the most jaded celebrity reporter has to admit to a certain misty eye at the tender sentiment. And the thought of those handsome men lined up in their formalwear is enough to make the heart go pitter-pat!
JULIA FOUND HERSELF wandering around the town again the next morning. Her parents had arrived safely in Boston and were on their way to the hospital to visit her aunt and uncle. She had rattled around the apartment for a few hours, cleaning things that didn’t need cleaning until sheer boredom ran her out the door.
Boredom and a nagging curiosity about the man who looked so much like Frank. It could just be the familiar surroundings triggering her memory. The summer she and Frank had spent together had been magical, the summer after her first year in college. She attended Boston College but had gotten a cheap ticket to the Azores, a favorite place since her family had been stationed there for a year when she was a kid.
It was a favorite of Franco Duarte das Aguas Santas, especially since she’d found out later that his family owned their own small island there. He’d enjoyed America but was relieved to be home where he could speak Portuguese again after a few years in New York.
Julia heard plenty of Portuguese coming from the town square. She followed the noise and found a farmers’ market full of fruits and vegetables, local honey and wine. The Azoreans didn’t eat vegetables by themselves, either in a salad or cooked. The locals preferred to cook them into a soup filled with mostly meat, if they remembered the vegetables at all. She had discovered this after asking for a salad in the local restaurant and getting a blank stare. And when her neighbor had seen her eating a raw carrot as she sat in the garden, he told her those were either for the soup pot or the donkeys.
Julia had given a loud hee-haw, sending the man into a laughing fit that threatened to topple him.
But the fruit in the market was something more exciting. Baby bananas and golden-fleshed pineapples were on the table every morning. And her mother had made a great marmalade-type topping out of the local sour oranges, tart as lemons.
Julia picked up a packet of locally grown tea, the only tea grown in Europe, if she remembered correctly. And a jar of Azorean honey would sweeten it nicely. She paid a young lady for the tea and honey and wandered to a booth with Azorean wines and aperitifs. Too strong for her right now, although the bottles were beautiful. She declined a free sample but bought a bottle of the Aguardente velha da Graciosa brandy that her father liked and a bottle of passionfruit liqueur for her mother, who liked sweeter drinks.
A masculine laugh, full of joy and amusement rang in her ears. For a second, she thought she had fallen into the past again. But there it was again.
Not daring to breathe, she turned slowly, almost hoping she was just imagining it. She looked across the tables and saw him. The apple fell from her hand and clunked into the bin.
Frank stood across from her. She put her hand to her throat in shock. His raw masculinity at age twenty had matured into solid manhood, his shoulders broader, his arms thicker. His dark hair curled over his ears, one wave falling over his forehead. His face had hardened but his dark eyes crinkled with amusement.
Frank was leaning on a vegetable stand, listening to an older man who was obviously telling a funny story, thanks to the amused faces of the surrounding shoppers. Frank clapped the older man on the back and turned away, a smile on his face.
He saw her. The smile vanished, leaving a stunned expression to match hers. Instead of freezing, he moved. Toward her.
She panicked. What could she say to him? What would he say to her? She took a step backward, automatically searching for an escape.
But Frank was coming, cutting around the customers and tables with the grace she remembered. He stopped next to her. “Julia?” he asked, his voice full of disbelief. Good, so she wasn’t the only one.
“Frank, well, my goodness! How in the world are you?” Her tone had enough sugar to frost a wedding cake. Light and friendly, light and friendly, she decided.
He didn’t cooperate with her game plan and reply in an equally frothy manner, saying, What brings you back to the Azores? Or Gee, Julia, how many years has it been? Instead, he stood silently staring at her. Almost as if she were a ghost popping up through the floor.
“Frank?” She touched his forearm and he jumped as if she’d shocked him. She was shocked too and jerked her hand back.
Oh, no. Why that futile spark of attraction, after all these years? She looked away desperately.
“Julia. Your husband is here with you?” He casually scanned the crowd but his question was far from casual.
“My husband?” She wasn’t thinking clearly, all the warning bells in her head distracting her, telling her to run away before she got hurt again. “No.”
“No, he is not here, or no, you have no husband?”
“Oh, Franco,” she whispered. He no longer fit his boyish nickname.
“Tell me, Julia. Which is it?”
“I have no husband.”
Triumph flared in his eyes, quickly banked into a neutral expression. She resented it. As if she were a prize horse unexpectedly put up for auction.
“What about you? Any wife?” She meant it for turnabout, but he took it for interest, his mouth curling into a victorious smile.
Maybe it was interest. Oh, of course it was. She was dying to know if there was a Duchess Mrs. Franco Duarte, or whatever they were called in Portugal these days. She’d never quite picked up the naming system that could leave a person with four last names.
“No wife. Yet. I am here on business with Benedito.” As if summoned by his name like Rumpelstiltskin, the wizened old man popped up at Frank’s elbow.
“Bom dia, senhorina.” He bowed at the waist, his eyes sparkling with unabashed curiosity. Julia could well imagine why. She was probably pale as a ghost and Frank looked like the cat who’d swallowed the canary.
“Hello.” Someone had to act with normalcy, so she extended her hand to the elderly Portuguese, who bowed over it almost as if she were a princess.
“Senhorina.”
“Senhorina Julia Cooper, may I present Senhor Benedito Henriques Oliveira. Benedito, this is Senhorina Julia Cooper, whom I met here a long time ago.”
The old man’s eyes sharpened as he gazed between them. “A long time ago?”
“When we were younger,” Frank answered evasively.
“Then you must talk!” Benedito practically shoved Frank at her. “Go to lunch! Don Franco, I will pick out those paint colors you wanted and have them mixed.” He ducked away into the crowd as Frank let out a yelp of dismay.
“Paint colors?” Julia asked.
Frank gave up trying to spot his assistant and sighed. “We are here to fix up the villa.”
“The villa.” She was swept back in time again, to the stone building overlooking the sea on Frank’s private island. “Why?” She immediately regretted showing any interest. It was his own business, even if he were setting
