you? Stay back,” she warned as she checked the area for any remaining ceramic pieces.
“Yes,” Mindy said, “and he’s hiding under the front porch right now!”
Behind her, Lacey heard Vito coming out of Nonna’s bedroom, then pausing to talk some more, and a suspicion of who the young criminal might be came over her. “I’ll go talk to him,” she said. “It wasn’t Xavier, was it?”
“No. It was a kid I don’t know. Is he going to get in trouble?”
“I don’t think so, honey. Not too much trouble, anyway. Why don’t you go tell your dad what happened?”
“Yeah! He’s gotta know!” As Mindy rushed off to her important task, Lacey walked out of the house and stood on the porch, looking around. The remaining guests were in the side yard, talking and laughing, so no one seemed to notice her.
She went down the steps and around to the side of the house where there was an opening in the latticework; she knew because she’d had to crawl under there when she’d first found Mrs. Whiskers, hiding with a couple of kittens. When she squatted down, she heard a little sniffling sound that touched her heart. Moving aside the branches of a lilac bush, breathing in the sweet fragrance of the fading purple flowers, she spoke into the darkness. “It’s okay. I didn’t like that rooster much, anyway.”
There was silence, and then a stirring, but no voice. From the other side of the yard, she could hear conversations and laughter. But this shaded spot felt private.
“I remember one time I broke my grandma’s favorite lamp,” she said conversationally, settling into a sitting position on the cool grass. “I ran and hid in an apple tree.”
“Did they find you?” a boy’s voice asked. Not a familiar voice. Since she knew every kid at the wedding, her suspicion that the culprit was Vito’s new foster son increased. “Yes, they found me. My brother told them where I was.”
“Did you get in trouble?”
“I sure did.” She remembered her grandma’s reprimand, her father chiming in, her own teary apology.
“Did they hit you?” the boy asked, his voice low.
The plaintive question squeezed Lacey’s heart. “No, I just got scolded a lot. And I had to give my grandma my allowance to help pay for a new lamp.”
“I don’t get an allowance. Did you...” There was a pause, a sniffle. “Did you have to go live somewhere else after that?”
Lacey’s eyes widened as she put it all together. Vito had said he’d recently become certified as a foster parent. So this must be a new arrangement. It would make all the sense in the world that a boy who’d just been placed with a new foster father would feel insecure about whether he’d be allowed to stay.
But why had Vito, a single man with issues of his own, taken on this new challenge? “No, I didn’t have to go live somewhere else,” she said firmly, “and what’s more, no kind adult would send a kid away for breaking a silly old lamp. Or a silly old rooster, either.”
Branches rustled behind her, and then Vito came around the edge of the bushes. “There you are! What happened? Is everything okay?”
She pointed toward the latticed area where the boy was hiding, giving Vito a meaningful look. “I think the person who accidentally—” she emphasized the word “—broke the rooster is worried he’ll get sent away.”
“What?” Vito’s thick dark eyebrows came down as understanding dawned in his eyes. He squatted beside her. “Charlie, is that you? Kids don’t get sent away for stuff like that.”
There was another shuffling under the porch, and then a head came into view. Messy, light brown hair, a sprinkling of freckles, worried-looking eyes. “But they might get sent away if they were keeping their dad from having a place to live.”
Oh. The boy must have heard Vito say he couldn’t live here because of having a foster son.
“We’ll find a place to live,” Vito said. “Come on out.”
The boy looked at him steadily and didn’t move.
“Charlie! I mean it!”
Lacey put a hand on Vito’s arm. “Hey, Charlie,” she said softly. “I grew up next door to this guy. I was three years younger and a lot smaller, and I did some annoying things. And he never, ever hit me.” She felt Vito’s arm tense beneath hers and squeezed. “And he wouldn’t hurt you, either. Right, Vito?” She looked over at him.
His mouth twisted. “That’s right.” He went forward on one knee and held out a hand to the boy. “Come on out. We talked about this. Remember, I look meaner than I really am.”
The boy hesitated, then crawled out without taking Vito’s hand. Instead, he scuttled over to the other side of Lacey and crouched.
Vito drew in a breath and blew it out. His brow furrowed. “You’re going to need to apologize to Miss Lacey, here, and then we’ll find out how you can make up for what you did.”
The boy wrapped his arms around upraised knees. A tear leaked out and he backhanded it away. “I can’t make it up. Don’t have any money.”
“I might have some chores you could do,” Lacey said, easing backward so she wasn’t directly between Charlie and Vito. “Especially if you and your foster dad are going to be living here.” As soon as she said it, she regretted the words. “Or living nearby,” she amended hastily.
She liked Vito, always had. And she adored his grandmother, who clearly wanted her family gathered around her. But Lacey had been planning to have the next few months as a quiet, calm oasis before opening her guesthouse. She still had healing to do.
Having Vito and this boy here wasn’t conducive to quiet serenity. On the other hand, young Charlie seemed to have thrown himself on her for protection, and that touched her.
“Can we live here? Really?” The boy jumped up and started hopping from one foot to the next. “’Cause this place is cool! You have a tire swing! And there’s a basketball hoop right across the street!”
Vito stood, looking at her quizzically. “The grown-ups will be doing some talking,” he said firmly. “For tonight, we’re staying out at the motel like we planned. But before we go back there, I want you to apologize.”
The boy looked at Lacey, then away, digging the toe of a well-worn sneaker into the dirt. “I’m real sorry I broke your rooster. It was an accident.”
She nodded, getting to her feet. “That’s all right. I think I can find another one kind of like it.”
Her own soft feelings surprised her. Generally, she avoided little ones, especially babies; they were a reminder of all she couldn’t have.
But this boy touched her heart. Maybe it was because his reaction to breaking the rooster was so similar to her own reaction when she’d broken the lamp. Hide. Don’t let the grown-ups know, because you never know what disaster will happen when grown-ups get upset. She’d been fortunate, found by her grandma and father instead of her mom. Come to think of it, her brother had
