He reached down and took her chin with his fingers, lifting her face so she was forced to look at him. She was afraid he was seeing too much so she lowered her lashes, veiling her eyes. She wasn’t crying, she hadn’t since she lost them all, her parents and Sandlin, but she could feel that burn and was terrified it showed. She didn’t want to appear vulnerable to him. She wasn’t the kind of girl that needed taking care of and she wasn’t about to let him think she was.
“Sweetheart, he sounds like a man I would like to get to know. He might not remember his past, but I’m betting, he’s always good to you when he sees you.”
She nodded. “He’s so sweet.” She wrapped her arms around her middle for comfort and forced a smile. The nicer he was to her, the more the tears threatened. “He’s never impatient, and that’s the way he was before. There are things that make me know he’s still there. He’s still my brother, he just doesn’t know me or remember from before. We had a special relationship and I know I never can have that again, but I’m working on a new one with him.” It took effort to keep her voice from cracking.
“How often do you visit him? You can’t have much time if you’re working sixteen hours a day,” he pointed out.
“The club job pays the most, and I start at six. Visiting hours are up until nine o’clock, but I mostly go on my days off the deli. Speaking of which, if I don’t get out there, Pietro might fire me and I can’t afford that. I’m off tonight at the club, so I’m going to see him tonight. I go as often as I can.”
Finding the time to see her brother was difficult though. The facility was across town and she had to take the bus. Sometimes that was uncomfortable at night. More than once, she’d wished she had a weapon to protect herself. Buses were convenient, but sometimes she wished she had a car.
“Let me take you there tonight. My car is comfortable. I’d like to look around the facility and talk to those in charge. If you give me the name and address of it, I can have my people check it out thoroughly.”
She didn’t want him helping, because that would only encourage him, but she would do anything for Sandlin. “My brother was always there for me when I was growing up. Always. I knew, no matter where I went or what I did, no matter how much trouble I got into, Sandlin would come for me. More than once, when I snuck out to a party, it was my brother I called and he dropped everything, including some pretty hot dates, to get me out of trouble.” She knew she was telling him, trying to explain, so he wouldn’t think badly of her for taking advantage of his offer. He’d made it, but she felt bad that she needed something from him. She didn’t want to be that person.
He flashed a grin at her. “Did you get into a lot of trouble?”
She nodded. “I worked hard in school and on the ranch, doing an adult’s work, so I thought I should be able to go wild on the weekends like my friends. Drinking is not my friend. The booze we had was really cheap and hangovers hurt like hell.”
She started laughing at a memory, sharing it with him, wanting him to know how wonderful her brother was. “I remember this one time my brother had a date with Ginger Tarter. I called her ‘The Tart’ to my brother, but she was really good-looking. She had breasts and hips and these lips.” She pursed her lips and made fishy noises.
“Sandlin was with her, right at the crucial moment, getting her clothes off her, and I called in a panic. I was pretty drunk and the man I went to the party with was expecting the same thing Sandlin was getting. I locked myself in the bathroom and called him. Of course, he came, and I never heard the end of it, but he never told my parents.”
“I’d really like to meet him,” Giovanni said. He pulled out his phone. “Name and address?”
She took a breath. Anything for her brother. Anything at all. This wasn’t a commitment to Giovanni, simply a friend helping out. She could look at it that way. She hoped she’d chosen the right place for him. She’d researched, and read all kinds of reviews, but she knew any care facility was only as good as the people it hired. She didn’t want her brother neglected or mistreated, and she didn’t know if he was capable of telling her if someone was hurting him in any way. She told Giovanni and he was instantly texting someone. He was fast at it, too, much faster than she was.
“What time should I pick you up?”
Her heart jumped. “I get off at five today. I usually jump right on the bus.”
“Do you want to change first? We could catch dinner after your visit.” He held up his hand to stop her protest. “We have to eat sometime. We might as well eat together. I refrained from biting you, remember?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Were you thinking of biting me?”
“Absolutely I was. I still am, but I’ll make sure you like it.”
She shook her head and pushed out of the seat. Instantly the heat of his body told her she was too close, and she stepped away from him. “I’m going back to work. I’ll see you later.”
He made no move to touch her—or kiss her—a fact that should have made her happy but instead disappointed her. “Be good. Stay away from those other men. I have that one really unfortunate trait.”
“One? You aren’t furthering your cause you know,” she said, smirking a little over her shoulder. “I believe you have many unfortunate traits.” Laughing, she hurried down the hall to the counter, wondering why she suddenly felt so happy.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sasha went out the back door of the deli, which led into an alley. She glanced at her watch. It was after three. Pietro had let her off early. She’d texted Giovanni and he was probably waiting out front, but just before she left, Pietro had gone to the bank and Aria, the girl who was supposed to relieve her, hadn’t shown up right away.
Sasha didn’t want to get into his car smelling of deli meat so she ran up the stairs, determined to take a quick shower. At the top of her stairs was a bouquet of roses. They lay there, a little wilted from lack of water, but the splash of color was cheerful against the bleached wood. She bent down to pick them up, thinking for a moment that Giovanni had left them.
She realized immediately that they weren’t from a flower shop; someone had hand-picked them, cutting the long stems carefully. Every thorn was gone. She looked around for a card, but there wasn’t one. She brought the roses to her face, inhaling the rich fragrance. They were beautiful, and it was sweet that someone would go to the trouble of putting together a bouquet. They were wrapped in red and gold tissue paper.
She straightened slowly and looked around, feeling as if someone was watching her. Fingers of icy fear crept down her spine. She unlocked her door and went inside. The moment she stepped into her apartment, she knew someone else had been there. It felt different. She stood very still, letting her gaze sweep the entire room. It wasn’t difficult—her place was small. Easy to manage. Easy to see from the living area to the kitchen because it was really all one room. Everything seemed to be there. As far as she could tell from just glancing around, nothing had been taken, but her things had been touched.
From where she was, she could see someone had put wineglasses, two of them, near her reading chair. Then there was the table: each item on it, mementos of her family, things that meant nothing to anyone else, but everything to her, had been moved. She kept them in a certain order. Her parents’ photograph, the one where they were looking at each other with such love. It was inside an antique silver frame. Beside it, she put her mother’s favorite pincushion and her father’s pipe. She liked to have the two items touching because her parents had always been touching. The pipe was several inches from the pincushion and the pincushion was on the wrong side of the pipe.