Can't Hurry Love (10 page)

Then his own voice echoed in his head:
They call it something like the limited-future syndrome. I don’t want a wife and kids. I don’t expect to live a normal life—or even have a normal lifespan.

Grace had taken his harsh words without blinking. As if they were ordinary.

As if it was an ordinary action for a man to push her away like that. Guilt slugged him right in the solar plexus, because, of course, being pushed around by a man was exactly what she was accustomed to.

She exited the doors of the administrative offices just then. In a Tanti Baci T-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes, she looked like just an average young woman. Run-of-the-mill.

Kohl breathed out a little sigh, then the morning sun struck her hair. The light brightened the gold and burnished the red and she was transformed into something extraterrestrial—a full-sized fairy or maybe a dragonfly in human form. He choked at the fanciful thought.

Christ, he did so not do whimsy.

But she had him thinking that way, didn’t she, with her rose gold hair and her summer-day eyes? She was making a point of not looking at him, he could see that, as she walked toward the wine caves on some errand of her own. He glanced away, too, his gaze catching on Giuliana . . . and a man.

“Who’s that?” he asked her sisters. “Who’s with Jules?”

Allie didn’t glance up. “Say again?”

Kohl watched the couple disappear into the wine cottage. “Is it another of her clandestine meetings?”

Two pairs of Baci-brown eyes snapped to his face. “What clandestine meetings?”

He shuffled back. “I don’t know . . . I . . .” This is why he shouldn’t do the chitchat thing. Sooner or later he did something, said something, that women found alarming. His gaze jumped from their concerned faces to the ground to the gravel drive. “I, uh, have to go . . .”

Liam appeared in the near distance, striding along in jeans and his scarred work boots. His mouth moving, he appeared to be arguing with himself. Kohl retreated from the sisters a few steps, but it was odd enough behavior for this ordinary day that he found himself staying within earshot as the other man approached Stevie and Allie.

“Where the hell is she?” he demanded.

Allie played innocent. “‘She’?”

“That damn sister of yours.”

“You mean your damn wife?” the youngest Baci asked, sweet as you please.

“My damn wife who left this morning before I could get up and drive her here.” Liam drew in a deep breath. “Look, I’ve been sleeping like crap and she got away because I finally dozed off at dawn.” He blew out another gust of air. “She should have woken me.”

Stevie lifted one shoulder. “She had an important early appointment. I’m sure she didn’t want to disturb you.”

“She disturbs me every minute of every day!”

A little cat smile came and went as she absently smoothed the slight swell at her waist and sat back in her chair. “Now, Liam—”

“Who the hell is that?”

They all turned their heads. Giuliana and the stranger had exited the cottage, but were paused beside the flowering rosebush at the corner. The man had his back to them, but was standing close enough to Jules that when he plucked a bloom from the bush he could tap the white petals playfully against her nose.

Maybe Kohl did whimsy after all, because he could swear he saw steam come out of Liam’s ears. He allowed himself a smile at the other man’s discomfort. Payback was
such
a bitch. “You okay, pal?”

The head of the Bennett family didn’t even spare him a look. Instead, he strode off toward the cottage, his walk purposeful, his face granite-hard.

“Uh-oh.”

Kohl’s head whipped right. Grace was at his elbow. Her blue eyes flicked to his face, then went back to the potential disaster of Liam descending on Giuliana, his hostility barely concealed behind a stony face and steely spine.

She drifted in the same direction, a breeze tugging at the ends of her vivid hair. Kohl reached out to catch her sleeve. With it pinched between his thumb and forefinger, she halted. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“Toward trouble.”

“If so, it’s not your trouble,” he protested, but she slipped free of his hold and made for the cottage.

Shit. All right. She wasn’t ordinary in this. Kohl couldn’t deny that Grace likely had a finely tuned instinct for violence-in-the-offing—just like he couldn’t deny that he wouldn’t mind seeing Liam Bennett with someone’s fist planted in his face. But he wanted to be sure Grace wasn’t in the way of that, so he hurried after her.

As they approached the bottom of the cottage steps, Liam reached Giuliana and the stranger. Maybe their alarm was off the mark, because Liam smiled and reached out his hand to the other man. He didn’t break the guy’s fingers. Instead, he turned to Giuliana and bent his head to kiss her. Except he bypassed the usual destinations—forehead, cheek, lips—and pressed his mouth to the side of her neck.

He lingered there. It wasn’t perfunctory—it was possession. It was a blatant statement of intent, but Liam delivered it coolly, as he did everything else. Somehow, the banked fire inside the man made it only more intense . . . and intimate.

“Uh-oh,” Grace said again, as Giuliana flushed red and shoved at him. Liam rocked back, only to ease forward again, using the momentum to drape his arm over her shoulders.

Kohl and Grace drew near enough to hear Giuliana speak through gritted teeth. “Give me room to breathe.”

Liam was smiling again, that imperturbable flash of perfect white teeth that had made Kohl want to punch him a dozen times himself. “Babe, I gave you ten years of breathing room and what did that get me?”

Giuliana’s eyes flashed. “This is a journalist, Liam. I’m giving Alex Murphy an interview. About winemaking and the Napa Valley.”

“Then your new friend, Alex, should know about us, don’t you agree? Why don’t you tell him that story?”

Still red-faced, Giuliana opened her mouth, but the writer guy slid smoothly into the conversation. “No problem, Ms. Baci. I’m sure I have all I need.”

“Mrs. Bennett,” Liam corrected, in a pleasant tone.

“Baci,” Giuliana insisted.

The journalist pasted on a noncommittal smile. “Thank you so much for your time.” Then he looked down at his hand and the white rose he held. He lifted it toward Giuliana. “Let me give you—”

Liam’s fingers closed over Alex Murphy’s wrist. “My wife doesn’t accept flowers from other men.”

“Liam!” Giuliana said, clearly appalled.

Baring his teeth, her husband didn’t spare her a glance. “You understand, Alex?”

The journalist was already backing away. Liam released his wrist but followed his retreat. “I’ll walk you to your car. Jules, you stay here.” More teeth baring.

Grace gave the men a little distance, but then followed. Kohl trailed her, not sure who he felt the need to protect. Okay, so it was a weird blip in his ordinary day, but he breathed another sigh of relief as the journalist shut his car door behind him. So what that Liam’s pat on the vehicle’s roof was more like a pound?

As the sedan accelerated away, it was again that mundane morning Kohl had so appreciated. Inhaling another calming breath, he turned to head back to his usual duties. Surely Grace Hatch had her regular tasks to accomplish as well.

“Kohl.” Liam called his name.

He disguised his groan with a cough. “What?” he asked, turning back.

Liam’s eyes glittered. “Am I going to have to take you on next?”

Jesus. For months they’d been bristling at each other, but he wanted to brawl
today
? He glanced toward Grace. No way would he subject her to brutality on what was supposed to be a perfectly normal morning. “Go home, Liam,” he said, shaking his head. “Do us all a favor. Go home and take your commotion with you.”

“You’re damn right I intend to take her home.”

His commotion, Kohl thought, amused despite himself, was Giuliana. “Good luck.” And as his eye caught that bright color of Grace Hatch’s hair, he realized he sincerely meant it.

“Oh, hell.” Liam looked around him. “She’s gone.”

She’d poofed, all right. But that just showed how ordinary this day really was. It was Giuliana’s regular MO to run from the man she’d married. Barely suppressing a little whistle, he smiled at Grace. “Did anyone make coffee?” he asked her.

But she was biting her bottom lip, her eyebrows peaked over her cinnamon-dusted nose. “You’ve lost her?”

His jaw hardening, Liam turned in a circle. “More than once,” he muttered.

Grace ducked her head, was quiet a moment, then she lifted her chin. “The northwest corner of the vineyard.”

He whipped his gaze to hers. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Without another word, he took off at a run.

Kohl didn’t watch him go. Instead, he stared at Grace Hatch, the daughter of a diviner. He’d seen the old man work once, his rod of polished wood held between two hands. It had trembled at a certain point, shaking Peter Hatch like a dried leaf on a valley oak, but Kohl had called bullshit on the performance . . . even though water had been found where he’d indicated.

Grace didn’t betray a quiver. But he remembered her knowing the location of Allie’s watch. At the bar, she’d spoken up about the missing cell phone. Now it was a missing wife.

The mundane morning went eccentric on him. The sky was still blue, the air warming with sunshine, the breeze the one he would expect on any normal summer day. But Grace Hatch . . .

A shiver rolled down his back. Grace Hatch wasn’t ordinary at all.

10

Giuliana escaped to the vineyard. She didn’t know what she wanted to flee more, the embarrassment of the scene between Alex Murphy and Liam . . . or Liam himself. In either case, his kiss stayed with her. Her skin throbbed where he’d pressed his mouth to her throat. She touched it with her fingertips as she watched the Tanti Baci rust-colored dirt kick up with every step.

She’d eschewed her rubber thongs for the sake of the interview. The day before, Liam had insisted on driving her to a local mall. Insisted was not quite the word. He’d practically inserted her into the car and then remained silent after telling her she needed more clothes.

If he’d demanded she shop at a hoity-toity department store his mother favored, she might have balked. Instead, he’d merely followed her around as she made her sale-priced—and spare number of—choices at a discount place. The khaki-colored cotton skirt was layers of ruffles to the knees, the last of lacy cutouts. She’d worn it with a sleeveless spring green cotton shirt and gold stud earrings to match the bracelet of blue glass and gold beads she always wore on her left wrist. Her sandals had ankle straps decorated with sequins in the same colors.

Today, Liam hadn’t even spared the new clothes a glance. He’d only been interested in staking his claim, which she found . . .

. . . annoying and . . .

. . . exciting, God help her.

Guilty at the thought, she glanced around, finding herself still blissfully alone and about a quarter mile into the vineyard. With a little more time away from the winery, she should be able to regain her sanity and face her family and friends without a still-racing heart.

Through the cover of the lush vines, she spied movement. Her heartbeat hiccupped. Liam? But he wouldn’t sacrifice his glacial dignity by going to the trouble of tracking her down in the vineyard. So . . .

That itchy sense of inherent danger came over her again—just as it had a few mornings before. Her pulse began racing, and she found herself crowding closer to the vines, leaves seeming to reach out to brush her cheeks and pat her hair. She couldn’t be threatened here, surely, amidst her hundred-year-old legacy.

But she
did
feel threatened, her blood rushing to the surface of her skin so that Liam’s mark took on a new sting. She heard footsteps. Deliberate and measured, they were almost lost in the sound of her rattling heart in her ears.

“Giuliana?” a voice whispered.

She jerked, setting the leaves to twitching like her nerves.
Be still,
she told herself.
Stay silent
.

“Giuliana?”

She realized that the speaker wasn’t whispering, but the voice only seemed quiet because of the internal racket of thundering heart and jangling nerves. It meant she couldn’t tell how close or how far he was from her, either.

Be still. Stay silent.

Despite the admonitions, she peeked around the foliage surrounding her and glanced down the row. A long leg. A muscled forearm.

Liam!

The knowledge shot through her, bursting the bubble of fear but leaving behind a giddy liquid that ran drunkenly through her veins. He’d sacrificed his glacial dignity after all.

Yet everything inside of her still signaled danger. Operating on impulse, she exploded from her hiding place and took off in the opposite direction of where he’d been, the soles of her new sandals sliding on the soft dirt.

“Jules!”

She ignored his voice, sprinting two rows over and then pressing close to the vines again. They’d played games like this as children a hundred times, and she knew not to press too close to the berries, clustered pale and green under their leafy protection.

She was glad of her tan legs, her earth-toned skirt, her shirt that blended in with her surroundings. A laugh swelled, but she held it back with a hand at her belly and one over her mouth. Glancing around, she didn’t see a sign of him, so she was on the move again, racing farther into the family acres.

This time she heard his footsteps, clapping heavy on the ground in the distance behind her. “Jules!”

Her laugh broke out, free as the child she’d once been, wild as the teenager who’d fallen into untamed passion with the boy next door. Then she ducked around another row and hunkered down.

“I’m going to get you,” he called out.

He’d gotten her when she was sixteen years old. Before that, maybe, with his golden good looks and his competent air. Number one children appreciated that. Even though they were both first-borns, they’d complemented each other, what with his natural reserve and her Italian emotion. As a pair, she’d thought they had an effective balance of personalities, even as he grew older and quieter, his silences darker.

That shadow in him hadn’t stopped her headlong rush into love. She’d assumed her unfailing, unflagging passion for him would keep him close to her forever.

“I’m going to get you,” he called for a second time.

“Why?” she questioned back, then scurried off so her voice wouldn’t give her location away.

“Because it’s time,” he said, implacable.

The sure tone of his voice made her shiver. Danger again, she thought.
Be silent. Stay still.

“We can’t go on like this, Giuliana. I’m not sleeping. You don’t eat. We’re making our families as crazy as we are.”

Oh, sure. Bring up the families. Theirs were so tangled in so many ways.

On soundless feet, she shuffled down the row.

“Tell me yes,” Liam coaxed. “Jules, tell me yes.”

This new, soft tone was just rough enough to rob her breath. It was his assurance that had always been her undoing.
We’ll wait to make love until we’re married. We’ll tell them we’re husband and wife when we get back from Tuscany. I have to return to California, but I won’t leave you alone for long.

The memories made her eyes squeeze shut to hold back childish tears. She’d cried when her mother died, in her father’s arms, and then in Liam’s. Afterward, she’d vowed to be strong. Her sisters had needed a maternal figure and her mother said it was up to her—and that she’d be a good one.

So the last time tears had flooded down her face, she’d been alone in the bed she’d shared with Liam in Italy.

Leaves shook around her at the same time a hand shot through the row at her back to grab her wrist. “Gotcha.”

Her jolt of surprise released her from his grasp and she went on the run again, zigging and zagging with speed fueled by a feeling that was part desperation and part exuberance. Who could analyze it? She was panicked . . . and panting with desire.

“You can’t win,” Liam said, and she sensed him gaining ground.

“I will win!” But it was futile, she knew, as his fingertips grazed her shoulder and then tangled briefly in the ends of her hair. Her last burst of speed made her feet cycle, cartoon roadrunner style, as the new soles lost traction on the soft earth. Her legs were churning but no ground was covered, and then he had an arm slung across her chest.

A laugh rang out—hers—and she threw her weight back so he was off balance. Then they were going down, Liam cushioning her fall. A breathless jolt as he hit and she was cradled on top of his hard body.

Another laugh bubbled up and she dug her elbow into his ribs to get leverage. Sitting up, she started to scramble away. Then Liam, a veteran of skirmishes with a younger brother, stretched out a long arm and caught her ankle.

“Mine,” he said, hauling her back. He wasn’t laughing.

She slid along the dirt and was tipped on top of him again. Her chin tilted up and the crown of her skull met the jut of his chin with a
thwack
. They both moaned.

“That hurt me way worse than it hurt you,” he groused, but he used his free hand to rub at the spot on her head. “Okay?”

She couldn’t speak. Her backside was pressed to his front and she could feel the stiff column of his erection against her butt. It locked the breath in her lungs and made her nipples clamp into tight points. In a breath, she was that passionate hedonist, the Italian girl who wanted more than anything to push her steel-willed boyfriend down the path of sexual pleasure.

He’d been more experienced . . . but committed not to rushing her along. While she’d been in her own rush— when it came to him, she’d always wanted so much, everything, all.

The balance between them—which she’d thought had been so right—prudence to passion—had actually always been off. He’d held back, while she’d flung every emotion his way. Smarter about that now, she attempted, again, to get free.

“No,” Liam said. He twisted, so that it was her back in the dirt and his weight atop hers. Her eyes closed, the sensation so luscious, but then she wiggled, her sixth sense whispering to her again.
Danger, danger, danger.

“You’re not getting away from me now,” he murmured. His mouth brushed her temple, her eyelids, the curve of her cheek.

She gave way for a moment, and then recalling the lessons of childhood, she scissored her legs around one of his. Frontier wrestling, they’d called it, and the surprise of it worked, because she flipped him to his back and leapt once again to her feet, liberated. A dozen strides later, she looked back, then paused.

Still lying on the ground, his chest heaved with heavy breaths. Nothing else about him moved and he watched her out of glittering eyes. There was dusty dirt in his air, a streak of it on his chin, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. He looked nothing like Liam Bennett, self-possessed scion of one of the wealthiest families in the Napa Valley. He looked like the playmate of her childhood, the one who snuck over on summer nights to play games with her and her sisters in their vineyard.

He looked like the adventurer she’d first encountered as an adolescent, who’d kissed her softly, then with more recklessness, until she’d twist against him in need. His soft laughter at her frustration had been only another turn-on.

He looked like her first love, the man who’d married her and who’d then, finally,
finally
, made love to her. Her own chest labored to bring in more oxygen, but the added O
²
didn’t bolster her common sense. Instead, she . . . she yearned to touch him.

That yearning had her moving again—but toward him. She sprinted the ten yards and then skidded to a halt inches from his prone body. His expression was watchful, as usual giving nothing away.

It was her choice now. He’d pursued, she’d run, and now he’d left the next move in her hands.

“Do you want me?” she whispered.

Now
he laughed. Still splayed in the dirt between the rows, he let it all out. The sound tugged at the corners of her mouth. When the laughter subsided, he ran his hands through his dirty hair and looked up at her, amusement still lighting his face. “Sweetheart, what do you think? I’ve just been chasing your ass like a randy teenager.”

“My
fine
ass,” she said primly.

He grinned, and it was as if an anvil had been lifted from her heart. “Your
fine
ass.”

But it was still her choice, because he added no further persuasion. Liam Bennett was nothing if not stubborn. So was she, of course, which was why neither had done anything about that wedding certificate for the last ten years. They were staring at each other, she realized.

Still a game of who will blink first.

And then she did. She lowered her lashes at the same time that she lowered her hand to pull him to his feet. But Liam being Liam, take-charge, I’m-in-control-always, used the offer to yank her back down to his chest. Then he rolled again and she was underneath him, his mouth fastened to hers.

Caught!

Liam should have bet on it: Giuliana’s yielding only lasted a brief moment. Then she wrenched her lips from his. “We’re in the vineyard,” she cautioned. “Workers.”

He drew his mouth along her jaw. “There’s no one out here this morning.”

“Kohl—”

His head shot up. “Forget you ever heard his name.”

She made a little face. “Be reasonable.”

The admonition riled him. He’d been reasonable every damn day of his life—weighing options, making the smartest decisions under the circumstances, using a level head instead of listening to his heart. Always trying to do the best for his family. Where had it got him?