I sat straighter, my heart kicking back into gear. “My head is fine.”
“You were just shot at,” she countered. “I already called. You have an appointment with Wanda Versaccio tomorrow afternoon. You know? Your fourth cousin twice removed on your Uncle Sebbachi’s side? She’s Italian, but that’s okay. We don’t have any Irish psychologists in the family. Wanda divorced a woman who was not treating her right and just opened a practice in the city. She’s taking patients.”
No, no, no, no, no. “I don’t need a shrink,Mathair.” Sure, I’d seen a psychologist while in school to become a shrink, because it was part of the gig. But I’d left therapy in my past when I’d changed my mind and decided to become a lawyer. “I’m fine.”
“No. You must go and, ah, work through it? Yes. That’s it. You’ll have night terrors, and maybe Wanda can help you keep them at bay.” My mother’s voice softened into the pure ability to cause guilt. “Or I can come and stay with you. You know I won’t sleep a wink if I’m worried, anyway.”
I closed my eyes and then quickly reopened them when I remembered I was driving down the main street in town. My Italian grandmother could place a guilt trip with the precision of a sonic drill bit, but even she was no match for my mother. There was something about guilt placed with the soft lilt of an Irish accent that could cut deep. “Mom.”
“I’m texting you her office address. Go after work tomorrow, or I’ll be on your doorstep.” She clicked off.
Two seconds later, my phone trilled with a text. I glanced down to see the map of Disneyland beneath it. Mom was still figuring out texting. I sighed. It probably wouldn’t hurt to talk things through. Sometimes current events brought the past back up, and it’d be nice not to have a bunch of panic attacks this week, especially since work was so chaotic.
Even so, that was yet one more thing to worry about the next day.
For today, the spring sun shone down as I drove through my quaint town and toward my much smaller lake. I pulled into my small drive and parked next to a convertible Bug and a gleaming white Escalade.
My sisters were there.
Surprising tears choked in my throat as I jumped out of my car and headed toward the front door, taking a couple of precious moments to compose myself as I strode past the tulips to the cottage door. The scent of fresh gnocchi hit me first as I pushed inside my cozy living room.
Tess took one look at me from her perch on a stool and reached for a bottle of Cabernet to pour a second glass. I smiled, dropped my laptop bag near the door, and headed for comfort. “Hey.” She nudged the glass down the bar.
I sat and reached for the glass, taking a big swallow and warming my stomach. “Hey.”
We both faced the kitchen over the granite bar where Donna, AKA Donatella Tiffany, was stirring a red sauce in a pot. She also had a glass of wine in front of her. While she inherited our father’s Italian genes with her black hair and brown eyes, Tessa had inherited our mom’s Irish genes with her red hair and green eyes. Nobody had figured out where my coloring of light brown hair and grayish green eyes had come from. It was a family joke that we should look back at mailmen through the years.
Donna partially turned, a purple apron covering her black business suit. “How badly were you shot?”
“Not at all,” I said, warmth flushing me. “It’s honestly just a scratch. How did you keep mom away?”
“Mah Jong night,” Tessa said, twirling her drink around in her glass. “Told her to go play and that we’d be here, which we’d be here anyway.”
Yeah. That was the truth. “I also promised to see the new shrink in town,” I admitted.
Donna grinned; the wooden spoon half-lifted in the pot. “She’s a very distant relative, a lesbian and is now single, and Grandma Fiona really wants a shrink closer in the family circle and not so distant. Just a warning. She’ll try to fix you up.”
I snorted. “I like men.” Always had, and if my response to Aiden earlier was any indication, I always would. “She’ll have to find somebody else to bring a shrink closer into the family circle.” Grandma Fiona had been thrilled when cousin Jakob had married a medical doctor from Philadelphia. Now we apparently needed a dentist, shrink, and last I heard, she really wanted a forensic pathologist, too. Sometimes it was better not to ask why. “At least one of the Staperelli kids finally became a priest.” Every Italian family needed a priest. That was almost a law.
Tess nodded. “That did take the pressure off the Rasetini boys.” They were cousins a few times removed.
Donna turned down the gas and then moved to toss a spinach salad. “We thought you’d need comfort food.”
“I do,” I said softly. “Between the DEA raid and then the bullets, it was bad enough today. But…”
Tess turned toward me, her glass up in the air. “Aiden Devlin.”
I clinked with her. “Aiden Devlin,” I breathed, my stomach doing a somersault.
Donna paused with the tossing and turned to study me over her slim shoulder. “How does he look?”
“Amazing,” I said, sipping now. “Better than I’d imagined. All tough and muscly, and his eyes are somehow even bluer than they were before.” He’d been a cute kid. There was nothing cute about him now. It was all so much better.
Donna leaned back against the counter. “Aiden has been arrested and charged, though?”
I nodded and took a deeper drink.
She sighed. “He was a troublemaker, even back when, and he had to leave town. It makes sense that he’s still breaking the law.”
