Barefoot Bound: A Barefoot Bay Undercover Prequel

by Roxanne St Claire

  Because he wanted complete privacy without the chance of getting caught. So, maybe Gabe came by his spook skills via his grandfather.

  Gabe returned to the kitchen, placing his hand on the basement door handle to turn with precisely the amount of pressure so the latch didn’t click and give him away. He inched the door open, pressing the knob upward to make sure the bottom of the door didn’t brush the carpet.

  “I see. When will you let me know?” Nino’s voice floated up, easier to hear now, but not so easy to gauge what he might be talking about. During the silence, Gabe slipped onto the top step and went soundlessly to the next, skipping the third because he knew it squeaked.

  “I really have to wait that long?” Nino asked.

  Gabe stood perfectly still, trying to decipher his grandfather’s tone. A light note of frustration, but familiarity, too.

  “A week? I could be dead in a week.”

  His heart slammed so hard he was sure it gave him away. What the hell?

  “Make it Thursday and I’ll have hope. I need hope.” He lowered his voice on the last three words, making them muffled and nearly unintelligible. Except nothing was unintelligible to Gabe. He’d spied on people’s phone calls for years, sometimes able to get information in languages he didn’t speak just based on the intonation.

  Nino sounded…wretched.

  Shit.

  “All right, then I’ll call you on Thursday morning. Will there be a chemo session?”

  Gabe almost choked. His last meal rose up and fell down, landing in the bottom of his stomach like a lump of sewage. Holy Christ, Vivi was right.

  “Good-bye, and…” Nino’s voice faded out, the rest a whisper. A whisper of pain and resignation, but Gabe couldn’t hear the words. He didn’t have to. He recognized a man giving up when he heard it. No, damn it. He couldn’t give up. There would be no giving the fuck up.

  He cleared his throat. “Nino? You down here, ol’ man?”

  “Gabriel?”

  Gabe charged down the steps, rounding the wall into the game room just as the leather sofa crunched with the weight of Nino rising.

  “What are you doing here?”

  They asked the question in perfect unison, though Gabe’s voice held a little accusation, and Nino’s sounded rich with guilt.

  “I was looking for you,” Gabe said. “Kinda dark down here, isn’t it?” He switched on a table lamp, since the slits for windows let in very little light. Especially for an eightysomething-year-old man who complained about not being able to cook unless every light in creation was burning.

  “Oh, I was just…”

  “On the phone. I heard you.”

  Nino’s old brown eyes narrowed behind his bifocals. “Don’t you spy on me, young man.”

  He shrugged, not even considering a lie. “Occupational hazard. Who were you talking to?”

  “None of your business.” Nino gave his arm a tap. “You scared the crap out of me. You want to give me a heart attack?”

  And have another thing to worry about? “Sorry,” he said quickly, aware that Nino was probably the only person who could get him to utter that word.

  “What are you doing here?” Nino asked.

  Gabe knew the only way to get Nino to talk was to get the old man relaxed. And there was only one way to do that.

  Gabe put a light hand on Nino’s shoulder. “I’d cut off my left nut for some peppers and eggs.”

  Nino’s gaze softened, along with his shoulders. Those shoulders were still broad, but not nearly as intimidating as they’d been when Gabe had been a child and his widowed grandfather had come to live with them.

  “It’s a wonder you have any nuts left considering how many times you’ve offered one for a meal.”

  Gabe grinned. “Feed me, Nino. I come to your kitchen starved.”

  Nino harrumphed like a good octogenarian and gestured for Gabe to go upstairs. “Get your ass up there and pray I have a decent pepper left in the house.”

  A few minutes later, the master was at work, dicing onions, throwing pans around, moving like…well, like someone healthy.

  Chemo.

  The word hung in Gabe’s head. He swung onto a barstool at the long granite counter, his favorite place to watch Nino do his stuff. A sense of security warred with the underlying worry that squeezed his gut. This was his comfort place. Not just this home—he’d spent very little time here these days—but this man.

  “Go on, get your milk.” Nino pointed his thumb to the refrigerator, the smug look of a man who knew exactly what Gabe wanted when he walked into this kitchen. No beer, no homemade wine, no ice water from the fridge. Just milk. “And for God’s sake, use a glass.”

  Gabe laughed as he pushed up to get some. “How many times you think you caught me mainlining the white stuff, Nino?”

  He snorted. “Many.”

  “I would be sure no one was around, and then bam!” Gabe knocked his own temple lightly, imitating the brush of his grandfather’s hand. “Shafifo!”

  “Che schifo,” Nino corrected. “Don’t use the language if you’re going to butcher it.”

  “Says the man who calls a pound sign a hashbag.”

  “Ehhh.” Nino gave a wave. “I learned two languages in my life. I can’t be expected to know this scavadooch they make up now.”

  Gabe smiled at the word he suspected wasn’t even real Italian, just a Nino-ism.

  “What’s important is that you knew I was always watching you, Gabriel.”

  Indeed it was. Nino was always there, always. Different from a parent or a sibling or a friend. Just…Nino. “Oh, I knew. Must be why I came by the spy career so easily.”

  “Speaking of your career…” Nino looked up from the cutting board. “You didn’t come here just for eggs. What did you decide about your new business down in God’s waiting room?”

  Jesus, he’d completely forgotten about Florida. The only thought he’d had since leaving the Guardian Angelinos offices was proving Vivi was wrong and Nino was fine.

  “Prospects look good,” he said, taking the glass back to the island. “In fact, the place is cool. You’d love it, Nino. You should come with me.”

  Nino snorted, but the minute Gabe uttered the words, the rightness of them punched hard. Nino wouldn’t look too close at Gabe’s comings and goings, and it would be so damn nice to have him there. “I’d give you more to do than make peppers and eggs.”

  Nino looked up, his expression softening. “You’re a good boy, Gabriel.”

  “Oh, hell, you think I’m asking you out of the kindness of my heart? Free labor and good food.” And Nino could feel valuable again. Isn’t that what the old man needed? If he was healthy.

  “As if I’d leave here.”

  “What’s here?” Gabe demanded. Other than the oncology center, but he wasn’t ready to dive into that yet. Better to get Nino to come clean on his own. “Snow up to your ass half the year, a big ol’ house with nobody in it six days a week, and no use of that computer of a brain you got? Plus, if I’m gone…what do you have to live for?” He added a wry grin, but his heart cracked at the words.

  “What do I have to live for?” Nino muttered. “A lot, as it turns out.”

  Had he been doing the dying man’s assessment of life? Gabe sipped his milk, but it got stuck as his throat tightened. “You think everyone would risk food poisoning if Mom cooked Sunday gravy?”

  Nino just smiled.

  Gabe put the glass down and leaned over the counter. “I’m serious, man. Give me one good reason you shouldn’t come with me.”

  Like you could be dead in a week. Gabe shoved the memory of Nino’s words back down to hell where they belonged.

  “My garden would die.”

  Just the garden? Was he trying to tell Gabe something? “You can come back anytime you want,” Gabe said. “Spend summers here gardening. And winters on the sand. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  “And I could feed you.”

  “You don’t give me enough cred
it, Gramps. Plus, you’re my fucking best friend.”

  “Stop swearing at me.”

  Gabe came around the counter. “And there’s this woman down there—”

  “There’s always a woman with you.”

  “Who wants money every time I drop an F-bomb. You’d love her.”

  Nino let out a sigh. “Too late.”

  “It’s never too late, Nino. You could meet a wild and sexy, crazy seventy-year-old. I hear they put out.”

  Nino fought a smile and cracked an egg. “I meant it’s too late because I already met the love of my life.” He said it with such force, Gabe drew back.

  “And she died decades ago. You know that thing will fall off if you don’t use it.”

  Nino snorted, turning to the stove to sauté the peppers. “Who says I don’t use it?”

  “Clearly you’re forgetting I know CIA-approved techniques to get information out of people. If you have a side chick down at the fresh-produce store and you aren’t telling me, I’ll—”

  “Shut up, Gabriel.” Nino slammed the pan on the gas stovetop and turned slowly, his eyes damp with tears. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, so zipper it.”

  Gabe just stared, not correcting the expression, because the truth of what was going on here almost strangled him. Enough of these games. Enough of this bullshit.

  “I know,” Gabe said quietly.

  Nino’s wrinkled face, tanned from years in the garden, paled. “You know what?”

  Gabe came closer. “I know what’s going on with you.”

  His jaw loosened. “Wha…how?

  “How do I know?” Gabe scoffed. “Have you met me?”

  “What do you know?”

  He took a chance, speaking more from the raw emotion this man brought out than brain power. “I know you’re sick.”

  Nino took a shaky breath. “It’s not really sick. I mean, some people might say that, at my age, but…” He swallowed hard, then gave a dry laugh. “You’re a damn good spy, you know that?”

  “Actually, it was Vivi. A call came into the office from the Sheppard Center, and she figured it out.” Gabe reached out a hand and placed it on Nino’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Because it’s embarrassing!” he almost shouted, then turned back to the stove.

  “Embarrassing? What the hell is embarrassing about it?”

  Nino shook his head, silent.

  “Nino, don’t make me say it.”

  Peppers sizzled, the tantalizing smell of Uncle Nino’s onions floating through the awkward silence.

  “Come on,” Gabe pleaded. “We want to help you.”

  Nino pushed the pan with too much force, swearing under his breath. “Help me? What the hell can you do? There’s no help for this. It’s like…like…” He slammed a giant hand on his chest. “A pain right here, so hot and…and scary. It’s like I can’t breathe sometimes. Did you know it felt like that?”

  Gabe’s throat closed. “No, I didn’t.” He reached for Nino, needing to hug him, a little surprised when the older man let him.

  “Hey,” Gabe whispered, the lump in his throat nearly strangling him. “We’ll figure this out.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out, Gabriel. I’m doomed.”

  “You are not doomed, damn it.” He pushed back to see Nino’s face. “People survive cancer, man.”

  Nino blinked. Twice. Then he took a step back, incredulity playing over every line in his old face.

  “They do,” Gabe insisted. “If they’re not defeatists.”

  Nino snorted. And choked once. Then, his shoulders shook, but not with a sob. He was laughing.

  “You think this is funny?” Gabe demanded.

  He was laughing hard. In fact, the son of a bitch threw his head back and banged his wooden spatula against his palm in a slow clap.

  “Nino, what the fuck?”

  “You think I have cancer?” he managed to ask in between guffaws.

  “Well, don’t you?”

  He finally got hold of himself, catching his breath. “I’m sorry. It’s not funny. Not at all, it’s just that…no, I don’t have cancer, but something is eating away at me.”

  “What?”

  “Love,” Nino said. “Which, as you would say, hurts like an…eff-emmer.”

  God, he loved this man. This man who did not have cancer. “You mean an em-effer?”

  “That, too.” Nino flipped the gas dial and turned off the flame under his pan. “You come with me. You have to see it to believe it.”

  “Now?”

  “Right now.”

  “Damn, Nino, this must be serious. Nothing comes before food with you.”

  “She does.”

  Chapter Five

  Gabe was so happy he almost joined Nino in belting out their favorite Frank Sinatra song as they barreled down the Mass Pike toward Boston.

  “I did it my way!” Nino crooned along to the last note. “Actually,” he added, when silence filled Gabe’s GTO, “this is the wrong vehicle for what we need to do.”

  “Too fast, too hot, too old?” Gabe asked. “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot I’m not supposed to ask questions about the mystery babe.”

  “Very funny.” Nino speared him with a look. “I’ll answer your questions, but not until I show her to you first. But be prepared, she’s so beautiful it hurts your eyes.”

  “Bring on the pain, old man.” He was so deliriously blissful Nino wasn’t dying, he’d have agreed to anything, including his request not to discuss the woman in question. The only thing Gabe had done was text Vivi to put her out of her misery and agree to go see Nino’s woman.

  “But why is the Purple Heart the wrong car?” He tapped the steering wheel with love, his affection for the ’68 muscle car as strong as the day he’d babied it home after buying it with his own money and persuading his cousin Zach to help him rebuild and repaint it. The chosen shade of Amorous Amethyst was Vivi’s doing. “Because if this bad boy is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.”

  “We need to be on the lowdown and under the grid.”

  Gabe laughed, Nino’s annihilation of English idioms even more endearing now that he knew the old coot was healthy as a horse.

  “On the down low and off the grid?” he asked. “You mean that place I call home?”

  “Exactly. I don’t want her to see us. I just want you to see her. And then you’ll understand everything.”

  “Smokin’, is she?”

  “She’d never smoke.”

  Gabe shook his head, a burst of affection squeezing his chest. “Smokin’ is hot. And hot is—”

  “Different for every man.”

  Not really. “Look, if she gives you a boner and makes you want to part with cash, ignore a football game, or sit on a bench in the mall while she buys shoes, then she’s hot. Any of the above?”

  “Well.” Nino shifted again. “I don’t watch sports, and we’ve never been to a mall together. She offers to pick up the tab, but I’d sooner stab my eye out with my paring knife.”

  “But she makes your zipper move?”

  “She makes my heart move,” he said, his old voice rich with emotion.

  “Whoa. That sounds serious.” A little taken aback by the conviction, Gabe threaded through the slow-moving traffic on the turnpike in silence, heading to Boston as Nino had instructed.

  “It could be,” Nino finally said.

  Nino with a woman. Gabe tried to get his head around that, but failed. His grandfather had been widowed since Gabe was a child, and every ounce of the old man’s energy had gone into helping Gabe’s parents run their crazy-ass, seven-kid home. Nino’s domain was the kitchen; he did the shopping, prepared every meal, and usually insisted on cleaning up.

  But Gabe and the other kids had all been moved out for a long time, he couldn’t blame Nino for searching for companionship.

  “So this is why you won’t consider my offer to move to Florida and help me run this business? A female?” He tried to keep t
hat little bit of disappointment from sounding like disgust.

  “Is that so wrong, Gabriel?”

  “Not at all. But I gotta admit, the idea of having you join me on my new gig really appeals to me. I swear to God, I’d give you something worthwhile to do, and Vivi never does.”

  He flicked his hand. “Vivi babies me.”

  “Exactly. I wouldn’t.”

  Nino shook his head. “Not leaving. I’m too in love.”

  Gabe nearly drove off the road instead of onto the exit. “Really? Why am I just hearing about this now?”

  “She doesn’t want to tell anyone yet.”

  “Whoa.” Gabe pretended to flinch. “Don’t smack my eye out with that big red flag.” He threw Nino a look. “Can I ask why the hell not?”

  “No, you cannot ask anything. Just head toward Mass General, and I’ll direct you from there.”

  The closer they got, the more fidgety Nino became. “Why does that clock always say it’s noon?”

  “I prefer to think it’s set to midnight.” And Nino knew the clock hadn’t worked since Christ was a corporal, and it had never bothered him before. Man, he had it bad. Gabe glanced at his watch, fighting a smile. “It’s quarter to five.”

  “Then find a spot to park on the next street, and we can go to the café that faces the side exit. She’ll come out of there at five-oh-three and will walk over to the train station to take the Red Line to Wednesday night bingo.”

  “I don’t know what makes me happier,” Gabe confessed. “You with a chick who plays bingo or that your spy skills are so on point.”

  “I’ve learned a little in the kitchen about that company your cousins run.”

  “And you could do so much more,” Gabe said. “Are you sure you won’t come with me and get some hands-on experience?”

  “I want my hands on something else.”

  Gabe hooted. “Dawg, you’re killing me. You could bring the babe with you. I’m pretty sure they have bingo on every flipping corner in that state.”

  “Nice try, but I can’t.”

  Gabe parked on a side street, and they walked to the outdoor tables of a Panera Bread on the corner. Nino moved faster than he had in a while, heading right to a specific table and chair, peering across the street.