“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 agre
ed 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.
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?”
&nbs
p; 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.
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