Can't Hurry Love

by Christie Ridgway

  And ten growing seasons had passed since he’d held Giuliana in his arms.

  “Anyway,” she continued. “What do you have against the ice cream man? Dairy farmers love the guy.”

  His head snapped toward her, all thoughts of being pleasant and friendly flying—just like that—from his mind. “Is that it? You found some slick ‘farmer’ who said he loved you and that kept you away from . . . from your family?”

  She bristled. “I saw my family.”

  Now he did snort. “At Disneyland. You didn’t come back to the real world to face your real problems.”

  “I wasn’t aware of what was happening at Tanti Baci. You know that Papa kept the financial crisis from all of us until he knew he was dying.”

  “I’m not talking about the problems at Tanti Baci.”

  “Is this about you?” Her eyes narrowed. “Liam, if you’ve found someone—”

  “Damn it!” That was the problem. He hadn’t found anyone—not in the way she meant.

  She stiffened. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

  “I’m not.” He closed his eyes instead of tearing out his hair like he wanted to. His voice lowered and he evened out his breathing. “I’m talking to myself like that. I didn’t come over here to have this kind of conversation.”

  “What kind of conversation did you want?”

  He inhaled another calming breath. “Cordial. Neighborly.”

  “Really?” She blinked.

  “Really. Perhaps we could even find some area of mutual interest.”

  She looked suspicious. “What kind of mutual interest?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But we have things in common. Winemaking. Our family connections. Two of the guys I hang out with the most are newly married. Your two sisters as well.”

  “Do you have a mutual interest in wanting to smack them silly sometimes?”

  His lips twitched. “What gets you the most? The smug smiles when they’re with their spouse or the unseemly haste to get back to him or her when they’re apart?”

  “I’ve been half blinded by the rings my sisters are always flashing in my face.”

  “My ego’s permanently bruised by how many baseball games Penn and Jack are just too ‘busy’ to attend with me.”

  Giuliana was smiling at him now. A genuine smile. “Speaking of family . . . how’s your mom?”

  He appreciated the interest, especially since Jeanette had never gone out of her way to be friendly with the Bacis. “Okay. Seth and I visited her in New York last Christmas. She has her bridge and tennis cronies and I think is happy to be far away from the crap that came down on her after dad died.”

  “Calvin Bennett.” Giuliana shook her head. “He—”

  “Was a black-hearted son of a bitch.”

  She frowned. “I know he hurt your mother—”

  “You don’t know the half of what he did.” Liam felt his fingers curl into fists and forced them to relax. “But let’s not ruin all our newfound geniality with talk of him. I saw your cousin Gil and his wife, Clare, in the deli.”

  Giuliana rolled her eyes, but she was half smiling again. “Just more newlyweds flying high on cloud nine.” Then she hesitated and cocked her head. “Would you like to check out the chardonnay grapes? I wouldn’t mind your opinion.”

  And that she didn’t mind his company for five more minutes was a positive step, he figured. As they walked, she glanced up at him through the veil of her lashes. “I think we were right about here that night we went treasure hunting with the metal detector. Remember, the one you borrowed from Ed and Jed?”

  “I remember.”

  “I was fifteen, and half convinced we’d find the legendary Bennett-Baci silver.”

  “Not much hope of that.”

  “I know it now, but then—”

  “Not then, either.” He checked out the pure lines of her profile. “In the spirit of goodwill, I feel compelled to confess that the detector was broken that night. Ed and Jed had a replacement on order but were happy to let us play around with the defective one.”

  Her feet halted. “What? Why did you want to do that? We spent hours out here, until it was way past dark!”

  “Truth? I needed all the time I could get. I was working up my nerve to kiss you.”

  Her jaw dropped.

  “Alessandra was always tagging around after us, so I dreamed up the treasure-hunt idea, hoping she’d get tired of it sooner than later . . . which she did.”

  Giuliana just stared at him. “You . . . you . . .”

  “I apologize.”

  Her face flushed. “For the deception? Or the kiss?”

  “You remember it then.” They’d finally given up the hunt and were heading back to the farmhouse. Out by Anne and Alonzo’s cottage, they’d gotten into one of those adolescent horseplay matches—any excuse to touch—and he’d taken her down, frontier-wrestling style, onto the grass. Lying half across her, he’d brought his mouth to hers. “I won’t ever apologize for that.”

  Her head ducked. “You’d kissed other girls before me.”

  “I don’t remember them.” God’s truth.

  “Oh, Liam.” She looked up, her smile wry. “Penn’s charm must be rubbing off on you.”

  “Maybe.” He almost smiled back. I should have done this before. I should have tried to be her friend.

  A cloud of dust heralded the return of the vineyard tour group. He and Giuliana scooted close to the trellised vines to let the visitors pass. There were three middleaged couples, an elderly pair of women who carried walking sticks, and bringing up the rear was a family. The father had a small kid on his shoulders. The mother led a toddler by the hand who stumbled over Liam’s boots. Automatically he lifted the child to its feet, noticing the pronounced baby bump on the mom as he ushered the child into her arms.

  His gaze followed them as they hurried to catch up with the rest of the tour. Then he felt Giuliana’s eyes on him. He turned to her.

  “Nice,” she said. But the animation was gone from her face.

  “Jules . . .”

  “I don’t know how my mother did it. Three girls, one right after the other. Imagine how busy that woman will be when her new baby comes in—what? Two months or so?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “I don’t either, really.” Then she raised her brows. “Ready for the chardonnay, buddy?”

  Buddy. Jesus. Could he really make that work? “We should talk.”

  “Sure. About grapes. About our mutually annoying friends and relatives. About friendship.”

  “About before, Jules. About the future. Hell, about now. We have a problem.”

  She was already shaking her head as she turned away. “I can’t. We’ll have to wait. Four weeks.”

  He was responsible. A rational, logical person. And he’d already let too much time pass. “Giuliana,” he started. He’d been doing so well with this new neighborliness that he thought he had a hope to get through this as well. “Let’s be sensible. Grown-up.”

  She whipped around. “Don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m not.” But frustration was bubbling again.

  “Then just leave it alone. Leave me alone.”

  He couldn’t. “I won’t.” He stepped toward her.

  She scuttled back, then pivoted to walk past him. “See you later.”

  He grabbed her arm to hold her still.

  He hadn’t touched her in ten years.

  They both froze. The sensation of her skin under his hand jolted through his system. It electrified his skin, turned his veins to paths of fire, melted his brain.

  Intention tumbled one hundred eighty degrees. All his unsettling settled. He figured he was still as screwed as he’d been before touching her, but his mind was finally clear. The friend idea was fucked.

  Before he could do anything about that certainty, she wrenched free. He let her go—for now. It was time to find a Plan B.

  Giuliana squeezed out her sponge, re
ady to plunge her rubber-gloved arm back into the depths of the display refrigerator in the tasting room. The cold drinks she’d cleared from the racks were in an oversized cooler until she finished her cleaning.

  With her free left hand, she lifted her coffee and took another sip. It burned upon landing in her stomach, a signal that she needed to take in some solid food as well, but nothing had appealed to her appetite in days.

  “Are you okay?” Grace asked. The other woman was nearby, dusting the shelves that held glass decanters of local olive oil and fancy jars of special mustards.

  “I’m fine! Fine.” She modulated her voice. “Why wouldn’t I be fine?”

  “You just looked a little . . . stressed after that break you took earlier.”

  That break when she’d been confronted by Liam and his offer of friendship. God, for a moment she’d been seduced by the possibility. There he was, tan, golden-haired, and gorgeous, and she’d imagined confessing to him all that had been whirling around in her head—her dilemma, her conflicts, her choices. For a second she’d actually believed it could be as it was before Tuscany. That it could be like it was when they were kids. After her mother had died, he’d been her rock.

  But then he’d touched her. Just a simple graze of fingertips to flesh and she’d experienced a yearning that pierced both bone and heart. Getting close to him again, she’d realized, would only shatter her.

  She glanced over, noting that Grace was still studying her with concern. Panic added kindling to that burn in her belly. She couldn’t afford to have people speculating on her moods, not when she just had to get through the next few weeks. “I’m in a perfectly great place,” she assured the young woman. “What about you? Is Mari treating you all right?”

  “You didn’t look well even before you went into the vineyard,” Grace said. “You can’t be comfortable sleeping on that love seat in your office. You should stay at Mari’s, and I—”

  “No!” Giuliana said again. Kohl’s sister could ferret secrets from a stump. “I just have to remember to turn off the ringer on the winery phone. Someone kept calling last night and hanging up.”

  Grace shook her head. “Really, Giuliana. You should stay with Allie and Stevie. I’m surprised they don’t insist.”

  “I’m the big sister.” Giuliana smiled. “What I say goes.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Giuliana remembered Grace hadn’t grown up with anyone besides her odd and often bad-tempered father. “It seems like I was always looking after my little sisters. After my mother died, I considered myself in charge of them.” And I did okay, Mom, didn’t I? I know I stayed away from Edenville, but we did more than Disneyland together over the years when I lived in Southern California. “And now they’re happily married to two good men.”

  Grace ducked her head, her dust cloth running busily over a selection of different wineglasses.

  After her own bruising marriage, Grace was likely as leery of any male animal as Giuliana was of Liam. How bad had her husband been? “Grace—”

  A crash from outside the tasting room had them both whirling around. At the sound of Kohl’s cursing voice, Grace jumped. Her eyes went wide as he clomped into the room.

  “Who left the—” He broke off, his gaze focused on Giuliana’s face. “Are you okay?”

  She frowned at him. “Why are you asking me that? You should direct your question to Grace. Your stomping and swearing had her jumping out of her skin.”

  He glanced at the helper, looking a little ashamed. But though he quieted his voice, he stalked toward Giuliana. “You look like hell.”

  Another swig of coffee went down like battery acid. “I need to take a run into town and pick up some more makeup,” she said. “Allie lent me her stuff but clearly I need additional help.”

  Kohl grabbed the mug from her hand. “What you don’t need is more caffeine,” he said, heading for the sink behind the bar.

  Grace shrank against the shelves as he passed by. Her eyes didn’t leave his massive form. “He wouldn’t hurt you,” Giuliana whispered in assurance.

  “I know.” Grace didn’t take her eyes off him as she whispered back. “He wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

  Hmm, Giuliana thought. Most people kept their distance from Kohl because of his brawler reputation and his big size. I wonder—but the idea was lost as Kohl returned to her side.

  With a hand under her chin, he lifted her face. “You need new scenery. A good meal. Go out with me tonight.”

  She hesitated. Off the top of her head, she could think of half a dozen reasons to nip Kohl’s interest in the bud. Since she’d returned to Edenville, though, he’d been the one to nurse her New Year’s Eve hangover, the one to play buffer between herself and Liam, the one who could make her smile when she was swamped by distressing financial news. “Kohl . . .”

  “Go with me,” he insisted.

  “Go with you where?” Liam asked, as he strolled into the tasting room.

  Giuliana nearly groaned aloud. The three of them had been playing out this scene over and over for months. She’d be minding her own business only to discover herself once again the muddle in the middle of the rough-cut rogue and the sleek and sophisticated society guy. Alonzo, Anne, and the original Liam had worked through this same script themselves a hundred years before, and sometimes she wondered if the Baci land really was haunted. Maybe their modern-day struggle was being forced on them by specters bent upon reliving that old romantic triangle.

  “This is none of your business, Bennett,” Kohl ground out.

  Liam slid his hands in his pockets as his mouth curved in a smile that held no warmth. “You’d be surprised.”

  “Not now,” she warned them both. She turned back to her bucket and sponge. “We open in a couple of hours and I need to finish up here.”

  “Just say you’ll let me take you to dinner later and I’ll get out of your way,” Kohl said, moving close again.

  Giuliana felt Liam’s gaze on the back of her neck. “I’m cleaning out the files in my office tonight.”

  “You hear that, Friday?” Liam drawled. “Surely you know what it means when a woman says she has to stay home to clean her files. She might as well say she needs the night off to wash her hair.”

  Giuliana shot him a glare over her shoulder. “I’m really cleaning out the files in my office tonight.” Piece by piece, she was putting the business end of the winery to rights. By the end of the Vow-Over Weekend, she’d have everything in order.

  Liam’s gaze suddenly narrowed. “Are you okay?”

  With a frustrated grunt, she threw the sponge into the bucket. “What do I have to do? Take out an ad?” Then she stopped herself, wary of protesting too much. “What are you doing back here anyway, Liam?” Surely he didn’t want to start up with the friendship thing again. The fire in her stomach flared.

  He shrugged. “Jack called and said to meet him in the tasting room.”

  “Well, he isn’t here—”

  Well, he still wasn’t, but Allie and Penn entered. “I’m telling you,” her youngest sister was saying to her husband. “I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find my watch. The one that was my mother’s.”

  “I haven’t seen it,” Penn said. As he so often did, he had his fingers tangled in Allie’s long hair, as if he couldn’t help but keep her close.

  The memory of Liam’s hand on her rose again, but Giuliana pushed it back down. “I haven’t seen your watch, either. Why are you here?” she said to her sister. “You could have just called and asked.”

  Allie glanced over, then stared. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m strangling the next person who asks me that.”

  “It’s just that—”

  “On top of the medicine cabinet,” Grace piped up. “In the washroom adjacent to the winery’s reception area. Have you looked for it there?”

  Giuliana sent Grace a grateful look as Allie’s attention shifted. “You’re right. I remember I took it off when I washed my hands.” A
s she turned, she called over her shoulder, “Don’t let Stevie say anything until I get back.”

  “Stevie?”

  “She told Penn and I to meet her here,” her younger sister said.

  “But . . . why?”

  Nobody had the answer, it seemed, and there was no time for speculation. In a few short minutes, Allie was back, standing beside Penn, happy to be reunited with her heirloom. Then Stevie walked into the room with Jack, their hands entwined.

  If you asked Giuliana, it was the middle Baci sister that everyone should be worried about. Her usually sun-kissed complexion was pale and she was casting nervous looks around the room. “You’re all here,” she said.

  Grace put down her dust cloth. “This looks like a private—”

  “No.” Stevie waved off the concern. “Stay. It’s time I told everyone.” Then her gaze found Giuliana’s. “It’s time I told you.”

  It’s time I told you. Giuliana froze, those words sinking like stones into her consciousness. Her mind moved back in time. Instead of the winery’s tasting room, she was in her parents’ bedroom, sitting on her parents’ bed, her mother’s hand thin and cold in hers. Elena Baci had been propped up by pillows and covered by a quilted cotton throw stained by the strawberry jam that Stevie had spilled that morning when she’d delivered a breakfast tray. As Elena traced it, Giuliana saw that it was shaped like a ragged heart. You’ll have to take good care of your sisters for me, she’d said to her oldest daughter. Don’t worry, you’ll be a wonderful mother.

  It was a chilly sixty degrees in the wine caves, but she hadn’t noticed the cold while scrubbing the refrigerator. Now it seeped into the pores of her skin and slowed the flow of the blood through her veins. Only her belly burned as she pulled away from the past and stared at her middle sister. Oh, God, she thought, her mouth soundlessly repeating the words. I can’t lose anyone else.

  Stevie cleared her throat. “I have some news.”

  Jack slipped his arm around his wife. Giuliana didn’t look at him, afraid what she might see on his face. She averted her gaze from everyone, her eyes on the rubber of her thongs and the dusting of reddish Baci dirt that stuck to them, just like the old pain and sadness had adhered to the surface of her heart.