She was so excited she slammed on the brakes, and skidded to an abrupt halt.
He looked up. She grabbed the map, got out of the car and walked toward the field where he stood staring at her as if he’d never seen a stranger here before. Which made her feel better about staring at him. She stared at his blunt nose that looked like it might have been broken a few times. She stared into his eyes, impossibly blue in a sun-tanned face.
Then her gaze moved down. He was shirtless, and his jeans rode low on his hips. Very sensible in this kind of weather. And very sexy too. She swallowed hard and tried to tear her eyes away from his broad chest covered with a light dusting of dark hair, but couldn’t. Perspiration broke out on her forehead. She couldn’t seem to take a deep breath. Maybe this was her property. Maybe he worked for her already and she’d be making wine this fall with his help. No, she couldn’t get that lucky.
“Hello,” she called when she finally caught her breath. “Ciao, signore. Per favore, dove e la Villa Monte Verde.” A whole sentence. Maybe the grammar wasn’t perfect, maybe her accent shouted out that she was a tourist, but she was proud of herself for trying. When she had tried to talk to the lawyer in Italian yesterday, he’d switched to English.
Not a chance with this rugged type. She wondered if all the hired hands were this gorgeous. It didn’t matter. One reason she’d jumped at the chance to move to Sicily was for a fresh start and to avoid relationships, no matter how attractive the men were. In a new environment, with a brick wall around her heart and a system of warning bells in place, she was ready to take on a new challenge. She was willing to make mistakes along the way, just as long as they weren’t the same mistakes she’d made in the past.
The man frowned and gave her a long scrutinizing look that made her pulse quicken and her heart race. From what she’d seen in the airport, Italian women were so chic, so effortlessly stylish, she must look positively shabby to him in her wrinkled shirt and the plain wash-and-wear skirt she’d pulled out of her suitcase. If he even noticed.
His gaze moved to her rental car across the road. She was close enough, just across an old wooden fence, to see a hostile look appear in those incredible blue eyes. She’d imagined people would be friendly here. Maybe she was wrong.
He didn’t say a word. Hadn’t he understood her Italian? Or did the place go by another name? “La Azienda Agricola Spendora?” she said hopefully.
“You must be the American who arrived yesterday,” he said in almost perfect English. His deep voice with a slightly seductive accent sent shivers up her spine. A simple laborer he was not.
She let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. “How did you guess?” she said lightly. “I suppose my Italian needs some more practice.”
He shrugged as if he really didn’t care if she was an alien from another universe or if she spoke grammatically perfect Italian. “What can I do for you, miss?” The words were polite, but his tone was cool, with a sardonic edge.
Never mind. She didn’t have to make friends with everyone she met. For all she knew he was overworked and underpaid despite his ease in speaking English, and probably tired and thirsty. It was still possible she could hire him, even if he had a chip on his shoulder. She could use someone who spoke English and was a hard worker.
“My name is Isabel Morrison and I’m looking for my vineyard, the Azienda Spendora.” She couldn’t help the note of pride that crept into her voice. The words my vineyard had such a nice ring to them.
“I’ll give you a ride. You’ll never find it on your own,” he said. He reached for a shirt hanging from the branch of a tree and put it on before she could protest. How many times had it been drummed into her not to take rides from strangers? This was the kind of stranger who set off flashing detour lights in front of her. Too well-spoken, too sure of himself, too eager to take her heaven knew where.
“Really, it’s okay, I can find it. I’ve got a map,” she said, hating the hint of nervousness in her voice.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked, looming over her with all his six-feet-something and broad shoulders, shirt half-unbuttoned, blue eyes challenging her either to admit or forget her fears.
“No,” she said a little too quickly. While a voice inside her murmured, Well, maybe just a little.
“I’m Dario Montessori and I live nearby. In fact, these are my vines.” He waved an arm in the direction of the fields behind him. “I know everyone for miles around and everyone knows me. Come along. You might meet some neighbors.”
“Now?”
“Why not? Nussun tempo gradisce il presente, as we say in Italian. Wait here. I’ll bring my car and pick you up.”
This was an order there was no resisting. Besides, she did want to meet her new neighbors. It would be silly to pass up an opportunity like this. After all, she wanted to fit into the local village life. What better way than to be taken around by a native? So she waited there until he pulled up in a red-and-black convertible with leather seats. No ordinary farmhand could touch this car with under a hundred thousand. Who was he really? Why was he going out of his way for her?
“If you’re planning to kidnap me,” she said with a touch of bravado, “Don’t bother, because I don’t have any rich relatives you could hit up for the ransom.”
He slanted a glance in her direction. The look on his face told her she’d just spouted the most absurd thing he’d ever heard. “I’ve lived here all my life and I don’t believe there’s been a kidnapping around here in one hundred years. Relax, you’re in Sicily now. As for the Azienda, I’m warning you, when you see it and the condition it’s in, I am certain you’ll be willing to sell it to me.”
“It’s funny,” she said thoughtfully, “you’re the second person I’ve heard of who wants to buy it from me. Just yesterday…”
“That was also me,” he said, turning up a bumpy, dirt road. “Your solicitor was representing my family.”
“The family that owns most of the land around here? The family that makes prize-winning Marsala and exports Cabernet all over the world?”
He nodded.
“Then you already know I’m not going to sell it.”
“You haven’t seen it,” he said flatly.
“I saw a picture of it on-line. It looks charming.”
“Hah,” he said and shook his head at her ignorance.
So he too was trying to discourage her. In the photograph the house appeared to be small, and it was located on rugged terrain at a fourteen-hundred-foot elevation. But it looked snug and was situated in a picturesque grove of olive trees and grape vines.
“That picture was taken some years ago when our family owned it. Antonio let it fall apart.”
Isabel bristled at the criticism of her uncle, although he might have deserved it. As a family member she was surely entitled to criticize him for allowing the place to disintegrate, but this man was not. At least not in front of her. “Perhaps he had reason,” she suggested.
Dario gave her a steely look that told her more than words that there was no good reason.
“Did
