“I know. I’m good at that, aren’t I?” He made it sound as if he were a little boy fishing for a compliment.
Maria laughed dutifully, but didn’t feel it.
“What I saw from my high window that drew me out into the world again was a woman walking through the Market, I didn’t know anything about her. She could have been eighteen or eighty. All I knew was that in a city of grays and blacks and REI jackets, she stood out. She wore a sky blue wool coat down to her calves and the brightest gold hat I’ve ever seen. I spent a week walking the Market, looking to once more find that flash of color. To find the woman who would dress so brightly and uniquely.”
He pointed out a shining ferry leaving dock from just a few piers down. It sparkled on the dark water. Maria knew they shared the same thought of it being pretty enough to point out, but not wanting to interrupt the conversation. Such simple communication between them. Perhaps he wasn’t really all that strange.
“That whole week I spent looking and hoping, simply wanting to see how alive someone like that must appear up close. Knowing there was little or no chance of finding her, still I searched. What I realized was that I was searching for something more important. I’d lost a piece of myself somewhere. Lost it so badly that I had to wander about pretending I could find it somewhere other than within myself.”
Maria liked this story. Could feel his absolute involvement in it. This wasn’t some tale a man told to a woman he was interested in. This wasn’t a stalker who had followed her, he was a man looking for himself. He was working it out even as they swung down closer and closer to departing ferry.
“I don’t know who it was that I saw from my high window. There’s no way for me to tell, but I like to think that it was you.”
Maria kept her lips tightly pressed together. The coat and hat he had described were indeed hanging in her closet, though she’d never thought of them as anything special.
“By the time I spotted you in your Botticelli window—”
“My what?” She turned to study him as they swung through the lights at the bottom of the wheel’s arc and started their second journey around the wheel.
“That’s how you look. Didn’t you know? Right down to the simple golden frame around your window at Angelo’s. I thought it was familiar, so looked it up online. It’s almost a perfect match for the one around Botticelli’s Allegory of Spring hanging in Florence.”
She was going to kill Russell. Maria had just thought it was pretty wood trim. But of course Mr. World-famous-photographer Russell, who had such an amazing eye for art and composition, would have known exactly what he was doing when he had so kindly offered to set her up with a way to sell breakfast treats and gain new customers for Angelo’s restaurant. She’d have to check the outside wall to make sure there was no little “description of the image” plaque bolted up as if she were hanging in a museum.
“Anyway, at that moment, I didn’t care if I found that lady or not. For what I saw before me was a woman who clearly understood that life was a gift. It’s something I lost sight of, maybe long ago.”
They climbed once more into the city’s night sky. But Hogan wasn’t watching it. He was staring out the window as if desperately searching for some earlier version of himself.
“Maybe that’s what Vera took out of me. Sorry, I know I’m not supposed to mention her.”
“I give you dispensation this one time,” she kept her voice gentle, not wanting him to stop.
He nodded his acknowledgement but his attention was still far away. “I’m not sure though. Maybe it was partly the job. Or a combination of things, some good, some bad. I had to see someone who reveled in the light, reveled in life itself to remind me of what was so important. You do that. It is so rare, so special, how could you not draw me like a beacon.”
Now he turned to face her, so close she could see his eyes clearly despite the dim lighting of the waterfront falling behind them as they again swung downward.
“From now on I want to surround myself with people who think being alive is a gift. It has essential importance. I now see that Eric, the man who founded the shelter I volunteer at, has that. You have that. All I can hope to do is find some of that joy in myself and share that as well.”
Maria tried to still her pounding heart. Tried to keep her reaction inside her, hidden, to how wonderful a man sat beside her.
She didn’t remember the third turn of the Great Wheel at all. Her knees were weak and her lips ever so pleasantly sore as Hogan led her off the Ferris wheel and took her to dinner.
Chapter 8
“Are you okay, Mama?”
Maria blinked hard then looked down at what she’d been cooking. The ginger jam that she’d been simmering had scorched. A bagnomaria of chocolate had overheated and separated, which was exactly what the double boiler was supposed to prevent. She hadn’t done that since she was a little girl standing on a kitchen chair to help her grandmother cook.
“Fine. I’m fine.” She began cleaning up the mess. A glance at the clock said that she still had time if she stayed focused. Which would be much easier if she weren’t so preoccupied by memories of how Hogan had made her body feel on that third time around the Ferris wheel. Men had fondled her breasts, but Hogan had worshipped them with his hands. He’d scooped her into his lap and run his lips down her neck and his hands over her body until—
“Mama?”
Angelo stood close beside her. A worried look on his face. She patted his cheek and insisted she was fine. He eyed her carefully before slowly rejoining Manuel on the cook line. They were experimenting on a dish for the new restaurant.
Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth, which actually leaned more toward Ligurian fare, was primarily seafood. Liguria lay north of Tuscany, a thin slice of the coast, but it was lesser known. So, Angelo and Russell had named it for the more popular Tuscany. The new restaurant, Angelo’s Piedmont Hearth, was a concession to the American clientele rather than the Italian “Piemonte.” It would have a whole new menu, based on the stronger-bodied wines of the mountains and the meatier fare of the region.
Maria began scouring the pots quickly. By the time she’d turned back to the cook line, Graziella was there laying out fresh ginger, sugar, and chocolate.
“I know that look, Ms. Parrano.”
“What look?” Maria did her best to sound innocent and knew she failed miserably.
“The same look that I saw in the mirror this morning.”
Maria inspected her and now saw it blooming out of her. How had Maria missed it, the girl was radiant. A glance at the cook line showed Manuel was very focused on his cooking. How was it that Graziella looked radiant, Manuel was totally in control, and she was an absolute distracted mess with the attention span of a parakeet?
Graziella must have noticed her attention and her scowl. “He fouled the sauce twice before Angelo came in. This is his third try.”
Maria laughed and felt much better.
“He is treating you well?”
The young woman’s smile and sigh was confirmation enough.
“When do we meet the man putting that smile on your face?”
Maria focused on coarse-chopping the chocolate while Graziella rebuilt the honey-based sugar syrup for the jam.
“Oh, I know him already, don’t I? Your special customer. The one Manuel cooked breakfast for. Your charity case?” She turned it into a question of surprise.
“Hogan Stanford is many things, but it turns out that a charity case is not among them. At least not the way I thought he was.”
“Who is Hogan Stanford?” Russell snapped a photo with that fancy camera of his.
“Where did you come from?” Maria hadn’t heard him come in and didn’t know why he was aiming his camera at her. He shifted to the side for a different angle and she threatened him with the chocolate-coated wooden spoon she’d been using to stir with. He too
k the picture, of course, though he did back off a step.
“I came from New York. But you know that. Not getting forgetful in your dotage, are you Ms. Parrano?”
“Just because you turned out so tall and handsome and I can no longer lay you over my knee, don’t think that my spoon is any slower.” She had used it frequently to whack him on the knuckles when he and Angelo were young and constantly trying to snatch bits from her cooking pot before they were served.
Graziella stirred the forming syrup to make sure that it heated evenly and didn’t foam, “Can I have a demonstration? It sounds like a useful skill.”
“I am here by invitation, Maria,” Russell insisted. He backed off another step, just in case she decided to carry out her threat, and ran into a dish rack with a large clatter.
“We thought that to advertise the new restaurant, we should introduce the people behind the swinging doors. ‘From our kitchen to your table’ kind of feel. Make it personal. I wanted to start with two amazingly beautiful women, you know, sex appeal and all that.” He gave a knowing leer that looked quite comical because they all knew how besotted he was by Cassidy.
Maria had to admit that it was a good idea and didn’t mind the compliment even though it was just so much fesserie. And while she didn’t like having her picture taken unawares, she knew Russell would make her look so pretty that she wouldn’t recognize herself. And with young and glowing Graziella beside her, Maria expected it would come out very well indeed.
“So, who is Hogan Stanford?” He snapped a picture of her protest, but it didn’t save his knuckles from a quick rap.
# # #
Hogan was impressed with himself when he visited Maria’s window. He didn’t hesitate, or avoid, or have to walk around the block three times. He simply queued up with the others, and other than a brief flash of a smile shared with Maria, he became just another customer waiting his turn. Someone was moving around snapping photos with a very high-end camera. Publicity photos maybe. Hogan almost felt as if he’d look like he fit into the scene.
The December morning was clear and cold, at least for Seattle, upper-thirties. Maria had selected a sweater of soft gray. It was all vertically ribbed, emphasizing the trimness of her waist and her exceptionally fine full-figure. Who was he kidding with that? Fine full-figure indeed. As if he were a priggish poet given to abundant alliteration.
Her magnificent breasts. He could feel his cheeks warm even as he thought the words, but to call them less wouldn’t be appropriate either. Not for the man who had just last night so appreciated their texture, the way they fit the curve of his palm, how they had responded to his attentions aboard the gondola. They were not overlarge, but were rather emphasized by that slender waist he could practically wrap his two hands fully around.
He allowed his attention to drift. Her neck, the clean lines of her well-defined Italian chin, and lips that he knew were so soft and opened with a soft sigh when…
“Hogan?”
He had progressed to the front of the line without noticing. That is, without noticing anything except how she looked.
“You look incredible.”
“Your Botticelli?”
He rapped his knuckles lightly against the gilded window frame in answer.
“Have you had breakfast yet?”
When he shook his head, she set out a coffee and a cornetto. He made a show of carefully counting out five one-dollar bills, she’d teased him mercilessly about only having hundreds in his wallet.
“Are you free this evening?” It felt so normal, asking his girl out.
“Come to my condo after you are done at the shelter, I’ll make you a nice dinner. Now shoo. You’re blocking other customers.”
He glanced behind, and there were several people behind him.
“And you too are so pretty that you’re distracting me terribly,” she said more softly.
He turned back startled. “Did I hear that right?”
She made shooing motions. When he moved off, she called him back to take his breakfast. Okay, maybe he didn’t fit in completely. But the coffee was warm in his hands and Maria’s smile was warm as well.
He moved off down Post Alley and turned downslope toward the park to enjoy the morning sunshine as he ate his breakfast. It overlooked Elliot Bay, which was an amazing sight on a sunny morning. He’d also be able to see the Ferris wheel and think about—
“Hogan Stanford?” The voice sounded buddy-buddy. A moment later someone clamped a hand over Hogan’s shoulder. Hard. He looked over and up. It was the photographer from outside the restaurant, and he was a big man: tall, broad-
shouldered, cliché-handsome. His camera was still clamped in his other hand.
“Uh, yes?”
“So, Hogan. Tell me how you’ve been doing, buddy?”
Hogan tried to wrench his shoulder free. Managed it on the second try without dislocating anything or losing his cornetto. This guy looked easy-going, but his grip had been anything but.
“Uh fine. Would you care to tell me who the hell you are?” The man’s confrontational approach had taken Hogan back to one too many corporate meetings. He could feel his spine stiffen and his professional assuredness slip over him like an extra winter cloak.
“Maybe,” the photographer looked at him as if there was no maybe about it. “We can work out a trade on that one.”
They descended the steep half-block to Pike Place. They crossed the street together into the park at the north end of the Pike Place Market as if seeking a suitable site for the confrontation.
It was still too early for the homeless who worked the park once the tourists came out, so the area was mostly empty. A small ring of grass trapped behind a low concrete wall and a wide walking area. Without Hogan quite being sure how, they ended up side by side, leaning on the steel rail that overlooked the viaduct roaring with morning rush hour traffic and the bay beyond. Sure enough, there was the Ferris wheel off to his left. But to his right…
“So,” Hogan faced the big man. “Time to answer the question, or do I call over that friendly policeman?” He nodded to the man enjoying coffee and a cheese Danish a dozen feet farther along the rail.
The big guy glanced over his shoulder. “Rent-a-cop, night security. Won’t help you a bit, but you don’t need protection from me. At least not yet.”
“Oh. And why is that?” He did his best to sound disdainful, impressing even himself.
“I…” the guy rubbed a hand over his face. And in the process almost erased the big bruiser expression from his face. He actually looked fairly pleasant as he continued. “Damn! I’m screwing this up, but I gotta ask. Are you the Hogan Stanford who is putting that expression on Maria Amelia Avico Parrano’s face?”
“What expression?” So, this was about Maria somehow. Was she part of some mafia organization?
“The goofy one.”
Hogan inspected the photographer again. He didn’t look like some mob enforcer. He looked like someone you’d see on the cover of GQ. A goofy expression?
“I can only hope it’s me.” Hogan admitted. He really liked the idea that he wasn’t the only one feeling totally ridiculous every time thoughts of last night came to mind, which was constantly.
“Aw shit.”
“What? And who are you?”
“Russell. I’m Russell Morgan. Maria is kind of like my mother, except I have a mother too. That sounds stupid.”
Russell and Angelo. Maria had talked over dinner last night about raising the two boys.
“Where’s your consigliere?”
“Who? Oh, Angelo. Fretting over some new venison morel-mushroom sauce. Okay, maybe I came across a little heavy. But nobody has ever made Maria mess up in the kitchen, ever. Nor put that smile on her face. Angelo didn’t see it. I probably wouldn’t have without my camera. It shows things.” He did something with the controls on th
e back, flicked through the images, and then held it up for Hogan to see.
Just moments ago: Maria sitting in the window, serving the person ahead of Hogan. The shot was mostly from behind Hogan, his own face was hidden, he was more of a soft blur in the foreground giving the impression of a longer line than there’d actually been at the moment. Then Russell selected the next photo.
Hogan was now at the window, still from behind. And Maria’s face had lit up with that brilliant smile of hers. The one that made him think of sunny days and laughing women.
“Oh.” It was all he could think to say. He hadn’t seen the change, he’d been too busy being happy to see her, even if just for that moment. That he had been the one to cause that change utterly floored him. He tried to think of something more intelligent to say, but failed completely.
“So, why are you after her?” Russell turned the camera back off and slung it over his shoulder.
“Are you always this crass?”
Russell grimaced then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Ask my wife, she’d probably say I’m being a jerk, but I…”
He trailed off and Hogan decided to help him. “You’re just being protective.”
Russell nodded.
“Well, I’m glad that she has people to protect her. Though she doesn’t strike me as someone who needs much protection.”
Russell rubbed a hand over his knuckles as if they hurt. “You don’t know the half of it.”
# # #
They spent a pleasant hour looking out at the bay and getting to know each other. He was getting to like Russell, who clearly adored Maria. He’d made his own success and walked away to discover himself. And in the process he’d fallen in love.
It was something they had in common. Neither of them had to ever work again, but they weren’t built that way. They had to do something. Hogan had lost that, but was slowly rediscovering it at the shelter.
Maria was right, Russell was a good boy. Twenty years Hogan’s junior and madly in love with his wife. Hogan didn’t know squat about wines, but even he had heard of Cassidy Knowles. A food-and-wine critic who had dropped out to create a wine cooperative of the vineyards of Washington State. She wasn’t aiming her sights at keeping Washington as one of the nation’s top three wine regions, along with Oregon. She aimed to make it better than Napa.
Where Dreams Books 1-3 Page 60
