the cottage door. The scent of fresh gnocchi hit me first as I pushed inside my cozy living room.
Tess took one look at me from her perch on a stool and reached for a bottle of Cabernet to pour a second glass. I smiled, dropped my laptop bag near the door, and headed for comfort. “Hey.” She nudged the glass down the bar.
I sat and reached for the glass, taking a big swallow and warming my stomach. “Hey.”
We both faced the kitchen over the granite bar where Donna, AKA Donatella Tiffany, was stirring a red sauce in a pot. She also had a glass of wine in front of her. While she inherited our father’s Italian genes with her black hair and brown eyes, Tessa had inherited our mom’s Irish genes with her red hair and green eyes. Nobody had figured out where my coloring of light brown hair and grayish green eyes had come from. It was a family joke that we should look back at mailmen through the years.
Donna partially turned, a purple apron covering her black business suit. “How badly were you shot?”
“Not at all,” I said, warmth flushing me. “It’s honestly just a scratch. How did you keep mom away?”
“Mah Jong night,” Tessa said, twirling her drink around in her glass. “Told her to go play and that we’d be here, which we’d be here anyway.”
Yeah. That was the truth. “I also promised to see the new shrink in town,” I admitted.
Donna grinned; the wooden spoon half-lifted in the pot. “She’s a very distant relative, a lesbian and is now single, and Grandma Fiona really wants a shrink closer in the family circle and not so distant. Just a warning. She’ll try to fix you up.”
I snorted. “I like men.” Always had, and if my response to Aiden earlier was any indication, I always would. “She’ll have to find somebody else to bring a shrink closer into the family circle.” Grandma Fiona had been thrilled when cousin Jakob had married a medical doctor from Philadelphia. Now we apparently needed a dentist, shrink, and last I heard, she really wanted a forensic pathologist, too. Sometimes it was better not to ask why. “At least one of the Staperelli kids finally became a priest.” Every Italian family needed a priest. That was almost a law.
Tess nodded. “That did take the pressure off the Rasetini boys.” They were cousins a few times removed.
Donna turned down the gas and then moved to toss a spinach salad. “We thought you’d need comfort food.”
“I do,” I said softly. “Between the DEA raid and then the bullets, it was bad enough today. But…”
Tess turned toward me, her glass up in the air. “Aiden Devlin.”
I clinked with her. “Aiden Devlin,” I breathed, my stomach doing a somersault.
Donna paused with the tossing and turned to study me over her slim shoulder. “How does he look?”
“Amazing,” I said, sipping now. “Better than I’d imagined. All tough and muscly, and his eyes are somehow even bluer than they were before.” He’d been a cute kid. There was nothing cute about him now. It was all so much better.
Donna leaned back against the counter. “Aiden has been arrested and charged, though?”
I nodded and took a deeper drink.
She sighed. “He was a troublemaker, even back when, and he had to leave town. It makes sense that he’s still breaking the law.”
I frowned. “He wasn’t part of that theft ring.” He’d been accused of stealing cars, but there hadn’t been proof, and he’d taken off. “You know the sheriff didn’t like him.”
“For good cause,” Donna argued, her eyes flashing. “I know he saved you, and that matters. But even so, it doesn’t mean he was a good guy or turned out good today.” She rubbed her hands down the apron, her normally smooth brow furrowing. “You don’t owe him anything.”
That was so untrue the air heated in my throat. “Yes, I do.” I would’ve been raped or killed or both if he hadn’t shown up when he had. “I do owe him, Donna.” In ways I couldn’t even explain. Wasn’t sure I wanted to find the words. “Some things are fundamental, and that’s one of them.”
Tessa usually stayed out of any family strife, which had earned her the nickname of Switzerland. Yet this time, she shook her head. “I agree with Donna. The entire community was out looking for you, and anybody who’d found that cabin would’ve entered to find you. Aiden just happened to be the one who did.”