Page 60 of Rockstar Untamed
Sailor looked at her step-son. He looked so happy, so energetic, that she couldn’t resist teasing him. “Have you been up to no good, Timothy?” She grinned as she said it and Tim flushed, a wry smile on his face.
“He has awoman,” Vittoria said in a stage-whisper.
“Grandma!”
The others laughed as Tim squirmed but he couldn’t keep the happiness off his face. “Her name is Luisa, and we’re justfriends,” he glared at his grandmother, who gave him a cheesy grin.
They sat at the dinner table for hours, until Solly fell asleep in her mother’s arms and Sailor stood to put her to bed. Vittoria came with her. “Are you okay, Sailor?”
Sailor was surprised. “Of course, why do you ask?” She tucked Solly into her new bed and stroked her daughter’s dark curls.
“You looked thoughtful at dinner, kind of distracted.” Vittoria smiled down at her granddaughter as she slept. “She’s so beautiful…she was so well-behaved as well.”
Sailor grinned. “Lucky you. She can be a little monster.” But, she said it fondly.
“So, what’s on your mind?”
Sailor smiled. “Apart from Tim calling me Mom?”
Vittoria chuckled softly. “He talked it over with me. Apparently he had wanted to do it for a few months, says he thinks of you as his mom as much as he does Gemma. He just didn’t know how you’d react.”
“I loved it,” Sailor admitted, her voice soft. “I wish heweremine, sometimes, as unfair to Gemma as that sounds.”
“Youare his mother,” Vittoria said, a note of anger creeping into her voice, but then she caught herself and let out a sigh. “Tim loves you so much.”
“And I love him. If he hadn’t told Bodhi where Bart Foy had taken me all those years ago, I wouldn’t be here.”
“But it’s not just that on your mind?”
Sailor shook her head, hesitating slightly before speaking again. “It’s Claudio, Vittoria. I hate that there’s this breach, this chasm between him and Bodhi. I know Claudio blames me for Soleil’s murder, and that’s his prerogative…but they were like brothers. It hangs over Bodhi all of the time.”
Vittoria nodded sadly. “It does.”
“I want to go see him, try and heal this division.”
Vittoria looked skeptical. “Sweetheart, I don’t know.”
Sailor held her gaze. “I want to at least try. It can’t get worse than it is right now.”
Vittoria couldn’t dissuade Sailor, and so, the next morning, Sailor set off for ‘Vinci,' her heart thumping as she actually drove toward Claudio’s farmhouse. She’d borrowed the satnav from Bodhi’s car and programmed in the directions, and now, as she approached his home, she felt sick with nerves.
She pulled up in front of the house and knocked on the door. No answer. She knew that Claudio spent most of his time in his workshop, painting, and so she walked slowly around the property, passing the little outhouse that he’d converted into a guesthouse. The last time she and Bodhi had been here was before Soleil was murdered and before Sailor nearly died. Sailor shivered now.
She could hear a radio on in Claudio’s workshop. Her heart in her mouth, she pushed open the door a little. Claudio, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans was slapping paint onto a canvas in angry stroked, singing roughly along, his voice agitated and stressed. As she watched, he cursed loudly and picked up a boxcutter and slash the canvas to pieces. She couldn’t help the gasp of horror as he destroyed his work, and he whirled around.
When he saw her, his already maddened eyes flashed with fury. “What thefuckare you doing here?”
Sailor stood her ground. “I’ve come to talk to you.”
Claudio gave a rough, mirthless laugh. “What makes you think I want to talk to you, whore? Not satisfied with fucking and killing my sister, you want a go on me, is that it? You think you can make things better? You wanna fuck? Let’s fuck!”
Too late, Sailor realized how drunk he was, and as he bore down on her, she saw the boxcutter was still in his hand and terror flooded through her. She closed her eyes and waited for the pain.
Bodhi listened to his son trying to teach his daughter how to play chess. He grinned when he saw Tim rolling his eyes. “She’s a little young for that, yet, maybe?”
Tim shook his head. “Evan taught me when I was three, Dad.”
Bodhi hid a grin. He no longer felt any resentment towards Evan Teal when Tim regaled him of how the other man had brought him up, he just felt gratitude.
