Lovers' Reunion. Anne Marie Winston

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shy and quiet, was not like them.

      But he’d discovered he rather liked his sweet little secret. Sophie, with her silky skin, little love handles and the abundance of soft curves she’d possessed, turned into a shameless wildcat in his arms. After he’d discovered her charms, the other women might as well not even have existed.

      He stared through the window at her again. She had stuck her hands in the back pockets of the slim jeans she wore, and her body thrust forward in a way that outlined the plane of slender hips and flat belly and breasts that still looked lush and full. She was thin, much thinner than he remembered, but thank God she still had those beautiful—

      Hey, buddy. What’s it to you?

      Sophie called to the cocker spaniel, who came bounding up the steps. As she turned and opened the door, the little dog disappeared into the house. A moment later Sophie followed.

      His whole body sagged. He’d told her flat-out that marriage wasn’t in his plans, had hurt her deeply and left her to deal with her hurt alone. He’d be the last person she’d welcome home with open arms.

      A sound behind him alerted him to his mother’s entry into the kitchen.

      “Marco. Sit. I’ll feed you.” She paused, taking in his proximity to the window. “See something out there you like?” Her tone was sly, and her eyebrows arched.

      “Very funny, Ma.” He limped to the little table and parked himself in one of her cushioned chairs. “I’m thirty-six years old, not eighteen. I doubt there are too many teenage girls around for me to drool over these days.”

      “So who said anything about teenagers?” His mother’s tone was all innocence. “A man needs a woman, not a teenager. You should settle down, Marco. Especially now that you—”

      “Ma.” His tone was flat enough to stop her in mid-ramble. “We’ve had variations on this chat too many times already.”

      She smiled, coming over to pinch his cheek as she set the table. “All right, all right. I just want to see my boy happy, is all.”

      “Hah. You just want to have more grandchildren than any other woman on the block.” He gave her a narrow-eyed stare. “No matchmaking. Promise?”

      Dora heaved an exaggerated sigh and sketched the sign of the cross. “Promise.”

      But as he dipped into the minestrone soup that no one else could make as well as his mother, he couldn’t keep his thoughts from straying next door. He hadn’t seen a man, and besides, his mother surely would have told him if Sophie had married. He wondered if she worked, if she had a steady beau, if she’d still melt in his arms the way she always had. No doubt about it, Miss Sophie Domenico was just what he needed to keep his mind off the inescapable fact that his days of exploring and roughing it in some of the earth’s most inaccessible spots were over.

      

      

      Sophie Morrell started when the telephone rang. Darn it, she’d just gotten comfortable after returning from her folks’ home. Rising from the couch in her little condo where she had settled in to read a romance novel by one of her favorite authors, Sophie switched on the receiver. “Hello?”

      “Hey, kid sister, whatcha doin’?”

      “Hi, Vee.” Sophie’s tone reflected her delight. At thirty, her sister, Violetta, was only two years older than Sophie, and she had been Sophie’s best friend since their childhood growing up in Elmwood Park. “I’m doing nothing, if you want the truth. I spent the afternoon with Mama and Daddy, then I decided to come home and prop up my feet and read the evening away.”

      “Did you eat?”

      “Of course I ate.” She laughed. “You worry too much.”

      “As your big sister, it’s the job I take most seriously,” Violetta said. Then the flippancy left her voice. “I don’t mean to bug you, Soph. It’s just a habit, I guess.”

      “It’s okay.” Sophie knew exactly what her sister meant During her husband’s illness, she’d spent all her time attending to him, pushing aside her own grief. Many days, she’d simply forgotten to eat, or been too tired to worry about food. By the time he died, she’d lost twenty pounds. She’d lost more weight after Kirk’s death and only slowly had gained back enough that she didn’t look like a walking skeleton.

      While the method of weight loss wasn’t one she’d recommend to anyone, she rather liked the end result. In the two years since she’d been widowed, she’d acquired eating and exercising habits that had kept her trim. She was proud that she hadn’t strayed more than three pounds from her desired weight in those years.

      Actually, it wasn’t much of an effort. The clinic where she worked, in a poor Hispanic neighborhood down in the city, kept her so busy that she often didn’t get home until six or seven. And half the time, the workday ended before she remembered that she hadn’t eaten lunch.

      She liked the busy-ness of the clinic, though. Her work teaching young mothers how to care for their babies and be successful in the job market gave her many moments of joy. There was little she loved more than handling wide-eyed babies with mops of black curls.

      And if she occasionally shed tears of anger at the unfairness of the life that had left her a widow with no babies of her own, she never, ever let anyone see them.

      Of course, her work had its sad moments, too. But she’d lived through sorrows of her own, and, though she still missed Kirk, she felt that her life was richer for the experiences she’d had. She knew grief and rage and despair intimately, so she could offer the comfort of a kindred soul to others when those emotions came knocking at their doors.

      “I have big news,” Violetta said, breaking into her silent thoughts.

      “What?”

      “You have to guess.”

      Sophie rolled her eyes, though Vee couldn’t see her. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

      “I’ll give you a hint. Whose anniversary party is coming up?”

      “Mr. and Mrs. Esposito’s. But what—”

      “And what handsome family black sheep has come home to help them celebrate?”

      Marco was home. The bottom dropped out of her stomach and before she thought, she automatically defended him. “He isn’t exactly a black sheep. He just travels a lot.” Sophie wished she could call the words back the minute they hit the air, but too late. The realization that he was already in Chicago was more unsettling than she wanted to admit, even to herself.

      “Sophia Elenora, don’t you dare defend that man.” Violetta’s tone was heated. “He led you on and then dumped you for his silly little research trips, remember? You haven’t seen him in close to five years—”

      “Almost six.”

      “Okay, six, but my point is—”

      “I get your point, Vee.” Sophie sighed and raked her long hair away from her face. “I did manage to marry someone else, remember? You don’t have to worry—my feelings for Marco were

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