“You, you p-put me in an old . . . folks’ home and forgot about me.”
“It’s been less than a week!” Brooke was practically yelling. “I can’t forget about you if I wanted to. I’ve been picking up the pieces of your life and completely ignoring my own.” She wanted to regret the words but felt them to her very core. She walked to the edge of the roof and had the greatest desire to throw her phone in childish rebellion for the discussion she was having with her father.
“I don’t. I can . . . leave.”
Brooke pulled the phone away from her ear and shook it in her hand and stomped her feet with sheer frustration.
She sucked in three short breaths and tried to reason with him. “And go where?”
“I’m not in prison.”
“No,” she assured him. “You’re not in prison.”
“Good.”
Her father was quiet.
Too quiet.
“Da—”
He hung up.
Brooke stared at her phone in disbelief. “Fuuuuuck!”
She dropped into a squat and considered rolling into a ball and staying there . . . ohhhh, for about forever. Then she jumped up and all but ran back into her apartment, grabbed her purse and ran down the stairs, and hurried into her car, all while calling the assisted living home in hopes of stopping her father from doing something stupid.
CHAPTER TEN
Luca didn’t have a moment to express his presence and Brooke was running away.
He’d seen her in the parking lot, by accident, and perhaps lingered on the terrace when he realized that she looked frazzled on the phone.
Some of the heat of her conversation was sensed while she was inside, but her words outside were heard clearly.
When Brooke had dropped to the ground, he found himself lunging forward, but she recovered before he could go to her and see if she was okay.
Now he followed.
At a distance . . .
Like a damn stalker.
He had dashed into his room, grabbed his car keys, and seen her pulling out of the lot.
The one-way streets surrounding the restaurant made it easier to follow.
Luca was a chef, not a proper prowler, and was sure that if Brooke wasn’t so upset, she’d realize that someone was following her.
He could tell by the way she was waving her hands around in the car that she was talking to someone as she drove, her focus anywhere but her rearview mirror.
She jumped on the freeway and headed south. It was then he eased back a little, but always stayed in the same lane she was. It wasn’t until she exited that Luca started to question what he was doing.
“Where are you going, Brooke?” He turned on the same street she did, kept way back when the threat of losing her wasn’t possible. “Why am I following you?”
He was concerned. On the roof she’d looked ready to collapse and ready to explode at the same time, and it wasn’t in Luca to watch a woman suffer and not try and help. That’s not the way he was raised.
Although life had taught him that not all women deserved, or wanted, rescuing.
He was fairly certain that Brooke didn’t want his help. He pictured her as the independent type that looked at you twice when you opened a door for her.
“You open doors and give your seat to a woman. If she doesn’t like it, find another woman.” His mother’s words, not Luca’s. “It isn’t because she can’t, it’s because you can.”
This was the mantra that ran through Luca’s head as he buzzed around cars to keep Brooke in sight without giving away that he was following her.
I’m a moron.
Finally, she pulled into a parking lot.
But instead of driving up to the front, where most patrons of the shopping center would park, she found a space on the far end facing the busy roadway.
She rolled down the windows and cut the engine.
And sat staring across the street.
After watching her for ten minutes, Luca started looking around.
Across the four-lane road was an assisted living facility.
Brooke simply sat and watched.
For a half an hour, Luca watched her watching the front of the building. When someone would drive up, she’d sit forward. When they drove off, she relaxed.
Who lived there? Her mother? A grandparent? The words Luca had heard her practically yell, “No, you’re not in prison,” played over and over in his head.
He wondered if whoever she was looking for had threatened to leave, and that was why she was stalking the home.
Glancing at his watch, Luca decided he needed to shift his plans for the day.
Gio picked up his call on the second ring. “Where are you?” he asked after a quick hello.
“You wouldn’t believe me. I need a favor.”
“What?”
“Pick up Franny from school. Take care of things. I’m not sure when I’ll be home.”
“Ohhh, tell me there’s a girl. Please, God, you need to get laid.”
“Gio!”
His brother’s voice pitched higher. “That’s it. There’s a woman.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“If there’s a woman, it’s what I think,” Gio said.
Luca looked around his car. “I promise you’d be wrong. Just take over.”
“Pick up my favorite niece, fill her with gelato, and leave her high on sugar for when you get home.”
Luca cussed at him in Italian. “How about homework, a trip to the park, and a book before bed if I’m not home.”
“Who is she?”
Luca didn’t answer and assumed his request would be granted. “Thanks, brother.” He hung up.
For an hour, Luca shifted from one side of the driver’s seat to the other in debate.
He could only think of one time he’d been this indecisive before and that was in the sixth grade when he wanted to ask Becky Ahlstrom to dance but couldn’t work up the nerve until the last song. When she said yes, he realized he’d missed out on the whole night because he was too chicken to go for what he wanted.
And here he was doing it again.
Well, okay . . . not the same thing. Walking over to Brooke’s car and admitting that he’d seen her upset and then followed her to the parking lot and then sat there watching her for the last hour was more than a little strange.
Yet as every second ticked away, it was harder for him to explain why he was there.
“Fuck it.”
Luca pushed out of his car and strode up to Brooke’s with purpose. He walked to the passenger side and hesitated when he saw that she’d been crying. “Hey,” he said, breaking her concentration.
She didn’t exactly jump, but he could tell she was startled.
One look at him and she relaxed by a hair.
“What are you . . . Luca?”
Without asking, he reached for the passenger door, opened it, and slid inside.
He wanted to acknowledge her pain, the bright searing agony he saw in her expression. But instead, he closed the door and pushed the seat back to give his legs more room. “I figured since we’re both going to sit here and watch the nursing home we might as well do it together.”
“What?”
“That’s what you’re doing, right? Watching the home?”
“It’s an assisted living facility and what the hell are you doing here?”