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“And I obviously won’t be there when she does.”
When we reach the other bar at the opposite end of the barn, I swig down the rest of my beer and order another. Thinking about that dance, our conversation . . . I’m such an idiot.
“What’s with Tris?”
Fantastic. Just what I need right now.
“Nothing,” I say to my sister. Lusanne, the youngest of us all, is also what some might call the town gossip. By tomorrow she’ll have flyers made and distributed all over Bridgewater about her idiot brother making a show of courting his biggest rival.
“He had no idea the woman he was dancing with was Evie Fuller.”
Her eyes widen. Clearly she saw the dance too.
“How could you not know? I was wondering what you were doing. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it. You’re free to date whoever you want. But I did think it was kinda strange.”
I grit my teeth. “I’m not dating anyone. It was one dance.”
“Two,” Lus corrects me. Leave it to her to know that.
“How could you not know her? You were at her father’s funeral a few months ago.”
I think back as a familiar tinge of guilt niggles at me. I had nothing against Scott Fuller. Opening DeLuca’s II has been something I wanted to do for years. His restaurant is downtown; mine is on the water. It’s not huge, but Bridgewater is certainly big enough for two of us. Granted, his was the only upscale Italian restaurant before mine. But no one gets into the restaurant business without expecting fierce competition. It’s the name of the game.
Shit. She’d mentioned her mother when we danced, and now it makes sense. Scott’s wife died years ago. Evie must have been in middle school then. The restaurant had been hers, Scott running the biggest car dealership in town. After she died, he ran both establishments. Mama Leoni’s, or Leoni’s as most people called it, went through a bit of a rough patch for a spell. But over the past ten years, its manager seemed to do a good enough job keeping it afloat while Scott concentrated on his car business.
“Tris?”
Gian is watching me. Which reminds me. The funeral.
“I honestly don’t remember her there,” I say. “But I’m not in the habit of picking up women at their fathers’ funerals.”
“Clearly. But still, she’s hard not to notice.”
I glare at him. “And too old for you.”
He makes a noise. “Yeah, by two whole years. She graduated with Chari.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“Oh boy. He’s in a mood,” Lus says to Gian. “Step away.”
The two of them make a show of tiptoeing backward.
I’d love to say they’re being dramatic, but a slight temper is something I seem to have inherited from my Sicilian father. Or maybe that’s just an excuse. I don’t know.
“I’m not in a mood.”
Blatant lie.
Lusanne stops, but Gian continues to walk backward until he runs into a poor old elderly woman, who nearly loses her drink thanks to my showboat brother.
“So you didn’t know who she was,” Lus says. “Big deal? I saw you guys dancing. There were more sparks coming from the two of you than Enzo and Chari. And it’s their wedding.”
I beg to differ. I’ve never seen a couple more in love than Enzo and his wife. But arguing with Lusanne is a losing endeavor.
“The big deal is that she didn’t think it was important enough to mention. And she clearly knew who I was.”
Lus shrugs. “So what?”
