An oncoming car slammed on its brakes, struck him with the right front bumper, spun him into the street.
Cecilia hit the still-moving car on the passenger door, whirled backward and fell facedown on the asphalt. She knew she had to get up. She had to help that child, but the best she could do was crawl… Vaguely, she heard sirens and a man’s rumbling voice she now knew to be Max’s said, “You saved Annabella. You saved my niece.”
Cecilia relaxed, slid toward unconsciousness, then tensed again. Desperately, she groped for the travel wallet hidden under her clothes. Kellen’s documents. She couldn’t lose them.
“What’s wrong?” the man’s voice asked. “What can I help you with?”
She wrapped her fingers around the string, tugged the wallet out so she could grasp it. She opened her swollen eyes, and for the first time, she looked into Max’s strong, grave face.
“Do you want me to keep that for you?” he asked.
At the thought, terror gripped her.
“I’ll keep them safe. I’ll return them as soon as you wish.”
Behind him, she could see policemen and EMTs advancing on her. They would take Kellen’s wallet. They’d ask questions she couldn’t answer.
She offered the wallet to Annabella’s uncle.
He grasped it.
“Don’t look,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“Promise you won’t look.”
“I promise.”
*
Cecilia spent a week in the hospital. She’d cracked her tailbone and fractured her cheek. She was dehydrated and undernourished. More than that, the physicians had expressed concern about the old burns around her hairline and on her shoulders. She heard one doctor tell Max that at some point in her life she’d suffered physical and mental trauma, and that no doubt accounted for her overly violent defense of Annabella. He also told Max that she should be confined to an institution until they could ascertain that she was stable.
An hour later, when Max came in, she was out of bed and scavenging for clothing.
He flung a small overnight case on the bed and opened it. “Here. Pick out what you want to wear. I’m taking you home.”
“To the home?” Kellen’s travel wallet was on top. She snatched it up, pulled it over her head, settled it on her chest. “To hell with you.”
“My home,” he said. “You saved my niece. Her father is Ettore Fontana, a desperate man without honor. He intended to kidnap Annabella and hold her for ransom. You saved her. The Di Luca family owes you a debt. We always pay our debts. No more fears. You’re safe with us.”
“I’ll never be confined again.” Imprisoned, abused, married. Never again. She turned her back to him, stripped off the hospital gown and started to dress. The guy had good taste in underwear, she’d say that for him.
His voice rumbled with patience. “In my home, you can rest, recuperate, and then when you wish, I’ll help you go somewhere safe. I’ll help you find a job. I don’t know what misfortune put you on the streets, but I will protect you.”
Cecilia had listened to another man once say pleasant things in a convincing voice, and Gregory had murdered her cousin and almost killed her. “Why should I believe you?” she asked hoarsely.
When she had donned one layer of clothes and started on a second, he gently turned her to face him, and his eyes, golden brown and warm, met hers. “Because I’m Maximilian Di Luca. I always keep my word.”
*
As the town car rumbled along the asphalt, Kellen touched her wet cheeks. Tears. She remembered so well what Max said, what he did, how she had loved him…
The first time she woke in the hospital, he asked her what her name was.
“Ceecee.” Funny. She hadn’t thought about what she should say. She just said it. Ceecee, her family nickname. That was what he called her.
She groped along the leather seat, pulled herself into a sitting position, asked, “Birdie? Where’s Birdie? We were supposed to stop for Birdie.”
“Someone else is bringing her to the airstrip.”
“Carson Lennex is bringing her?”
“Right. Carson Lennex.”
“That’s nice.” Kellen took a few more careful breaths. “I think he likes her.”
The driver gave a soft snort.
Kellen tried to remember this driver. She knew everyone at the resort. But she couldn’t remember this woman.
She touched the scar on her forehead.
Had these new memories crowded out the old ones?
Or was the explanation for this memory loss as simple as a concussion?
Her head spun, and she slowly reclined.
43
The Di Luca estate in Pennsylvania’s Brandywine Valley consisted of forty acres of rolling hills planted in vines, a Tuscan-style tasting room and Max’s home. As winter began its first sweep across Lake Erie, Cecilia huddled under a heated throw on the wide porch overlooking the vineyards and watched Max drive his battered pickup in from the blending barn. For the first time in more than two years, since her marriage to Gregory, she believed that, somehow, her life was worth living. More than that—she believed she was worthy of life, and with that revelation, she’d fallen in love with Max. After her marriage, it seemed impossible, but Max made her smile. He made her feel special.
She didn’t expect that he love her back. After all, he made Annabella smile, too. Same with his sister. Same with his mother. He was the kind of guy who cared for his people, and Cecilia had earned her place as one of his people. Still, after Gregory, it was interesting to feel a warm glow in the region of her heart—and other parts.
He ran up the porch stairs and grinned at the sight of her. “If you’re so cold, why don’t you go in?”
“I don’t like to be confined.”
“Right. I knew that. Scoot over.” He crowded her into one corner of the swing, pulled her into his arms and held her.
Slowly, she relaxed and allowed her head to sink onto his chest. “How do you stay so warm?” she asked.
“I’ve always been like this. I sleep naked in the winter.”
“Um.” Her apparently sex-starved mind constructed a glorious naked Max out of internet cowboys and James Bond movies. But Max didn’t deserve to have her using him for her own titillation, and hastily, she deconstructed the image.
“I’m not particularly hairy,” he said, “but I don’t wax and I’m not about to start. Is that okay?”
Naked Max was back, with a light dusting of body hair.
Her mouth was dry. She must be dehydrated. “Sure?”
“Do you have body hair?”
“Um. Parts of me. Since I’m blonde, there’s not actually…much.”
“Ah.” The sound was no more than a slow, soft exhale. He ran his fingers over her cropped head. “Blond all over.”
She broke a sweat. When she’d come out to the porch, the temperature had hovered at thirty-seven degrees. When had summer arrived?
“Whatever you do doesn’t matter to me. I like you the way you are.”
When had his voice grown so deep? Rumbly? “I don’t think that we should…talk about…”
“True. We shouldn’t talk.” He loosened his grip on her, stood up and offered her his hand. “Shall we go in and explore?”
She stared at that hand. She memorized the shape of the palm, broad and square, the length of the fingers, long and blunt, the nimble thumb, the sweeping lines, the scar under the index finger. She stared because she needed to think, but something about the stability and strength of that hand convinced her that thinking was overrated.
Putting her hand in his, she let him lift her to her feet. She didn’t know why he was doing this, but she followed him inside to his bedroom and watched him take off his clothes. When his clothes were off, then she knew why. He looked at her, still skinny, skittish, scarred and scared and broken, and he wanted her.
Taking a long breath, she dropped the heated throw, pulled off her headband, her gloves, her boots, socks, sweatshirt, jeans.
Max started to chuckle when she got to her winter underwear, and he came to help her. The man was efficient; he got her naked in no time. Then she was naked and he was naked and they were naked together, and she was very warm, and for the first time since seeing Gregory kill her cousin, she could sleep without nightmares.