Family Matters (DiCarlo Brides book 4) (The DiCarlo Brides)

by Tullis, Heather

  Rosemary left a message with Alex’s secretary and stared for a long moment at the folder, allowing herself to grieve for several minutes before wiping her face and forcing herself to focus on her job. Cleo was going to need her, so she’d be strong. Later, when Rosemary was alone, there would be time to fall apart.

  She returned to the kitchen to find her assistant manager, Tate, scowling.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Dill. In the chicken sandwich filling.”

  She felt her blood pressure rise as she grabbed a spoon to taste the filling. When her sample confirmed what Tate had said, she turned to Rulon, who had been assigned to mix it. “You added dill?”

  He rubbed a sweaty hand over his unshaven face. “It was an honest mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry. The recipe calls for tarragon. They aren’t even kept on the same shelf. How did you make the mistake?” Rage rose within her—much easier to deal with than her grief. She’d been on the edge of ready to fire him anyway. This was the last straw.

  “Look, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” He didn’t appear sorry though. His dark eyes were belligerent and he gestured angrily.

  “You’re right, it won’t. You’re done here.” Rosemary’s mind started whirling as she thought of everything they needed to do to fix the problem and still get lunch out on time.

  “What do you mean?’

  “I mean you’re fired. I put up with a lot of things, but incompetence isn’t one of them, and you’ve already used all of your freebies. Grab your things and get out of here.”

  His fists opened and closed and his arm muscles bunched. He was a couple of years younger than herself and he worked out often. For a moment she thought he might deck her, but instead, he used all of the gutter language his limited mind had absorbed and stormed out.

  She sucked in a deep breath to center herself, then focused on what had to be done to salvage lunch. It was almost a relief to have something so comparatively minor to focus on instead of the emptiness inside her. “Do we have enough chicken to start over?” she asked Tate.

  “No.” He still wore his scowl.

  “Fine.” There was no choice; they had to have the filling for that afternoon’s sandwiches. She turned to the others. “Who wants to get paid to drive to Denver for emergency supplies?”

  She picked one of the five people who vied for the opportunity and did her best to put it out of her mind, but wasn’t very successful.

  Rosemary was still fuming, working like mad to keep up with the restaurant demands and oversee preparations for the banquet that afternoon. She just couldn’t catch a break, and she was tired. And hungry. But she wasn’t going to indulge in anything until those sandwiches were made.

  “Rosemary, can I talk to you for a minute?” It was Harrison, who always made her feel like a bumbling fool, though he never seemed to do it on purpose. He was using his calm, controlled voice—which meant they would probably be fighting in a few minutes, because that’s what they usually did when they ‘talked.’

  “I’m a little busy here. Can it wait until after we get through the lunch rush?” She didn’t even look at him.

  “I think you can spare two minutes. How about if we go to your office?”

  Her office? So it really was going to be a showdown. She clenched her teeth and turned the work over to Tate, her assistant, before whirling and heading for her office. Harrison followed along and after he shut the door to the kitchen, she turned to face him, “I’m running a little behind right now. I really can’t spare the time, so try to keep it short, will you?”

  “I just spoke with Rulon.”

  She knew it. “And he’d be the reason I’m behind. What, did he come whining that I yelled at him?” She put her hands on her hips and glared at Harrison, the gorgeous idiot. The way his brown hair fell over his eyes always got to her, but she could mostly ignore it when she was angry.

  “He said you yelled at him in front of everyone.” Harrison stood casually, his hands in his pockets. He always started out like this, employing the take-it-easy approach, like his vegan, Mother Earth-type mother taught him, but it never lasted long. The muscle beside his eye twitched—a dead giveaway that he was already mad.

  “Right, because he put dill in the chicken salad. Dill. Really? It was supposed to be tarragon, and he used twice what he should have in the first place, and it was totally unusable. I had to send Gillian to Denver to get more chicken because we’re now short for the lunch we’re catering this afternoon. That’s several hundred dollars in ruined ingredients and over five man hours of wasted time that we have to make up because he’s totally inept.” That included the hour’s drive to Denver, but Rosemary had to pay Gillian for the day and her gas, didn’t she?

  Harrison’s lips pressed together. He never seemed to approve of her leadership tactics. “You should have brought him in here to fire him.”

  She knew she should have handled it better, had silently reprimanded herself for it several times already, but didn’t appreciate Harrison telling her how to deal with her staff—even if he was the director of HR. “I didn’t have the time or the patience. It’s not like this is the first time he’s done something stupid that’s cost us. I was more than understanding on the previous three occasions.” But today she had been primed to blow. Learning about the Markhams had honed the fine edge of her temper and she hadn’t been in control of herself. She hated not being in control.

  “Nevertheless.”

  She cut him off before he could continue. “Don’t you nevertheless me. I don’t have time to deal with this. Write me up if you want, whatever, I don’t care. I have food to get out. If you’ll excuse me.” She tried to push past him, as tears started to prickle in her eyes, but he latched onto her upper arm.

  “Whoa. You need to calm down if you’re going back out there.” His voice was low and even. “This is a problem waiting to happen.”

  “I can’t calm down.” She sucked in a breath and blinked rapidly, but a tear spilled over anyway.

  His voice switched to worried. “Hold on. What’s wrong?” His grip was loose, but secure, an odd combination. “It’s not lunch that you’re upset about, is it?”

  She wiped at her cheek, flicking the tear away. “Don’t be stupid. You think I can’t deal with an employee? Everything isn’t about this place, you know—even if you don’t have a life outside the hotel.” She yanked on her arm and he let go.

  Steeling herself for the chaos of her kitchen, she pushed out of the office and went back to work. It was the best cure for grief, and a distraction from her worry.

  Rosemary told herself that she ran her own kitchen and there was no reason to make a big deal out of taking off for a week or so, but after fixing the work schedule so she could take off, she headed upstairs to see Lana and Delphi.

  Why had her father insisted in putting her in this position, anyway? She’d been happy in her downtown DC restaurant job, close to the Markhams and her daughter. He knew she just wanted to cook, but it hadn’t been good enough for him, Instead he’d made it a condition of her inheritance that she spend the year in Juniper Ridge heading his latest resort’s restaurant.

  He’d strong-armed the rest of the sisters into working there as well, though a couple of them had been more than willing when the terms of the will had been read. And then there was the big house he’d bought for them to live in—six women in one house—even if it did have private bathrooms in every room—was asking a lot. Half of them were married now, including Cami and Lana, the two daughters by his long-deceased wife. None of them had known about the other girls. The fact that they had all been a secret had caused plenty of stress and trouble by itself but they were dealing.

  They were a long way from being the happy family he’d apparently wanted for all of them, though, and she didn’t look forward to explaining herself now. She smiled and greeted Gina, the executive office manager, and stuck her head in Lana’s office. “You got a moment?”
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  “Sure, what’s up?”

  “Let me grab Delphi too so I can handle everything at once.” She passed a few more offices, including Harrison’s—it was empty—and knocked on Delphi’s open door. “Got a minute for a quick meeting with Lana and me?”

  Denial was on Delphi’s face when she looked up, then her eyes narrowed and she nodded. No doubt she noticed Rosemary’s red nose and eyes—she really needed to take a break to touch up her makeup. “Sure, no more than a minute, though.” She stood and followed Rosemary out of the room.

  Delphi entered Lana’s office first and Rosemary closed the door behind them. “I have to make an emergency trip to DC. I just got a flight. It leaves first thing tomorrow. I could be gone for a week or more.”

  “But we have a big wedding this weekend,” Delphi protested.

  “It can’t be helped.” Rosemary steeled herself. “Some close friends of mine were killed in the café bombing yesterday. I need to get home for the funeral, and other things.” She nearly mentioned Cleo, but decided to hold off a little while. She was still trying to grasp that.

  “Surely the funeral isn’t for a few days,” Delphi protested.

  “I don’t know when it is,” Rosemary admitted, “but there are other issues I need to handle that go along with it. I’ll explain more later. Meanwhile, I’ve made some changes to the catering work schedule to make sure everything is covered.” She filled them in on the adjustments so they would know who to contact in case anything came up.

  When they finished, Delphi left, citing an appointment with a prospective client, but questions lingered in her eyes.

  “This must be someone you’re really close to,” Lana said when they were alone.

  Rosemary nodded. She’d grown closer to this half-sister over the past few months when Lana became pregnant. As the only one in the family—as far as she knew—who had ever been pregnant before, she’d done her best to support the slightly younger woman. Not that Lana or anyone else knew Rosemary had been pregnant before. Not yet, anyway. “They were more my parents than Wanda or George in a lot of ways. It throws some other wrenches in the works, but there will be time to discuss that later.” She sighed, desperately wanting a hot bath full of bubbles and a glass of really excellent wine. “I need to get back to work. I’ll see you later.” She heaved herself from the chair.

  “Tell me if you need anything. Really, Rosemary.” Lana held her gaze for a long moment.

  Rosemary nodded, though she didn’t know if it was a lie or not.

  Harrison was taking a stroll around the resort late that afternoon. He’d needed a moment to get out of his office and stretch his legs. He paused when he passed the restaurant entrance. He could see Rosemary standing in front of a table with a couple of octogenarian diners—they were locals, he knew because he’d seen them around enough to recognize them.

  Rosemary smiled and covered the woman’s withered old hand with hers, kindness and respect in her demeanor. She wasn’t smiling as brightly as she often did when she interacted with happy guests and he wondered if the deal with Rulon still bothered her. She turned away from the table and nearly bumped into one of the servers, half-laughing as she said something that looked like ‘such a klutz,’ but since the server smiled as he continued to a family a few tables beyond the older couple, Rosemary must have been talking about herself and not him.

  Harrison wondered why she seemed able to handle little things with grace and good humor, but wigged out on Rulon earlier. And what had caused her tears?

  She pushed through the kitchen doors, the smile slipping from her face and sadness taking over a moment before she disappeared from view.

  He turned and continued on down the hall, then ducked in to see Sage, his half-sister by their mom. She was half-sister to the rest of George’s daughters as well, including Rosemary, and always seemed to have insights.

  “What’s up?” Sage looked up from her computer monitor when he stopped her office doorway. Her wild dark curls were pulled back as they always were while she worked.

  “You got a minute?” he asked.

  “For you? Sure.”

  He shut the door behind him. “So what’s up with Rosemary? She looks like death warmed over.” The two weren’t particularly close, but Sage had a way of knowing things, often even if people didn’t tell her.

  Sage shot him a surprised look. “You haven’t heard? Some people she was close to back home were killed in that bombing that killed that senator.”

  He’d heard about the bombing on the news the previous night, and earlier, when Rosemary was upset and at the point of tears, she must have already known about her friends. It made Harrison feel like such a jerk. But she made him feel that way on a regular basis, so that was hardly unusual. “No wonder she’s… off.”

  “Yeah. So go easy on her, will you?” Sage’s voice was light, but he could tell from the worry lines around her eyes that she was worked up about it. “She’ll be heading to DC first thing in the morning.”

  He nodded. “That explains a few things.”

  “Aren’t you going to DC next week to work with their new HR director?” Sage asked him speculatively.

  The thought had occurred to him, too. He’d made the appointment a couple of weeks earlier. “I have meetings. She might be back by then if she’s leaving already.” He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to be back or if he wanted a chance to talk with her away from work—away from everything that made crossing the line into friendship so difficult here. It was something to think about.

  There was a pile of work on his desk, which he needed to get back to, but he knew he would have trouble focusing on it now. The blond woman he had brought to tears that morning, however, was very much on his mind. She always was, seldom leaving him alone for long, but this was something more. If only he’d known earlier, he would have handled it differently.

  Too late for that, though. Too late for a lot of things. Considering the way she never let her guard down around him, even for a second, he doubted that would change.

  Still, a few overtures of friendship might not hurt.

  Rosemary was going for broke on the elliptical when Harrison walked into the exercise room downstairs in the sisters’ house that evening. He watched her. She could feel him even though he hadn’t announced himself and he stood behind her. It sounded crazy to say it, but the tone of any room seemed to change when he entered it.

  “What?” she asked, a little breathless when he didn’t speak.

  “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

  That made her chuckle breathlessly. “No, it’s everyone else who is giving me heart attacks. Don’t they know they should give a body a little warning? Huh? What’s with people leaving me bequests I’m totally unprepared to deal with?” Joy, terror and grief still warred inside her. What was she going to do? How could she possibly explain to Cleo why she didn’t keep her originally? And what did you do with kids anyway? It was one thing to visit and play in the yard with her, it was another thing to be a full-time parent. There would be homework and play groups and soccer practice, rules to make and punishments to mete out when rules were broken. Not always great at following other people’s rules, she knew it would be difficult to set and follow them for her daughter.

  She worked so much, and she shared a house with, well, only two other women now out of the original five. So there were a few extra rooms. But how would they feel about it? She hadn’t talked to anyone about the guardianship, but she would have to have a chat with Delphi and Jonquil tonight.

  The terms of their father’s will made it impossible for her to move out—unless Alex found some freaky legal loophole he could twist. That would almost be freakier though, because it would mean her father anticipated something like this, which he totally couldn’t have.

  “If you don’t want the bequest, turn it down,” Harrison suggested. “You don’t have to accept something just because someone wanted you to have it.”

  “I can’t. You don’t turn
down a kid.” There it was, in the open. Out loud.

  “Whoa.” He grabbed one of the elliptical’s handles, forcing her to slow down. “A kid? Someone died and left you their kid?”

  “Yeah. Though I guess she’s technically my kid.” Giving up on fighting him—or was it herself?—she slowed her steps until they stopped. She closed her eyes for a moment to gather strength before turning to Harrison. This was the last thing she wanted to admit to him—of all people, why did it have to be him? Why was he always the one to show up when she felt the most vulnerable?

  “She’s yours because they left her to you?” The tentative expression on his face made it clear he was trying not to presume, but sensed it was more than a legality. “And who left you a child? I knew something happened to friends in DC, but I didn’t realize you were that close.”

  “My old neighbors. They were like family to me.” She grabbed a towel and mopped at her face. She hadn’t eaten enough dinner to have worked out that hard, and she knew it. She dismissed the thought with the idea that maybe there was some sliced turkey in the fridge—protein, low fat. It would be perfect. “Their daughter’s name is Cleo. Short for Cleome.”

  It took Harrison a couple of seconds to answer. “Wait. Isn’t that a kind of flower?” he asked. All of the sisters’ names were some kind of flower or herb as horticulture had been one of her father’s passions—hotels and women being the other two. Apparently.

  “Yeah. They let me pick the name and I chose that because it gave her a little piece of family history.” She should just come out with it, but had been keeping this a secret for so long, she was surprised at how hard it was to share.

  His eyes narrowed and his words were careful. “Why did they let you pick their baby’s name?”

  Rosemary sat on the nearby weight bench. “Because she was my baby. They adopted her.” Her voice was low and the words were painful to speak, but it was almost a relief when she got them out.