4 The Ghosts in the Attic

by SUE FINEMAN

  Vinnie nodded. “Good. That’s good.” He stared at Charlie. “You any good with engines?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I need somebody to check things out with the trucking division, find out if any of the trucks are worth keeping, which ones can’t be fixed.”

  “Don’t you have mechanics?”

  “Nobody I can trust.”

  Alexandra moved closer to the bed. “I’ll take Charlie over tomorrow, Papa.”

  “Okay.” Vinnie closed his eyes. “I need to rest before Bernie gets here.”

  Charlie walked down to the waiting room with Alex. “He’s a sick man.”

  She sighed. “I know. What did he say to you?”

  “He doesn’t want us shacking up together.” He couldn’t tell her the rest, that Vinnie gave him permission to marry her. If he did, she’d expect to marry before the old man died, and Charlie wasn’t sure he was ready to marry anyone, especially a woman who hid his child from him. The sex had always been good between them, and the old feelings were still as strong as ever, but he didn’t want to be married to a woman he couldn’t trust.

  “He’s testing you, Charlie. I’ve seen him do it with other people. He tells them he needs them to do a job for him, then he evaluates how well they do it, whether they tell him what he already knows.”

  “He knows the condition of the trucks?”

  She nodded. “You don’t have to—”

  “No, I’ll do what he wants.” The old man wanted Charlie to prove himself worthy of marrying his only daughter. But he expected him to fail.

  Vinnie had a surprise coming. Charlie didn’t intend to fail. But he’d make the decision about marriage, not that blustery old man. Vinnie Porcini wouldn’t order him around.

  <>

  After Alex returned to the farm with Charlie, she sat in Andy’s family room and called Antonio. “Papa wants to see you. I don’t think he’s up to any more visitors tonight, so I suggest going in the morning.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “Positive. He wants to make peace.”

  “Does this mean he wants me to take over the business again?”

  She didn’t want to be the one to tell him Papa was selling the business. “He just said he wants to make peace. Go talk with him, and please try not to upset him. His heart can’t take another argument.”

  “I thought he never wanted to see me again.”

  “You’re his son. Of course he wants to see you.”

  “Yeah, okay, I’ll go see him in the morning. What room is he in?”

  “Third floor, room sixty-two.”

  After she ended the call, she realized Antonio didn’t ask if Papa wanted to see Mario, too. She assumed he’d call Mario and tell him. She hoped he would, because she didn’t intend to call Mario herself. Someday she might be able to get along with Antonio, but right now she couldn’t see herself ever speaking with Mario again.

  Alex thought it strange that Antonio didn’t ask how Papa was doing. He knew Papa was in the hospital, and he probably knew why, but he didn’t ask about his condition.

  Charlie sat beside her. “Mario?”

  “Antonio. He can call Mario.”

  “Mom is keeping Taylor again tonight. She said Kayla had a long talk with her about ghosts and visions and how she shouldn’t talk to anyone about them except family, because other people might not understand.”

  “Good. She apparently got the gift from Papa’s mother, and she died a long time ago.” Alex looked over at Charlie. “Unless someone in your family is psychic.”

  “No one but Kayla. Mom had visions at one time, but not as a child.”

  “Does she still have visions?”

  “No. They came from her great-grandmother. Once they identified the body buried in the basement, the visions stopped.”

  Alex shivered. “That’s creepy.”

  “Andy slipped into a past life, but he’s done with that. And he never had visions about anything else.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me? I’m perfect.”

  She laughed. “Except for that little ego problem.”

  “Are you laughing at me?” He gave her a gentle kiss.

  “I thought you were done with me, Charlie.”

  “I’ll never be done with you, honey.”

  Her breath caught. Did he just tell her he loved her?

  Her cell phone rang and she had to answer it. It could be the hospital calling about Papa.

  Charlie walked away while she answered the phone. He wanted to make love tonight, but Alex’s family came first, as always.

  Maybe someday she’d put him first, but at that moment he couldn’t see it ever happening.

  <>

  Donovan sat on the side of Taylor’s bed and read her a bedtime story like he used to do for his own kids.

  It felt good to have a little one in the house again. Billy’s boys had been here often, but they’d never spent the night. This little angel looked so much like Hannah had when she was a little girl, with her dark hair and gray eyes. Hannah had pigtails, though, and Taylor’s hair wasn’t long enough for pigtails.

  He wondered if Vinnie ever read her a story.

  “Papa is in the hospital,” Taylor said.

  “I know.”

  “He’s gonna come home. Me and Mommy and Daddy are gonna live with him until he dies, then we’re gonna live at Daddy’s house with Bobby.”

  “Who’s Bobby?”

  “He a ghost now, but he’s gonna come back as a baby.”

  Donovan stared at the little girl who knew things nobody else knew. If Bobby was going to come back as a baby, did that mean… Were Charlie and Alex going to have a baby?

  “Is Bobby going to be your baby brother?”

  “Yeah.”

  He wanted to laugh, but this wasn’t funny. Did Charlie intend to marry the Porcini girl?

  “Does your daddy know about this?”

  “Yeah, he said Bobby could come back. Mommy did, too.”

  Donovan was willing to bet that wasn’t what Charlie agreed to. He kissed Taylor on the forehead and turned out the light. “Goodnight, Taylor. Sweet dreams.”

  She pulled her teddy bear under the covers and turned on her side. Donovan, still in a daze, left the room.

  In his bedroom, Hannah asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Your granddaughter just told me she’s going to have a baby brother. His name is Bobby, and right now, he’s a ghost.”

  Hannah burst out laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Charlie told her Bobby could come back, but I have a feeling he didn’t know how Bobby was coming back.”

  Still laughing, Hannah said, “He’ll find out in time. What else did Taylor say?”

  “That she and Daddy and Mommy were going to move back to Papa’s house, and then Papa was going to die.”

  Hannah lost her smile. “As if Alex hasn’t been through enough lately.”

  “Nobody lives forever, and Vinnie is an old man with a bad heart.”

  “I know. I wasn’t thinking about him. I was thinking of Alex.”

  “She’ll get through it,” said Donovan. “She’s a strong woman or she wouldn’t have fought back when that pervert attacked her.”

  “She said her father had been putting his affairs in order. She could inherit a lot of money when he dies. I wonder how Charlie will handle that.”

  “Who knows. Uncle Tony was a rich man, and Vinnie inherited Tony’s house. I don’t know how much he got from Tony or how much Vinnie has left. Or who will get his money when he’s gone. I know he’s angry at his sons, but I can’t see him leaving them out of his will.”

  Hannah turned down their bed. “I can’t believe he’d let Charlie move into his home with Alex and Taylor.”

  Donovan grinned. “She probably told him since I’d let her live here, he’d have to let Charlie live there.”

  Hannah kicked off her shoes. “Can you picture Charlie in that mansion?”
<
br />   “No. Vinnie will probably make him sleep at the other end of the house from Alex.”

  Laughing again, Hannah undressed and pulled on her robe. “I’d like to be a fly on the wall when they move in. Sick or not, Vinnie will no doubt try to boss Charlie around.”

  “No doubt.” The old man was used to being the one in control, and Charlie had always rebelled against authority of any kind.

  <>

  Vinnie finished his business with Dominic. They signed the papers on the food distribution business and had them notarized. Dominic didn’t want the cannery, so Vinnie asked Bernie to draw up the papers to give the cannery to the employees. Alexandra would have to talk with the employees at the trucking division, but that could wait until after Charlie checked out the trucks. He wasn’t sure how much the Kane kid knew about trucks, but he’d find out in a day or two.

  Although he felt weak and tired, Vinnie had survived the heart attack. His remaining days were numbered, though, and he had to get the rest of the business settled before he died.

  The boys still hadn’t come to see him. Didn’t they care that their old man had nearly died? Damn kids! Alexandra was the only one he could count on these days. And the Kane kid. But he was hanging around because of Alexandra, not because he cared whether Vinnie Porcini lived or died.

  He expected to see Vanessa, too. But she was probably too busy with one of her lovers to care about him. Did she realize he was leaving her more than he was leaving his sons? No, of course not. Nobody would know until he died and Bernie held that reading of the will thing.

  Vinnie sighed deeply. He never did get around to doing that video.

  <>

  “Charlie, where are you?” Alex called.

  “Upstairs.”

  “That was Aunt Gina on the phone. She said Mario called and asked about Papa. She’s going to call him back and tell him to go to the hospital.” Alex walked upstairs as she talked. “Apparently Mario and Antonio had a big fight and they aren’t speaking.”

  “So where does that leave you?”

  “Same place I was before, I guess, when they were both angry with me. I don’t care. They’ve hated me since the day I was born.”

  Charlie sat on the bed. “Why?”

  “Because Papa divorced their mother to marry mine, and she was already pregnant with me when they married. They’re my half-brothers.”

  He shrugged. “Billy had a different mother, but he’s never treated us as if we were half-anything. Looking at him and Mom, you’d never know she hadn’t been his mother since day one.”

  “Ah, but your mother is the motherly type. Mine isn’t.”

  “What does she do, grow horns?”

  “Your mother baby-sits. Mine doesn’t. She used to ignore the boys unless they were doing something naughty, then she’d yell at them. Of course, they were teenagers when she moved into the mansion, and they’d never had any discipline. Papa thought they could do no wrong.”

  “They lived with Vinnie or with their mother?”

  “With us. I used to hide from them.”

  “I used to pick on my little sister. She was more boy than girl when she was growing up, climbing trees and playing football with the boys, but if anyone made her cry, you can bet they were crying when I finished with them. Nobody picked on my little sister and got away with it.”

  Alex kicked her shoes off. “Lucky girl to have you for a brother.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He pushed her down on the bed and lay beside her. “Are you done with your family for the night? Is it my turn now?”

  She gazed deeply into his eyes. “Are you jealous of my family?”

  “No,” he snapped. “I’m just tired of coming in second. Or third. Or fourth.”

  She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. “Shut up and kiss me.”

  “Bossy woman,” he said before his lips settled on hers.

  She pushed him off her. “You want bossy? I’ll give you bossy.”

  He grinned. “No you won’t.” In a flash, he rolled them over and jammed his knee between her legs. Rubbing it against her, he pulled her shirt up and her bra down. He nuzzled into her breasts and pulled an aroused nipple into his mouth. In seconds, he had her moaning and begging.

  Alex thought she’d melt into a puddle right there on the bed. Charlie was the boss now, and she didn’t care, because he knew how to treat a woman. If she was a kitten, she’d purr her little heart out. She raised her knee to rub it against his erection and he nipped at her breast. Seconds later, their clothes fell to the floor and he rolled on a condom.

  He pushed her knees up and plunged into her, filling her completely. She moaned and whispered his name. “Charlie. Oh, God, Charlie, that feels so good.”

  The bed banged into the wall over and over again, and she came in a glorious climax that brought tears to her eyes. Charlie stiffened and she felt the condom fill with his hot spurts. And then he collapsed on top of her.

  “Woman, I can’t get enough of you.”

  “Does that mean you love me?” She bit her lip, regretting the words as soon as they left her mouth.

  Charlie didn’t reply. They’d just had great sex and she had to ruin it by asking him if he loved her.

  She wanted to cry.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Charlie walked into the garage and smelled trouble. Two men stood by the office yelling at each other. One yelled, “You can’t fire me.”

  “I just did,” the other one yelled. “Get your fucking ass out of my garage.”

  Charlie turned to Alex, who’d come into the garage to introduce him to the manager. “Is that the manager?” he asked quietly.

  “I don’t know.”

  The man Charlie assumed was the garage manager turned to Alex and Charlie. “What in the hell do you want?”

  “Vinnie sent me.” Charlie motioned to Alex. “This is Alexandra Porcini, Vinnie’s daughter. Are you the manager?”

  “Yeah. Jake Jabrowski. Why did Vinnie send you?”

  “He’s in the hospital,” said Alex. “Since he couldn’t come himself, he sent Charlie Kane to check out the trucks.”

  Charlie lifted his chin and stared at the man. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Yeah. I’m trying to run a shop with a bunch of idiots. Where’s Mario?”

  “Mario no longer works here. Neither does Antonio.”

  The man who’d just been fired muttered, “About time.”

  Jabrowski turned on him. “Didn’t I just fire you?”

  “No, you didn’t,” said Alex. “What happened to Stevenson? I thought he was the maintenance manager.”

  “Mario fired him and put me in charge,” said Jabrowski. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Everybody’s got a problem with that,” a man called from the other side of the cavernous room.

  The men started yelling back and forth and Charlie whistled. “Enough. Vinnie Porcini owns the business, not Mario. Vinnie can’t be here himself, so he sent me to do the job. And no matter what you want, I intend to do the job. Got that, Mr. Jabrowski?”

  “Yeah, I got it. But I don’t like anybody messing around in my garage.”

  “Tough,” said Charlie. What a jerk. No wonder the trucking division wasn’t doing well. With a man like this in charge, who’d want to work here?

  Alex walked out to the car with Charlie. “I’ll have the accountant draw a final paycheck for Jabrowski. The man has a chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder.”

  Charlie nodded. “I’ll check the maintenance records and poke around under the hoods of the trucks in the shop. Jabrowski won’t like it, but I don’t give a shit what he likes and what he doesn’t. Nobody would want to work for a man like that.”

  “I have to talk with the employees at the warehouses, then I’ll be back with Jabrowski’s final paycheck.”

  “Okay.” He rubbed his hands together. “Time to get busy.”

  On his way back inside, Charlie snagged the man Jabrowski was tr
ying to fire. “What’s your name?”

  “Jenkins.”

  “I’m Charlie. Would you show me around?”

  “If Jabrowski lets me stay.”

  “He doesn’t have a choice.”

  <>

  After Alex spoke with the accountant, she drove to Warehouse One. She had a talk with the manager, then called for all the employees there at the time to come to the main aisle for a brief meeting. She stood on a box, so she could be seen and heard by all.

  “First, I want to tell you my father, Vinnie Porcini, is in the hospital. He had a heart attack, but he’s doing well enough to finalize the deal to sell this portion of the business to his brother-in-law, Dominic Douglas.”

  From the gasps she heard, the employees hadn’t expected to hear this.

  “Before he sold the business, my father gave everyone a five percent raise. I know it’s long overdue, and for that, we apologize. My uncle Dominic wants you all to stay, and he said he’ll give you another five percent raise next year to bring you up to where you should be.”

  Cheers filled the building, and Alex smiled. “You’re also getting the new computer you so desperately need, and I expect you all to be busy getting things running the way they’re supposed to be running, the way they ran when my father was still actively running the company.”

  Alex looked around at their smiling faces. “I wish you all the best of luck. Dominic and his sons own several other businesses, and I know you’ll like them. They’re good people, so give them a chance. I want to thank you for sticking with us in spite of the problems. Your loyalty means a lot to my father and to me. Thank you.”

  As she stepped off the box, employees shook her hand and thanked her.

  Minutes later, she went through the same routine at Warehouse Two.

  Alex left the warehouses feeling pounds lighter. Although she’d never been in charge of anything at the business, the weight of one division had been lifted from her shoulders. She wasn’t sure what Papa had in mind for the cannery, except for the five percent raise he’d given the employees, but she knew he intended to sell or close the trucking division. With people like Jake Jabrowski in charge, no wonder that division of the business was failing. What a jerk!

  She wondered how Charlie was doing in the garage.