Crush on You (35 page)

A gasp came from the people surrounding them. The
Wedding Fever
crew, he realized now. But Roger’s startled expression and Lana’s white face barely had time to register before Penn was hearing Alessandra again and she was repeating that word.

That damn word.

“Goes to show how nice you are.”

“Don’t say it again,” he ground out. “When it comes to Lana, I was a mark, a dupe, a sucker.” He shoved back his chair to stand, and it toppled onto the uneven ground. He glanced at it, his gaze finding Rocky Reed hovering behind him, obviously soaking in every word.

An acid mix of ire and shame erupted from his heart. He whipped his focus back to Alessandra. “What the hell have you done?”

She came to her feet, too. A flush rushed over her cheeks, then faded. “Penn. I . . .”

“What have you done?”
But he knew.
Wedding Fever
, Rocky Reed, she was using all of them, Penn included.

A sheen of tears brightened her eyes.

His gut clenched. “No. No, no, no. Those won’t work this time.”

“I can’t help it.” Tears starting tracking down her cheeks.

In some other dimension, he was aware of people listening, filming, capturing for posterity this inglorious, infuriating moment. “Your tears will not get you what you want.”

“Penn—”

“You’re a manipulator, Alessandra Baci. A con artist just like Lana.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yeah. Maybe you don’t.” He grabbed the sparkling wine off the table and filled the two waiting flutes. “But we can toast to you, baby.” Her hand curled around the glass he pressed into it.

His glass clacked against hers. “Once I told you I was in love with you, you decided to use that against me.”

“No—”

“Yes.” He quaffed half the bubbly in his own glass. “The starry-eyed, dreamy girl we all thought we knew proved she’s really cold and calculating. You don’t have a heart, do you, honey? You don’t have the heart for a happy-ever-after.”

Alessandra dropped her glass. It shattered against the tabletop.

He tossed the rest of the wine in his own onto the ground and let his glass follow. The damn stuff tasted bitter—or maybe that was just him.

“That’s right, baby. It’s all shattered now. You won’t get your way.”

She swayed on her feet and he repressed the urge to reach across and steady her. “When have I gotten what I wanted?” she whispered. “You tell me when. Tommy got sick, but I kept the faith. I believed and then we were getting married. But he died. How could I hold on to my belief in happy-ever-afters when all the ever-after I got for my believing was after a funeral?”

The heartbreak of that wasn’t going to get to Penn, either.

With quick footsteps, he turned from her and made for his truck. A burning laugh bubbled up from the mass of lava in the middle of his chest. He understood his mother now. He’d thought her foolish for her love of his father—the real bastard in the situation. But now he realized that common sense and sentiment didn’t operate on the same plane. That was the true foolishness—and danger—of falling in love.

Lucky that he was done with all that.

After the picnic-proposal debacle, Alessandra retreated to the farmhouse. Her kitchen still smelled of garlic and olive oil and though she would have found the familiar scent comforting in the past, now it sharply underscored all that she’d lost.

Everything.

When she’d stumbled off, the
Wedding Fever
crew were packing up their van. Rocky Reed was strolling to his Jag, working his iPhone at the same time. No one met her eyes, but she knew the truth.

The land would slip from their hands. The Tanti Baci label would be history.

And Penn would no longer think of her with any sort of fondness. “I’ll never forget holding you in my arms,” he’d said, but she’d ruined that.

Her body dropped bonelessly into a chair at the kitchen table. She stared ahead, unseeing.

Her eyes squeezed shut on the thought, and her hand rubbed hard at her breastbone. It ached there, had been aching since that night when Penn had whispered against her hair.
Alessandra Baci, I love you.

She’d not believed a word of it, that was the truth, not until he’d refused to marry her twenty minutes ago. That’s why her proposal had angered him, because he’d seen it as an insult to his feelings, when she’d meant it as a . . . as a . . .

Selfish plan to save the winery.

What had she been thinking?

With a sigh, she opened her eyes, her gaze finally taking in the cardboard box sitting on the kitchen table. Oh, God. The bargain she’d made with Giuliana. Her sister would handle the
Wedding Fever
contingent if Alessandra would examine the contents of Tommy’s box.

Jules never forgot a thing.

Swallowing hard, Alessandra grasped the box and winced, as if the cardboard sides burned. She didn’t want to touch the thing, but if she could get it back into the closet, maybe she could stuff all this new anguish in there alongside it.

The bottom was an inch off the table when the kitchen door flew open. Dropping the box, she gave a guilty start when her sisters rushed into the room.

“Are you all right?” Stevie asked, breathing fast. “Jules called and told me what happened. Damn it, Allie, you should have said something before you went through with this. We would have talked some sense into you. Proposing to Penn. For God’s sake!”

“You didn’t guess what she was up to yesterday?” Giuliana said. “It was obvious to me.”

Stevie’s eyes flashed as she turned to the eldest Baci sister. “What? Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you stop her?”

She shrugged. “Because, maybe for once she was doing something
she
wanted, not something this town expected of her.”

“Huh? Everyone loves Alessandra.”

“Of course they do,” Giuliana answered quietly. “Because we asked her to bear all our fears for Tommy when he was battling cancer, and all our grief when he lost.”

“But . . .”

As her sisters continued to argue, Alessandra scooped up the box again and sidled toward the hall closet.

Giuliana’s voice caught her. “Where are you going with that?”

Guilty again, Alessandra froze.

“For God’s sake, Jules . . .” Stevie started. “Can’t you leave her alone?”

“We had a bargain,” she said, her tone not giving an inch. “Put the box on the table, Allie, and look inside.”

“Good God.” Stevie threw an angry look at Giuliana that reminded Alessandra of the spectacular quarrels her older siblings used to engage in. “Who died and made you the boss of her?”

“Mama,” Giuliana answered. “I promised her I’d always take care of you, Allie, and I’m afraid I haven’t done my job.”

“I don’t know what—”

“You were too young to get married.”

Alessandra’s gaze dropped from her sister’s. She placed the box carefully on the table, as if she knew the contents were fragile.
She
felt fragile. “Don’t blame yourself. Nothing could have stopped me.”

“You’ve always had this . . . this magic, Allie. Tommy, the Knowles family, the whole town of Edenville figured you were the talisman to keep him safe.”

That did it. Alessandra buried her face in her hands, the ache in her chest radiating outward from her tiny, hard heart. “I failed. I didn’t keep Tommy alive. I haven’t kept Tanti Baci alive, either.”

Stevie rushed across the room to take her in her arms. “Neither one is your fault.”

“Open the box,” Giuliana insisted, though her voice was kind. “Give what’s inside a chance to heal all that’s hurting. It’s like the letters, little sister. You know you have to.”

The letters. What if there were more inside? She pressed her clenched fists to her breasts.
My Darling Allie . . .
“I can’t do it,” she whispered. “Penn was right. I’m heartless—nearly so, anyway. For five years I’ve been faking my faith in ever-after. Looking in the box won’t change that.”

Stevie tightened her hold. “We’ll forget—”

“Allie, you have to do this,” Giuliana insisted. “I honestly think you do. But the Mouseketeers have got your back.” She pulled Alessandra out of Stevie’s arms to tie one of the kitchen aprons around her neck like a cape.

“Hah!” Stevie’s long arm snagged the colander from the counter where it had been set to dry. With a flourish, she put it on Alessandra’s head. “Pretend it has ears.”

A rough sound choked out of her throat. “Why am I laughing? This isn’t funny.” But Jules was right, it had to be done. Alessandra stared at the box another long moment, then she stepped toward it, catching the colander as it slipped on her hair.

Once it was settled again, her trembling hands released the intertwined top flaps. Scarlet wool caught her eye and her stomach jumped in nervous circles, even as she drew out the material.

“Tommy’s letterman’s jacket,” Stevie said.

The leather sleeves were cool against her hands, the fabric scratchy. It was covered with patches and pins that spelled out Tommy’s year of graduation, the sports he’d participated in, the accomplishments he’d been honored for. Alessandra folded it open and put her face against the satiny lining. It felt strangely warm, as if Tommy had just taken it off.

She could smell him.

Without thinking, she pushed her arms through the sleeves. The fit was much too big, of course, but it felt natural to her, because she’d worn it at Friday night football games, on cold mornings when she’d forgotten her jacket, any time her teenage self wanted to lay claim to the coolest boy on campus.

She smiled and laughed again, remembering. Remembering Tommy pulling her hair from beneath the collar and then linking his hand with hers as they strolled through the high school campus. She saw it from a distance, from above, perhaps how Tommy saw her now.
My Darling Allie . . .

“What else is in the box?” Stevie asked.

With the colander, cape, and Tommy’s jacket, she felt brave enough to explore. “Photographs,” she said, reaching for them. With a sweep of her hand, she fanned them out on the scarred surface of the old wooden table.

Her sisters closed in as they all looked them over.

“Prom,” she said, touching one with her finger. “Here’s homecoming my freshman year. What was with those big chrysanthemum corsages? Remember we stuck an
E
made of pipe cleaners in their centers and sold them for two bucks?”

Giuliana shook her head. “Sometimes we stick with things—feelings, too—because . . . we don’t know how to let them go.”

There were no surprises in the rest of the photographs except that looking at them didn’t hurt. Alessandra had her own similar set that she’d been afraid to gaze upon since she was twenty years old. Her hands didn’t shake when she returned these to the box. Sliding off Tommy’s jacket didn’t feel like shedding her skin. She folded it back into its cardboard nest.

“You missed this one,” Stevie said, handing her another photo.

Alessandra found herself smiling. “Sadie Hawkins dance.” The girl in the photo had long dark hair in braids and had blacked out one of her teeth. Fake black freckles peppered her nose. The handsome blond boy wore a gingham kerchief that matched the girl’s short skirt. He sat on a straw bale and she sat on his lap.

“Look how cute they look,” she said, holding the picture so Giuliana had a better view.

“They look very happy.”

Alessandra smiled down at them again, and it was only then that it really sank in. Though that was she and Tommy, it didn’t feel like herself at all. It was two young people, a girl and a boy, who had laughed and smiled and loved, once upon a time. The girl had lost that boy she’d loved, but that was in the past, too. With a final glance, she put the photo on top of the red jacket, like a memory held forever in the heart.

Inspiration suddenly struck. “Wait, wait,” she said, and doffed the apron and colander, then raced upstairs to her bedroom. She was back in two minutes, carrying her white satin shoes, her tiara and veil, and the layers of white tulle that made up her wedding dress. They’d been in her closet for five years and it was time to put them away.

It took nothing to tuck the shoes and tiara beside the letterman’s jacket. With the dress still over her arm, she folded the veil into a tiny package.

“Are you sure about this?” Giuliana asked.

She nodded. “Sure,” she said, even as her pulse started to pick up.

Stevie found some tissue paper that she used to wrap the veil. It fit snugly into a corner.

Then Alessandra held up the dress.

Like that, pain hit, welling from the center of her breasts to fill her chest.

Crying out, she bowed into it, fisting the fabric against her. “Oh, God.”
Oh, God.

“Allie? What is it?”