He looked at her for a long time, tucking all this new information into a mental box he could open later and think about. But for now, she couldn’t just stop with a sweeping assessment and no details.
“You promised,” he reminded her.
“But you can’t take credit for all of that.”
“I’m not trying to. I’m trying to learn about him.”
She pressed his hands harder. “I see the look in your eyes. Comparing him to your own sons. To yourself. Feeling smug.”
“No,” he replied firmly. “I’m trying to get a handle on who he is and who he’s been. No comparisons, no smugness. I’ve already met Cassie, so I know the Santorini gene pool is swimming with greatness. I assume your other three sons are, too.” He slipped one finger out from under to tap her hand and make a point. “Don’t assume you know what I’m thinking or feeling, Katie.”
Tipping her head in acknowledgment, she headed to the sink to fill the pot. “I feel like I’m betraying him,” she said, so quietly he barely heard it over the water flow.
He stepped closer to lean against the counter. “You’re betraying Nick? How so?”
“I’m betraying Nico,” she clarified. “He’s not here to prove some of that wonderfulness came from him, not you. He’s not here to claim his influence over Nick. He’s not here…” Her voice cracked, and she closed her eyes. “And it would kill him all over again if he was.”
Without even thinking about it, he put his arm around her, pulling her into him as she turned off the water. “Stop, Katie. None of this should make you feel bad or like you’re betraying Nico.”
She let out a soft breath, but didn’t look up at him.
“Hey.” He put one finger under her chin and turned her face toward him, tilting it up to meet his gaze, ready to demand she tell him more. Everything. But then he saw that look again. It wasn’t fear—the scary stuff was over now that he knew. No, it was pain, and he had no right to put that there with his demands. “Why don’t we take a break from the Nick conversation?” he suggested.
“I thought you wanted to know everything.”
“I do, but I also want to talk about something else that doesn’t make you look far away and sad.”
“I’m not far away or sad,” she said. “I care about my family—those still with me and the husband who is gone—more than I care about taking my next breath.”
“That caring is one of my favorite things about you.” The admission slipped out without him really thinking about it, making her look up at him with an indecipherable look in her eyes. Maybe a warning. Maybe a question.
“You shouldn’t have favorite things about me,” she said.
Okay, a warning. “Why not?”
“Because we’re already in dangerous territory. Favorite things and compliments and how close you are right now will really muck up some mucky waters.”
He blinked in surprise, but didn’t draw back. “How close…I’m standing?”
She took her finger and tapped his chest, then hers, then his. “Less than six inches.”
“There’s a distance rule?” He closed some of that air between them to make his point.
She merely looked at him, pinning him with those dark chocolate eyes flecked with gold. Had he ever noticed those gold flecks before? Because they were pretty.
Probably not the best time to mention that.
“Katie, we can be six or three or two inches apart. We share a bond few people have, and honesty is the only way we’re going to figure out how to deal with it. Not only that, I’m sixty-one years old. I do not play games or mince words or walk on eggshells around people. I call it like I see it.”
He watched her throat rise and fall as she listened, silent.
“And didn’t we agree we’d be friends and have no expectations and spend a few weeks redecorating a room and sharing details of our respective wonderful marriages?”
She nodded, still silent.
“That hasn’t changed. The only thing that’s changed is…”
“Everything changed when I told you about Nick.”
“Not everything. We’re still—”
The kitchen door popped open, and they instantly separated, maybe a little too fast and guiltily, based on the flicker in his mother’s eyes as she stepped inside the house.
“Oh, hello, lass,” she said with a sweet smile. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here, what with Rusty and all.” She set her big grandmotherly handbag on the table and looked at Daniel. “How is he?”
Rusty. Damn it all, he hadn’t even thought about Rusty for the last ten minutes. Or Annie. Or anything. Just…Katie.
“He’s hanging in there,” he said quickly. “Nothing showed up on the tests. Not much of an appetite, though. Sleeping in the family room. Katie had the brilliant idea to bring Goldie in for company.”
His mother’s brow lifted as her gaze shifted past Daniel. “Really? It looks like they’re up and about now, or were you too busy to notice?”
He tamped down a soft curse and turned his attention to the two dogs, standing side by side as if they’d been there all along, listening to the conversation. He bent over to pet them both.
“No dinner after choir practice tonight, Gramma?” he asked.
“No, the pastor’s wife drove me back when three of the sopranos bailed. One hip failure, one arthritis flare-up, and one great-granddaughter’s dance recital.” When he rose, he caught his mother winking at Katie. “’Tis the way when your ‘girlfriends’ are all in their eighties.”
Katie laughed. “I’m making pasta and salad, and you are more than welcome to join us, Mrs. Kilcannon.”
Gramma Finnie gave a pretend scowl from behind her bifocals. “Not when ye call me that, lassie.”
“But that’s what I called you when I met you, remember?”
“Aye, I remember you. Came for dinner once and didn’t eat a bite.”
“I must have been nervous.”
“Must have been Seamus who scared ye, lass. I’m the least frightening person in the world.” She slipped out of her coat and hung it in the mud room off the kitchen, coming back in and rubbing the cold off her hands. “I’ll go wash up for dinner. I’d love to join you, but you’ll call me Gramma Finnie like every other living creature on this earth, includin’ my own children.”
After she left the room, Katie and Daniel shared a long look, both of them silent for a moment before she picked up the pasta water. “I’m glad she’s going to join us,” Katie said.
“Me, too,” he said. Because a whole evening alone and things could suddenly get a whole hell of a lot more complicated. And while that might have been tempting a day ago, they couldn’t risk anything more complicated than the hand they’d already been dealt.
For the next few minutes, he helped her finish dinner, set three places at the kitchen table, and eased them all into light conversation while they ate.
“Tell me about your plans for the living room, lass,” Gramma said. “I’m a fan of that decoratin’ channel on TV.”
Katie grinned. “Me, too, except sometimes the houses all start to look too much alike. This home has so much personality and history, so I’d give the living room a fresh, clean look with new sofas, some shutters, a pretty new color on the walls. I do think the floors could be refinished.” She glanced at Daniel. “That’s what you thought this morning.”
Was that only this morning? Daniel mused. It felt like a hundred years ago. One new son, one sick dog, and a hundred years. “I’m pretty much writing the checks and saying, ‘Whatever you think.’”
“And you’re painting,” Katie reminded him.
“It sounds divine.” Gramma beamed at her. “The Irish say, ‘The best way to honor the past is to live well in the present.’ Sometimes things need to change.”
“Which isn’t always easy,” Katie said. “About a year after my husband died, I made the decision to move out of the large home where we’d raised the family. It was difficult sifting through
all those memories and deciding what belonged in a three-bedroom townhouse and what belonged in the attic, with the kids, or at a charity. And whoa, my kids had opinions.”
“Don’t they all,” Daniel mused, thinking of his conversation with Darcy.
“Tell me about your wee ones,” Gramma Finnie said, putting a hand on Katie’s arm.
“Well, not one of them is wee, that’s for sure,” she replied with a laugh.
“Do you have pictures?”
She hesitated for a moment, almost looking at Daniel, but then pushing up. “I do, on my phone. I’ll get it now that we’re done eating.”
Daniel picked up his plate and Katie’s, not anxious to look at Nick again, not with his mother’s keen eyes on him. “You show them while I clean up,” he said.
When she got her phone, she also grabbed her jacket and bag. But she tossed them on the counter and sat down next to Gramma Finnie to show her pictures.
“Oh, a Navy man,” Gramma cooed when shown Theo, her youngest son. “Very handsome in that uniform.”
“He is,” Katie agreed, with pride in her voice he’d heard a thousand times in Annie’s. “He’s considering SEAL training, but hasn’t decided yet. Whatever he does, it will turn out well. Theo was born under a lucky star.”
“How old?”
“Thirty-three. And that’s John, in the glasses, and his twin brother, Alex. They’re both thirty-six.”
“Sweet heavens, there are two of them.”
“Identical twins that really are hard to tell apart if you don’t know their personalities or John doesn’t wear his glasses. But, believe me, in many ways they couldn’t be more different.”
“How so?” Gramma asked.
“John is a left-brained number cruncher who’d rather read a spreadsheet than a book, and Alex is a creative, passionate chef who lives for his next recipe discovery. They’re both in Chestnut Creek and, along with Cassie, run the two Santorini’s locations. Alex cooks at the downtown location and supervises the smaller, mall-based site.”
“Are either of these handsome catches married?”
“None of my kids are yet.”
Gramma looked at Daniel over the glasses that had slid down her nose. “Sounds like a job for the Dogfather,” she teased.
“Well, at least he could give me some advice,” Katie said. “I’ve tried to steer Cassie a few times, but none of the young men she’s dated are Greek enough to suit her, and if they do come from the small, tight-knit Greek community in Chestnut Creek, she doesn’t consider them wonderful enough.”
“She has high standards,” Gramma said.
“She had Nico as a father, and I’m pretty sure all she wants is a man exactly like him.” Katie sighed. “But they are few and far between.”
“Ahh.” Gramma patted her arm. “The Irish say, ‘To live in hearts we leave behind means that we never die.’”
“I like that,” Katie said, staring at the phone, then clicking to the next picture. “Here’s a shot of all of them together.”
“Aye, a beautiful crew. Is that your oldest? Nicholas, is it?”
Daniel’s stomach clenched as he turned on the faucet to rinse a plate.
“Just Nick. Actually, his name is Nico, like his father.”
Not his biological father. Daniel stuffed the plate into the dishwasher, bending over to make sure he didn’t give a thing away with his expression. But Gramma was staring hard at the screen.
“Is that the only picture? He’s the doctor, right?”
“Mmm.” She nodded. “He is a doctor and a very good one.”
“That’s a little blurry, though. Do you have another?”
Daniel watched as Katie slid her finger off the phone, her color deepening ever so slightly. Only he would notice that, or the fact that she sort of shook her head as if going through a thousand pictures wasn’t worth it to find one.
She shouldn’t be scared to show his picture to anyone, he thought, a tiny bit of irritation and pride tweaking. “Show her the one you showed me, Katie. From Thanksgiving.”
“Oh yeah,” she finally said. “Thanksgiving. Here it is.”
Daniel paused in midrinse, watching his mother scrutinize the phone screen, angling it one way, then the other as she squinted at the image. He knew exactly what she saw on that screen. He’d glanced at it for only a few seconds, but the image of Nick Santorini was burned in his brain. The tilt of his head, the distinctive angle of dark brows, a set of dimples that were like two slashes at the side of a broad smile that lit his whole face.
The day with Rusty had turned things upside down, but he’d think about that picture a lot later tonight. Maybe Katie could send him a copy.
Or maybe she’d make him wait until he’d taken the test and proven his right to carry that photo.
“Oh, ’tis another fine lad,” Gramma finally said. “Definitely a handsome one. How does a lad that good-looking stay single at… How old is he?”
“Working around the world and around the clock,” Katie said, deftly answering one question but not the other, with a quick glance to Daniel. “But he’s met someone, he says. So maybe not single for long.”
Of course, his mother knew what year they’d dated, and she could do math. There’d be no way for her to know that Katie’s wedding to Nico had been rushed, or any of the other timing details. Best to keep them all vague.
Daniel shook off his hands and came around the island. “Remarkable job, working for Doctors Without Borders. Not only do you have to be a great practitioner, you have to be a fearless adventurer.”
“He is that,” Katie said, reaching for the phone that Gramma reluctantly let go.
“You better hit the road if you’re driving all the way to Chestnut Creek tonight,” he said, reaching for her hand to guide her up. “Although the offer still stands. Guest room may not be decorated to your liking, but it’s comfortable and clean.”
“Thank you, but I have work at my office tomorrow and plenty to order for this job. I’ll be back with samples and ideas, and once you’ve picked some you like, we’ll head over to High Point to shop.” She looked down to see Goldie had come over to give her leg a nudge. “Goodbye, my sweet girl. You take care of Rusty now.”
“Looks like he went back to sleep,” Daniel said. “And I should take Goldie back to the kennel.”
She gave him a look that he instantly knew—he’d seen it on Annie’s face a hundred times. “Unless you want to take her home with you,” he said.
For a split second, she seemed to consider it, then shook her head. “I wouldn’t know where to begin, but maybe she should stay with Rusty tonight.”
He laughed softly and shared a look with his mother.
“And so it begins,” she said in a singsong voice as she pushed up from the table.
“And so what begins?” Katie asked.
“A little something called foster failure,” Gramma said, giving her a hug. “Thank you for a fine dinner, lass. I can’t wait to see what you do with that room.”
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Daniel said, leading her out to the drive with a light hand on her back.
Outside, it was clear and crisp, with a few hundred stars and a sliver of a moon.
She took a deep breath, putting her hand on his shoulder in a way that told him that was a steadying breath, not a head-clearing one.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“That was harder than I thought it would be,” she whispered. “She had no idea she was looking at her grandson. I mean, maybe. Probably her grandson.” She gave him a pleading look that he fully understood.
“I’m going to arrange to take the test tomorrow, and I’ll contact Bloodline.com to see if I can pay a premium to rush the results.”
“Good, because…” She looked up, her eyes misty. “I felt like I was lying to her without saying a word. A lie of omission, if you will. When she finds out, she’ll wonder why I didn’t tell her then and there.”
“Because it’s not
something you casually drop into conversation,” he assured her. “We’ll get the confirmation and tell everyone then. No more lies, and we’ll get this done in as short a time as possible.”
“How will she feel if she finds out I showed her that picture and didn’t tell her?” she asked. “She’ll despise me.”
He shook his head. “My mother isn’t capable of hate. It’s not in her nature. She is the very definition of unconditional love.”
Katie sighed and closed her eyes. “I’ve never had a mother or mother-in-law like that.”
“Well, now you have one,” he said, making her eyes flash. “I mean, with Nick as her grandson, my mother will bring you into this family and make you Irish by association.”
Her smile was wistful. “You make it sound easy. But people are not going to be happy.”
He turned her slightly and put both hands on her shoulders, adding some pressure that he hoped was comforting. “Katie Rogers Santorini, listen to me.”
She looked up, her eyes wide, her lips parted as if she wanted to say something, but couldn’t.
“You are not to blame for the way this happened. I was there in 1976, and I know the timing, and I know how you could make the very simple and safe assumption that Nick is Nico’s son. And when we get unassailable confirmation, if this website is accurate and dependable, we’ll figure out how and when to tell everyone, including Nick, together.”
She bit her lip. “We will?”
“I wouldn’t make you go through this alone.”
She leaned closer, letting her forehead bump his chin. “Thank you. I’m so grateful for your attitude today.”
“My attitude?” He inched back and gave her a get real look. “I was a complete jerk in the square this afternoon.”
“You were in shock, and then Rusty got sick.”
“Don’t forgive me that easily. I shouldn’t have pushed you away. You proved that today by showing up in my office.”
She gave a soft half smile. “I hope Nick has inherited your ability to forgive.”
“I hope he’s inherited yours.”
They looked at each other for a few seconds as the distant sound of barking from the kennels carried on a clean, light winter breeze. In that moment, Daniel felt something shift in his heart, like a little tectonic plate moving when he’d thought it would always stay exactly where it’d been.
Old Dog New Tricks Page 13
