He doubted Kelly had ever been much for listening.
“You have a good business? You have money?”
He couldn’t help smiling. “You’re not subtle, are you?”
Grandma Tessa chuckled. “I’m an old woman. I’ve lived long enough to say what I think. Francesca is a lovely girl. Her husband died a long time ago. She has mourned him like a good wife, but time moves on. Things change.”
Sam made a mental note never to complain about Gabriel’s gruff inquires about his love life. Compared to Francesca’s grandmother, Gabriel was a lightweight.
“Francesca needs to be married,” Grandma Tessa said. “She comes from good stock. Her hips are a little narrow, but we can’t all be built like Brenna. She’s Francesca’s twin.”
A woman walked into the kitchen. She was about Francesca’s age, but a little shorter, with short dark hair and brown eyes. She winced as she caught her grandmother’s words.
“Hi, I’m Brenna of the childbearing hips,” she said ruefully. “You’re in luck. I’m here to rescue you.”
Grandma Tessa frowned. “Sam doesn’t need rescuing.”
“Want to ask him?” Brenna took the icing bag from him and set it on the counter. “Come on. I know a secret way out of here.”
“Nice to meet you,” Sam said as he hurried after Brenna.
She took him out the front door.
“I see I didn’t have to ask you twice,” she said.
“I enjoyed meeting your grandmother,” he said.
“Uh-huh. And the matchmaking?”
“That was a little intense.”
Brenna smiled. “Marcellis tend not to do things by halves. Just remember that you owe me.”
They circled around the house, coming out in the back, where the tables were set up for the party. Large trees provided shade. To one side young children ran around playing a game. He could smell the charcoal from the barbecues and something fruity he thought might be the grapes.
“There she is,” Brenna said, pointing.
He followed the direction and saw Francesca talking with her mother and her other sister. The light breeze played with the hem of her dress and a few loose strands of hair. When she leaned her head back and laughed, something caught in his gut, making him feel as if he’d been kicked.
Francesca looked up and saw them. She said something to her mother and sister and walked toward them.
“I rescued him from Grandma Tessa,” Brenna said when she was within earshot. “I don’t know how bad it got, but when I walked in they were talking about your skinny hips, so they’d already moved to childbearing.”
Francesca stumbled and blushed. “Sorry, Sam. I didn’t know it would go that far.”
He chuckled. “No permanent harm done.”
Brenna excused herself. He waited until she was gone to continue. “Now I know why you didn’t mention dating to your family.”
“It’s definitely a place I don’t want to go,” she admitted. “For a lot of reasons.” She pointed to a path. “That heads through the gardens. Up for a walk?”
“Sure. Your grandmother thinks you’ve been in mourning for your late husband?” he asked.
“Yes. I tried to explain that my feelings about marriage have nothing to do with being in mourning, but the Grands didn’t understand. I’m not the traditional woman they want me to be. I keep my guilt in check with my craft classes.”
“Have you been involved with anyone since Todd?” he asked.
“After a couple of years I dated some. But I was busy with college, and my heart wasn’t in it. Honestly, it was never worth the trouble before.”
He paused in front of a low fence surrounding a vegetable garden. “Why now? Why with me?”
She shook her head. “You’re fishing for compliments, and I’m not going to bite.”
He grinned. “Sure you are. You like to bite.”
He drew her close and wrapped his arms around her. Just before he kissed her, he thought she stiffened. He straightened.
“Is this too public?” he asked. While they couldn’t see any of the party-goers, they could hear them.
Francesca shrugged. “I’m just a little on edge.”
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “Then I can control myself until we’re alone. Fair enough?”
Francesca nodded and did her best to smile. After pointing at the neat rows of vegetables in the garden, she started talking about how Grandma Tessa and Grammy M went on a planting frenzy every spring because the mundane topic kept her from blurting out what was really on her mind.
She was pregnant with Sam’s baby. In the past two days she’d probably reminded herself of that truth a thousand times, but she still couldn’t believe it.
Life was nothing if not unfair, she thought as they headed back for the house. Condoms were supposed to be effective ninety-six percent of the time. She and Sam had made love four times that first night. What were the odds of her getting pregnant in just four times?
Sam took her hand in his and squeezed her fingers. The gentleness in his expression made her want to cry. Or throw herself on the ground and confess all.
She was going to tell him. She had to-it was the right thing to do. But not today. Not with her family around. And probably not tomorrow, because he still hadn’t adjusted to having a daughter who was twelve. What would he say about a newborn?
A baby. She sucked in a breath. This was going to change everything in her life and his. What about her studies, her goals? Could she do all that and be a single mother? There were months she had trouble balancing her checkbook.
As for Sam-she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He wasn’t going to be happy. She mentally cringed as she remembered his shock at Kelly’s arrival. At least his daughter was able to dress and feed herself. She was only six years from being an adult.
Sam was like her-he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested in long-term commitments or happily ever after. He’d already had to adjust his thinking to accommodate Kelly. What would happen when he found out there was about to be another child in his life?
Brenna drove one of the small trucks to the north end of the property and stopped by the fence line. Once she’d stilled the engine, she climbed out and checked on the Chardonnay grapes.
She glanced from the tight clusters to the sky. This was the part of the season her grandfather claimed made believers of them all. They prayed for the right temperatures, for the right balance of sun, cloud, and fog. For rain to fall on certain weeks, but not on others.
Brenna straightened and brushed off the skirt of her dress. She shouldn’t have left the party, but for reasons she didn’t understand, the crowd had started to get to her. She’d felt out of place and awkward.
She started walking the fence line. Dammit, she thought. She refused to be missing Jeff. The ass had dumped her for a younger woman, leaving her lost, confused, and a twenty-seven year-old cliche. She didn’t want him back. She didn’t want anything to do with him. But this was the first time she’d had to go out in a large gathering and be a single woman again. She’d been married in a double ceremony with Francesca when they’d both been eighteen. In the past nine years she’d forgotten what it felt like to be alone.
A flash of movement caught her attention. Brenna froze in place, knowing what she would see before she turned. She only had a heartbeat to be grateful she looked better than the last time she’d seen him a couple of months ago.
She remembered everything about their encounter, from how she’d found him too sexy for words and how they’d instantly jumped from social niceties to sniping at each other. This afternoon she was determined to take the moral high ground and be only pleasant.
“Hello, Nic,” she said as she turned toward the fence.
Nicholas Giovanni, sole heir to the Giovanni lands and Wild Sea Vineyards, strolled toward her. He moved with a laconic grace that made her remember being sixteen and wildly in love with the neighborhood bad boy.
