.”
Jules’s heart hammered triple time. It was only a cookbook but there was something very intoxicating about using one that had all this history and significance. Still, a niggle on the edge of her brain started up.
