When We Found Home

“Unexpected.” One eyebrow rose. “Not anymore?”

“No. I’ve decided to go in a different direction.” She poured the steamed milk into his mug. “I know what you’re wondering, so to answer the question, it was my choice.”

In a manner of speaking, she thought. The decision to change careers had been hers—the circumstances leading to that decision had not.

“What direction is that?” he asked.

“I’m going to be a naturopath.” She waited for the look of confusion before adding, “It’s a—”

“I know what naturopathic medicine is. It emphasizes using the body’s own systems for healing through a combination of Western medicine and natural cures.” One corner of his mouth turned up. “My grandfather’s housekeeper has a niece who graduated from Bastyr University with a degree in acupuncture or something like that. Are you a student there?”

She ignored the bit about his grandfather having a housekeeper—the suit already implied money, so she shouldn’t be surprised. “That’s my plan. I have to meet certain prerequisites in science and math but my business degree didn’t require them so I’m going back to college to make them up.” She shook her head. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to go to class and study. My brain is still unamused and crabby about the whole thing.”

He sipped his coffee. “What classes did you start with?”

“Biology and algebra.”

He winced. “Good luck with that.”

“Thanks. At first I had to read every chapter three or four times to remember anything. Now I’m down to only having to read it twice. The lab work has been interesting, though. In three weeks, we have to dissect things. I’m dreading that.”

“There shouldn’t be blood. Whatever it is has been dead awhile.”

“Still. Knives, cutting, organs.” She shuddered.

His blue eyes brightened with amusement. “Is this where I remind you that you’re basically studying to be a doctor?”

“Yeah, I get the irony. I try not to think about it, but I get it.”

They looked at each other. She felt...something. Tension maybe, or awareness. Whatever it was, she appreciated the confirmation that she was alive, relatively healthy and moving on with her life. The world kept turning and dragging her along with it.

“I need to get back to work,” Malcolm told her.

She wanted to believe there was a hint of reluctance in his voice, but she couldn’t be sure. Still, it was nice to think about.

“Me, too.” She glanced at her watch. “Or rather, head home and study for a few hours before class. Enjoy the rest of your day, Malcolm.”

“You, too, Delaney.”

He hesitated a second before turning toward the elevators. She watched him walk away and let herself imagine that he would spin back and ask her to lunch. Or dinner. Yes, dinner on his yacht. Or maybe they could helicopter to somewhere nice, although she wasn’t sure where a helicopter ride from Seattle would get them. Portland? Vancouver. Oooh, an international destination!

Regardless, he would ask her to dinner and they would...

She laughed as she rinsed out the milk pitcher and made sure everything was in order for Luzia and the next shift. She and Malcolm would what? Go to dinner? Kiss? Fall in love?

Hardly. They had nothing in common. Years ago, maybe, when she’d been on the fast track in finance. Only then she’d been engaged to Tim. She wouldn’t have noticed Malcolm at all.

“It doesn’t matter,” she told herself as she slipped off her apron. She had plans and dreams and hopes for the future. Not anything she would have imagined, but now, after everything she’d been through, they felt right. She would learn to heal others and if she got through that, she might have the chance to heal herself, as well.

* * *

Alberto’s Alfresco corporate offices occupied the top three stories of the twenty-story building. The company leased out the rest to tenants that ranged from a dentist, three law firms and Amazon. The latter had six floors where people came and went at all hours of the night and didn’t talk to anyone who didn’t work for their company. Malcolm Carlesso hoped they were building drones with artificial intelligence. He enjoyed sci-fi movies. Seeing one lived out in real time would be fun. Or not, he thought as he headed up to the top floor of the building. He didn’t want to go out in a hail of angry drone gunfire.

Malcolm stepped out of the elevator. It was the middle of the workday and people were everywhere—walking in the halls, having meetings, taking calls in their offices. Alberto’s Alfresco was a vibrant, multinational, multibillion-dollar enterprise.

While the company had always been successful, until a few years ago, it had been much smaller. Malcolm had come on board right after he’d graduated from college. He’d been determined to grow the firm and make his grandfather—the Alberto in Alberto’s Alfresco—proud. Two years ago, Malcolm’s mission had taken on an urgency he couldn’t seem to shake.

He passed his own office and went into that of the chief financial officer. Santiago Trejo had joined Alberto’s Alfresco eighteen months ago when Malcolm had stolen him from a successful hedge fund. Together they made a formidable team.

Malcolm nodded a greeting at Santiago’s assistant, sitting guard outside the open door, then entered the large corner office and took a seat. Santiago was on the phone. He smiled when he saw Malcolm and quickly wrapped up his call.

“Quarterly numbers from the East Coast are messed up,” Santiago said cheerfully. “Our friends down in accounting are scrambling. I had to explain our ‘fool me once’ philosophy here at the company. It won’t happen again.” He paused. “What?”

Malcolm pulled his gaze from the view of the vast Seattle skyline and Puget Sound and looked at his friend.

“What do you mean what?”

“There’s something. What happened? You look...” Santiago frowned, as if trying to figure something out. “Different. What’s happened? Did you discover some new truffle oil vendor?”

“Nothing happened,” Malcolm told him, then held out his mug. “I just went for coffee.”

“And?”

“And nothing.”

He’d talked to an attractive woman about something other than business. While unusual for him these days, it was hardly noteworthy.

Okay, maybe it was a little noteworthy, but not anything he was going to discuss with Santiago.

His friend was a “get back on the horse” kind of guy. Should a woman ever break Santiago’s heart, a very unlikely event considering how many women came and went in his life, he would simply find one who was smarter, prettier or both, and make them both very happy. Malcolm had chosen another way to deal with his ex-fiancée’s betrayal, and that had been to withdraw into work.

Still, he’d enjoyed talking with Delaney. And looking at her. He’d never had a type before, but as of today, he was definitely into redheads. Maybe he should—

Santiago’s phone buzzed, then his assistant’s voice came over the speaker. “Alberto is in the building. Repeat, Alberto is in the building.”

Santiago looked at Malcolm. “Did you know he was coming? Do we have a meeting? It’s not on my calendar.”

“No meeting.” Malcolm tried to figure out why his grandfather would show up with no warning, then reminded himself the exercise was futile. He would never guess. Alberto didn’t like talking on the phone—if he felt he had something important to discuss during the workday, he would simply drive himself to the office and find the person he wanted to talk to.

The fact that he was here and not at their warehouse in the SoDo—south of downtown—district meant it wasn’t about packaging or food, and wasn’t that lucky. Malcolm still remembered the rotini-fusilli incident from three years ago when Alberto had discovered packaging that had used the two pasta names interchangeably, which might be fine for some but not for a company that prided itself on selling authentic Italian food.

The entire marketing department had been forced to listen to a twenty-minute lecture on the importance of knowing the different types of pasta as they prepared their campaigns. Information they needed to have, but perhaps not delivered by a man in his eighties who still occasionally broke into passionate Italian.

Malcolm set down his mug, then made his way to the elevator bank to wait for his grandfather. Alberto Carlesso had been born in Italy and brought to America when his parents immigrated in the 1930s. During the Second World War the then teenager had put his cooking skills and family recipes to good use in their Seattle neighborhood. Food was scarce and Alberto’s ability to create delicious meals out of whatever was on hand had made him popular. Every summer, he’d made his own marinara sauce with the fresh ingredients grown on neighboring farms. Some of the bottles had made their way to New York where a few Italian grocery store owners had sold them at a tidy profit.

The elevator doors opened. Malcolm smiled at the slightly bent, white-haired man in a suit and tie who walked toward him.

“Hello, Grandfather.”