What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(92)

Kellen nodded.

“So rare to see a palm marked like this. So many lines. Rare lines. Two marriages? One when you were very young.” Her brown eyes sharpened. “It ended in flame and horror.”

“Yes.” Cynical Kellen supposed Bisnonna Debora might have heard that story from Max or Verona.

“I am sorry. But here’s our Max.” Bisnonna Debora pointed at the side of Kellen’s hand. “Such a good solid dependable line, like Max himself.”

Kellen found herself nodding along with everyone else.

“Here is Rae. What a healthy happy girl. So smart. We adore her.” Bisnonna Debora patted Kellen’s palm. “Other children are here. Two more. Maybe...no, two more.”

“Only two,” Zio Salvatore said mournfully.

“Not everyone wants to have so many children they can’t remember their names!” Zia Giorgia said.

“Shut up, woman!” Zio Salvatore gestured vigorously. “I remember their names eventually. I start at the top and shout. Sooner or later I hit the right one.”

More laughter and nodding heads.

Bisnonna Benedetta said, “Shhh! Bisnonna Debora is seeing.”

A hush fell over the room.

“Seeing what?” Kellen asked, then realized they meant precognition. She didn’t like that; she’d seen some scary examples overseas.

Bisnonna Debora smoothed Kellen’s palm, smoothed it again, leaned her ear close as if to hear it speak, ran her finger from Kellen’s wrist to her middle finger. “War in your past. Strife. Struggle and mistakes. Still. You aren’t whole in yourself. Divided into two. And this—” she tapped the line under Kellen’s thumb “—this is—” She caught her breath, looked around, looked down and lied. Everyone knew it, especially Kellen. “This is good luck. It’s good luck. You have good luck and happiness in your future. I see it. A sleep, a rest and a new dawn.”

The back porch door slammed. Verona walked into the kitchen, took in the scene with one glance and spoke Italian, fast and angry. The older people jumped guiltily and cleared their throats and smiled with as much false gaiety as Kellen had ever witnessed.

Bisnonna Debora listened without expression, then traced a cross on Kellen’s palm and kissed the spot where the lines intersected. In a low voice, she said, “God has graced you so far. He will not abandon you now.”

“Thank you, Bisnonna Debora.” Kellen cupped Bisnonna Debora’s hand in both her own. “We’ll trust in Him.”

Verona grabbed Kellen’s wrist and pulled her away. “The bride needs to put on her wedding dress. It’s time! The makeup! The hair. You know!”

The relatives clucked and shooed at them, and when Verona and Kellen had exited the house, they burst into loud voluble exclamations of...something. Protest or horror, Kellen didn’t know which.

“Bisnonna Debora is a lovely person, no? But old. All of the family from the Old Country is superstitious.” Verona dismissed superstition with a wave of her hand.

“And Leo.”

“That man!”

“I like him.” They were headed toward the large three-story building that housed the tasting room, the wine cellars and the bed-and-breakfast.

“I do, too. But to encourage their silliness. We give the old relatives respect, of course. It’s kind of them to come so far for Max’s wedding, and yours. But the belief in the evil eye and the palm reading—that’s ignorant Italian peasant. Not that the family isn’t peasant stock and proud of it, but we don’t believe in the supernatural.” Verona sounded as if she was trying to convince herself. “Right?”

“I don’t fear what’s to come.” Kellen knew what Bisnonna Debora had seen—and lied about. “It’s been waiting for me for a long time.”

“What do you mean?”

No reason to worry Verona. “The wedding. Max has been waiting for me for a long time.”

A smile broke across Verona’s face. “He has.” She patted Kellen’s hand. “He has.”

They went in the side entry to avoid the tasting room.

“You’re in a small suite now.” Verona led her up the stairs. “We intended to put you in the wedding suite, as would be fitting, but at the last minute, Aurora Di Luca brought her whole family, children and grandchildren and third husband, after RSVP’ing for only her and her oldest daughter, and we had to put them somewhere. If she wasn’t providing all the fruit for the wedding from her own orchard, I would...would...”

“That’s fine. With so many long-distance relatives and guests, I’m happy not to be in a closet,” Kellen assured her.

“We put the relatives we don’t like in the closets.”

Kellen looked at Verona. Was she kidding? Maybe...

On the second-story landing, they walked right into Rae—and Nils Brooks.

“My God, you made it!” Kellen couldn’t believe he was here.

He held out his arms, then backed away. “You’re not going to hit me again, are you?”

She remembered how she had sucker punched him up at Zone’s, and laughed. It was a good memory. “I don’t know why, but I’m glad to see you.”

He opened his arms.

They hugged each other.

“He’s here, and he brought the goddess!” Rae was in full Di Luca loud mode.