CHAPTER FIVE

TWO WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Charles “Big Daddy” Sinatra drove through the snow and rain to get back to Jericho. After several meetings in Boston with over a hundred of his field supervisors, he made the fateful decision to take that roughly two-hour drive back to Maine that same night rather than remain in town at his daughter’s house. He was worried about Jenay. He had a sudden and urgent need to see her again. To smell her sweet scent again. To be around her again. A phone call, even a video chat, would not do.

Although the snow was coming down in sheets as he left Boston, it was only flurries by the time he drove into Jericho.

But he didn’t go home. He knew she wouldn’t be there. It was late, it was coming up on midnight, but whenever she thought he would be out of town for any extended period of time she kept staggeringly long hours. It had become so bad that he had to constantly get on his boys and order them to get over to that hotel and drag their stepmother out of there if they had to. But her stubbornness always won out. No child was telling her what to do, was her mantra, although his boys were all full-grown men.

When he could see the hotel in front of him, a hotel that was once a struggling bed-and-breakfast that he gifted to Jenay when they were first married years ago, he smiled. She turned that dying place into one of the premier hotels in the entire region, and she did it without his infamous overbearingness. She did it her way. That was Jenay.

He could see her little red Jaguar, a far more recent gift from him to her, parked near the entrance as he turned off the interstate into the far side of the parking lot. His heart soared at just the anticipation of laying eyes on her again. He parked his Mercedes next to her car and got out.

But he stopped in his tracks when he saw that the Jag, which wasn’t even a month old, had a big dent already on the back quarter panel, as if she’d been in a bad accident already. His concern meter skyrocketed when he saw that dent. He hurried past the valets, only grunting hellos to their more cheerful greetings, as he made his way into the lobby that was bustling with activity even at that time of night.

Seeing the crowds made him understand fully why she would feel the need to work so late. So much was going on. There were all the Christmas parties in the different ballrooms. There were Christmas carols blaring over the loudspeakers in the various lounges. There were rowdy revelers lined up waiting for their tables to be called at the numerous restaurants, with some talking, some singing along with the carols, but doing so all at once. Hotel guests were crowding the front desk waiting to be checked in, while others waited to see if there were any cancellations that they could snatch. The place was a madhouse.

The desk clerk supervisor stiffened when she saw the man in the long overcoat, big hat, and gloves walk into the lobby. Although everybody that worked there respected Mrs. Sinatra to the upmost as the boss, they considered Mr. Sinatra to be the big boss , not only because they knew he was the original owner of the then B & B long before he married Jenay, but mainly because he was the richest man in the county who owned most of the apartment complexes or houses or trailers many of them lived in. Including the desk clerk supervisor. That was why, when she saw him, she quickly spread the word.

“Be on your best behavior,” she whispered to the nearest clerk she could get to. “Big Daddy’s here.” Nothing more needed to be said. That clerk quickly passed the word around too.

Big Daddy, a nickname Charles acquired early in his career for his heavy-handed running of his property management firm, and the fact that he seemed to own nearly all of the town’s properties as if he was the United States government personified. As if he was Uncle Sam himself. Or Big Brother on steroids. That was why they called him Big Daddy .

It was originally a derogatory term. Nowadays it was derogatory only to those who despised him, which were many. But it was a term of endearment to those who liked him or worked for him, which were many more. But however way they chose to view his nickname, or if they chose not to use that nickname at all, didn’t matter to Charles. He couldn’t care less either way.

He usually would stop by the front desk to ask if his wife was in her office to save himself the extra steps down the hall if she was upstairs or elsewhere in the expansive, fully renovated place, but they were just too busy. He said nothing to any of them as he took those extra steps and made his way down that hall.

When he opened her office door without bothering to knock, his heart melted when he saw her lying on the sofa in what appeared to be a hard sleep. He closed the door, went over and sat on the edge of the sofa beside her sleeping body, and stared at her wonderful face for several minutes. Lying on her back with her head resting on the arm of the sofa, her small arms were folded, and her legs were crossed at the ankle. He sighed many times as he stared at her. Because he still couldn’t believe his good luck.

He was an aging Italian now who had managed to find, in this sweet, kind, beautiful black woman the love of his life. His first marriage, to the mother of his four sons, was an unmitigated disaster. Jenay not only righted his ship, but she took charge of the whole family and righted them all. She was the glue. There was no doubt about it. Her stepsons, along with their two adopted daughters Ashley and Carly, and Bonita, the child they had together, all became undone when they thought she had died and they had lost her forever. Charles could hardly bear it. Something became seriously wrong with his baby because of his younger brother Mick Sinatra’s tangled web of mess, but there was a Jenay eruption of joy for Charles when Hammer Reese called him and the family to his mountain in Montreal. All was well again. Especially now that he was eyeballing her.

When he placed his hand on the side of her deep-toned brown face, she opened her big, bright eyes. And he smiled. “Hello there, Sleeping Beauty.”

His smile was sweet to Jenay’s eyes, but she could see it was also born out of exhaustion. “You look tired,” she said to him. “I thought you were going to spend the night in Boston at Carly’s house. Why did you drive all the way back here tonight?”

“To pick you up and take you home.”

“Oh Charles that’s ridiculous,” Jenay said dismissively as she began sitting up. “I told you I don’t want you worrying about me like that.” She sat beside him. “I no longer get those sick spells since we found out what was causing them. I’m good,” she said as she looked into his concerned green eyes. She kissed him on the lips. “You don’t have to worry about me.” Then she smiled. “I can take care of myself.”

“Oh you can, can you?”

“Yes I can! When you met me I was doing just fine.”

“You were struggling just to get by.”

“But I was getting by.”

“I told you about these late hours, Jenay. Especially when I’m out of town.”

Jenay ran her hand through her hair in an attempt to smooth it back down. “I know I know,” she said. “But you saw up front. This place is packed. I’ve been putting out fires all day. That’s why I stayed around.”

Charles had ordered the three of his children that still lived in town to check on her and get her home before dark because he knew the one room he made her reserve for herself was always booked when they reached capacity. “Did any of the boys come over here?”

“Tony came over once. He told me if I didn’t want to feel your wrath I’d better go home.”

“Good man.”

“Brent came over twice and, being Brent, he had the nerve to order me to go home.”

“That’s what I told him to do,” said Charles. “What did you say to him?”

“I told him to get his ass out of my face! What do you think I said? Nobody’s ordering me to do anything.”

“Except me,” said Charles and looked her dead in the eyes. As if he dared her to dispute it.

Jenay had to smile at that. Because she knew it was true. “Except you,” she said. Then she yawned again.

“Why didn’t you just go home and go to bed since you were sleep anyway?”

“I’m sleep because I’m drained from all the drama today. And none of it happened here. All hell broke loose today.”

“All hell? With you?”

“No. With the family. The Sinatras and the Gabrinis! We’re falling apart, Charles, and nobody seems interested in putting it all back together.”

Charles frowned. “Jenay, what are you talking about? What happened?”

“Where do I begin?”

“Try the beginning.”

Jenay exhaled. “Sure you want to hear it all?”

“I want to hear every bit of it,” Charles, as the family’s patriarch, assured her. “What’s happened?”

“It all started with Mick and Roz,” she said, and Charles leaned back to hear the full story. Because if his kid brother Mick the Tick was in any way involved, he knew it was going to be some mess.

“No wait,” said Jenay. “It actually started with Reno and Trina. At least that was the first one I found out about.”

Charles crossed his legs. His nephew Reno Gabrini was a force of nature. The drama king of drama kings. He knew that was going to be a load of mess too.

“Go on,” he said to his wife. And she told him all she knew.

“Like I said,” she said, “it all began with Trina and Reno.”