Can't Hurry Love (9 page)

The dress was satiny, the color a dawn-pale pink splashed with tropical flowers in black. It was close-fitting, following the curves of her hips to her small waist, up her rib cage to the wide, U-shaped neckline cut low enough to expose the rise of her breasts. Narrow straps clung to her shoulders and he could tell it dipped low in the back, too. Her hair, shiny as a crow’s wing, hung in a straight waterfall.

Long jet earrings hung from her ears. Her eyes were made up to look more dark and mysterious and her mouth shone a sheer pink color.

At the foot of the staircase, she looked up at him, a black clutch purse in her hand and some sort of matching wrap folded over her arm. She took him in, too, but he was nothing as exotic as her in his summer-weight ivory trousers, open shirt, and blue blazer. Another long minute stretched by while he continued to stare. Her brows drew together. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

“I can’t,” he answered, honest. “Because there aren’t words that would do you justice.”

She pressed her lips together and a little dimple winked out, evidence of the smile she was working so hard not to release. “Okay then.”

A hint of a spicy-sweet perfume drew him forward. He took the wrap off her arm and dropped it over her shoulders.

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “What nice manners you have.”

Little Red Riding Hood to the wolf. Oh, little did she know how wolfish he felt tonight. Right now he was itching to take a bite. “I was raised to know what fork to use,” he only said.

They headed toward the foyer. He’d pulled his Mercedes up to the front. As they crossed the threshold it struck him—how weird as hell it was to be going to a dinner party with Giuliana at his side. As his wife. They’d had that passionate weekend in Reno and then those too-short weeks as newlyweds in Tuscany. But like this . . . in his house in Edenville . . .

This is how it could be
, he thought, taking in another breath of her tantalizing perfume. Maybe it was what they both needed to experience before being able to move on.

He looked down at her dark head and put his hand at the small of her back as they descended the porch steps. Her dress was sleek; her body warm. He felt another rush of that weirdness that wasn’t weird at all, he realized. The thought struck him again.

This is how it could be.

“Speaking of manners,” Giuliana mused, as he reached for the passenger door, “I would have thought His Honor the Mayor and Bev Allen would have given more advance notice of their party tonight.”

He frowned down at her. “I’ve known about it for a month. I already had it on my calendar.”

“Oh.” Her gaze dropped. “Maybe . . . maybe I shouldn’t come. I wasn’t invited.”

“Of course you were invited. You talked to Bev yourself yesterday morning.”

Embarrassed color flagged her cheeks, and she worried her small purse in a nervous gesture. “Because they think I’m your wife now. Before—when I was just a Baci, I wasn’t on the guest list.”

He wanted to groan. Instead he kept his tone reasonable. “Well, you are my wife. Now, before, for the past ten years.”

“It wasn’t real—”

“It
was
real. It’s always
been
real.” Okay, he had to keep his cool, but his movements were jerky as he found the door handle and yanked at it. He wanted her with him tonight, damn it.

“Get your fine ass inside, please.” Even to his own ears he sounded as frustrated as he felt. So much for cool.

She obeyed, sliding into the seat but keeping her profile to him when he took his place on the driver’s side. “It’s just that my fine ass doesn’t feel like being a second-thought, second-class-citizen fine ass,” she said.

She wasn’t second to anyone, and she should know it. “Your fine ass isn’t invited to more parties because you’re a pain in the ass,” he muttered.

“That’s not true,” she protested. “Face it, the Bacis have never existed in the same social strata in the Napa Valley as the Bennetts. You’re the Haves and we’re the Have Too Littles.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You’re blind to the truth.”

This is how it could be.
The words came back to smack him in the face. Yeah, they could be going at each other like this twenty-four/seven.

A half mile of silence later, she spoke again, her voice small. “Do you really think I have a fine ass?”

He sucked in his cheeks so he wouldn’t smile. “First class all the way. Nobody in Napa has one better.”

“It’s Allie’s dress,” she said. “So tight I had to go commando, but for that compliment it might be worth it.”

His hands jerked the wheel. The Mercedes pulled right, and he tightened his hold to wrench it straight. A lesser car would have fishtailed from his lack of finesse. “For God’s sake, Jules.” Commando!

“What?”

He gave her a sour glance. “You haven’t been able to manage that innocent look since you let me get to second base on New Year’s Eve eleven years ago. Remember—”

“I remember! I remember!” She whacked his shoulder with her hand. “Yeesh. You don’t have to play dirty like that.”

“You started it.” He shook his head. “Commando, Jules. C’mon. Give me a break.”

“Fine.” She humphed.

The bounce she made against the leather seat made him think of her naked behind again and he almost lost his hold on the wheel for the second time.
This is how it could be.

Still, he discovered he was smiling as he pulled up to the mayor’s house. Pulling her hand to the crook of his arm, he led her from the car to the door. “For the record,” he whispered, ducking his head against hers, “I like playing dirty with you.”

She was smiling, too, as they walked into the party, the couple everyone was eager to see.

Yeah, he didn’t fully realize that until they’d made their way to the living room. He had a hell of a lot more sympathy for Giuliana’s nervousness now, as he saw that they were the focus of every eye. The place was full of two dozen or more movers and shakers of Edenville and its environs.

“My youngest sister is married to a TV star,” he heard her murmur, and he suspected she was giving herself a little pep talk. “My other sister is an Ardenian princess.”

“Even better, Stevie knows how to adjust a carburetor,” Liam pointed out.

Giuliana stilled. Then she looked up and flashed him a brilliant smile. “I take back some of the mean thoughts I’ve had about you.”

“Some?” That sounded like progress. “Exactly how many?”

She mulled a moment. “Two,” she said, and then she was moving away from him to hold out her hand to the mayor and then his wife. Her smile continued on its full-wattage setting and her earlier nervousness must have evaporated because she exuded confidence while mingling with the others in the room.

Nursing a glass of a Russian River Valley pinot, he watched her from a spot by the bar. She had a killer body. Now womanly and ripe. He couldn’t look away from the changing expressions on her face. She was shaking her head sometimes, chuckling softly at others, on occasion flicking him a glance over her shoulder. People were grilling her on their marriage, he realized, as he caught snippets of the conversation even at this distance.

. . . youthful impulse . . .

. . . too long apart . . .

. . . came to our senses this last year . . .

With the exception of that last one, she spoke the truth. And even then, well, they had to come to their senses and do something about the situation, didn’t they? She threw another bright glance at him over her smooth-skinned shoulder. He smiled at her, toasting her performance with his glass.

He was so damn proud of her.

Her lashes fell and rose just a little, the look flirtatious now. His belly tightened, and he thought about walking over, putting his arm around her waist, and heaving her across his shoulder, caveman style. They’d go home, he’d peel her out of that dress—wait, she was commando, he’d shove up the hem of that dress—

And it hit him again.
It could be like this.

“I’m so happy to see the two of you together,” a female voice said at his elbow.

Resigned, Liam turned. He shouldn’t have expected to duck all the relationship flack. Rex and Janice Sandburg stood beside him, both beaming. They had kids the same age as Liam and Giuliana and he’d known the entire family all his life, just as they’d known both his parents and Mario and Elena Baci.

He shook hands with Rex and leaned over to brush a salute on Janice’s cheek. “How are you both? Sunny and Dan?”

They were distracted by telling him of their recent trip around the Greek isles followed by a detailed account of the marriage of their daughter, Sunny, in Kauai. “She thought about the Baci winery, but there wasn’t an open date that worked.”

“It’s a popular spot,” he agreed. A year ago he’d had doubts, but the Baci sisters—as Penn would say—were scary. What they wanted, they got. His eyes lifted to find Giuliana still working the crowd.

“So it’s really true?” Rex asked, following the direction of his gaze. “You two kids eloped and then had a falling out?”

Liam nodded. “That’s right.”

“It’s so romantic.” Janice sighed.

Ten years apart? Sure. “Like
Titanic
,” he murmured.

“What’s that?” Janice tilted her head.

“I was just agreeing with you. Romantic.”

Rex sidled closer and lowered his voice. “So . . . what went wrong?”

He’d made so many mistakes. The thought of them sent his stomach pitching. He should never have left her in Tuscany. He should have told her what was going on at home. Afterward, he should have found some way to tell her everything he was feeling.

Why hadn’t he done that? Why hadn’t he
been able
to do that?

And why were all his missteps so easy to identify now?

“Liam?” Rex prodded him with his elbow.

“I . . .” His hand tightened on his wineglass and he searched the crowd again, his lurching stomach subsiding as he once again identified her dark head. While he saw Penn as the sunny twin, the opposite of his grimmer personality, just the sight of Giuliana seemed to balance him.

It could be like this . . .

For the rest of our lives.

Rex and Janice were staring at him, he realized. “I’m sorry.” He swallowed some of the spicy pinot. “What were we saying?”

Janice had a misty look in her eyes. “I’m just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that one generation of Bennetts and Bacis might finally get the love they want.”

He was trying to wrap his mind around that as well. But he attempted to keep it light. “So you suppose my great-great-grandfather and Giuliana’s great-great-grandparents would approve?”

Janice ducked her head to stare into her glass of strawcolored wine. “I’m actually thinking more of your father, Liam.”

“Dad?”

Rex cleared his throat. “Janice . . .”

“The boy has a right to know,” she answered her husband. “I think there’s been too many secrets between the two families.”

Liam couldn’t refute that. He grimaced. “Plenty of Dad’s came to light when he died.” Infidelity, illegitimate children, enough truth had come out that people realized that Calvin Bennett wasn’t the straight arrow he’d fooled the world—though not Liam—into believing for so very long.

“Your father was unhappy—not that it gave him the right to do what he did to your mother, that’s for sure.”

Liam let go a short laugh. “Screwing around on his wife bummed him out?”

“He was in love with someone else, Liam,” Janice said. “He’d been in love with one person since he was as young as you were when you married Giuliana.”

Yeah, he was in love with his own reflection, the selfish bastard.

“It tainted him, I think,” she continued. “He didn’t know how to love her generously—and the way to do that was by letting her go.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The women who’d born the illegitimate Bennetts had not known Calvin when he was that young. Neither could be the object of his father’s unrequited—and alleged—romance. “Who do you mean?”

“You know the rosebushes you still plant at the beginning and end of each row in a Bennett vineyard?”

They were a dark red, the color of a wounded heart. “My father insisted. It’s even written into his will, that tradition.”

“One your father restarted as a young man. There’d been no roses in Bennett vineyards for years before that. He had them planted as testament to his undying love—a love he would never let her forget.”

Tainted
, undying love. Uneasiness crawled down Liam’s spine. “Undying love for who?”

Janice hesitated. “Surely you can guess.”

He shifted his gaze away, moving it around the other partygoers. Then, and as if he’d summoned her, a woman emerged from the milling guests and started walking toward him. A beautiful woman. His wife, coming closer. Soon, he’d be able to reach out and stroke her silky hair, her warm cheek.

“Who?” he asked Janice again, his voice rough. “My father had an undying love for
who
?”

Another woman was heading off Giuliana, touching her arm just as Janice whispered into his ear.

“Elena Baci,” Janice murmured. “Your father was in love with Giuliana’s mother.”

Elena Baci? His fingers closed into a fist as Janice’s words echoed in his head.
It tainted him, I think. He didn’t know how to love her generously.

It couldn’t be like this with Giuliana, then. He wouldn’t let it.

9

Giuliana had felt Liam’s gaze following her since they’d parted ways. It had warmed her and she’d looked around more than once to share a glance with him. Those . . . warmed her, too. Now she headed his way, drawn by the appreciative light in his eyes and the open expression on his face. But before she got to him, another partygoer snagged her.

“Come with me,” Sally Knowles said. “There’s someone you need to talk to.”

Giuliana found herself being pulled in the opposite direction of her husband. A glance over her shoulder made her frown, the starkness that had returned to Liam’s face puzzling. When she tried to catch his eye, his gaze purposefully shifted away from her.

Giuliana felt like the bodice of Allie’s dress had shrunk two sizes. He was sliding away from her again. Since the day before when she’d shared with Liam about the mugging, their relationship had taken a new turn. There’d been more ease in the atmosphere inside the house. They’d had another dinner together and he’d made her another latté before he’d driven her to work that morning.

Sue her, she’d been thrilled at his notice of her “fine ass.” She’d wanted to laugh when he’d claimed to enjoy playing dirty with her.

They’d been getting close again, and she couldn’t make herself regret it. At different times in her life he’d been her playmate, her co-adventurer, her first love. They’d always be the oldest siblings of their respective—and eternally entangled—families. Their unhappy breakup couldn’t erase all that, and it didn’t take a shrink to realize it would be healthier for them both to be . . . amicable.

Sally tugged her forward again, and Giuliana let herself be moved, even as she took another backward glance at Liam. His face was shuttered and she couldn’t guess what he was thinking, though there was a new tension in every line of his body. Maybe it was her Ms. Responsible attitude again, maybe it was the memory of all the good times they’d had when they were young, but she hated seeing him like this.

Where did he go and why? She wanted to find that place and yank him from it, bringing him back to the world of flesh and blood.

She wanted to be with him. “Sally . . .”

“Here she is,” the other woman said, pushing her toward a small knot of people, which included a thirtysomething man with longish hair and an arty stubble around his mouth. “Alexander Murphy, meet Giuliana Baci, who has saved her family winery.”

Alexander Murphy was a journalist. Sally let her know he’d won prizes and wrote travel pieces as well as reports on the economy. The article he was researching was a twofer, which would include information on how the Napa Valley was faring in this particular financial climate.

“So we want to give him good news,” Sally said, smiling. “He talked to my daughter Clare about her boutiques. My son-in-law, Gil, told Alex that his car-repair business is busier than ever.”

“But there are a lot of properties for sale in the valley,” the writer pointed out. “Homes. Vineyards. Wineries. I don’t believe it’s all pop-culture memorabilia flying off the shelves and endless queues of autos lining up for oil changes.”

Alex Murphy had a cynical edge to him, but she couldn’t fault him for that. “We’ve weathered the phylloxera epidemic, Prohibition, and all kinds of pests,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll weather this.”
Some of us.

“You and your sisters are stabilizing Tanti Baci by adding a new revenue stream with weddings, I hear.”

She shrugged. “We decided to give it a year.”

“Culminating in something called the—” He glanced at Sally.

“Vow-Over Weekend,” the older woman supplied.

“I’d like to know more about that,” Alex said. “Can I visit sometime?”

Allie would have her head if she heard about this request and Giuliana hadn’t extended a welcoming red carpet. At the end of the month she’d have enough to atone for. “Of course.” She smiled at him. “One of us will give you a personal tour.”

His gaze dropped for just a second to her cleavage. It was a glance more appreciative than lascivious, so she didn’t move away. “What about you?” he asked, that appreciation gleaming in his eyes. “Can I put in a special appeal to have you assigned as my private guide?”

Her mouth opened. Then a hand covered the cap of her shoulder. Male body heat radiated at her back. “Sorry to interrupt, Giuliana,” Liam said. “They’re calling us to dinner.”

“Sure. Right.” Embarrassment wrapped the back of her neck and traveled upward like a burn. She supposed he felt it as he rested his hand lightly on her nape to guide her toward the small tables set up on the terrace. Did he think she was flirting with the journalist? She hadn’t been, of course, but maybe she looked guilty because she hadn’t introduced the two men.

She slid Liam a glance, trying to explain. “Allie will squeal with happiness. That guy’s with the media and he’s interested in Tanti Baci.”

“I see.” His voice stayed even, his walk sedate. “She won’t be so gleeful if you demonstrate interest in a man besides the husband with whom you just reconciled.”

Demonstrate interest!
She hadn’t been doing any such thing, not in the way he meant. Was he . . . could he possibly be jealous? “Liam—”

“Think of the winery,” he said, in that maddeningly dispassionate manner of his. “Think of your sisters, me, my family. We’ve all got a financial stake in it—so let’s try to keep this farce going until the last weekend in June—all right?”

All wrong! She was
always
thinking of the winery, thank you very much, and the financial pressure both families were under as a consequence. And . . . Her Italian temper caught, then flared hot. “
Farce?
”

“Calm down.” He pulled out the chair at the place assigned to her. “We agreed to keep up the appearance that we’ve reconciled and that we’re glad we’re married. The legend, remember.”

“But ‘farce’?” she said to him under her breath as he took the seat beside hers. “A farce implies some kind of fun, and FYI, I’m not having fun. Furthermore, let me give you a tiny bit of advice. Never, ever tell a woman to ‘calm down.’ ”

“Relax.”

She stared at the lovely silverware, gleaming in the light from votive candles flickering in centerpieces of ivy and gardenias.
Relax.
Somebody ought to give her a medal, she decided, for not stabbing him with her salad fork.

But now he was back to appearing supremely untroubled, again, his posture relaxed, his attitude courteous as he spoke with the other four who joined them at their table. So she decided to act as unperturbed as he. With a winemaker’s conviviality as part of her DNA, she chatted, she laughed, she even got up to visit a few other tables between courses. Without even glancing at Liam’s reaction, she paused beside Alex Murphy and made a point to tell him the directions to Tanti Baci and their hours of operation.

By the time the final course, coffee, and dessert wines were offered, she was feeling pleased with herself and the entire evening. Her initial nervousness was gone. She could manage anyone and anything, including the ice-filled crevasse that separated her from Liam. Just a few more weeks of this “farce,” and then it would all be over.

After she and Liam said their good-byes to the host and hostess, Giuliana decided to make a stop at the powder room. Another woman was waiting for it to open up. Sally Knowles smiled at her. “Enjoy your evening?”

“Absolutely.”

The older woman looked at the still-closed powder room door, let out a little sigh, then turned back to Giuliana. “Stevie’s feeling better?”

Giuliana started. “What?”

“She and Jack were on the guest list for tonight. I heard they begged off at the last minute because your sister wasn’t feeling well.”

Giuliana’s mouth was dry. “She’s pregnant.”

“It’s all over town.” Sally was nodding and smiling again. “I—”

The rest of the sentence was lost as Giuliana rushed toward the entrance, where Liam was waiting with her things. Another time she might have giggled—men always looked so hopelessly helpless with a purse in their big hands.

But she was the one feeling hopelessly helpless as she snatched it from him. Did he sense it? Liam caught her, his big hands warm on her cold shoulders. “Jules?”

“Stevie isn’t well.” The words came out with odd clicks, because her mouth was still so dry. “She couldn’t come to dinner. I need to call.” Her fingers trembled on the tiny latch of the satin clutch.

But when she had her cell in her hands, Liam plucked it away. “No,” he said, ushering her out the door with an arm behind her back.

“I have to call!”

“And alarm her with your panic?” He inserted her into the passenger seat of his waiting car.

“You don’t understand,” she said, as he settled beside her. She pressed her fist to her heart to ease its agitated fluttering.

He gave her a look. “I talked to Jack earlier tonight. Your sister was tired and didn’t feel up to a long evening.”

“I want to talk to her.” Her phone was in his pocket.

“In the morning,” he said, composed as always.

He was right. She supposed he was right. But her spine didn’t touch her seat back as they made the short drive to Liam’s house. Her heart continued to pound.

She slid a glance at Liam’s profile, edged with the light from the dashboard. He was impossibly handsome, completely remote, and she wondered if he even had a pulse. Nothing, she thought, nothing ever really touched him.

He parked beside the front steps. His hand was hard on hers as he pulled her out of the car. They mounted the steps together. She tried to appreciate his steadiness. A rock might be cold, but it was solid, wasn’t it?

With his hand on the surface of the door, he hesitated. Then he half turned, his gaze in the direction of the vineyards that surrounded the property. “God.”

Giuliana straightened, her eyes riveted to his face. Liam Bennett never betrayed any kind of mood and she hesitated to speak, fearing to interrupt the moment when she thought he just might.

“Ghosts. Legends. Lost loves,” he murmured.

She held her breath. Was he finally going to reveal some of his thoughts? Was he going to let her into his inner sanctum? She’d been waiting for an invitation for longer than a decade but now stayed silent, unsure if he was even aware of speaking aloud or that she was still beside him, her hand in his. Then he turned his head, his gaze pinning her.

She felt her heart pound even harder, wondering what truth he might reveal and wondering how it might affect this new relationship she’d thought they were building.

“Giuliana,” he said, in a musing tone. “Do you ever get the feeling that we’re cursed?”

Kohl walked out of the Baci vineyard, following his habitual morning survey, to find two of the three Baci sisters set up on one of the tables in the picnic area, going over paperwork. He didn’t blame them for the location. Tanti Baci didn’t open for tastings or tours until eleven A.M., and this peaceful early morning should be enjoyed out-of-doors. It calmed the hell out of him. He’d stayed out of bars and kept clear of Grace Hatch for the last couple of days and now he felt almost normal.

Ordinary. He smiled at the thought. Maybe everything was getting back to ordinary.

He approached Stevie and Allie across the gravel parking lot. They looked up and smiled as he stood beside their table. “How are you, Kohl?” Steve asked.

Ordinary. “Good.” He remembered Giuliana encouraging him to engage a little more in social niceties and he figured that’s what an ordinary guy would do. “Uh, how are you?” He made a vague gesture. “And what’s-it?”

She laughed, looking down at the slight curve of her belly. “We’ve been trying to come up with names. I’ll add What’s-It to the list.”

Allie cast a glance at her, then at the nearly full bottle of apple juice beside her. “Well, you and What’s-It better start downing the liquids. Jack’s decided you’re dehydrated and that’s why you’re so tired all the time.”

“Jack’s suddenly become an expert on all things pregnancy,” Stevie said. “It’s endearing, but suffocating at the same time.”

Kohl sympathized with Stevie’s husband. Like every other male he knew, Jack was a man of action, and being at the mercy of some tiny creature growing inside his wife’s womb had to take a hell of a lot of patience.