Blue Smoke by Nora Roberts

watching that together strengthened something we already had between us. I think that’s why he let me go with him when they took Joey. After he killed that poor dog.”
    “He was closing a chapter for you, one that started when the littlebastard attacked you. No reason to think it’s not still closed, but you and your family need to know he’s out.”
    “I’ll tell them. Later, John, later, when we’re all at home.”
    “Good enough.”
    She looked out the window again, and the frown vanished. “It’s Xander. I’ll be right back.” She scooted out of the booth, hurried to the door, then raced across the street and launched herself at her brother.
    B eing home was like being a child again in so many ways. The scents and sounds of the house were so much what they’d always been. The furniture polish her mother always used, the cooking smells that seemed as much a part of the kitchen as the old butcher-block table. The music that pumped out of Xander’s room, whether he was in there or not. The watery tinkle from the toilet in the powder room that ran unless its handle was jiggled.
    It was rare for an hour to go by without the phone ringing, and since the weather was fine, the windows were open to the shoosh of street traffic, and the voices of pedestrians who stopped to chat.
    She could’ve been ten again, sitting cross-legged on her sister’s bed while Bella reigned at the little vanity, primping for an evening out.
    “There’s just so much to do.” Bella blended tones of eyeshadow with the skill of an artist. “I don’t know how I’ll get everything done before the wedding. Vince says I worry too much, but it has to be perfect.”
    “It will be. Your dress is gorgeous.”
    “I knew exactly what I wanted.” She shook back glamorous clouds of blond hair. “After all, I’ve been planning for this my whole life. Remember when we used to play bride, with those old lace curtains?”
    “And you were always the bride.” But Reena smiled when she said it.
    “Now, it’s not make-believe anymore. I know Dad was freaked about how much the dress cost, but the bride’s the showpiece on her wedding day, after all. And I can’t be the showpiece in some knockoff. I want Vince dazzled when he sees me in it. Oh, wait until you see what he gave me for my something old.”

    “I thought you were wearing Nuni’s pearls.”
    “No. They’re sweet, but they’re old-fashioned. Besides, they’re not real pearls.” She opened the drawer of the vanity, took out a small box. She brought it over, sat on the side of the bed. “He bought them for me at an estate jeweler.”
    Inside were earrings, sparkling drops of diamonds and filigree so delicate they might have been spun by magic spiders.
    “God, Bella, are those real diamonds?”
    “Of course.” The square-cut solitaire on her finger flashed as she gestured. “Vince wouldn’t buy me paste. He’s got class. His whole family has class.”
    “And ours doesn’t?”
    “I didn’t mean it that way.” But Bella spoke absently as she held up one of the earrings so it could catch the light. “Vince’s mother flies to New York and Milan to shop. They have a household staff of twelve. You should see his parents’ house, Reena. It’s a mansion. They have full-time groundskeepers. His mother’s so sweet to me—I’m calling her Joanne now. She’s taking me to her salon on the morning of the wedding, for the works.”
    “I thought we—you and Mama and Fran and I—were going to Maria’s.”
    “Catarina.” Bella smiled gently, patted Reena’s hand before she rose to put the earrings back in the drawer. “Maria’s doesn’t make the cut for me now. I’m going to be the wife of an important man. I’m going to have a different lifestyle now, different obligations. To meet them I have to have the right haircut, the right wardrobe, the right everything.”
    “Who says what’s right?”
    “You just know. ” She fluffed at her hair. “Vince has a cousin,