A Little Light Magic (18 page)

When you’re the youngest sibling in a big family, it can be tough getting the attention you deserve. But you do what you can.

“
This
is your house?” Tori asked Leigh. She felt a little lightheaded looking at it.

“Cool, huh?”

“Very,” she agreed faintly. She could not believe it. Nick lived in the Castle.
Her
castle. It wasn’t possible.

Leigh grinned. “I’ll give you the grand tour after dinner.”

Was Nick’s bedroom on that tour? Tori tried to squelch the thought, but once it floated into her mind, it dropped anchor and stayed. Thoughts of Nick’s bedroom led to thoughts of Nick’s bed. Thoughts of Nick’s bed led to thoughts of…

No. She wasn’t going there. Nick’s grandmother was in that house, for Pete’s sake. How could she possibly look the woman in the eye while she pictured her grandson naked?

Leigh led the way through the foyer and into a high-ceilinged living room. Tori took in gleaming white walls, polished oak, and plush carpet. She was admiring a seascape when a giggling missile shot out from behind a buttery leather sofa and slammed into Leigh’s legs.

“Sophie!” Leigh staggered under the impact, but recovered to haul a little girl into her arms. She kissed her soundly. “You’re here!”

“Daddy and Uncle Johnny are here, too.” Sophie said, brown curls bouncing.

“That’s great. Look, Sophie, I have a new friend for you to meet. This is Tori. She’s Uncle Nicky’s friend, too.”

Uncle Nicky? Tori smiled. Now, that was a facet of Nick’s life she’d never contemplated.

Sophie grinned. “Hi, Tori. I’m five.” She held up five fingers.

“That’s a good age to be,” Tori told her. “Fits all on one hand.”

Nick’s niece had soft brown eyes and a sprinkle of freckles. With her legs wrapped around Leigh’s waist, she looked like a cute, clinging monkey.

Leigh carried Sophie toward the back of the house. “Come on,” she said over her shoulder. “Back here.”

The dining room was huge, with a large table that had surely seen hundreds of family dinners. At the moment, two men sprawled in chairs on opposite sides of the table. One, dressed in jeans and a dress shirt open at the collar, stood as Tori and Leigh entered. With his wide shoulders, slim hips, and dark good looks, the man could have passed for Nick’s twin, though his hair was shorter and his aura more intense than his older brother’s.

“Daddy!” Sophie cried. “Look! Leigh has a new friend!”

“That’s nice, baby,” the man said easily. He nodded to Tori, his sharp eyes seeming to take in all of her with one swift glance. “Hi. I’m Alex.”

“Alex is the police detective,” Leigh put in.

“Yeah, he keeps the streets safe for the rest of us deadbeats.” The second, younger brother smiled, eyes twinkling. He lounged, loose-limbed and comfortable in a too-large T-shirt and ripped knee-length jeans shorts.

Leigh rolled her eyes. “This is Johnny,” she told Tori. “You know, the one I told you about?”

Johnny sat up abruptly. “Not sure I like the sound of that.” He winked at Tori. “Should I be worried?”

“Maybe,” Tori said with a laugh. Johnny didn’t resemble his brothers at all, either in features or demeanor. His longish hair was pin straight and streaked blond, and his eyes were so blue they were startling. He sported sideburns, a five-days-without-a-razor beard, two silver hoop earrings in one ear, and a barbed-wire tattoo on his left biceps. His build was slimmer than his brothers’, and he lacked their classic good looks.

But no woman, Tori guessed, would ever call Johnny unattractive. Especially when he flashed his thousand-watt grin.

Which he turned, full force, on Tori.

She couldn’t help grinning back.

Standing, Johnny held out his arms to Leigh and Sophie. “Come on, girls. Give Uncle Johnny a hug.”

Leigh obliged, squashing Sophie between them. Sophie giggled.

“What, no girlfriend tonight?” Leigh asked Johnny as she stepped out of his arms.

He shrugged. “What can I say? They’ve all wised up. No one’ll have me. Hmm…” He leaned toward Sophie, brushing her ear. “Whatcha got there, cutie?”

With a flick of his wrist, he produced a shiny quarter. “You should keep these in your purse.”

Sophie, giggling, grabbed his hand. “Lemme see!”

“Here you go.”

Leigh carried Sophie around the end of the table and kissed Alex. “Hey, stranger. Can’t believe you finally made some time for us.”

“Someone’s gotta keep tabs on you.”

“Nah, that’s my job,” Johnny joked.

Tori shifted, smoothing her skirt with her palms. She felt like a pigeon in a flock of seagulls. It was a familiar feeling—one she’d had for five years in foster care. She was used to being with families she didn’t belong to. And she hated it. Being on the outer edge of intimate family banter reminded her all too sharply of what she’d never had. It was like watching a movie in a foreign language that she wanted desperately to understand, but didn’t speak a word of.

Maybe she shouldn’t have come.

Leigh must have seen Tori glance at the door, because she immediately dumped Sophie into Alex’s lap and came back around the table to Tori’s side. “Tori’s just opened a shop near Lucy the elephant.”

Johnny’s sparkling gaze was clearly curious. “Ah, yes, Nick’s mystery woman.”

“Hardly a mystery,” Tori replied. She felt her neck heat up. “He just took care of a few changes so I could open a shop in the front of the house and live in the back.”

Johnny’s brows went up. “But that’s exactly what’s so mysterious. Here my uptight, workaholic brother starts ducking out of the office promptly at five, and hell hasn’t even frozen over yet. You can’t imagine how shocked I was when I found out that Nick—who hasn’t done a job as small as yours in five years, let alone with his own hands—was doing work on the side.” He winked. “But now that I see how pretty the client is, I have to say I understand perfectly.”

Tori turned redder. “Leigh said you work for Santangelo Construction, too?”

Johnny laughed. “Try to, anyway.”

Just then, an attractive middle-aged woman appeared in the kitchen doorway at the end of the room, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She smiled. “Hello, dear,” she said to Tori. “I’m Rita, Nick’s mother.”

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Tori said. “You have a lovely home.”

“Notice she didn’t comment on your two sons’ lovely manners,” Johnny said.

“Speak for yourself,” Alex told him, amused.

Nonna emerged from the kitchen, carrying a gravy boat filled with spaghetti sauce. “About time you all got here. Dinner’s getting cold. Johnny, take this, will you? I gotta get the meatballs.”

Johnny took the gravy boat. “Have I told you yet how beautiful you look tonight, Nonna?”

Nonna narrowed her eyes at him. “You know, that mouth’s gonna get you in trouble one of these days.”

“It already has,” Alex said dryly. “More than once.”

“Johnny, be a doll and open the wine,” Rita said as Johnny put the gravy boat on the table. “Tori, do sit down.”

Tori obeyed, sinking into the chair Johnny held out for her. It was the one next to his own. Tori watched as he expertly inserted the corkscrew into the cork and twisted it free.

He presented it to her with a flourish. “
S’il vous plaît,
mademoiselle.”

Sophie, ensconced in her father’s lap, giggled. “He calls me Mad Mosel, too. He said it’s because I’m crazy.”

Tori met Johnny’s eyes. They were dancing, drawing her into his joke. She smiled, feeling a little less like the outsider she was.

She took the cork and sniffed it. “Excellent, monsieur.”

Johnny made a show of shaking out a paper napkin and draping it over one arm. Tori laughed. The napkin, sprinkled with a pattern of tiny blue flowers, made the gesture beyond ridiculous. Bowing deeply, he splashed some wine into Tori’s glass, then lifted it and held it out to her.

She tried to take it from him, but he didn’t release the stem. Instead, her fingers covered his as he tilted the glass to her lips.

The wine slid over her tongue.

She caught his gaze again. It was warm and teasing. Conspiratorial. She could tell Johnny shared Nick’s warped sense of humor. He gave it a polished twist, but the result was the same. They both liked to poke fun at themselves, putting their companions at ease. Tori sat back in her chair and felt herself relax.

Dinner flew by, with everyone talking at once. Tori struggled to take it all in. She learned Johnny worked nights as a stand-up comic and Nonna liked to play the quarter slots at the casinos. Rita wondered if Zach, the brother in the navy, had gotten the package she’d sent him. After dinner, Alex pulled Sophie onto his lap and drew funny faces on a napkin while Johnny told clean versions of his nightclub jokes.

“It’s not this fun when Dad’s home,” Leigh confided as she and Tori cleared the table. “He and Uncle Johnny don’t get along.”

“I can’t imagine anyone not getting along with Johnny.”

“Dad thinks he’s irresponsible. He misses work to go for auditions in New York City.”

“Auditions for what?”

“Acting jobs. Commercials, mostly.”

“Has he had any luck?”

“Some,” Leigh said. “Nothing big yet. But he might have a shot at a part on
Franklinville Hospital
.”

“The soap opera?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m impressed.” Tori stacked the dishes in the sink and ran the water.

“You don’t have to do those,” Rita said, coming up behind her.

“I don’t mind,” Tori told her. And she didn’t. There was something very appealing about being in a kitchen surrounded by women cleaning up, while the men talked sports in the next room. The stove was warm, the air smelled of garlic, and an intimate rumble of voices filled her ears.

“Tori and I’ll do the dishes,” Leigh told Rita. “She can wash and I’ll load.”

Tori plunged her hands into the soapy water and smiled.

She almost felt as though she belonged.

Nonna shooed Leigh and Tori out of the kitchen before they were finished. Apparently, Nonna wanted to finish cleaning up herself, her way. Tori and Leigh trooped back into the dining room, where Rita told Tori how nice it was to have her there, then promptly excused herself, saying she had a meeting to attend at her church.

That announcement elicited a scowl from Leigh, but Tori didn’t have a chance to ask the girl why. Rita had barely left the room when Alex rose and kissed his daughter, who was apparently staying to sleep over with Leigh. He gave his good-byes to the rest of the room, and followed his mother out the door.

“Well,” Tori said once he’d gone, “I guess I’ll call it a night, too.”

Sophie’s lower lip started to jut. “No,” she commanded. “Stay.”

Johnny laughed. “That’s not polite, sweetie.” He turned his blue eyes and smile on Tori. “But I do share my niece’s sentiment.”

“Yes, stay for a while, Tori,” Leigh pleaded. “It’s still early.”

“All right,” Tori found herself saying. Truth was, she didn’t want to leave. This was Nick’s home, after all, a door into a facet of his personality and his life that had suddenly swung open. She was insatiably curious.

Sophie took her hand and tugged her into the family room. It was a comfortable, lived-in space with dark wood paneling. The furniture was older and more forgiving than the living room’s.

A tall bookshelf sported a jumble of framed family photographs. Tori wandered over to it. Each shot was a happy moment frozen in time. Some scenes were posed, others candid and bursting with movement. There were photos of the whole family, of course, but Tori’s eyes gravitated to the ones featuring Nick.

Tori picked out his baby picture immediately—his eyes and his smile hadn’t changed at all. In another he stood stiffly in a First Communion suit, hands folded. As a teenager, she noted, he’d been on a varsity swim team; there was a shot of him accepting a huge trophy. Another photo of Nick in a cap and gown, and another with Nick holding a toddler that had to be Leigh.

There was no wedding picture, of course.

Tori went farther back in time and picked up a family portrait from Nick’s childhood. Nick, Zach, and Alex, all dark-haired and serious, stood in the background. Nick, as the oldest, was the tallest, the other dark heads stepping down like stairs. A younger Rita and a man who looked like a mature version of his three older sons sat in front of the boys. A startlingly blond baby perched on Rita’s lap, laughing and waving his chubby fist.

“My brothers used to tell me I was adopted,” Johnny commented. Tori started. She hadn’t realized he’d come up behind her. “Either that, or the mailman’s kid.”

She met his laughing eyes. “Did you believe them?”

“Well, not the bit about the mailman. Ma and Pop were too much in love for that. But I did believe the adoption story for a few years.” He laughed. “Still do, sometimes.”

Tori replaced the photo on the shelf. It must have been bliss growing up in a family with a mother
and
a father, ones who actually loved each other, too. She stifled a sigh as she turned from the photos to examine the rest of the room. A computer setup and a large desk spread with blueprints filled one entire wall. Nick’s desk.

The wall above it was filled with framed artwork. Pencil drawings of the beach and the boardwalk. A watercolor of Lucy the elephant, another of a seagull perched on a weathered piling. Several more, all original. Some had clearly been done by a child’s hand, others by a more mature artist.

The largest drawing was an ink-and-watercolor rendering of the Santangelo home. It was a two-dimensional architectural drawing, the lines drawn crisply with the aid of a straight edge. The artist must have had incredible patience, Tori thought, to capture the house in such detail.

“I did most of those,” Leigh said, following Tori’s gaze. She’d picked up Sophie and was balancing her on one hip. “Except the one of the house. That one’s Dad’s.”

Tori was surprised. “I didn’t know your dad was an artist.”

“He’s not. At least not anymore. He drew that before I was born. Before the house was built, even.”

“Before it was built? I don’t understand.”

Johnny leaned a hip on Nick’s desk. “Nick wanted to be an architect. He designed this house as a high school project. Our father had just bought the land for a new house, and he liked Nick’s design so much he had his architect work with Nick to draw up the plans.”