Shadows Of The Past

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It was a relief to see Pietro come back into the room carrying bottles of wine—sparkling, from the shape of them.

Andrea, the eldest brother, commented, “Must be something special, Papa’s had that wine laid down in his personal cellar for almost ten years.”

The cold sweat arrived with a vision that played havoc with his imagination, of Pietro standing up and announcing his daughter’s betrothal. To him!

No. Even Maria wouldn’t go that far to please her family. As for him, was it fear of actually playing along with the charade that made his top lip damp?

As the wine fizzed in the background, Franc took stock of his reactions. There was no doubt about it, this was unfamiliar territory. And maybe he was actually shying away from discovering what he’d missed out on. He’d never experienced the close-knit structure that the Costellos projected as a family.

To make more space now that everyone was in the sitting room, Franc perched on the arm of Maria’s chair. Around them the atmosphere sparkled like the wine frothing from the bottles. Pietro poured, while Rosa passed around champagne flutes, and when they were done, stood together before the fireplace.

“We wish to make a toast,” Pietro announced, holding up his glass. “To our retirement.” He clinked glasses with Rosa and they both drank.

They were going to sell the house! Maria couldn’t believe it. A dull roar had settled inside the top of her head and it wasn’t caused by champagne. Her tongue felt stiff and thick, and the words she wanted to say, questions she needed to ask, wouldn’t come out. It was the shock. She’d never ever thought they would sell the house.

Andrea found his tongue first. “What about the vineyard? You can’t sell that!”

Pietro lifted his hand in a calming motion. “Of course not. The vineyard will belong to all of you, and the work needn’t change. I know three of you have your own vineyards, but maybe this is the time to expand and begin taking on the big vineyards. Of course, you will have to come to some agreement with Maria, she may want to sell her share.”

“I don’t want to sell.” If she knew one solitary thing, it was that she could never barter her rights to Falcon’s Rise Winery for money.

“We couldn’t afford to buy you out anyway,” her brother, Michel countered, frowning. She knew why. His vineyard was the least established, and he owed more money on it. He and Sarah had been in their house less than a year.

As questions buffeted her ears from every side, Maria piped up, “What about the house? Do you have to sell it?”

She wished it unsaid as soon as the words were out, but the others all had their own homes. All she had was a room for rent in the city. It wasn’t the same thing.

This house was her home.

“Enough!” One word from Rosa and silence replaced their anxious questions. “We thought you’d be happy for us. We won’t move far. We’re thinking of Warkworth. But first we want to take a vacation in Italy.” Rosa slid her arm round her husband’s waist. “Drink up now,” she ordered. “Be happy for us.”

Franc carried their bags as they followed her mother upstairs.

Just as well. She didn’t feel fit for anything as she trailed behind, her head ringing with the news. What was worse, she hadn’t known it would affect her this way. Thoughts of selling the vineyard hadn’t troubled her before because she’d been sure it would always be there. Always be her home.

“The rooms are at the far end of the hall,” said Mamma to Franc. “You’ll like the view, they look down over the patio.”

Gradually, her feet slowed. Connecting rooms. How could her mother do this to her? It had to be because they were retiring. Nothing else could explain their eagerness to be rid of her.

“Tell him how nice the view is, Maria.”

“It’s very nice.”

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” her mother chided as she opened the door on the right and flicked on the light. “You’re in here, Franc.”

He propped her bag against the door opposite his then shrugged through the narrow entrance to the room he’d been allotted.

She wished now that she’d said something and ended up with the whole family annoyed with her instead of Franc, who probably wanted to ring her neck right about now. She measured the space between the two doors. The distance could have been longer, say, about half a mile. While her mother showed Franc where everything went, Maria carried her bag next door.

The room was smaller than her one down the hall with its queen-size bed, but at least it was quite airy, and higher than the mosquito line, so the window could be left open at night. She smiled as she imagined her nieces and nephews sleeping top-and-tail in her bed. This she had to see.

Her good mood lasted until she heard her mother showing Franc the bathroom. “It’s small, but it will give you more privacy from the children.”

The door on Maria’s side of the bathroom was flung open and her mother entered. “Maria can show you where the towels are kept if you need more. Now,” she said, looking as if she’d just performed magic, “I’ll see you for supper in a few minutes. No need to unpack. Just wash up.”

Maria turned her back on Franc, who was framed in the doorway, and walked over to gaze out the window. Her brothers and Kris were on the patio, watching Papa wave his arms around, pointing things out to the others. It didn’t matter that it was dark; they all knew the vineyard like the backs of their hands. The way she did.

“No time for looking out the window,” Mamma told her. “Get ready for supper.”

Franc leaned against her bedroom door as if that would bar it against Rosa. Maria hadn’t moved from the window. She glanced over her shoulder at him as though she wondered what he was doing there, in her room. Well, he’d soon set her straight. He wouldn’t be here a minute longer than he could help.

He took a deep breath to center his thoughts and find some balance. Now he knew what they meant by culture shock. He was suffering from it.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Maria shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

“You should have told your mother we’d only just met. When I take a woman to bed, I prefer to do my own asking. I won’t be forced.”

“No force intended, we have separate rooms.”

“Connecting rooms.” He’d had enough. Maria was no help. “Look, I’ve no intention of stepping into Randy Searle’s shoes. So what do I have to do to get out of this place? Should I come down with a virus, or do I have to break a leg?”

He felt as if he was coming down with a case of happy-families, a disease that came with a ton of mouths to feed and could only spell disaster for his ambitions. The chances of his taking Maria to his bed no longer seemed like a cure for what ailed him.

Although he sensed he might just die a happy man, if he was going to go down, he’d be fighting all the way.

Chapter 4

Franc raised an eyebrow, as Maria’s response was an indignant snort. “Ha! Try that and you’ll be here for a month, not just overnight. My mother would love it. She’d nurse you to within an inch of your life.”

She lifted a hand to her mouth as her breath caught between a giggle and words. “Believe me, I’ve been there. I never want to be sick around Mamma again. So be warned, don’t even sneeze in her direction, or she’ll be looking out for an old remedy passed down from her great-great-grandmother.”

Maria’s laughter was unexpected and infectious; he joined in. It was a relief to do something normal, ordinary. Then he remembered. “But what is she going to think when she eventually meets Randy?”

“There is no Randy—in that way.” She shook her head and released a sigh before carrying on. “My mother was worried about me being left on the shelf. She and her sisters married very young, but she forgets things change, a woman doesn’t have to get married these days, not even to have a family.”

She looked up at him from under the veil of her lashes. Her lips quirked and he had the darnedest urge to reach out and touch the mole beside it that seemed to say, “Kiss me quick.”

“My mother was making noises—loud noises—about me going to Italy to meet some nice Italian boys.” She shuddered. “And though I know she would never force me, the thought of Mamma’s relatives lining them up for inspection was enough to send me running for the hills or composing an excuse. Sooo, to keep Mamma happy, I made someone up. It just so happens that his description fits you to a tee.”

He’d thought this convoluted situation bizarre, but it was getting worse. “I gather that would make me your ideal man?”

“On the outside, but it takes more than good looks to make an ideal man.”

It wasn’t an insult as such, but his reaction must have shown, because she laughed, and it was enough for now to see Maria’s eyes shed the dull flat look they’d held since her parents had made the announcement downstairs. “Yeah, he’d need to be able to commit, and my background lets me down there, but you still haven’t explained about Randy.”

“I just needed to see him, and your receptionist let slip where you were holding the party, so I visited the restaurant, looking for him.”

An oblique answer that left him no wiser than when he’d arrived at Falcon’s Rise and been catapulted out of his comfort zone. He grasped her shoulders as the truth dawned, and he gasped, “You mean you gate-crashed? The party?”

“If you remembered, I wanted to leave and you insisted I stay, but I never said Randy was my date. Besides, how could Mamma mistake you for him, you’re nothing alike.”

“I thought she’d forgotten his name or something. Grandma Glamuzina used to do it all the time with my brothers and me. Whoever she was looking at took the—” He broke off as one of the kids peeped in the door. “The blame.”

“Supper time,” the boy gurgled, as if it was a great joke that Maria had a man in her room that seemed about to kiss her. He was still laughing as he ran down the hall, but the noise he made bouncing down the stairs muffled everything else.

“Which one was that?” He’d be damned if he could tell them apart no matter that Maria had told him all their names.

“Ricky. He’ll have gone to share with the others. At that age they’re easily pleased.”

“C’mon,” he said, making good on Ricky’s speculation by planting a fast hard kiss on her lips. “The rest of the explanations can wait until after supper, I’m starving.”

Maria looked dazed for a second, but as he grasped her hand to pull her with him, she recovered her wits. “Well, I sincerely hope you like Italian food or you’ll stay hungry.”

He turned, trapping her against him in the doorway as he ducked his head, releasing a ravenous growl as he nibbled on her earlobe. “I thought you’d have guessed by now, I’m hungry for anything Italian.” And to prove it he kissed her again, drowning in the sweetness of her, lifting his head only when the sound of childish laughter reminded him they had an audience. One that stifled his impulse to carry Maria to the bed and finish what they’d started in the doorway.

As always, his nearness had a startling effect on Maria’s senses. She leaned against the doorjamb, her heart throbbing to a rhythm she was only beginning to learn. Fist clenched against her breasts as if that would soothe it, she called, “Shoo!” to the children hogging the top of the stairs, then turned back to Franc.

Without conscious thought, she brought her free hand up to lie on his chest, his large body seeming to surround hers again. Her fingers rasped against the knit of his shirt. Every breath he took, stilled and held, as she felt his heat seep into her palm, through his black polo shirt.

One big palm pressed her closer, the other cupped her cheek as her gaze mingled with his. It felt so right, the closeness, the touching, breathing the same air. The connection she felt with Franc burned fiercely, making her mouth turn dry. Moistening her lips with her tongue was no help.

“Don’t worry about me, hon. I won’t do anything to spoil your Christmas.” She felt rather than heard his reassurances. His voice scraped across her nerve endings like dry pumice stone. “I don’t enjoy seeing people hurt.”

“This will be our last Christmas in this house. We were all brought up here. There’s a tree in the garden where we all carved our initials one summer.”

He pulled her back into the doorway. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”

He gently caressed her cheek with his thumb. She wanted to close her eyes and wallow in the feelings his touch wrought in her body. But the newness of them, the brand-new sensation of letting another human being, and male at that, closer than ever before, made her want to see his reactions, as well.

Her eyebrows flicked up at the outside edge, dark and softly gleaming, like a tui’s wings as it took flight. And the way she trembled, Franc wondered if the same thing, flight, was on her mind.

“I wish there was some way I could imagine what it was like, all this closeness, but my family—we couldn’t wait to leave home.” He hadn’t said it deliberately to play on her emotions. Hadn’t touched her to set her lips quivering. The lipstick hadn’t been invented that could imitate the soft rose pink of Maria’s mouth. And nothing under the sun could stop him from taking her face in both hands and running his thumb over the silklike surface, reviving the memory of its texture under his mouth.

That first kiss? Had it only been last night?

“You must have missed a lot, growing up. I wish you’d known us then. We’d have dragged you into the fold.”

He thought about all the warmth he’d noticed downstairs and shook his head, knowing it would never have happened. Was never going to happen.

“You’re a much nicer person than I am, hon,” he murmured against the swell of her mouth. Like the champagne they’d just drunk, her taste flowered on his lips, tingled on his tongue as she opened to its pressure, and lingered on his palate. There was no doubt about it. Maria was a gold-medal winner and far too good for a man like himself.

Franc’s mood darkened on a twist of pain. For himself, for Maria. Especially Maria. She deserved better than him, but now he’d had a taste of her, he’d never let her go—not before he’d drunk his fill.

He sealed his compliment with another kiss. Her head bumped against his shoulder as he lifted his mouth from hers. His breathing grated past his larynx as he sought to control the hard ache in his groin. He’d been in this condition almost permanently since he’d met her. One touch and his hormones roared in agony, without a sign of relief in sight.

“We can’t keep letting our emotions take control.”

Typical Maria, always making him smile. “Hon, if I didn’t have mine under control, you’d be on that bed right now. The only thing stopping me is knowing it’s your parents’ house and any moment some kid is going to come flying through the door.”