And he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be with anyone else.
Chapter Eighteen
M
aria and Blade made love again after their swim, and they spent the night snuggling in her bed. Just before dawn, she woke Blade and sent him to his own room. If they’d tell the kids they were married, it wouldn’t be necessary, but she didn’t want anyone else to know until she was sure he intended to stay with her. She’d uprooted her kids in one divorce, and she didn’t want to drag them through another.
Mom knew only because it was impossible to hide anything from her. And Mom didn’t approve. She didn’t know how the rest of the family would take the news, especially Molly, and she wasn’t ready to find out.
The staff hustled around that day, preparing for the annual birthday barbecue Cara held mostly for the staff and their families. Most of the Donatelli family came, and a few friends. It gave Nick and Cara a chance to get to know the members of her staff on a personal level, meet their spouses and kids, and have fun. Cara was one of the nicest women Maria had ever met, and she was perfect for Nick. They were so much it love it hurt to look at them sometimes. She’d never had that kind of love with Fred, even in the beginning.
Blade took charge of the boys that day. They played catch, mostly keep-the-ball-away-from-Daisy, and they laughed a lot. One time Blade missed an easy catch and Andy tackled him. Jimmy and Robbie piled on, Daisy pushed her way into the middle, and they were all screaming with laughter.
Tony and Catherine arrived with Tony’s golden retriever, Riley, who ran out to help. Maria hugged and kissed her brother and sister-in-law, and both dogs started barking.
Tony walked out to the tangle of arms and legs and wagging tails and offered Blade a hand up. “Tony Donatelli,” he said. “You must be Blade.”
“That’s me, or what’s left of me. These kids are brutal.”
Tony grabbed one little boy and raised him up for a kiss and hug, and then he did the same with the other. Robbie, considerably taller than his brothers, stayed on the ground. “Where’s Molly?” asked Tony.
“She’s coming today,” said Robbie. “We get to finish school here, and Molly gets to stay with Uncle Nick and Aunt Cara.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s cool. Hey, guys, how ’bout taking Riley down on the beach.”
“Stay out of the water,” Blade called after them. “Daisy doesn’t want another bath.”
“Okay,” yelled Andy.
As soon as the kids were out of earshot, Tony said, “We heard about the shooting. I thought the trouble was over.”
“I wish. My attorney and I forced my grandfather’s attorney to turn over the estate, and the next day he killed himself. Until I know why, until I’m sure somebody won’t try to get to me through Maria and the kids, they’re staying right here.”
Tony clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m here if you need me, and so is every other man in this family.” It was an unexpected show of support from a man Blade had never met, the same kind of response he’d gotten from Nick and Angelo the day of the shooting. They were Maria’s family, and as long as she was with him, they included him in the circle of their family.
“I appreciate that, Tony.”
One of the kids on the beach started crying and another yelled for Blade, so he and Tony ran down to see what happened. Jimmy had tripped on a rock and skinned his knee. Blade had flashbacks of skinning his knee when he was about this age. Sunny’s cure was bourbon, her standard remedy for any kind of problem. Blade talked quietly to Jimmy, and he stopped crying. “Are you hurt anywhere else, or is it just your knee.”
He held out a scraped elbow. “Daisy tripped me.”
“She didn’t mean to,” said Andy.
“Of course she didn’t,” said Blade. He scooped up the injured kid, told the other kids to stay with Tony, and walked up the hill to the house. Outside the kitchen door, he stood Jimmy on his feet and rinsed the sand off. He didn’t cry. Someone brought a towel, and Blade gently dried him off. Last time he’d skinned his own knee, Sunny cleaned it off with Black Jack and he screamed so loud she knocked him across the room. From then on, he took care of his own wounds.
“You’re a brave kid, Jimmy. Do you want your mom to fix this for you?”
“No, you do it.”
Mr. Pettibone produced a first-aid kit complete with antibiotic ointment and bandages. Blade treated the scrapes and sent Jimmy to find his mother. “Tell her that Doctor Blade said you’d be good as new in a few days.”
He was rewarded with a grin missing a tooth. The tooth fairy came last night. Maria let Blade put the money under Jimmy’s pillow and remove the tooth. He still had that little tooth in his pocket.
Maria introduced him to Catherine, a cute little redhead. “I hear you and Tony have a hotel.”
“Two hotels,” said Catherine. “The Princess Catherine in Santa Barbara and Catherine’s Plantation near San Simeon. My mother runs the one in Santa Barbara, and I run the Plantation.”
“Impressive,” said Blade. “Maybe I’ll bring Maria there to stay one night.”
“Better make a reservation. We’re booked solid through next Christmas. Tony wants to add more cottages, but it’ll have to wait until he finds a new project manager for
Max and Company
.”
After a few minutes of small talk, Blade excused himself to go upstairs and check his e-mail. He’d given Lonnie another assignment, and he’d promised to send regular progress reports. Reaching out his hand, Blade said, “Come on, Jimmy, you can rest on my bed while I check my e-mail.”
A small hand nested inside his and they walked upstairs together. This father stuff wasn’t so hard, at least not with the boys. He wasn’t sure about a teenage girl, especially Maria’s daughter. Aside from the ride on his Harley, Molly had barely spoken to him.
The first message was from Joe Grafton.
The Elizabeth will be in port for a week in mid-June. Captain Studebaker would be happy to give you and your family a tour. When you get your schedule nailed down, let me know and I’ll make the arrangements
.
“Hey, Jimmy, come look at this.”
The kid scrambled off the bed and came over to see.
Blade pointed at the screen. “This is a picture of the ship we’re going to see. Her name is Elizabeth.”
“Awesome! How come ships are named after girls?”
“Uh... Why don’t you save that question for Captain Studebaker?”
“Okay.”
Blade printed out the e-mail with the picture and handed it to Jimmy. It wasn’t in color, but the kid didn’t seem to care.
“Can I go show Mommy?”
“Yeah, sure. Go show Mommy.”
As soon as Jimmy left the room, Blade opened the e-mail from Lonnie.
Blade,
I talked with Malcolm today. He was working in the house when the boys were growing up. He said Michael was the kid who was always dreaming up schemes, and he usually talked John into going along with them. Matthew, the middle kid, was the peacemaker of the family.
Michael supposedly died first, in 1980, then John died about twenty years ago. He was an alcoholic, but I suppose you already knew that. Matthew died in a plane crash in 1992. He never married, but he had an off-and-on girlfriend who is now married to Matthew’s best friend. I’m having lunch with them tomorrow.
I had to coax Malcolm to talk about Michael’s life as an adult. He finally told me that Michael had spent several years in prison in France for pulling some scam. Apparently, Edward cut him off because he wouldn’t work.
He was released from prison in the early 70’s. Edward sent him a few thousand and told him to come home, and he did, but he didn’t stay. He still wouldn’t work, so Edward threw him out. Three years later, Edward heard from Michael, who said he’d found Jesus and was becoming a priest. He wrote every other month or so, and then in 1975, he said he was at a mission in Angola, but his return address and the postmark on all his letters was Paris, France. Edward suspected something was going on, but Mary Beth believed every word and insisted they send him money ‘for the starving orphans in Angola.’
Packages came from Michael, again with the Paris postmark, but Malcolm never saw the contents of those packages. Edward took them upstairs before he opened them. This went on until 1980, when they received a letter from Sister Bernadette saying that Father Michael had been killed in an attack on the mission in Angola.
I’ll check with the Catholic Missions Board on Monday, but I can’t find Wanamaka Mission on the Internet, and judging from what I’ve already learned, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was no such place.
Lonnie
Blade swore softly to himself. He didn’t want to be right about this. He wanted his uncle, the ‘priest,’ to be the real thing.
Interesting that the oldest kid in this family would be so irresponsible, when the oldest kid was usually the most responsible one. Michael wouldn’t work, but he’d probably worked harder at not working than most people did in their jobs.
Edward and Mary Beth wanted their son to be like the Prodigal Son in the Bible. John wasn’t the only one who’d soured as an adult. Had any of Edward’s boys ever held down a real job?
Blade had no idea what his father’s life was like, and he didn’t care, because he despised the man. In Blade’s mind, anyone who beat on a helpless five-year-old until blood ran down his legs was no kind of man. And neither was son who bilked his own father and mother out of their hard-earned money. Edward worked until he was in his eighties, and from the looks of that house, he gave his boys every advantage money could buy.
One thing Blade knew for sure. If he ever had kids, they wouldn’t be handed everything they ever wanted, and they’d be expected to work at a respectable job. Maybe growing up on his own had taught him a few things about life that his father and uncles hadn’t learned.
Like how to be a decent man.
<>
The rest of the family arrived before dinner, and Maria introduced Blade. Vinnie was the landscape artist who did Nick and Cara’s hillside above the beach. He was a happy guy who smiled a lot, and his wife did, too. Vickie was a chubby bleached blonde, and Maria had always liked her. Gina and Will were there with their little boys. The oldest was finally potty trained and the little one, still in diapers, ran everywhere.
Blade had already met the others. Molly was pouting about something, and Maria gave her a big hug. “Anything you want to talk about?”
“I wanted to stay and go to the dance tomorrow night, but Grandma wouldn’t let me. She wouldn’t let me go to the dance anyway.”
“Next year, honey. You can go to the Spring Dance next year.”
“But what if no one asks me,” she said on a whine.
“Someone will ask, and if they don’t, then you can ask them. Okay?” Her braces would be off by then, and, like Gina at that age, she’d have more offers than she could take.
“He’ll take Kellie, because I’m not there.”
Maria’s heart went out to her little girl, but if she thought this was a disaster, wait until she started dating for real. Girls could be best friends one week and bitter enemies the next, all because a boy dumped one and started dating the other.
“What’s with the big bandage on Jimmy’s knee?”
“He fell down today and Blade fixed it for him. I suspect a tiny bandage would have covered it, but this one makes him feel important.”
Molly went over to kiss Jimmy’s boo-boo and make it all better, and he showed her the hole in his mouth where he’d lost his tooth. Maria glanced at Blade, who watched Jimmy pull the dollar out of his pocket. He smiled, and she knew he loved her little boys. She wanted to give him what the childhood he’d missed, and maybe she was, through her kids.
Dinner turned into a noisy, exuberant affair, as it always did when the entire family got together. Maria thought it would never end. Jimmy passed around the picture of the big ship that Blade had given him, and everyone told Jimmy how lucky he was to be touring a big ship like that. Her youngest son was clearly the star that night, with his big white bandages, his dollar from the Tooth Fairy, and his picture of the big ship.
Max fell asleep on Nick’s lap, and someone took him upstairs to put him to bed. Gina’s little one went next, and then her older one climbed on Grandma’s lap and fell asleep.