Can't Hurry Love (12 page)

He threw the cloth to the ground. She gave him a sleepy smile. “What are you doing?”

No longer a conqueror, but just a man, he took her into his arms and started for his bedroom. “I promised I was going to be inside you for hours.”

His level head silently worried that it was going to take much longer than that, much longer than he’d ever expected, to get her outside of his life.

11

Giuliana slipped out of Liam’s home as quietly as she’d slipped out of his bed. In her own room, she showered, then stepped into a pair of Stevie’s old sweatpants she’d cropped herself just below the knee. The T-shirt she’d pulled on was one she’d found in Liam’s room and had worn for her dawn dash down the stairs. Soft from washing, it was the glacial blue of his eyes. In an act of rebellion, before heading out of the house, she’d dug out the rubber flip-flops he so despised from the back of her closet.

She didn’t need to please him, she told herself, although he’d seen to her pleasure time and again since capturing her in the vineyard the morning before.
I’m going to be inside you for hours.
He’d made good on the promise, and the memories of it tickled her skin, still sensitive from his mouth, his hand, the possessive strokes of him on her, everywhere. There’d been hours during which he’d just held her, too. They hadn’t spoken much—she’d been glad for that. When he’d finally fallen asleep hours after midnight, she’d remained beside him until she was sure he wouldn’t awaken when she left.

It was a relief to walk into the cool Napa morning. There was the smell of summer sunrise in the air, that buttery Chardonnay scent that landed like a sip of gold on the back of her tongue. She greedily swallowed it down like someone about to give it up for Lent. These tastes of home would have to last her for a lifetime.

On the shortcut to the winery, she found the abandoned clothes. Her face burned as she balled in her hands their shirts and her bra. The evidence of her complete abandon embarrassed her now, though it had always been like that with Liam. He’d been the patient tutor and she the avid student, her physical ardor for him as fiery as her temper. All these years later, she’d believed she had both under control.

But no.

His Bennett restraint seemed to set her Baci passions ablaze. Maybe they were cursed after all.

Squeezing the clothes between her hands, she refused to believe the thought. Wasn’t she walking away from him? Hadn’t she done it before and didn’t this prove she could do it again?

Liam had said it was “time.” He’d implied that the tension between them was making themselves and everyone around them nuts, and he was right. She’d been crazed with desire for him, but yesterday and last night the flaming sex had burned away the last threads of connection between them.

Surely it had . . . right?

She squeezed the clothes again. No one would be up and about Tanti Baci this early, but she’d stash them in her office closet the minute she got in. Then she’d go back to the task of purging the unnecessary files. It wasn’t only wanting to get away from Liam that had her heading for her desk at this hour. As a precaution, she was clearing out the bulk of the paperwork when family and staff weren’t around. They might ask questions she wasn’t yet ready to answer.

In the distance, she saw the roof of Anne and Alonzo’s cottage. Though she felt herself smile, her heart ached a little at the sight. Allie and Penn had worked so hard, a year ago, to get it ready for that first wedding. Then Stevie had pitched in to make sure the winter nuptials were carried out. Her sisters joked about purchasing a unicorn to graze on its front lawn, but her mind’s eye always saw her mother there, her daughters surrounding her during some long-ago picnic tea party.

Her footsteps took her closer and her smile died. The grass was littered with things, but not dolls and bears and tiny plates. Instead, it looked like torn cushions, ripped curtains, and smashed perfume bottles. Her throat closing down, she ran closer and saw that the entrance doors hung open and shards of glass littered the porch beneath the broken front windows.

She froze. Though she didn’t see or hear any movement from the cottage, latent fear held her by the throat. Panic fluttered in her belly and her mind silently screamed,
Liam!

His name snapped her free of the paralysis. She was on her own, she told herself, forcing her feet forward. She knew better than to depend upon him.

One step, two. Then a voice shouted her name. She spun around, her shoulders sagging.
He’s here. He’s come.

Liam’s gaze was on the cottage as he ran up. “Jesus. What happened here?” An absent hand slid over her hair to cup her cheek.

“I don’t know,” she choked out. It took everything she had not to step into his body and hang on. “I just got here myself.”

His eyes flicked to her as his jaw hardened. “You were heading inside.”

“I had to see—”

“I’ll see.” He shoved his phone in her hand. “Call the police.”

Her heart tried lurching after him as he headed up the walkway and into the house. Despite a couple of deep breaths, her fingers fumbled on the keypad of his phone. He was on the porch again before the dispatcher picked up. “Tell them there’s no hurry,” he said. “No one’s here—just the damage.”

Her knees crumpled. She sank onto the grass. Liam rushed back to her and took over the emergency call. Standing beside her, he pressed the side of her head against his thigh. She leaned on him, allowing herself these few moments to absorb his strength.

She was back on her feet by the time an Edenville patrol car drove up. It was still too early for her sisters or any of the other winery staff to be out and about.

“Call the farmhouse,” Liam urged. “Get everybody over here.”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I have to clean it up first.”

“Jules, you can’t go in.” He sounded impatient. “The PD is sending a team to take photos and fingerprints.”

She didn’t want anyone cataloging the havoc. It would only seem more real then. “How could that possibly help? It’s a public venue. A zillion people have been in and out of there since last summer.”

“And another zillion before that,” Liam acknowledged on a sigh. “Even the cop told me he brought his wife here when they first started dating.”

“Just like everybody else in Edenville.” The location had held a cult status for area lovers since before her own birth. It seemed as if you couldn’t call yourself a couple unless you’d necked at least once in the Tanti Baci cottage. “Stupid legend,” she grumbled.

“I have a few fond memories myself.”

She refused to look at him. Looking at him would make her remember her own memories—stolen kisses, kisses given freely, more intimate lovemaking that she’d demanded from him but that he’d not allowed until they were married . . . and then again yesterday, in those long hours in his big bed.

“I have to ask, Jules . . .”

“It was great, okay? It was great when we were teenagers and it was great last night.” She glared at him. “Does that satisfy you, Mr. Ego? Can we drop the subject now?”

He went still. Then he lifted a hand to draw his palm along his whiskered cheek, creating a sandpapery noise that sounded loud in the quiet morning.

Her skin prickled in response, everywhere that he’d left a burn: on the lower curve of her breast, the tender skin covering her pelvic bone, the soft flesh between her thighs. She refused to look away in shame, though. When she thought about it, she was damn glad the day and night before had been so wild. She could hope that the wild had been burned out of her as well as the bonds between her and Liam.

That wildness had led her to rash decisions and deep regrets ten years before.

He was still looking on her with that annoying, bemused expression. Her skin prickled again. “Fine. The earth moved. Several times. Happy now?”

“I was going to ask you why the security alarms didn’t go off.”

“Oh.” And all she’d talked about was how
she’d
gone off. “Well.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

This was almost more difficult to confess. “I cancelled the contract two months ago. We couldn’t afford it. I’ve been relying on the window stickers and those little staked signs they gave us when we signed up to act as a deterrent.”

He gaped at her. “For God’s sake.” He then snapped out, “What the hell were you thinking?”

“Didn’t you hear me?
We couldn’t afford it.
” More embarrassed heat crawled up her neck. “I’ve been doing my very best, but we still struggle with cash-flow issues.”

He took a jerky turn on the path in front of the cottage. She stared, because he didn’t do jerky very often. “Are you . . . uh . . . okay?”

“No, I’m not okay,” he said, halting in front of her. “Why didn’t you come to me? Or Jack or Penn?”

“I ran it by Seth—”

“I’m going to
kill
my brother.”

“He didn’t exactly recommend it, either,” she confessed.

“
Giuliana
. . .” He pinched the bridge of his nose, then spoke again, quieter now. “I would have floated you the money. Not to mention your brothers-in-law. Penn and Jack would come to the rescue, you know that.”

She
was coming to the rescue. Her plan was just a short time away from fruition. “My sisters and I agreed that we would handle this on our own—it’s our place, our problem to solve.”

He studied her face, then sighed. “You are one stubborn woman.”

His recognition of that loosened some of the knots in her belly. “So you’ll stand clear while I go into the cottage and—”

“If you dare, I’ll tie your hands behind your back and haul you home.”

Outraged, she flushed. “You wouldn’t—”

“Oh, I will. I want to.” A smile twitched the corners of his mouth. “As a matter of fact, if memory serves me, I have.”

Heat flooded her skin. He was trying to distract her, unnerve her,
infuriate
her. And it was working, because she remembered another dark night, a wrought-iron bed, scarves . . .

Exasperated by how easily he could turn her mood, she spun away from him. This connection was supposed to be gone! The tension, the awareness, finally in ashes after all they’d done the day and night before. But he had only to simply mention . . . She pressed her palm to her head as if that could force everything they’d once been to each other back into the farthest reaches of her mind.

His hands closed over her shoulders. “Jules . . .” He started up a tender massage. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about this mess.”

She didn’t know if he meant the cottage, their stale marriage, or the way she worried they might have complicated all their problems by having sex again. “I just want to clean it up before Allie and Stevie get a glimpse—”

“No.” His hands continued their gentle kneading.

She blinked the sting of tears away. “They were married there, Liam.”

He pulled her back against him and crossed his arms around her waist to hold her close. His head tucked so his scratchy cheek was aligned with hers. “I know, sweetheart.” He rocked her gently. “I know.”

Her nerves steadied. “How did you come to be here, anyway?”

“I woke up. You weren’t in bed. I missed you.”

After one night in ten years. Tears stung again and she closed her eyes. Then she walked out of his arms. To prove she was strong, she turned to face him. “Sorry to have troubled you.”

His eyes narrowed and he cocked his head. “It’s going to be okay, Jules.”

“Sure.”

“Your sisters, you, you’ll all survive this just fine.”

“Of course.”

“Tanti Baci will go on, too.”

See, this is why reestablishing distance between them was imperative. He made her want to agree with him. She wanted to say that yes, they would all survive just fine. That the winery would last forever. But no one knew better than she that it wasn’t going to happen.

Since returning to civilian life, Kohl didn’t always understand what motivated his own actions and reactions. He’d find himself enraged, arms corded, fists clenched, and not quite know what exactly had set him off. Like last night, he could lose chunks of time that he could never account for. He was growing accustomed to bewildering himself.

So he didn’t think too hard about why, upon learning about what happened at the wedding cottage, that he’d rushed to find Grace at the vineyard that morning. By the time he tracked her to the tasting room, he was breathing hard and his hangover headache was throbbing at the base of his skull in time with his speeding pulse. In the doorway, he stood for a moment, silently taking her in.