With Her Last Breath (37 page)

Camping on the island for a couple of days was a good idea—getting away from telephone calls and business, and making sense of all that had happened. Maggie needed this time, nothing else mattered. At times she walked to him and simply slid into his arms, her head on his chest. Lovemaking was long and sweet and reassuringly tender without words.

He understood the tears that Maggie silently shed as he held her, the dampness warm upon his skin.

Nick stood as Maggie went down on her knees. He silently walked closer, because if she needed him—

Maggie turned, and the moonlight caught her face, pale and haunted. “Come here, Nick. I know you’re there.”

As if she were inviting Nick closer, Scout trotted to him, heeling perfectly as he walked slowly to Maggie.

The necklace was a stream of silver in the moonlight, flowing from Maggie’s hands as she cradled the locket. Nick went down on his knees beside her, his arm around her. “I’ve never seen you open that.”

“I couldn’t, but it is time now.” Slowly, she opened the locket and there was her sister. Maggie’s finger traced the smiling image so like her own. “Her sons look like Glenda. She needs peace. Celeste said she did.”

With a deep breath, Maggie reached inside her light jacket’s pocket and held the scrap of Celeste’s scarf. Silently, she dug a hole in the sand. She carefully placed a lacy handkerchief inside it.

“That was our mother’s,” she explained softly as she placed the locket and the red scrap in the handkerchief and folded the edges over them. “Goodbye, Glenda. Goodbye, Celeste. Sleep tight. I’ll always love you.”

B
y mid-September, Nick was exhausted. By working from before dawn until late at night, he was slowly getting the winery in shape for the crop that would be full and luscious in another week.

Nick had had to make some personal attitude adjustments: Lorna was obviously the best fix-it “man” around when it came to anything mechanical, and Nick had been forced to admit that to her. The sight of Lorna swaggering around in greasy coveralls with a tool belt strapped around her hips was too much.

Another full-blown argument with Maggie had made him feel like a jerk. After a hard work day, he settled in to brood over a glass of Pinot Noir at the family dining room table. Closed for the night, the restaurant was quiet as his family came to sit at the table.

Echoes of his last argument with Maggie circled him:

“You need me, Nick. You’re short on help, with too much to do. I know the inventory. Don’t be so bullheaded.”

“I will not have you working for me without pay. In fact, I don’t want you to work for me at all.”

“It’s your pride. You don’t want to be compared with Ryan, who basically used me. Nick, this is different, you know it is. I love you and I want to help.”

“You’ve done enough. Just do whatever you have to do, but you’re not working for me. A man likes to think that he can provide—”

At that point, Maggie had picked up the dinner rolls she’d just finished baking and started throwing them at him. Nick had caught a few and then simply let the rest of them bounce off his body. “Now that’s a waste.”

“If you think that you’re anything like Ryan, forget it. You’ve got this man role–woman role thing going on. I can’t just sit on my hands while you’re working yourself to death. I want to help you.”

“That’s what we are, Maggie. A man and a woman.”

“All this comes down to me not telling you everything—”

“We were lovers. I had a right to know about your life and your nightmares. I had a right to your trust. I love you, Maggie.”

“Those nightmares are gone, Nick. Those grapes are coming in and you need help.”

“Not you.”

With just two weeks to go before the harvest at the end of September, Nick had dug in firmly—he refused to let Maggie help him put the winery back on its feet. Or to lend him the money that Celeste had left to her. Or cash the bonds her mother had left her for absolute down-and-out “bottom money.”

Just after Brent’s death, Maggie had been locked in a struggle with the past, and Nick had ached for her every minute. She’d taken long walks, watched Lake Michigan, and cleaned his yard—and his house. Gradually, she’d eased away from all but the necessary gym classes, keeping those clients with definite health problems.

Nick understood that she was distancing herself from a life and a profession that she didn’t really feel were hers.

Every foot of his house had been scrubbed and polished, the furniture rearranged. Since this seemed to be therapeutic for Maggie, Nick hadn’t complained. And then she’d regrouped, and all hell broke loose—a mix of arguments, sulking, determined lovemaking, and stalking him.

Not that he minded Maggie stalking him, or her persuasive methods—such as that night she appeared in the vineyards carrying a blanket and a basket of food. She hadn’t been wearing anything beneath that peasant blouse and full skirt.

Nick swirled the wine in his glass, watching the liquid catch the light. Maggie had licked the wine she’d dropped onto his body and in the moonlight had moved over him…

“I love you,” she’d whispered, nuzzling his stomach and working her way up to his nipples.

That soft, sweet lovemaking was the perfect end to a day he never wanted to repeat.

While Nick brooded over Maggie and his current standoff with her, his father asked, “Where are the girls tonight?”

“Lorna, Sissy, Beth, and Maggie are at Celeste’s house, settling details. Vinnie wants to buy the house for Lorna, and Beth is going to move to Iowa, but be a partner in Journeys.”

“Your mother is with them. I don’t like it—”

As if on cue, Rosa and Maggie entered through the back door. Dante was with them. He looked half terrified and half hopeful. His hand shook as he poured a glass of wine and quickly downed it.

Maggie came to look down at Nick, her expression tender as she smoothed his hair. “Hi, Big Guy. You look tired.”

She came easily when he tugged her into his lap, kissing her. Nick leaned his head against hers. Everything he’d wanted in the world was in his arms, giving him peace—unless she brought up working at the winery. “Hi.”

Rosa tied on her apron with a firmness that said she had made up her mind. “We’re going after my grandson tomorrow. Anthony, you and Tony move Dante’s things in with
Tony. Sissy will baby-sit during the day—or I will. We’re a family—we’ll do this together and Dante and his son will be together. Maggie said it’s time, and I think so, too. A little boy will feel better with his grandmother and a future auntie coming to get him with his father. Dante, you go call that woman who calls herself a mother. Make the arrangements. As Maggie says, ‘We’re settling in as a family.’ We have things to do, all of us. And Nicholas, you must realize that a woman wants to help her man. Just as I help your father—because it is my place to do so. You cannot stop Maggie from—”

Maggie lifted her face to study Nick’s expression. She toyed with his hair. “He’s cute when he sulks, isn’t he, Rosa?”

Rosa beamed at both of them. “Very cute.”

“My son is terrified of me,” Dante said unevenly. “I don’t think—”

“Oh, shush,” both women said at once.

At Nick’s house, Maggie took her shower, and the erotic sounds she made soon had Nick joining her.

Their hunger shot into heat immediately, and Nick had hurriedly carried Maggie to his bed—where she belonged.

They’d made love gently, thoroughly, many times, but this time was fierce and demanding, rising to the peak and then easing, only to rise again.

Panting delicately, Maggie held back her orgasm, one that Nick demanded from her.

Because he was fighting her demands as Maggie pitted herself against him, biting lightly, suckling, undulating beneath him.

Nick had pinned her hands at her side, their fingers locked, rising over her, pressing deep within the cradle of her thighs. “You like this, don’t you? Testing me?”

“It has its pleasures. I like the other sweet times, too. You’re just a big, fantastic playground. I’m an athlete, dear heart. I enjoy our bodies, and you’re so easy.” She panted, fighting the release he demanded of her, because his own was threatening to escape his control.

“You’re going to marry me.”

“Yes, I am. Because I love you. Every stubborn part of you. I think I showed you that a minute ago before you started rushing me. It’s time, Nick. Now,” she whispered breathlessly.

“When are you going to marry me?” He plunged in to taste her breasts, not sparing her, seeking that rich, luxurious clenching of her body, the ripe fruit that was his to claim.

Maggie pushed back, her hair damp against her face, her lips swollen with those deep kisses that drove them both—“No more waiting until the flavors blend just right. You’re full and ripe now, Nick. Just ready for harvesting. One crush, just one squeeze and you’ll—”

With all his strength, Nick controlled his release, easing slightly away. “When? When are we getting married?”

“When I come to you. There are things I have to do—”

Nick shuddered, fighting the warm, enticing clench of her body. “After Dante’s boy—like what?”

“Like this—” With a high, keening sound, Maggie went into herself the way he loved, holding him tightly, her pulses became his, and Nick gave himself to her.

When he could breathe again, Nick nuzzled Maggie’s damp throat as she stroked his scarred thigh, soothing him. “Like what? What do you have to do before we get married?”

Maggie gripped the gearshift of the moving van and eased the heavily loaded vehicle onto the dirt road leading toward Alessandros Winery and Vineyard. In the first week of October, she was hot and tired and dirty, pushing across country from San Francisco to Michigan—but she’d never felt so good, so clean and new and excited. Professional movers could have helped—but this was her journey, one she had to make by herself, coming from the past into her future with Nick.

At the winery, cars were parked in the visitors’ lot. In the vineyard, the Alessandro family appeared to be just finishing tidying up. Dante stood near his parents, a small boy sitting
on his shoulders. The boy’s black hair shone in the sun, his grin matching Dante’s.

Nick was still arguing with Maggie before she flew to San Francisco to collect her family’s things and see her nephews. “I’ll come with you. Just wait until harvest is done and—”

“You’re not letting me help you, and I’ve got things to do. I want to clear my life, the past, and then I’ll be back. Stop pushing me.”

“I like pushing you. You like pushing me, so what else is new?”

“Everything,” she’d said. “Everything is new and wonderful—with you.”

Nick hadn’t liked Maggie going alone, fearing for her. But she knew that he loved her and understood—as much as he could.

Through the dirty windshield, Maggie saw Nick—shirt open, jeans dusty, hair even longer and blacker than she remembered, a red bandana around his forehead.

Her heart did that little roll-over thing that said she loved him, and she eased the rented moving van to a stop. The man watching her didn’t smile, but across the distance, she felt the impact of that hard body, the tenseness riding him.

She tilted her head a little, admiring Nick’s walk toward her—that unhurried masculine swagger as he took off his gloves.

Tough? Definitely. A man to last and to love? Most certainly. A good family man whose love ran deep.

Those black eyes pinned her as he came close to stand beside the truck. He stuck out his thumb in a hitchhiker’s gesture, and she nodded.

Nick opened the door and Scout leaped inside, controlled by the man who followed her into the cab. “Hi, lady.”

Maggie hugged Scout, scratching her ears, but her eyes never left Nick’s.

“Hi.” She loved him. Whatever happened between them, however they would argue, there would always be love.

She shifted the gears, and the van lumbered into move
ment. Nick handed her a small, folded, worn piece of paper. She recognized the note that she’d left for him when she’d discovered Brent was near.

When her look questioned Nick, he shook his head. He’d never opened it.

Maggie slowly tore the paper into pieces and tossed them out the open window. The Maggie who wrote that note, terrified by the past, was completely gone. She’d come through a lifetime just for Nick.

“So is Lorenzo still steamed at me?”

Nick shrugged, and his lips pushed down a smile. “Sure. Expect a few more lectures on how you should trust police. Bake him some cinnamon rolls. Better yet, promise to supply them on a regular basis for him and for any bake sales for the police uniforms or retirement fund.”

“Sounds fair enough.”

Nick’s arm stretched across the back of the seat, behind Scout. He removed Maggie’s ball cap and smoothed her hair, his eyes warm with tenderness and understanding. “So what’s new?”

He spoke easily, waiting for her to come all the way to him. She’d made a difficult journey, but she needed to come to him on her terms, new and ready for the future.

“My nephews are coming to visit. They’ve grown. If you don’t mind, their father and his new wife are coming, too. I like her…I thought we’d go for the big Italian wedding, if that’s okay with you? Invite the winegrowers who gave you so much help?”

Nick seemed to stop breathing, and he said quietly, “I’d like that. I make mistakes, Maggie. You shouldn’t be anything, do anything, but what you want—just for you. If you want to work with me, you should. I mean, you can. Your call.”

“Oh, I’ll be helping you. And I intend to get paid, very well. Maybe not with money.”

His grin shot across the cab’s shadows—because he un
derstood perfectly. And because he knew her, Nick asked, “And what else?”

“I’ll have plenty to do, and everything that I really want to do. Lorna wants babies, and that means she’ll need help at the shop. Then I want to start an herb garden, maybe a really big one, and there are the tulip bulbs to plant, of course. Oh, I have a lot to do. And I think I’ll start with a shower—”

She loved Nick’s blank expression, and his delight. “Gotcha,” she teased.

“Not yet. If you don’t stop handling that stick shift, it may be sooner than later.”

The van lumbered toward his house, and Nick and Maggie crossed through sunshine and shadow, just the same as when they first saw each other—and just as they would spend the rest of their lives.

A week after their mid-October wedding, Maggie stood in the Frenchman’s old lighthouse, Nick’s arms around her as they looked out at the moonlit lake.

The slight wind brought the sound of falling leaves and Celeste’s wind chimes through the open window.

On the small table, there were two framed wedding pictures. The brides were in lace and white—Alyssa with a young Nick, and Maggie with a solemn older Nick.

“Beth, in Iowa, feeding chickens and loving it,” Nick mused. “Now that’s a picture.”

“It’s a beautiful picture.”

“I know how the Frenchman felt, waiting for the woman he loved, watching for her,” Nick said quietly. “I could have waited for you forever.”

Maggie leaned back against this strong, good man who always did his best. “I feel their peace, all of them. I’m glad Alyssa gave you to me. I felt that she did, that she wanted you to be happy.”

“It’s good,” Nick stated simply as he held Maggie closer.

“Very good.”