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.
