Her Italian Soldier Read online

  That brought a smile. “So far I can vouch for you.” His jaw hardened. “Don’t count on that lasting too long. Would it shock you if I told you I’m a little frightened by the way you make me feel? Buona notte.”

  Annabelle braced herself against the closed door, burying her face in her hands. Lucca, Lucca. Today he’d set her on fire with one look. Tonight at the restaurant when he’d helped her to the table, his touch had electrified her.

  Given enough time she’d probably make an utter fool of herself with him. Intuition told her that once involved, she’d never want to get uninvolved. But she had to admit it was hard to walk away from him knowing he was still fragile.

  Tomorrow morning she would move her stuff to the hotel before she left for the photo shoot. The pills always knocked him out. When he woke up, he’d see it was for the best.

  Annabelle slept poorly for the rest of the night. Around seven she awoke after hearing a noise. She sat up in bed and listened for it again. Maybe Lucca hadn’t been able to sleep and had gotten up to fix himself some lemon tea he favored.

  There it went again, that mournful sound. An animal outside maybe? She threw on her robe. The minute she opened the door, she realized it was coming from Lucca’s room. After listening again she realized he was in the middle of another nightmare. It didn’t surprise her. Stefana’s visit would have triggered memories from his subconscious. Unfortunately they’d found expression once he’d fallen asleep.

  She tiptoed into his room. His covers were strewn on the floor. He lay on his stomach wearing nothing but the bottom of his sweats. Her heart ached to watch gut-wrenching sobs shake his body while his face was buried in the pillow. His hard-muscled physique was as stiff as an iron poker.

  Without conscious thought she sat down on the mattress and curved one of her hands around his shoulder. The other went to his hip. “Lucca,” she called softly to him. “Wake up. You’re dreaming. Come on.” Using a gentle rolling motion, she managed to get him on his back. More unintelligible words flew out of his mouth.

  His tear-washed face was her undoing. She bent over him and started kissing his eyelids and cheeks. “Lucca?” she whispered. “You’re no longer in the air force. You’re home and safe.” She ran her lips over every rugged line and angle of the face haunting her dreams. Her hands massaged his shoulders, willing him to relax and let go of the powerful flashback.

  “Hush now,” she murmured against his lips, both of theirs salty from his tears. “You’re not alone. I’m here.”

  Just when she thought she wasn’t getting through to him he muttered, “Annabelle?”

  “Yes,” she cried, so relieved he’d come back to reality, she didn’t care what he thought of her unorthodox methods. Her sorrow for what he’d suffered went too deep for tears. He’d been injured and had lost his best friend. She rocked him in her arms. With a swift strength she could scarcely credit, he pulled her body all the way on to the bed.

  “Your leg—”

  “I’m being careful,” he assured her. “Take off that nurse’s hat and give me the kiss of life again so I know I’m not dreaming.” In the next second his mouth covered hers and she found herself opening up to him. She couldn’t hold back, not when she wanted him with such a hunger she was shocked by it.

  Lucca had come awake, drawing long, deeply passionate kisses from her mouth until she couldn’t breathe. They moved as one flesh, giving and taking their pleasure. She’d entered a realm of rapture she’d never known before and time ceased to exist.

  Under his spell she was so far gone, she didn’t hear the knocking on the kitchen door until Lucca relinquished her mouth with a groan and sat up to listen. He was more beautiful to her than any Roman god.

  The knocking persisted even louder than before. “Someone wants to see you.”

  “Maybe its Basilio from work with a message from your father. It must be important, but I don’t know why he didn’t phone me. He has my cell number.”

  Embarrassed to be caught like this, Annabelle scrambled out of Lucca’s warm arms and got off the bed, totally disoriented and disheveled. She could tell his morning whiskers had given her a slight rash.

  “You stay here, Lucca. I’ll see who it is.”

  His eyes were still slumberous from their passion. “Hurry back.”

  The huskiness of his tone set her body trembling. She shut the door to the bedroom and raced through the house to the kitchen, cinching the belt to her robe tighter around the waist.

  “Who is it?” she called from behind the door.

  “Signorina Marsh? It’s Fortunato Colombari!”

  Guilio’s grandson. She’d never met him, but she’d heard about him. Taking a second breath she opened the door. A dark blond Italian teen, maybe sixteen or seventeen, stood there rocking back on his heels with a surprised look of undeniable male interest in his brown eyes. He stared at her for what seemed a full minute. Had he noticed her swollen lips, which Lucca had nearly devoured because they couldn’t seem to get enough of each other?

  “My mama sent me down to see if you require anything,” he explained in very good English. “Guilio, my grandfather, is in Milan, so she agreed to watch out for you.”

  “How nice of her. It’s a pleasure to meet you, For tunato.”

  “Same here. Mama sent you some fresh melons. I will put them on the counter for you.” Without waiting for permission, he walked inside carrying a basket of them. When she shut the door and turned around, her eyes saw what he could see.

  Lucca must have been so tired last night, he’d pulled off his clothes and had thrown them over one of the kitchen chairs. His socks and shoes lay on the floor, one shoe on its side. Though he’d brought the dishes in from the living room, he hadn’t cleaned up the kitchen after the big lunch he’d made for him and Stefana yesterday.

  After almost staggering out of Lucca’s bed and room, Annabelle had been so enthralled with him, she hadn’t noticed anything else. But there was no doubt Fortunato was looking at everything and coming to the conclusion that she wasn’t living here alone. And she was a messy guest, too.

  “That was so kind of you to bring me fruit, Fortunato. Please thank your mother for me.”

  His eyes slid to the white cargo pants and blue sport shirt. He gave her a devilish grin. “I will tell her you are enjoying Italy very much.”

  She felt heat swarm to her face. Guilty as charged.

  On his way out the door, he paused. “I will also tell her you are more squisita than Grandfather Guilio says you are. When the women in our family meet you, they will all be jealous and the men will wish they had met you first.” He blew her a kiss. “Ciao, signorina.”

  “Ciao.” She watched him drive away in a fabulous champagne-colored Amalfi four-door voyager.

  “Sounds like you made a conquest of Ruggero’s son.” Lucca had come up behind her. His warmth enveloped her as his hands slid around her waist from behind. She felt his lips kiss the nape of her neck. It sent rivulets of desire through her body, causing her to gasp softly. But much as she wanted to go back to the bedroom with him and pick up where they’d left off, she couldn’t.

  “Lucca, he knows—”

  “He knows a man is in the house,” he said against the side of her neck and kissed her skin again. The mere contact made her feel light-headed. “He just doesn’t know who. Once he tells his mama about the squisita signorina staying in my house, she’ll be down to investigate.

  “Does it matter? Papa knows I’m home.” Lucca spun her around, wrapping his arms around her neck. “Now I have to have this.” He planted a hot kiss to her mouth, melting her bones in the process.

  Annabelle could have stayed crushed against him indefinitely, but not wanting to get caught by Fortunato’s mother, she tore her lips from Lucca’s so she could ease away.

  He studied her upturned features for a moment. “Don’t be concerned. Fortunato is harmless.”

  “But he’ll tell everyone what he saw and it will get out that Signorina Marsh has
a lover.”

  “That frightens you, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  His black brows knit together. He grasped her upper arms. “Something tells me this has a lot to do with your ex-husband.”

  “What?”

  A tiny nerve throbbed at the corner of his compelling mouth. “Some women feel guilty about enjoying another man even after they’ve been divorced. It usually means she still imagines herself in love with her ex-spouse and is waiting for him to come back to her.”

  “You may have known a woman like that, but that’s an absolutely crazy theory and doesn’t apply to me!” she cried.

  “Doesn’t it?” Lucca wouldn’t let this go until he got the answer he wanted. “Ryan won’t last long with the woman he’s married to, even if they have a baby. You can count on it.”

  “Well you can count on this—examine my heart and you’ll discover no trace of him there because he became extinct the day I learned he betrayed me.”

  He gave her a speculative stare until she wanted to scream. In this mood, the passion they’d shared earlier might never have happened.

  “Do you honestly think I would have switched hospitals, let alone have gone to work for Mel, if I’d still had the slightest hope Ryan would regret what he’d done and ask for a second chance? He destroyed every particle of affection I ever had for him.”

  Lucca gave an elegant shrug. “You’ve convinced me. I won’t bring him up to you again.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice shook.

  “So what else is going on with you?” One brow had dipped dangerously.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Except she did because he always seemed to know when she was keeping something from him.

  “I gave Papa my word where you’re concerned. It seems to me you’re more worried about your image with him.”

  She lowered her head.

  Lucca heaved a frustrated sigh. “Let me tell you something about my father, Annabelle. If you were that kind of woman, he’d have seen right through you and he would never have asked you to model for him. You’re someone very important to him. You must know that.”

  “I do. I just want those warm feelings to continue.”

  Everything Lucca said and did was making chaos of her emotions, but no one was as important to Guilio as his own son. One day soon he’d see what his father had done in his honor.

  He brushed his lips against hers. “Let’s get dressed and go down to the beach. I’ll find one of my mother’s sun hats for you to wear. We’ll rent a cruiser and spend the day on the water.”

  She averted her eyes. “That sounds wonderful.” Away from the farmhouse she wouldn’t feel like they were sitting ducks.

  The whole time she rushed to get ready, she feared there’d be another knock on the door. But when she walked through to the kitchen minutes later, he was there alone waiting for her with a covered basket.

  Their gazes fused. “I made us a picnic.”

  “You’re amazing. Have you got your pills?”

  “Yes, nurse.”

  She ignored him and hurried out to the car to pop the trunk. He trailed her and put their things inside. When they were settled in the car, he smiled at her before putting on his sunglasses. “There’s nothing like having my own driver and medic in one. I could grow to like this arrangement.”

  “Until the doctor tells a certain fighter pilot he has recovered enough to get behind the wheel of a car again.”

  When he laughed, Annabelle gave him a covert glance. “With rest and good food, you’re walking so well, you’re hardly recognizable from that first night.” She drove out to join the road leading down to the major highway.

  “You sound happy.”

  “I am.” I am.

  “Even though you had to supply comfort to a vet this morning?”

  “Let’s not pretend I didn’t enjoy it after you woke up.” Enjoy didn’t cover it. “You proved to me there’s life after death.”

  “That’s nice to hear.”

  “Mel has been worried for me, but if he’d seen us together, those fears would have dissolved. That’s your contribution, Lucca. Would you hate me if I told you I’m grateful to you for making me feel like a woman again?”

  “I only kissed you a few times.”

  “It was enough for this relic to feel the heat.”

  She heard a harsh sound come out of him. He jerked his head toward her. “Is that how you really feel about yourself? How old are you? Twenty-five?”

  “Almost twenty-seven.”

  “Don’t you know what a beautiful girl you are?”

  Oh, Lucca.

  “I’m no girl.” Yet his father had called her the Amalfi Girl.

  “You’re the stuff men’s dreams are made of. Don’t let what your ex did distort the truth. This morning I found out what a loving, giving woman you are. Don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about because I was there with you.”

  She smiled. “I know. That means there’s hope for you, too. For two survivors, we’re not doing so badly after all. We’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of us to reach the marina. Tell me about your stepbrothers. What are their names again?”

  “Ruggero and Tomaso.”

  “Do you like them?”

  “Not in the beginning. We all had to live together in a villa farther up the mountain.”

  After losing his mother, Annabelle couldn’t imagine how hard that would have been. “I didn’t realize they had children as old as Fortunato.”

  “They were a couple of years older. I’m surprised my father hasn’t told you all this.”

  She put on her sunglasses. “I think you’re under the impression I’ve spent loads of time with him, Lucca. But you’d be wrong. Guilio was only in Los Angeles two days. During that time we were in meetings with Mel. When I flew to Rome last week, he met my plane and it’s been work ever since.”

  He rested his head against the window. “Have you met Maria?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me if I like my stepmother?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know how much you loved your mother.”

  “I adored her, but I’ve come to care a great deal for Maria.”

  “I’m glad.” Wanting to know anything and everything about him she asked, “What’s Fortunato’s mother like?”

  “Besides other girls, I dated Cellina before I joined the air force.”

  Out of the frying pan, Annabelle.

  She swallowed hard. “Is she another reason you didn’t want anyone to know you were home yet?”

  “No.” was his blunt answer. “You know my reasons. I didn’t want my father to hear I was home before I could tell him myself. But to satisfy your feminine curiosity, if I’d been in love with her, I wouldn’t have left Ravello.”

  Her fascination with him was so great, she couldn’t stop asking questions. “Has it made things difficult for you and Ruggero?”

  “Not anymore. But in the beginning I think my stepbrother was glad I had a career that kept me away for long periods of time.”

  “I thought it strange she sent those melons.”

  “It’s not strange at all.” She felt his eyes impale her. “The whole family has to be intrigued by my father’s sudden affection for the American woman he met in California.”

  The chemistry between them was palpable. “How about a little music?” She turned on the radio and grazed the channels until she found some soft Italian rock. After their conversation just now, she needed anything to help contain the feelings he’d aroused in her.

  When she saw the sign for the marina, her heart leaped because they would be spending the afternoon alone on a boat. She pulled around past a string of launches and stopped near the office.

  “I’ll be right back.” Before she knew what was happening, he cupped the back of her head and kissed her hard on the mouth. Annabelle was moaning by the time he finally relinquished her lips and
got out of the car.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ON Monday morning, Lucca heard his father’s car in the drive and walked out of the house to greet him. They hugged.

  “You’re really home for good. I can’t believe it.” They hugged again.

  When Lucca had arrived at two in the morning last week, he’d been in such a terrible place emotionally, he couldn’t have imagined feeling this good today.

  “Come in the house, Papa. I’ve made Mama’s lemon tea for you.”

  “I haven’t tasted that in years.”

  No. Lucca didn’t imagine he had. “Everything’s waiting for us out on the terrace.” He’d prepared their favorite eggs, fruit, yogurt and pastry.

  His father followed him. “You have a slight limp, nothing more. I thank God for that.”

  “I do, too. Once all the pain is gone, you won’t even notice that. Come and sit.”

  Guilio looked around. Lucca watched his eyes glaze over. “Daisies on the table, just like your mother used to do. As if there aren’t enough daisies surrounding the place.”

  Lucca fought his own tears. “How is your work going lately?”

  His father rubbed his eyes before digging into his breakfast. “Your uncles and I can’t complain. The good news is, we have a much larger market than we used to and need more help, but I know the family business has never been your interest.”

  “I’m glad it’s growing, Papa.”

  His father chuckled. “You sounded like my little boy just then. I am, too. So…you’re really decided on this farming business.”

  “Yes. That’s why I want those two properties. Along with this one I plan to make a good profit. I intend for Cavezzali to sell the premier frutta deliziosa in all Ravello.”

  “This is your grandfather’s doing.”

  “Only indirectly. I was born with some of Mama’s genes. She helped with the farming as a girl. I took to it pure and simply. But I also inherited some of your genes. You loved car design. I loved jet planes. It’s all mixed around inside me.”