His Secret Past
April 2007GNOCCHI. ANNA shook her head as she dropped her hoodie on the arm of the sofa. Food bribes? How easy did they think she was?
Her stomach growled as she narrowed her eyes at the big pasta bowl, full and steaming on her brother's dining-room table.
Something was up.
Anna eased the front door closed and slid the key into the pocket of her track pants. She considered the table with its cheerful centerpiece of daffodils and the wine-glasses she'd bought Jake and his partner, Rob, for Christmas last year. She tugged the holder off her ponytail, freeing her curly shoulder-length hair. Someone had gone to some trouble here.
Because Rob swore that making gnocchi gave him flashbacks to his grandmother's cooking lessons punctuated by her uncomfortably sharp tongue and handy wooden spoon, he made the pasta dumplings only on special occasions. Anna's birthday. Jake's birthday. The anniversary of his nonna's death when he washed the gnocchi down with homemade wine he bought from the Italian men's club at the end of the rapidly gentrifying street.
Whenever he or Jake wanted to bribe Anna.
She let the aroma of Rob's secret family recipe spaghetti sauce wrap ... read full excerpt from His Secret Past ebook
