Can't Hurry Love (22 page)

“Yeah, and there was a problem I needed to address immediately. When I got here, I saw the light on in the cottage.”

“He hit you over the head when you came inside?” she asked.

“Apparently his plan was to get me to lure you here with a call when I came to. Then he’d tie you up, too, and start a fire.” Thinking about it, Liam wished he’d been rougher when wrestling the gun away. And that he’d gotten in a few head drops himself, after he’d put a stop to Giuliana. “Crazy son of a bitch.”

“
Superstitious
, crazy son of a bitch.”

“Smart woman, to keep his attention like that—the Dick and Balls incident?”

A small smile curved her lips. “It bought us some time.”

Neither one of them mentioned those mysterious and well-timed popping corks.

She cocked her head, studying him. “But what brought you here?”

Stalling, he slid his hands into his pockets and worried the item he’d tucked into the right one. “Uh . . .” A good excuse didn’t immediately occur to him.

Giuliana ran her hand along the back of one of the benches, then slid onto the seat, in the exact place she’d been the night before when he’d come around. Finding her there, at the mercy of the man who’d just knocked him out, had taken him from quasi-conscious to fully awake in a split second.

“How’s your head?” she asked, as if she could read his mind.

He struggled to keep his composure, still plagued by that memory of her confronting the man with the gun. “This past week has been a revelation, in more ways than one. Turns out my head’s damn hard.”

She smiled. “No surprise to me.”

“We’re both stubborn.” He hesitated. “I guess that’s why neither one of us filed for divorce.”

“You’d guess wrong.”

“Yeah.” He blew out a breath. “That wasn’t it.”

And then all his cool fled. One second he was standing by the door, and the next he was at her feet, his head in her lap, his arms around her waist. “Jules,” he said. “Jules, I love you.”

To hell with Calvin Bennett and whatever legacy he’d left behind. Liam would love this woman generously or die trying—he wasn’t giving her up this time without a fight. “I love you so much.”

She curled over him, her hands in his hair. “I’ve never been so happy to hear anything in my whole life.”

He looked up, into her beautiful face, his heart feeling too big for his chest. “You’re crying.” His thumbs brushed at her tears.

And just like the day before, she smiled through them. “And so are you.”

He thought he owed them to her. “God, Jules. I didn’t have the words to tell you how sorry I was about our baby.”

“I understand that now.” She stroked his hair back from his forehead. “I shouldn’t have run away. I should have run
to
you and then maybe we could have figured out the words together.”

“I don’t know. I was pretty messed up.”

“Then let’s talk about the present. Now, I think we can make this work. Stevie told me something about Jack. She said he makes her feel safe and that’s what you do for me, too. Take last night—I knew that together we’d be all right.”

“I hope to God that’s the last time we’re put to the test.”

“Oh, I suppose we’ll be tested again, don’t you? We probably know better than most people that it takes more than . . .”

“Love,” he said, adamant. “Passion.”

She nodded. “That it takes more than love and passion to make a relationship work.”

“I need to realize I can’t—and shouldn’t—smother my feelings.”

“I need to be willing to risk loss.” She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Are we up to it?”

“Damn straight.” His hands cupping her face, he brought her mouth to his for a sweet, sealing kiss.

When she broke away, they were both already breathing hard. “I’m still not clear on why you came to the cottage this morning.”

His gaze slid away from hers. “Do you have to know?”

“Now that you asked that?” In her gaze, he glimpsed the often pesky girl of his childhood. “Of course.”

He put his hand in his right pocket. “You’ll laugh.”

“Only better and better.” And she did laugh when he shot her a disgruntled look. “Okay, I won’t.” Despite her primmed mouth, her eyes danced.

“The cottage seemed like a good place to think.” Though he’d made up his mind the day before, when he’d spotted her in the vines. When he’d seen her with a baby in her arms and realized that he couldn’t protect her or himself from hurt and loss. It had been absolutely clear at that moment that he wanted to face life and death with Giuliana, not without her. “An experience like we had last night . . . it can clarify things.”

The person who knew him best in the world shoved at his shoulder. “You are so full of it. That’s not why you came.”

It felt good to laugh himself. “Fine. I’m a sentimental fool. I was looking for their blessing. And for a little good luck. I’m here to get Anne and Alonzo’s ghostly okay on this.” Withdrawing his hand from his pocket, he presented her with the glass bead bracelet that he’d found beneath the pillows of his bed. “We’ll get a ring, too, but . . .”

Her expression went serious, and her eyes filled, again, with tears. He thought it was a good sign. “Liam Bennett, you
are
a sentimental fool,” she whispered.

“I already said that.” He was still kneeling at her feet, so he had to duck his head to catch her gaze with his. “Giuliana, will you marry me?”

“Yes, I’ll marry you.” She launched herself forward, and he caught her in his arms. “I already said that, too.”

His heart beat hard against hers. “It bears repeating.”

It wasn’t their only do-over. They spoke their vows again, in front of family and friends at the fiftieth celebration of the wedding wine. Liam watched his wife walk down the aisle in Anne and Alonzo’s cottage, feeling just like Penn. He barely suppressed beating his chest as she drew nearer.

She carried pink and purple orchids and had a few tucked in the upsweep of her hair. Her dress hugged her small waist and then belled in unadorned layers of some frothy fabric. Ed and Jed from the hardware store claimed she looked just like Audrey Hepburn. Stevie had whispered that a nearby bridal shop and the local alterations expert had colluded to get it ready in record time.

He had a fondness for her “You Had Me at Merlot” T-shirt and would have requested that if asked. But this was better.

“You take my breath,” he whispered, when she put her hand in his.

She squeezed his fingers. “It’s happy-ever-after this time.”

They pursued that on a return trip to Tuscany. As she’d reclaimed the cottage, they both wanted to reclaim the joy of that long-ago summer. In bed, as the sun rose on their first honeymoon morning, she rolled her head on her pillow to look at him. “I’ve forgotten all my Italian.”

He laughed, because it was yet another replay. “You know the most important word,” he murmured to her, as he had ten years before. “
Baciami
, Giuliana.
Baciami
.”

Kiss me.

Liam kept only one secret from his bride—that of his father’s feelings for her mother and the real meaning behind the red rosebushes at the end of the rows in the Bennett vineyards. He went back and forth with what to do with them. It wasn’t until they were nearing the end of their three weeks in Tuscany that the right answer occurred to him and he called Penn for assistance.

When they arrived back in Edenville, the traditional bushes were still in place in the vineyards. Instead of pulling them out, he’d had another planted near the front door of the Bennett house. It flowered there, a hybrid that bloomed with both red
and
white roses—a symbol of their united families and a gift to welcome his Baci girl home.

Epilogue

Molly Michaels was getting married in the morning. Not really. She was only thirteen years old and a mere junior bridesmaid (though so much better than being a babyish flower girl like her younger cousin!) and it was fun to pretend it was her wedding scheduled for Saturday morning in the Tanti Baci cottage.

She played make-believe during the entire rehearsal, then was cut loose while the photographer took even more pictures of her big sister and the college guy who was her fiancé. Her dad thought they weren’t old enough for marriage, but her mom reminded him they’d been the exact same age when they’d said “I do.” Her Grandma Delle had rolled her eyes and said, “
Young love
.” Like it was a disease. (Molly thought it sounded interesting, now that she was thirteen.)

Outside the cottage, she ran into one of her best friends, Fab Parini, whose family part-owned the winery. At school, the students thought Fab was short for Fabiana, but at their last sleepover, Molly had crossed her heart and hoped to die before finding out that Fab’s real name was Monique and Fab was short for Fabulosa, something silly her relatives had taken to calling her before she was born. Molly loved that story and wasn’t surprised because the Parinis all had exotic names. There was Fab’s little sister, Suzette, as well as her eight-year-old twin brothers Mario and Alonzo (who were pretty adorable when they weren’t sticking grapes up their noses and telling fart jokes).

Fab’s brothers and sister were hanging around the grapes, clamoring for a game of hide-and-seek in the vines. Fab said they had to wait until their cousins finished up the homework they were doing in their mom, Alessandra Bennett’s, office. They were seven and five, so it didn’t take very long before Elena and Sam were milling about, too.

Molly was torn about participating. While she was bored with standing around, she didn’t know if she wanted to chance getting dirty when she had on a very pretty pink dress with puff sleeves and her mom had let her wear a tiny dab of mascara and a swipe of lip gloss (well, her mom hadn’t noticed that Molly had dabbed the mascara and swiped on the lip gloss—weddings were all consuming for mothers of the bride, she’d discovered). She was still undecided when Fab’s other girl cousin, nine-year-old Devon Bennett, arrived. But then Devon’s brother appeared on-scene and Molly’s interest piqued. Liam Bennett (but everybody called him Lee, on account of his dad having the same first name) was a grade younger than Molly. But he was already a head taller, with blond hair, blue eyes, and square shoulders that looked as if they belonged on a high-schooler.

Molly heard he played basketball, baseball,
and
piano. He glanced at her as he joined his passel of young relatives, all of them talking at once, arguing about the rules of the game. “Wanna play?” he asked.

A little tingle warmed the pit of her stomach. She looked down at her pretty pink dress and then up at the very, very cute boy. “Sure,” she said. Young love. (If it was a disease, how come she felt so happy catching it?)

AUTHOR’S NOTE

As has been mentioned in the other Three Kisses books,
Crush on You
and
Then He Kissed Me
, the Napa Valley is designated as an agricultural preserve, which restricts the kinds of events that can be hosted at the area wineries. Over the years, the rules have been challenged and revised. For my fictional purposes, the “I-dos” will go forward at Tanti Baci forever.

I would like to acknowledge my early-morning walking buddies, Lisa and Micki, who are kind enough to listen to me hash out my stories as we stride along. Their interested ears are on either side of their smart and busy brains, and they’ve helped me unknot a plot tangle more than once. Thank you so much!

Titles by Christie Ridgway

HOW TO KNIT A WILD BIKINI
UNRAVEL ME
DIRTY SEXY KNITTING

CRUSH ON YOU
THEN HE KISSED ME
CAN’T HURRY LOVE