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For a second I’m sure I’ve heard him wrong. “What are you talking about?”
Gage blinks and looks away, the only sign that he wishes he hadn’t spoken so hastily. He starts to walk back inside but I grab his arm.
“Gage, what do you mean?”
He gives me one of his intimidating stares, the kind where it’s impossible to guess what might be happening in his head. “Forget it. Just gossip.”
Bullshit.Gage never just blurts out gossip for the hell of it. There was genuine anger in his voice.
Gage is also not one to get bent out of shape for nothing. There’s a reason why he said what he said.
A good reason.
Feeling uneasy, I release his arm. There’s no point in trying to press the issue. If Gage Silvestro wants to keep secrets then he will.
“Forget it, Tess,” he says again, this time his tone almost apologetic.
He waits for a few seconds to see if I’ll say anything else but the important question I need to ask is not for him.
“Total, wait!”
Charlotte tries to keep up as Total wiggles this way, now at the end of a red leash. His pink tongue hangs out as he careens from one fascinating smell to the next and then he leaps up to add his paw prints to Gage’s immaculate black suit.
Charlotte tries to hold onto the leash as the puppy begs her cousin for attention. “Gage, I can only take Total for a walk if an adult comes with me. Dani’s still upstairs with Grandma Cecile and Daddy is working on his new book. Will you come? Please please PLEASE?”
Gage hunkers down to scratch the puppy behind the ears. “You talked me into it.”
“Yay!” Charlotte notices that I’m here too and seizes my hand. “You have to come with us.”
As much as I’d like to take a nice walk with Charlotte and her puppy, there’s something I need to deal with. “Another time. I promise.”
Gage stands and shoots me a rather inscrutable look.
I stare back at him, just as deadpan.
The trio exits through the back gate and I wait until I’m sure they’re gone before returning to the house.
Dani is in the kitchen, pulling items out of the cavernous pantry. “Matilda is on her way home and I’m making pasta for dinner. You are staying. No arguments.”
“Not arguing. But I need to ask you something.”
She sets down a box of rigatoni. “Okay.”
“Does my father ever say things to you that he shouldn’t say?”
The question catches her completely off guard. She folds her arms across her chest and turns her head toward the window. “Not in a while.”
My father has known Dani since she was a teenager. The idea of him lusting after my best friend, the girl who is like a sister to me, is disgusting.
It’s like something Olivia would do.
She sighs. “He backed off once Gage returned last year. Now he hardly says hello. Which is preferable.”
“Shit.” I think I’m going to puke.
Dani grimaces. “Tess, he never touched me. He just shared some creepy comments and made it clear he’d given some thought to getting a lot closer.”
Strange how ordinary events of the past suddenly sharpen into focus to explain themselves.
