Brave Enough (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous #3)(6)

“You don’t even feel well enough to stay and eat. I’m certainly not going to let you do the work.”

“But I—”

“Don’t make me pick you up and carry you out of here,” Tag threatens with mock severity.

Stella smacks her lips and dismisses him with a wave of her hand. Her small smile returns, though, when Tag bends his head to kiss her cheek and then physically turns her away from the stove, one big hand cupping her shoulder.

Stella exits slowly, more slowly than I remember her moving in previous years. Of course, it’s been a while since I’ve seen her, but she can’t be much over fifty. I would think she’d still have lots of spring in her step. But she doesn’t.

When she disappears around the corner and out of sight, I drag my eyes back to Tag. He’s got a long bread knife in one hand, slicing the ring in half. Although his expression is inscrutable from this angle, there’s an air of melancholy in the kitchen now that wasn’t there a few minutes ago.

“Is your mom okay?”

“Not really.” His beautifully buttery voice holds so much sadness that my heart aches for him, this handsome man that I don’t even know.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Although I’m curious, I don’t ask for details. I simply wait to see if he offers any.

“She’s got cirrhosis,” he confesses softly.

I gasp. I can’t help it. “Oh God! Is it because of—”

“No,” he interrupts, shaking his head and turning to meet my eyes with his now dark gray ones. “No, it’s not alcoholic cirrhosis.”

I clutch my chest with my hand. “Thank goodness.” My voice is awash with relief. Even though it wouldn’t be my fault, I’d feel horrible if working here at Chiara, producing and tasting and enjoying wine all these years, had damaged her liver to the point of illness.

“She has Wilson’s disease. She was diagnosed as a child and they’ve treated it for years, but they didn’t catch it as early as they should have. Her liver is scarred. Failing.”

Failing? That sounds . . . fatal.

“What about a transplant?”

“She has other health factors that make her a less desirable candidate for transplant. I offered her a portion of mine, but . . .”

“But?”

His laugh is wry. Bitter. “She won’t take it. She’s too damn stubborn.”

“I-I’m sure she’s worried about you, though. Being without a part of your liver.”

“I’d give her half of all my organs if it would save her life,” he says fiercely, his frown thunderous when he turns it toward me. It dissolves in seconds, though. As quickly as the ferocious lion showed up, he’s gone, leaving behind only the Tag I’ve just recently met. Calm. Charming. Matter-of-fact. “But none of that matters if she won’t take them.”

I don’t know what to say. It’s easy to see that he’s hurt by this situation, as anyone who loves a parent would be. I don’t know much about transplants and compatibility and all that, but one thought comes to mind. “What about your father?”

I don’t have many memories of Stella’s husband, Joseph. I wasn’t allowed out on Chiara grounds without my parents when we came each year, so I wasn’t as familiar with the people outside these walls as I was the ones who worked inside. I guess that’s why I knew Stella better than anyone. She took care of the house mostly. I knew she had a son, but I only saw him from a distance and I thought Dad had mentioned that he went into the military.

“He’s dead.”

Oh God!

“Tag, I’m so sorry. I . . . I . . .”

“Don’t be. It’s been a few years.”

I’m ashamed that I don’t know more about his life. His family has tended our vineyard for as long as I can remember yet I know so little about them. It’s as though they weren’t worth discussing in my family. Despite the progress made in the last two hundred years, class distinction still very much exists in some circles. I was born into it. Tag was, too, whether he knows it or not. And we are on opposite ends of the spectrum.

I clear my throat, not knowing how to recover the night at this point. “Did Dad tell me that you went into the military? Or did I just imagine that?”

“Yeah, I was in the Army for a tour.”

I nod, relieved at the hope of a change in subject. “What did you do?”

Tag shoots me an odd look, one that brings the hairs on my arms to shivering attention. “I doubt you’d really want to know. And even if you did, I couldn’t tell you much.”

“Oh,” I say flatly. I take that to mean that he can’t talk about it, that he’s done clandestine things, top-secret things. Maybe dark, dangerous things. I can’t know because he won’t tell me, but the possibility actually intrigues me. I won’t press, though. I’ve made enough of a mess of tonight’s conversation and dinner hasn’t even begun yet!

Quietly and unabashedly, I examine him as he finishes up the last of the meal preparations, straining pasta and sliding a pan of buttered bread into the oven. I look at his hands—long of finger, broad of palm. Strong, capable. Although this man seems perfectly at home in the kitchen, or in the vineyard, or staring at me from the bathroom doorway, I can easily imagine him dressed in black, holding a gun to someone’s head. He might even wear that same fierce look I saw only moments ago. Yes, I can imagine it all too clearly. This man is probably dangerous in many ways.