Someone to Watch Over Me

“I…ah…” His offer stunned Isabella. Yet she hated the blush she felt creeping up her neck. Finally, she summoned a grouchy tone. “I have a clean-up crew. You, sir, are a guest.”

“I’m a friend—”

“—of the groom. I know. You already said that. Oh, look. Here are my helpers now.” Isabella cast a relieved glance over Gabe’s right shoulder.

Turning, he saw the two women who’d helped carry champagne in from the parking lot. Both were shaking out large empty trash bags. “Those bags will be heavy once they’re full. Where are the cowboys who carried in the cake for you? You seem to have lost them.”

“Cowboys?” Isabella frowned slightly. “Oh, you must mean my brothers. They went home. They aren’t part of my crew. They’re ranchers.”

“So, they only came to carry in the cake?”

Isabella sighed. Apparently Gabe Poston was a talker. “Most wedding receptions I cater are in town, which means I can slide the cake board out onto a cart and wheel it inside whatever hall the bride’s rented. Logistics here at the Forked Lightning necessitated a change in my usual routine. Really, thank you for offering, but my sisters and I have everything under control.” Closing down again, Isabella set the cake knife aside, then deftly skirted the table, and joined the two women.

Taking time to scrutinize their features, Gabe did see a vague family resemblance. But he thought she was by far the most attractive of the three. If not for eyes filled with pain and shadows, he’d call her beautiful.

Gabe continued to eye the trio while he finished his cake. As he forked up the last bite, he suddenly saw two of the women returning his frank stare. It took a minute for him to tumble to the fact that he was being discussed by them.

He strained to hear but couldn’t make out what they were saying, as they weren’t speaking English. He knew Basques didn’t speak Spanish, although a word or two sounded familiar. Caliente meant hot, didn’t it? This didn’t seem to be a reference to the weather, however, since it wasn’t hot on the patio. The late-spring sun had already dipped behind the mountains and a stepped-up breeze seemed downright chilly. Probably why Summer and Colt had planned to have the dancing inside.

Gabe considered edging closer to the sisters in hopes of deciphering more of their conversation, only Marc Kenyon opened the screen door leading from the house and called out, “Yo, Gabe! Moss and I need to get back to the Inn to collect our bags. If you’d rather stay and dance, Tracey said he’d drive us to town, then on to the airport.”

“I’ll take you. Who knows when I’ll see you two again.” Backtracking to the cake table, Gabe set his empty plate atop a stack of others.

Marc moved out onto the patio and peered around. “Why are you out here all by your lonesome? I swear, Gabriel, you’ve been acting weird all weekend.”

“Is it weird to eat cake like a civilized human being instead of swallowing a chunk whole like you guys did?”

“So now your friends aren’t civilized.” Marc grabbed Gabe and knuckle-rubbed his head as he dragged him inside via the sliding glass door.

FROM THE PATIO, the three sisters watched the byplay. “Like I already asked you once, Bella, who’s the hot guy? The one wearing the gray suit.” Sylvia Oneida, Isabella’s twenty-nine-year-old sister, left off speaking in Euskera, the language of the Basques, to badger her in English. Most of the family called her Bella; friends were more prone to shorten her name to Izzy.

Trinidad Navarro, known to all as Trini, was twenty-five, and very involved in the local dating scene. She’d long since checked out all the single men at the reception. “According to Megan Ward, his name is Gabriel Poston. He was a Marine, along with Summer’s husband. And he’s an accountant plus lawyer. There’s speculation that he’s got a fat bank account. Oh, Megan also said hands off.”

“Trini,” Sylvia gasped. “It’s mercenary to care more about a man’s wealth than his personality.”

Isabella, who’d already begun scraping plates, paused with a plate held over the trash container. “Lawyer? What kind? Is he opening an office in Callanton? The prosecutor assigned to Julian’s case is too busy to answer my questions. I wouldn’t mind having someone I could retain to help me understand all the legal jargon.”

The younger sister, still pouting over the scolding she’d received, answered Bella nonetheless. “He and Marc Kenyon, the guy who just came and got him, both work for Save Open Spaces. That’s the agency Summer’s husband recently left. Oh, and there’s a third friend. Sylvia and I passed him on the road when we helped you carry in the champagne.” Trini gave a disgusted groan after a blank expression crossed her sister’s face. “Honestly, Bella, you’ve gotta snap out of it and start noticing what goes on around you.”

“Ignore Trini,” Sylvia said briskly. “She doesn’t mean to be callous. It’s another stage she’s going through, I think.”

“I am not.” Trini flung her arms around Isabella. “I’m sorry, Bella. We all loved Antonia and Ramon. I hate Julian for his selfish, heartless stupidity. I just can’t bear seeing you so…so consumed. I think the fact that a Rob Lowe look-alike singled you out is the perfect opportunity to get your mind off the tragedy. Even if it’s only for an hour or two.”

Isabella aimed an awkward pat at Trini’s back. “I know I’m not pleasant to be around. I hope you know I couldn’t have survived without my family. I want you to find a good man, one who’ll make you happy, Trini. But please don’t expect me to get on with any type of normal life until after I see the state lock up Julian and throw away the key.” Her voice caught, and pulling back, Isabella blinked dry eyes. She never understood why she couldn’t shed tears when she hurt clear to the very bottom of her soul.

Sylvia cast furtive glances at the door through which the men had disappeared. “He’s gone. Maybe for good, Bella. I heard the one who came to get him say something about an airport. At any rate, Trini isn’t going to mention his name again.” She shot a warning at the youngest member of the large Navarro clan.

It was well known that Trini had a stubborn streak a mile wide. Snatching up a garbage bag, she announced, “Gabriel Poston is a hunk. Furthermore, he smells yummy. It’s too bad our Bella caught his eye first. If he does hang around town, you can bet if I get an opportunity I’ll bring him home to meet Mama and Papa.”

As always—unless their oldest sister, Ruby, was around—Sylvia had to have the last word. “Who cares how he smells? You bring home a man who’s twelve or thirteen years older than you, some ordinary Joe Sixpack at that, and Mama will send you out to cut a willow switch that sings through the air like she did when we were kids who’d misbehaved.”

“Oh, your husband’s exalted just because he’s Basque? He grows grapes, makes wine and smells like yeast, for pity’s sake. Ruby’s husband and Papa come home smelling like sheep dip. Why shouldn’t I want a man in my bed who smells nice?”

“Our men are all good and hardworking. Papa never should’ve sent you off to college in California, Trini. You came home with the idea that you’re too good for any of our local boys.”

“Stop, you two.” Isabella stepped between them. “What if a guest hears us bickering? You know my business depends on word-of-mouth referrals.”

Bella’s sisters both wore guilty faces. Isabella gave each one a bracing hug. “Let Trini spread her wings, Syl. I know for a fact that being born Basque doesn’t guarantee a good man. If community pressures and expectations hadn’t been what they were, I might not have married Julian. I shouldn’t have married him.”

“Oh, Bella!” Sylvia’s brows drew down in distress.

“I’m not after sympathy, Sylvia. I hate the pity I see on people’s faces. If anything, that’s the one nice thing about Mr. Poston. He didn’t avert his eyes when he spoke to me.”

Audrey Olsen, Summer Marsh’s longtime housekeeper, poked her head out of the kitchen. “There you ladies are. I wanted to let you know I cleared a place in the freezer for the top layer of Summer and Colt’s cake. She insists they’re going to eat the stale thing on their first anniversary. Beats me why anybody would want year-old cake. Summer said you provide a special box, Isabella?” The last was more a question than a statement.

“A tin. It’s airtight.” Isabella left her sisters to make her way across the uneven brick. “Most brides save the smallest layer of their wedding cake to celebrate their first anniversary. I designed these tins to seal in as much freshness as possible.” She handed the older woman a silver canister trimmed with white wedding bells. Her bakery’s name was printed neatly on the side. The couple’s names adorned the top.

Audrey took the tin. “Well, isn’t this nice? I suppose Summer told you I offered to fix food for the reception. After seeing all the work, I’m so grateful she decided to hire you, Isabella. Land sakes, weddings are sure more involved now than in my day. Virgil and I just drove down to the county courthouse and said our I dos.”

“I cater anniversaries, too,” Isabella said casually. “Summer said you and Virgil have a fiftieth coming up in a few months.”

Audrey laughed. “I was fifteen when I set my sights on that man. The day I turned eighteen, I followed him out on a round-up. He’ll tell you he couldn’t shake me so he married me. We’ve stuck together all these years, but neither of us makes any to-do over anniversaries. They’re just days that come and go.”

“Fifty years living with the same man is something to crow over in my opinion.” Isabella eased a business card out of the pocket of her blue cotton dress. “I can go simple for family and a few close friends, or hog-wild feeding half the town like we did today. Thanks to good friends like Summer, my weeks are getting booked fairly fast, so if you change your mind, phone me next week. I promise I’ll work up something that won’t threaten Virgil’s masculinity.”

Audrey grinned and read the card in her hand before sliding it into the pocket of her slacks. “You’d better start eating some of the goodies you fix, Izzy. Goodness, girl, you’re wasting away.”

Isabella raised an unsteady hand to rub her throat. She found it almost impossible to make herself eat, ever since her children’s deaths. And now she couldn’t force a response past the lump that seemed to stay lodged in her throat. When would the mere thought of losing Toni and Ramon quit causing her problems with swallowing and breathing? Molly, her psychiatrist, said it would eventually ease.

“Oh, darlin’. Shut my mouth. I didn’t mean to remind you…of…” Audrey clamped her lips closed. “I, uh, maybe I will throw a little party to commemorate fifty years with that old buzzard.” Outwardly flustered, she hurriedly withdrew into the kitchen again.

Isabella felt bad. She drove people away. And that hurt, too. But she couldn’t help it. Molly said the mind was an unpredictable thing.

As Isabella soberly went back to her work, she urged her mind down a different road. She tried to picture what her life would be like fifty years from now. She didn’t particularly like the vision she conjured up—a wizened, skeletal version of the unhappy woman who gazed back at her each day from the bathroom mirror. Trini was right. They were all right. She couldn’t go on as she was. But how could she not be the spokes-person for her silent children?

Her icy lips formed the mantra she began and ended each day with. “When I see Julian properly punished, I’ll worry about getting my life back.”

GABE SETTLED back into the soft leather seat of his luxury SUV and let Marc’s and Reggie’s endless talk swirl around him. They knew each other so well, Gabe could almost predict the path of their conversation. Reggie would talk for a while about the injured livestock he’d healed. Then Marc would jump in and expound on the virtues of the latest sports cars out on the market. Once they’d exhausted those subjects, their interest would undoubtedly veer toward women.

He grinned when their conversation did exactly that.

Moss, who’d changed from his suit into worn jeans and a short-sleeved plaid shirt, stretched his lanky frame across Gabe’s middle set of seats. “So, Marc. Are you really serious about tying yourself down to Lizzy Woodruff?”

Marc darted a quick glance at Gabe before he turned sideways in his seat to see both his friends. An oddly dreamy expression softened his pewter-gray eyes. “Lizzy’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

“How do you know?” Gabe jerked his eyes off the road long enough to frown at Marc.

From the back, Moss guffawed. “You said it yourself, Gabe, when you pointed out that little Lizzy’s daddy owns a string of car dealerships.”