Rags to Rubies

by Annalisa Russo

  Hollister’s gentleness turned to rage. “You miserable whore!” he railed. “You want him too, don’t you? You’re mine!” He cocked the gun just as Grace shifted slightly in his arms.

  “Nooo-o-o!” Grace shrieked pointing the protrusion in her pocket at Leo’s leg. The roar of her gun reverberated in the small room as the bullet entered Hollister’s thigh.

  Leo screamed in pain. His fingers released the handle of the gun, and it clattered to the floor. His face contorted in agony and fury as he raised the knife to plunge into Grace’s back.

  Jared launched himself at Hollister. One powerful blow from his fist to the man’s jaw had Leo’s eyes rolling back in his head as he collapsed to the floor.

  Jared retrieved the weapons and slid them into the waistband of his trousers. Glancing at Grace to reassure himself she was unharmed, he raced to the hallway. Blood was everywhere. “Donagon!” Jared cried out to his friend, who scrambled to roll out from beneath the blue shirt.

  “I’m fine, I am!” Donagon assured him.

  Jared bent to take the pulse of the blue shirt. “He’s still alive,” he said extending one hand to pull his friend from the floor.

  “I’ll take care of this rat-killin’ carpetbagger. Go to the poor lass.”

  Grace had collapsed into the chair, her hands white-knuckled on the armrest, her face ashen. Jared braced his hands on either side of Grace’s chair and lowered his head. He remained over her, all his muscles tensed and rippling with the adrenaline pulsing through his body.

  The words wouldn’t come. He didn’t trust himself to touch her even in comfort. She leaned her head against his arm and wept.

  “It’s over, Grace,” he said. The words were inadequate but were all he had to offer.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Had it been only a few days? So much had happened. Grace removed a gurgling baby Michael from his mother’s arms as Donagon swung Patty down from his broad shoulders and placed her gingerly on the front steps of Zia’s brownstone.

  “Be a good lass now, Patty,” he said, bending down to place a blunt finger on her tiny nose. “We’ll be bringing a surprise back for you and Michael, we will.”

  Patty did a gay little Irish jig she’d just learned and blew Donagon a kiss. Donagon pretended to catch the kiss and put it into his pocket. When he caught Grace watching him, a blush flamed across his handsome face as his mouth twisted into a sheepish grin. Donagon twined his fingers through Jane’s and pulled her toward the street.

  Patty raced down the steps to join two neighborhood children in a game of sidewalk hopscotch.

  “Thanks for watching the children, Grace,” Jane called over her shoulder, in an obvious rush to get wherever Donagon was taking her. “We’re going to run a few errands and be back by suppertime.”

  Donagon gave Patty’s hair an affectionate tousle and bent Jane’s hand into the crook of his arm as they strolled down the street toward the butcher shop.

  Grace sighed as she watched them go. She tucked the flannel blanket around Michael to ward off the chill and glanced up at the sky. Snow soon, she thought. Colorful dried leaves were twirling about the sidewalks and crunching underfoot. She ascended the brick steps of Bruna’s house and let herself in, shutting the door quietly.

  Bruna rested in her bed and would want to care for Michael if she knew the baby was there. Her aunt needed constant help now, failing a little each day but putting on a brave front. Grace suspected Bruna, believing her job over, slipped into quiet moments where she found peace with the tender memories of her beloved husband.

  Unwrapping the baby from his colorful receiving blanket, Grace placed him on his feet next to the coffee table. Baby Michael hung on with his chubby fingers and edged around the table on wobbly legs. After a few moments, he stumbled and plopped onto his well-padded bottom. The shock set him back momentarily, but then he crawled off eagerly, eyeing Bruna’s fluffy tabby as it watched him from across the room with wary yellow eyes.

  Grace watched Michael crawl toward the cat. Jane had given up on hearing from her absent husband. She and the children’s father had never married in the church because he wasn’t Catholic, so technically all Jane needed was a civil divorce for her freedom.

  The romance between Donagon and Jane had blossomed quickly, as Grace had suspected it would. She wondered if it would survive separation when Jared and Donagon returned to New York. She would hate to see Jane hurt again. And Patty had had an immediate attraction to the older man with his gentle ways and Irish brogue. She’d thrown her arms around him yesterday, much to his obvious pleasure, and informed him she would marry him when she grew up.

  “Sure and I’m a bit old fer you, lass, but I thank you fer the offer,” Donagon said, swallowing hard.

  “That’s all right,” Patty affirmed. "I’ll catch up soon.”

  Donagon had to turn away to compose himself after that.

  It would be a good match. Grace’s heart swelled for her friend and her young family. Actually, it hadn’t been all that hard to play matchmaker. While Jared dealt with police reports and the return of the stolen jewels, she arranged a brief introduction for the pair. Patty’s immediate acceptance and Donagon’s Irish charm took over to quell Jane’s apprehension within a few days. Grace had never seen Jane so happy.

  If only her own situation were as easy to solve. She sighed heavily and trotted off after Baby Michael, who had an unhappy tabby cat by the tail and was pulling the fluffy appendage toward his four tiny white teeth.

  ****

  Jared walked the block to Zia Bruna’s brownstone with apprehension. He paused for a moment to watch a tiny redheaded child playing there, her bouncy curls escaping the woolen cap pulled down over her ears.

  “Hello,” the child said easily. Jared smiled as he knelt to observe the tiny creature reminiscent of Puck himself.

  “Are you a girl or a boy?” Jared asked, quite unsure of the answer.

  “Why, a girl, silly!” she replied with genuine surprise.

  “Do you live here?”

  The urchin’s prickles rose. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, but you’re Graciella’s friend, aren’t you?”

  Jared nodded.

  “I live there with my mommy and baby brother,” she said, pointing with a stubby finger to a neighboring brownstone.

  “What’s your name?” Jared asked, not really sure of what a six-year-old would want to talk about.

  “Patty. My mommy calls me Patty Cake,” she explained, a wide grin spilling across her face. She was obviously pleased with the nickname. “What’s yours?”

  “Well, Patty Cake, my name is Jared. Do you know if Grace is home?”

  “Graciella.”

  Jared stood corrected. “I mean Graciella, of course.”

  “She’s inside. Zia Bruna is watching my baby brother while my mommy goes for groceries.” She dismissed him by returning to her game of hopscotch.

  “Thank you, Patty Cake.” He turned toward the front door, squared his shoulders, and took the steps doggedly. He rang the bell, then knocked.

  Pulling the sheer curtains aside, Grace glanced out, then fumbled with the lock and opened the door. Jared thought he saw a glimpse of welcome flit across her features. Perhaps she was glad to see him despite how everything had changed between them.

  Her bright smile made her appear so vulnerable. Open and honest. Trusting.

  It made what he was here to do all the more deplorable.

  He wondered how he would be able to maintain a residence down the street. How could he lie in bed every night knowing that she too lay curled up in her own bed not one block from his own? How could he come and go from this city knowing that all he needed to do was pick up the telephone? He took a deep breath.

  “Please, come in, Jared. I’ve been expecting you,” she said by way of greeting, escorting him into the parlor.

  Jared scanned the room for Zia Bruna. She sat in a rocking chair cradling a baby in her arms, pushing off with her feet in
a soothing rhythm. She sang softly to the child, who began to blink, his round eyes fighting sleep.

  “Fa la ninna, fa la nanna, Nella braccia della mamma,” she cooed softly, the melody lulling the infant to sleep.

  Jared stared for a moment at the old woman and the babe, then turned back to Grace. “The police booked Hollister. He won’t be going anywhere but prison. Multiple counts of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, and theft. He’ll be lucky to avoid the electric chair. I’ve arranged to have the manager from Tiffany’s contact all his victims and replace the missing stones from the list you gave me.”

  Though she continued to smile, Jared noticed she hadn’t asked him to sit down.

  “Fa la ninna del bambina, Fa la nanna bambina bel...”

  Jared glanced at Bruna again.

  “Well, that’s certainly good news, Jared.” She hesitated and looked down at her hands. “How do you thank someone for saving your life?”

  “Don’t be daft, Grace,” he said more gruffly than he’d intended. He didn’t want her thanks. God knew he didn’t deserve it for what he had come here to do.

  “Nella braccia della mamma...”

  Jared crossed the room to stand in front of the rocking chair. The song jarred something in his memory. A woman’s lilting voice, a soft fabric, a feeling of security and warmth and...and love.

  Grace followed him. “What is it, Jared?”

  “That song. Tell me about it,” Jared said his voice suddenly thick.

  “It’s an old Italian lullaby. My mother always sang it to me when she rocked me to sleep. Why?”

  Jared listened to the song’s verses while searching his memory for an answer. “I remember that song. And a woman…and being wrapped in something soft.”

  Grace looked from him to Bruna and then back to him. “I thought you were English,” she said, studying his face.

  Stumbling over the words he said, “My father, definitely. But my mother? I never knew. I surmised she was also English, because of her fair complexion and blonde hair.”

  Grace’s face lit. “Oh, my God! Jared come with me! First to my place, then to yours. Hurry!” Grace cried, pulling him to his feet and propelling him toward the door.

  ****

  Grace grabbed several of her sketches out of the file on her desk, glancing at them briefly. “Mmmm...I thought so. Let’s go,” she ordered, dragging Jared by the hand out the door of her brownstone, “to your house.”

  Entering the library of Jared’s home a few minutes later, Grace examined the portrait above the fireplace. “It’s too dim in here. I can’t be certain. Can we open the drapery or pull any other lamps in here? I need more light.”

  Jared lit an oil lamp and held it up to the painting.

  With an abrupt intake of breath, she held the copies of her sketches out to Jared. “Look.”

  Flipping through the intricately detailed sketches, he studied them, raising his eyes to look again at the portrait.

  “The necklace. It’s the same design as these earrings in your drawings.”

  “Not only that,” she emphasized, “the owners told me the earrings originally had a matching necklace. The set belonged to an Italian count from Venice during the Renaissance and had been handed down from generation to generation for four centuries. The necklace disappeared about thirty-five years ago. The family’s name and address in Italy are on the report.”

  Jared looked back and forth from the sketches to the portrait, seeing his mother, his Italian mother, for the first time.

  His voice was husky when he finally turned to her. “It is my turn to say thank you, Grace.”

  “It may amount to nothing, but I think it’s worth looking into. Don’t you agree?” She smiled. “You may keep the sketches.”

  Jared folded the papers into his pocket and pulled Grace into a gentle embrace. Unfamiliar sensations coursed through his body, but unable to sort through them, he held them in check for her sake.

  Exhaustion overtook him as he walked Grace back to Bruna’s home. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this weary. Did she hate him? She should despise him, yet every encounter was gracious and giving. He yearned to take her into his arms, but instinctively he knew he could never have her again. She would never allow a casual liaison. He had known from the beginning it was all or nothing.

  She smiled up at him, and when she raised her small hand to cup his cheek, he felt something inside twist and loosen. God, how he wished it were different! Wished he were different. Wished he were able to be what she needed, but there was nothing in him to give. He’d always known about the emptiness inside, felt the lack of normal human attachment to people. She needed love and he had none to give. He would not hurt her by trying and failing.

  When he left her, he would be losing the one person who had touched his soul. He would miss her humor, her courage and intelligence. He would miss her crooked smile. Yet he had to leave her.

  He had nothing to offer. She’d be better off with someone else.

  He shook himself free of the thoughts and pulled away. He had almost forgotten his purpose in coming and couldn’t seem to complete the task. He said goodbye briefly and left.

  ****

  Grace watched him go from the window, wondering why he had come at all. Oh, how she loved him! When she put her arms around his waist, she’d heard his low moan. She would always be his for the asking, but in her wisdom Zia Bruna had known. It could only be right between them if he understood. The hardest part was admitting that maybe he never would.

  She felt, as he’d held her in his arms, he had lingered, unwilling to pull apart, doing so only with great difficulty.

  But she also felt the finality. The embrace had been a goodbye, one filled with regret and sorrow and guilt, but a final parting nonetheless.

  She wondered if she had meant anything to him at all.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chicago

  December 24

  It felt good to have his feet on solid ground once again. Jared walked the short distance from his brownstone to Grace’s home. The house had been dark late last night when he arrived home from Europe. He squinted as the glare of the early morning sun bounced off the glistening snow.

  The anticipation of this moment had grown until he could hardly wait for morning to come. Today was Sunday. She wouldn’t be at work if she’d taken another job. He didn’t care if he had to court her slowly, if she required time to be sure of his resolve, but he would convince her in the end. For now, he just wanted to look at her again.

  He’d had two weeks, coming home aboard the White Star Majestic for the Atlantic crossing, to clear his mind and sharpen the image of the last time he’d been with Grace.

  She had provided the crucial piece to the puzzle of his past with the same unselfish concern she had for everyone, and then she had let him go without question. Donagon had stayed on an additional two weeks, but Jared had left on the next train for New York and then gone on to Italy in a single-minded quest to find the answers to his past. A quest that had taken the better part of two months.

  The bustle of the ship’s activity on the return trip had been depressing. He’d not been prepared for the crushing loneliness. Oh, he’d been prepared for the sexual ache that was his constant companion, but now it seemed as if all his days were overcast.

  He missed the intelligent conversations, the defiant raise of her chin. He missed the subtle scent of her hair, her laughter, and her gentle innocence. He missed the feel of her in his arms, how she filled all of his senses and made him long to sink into her softness.

  Now he knew why he’d never been able to bring himself to say goodbye to her. He hadn’t really wanted to say the words. He hadn’t been thinking clearly, but now, for the first time, he had something to offer her other than passion. He loved her with all the intensity of that frightening emotion.

  He wanted to share his life with her, wake up to her every morning, and carry her to bed every night. He wanted to buy her jewels and fu
rs and fill her belly with his children. He wanted to claim her as his own before God and the whole world.

  He knew only Grace could give him the peace he’d sought for so long.

  If only he could make her understand how deeply she’d touched his life. When he looked in his shaving mirror, he no longer saw reflected there the lonely shadows that had plagued him all of his life.

  A rush of emotion welled up in him and left him with a sense of deep longing.

  He had traveled straight to Chicago from Europe, not even stopping at Ravenhall. He’d been gone nearly two months, two months in which he had literally found himself, along with a mountain of relatives. Cousins, aunts, uncles, and a wonderful set of grandparents. He had been so alone, and then Grace had filled up all the holes, all the dark empty places that had tormented him so, with her love and her goodness—and now with so much family he actually chuckled aloud at the memory of all of them talking at once, each trying to be heard above the din. He had never felt so loved, so accepted.

  His mother’s sister had taken him in her arms and wept at her good fortune to have a piece of her beloved twin sister back. Geni, Ja-nee. His mother’s name had been Geni Bianchi.

  But how could he go about convincing Grace he was worthy of her when he had so callously abandoned her? He’d been a fool. He took the precious gift of her body, left her to care for Zia Bruna by herself, abandoned her after her life had been so recently threatened, and never once told her that she’d become the beacon of his life.

  He trudged through the unshoveled snow on her sidewalk, deciding he would perform that mundane task for her as soon as he’d kissed her thoroughly, if she would allow the intimacy. She would have to receive him. He would insist, beg.

  Get down on one knee.

  On both knees, if necessary. He smiled at the thought. He would gladly spend all his remaining days on his knees for her if she would send just one smile his way. One crooked, beautiful, mind-boggling smile.

  Jared stomped the snow from his shoes and raised his fist to knock on the door. As he did, he glanced at the mailbox mounted nearby. Charles and Amelia Brown was printed clearly on a white label affixed to the metal flap.