Newton Smalls backed away from her evident temper, but his movement only served to further stretch his stained shirt. He blinked down at her, both hands raised in a placating gesture. “Now, Alessandra . . .”
“We had a deal, Newton.”
“I gave you a deal, you know that. But I can’t afford to turn down a better paying job. My sister’s husband called. He needs me for a spec house in Oregon and the pay is good if I get there right away.”
Two more young women hurried up, obvious kin to Wedding Dress Girl. Dark-haired, dark-eyed beauties, all three. One of the newcomers was tall and capable-looking. The other was shorter, with sharper edges, or maybe that was just because of the look she threw like a knife at Liam.
His half brother stiffened. “Christ, Jules, I’m just the messenger. You can’t blame me for Newton bugging out because I’m the one who discovered it.”
“You’re trespassing,” she hissed at him.
He sucked in a breath, his expression hardening. “Giuliana, the Bennetts may be silent partners, but we still have a stake here.”
The taller young woman took her life in her hands and stepped between the invisible blades swishing through the air. She held out her hand to Penn. “Stephania Baci—Stevie. That’s my older sister, Giuliana, and the strangely dressed creature is Alessandra, the youngest of the three of us.”
“Penn Bennett,” he said, accepting her firm shake.
“The bastard,” she added, then grimaced. “Sorry. Maybe you don’t care for irreverence.”
“I’m a big fan of irreverence,” he assured her. He liked this forthright Baci, though his gaze wandered toward Wedding Dress Girl again. She’d left off manhandling the construction foreman in order to reach into the truck bed and lift out one of the items just loaded.
“You’ll need this to get back to work.” She was so little, the air compressor nearly toppled her over.
Penn found himself stepping forward again, only to halt as Newton plucked the heavy contraption out of her hands. “Alessandra, I don’t have time for this.”
“I don’t have time to find someone else to do the job!” she countered, and wrapped her hands around a 2 x 4 that she drew from the top of a stack of wood resting in the truck’s bed. As she pulled, a sparkly thing caught in her hair fell free. She tripped on it, going to the ground in a tumble of white skirts and striped-cotton legs.
Penn closed half the distance between them before she was up on her rubber thongs again, her temper at fever level if the flush on her face and on her over-exposed breasts was anything to go by. She had a small mouth with puffy lips that were two shades redder than her cheeks. It was one of those mouths that had a man thinking of something more than kissing. Put that together with the dark wavy hair, and he could just imagine twisting his fingers in those silky strands to urge her forward and, well . . .
If he wasn’t a guy burned out on trouble and women, then he might have been seriously turned on by the small, sexy package. Except he was a guy burned out on trouble and women and if the odd outfit she was wearing was anything to go by, a bad temper wasn’t her worst fault.
She was trying to get to the items in the truck again, but Newton was blocking her way. Steam came out of her ears and she stomped a foot, scattering gravel. “This isn’t right!”
“We agreed, Allie. The price I quoted you was so cheap you told me I could take a better offer if one came my way.”
“One wasn’t supposed to come your way!” Gravel flew beneath her rubber thong again.
Her sister Giuliana made a cautious approach. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure out something.”
Alessandra’s head whipped around. “Like forgetting about our promise to Papa? Like selling the winery? Is that what you mean?”
Stephania started forward. “Allie—”
“You, too?” The girl in the wedding dress and pajamas spun to confront her other sister, anger still blazing across her delicate features. “You’re willing to let go of our birth-right, our heritage, our history? This place is our heart, Stevie.”
Liam stepped forward. “Still, maybe it’s time to call it quits.”
At his quiet words, all the fire in Alessandra was quenched. Her gaze took in the united wall of her two sisters and Penn’s half brother. Her shoulders slumped, her head dropped.
A moment passed, then she took a long breath and turned to Newton again, looking up at him through her tangle of dark lashes. Her voice was husky and halting. “You can’t leave me like this,” she told the man.
The atmosphere instantly changed. Where minutes before it had been charged with the rioting atoms of Wedding Dress Girl’s fit of pique, now it was a different emotion coloring the air.
Bemused, Penn crossed his arms over his chest and leaned on the Range Rover again to take in the little show. Alessandra’s small face tilted up and she turned those velvety brown eyes—was that a sheen of tears?—on the construction worker. “Please, Newton. You can’t leave me like this,” she repeated.
Newton appeared on the verge of crying himself. “Allie . . .” he whimpered. From the other side of the truck, Penn heard the two guys muttering to each other in Spanish. Idiot! he heard one say to the other. He’s looking her in the eyes. Everyone knows not to look her in the eyes.
Who did they think she was, Medusa?
“Newton . . .” Wedding Dress Girl implored again, one perfect tear dangling at the end of one perfect bottom lash.
Surely the guy wouldn’t fall for this. Penn glanced around, ready to share a laugh at her so-obvious ploy, but was astonished to see everyone else frozen, their stricken gazes glued to the little drama queen. How come they were so taken in? Had four seasons of assisting histrionic pre-teens select bedroom decor given him a special bullshit detector? Nah, it wasn’t the tweenies who had honed his sense of the over-dramatic, it was the woman who’d walked away with a wheelbarrow full of his cash and, well, his wheelbarrow, among other things, that had done that.
So, fine, maybe he was a tad more cynical than most.
Newton whimpered again. “Okay, Allie. All right. All right, I’ll stay.”
Sunshine didn’t come brighter than her sudden smile. She rushed the contractor for an exuberant hug, and then gave one to each of his workers, too. Giuliana came next, then Stevie, and even Liam managed to take her embrace without his stiff spine breaking in half.
Penn should have seen it coming, but he was stupefied when she turned and flew toward him, her next victim. But before contact could be made, she scuttled back and let out an embarrassed laugh.
“I’m sorry,” she said, an adorable dimple that she was certainly supremely aware of winking beside the corner of her adorable mouth. “We haven’t even met. You must be one of the Bennett bas . . .” Her adorable dimple disappeared to make way for an adorable blush.
What a player! “I’m Penn,” he said, voice matter-of-fact.
“Penn.” She beamed him a ray of that practiced sunshine. “Nice to meet you.”
Despite how much he despised manipulative women, it didn’t change the way her bright smile and plump breasts thickened the blood chugging through his veins. He plucked at his shirt to force a breeze past his now hot skin.
For a guy still smarting over the last female who’d sailed past his common sense, his reaction to Alessandra Baci was completely unwelcome and only served to piss him off. Little Wedding Dress Girl was sexy as all get-out, but obviously she was damn spoiled, too.
“And congratulations to you,” he said, not disguising the edge to his voice.
Her gaze narrowed, a quick contraction of her eyelids before her expression turned guileless again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He leaned closer, and spoke in a near whisper. “They don’t know what hit ’em.”
“What?”
She had the innocent thing down pat, and he hardened himself against it. “That little break in your voice,” he said. “The single tear—brilliant. We’ll have to se
e about a booking on Inside the Actors Studio.”
The Kate Winslet wanna-be didn’t answer. With a little flounce, and another spit of gravel, she turned and headed back up the lane, her sisters once again following. As Newton and company started pulling equipment from the bed of the Ford, he and Liam were left looking after the three Baci women.
“Good God,” Penn said, shaking his head. There were like a million little buttons trailing down the back of that crazy outfit—only half of them fastened—and the almost-undressed aspect ignited his imagination nearly as much as her generous breasts and pretty mouth. He could see his fingers working on the remainder of those tiny pearls, his calluses catching on silky fabric as he hurried to bare her for his eyes. For his touch.
His thickened blood moved southward and he groaned. “Lord help me.”
Liam glanced over. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Wedding Dress Girl—Alessandra. She’s one hot little mama, isn’t she?”
Liam’s eyes widened. He looked almost . . . shocked.
Okay, from the get-go the other man had struck Penn as somewhat unbending, but at the basest of levels XY was XY, wasn’t it? He cleared his throat and snuck a quick glance at the swinging hips receding in the distance. “I mean, surely . . .” It was just two guys, so he plowed forward. “C’mon. The body. That mouth. I’d like to—”
“Stop,” Liam said. “Stop right there.”
Something shot through Penn—disappointment? Nah, he wasn’t really interested in the youngest Baci sister, so it made no difference to him that his half brother had a prior claim. “Sorry, I didn’t know you and she have a thing.”
“We don’t. No one does, not with Alessandra. And you won’t be messing with her, either. Not with the Nun of Napa.”
2
“Disaster averted then?” Clare asked.
Alessandra nodded, squinting a little as the bright sunlight coming through the beauty shop’s wide front window glinted off her friend’s space-Afro. There was no other way to describe the do created by the layered sections of Clare’s foil-wrapped hair. Though Alessandra wasn’t here for her own appointment, she’d taken the neighboring stylist’s chair in order to keep her friend company during the chemical process. “I promise the cottage will be ready for your wedding day.”
It had better be, that was sure. Clare’s “I do” would be the first uttered at Tanti Baci this summer, but Alessandra had hopes that there would be bookings for most every weekend in the months ahead. Of course, that couldn’t guarantee the winery would be saved, but she avoided that uncomfortable truth by gazing out the window onto the quaint main street of her birthplace. Located toward the northern end of Napa County, Edenville, population 6,100, was a one-square-mile walking town, with a block-sized central plaza of grass, paved paths, and shaded benches. The downtown’s wide sidewalks were edged by mature trees and ran along the clapboard storefronts, some fancied-up with eye-catching paint and Victorian embellishments.
Bright color and ornamental woodwork signaled the more upmarket establishments. A gourmet food shop was in avocado and lemon, the trendy bistro painted a silver-touched salmon, the owners of the homewares boutique on the corner had chosen the blue and white of a willow pattern. These tourist magnets shared space with the more modestly decorated county library, small grocery store, and no-frills deli patronized by the town locals.
Clare raised her voice over the sound of gushing water from the shampoo sinks at the rear of the salon. “So what did you think of the bastard Bennett?”
Alessandra winced. It wasn’t a very sensitive way to refer to him, though they’d begun calling him that when he was nothing more than tantalizing gossip. Now that she’d met him . . . “I don’t want to think about that man,” she told Clare, “or ever see him again.”
But life hadn’t been going her way the last five years, and as if she needed more proof of that, she noted a shiny truck pulling into a parking space in front of Oliver’s Ristorante across the street. “Though you can check him out yourself. Looks like he’s heading for Overpriced Ollie’s.”
Clare wiggled in her seat. “That’s what I love about small towns and big picture windows. Sooner or later everybody passes by.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Alessandra wasn’t so pleased. She watched his long legs emerge from the truck’s cab. There was a kid with a table on the sidewalk outside Ollie’s, soliciting funds for some good cause, but it didn’t make her like the bastard any better when he drew out a couple of bills from his pocket.
We’ll have to see about a booking on Inside the Actors Studio.
What the heck did he mean by that? And he’d said it with such a cynical smile on his handsome face, too.
While she watched him hand over the money, he smiled again. But then his head turned toward the street as a car came to a sudden stop behind his vehicle. The skinny passenger in the beat-up sedan shot his torso out the side window and stripped off his shirt.
“Build me up!” The guy yelled it so loud she could hear it through thick plate glass and whirring beauty appliances. “Penn Bennett, build me up!”
Smile growing to a grin, Penn reached into his truck and withdrew a T-shirt that he balled up and threw to the half-naked man. A fist-pump later, the car took off with a screech of tires.
“Okay, I know my experience with the male animal has been somewhat limited, but . . .” She glanced over at Clare, who was staring out the window, her jaw dangling.
Her friend transferred her gaze toward Alessandra, showing wide eyes. “The bastard is Penn Bennett? You didn’t tell me that! Penn Bennett of Build Me Up!”
Alessandra blinked. “Which would happen to be . . . ?”
“Just the hottest home renovation show on television. His team repairs and remodels homes of needy people. I almost cry every time he leads the grateful family into their now-beautiful house. He makes them feel so special.”
“Really?” While Alessandra could believe the guy was on TV—he was Hollywood handsome—she couldn’t imagine him as an altruistic do-gooder.
That little break in your voice, the single tear—brilliant.
Remembering the words, she frowned and figured mean and spiteful was the guy’s true character. “The thing is, Clare, this Build Me Up show—it’s a job for him, right? He gets paid to make nicey-nice and appear all sympathetic.”
Clare opened her mouth, but Alessandra kept on talking. “Don’t get taken in by what you think you know about Penn Bennett. If you ask me, he’s—”
“Waiting with bated breath to hear your assessment of his character.”
Ah, damn, Alessandra thought, the skin at the back of her neck prickling in belated warning. Just another reason to dislike the guy. Real men didn’t enter beauty salons and catch disgruntled women discussing them over peroxide and bobby pins. Slowly, to give the embarrassed heat she was feeling a chance to fade from her cheeks, she shifted in her chair to face him.
His hazel eyes took a lazy pass over her lacy camisole, short watermelon-red cotton skirt, and bare legs. “Liam said that ‘Nun of Napa’ thing was just a nickname, and now I’m sure he’s right.”
Clare snickered.
Alessandra decided not to dignify the remark with an explanation. It wasn’t her fault that the residents of Edenville and its environs had put that tag on her. But there were worse things someone could call someone else. Like arrogant. Like too good-looking for his own good. Overconfident, that was certain. She could imagine a barechested Penn Bennett flexing in front of a mirror, hear him singing to his amazing reflection. I’m too sexy for my shirt.
Clare apparently didn’t share her vision as she gave the man a friendly smile and held out her hand. “I’m Clare Knowles.”
“Nice to meet you, Clare Knowles.”
He had an ease about him that got on Alessandra’s last nerve. Just looking at him rubbed her the wrong way, and the surprise of that wasn’t lost on her. Her job at the winery was public relations, which meant she was
good at getting along with people—and also good at getting people to do what she wanted. With that in mind, she sent Penn her own smile. Sweet. Very sweet. “I’m sure you need to go away now.”
He laughed. “No,” he said, running a hand through his layered hair. “I’m here for a cut.”
Men in Edenville went to Manuel’s Barber Shop, closer to the highway. It had the requisite barber pole outside and ESPN played on a TV in the corner. In Manuel’s back room it was said he pulled molars with rusty pliers and handed out herbal cures for the clap. “This is a beauty salon,” she said, gesturing to encompass the lavender walls and framed headshots of female models.
“What?” he asked, all cheeky grin and sparkling eyes. “I’m not beautiful?”
The fact was, he was beautiful, in a wholly masculine way that involved long lean muscles and the grit of golden stubble on his chin. But Alessandra hated his studied, I-don’t-give-a-damn looks, and she hated that he wasn’t taking the hint and moving on. Worse, she hated his perfect knowledge of just what was going through her head, clear from the smirk on his lips and the laugh in his eyes.
“Why don’t you try squeezing out a tear or two, little nun,” Penn said softly, that sly smile still on his face. He moved into her personal space, leaning close enough that she could smell his lime-and-sin aftershave, even over the combined scents of sweet shampoo and acrid hair color that permeated the salon’s air. “That usually gets you what you want, doesn’t it?”
Clare choked out a sound that Alessandra ignored in order to thread his black heart on the skewer of her gaze.
“When you look at me like that I’m even more certain you’re less than holy,” Penn said. “Though Liam declined to share exactly why—”
“Girls!”
Alessandra jumped, then peeked around Penn’s wide shoulders to see Clare’s mother, Sally—who was also Alessandra’s almost-mother-in-law—hurry toward them. Tall, with elegant cheekbones and a shiny wedge of silver-threaded hair, Sally strode across the floor in a pair of cropped linen pants and matching turquoise leather loafers. “I’ve been trying to catch up with both of you all morning. Do you have your cell phones turned off?”
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