For His Daughter

The small dining room was still doing a brisk business, too. As the three D’Angelo men wove their way around the tables toward the kitchen, Aunt Renata looked up from where she was trying to make sense of an Easter decoration she had strung out along one of the banquet tables. Fake green grass lay everywhere. Rafe knew that they would have a full house on Easter for Sunday brunch.

The kitchen had always been the heart of the lodge. Even twelve years ago, Rafe had spent more time here than in any other room in the family’s private quarters, which lay just beyond the double doors. Around the big wooden island table rested so many memories. This was where his father had chaired family council meetings, and his mother had taught all four of her children—Nick, Matt, Rafe and Addy—with gentle persuasion and stern looks.

Every surface in the room was covered with gaily wrapped pieces of candy and more eggs than Rafe had seen in years—all of them in various stages of coloration and preparation. He knew that each one of the lodge’s guests would find a small basket waiting outside their room door on Easter morning. As Nick and Rafe swung through the double doors, with Sam bringing up the rear in his wheelchair, Rose D’Angelo looked up.

“About time you were back,” she told them. “Come eat lunch.”

His mother presided over a quaint collection of copper pots, garlands of herbs and spices, and all the latest gadgets with the command of a general. In Rose D’Angelo’s life, the preparation of food had the same importance as the eating of it, and if you entered her kitchen, you often got drafted into helping out.

She dished up bowls of steaming minestrone from the stove and began setting them on the wooden table while all around her waiters and waitresses bustled about to make sure every wish of the diners in the dining room was heeded.

“I’m not hungry,” Sam said shortly. “I’ll get something later.”

He wheeled through the kitchen, then settled near the back door where earlier that morning he’d been working on replacing a broken handle.

Rose D’Angelo gave him a narrowed glance, then turned a questioning look toward Rafe. “I take it things didn’t go well?”

“You could say that,” Nick answered for them both.

Rafe went over to the prep sink to wash his hands. He thought of all the years he’d lost with this family. Sometimes he sat in this very room and thought about the love he had given up twelve years before. Sometimes he wanted to rush back through those years and change everything.

Was he being foolish to think he could ever recapture any of it? Sam was stubborn. Unforgiving. Why the hell did Rafe think he could ever make things right with his father?

Why, in God’s name, am I bothering?

The double doors from the family quarters burst wide, and five-year-old Frannie marched through them, picked up something from the top of the big wooden table, then made her way straight for him. Her solemn little features were fixed on him like a laser.

She didn’t plow into his legs like some kids might. She approached him calmly, quietly, and when she reached him, she held out her hand. On one multicolored, dyed palm lay the brightest blue Easter egg Rafe had ever seen.

She looked up at him, her hair falling down her back like strands of black pearls. The light from the windows near the back door caught her full face. It was beautiful on her, clean and sweet, strong and loving.

“Aunt Addy said I should make Easter eggs for everyone,” she said simply. “I made this one for you.”

He lifted the egg, prepared to offer compliments. Hell, what else could you do when a kid gifted you with something like that?

He rolled it in his hand, and etched clumsily across the egg, one word had been stenciled with a wax crayon. His heart turned over and a fluttering sensation spread out from his abdomen.

DADDY.

He raised his head, making the instant connection— eye to eye with the little girl. And the moment crystallized, as some moments do. In that half blink of time, he remembered.

This is why I came back here. She’s the reason.

This child who barely knew him.

Frannie, his daughter.

CHAPTER THREE

HIS MOTHER WOULD HAVE SWORN the odd feeling in Rafe’s gut when he held the egg Frannie had decorated was love. Rose would have claimed the feeling was one any father would have toward their child.

But the problem was he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t plain old, ordinary fear.

Truthfully, he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of conversations he’d had with children in his lifetime. He still couldn’t believe he was a father. The father of a five-year-old. A little girl, at that.

But Frannie was his now, and had been since December, the most unexpected, unsettling Christmas present he had ever received.

He looked down at her upturned face. She had the feminine version of D’Angelo features that had been part of the family’s legacy for generations—the firmly cut mouth, dark hair and bold eyes, those very long lashes that drew your attention and held it. She was his daughter, all right. The infinitesimal splinters of chance that went into making up a person’s DNA had left no question of that fact.

He knelt down to her level, examining the blue egg as though it were a Russian Fabergé. He was aware of everyone’s eyes on him. Only his father seemed disinterested in watching the interaction between Rafe and his daughter.

“This is very pretty,” he told her.

Frannie seemed unimpressed by the compliment. “Can I eat it?”

“No.”

“Why not?” she asked, her dark brows drawing together. Rafe had already discovered her stubborn streak.

“Because these aren’t for eating. Not yet.”

“They’re just eggs. I like eggs. I got to eat lots of them with Mommy.”

They were in dangerous territory all of a sudden. This was a situation they’d yet to discuss much. Mommy. He dreaded when that name came up. Someday they’d have to have a deeper discussion of why Mommy was no longer in the picture—something more than the awkward explanation Frannie had been given so far. But not today.

He rose, walked over to the table and placed the blue egg alongside the others on the drying racks. “Not this time,” he said.

Frannie had never seemed to be afraid of him, but neither had she come to terms with the idea that he was calling the shots in her life now. She came right over, gazing up with stormy eyes and a hard jaw that reminded Rafe eerily of his father.

“Why not?” she demanded to know again.

“Because I…” He broke off, uncertain where to go from there. Because I told you so? Hell if he’d fall back on that tired parental cliché.

As though sensing he needed help, his mother came to the rescue. She approached the little girl and turned her around to face her. “Francesca, remember the job I gave you and Aunt Addy this morning? I want you two to make as many pretty eggs for Easter baskets as you can. These are not for eating.”

“But I like hard eggs.”

“Then I’ll give you some to eat for lunch. Not that one. That one goes in the family basket, like a present. That’s your job today—to help me get ready for Easter.” She smiled down at the child, chucking her under the chin. “All right?”

Frannie considered this explanation for a long moment. Then her brow cleared and she nodded. “I guess so.”

“Good. Our guests will be very happy on Easter morning.”

Frannie turned back to Rafe. She waggled her hand over the eggs on the table. “I made all these.”

He pretended to give them serious consideration. Pretended, at least, until he noticed that all the eggs Frannie had colored were two-toned with spots. Red on yellow. Purple on pink. A sickly looking green on orange. Not a solid-colored egg among them. Except his.

Deliberate or subconscious, he wondered? A not- so-subtle attempt to show him that he didn’t fit into the world she liked? Or maybe just an accident?