The sound if it washed through RJ like a fragrance and she just stared at the girl. Then, Hana pointed to her picture. “Tssk, Tssk.”

And again, the noise moved inside RJ.

Wait—

It was the same sound Coco, her Russian foster sister had made when she moved to the ranch, running after the kitties.

“Hana, tee gavorish po-russki?”

Hana stilled, then nodded. “Da.”

Yes.

She looked at Tessa, back to Hana. “She’s Russian.”

Tessa looked at the little girl. “Really. Where did you find her?”

“In a German cancer ward.”

“She doesn’t look like she has cancer.”

RJ turned to Hana. “Tee ne bolni?”

Hana frowned, shook her head.

RJ also frowned. “Pocheymo tee okazalus v bolnitza?”

Hana shrugged.

“She has no idea why she was in the hospital.”

Tessa’s eyes narrowed. “Who brought her there?”

RJ translated the question.

Hana turned back to her paper. Answered her softly. I don’t know. People came to the orphanage and took me.

A chill brushed through RJ. “I think she was kidnapped. Or maybe sold.”

“The poor thing,” Tessa said. She came around the table, crouched next to Hana, who looked up and then held up the picture. Tessa nodded, said something in Italian.

“Okay, time to cook,” Tessa said and stood up. She took a bread towel of a folded stack in a nearby basket and held it up, corner to corner.

Hana hopped off the bench and Tessa tied it around her waist.

“Want one?” Tessa asked.

“Why not.” RJ took the towel and tied it around her waist.

Tessa gave her a piece of pasta dough, another to Hana, floured Hana’s part of the table and instructed RJ to do the same. Then she handed both of them rolling pins. Not the heavy kind RJ might find at her mother’s house, but thinner, longer.

“Press down hard,” Tessa said, standing behind Hana, holding her hands as they pressed down together.

RJ had thought Hana shy. Instead, she’d simply been silenced by the language barrier. Now, she giggled as Tessa helped her roll out the pasta.

Not as easy as it looked, really. Tessa and Hana had their pasta rolled long before RJ was handed the pasta roller to cut it into strips. She hung it over the spokes of the dryer.

“I need to go out to the Orto and pick some fresh tomatoes for the sauce. Maybe you and Hana would like to explore the vineyard?”

RJ untied Hana’s apron, then her own, and they followed Tessa outside.

The sun had climbed, late into the morning, the air fragrant with the scent of the grapes, but the heat fell upon her, clung to her.

Tessa headed over to a massive, gated garden with yellow roses climbing the arched trellis beyond the summer kitchen. She pointed to the kitchen as they passed. “We’ll make dinner there, with our guests.”