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But she wasn’t, she reminded herself sharply. Not her style at all. And there was another thing. All this embarrassment of hunky male riches didn’t add up somehow. Mara’s husband was basically a cutie, but to think that he had someone like this in his family boggled the mind.
But it was too late to say anything, anyway, because the low, slinky sports car had taken off like a rocket. As her body slammed back against the soft leather seat, she felt as though she had to hold on for dear life, her heart in her throat.
The car came to a stop at a light. She gulped in a mouthful of air and turned sharply toward him, letting him know she hadn’t loved it.
“Wow. Do you always drive like this?” she asked a bit testily, pushing her hair back with one hand. “If so, you must have a permanent seat named after you at traffic court.”
He seemed surprised by her strong voice and point of view, but laughed.
“I’m just trying this baby out. I picked her up at the showroom earlier today and I wanted to see what she can handle.” He grimaced. “But I don’t know the streets around here very well, so I think that will do it. Sorry. I should have warned you.”
He gave her a lopsided grin, feeling no chagrin at all over the pleasure that surge of power had given him. But his grin faded as he looked at her.
That crazy, curly hair kept falling down over her eye and he had the oddest impulse to reach out and brush it back for her. The thought made his fingers tingle. He found himself looking at where her tiny, shell-like ear was peeking out from among the curls, and then staring at the smooth, creamy skin of her neck and imagining his lips there and his tongue …
The car behind them honked and he realized the light had turned green. He turned his attention back to his driving. But his mind was on the woman next to him in the car. Something about her tickled his fancy in a strange and unfamiliar way.
And suddenly her name came back to him. Celinia Jade Kerry. How could he have forgotten a name like that? Celinia Jade. Rather a mouthful, wasn’t it?
“Mind if I call you C.J.?” he asked her a bit sardonically.
She blinked, truly puzzled. “Why would you do that?”
“For short. It’s easier to remember.”
She frowned, her nose wrinkling. “But …”
He turned the car onto the freeway and they were off again. Her words disappeared in the roar of the engine, and he had to merge with a tangle of speeding traffic, which didn’t leave him time to ask her to repeat them.
Funny, but now that he thought about it, his mother had told him Celinia Jade Kerry would fit right in with the type of woman he usually dated—the sort his mother, Paula Angeli, actually tended to roll her eyes at.
Not that she knew C.J. very well, but she did know the woman’s mother. Or had, years ago.
“Betty Jean Martin was her name before she married Neal Kerry, the man who stole my family’s ranch,” his mother had told him over morning cappuccino just days ago. They’d been sitting on the terrace of her Italian home, overlooking the Venice canals. “She was my best friend, but when she married Neal behind my back, she became my worst enemy.”
He’d nodded, having heard the story so often, it was a family legend. He had a sneaking suspicion that his mother had thought she was going to marry the man—before her friend Betty Jean had whisked him to the altar—and that in that way she would have been able to get her ranch back. All things considered, he couldn’t be too sorry that hadn’t happened at the time. Besides, his mother had met his father, Carlo Angeli, shortly after, and her life had changed for the better, at least monetarily. That often happened when one married a millionaire.
Still, Max knew the marriage hadn’t been a happy one. His father had rarely been around, and his affairs with the wives of his best friends were legendary. His mother’s life had been wrapped up in her two sons—and in bittersweet memories of a childhood on the Triple M Ranch outside of Dallas, Texas.
“I’m sure Celinia Jade will be just what you’re used to,” his mother went on, waving the letter that had come from the daughter of her old friend. “I still keep in touch with enough old Texans to know what’s going on. She’s a clotheshorse with nothing on her mind deeper than the latest hemlines and whether her newest shade of lip gloss makes her mouth more kissable. Sound familiar?”
“Have you been listening in on my phone conversations again?” he’d teased her.
And that was when she’d rolled her eyes.
“Don’t you get it, Mama?” he told her with loving humor. “I don’t date women for their conversation.”
“Then you’ll probably get along perfectly with the young Miss Kerry.” Paula had frowned, looking at the letter again. “It’s odd to hear from her after all these years. And to have her ask to come visit us.”
“And just lucky timing that I’m leaving for Dallas in a few days and can check out the situation.” He looked at her, noting the dark circles under her eyes. She’d been looking more frail lately. Ever since Gino had died. It broke his heart to see her this way.
“What do you suppose she wants?” he’d asked casually, though he was pretty sure he knew.
“Money.” His mother sighed, shaking her head of graying curls. “The word is she’s in deep financial trouble. Her parents are both gone now and she’s spent her way through what little they left her. She’s looking at you as one big old ATM machine, I have no doubt.”
“Interesting,” he’d murmured, a plan developing in his head. “You’re sure she still has the Triple M Ranch?”
“Oh, yes. She’ll never give that up. Who would?” She winced and he knew she was remembering that her own family had done exactly that—something she could never forgive. “But she probably needs funds to keep it running.”
“A loan?”
Paula laughed. “Hardly. She’d never be able to pay it back. My guess?” She smiled at her son. “She asks a lot of questions about you in her letter. I think she’ll try to get you to marry her.”
“Many have tried,” he noted dryly, only half joking.
“But no one has come close yet,” she agreed with a sigh.
He’d grunted noncommittally, thinking it over. “Call her,” he suggested. “Put her off about her coming here, but tell her I’ll be in town and would like to meet her. Set up a rendezvous.”
She nodded reluctantly. “What are you planning?” she asked.
He smiled at her. “Mama, you know property acquisition is my specialty. I plan to talk her into selling us that ranch you loved so much.”
Her eyes sparkled for just a moment, but she shook her head. “She’ll never do it.”
He shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“Oh, Max, do be careful. Don’t let her charm you. If she’s anything like her mother was …”
He’d dropped a kiss on the top of her head as he started for the door. “I’ll give her that old famous Texas sweet talkin’ you taught me all about when I was a whippersnapper. She’ll be begging to turn the ranch over to us in no time.”
Looking back at her as he reached the door, he could see a sad, faraway look in her eyes and knew she was thinking about Gino, his older brother who had died a few months before. That look on her face brought a catch to his throat. He would do anything to bring the joy back for her. Anything.
And that was the mission that had brought him to Dallas.
CHAPTER TWO
“SO, TELL me, C.J.,” Max said, looking sideways at Cari as they exited the freeway and turned into a dark, spooky-looking industrial area. A quick flash of lightning lit up the horizon, then disappeared as quickly as it came. The air was electric with possibilities. “How’s life out on the ranch these days?”
She eyed him and shook her head. His conversation was becoming more incomprehensible to her. Her little house could be called ranch-style, but she certainly wasn’t running any cattle in the yard.
“What ranch?”
The ranch your family stole from mine, he thought cynically, his mouth twisting. Are you going to pretend that never happened?
But aloud he said, “The ranch you live on, of course.”
She shook her head. What in the world had Mara told this man in order to get him to spend an evening with her? She knew her friend was subject to occasional flights of imagination, gilding the lily, so to speak, but this was ridiculous.
“I don’t live on a ranch,” she told him firmly. He might as well know the truth.
“Ah. I suppose you’re just a normal, everyday Texas girl.” His voice belied his words. His sarcasm was showing.
But she nodded vigorously, becoming exasperated. “Yes, I am.”
He chuckled. “What is it with you Texans? The popular myth is that you’re all such big talkers, but all the Texans I meet are always trying to pretend they’re just average folks, no matter how filthy rich they are or how much land they own.”
She was at a loss. Surely Mara hadn’t pretended she was from a wealthy family—a wealthy ranching family. Mara knew better.
“But we are mostly just average folks,” she said defensively.
“Hah. Se non è vero, è ben trovato.”
The things he was saying were odd enough, but even odder was the fact that she was beginning to detect what sounded like a faint Italian accent, and that last outburst seemed to seal the deal.
“You know something?” she said accusingly. “You don’t sound like a Texan.”
“Grazie,” he replied with a casual shrug. “I’m only half-Texan, after all. I hope you can forgive my mistakes.”
“Oh.” Half-Texan! And the other half was evidently Italian. How had Mara missed that tiny detail? She bit her lip, wondering if she’d offended him.
“So what did it mean, what you said a minute ago?”
He smiled at her. “I said it’s a good story, even if it isn’t true.”
Before she could express fresh outrage, his phone chimed. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen.
“It’s my mother,” he said, sounding surprised as he pulled over to the side of the road. “She’s calling from Venice.” He flipped his mobile open.
“Your mother?” Cari gaped at him. She’d heard Italian men were attached to their mothers, but this was ridiculous.
“Sì, Mama.”
He said something into the phone in what she assumed was Italian. It sounded like Italian. It even looked like Italian. Cari couldn’t catch anything she recognized, but she watched the whole thing, fascinated. There was a lot of near-shouting and gesticulating, and suddenly he pulled the phone away from his ear and said, “Would you like to speak to my mother?”
She gazed at him in horror. His mother? Why on earth would she want to speak to his mother? What would she say?
“Not really,” she said, shaking her head vehemently.
He said something else in Italian and clicked the phone shut. Turning, he eyed her narrowly.
“So the old resentments still live, do they?” he noted, his gaze pinning her to the back of the seat with its dark, stormy intensity.
“What are you talking about?”
“The fact that you wouldn’t speak to my mother.”
Oh, this was just too rich. She’d signed on for a few hours of hopefully friendly conversation with a strange man, meal included, and that was about it. There had been no extended-family privileges implied in the deal. Now she was getting annoyed. Really annoyed.
“What am I supposed to talk to your mother about?” she asked heatedly, then waved a hand in the air. “I suppose I could give her a critique of how her son handles blind dates. But I’d hate to be insulting at this early stage of the evening.”
He laughed, his gaze traveling over her face appreciatively. She glared at him.
“But listen,” he said, his grin changing to a thoughtful frown. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. She says someone called and left a message that I was late to meet you.” He shrugged, making a face and looking at her for confirmation. “I wasn’t late. I was early.”
She held his gaze. “You were late.”
His frown deepened. “So you were already calling people and complaining that I wasn’t there as early as you were?”
“I didn’t call anyone.” She couldn’t have called anyone. She had a sudden picture of her phone, attached to the battery charger, still sitting on her kitchen counter where she’d left it. Darn. That made her feel naked and unprotected. A girl needed a good phone, especially when she was on a crazy and confusing blind date like this one.
“Well, somebody knew about it and called my mother.”
Cari began to feel as though she were on a rapidly moving merry-go-round with oddly formed horses and scary faces leering at her out of the shadows. This entire date was becoming more and more surreal.
“Let me get this straight. Your mother’s in Italy. Why does she care about whether you were on time to meet me or not?”
He gave her a slow smile and a long look, one that made her feel strangely languorous. Funny, despite how annoyed she was, she had to admit this was one sexy man. Given a chance, he could turn on the charm and wipe away most of her irritation.
“Because she’s a caring person,” he said smoothly. “And she wants us to get along well. For old-time’s sake.”
As she puzzled that over, his phone rang again. Max saw that it was Tito and barked, “Go,” into the receiver.
“Where are you?”
“About a block away. I’ll be there in a minute.” He glanced at Cari. She seemed absorbed in the view outside her window. “Does Sheila know I’m coming?” he asked softly.
“Well, no.”
“Why haven’t you told her?”
“Well …”
“Have you filled her in on the parameters of the situation?”
“Actually, no.”
“Why not?”
“Listen, boss, like I told you, she’s not exactly here.”
“But you said …”
“The baby’s here.”
That struck him like a thunderbolt. The whole point of this operation had been to find the baby. Gino’s baby. Finding Sheila was secondary, but he hadn’t expected them to be separated.
“I’m almost there,” he said, signing off and dropping the mobile into the center bay. He turned to look at Cari. Why had he brought her along again? Hmm.
