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it. “So you transacted your business with Papa?”
    “I initiated it.”
    “At the bank.” We head around the house.
    “In town.”
    The tweed of his Norfolk jacket is coarse under my fingers. I should have grabbed a wrap myself. Away from the shelter of the porch the evening is chilly. “Why does it have to be so secret?”
    “Not everyone in this country is poor, Miss Shepard. But with so many suffering, some people with a pile of jack prefer to handle it quietly.”
    I look up at that. “Is it your money, really?”
    He tips back his head and laughs. “I don’t guess you’re a golddigger, but you better look elsewhere if you are.”
    “I don’t care about your money.”
    “Or lack of.”
    The path winds through the herb beds past the garage that was once a carriage house to the gazebo that looks out over the vineyard, now a tenth of the original land. We are blessed to have held on when the uncles and cousins and neighbors have all sold out or turned the land over to the bank and moved to the city. Many work for the cannery; some do jobs for the don who owns it. At least Papa takes no part in that, though he’s been invited more than once.
    With his hand on my elbow, Marco assists me up the stairs. There is something to be said for a man with a few more years on him than the careless youths who call. Benches fill three sides of the gazebo, but I stand at the rail, facing west over the fields.
    Marco takes the mandolin from his back and sets it on a bench, then removes his jacket and puts it over my shoulders. “Megglio?”
    “Yes, better, thanks.” My heart scampers inside my ribs. Though the darkness of his coloring suggests southern paesano heritage, he is tall and well-formed with a Roman bearing. I am three-quarters Italian, and when he uses the language I learned at Nonna Carina’s knee, it has a devastating impact on my decision to disdain him.
    And when he picks up the mandolin and sings “Che Gelida Manina” from Puccini’s La Bohème, I know the gazebo will never again be wood and nails; it will forever house the notes he sends into the night that bring my heart to his feet, as he knew they would.
    ————
    Lance closed the door of Nonna’s apartment, frustrated. “She gives stubborn a whole new face.”
    Rese looked up. “How?”
    “She won’t let me tell her what I have, what I found.”
    “I thought she wanted you to find it.”
    He expelled a short breath. “So did I.” But he was beginning to suspect a purpose-deficit disorder when it came to knowing what was expected of him.
    In the dim hall he inserted the key to open his apartment. From upstairs came his nieces’ and nephews’ voices, wild with the start of vacation and making his sisters crazy, no doubt. Below, Gianni Schicchi s “O Mio Babbino Caro” rang out from Momma’s stereo. She didn’t always listen to opera, only when performing her Italian mother routine, triggered now by his bringing a girl home.
    “Is it always this noisy?” Rese said.
    “This is nothing.” It could get noisier, and in his parents’ days, before air-conditioning when all the windows were open, it had been worse still.
    He gripped the knob but didn’t turn it. Standing there with Puccini’s opera coming through the floor, he wanted to take Rese in his arms and kiss the breath from her. Come to think of it, why was he holding back, anyway? “Com bella,” Nonna had said, not just stating the obvious, but approving.
    He took in her face—brown, thick-lashed eyes with no mascara; milk-smooth cheek that felt as soft as it looked; strong, determined chin that supported a mouth so … He leaned, but a squeal rose from the staircase at the end of the hall, followed seconds later by a rush of pale limbs and rosy spirals. Rese turned to receive Star’s hugs.
    Lance hooked fingers and tapped fists with Rico. “Hey, man. Good timing.” He let them all into the apartment.
    Rico whistled as Star dragged Rese into her room. “You’ve got