a manager’s salary. The rest goes to Mom for as long as she’s alive.”
“Does she work here?” It didn’t matter. None of this mattered, Italian family or not.
He waved toward a side door leading to a back room. “Try taking a step into the kitchen and you’ll find out.”
A strong woman. Francesca liked that. And thought, for the brief moment before the pain descended, about Sancia. Loving, brokenhearted Sancia. Francesca would never have looked up the elderly woman, introduced herself, if she’d had any idea of the agony she’d bring with her.
She’d called her once since returning to the States, but neither of them had been able to speak through their tears, and she hadn’t repeated the experience. Later, when she was better, she’d visit Sancia again. Maybe.
“Looks like your friend’s a no-show,” Carl said after she’d been there for more than an hour.
“Yeah.”
It was an opening. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to take it yet. Didn’t want to risk blowing her cover. Not many people handed around pictures of their friends, asking if anyone had seen them or knew anything about them.
She wanted to be able to come back to Guido’s. Waiting was much more pleasant there.
“So…” He hesitated, looking a little sheepish. “Is this the first time you’ve been stood up?”
His assumption was kind of nice. But then, he couldn’t know what life was like for a woman who’d loved a man who was married to someone else.
“I wasn’t stood up,” she said now. “I was meeting a girlfriend….”
His obvious pleasure in that news was gratifying. To her ego at least. The rest of her couldn’t care less.
There were a lot of young girls hanging around. Dressed-for-dates young women. They were a friendly bunch. Autumn wasn’t among them.
She had a third margarita. Might have gone for a fourth if her car hadn’t been in the parking lot. While the trade-off—a possible night in a jail cell for DUI—would in some ways be worth the numb and almost peaceful oblivion she was finding, she couldn’t let herself lose even a day on the hunt for Autumn. It would just make the trail that much longer. Provide that much more opportunity for the rains to pour down and wash away Autumn’s tracks. Because come they would. They always did.
“You sure you’re okay to drive?” Carl asked her just before midnight as he walked her to the door.
Most of the crowd had disappeared, although there were still a couple of twenty-something guys shooting pool, a few friends sitting at the bar, and a table or two occupied in the corners of the room. All these people were younger than the real Francesca Witting.
“Positive. Three’s my limit.”
“So, you think the margaritas might be good enough to bring you back for seconds?”
Was the next night too soon? “Is that an invitation?”
“Well…” He shrugged again, though not with any lack of confidence. “I’d probably have taken my chances on a dinner date, but it’s a little tough for a guy in my position to date much, since I work almost every night of the week.”
She tried hard—harder than she’d known she could—to overcome her immediate defensiveness. “I’m sorry,” she told him, wishing she could feel the sentiment. “I don’t date.”
“Not at all?”
“No.” Unequivocally.
He studied her for several seconds. “Well, then,” he started slowly. “Are friends out of the question, too?”
“Um, I don’t think I’ll be in town long,” she said.
“So, you aren’t coming back?”
Yes! She had to. “I’m not leaving yet.”
“How about tomorrow, then?”
The invitation played right into her hands. Francesca nodded.
His grin made her wonder if she’d made a big mistake. But she had to be back tomorrow night. And every night after that until she found her sister. Or got another lead that took her to the next waiting place.
The street corner by day.
Guido’s by night.
Life could be worse.
The woman was beautiful. Tall. Slender. Wavy blond hair. And compassionate. It was that last quality that captivated Luke. Sure, he liked his women gorgeous, but in this town of tinsel and illusion, what attracted him most was real softness. Inside softness.
Las Vegas was filled with beautiful women. They could be found—and had—anywhere, anytime, at any age, for anything a guy wanted.
“Let’s take a picnic out to the desert,” Melissa Thomas suggested when Luke picked her up early Saturday evening.
He’d met the social worker while coaching basketball at the local crisis center and quickly found that she was unlike any woman he knew. Ambitious, driven, and motivated completely by her compassion for the underprivileged children she worked twelve-hour days serving.
“Sounds great,” he told her, rounding the car to open her door. He’d missed his jump again that morning, and a sojourn with nature sounded almost as good as the time alone with Melissa. “I’ve got a blanket in the trunk and we can run by the deli for the rest of it.”
“Including a bottle of Italian wine?”
It was a taste he’d introduced her to, compliments of the tutelage he’d received growing up at the knee of Amadeo. A little-known sparkling wine from the region of Campania, rather than the more famous wines from Tuscany and Napoli. The deli wouldn’t have his favorite, but there’d be a decent choice.
“You got it.” Luke took her hand as he backed his Jaguar out of her driveway. She was giving him an evening of freedom, an evening away from bustling restaurants with waiters and managers whose friendliness was professional. Impersonal. Away from glittering people and traffic and city noise. There was very little he wouldn’t give her in return.
Melissa had been married once. In college. All Luke knew about it was that her young husband had been unfaithful and the marriage had ended abruptly. She’d been living alone for almost ten years. Owned a small home in one of Las Vegas’s gated communities.
Luke had been dating her for six months. They didn’t see each other all that often. They both worked a lot. And he had his ever-increasing responsibilities at home—responsibilities about which Melissa knew nothing. Still, they’d fallen into a state of being comfortably exclusive.
He checked his cell phone while she was at the deli counter making her choices, relaxing when there were no calls. The Allens, old friends of his parents who lived in the same gated community as Luke and his mother, had invited Carol over for dinner and a movie. They’d been planning to pick her up fifteen minutes ago, but there was always the chance
