Valentine's Day

“What do you want?” he barked at them.

“I don’t know, man,” one of them sneered. Tall and thin, he wore a red bandanna tied tightly around his head. “What you got?”

“Nothing that will do you any good,” he said. “Let us pass.”

The one who had spoken before gave an ugly laugh. “No way,” he said, and suddenly there was the flash of a knife in his hand.

Max stared at the knife, knowing this was not good. What a night. This, on top of all the rest, just about did it for him. How much bad luck could one night bring? Fed up, he let his inner Italian take over. Moving toward the men in an aggressive rather than a defensive manner, he began to curse loud and long, in Italian, shouting at the men, shaking his fist at them for good measure. Instead of allowing himself to be the victim, he was threatening them.

Cari watched, her heart in her throat, fear sizzling through her. From every advice column she’d ever read, this seemed to be exactly the wrong way to go about this and she knew it. This could end very badly. But in the meantime, what could she do? Should she run? Not in these shoes. There was no chance. Everything in her wanted to protect the baby. But the way Max was acting, she was very much afraid she was going to see the knife slashing into his chest any moment.

And then what?

Still, it didn’t seem to be playing out quite the way she’d expected. To her surprise, the shortest of the men was pulling on the arm of the one with the knife.

“Hold on,” he was saying. “Just hold up, dude. Look at the guy.”

“Hey, get a load of that suit,” the third was saying nervously. “And listen to the way he talks. I think he’s Mafia, dude. You don’t want to screw with those guys.”

“Mafia?” The three of them stared hard at Max who was still cursing. “Hey, they can mess you up bad.”

“It’s not worth it, dude,” the one with the knife said at last, backing away. “Let’s get out of here.”

And they vanished as suddenly as they had appeared.

Max and Cari both stood very still, letting the adrenaline slow down, getting their breathing back to normal.

“Is that it?” she said at last.

“It seems to be,” he responded. He turned and came back quickly, taking her by the shoulders and staring down into her eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked intensely.

She nodded, still too shaken to say much. Being almost mugged by thugs was enough to ruin a perfectly good evening walk, but watching Max explode like a smoldering volcano had been almost as shocking. She’d never seen a man do that before.

“Good.” He let out a long breath. “We’re lucky they gave up so easily.”

She nodded, finally finding her voice. “Wow, I guess you don’t need a weapon after all,” she said, looking at him with reluctant admiration.

He brushed it off. He knew how to handle himself and he’d been pretty confident, even with three men opposing him, until he’d seen the knife. That could change everything. Luckily, they had weighed the odds and decided not to risk annoying the mob.

Though that made him want to smile. Some people thought anyone Italian had ties to gangsters. That was an ignorant assumption, but it had come in handy this time.

“Okay, let’s go. We’ve got to get out of this neighborhood. Places like this seem to breed thugs like rats thriving in the shadows. Let’s head for streets that are better lit. That way I think.” He pointed down another street and they headed in that direction, moving quickly.

Her feet were aching, but she ignored it. She’d go barefoot if she had to. Anything to get out of this part of town.

“Hold tight to the baby,” Max ordered suddenly, slinging the diaper bag up over his shoulder.

She looked up, startled, and the next thing she knew, he’d bent to slide support under her legs and was swinging her up into his arms, baby and all. She squeaked in protest, but he ignored her.

“You’re going to trip in those shoes,” he told her. “I can handle it. Just hold on.”

She held on and somehow, it worked. He cradled them both in a warm, muscular embrace and walked firmly along the wet sidewalk. She clung to the space just above his chest and beneath his chin and closed her eyes, reveling in the sense of his masculine strength. His heart was beating against her shoulder. She let herself fall into a sort of daze, listening to the rhythm and soaking up the whole of him.

He moved quickly, wondering how he’d let himself get into this insane situation. She was light as a feather, despite the added weight of the baby, and she smelled like a garden in sunshine. Strands of her blond hair flew up and tickled his nose, which he found tantalizing rather than annoying. All in all, she was warm and soft and round and he felt like a Neanderthal. He wanted to take her home and keep her—preferably in his bed.

This wasn’t right. She wasn’t meant for him. In fact, he had other fish to fry, and he was late for the barbecue. But she seemed so small and vulnerable in his arms and he couldn’t resist filling his head with her fresh, intoxicating scent.

A few steps more and they were around the corner, and suddenly cars were whizzing past and the streetlights actually lit up the street instead of just muddying the atmosphere.

“Civilization,” Max muttered, lowering Cari to the ground carefully and looking up and down the road. “But still no cabs.”

And more rain. Thunder rolled and the heavens opened up.

“This way, quickly,” he shouted, pulling her and the baby along until he got them under the limited protection of an empty bus stop shelter. They dashed inside and quickly clung together, trying to stay out of the spray, as water poured off the rounded roof of the tiny kiosk, shooting all around them. After the first moment or two, Cari looked up and realized just how close they were standing. Her nose almost touched his chin.

“Oh,” she said, thinking she should pull back. Being this close when she was being carried was one thing, but this was ridiculous.

“No.” Reaching out, he held the two of them against his chest. “You’ll just get wet.”

“But…” She bit her lip, not sure what to say or where to look.

“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice so low she could hardly hear it over the rain. “I don’t bite.”

“Don’t you?” She heard herself say the words and winced, knowing they sounded almost as though she were flirting. She hadn’t meant to do that.

The way his mouth twisted in a half grin let her know he’d heard it that way, too. “I suppose I could be convinced,” he said softly.

She gazed into his dark eyes and somehow couldn’t look anywhere else. The sound of the rain, the momentary isolation, the way they were pressed so closely, all blended together to weave an enchantment around them. He was going to kiss her. She could see it in his eyes. And if she didn’t watch out, she was going to end up kissing him back.

“No,” she murmured, trying to dredge up the strength to resist.

“Yes,” he countered, lowering his lips to hers.

“No,” she said again, shaking her head.

“Why not?” he asked, so close to her.

“The baby…”

“The baby’s asleep. He can’t see a thing.”

“This is all wrong.” Looking up, she searched his eyes. “We’re not even supposed to be on this date.”

“This isn’t a date,” he said, his own eyes deep and smoky with something nameless that set her pulse pounding. “It’s an encounter. A moment in time.” He dropped a quick kiss on her lips. “A bit of magic. You’ll forget all about it by morning.”

“I don’t think so,” she said with a sigh. “You really shouldn’t…”

“But I want to,” he said huskily. “And you taste so good.”

And then he took her mouth with his and kissed her like she’d never been kissed before.

CHAPTER FOUR

IN THE harsh and revealing sunlight of morning, it all looked a bit fantastical. Cari buried her face in her pillow and wished she’d done a better job pulling together the drapes on her tall windows before she’d gone to sleep. She wasn’t ready to face reality yet. Did last night really happen? Impossible.

The phone rang, but she let the answering machine take it. Her heart thumped as she waited for the voice she knew was coming.

“Cari?”

Yes. It was Max. His deep baritone sent chills all through her system. She drew in a shuddering breath.

“Go away,” she whispered into the empty air.

“Cari? Surely you are there. I wouldn’t bother you so early, but I need a bit of advice. If you could pick up…”

She knew she shouldn’t pick up. In her sleepy, morning state, she imagined herself standing at a fork in the road. Her life could go one way or the other, depending on what she did in the next few moments.

She knew what she should do. She should mark the whole experience from the night before as lessons learned and move on. She had to ignore him. Go back to real life and not fool around with fairy-tale princes who came breezing in from Italy with a knowing smile and a boatload of hunkiness. She shouldn’t pick up. She knew better. She wasn’t going to do it.

“Cari? Please?”

She writhed beneath her covers. Don’t do it, Cari!

“Cari, it’s about the baby.”

The baby? Well, if it was about the baby…

“Cari?”

With a sigh she reached out and picked up.

“Hello,” she said somewhat mournfully.

“Buongiorno,” he responded.

There was a long pause while neither of them said anything. Cari wondered if he was as hesitant about this as she was. After all, last night it had been assumed they would probably never see each other again. Hadn’t it?

He’d kissed her and she’d swooned. Yes, there was no way to deny it. She’d gone all gaga on him. Luckily a cab had come cruising up before she’d made a complete fool out of herself, and they’d piled in and raced back to the Longhorn Lounge where they’d found Tito waiting anxiously. The two dates they should have been with were long gone, of course. That was only natural. Tito then left for the hotel with the baby while Max headed for the police station to make a stolen car report. And Cari had slipped into her own car and turned toward home, still tingling. Still swooning. Still out of her mind!

But pretty darn sure she would never see or hear from him again. After all, their little—what had he called it? Their encounter? Whatever it was, it had been illegitimate in the first place. Time to wipe it out of her life and her mind.

Only, here he was on the telephone.

“How did you find my number?” she asked at last.

“I have people on my staff who can find these things for me.”

“Oh.”

She supposed he meant Tito. Or were there others? Hmm. She wasn’t sure she liked that.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Who? The baby?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Has his mother shown up?”

“No. I’ve got someone monitoring the apartment periodically, just in case.”

“Good.” She couldn’t imagine what could have kept a mother away from that beautiful baby. “But you said there was some sort of problem?” she asked quickly. That was what she’d picked up for, after all.

“Not exactly a real problem,” he said. “But…I’ve hired a live-in nanny.”

“Oh. Well, good. You checked her references?”

“Of course.”

She let out a long breath. She didn’t let herself think a lot about the baby she’d held so closely the night before. That was all a part of that other fork in the road she wasn’t going to take—even if she had picked up the phone.

“Okay, then.”

She waited. He had something else to say, but he was having trouble getting it out. She could picture him looking thoughtful, brow furrowed, then she blinked that image away. If she kept doing that sort of thing, she would be swooning again.

“Max, what is it?”

“Nothing, really, it’s just that…” He sighed. “Listen, I’m just not sure about this nanny thing. I did the regular vetting, but what the hell do I know about nannies? Or babies, for that matter. And you seem to know a lot. So I thought maybe you could come over and see if you think she knows what she’s doing.”

Wow. He needed her. That was almost enough to get those tingles started again. Everything in her wanted to say yes. She cared about the baby, but there was more. To see him again, be with him doing something important, wouldn’t that be ideal? But no, that would be wrong—on so many levels. So she didn’t say yes.

“No,” she said instead. Then she waited for the rush of self-congratulations that would surely follow. Funny, but that didn’t happen. “I’m sorry, Max,” she went on, falling back on the honest truth. “I’ve got to go to work.”

“Work? You work?”

It almost made her smile to realize how little they knew about each other. They’d shared a night of intense emotions and setbacks, more in one night than she’d had in months. She felt as if she’d glimpsed a clear picture of his character, his personality. And yet she didn’t know much about him, what he’d done with his life, what he cared about, and he didn’t know those things about her, either. But they were going to leave it that way for the most part. At least, she knew they should.

“Of course I work. What do you think I live on? Air?”

“What do you do?”

He sounded candidly surprised and interested. What the heck? Didn’t he know any women who actually had real jobs? She licked her lips and stuck to the facts.

“I’m a waitress.”

“At a supper club?”

“No. In a local coffee shop.”

There. That ought to be guaranteed to turn him off. She was just a waitress. Not one of those high-falutin’, jet-settin’ fashion models he was surely used to.

She was also the assistant manager and studying for her real estate license, but he didn’t need to know all that. After all, she wasn’t trying to impress him. She was trying to get rid of him.

“Take a day off,” he said bluntly.

“I can’t do that. People are counting on me.”

“And I’m counting on you, too.”

“Yes, but you don’t pay the bills.”

“I could do that,” he said, as though it was a new idea and he rather liked it. “That’s it. I’ll pay you a salary. I’ll hire you.”

“Nonsense.” Her voice was quivering a bit and she bit down on her lip. No! She was not going to give in to that sort of crazy temptation.

“But it would be perfect.”

“For you, not for me.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Consider it, at least.”

“No.” She was firm. And darn proud of herself, too. “You’ll be fine with this nanny person.”

He hesitated, then said skeptically, “I hope you’re right.”

There was another long pause.

“Everything is all right, then?” she prodded. “I mean, everything else?”

“Oh, yes. Going great. I had the baby checked out by a pediatrician first thing, and we’ve put in a request for a DNA test. I’ve arranged for the delivery of the relevant charts from Italy. It will all take time, but everything is moving along.”

“Good.”

Why was he still hanging on? She was torn, wanting him gone, yet enjoying this more than she ought to. “Well, have you gotten in touch with your date from last night yet?” she asked, suddenly remembering there was still that issue to be dealt with.

There was yet another hesitation, then he answered, “Not yet. How about you?”

She sighed. Apologizing to Randy wasn’t something she was looking forward to. “No, not yet. But it’s early. I wouldn’t want to wake him up.”

Something in the pause this time was electric, and finally he said softly, “Did I wake you?”

Warmth flooded her body. How did he manage to make one simple question imply a wealth of intimate contact? Something in his tone, the low, husky quality of his voice, conjured up a picture of the way he might awaken her, his hand sliding down beneath the sheets, his lips leaving a trail of hot kisses. She suppressed a gasp.

This was ridiculous. She wasn’t a schoolgirl. She was a grown woman. She’d been married, for heaven’s sake! She knew what it was like to have a man in her bed.

But not this man. Oh, my!

She wasn’t going to answer his provocative question. She had to think of something else, quick. Something to break the mood and put an end to this.

“I’ve been up for hours,” she lied shamelessly. “I’ve got a life, you know. Things to do. Places to go.”

“And you’d like to get back to it,” he said softly, taking the hint. He sighed. “All right, Cari. I’ll let you go.”

Her fingers were so tight on the receiver, they were beginning to ache. “Thanks.”

“So that’s it, then.”

She blinked, suddenly feeling almost weepy. “It seems to be.”

“It was nice knowing you, Cari.”

“Yes. Same here.” Now her eyes were definitely stinging. Ridiculous! “Goodbye.”

“Ciao.”

She hung up, said a word she hardly ever said, and threw a stuffed animal against the wall.

Cari was just finishing up a bowl of morning cereal when Mara called.

“So,” said Mara brightly. “How was it?”

“How was what?” Cari answered, her mind still stuck on mulling over her conversation with Max.

“The date with Randy.”

“Oh. Uh…” She grimaced, putting her spoon into the bowl and pushing it away across the counter. “Well, actually, we didn’t have it.”

“What do you mean you didn’t have it? Don’t tell me you chickened out?”

Mara’s voice was sharp with what was fast working into a sense of outrage. Cari tried to nip that in the bud.

“No, Mara, I did not chicken out. I was there with bells on. And I waited for quite some time. But then…” She sighed. This really wasn’t all that easy to explain. “Well, I kind of went off with the wrong man.”

“What?” There was still an edge to Mara’s voice. “How did you do that, exactly?”

“Believe me, it was not that hard. Not when he came up carrying a red rose, just like you told me to do for Randy, and he seemed to call me by my name and…and…” She sighed. “It’s kind of hard to explain. Listen, I’ve got the lunch shift. I’ll swing by on my way to work. We’ll talk.”

“I guess. Okay.”

Mara sounded grumpy. Cari knew she was disappointed. She thought she’d planned the perfect date for a good friend and it had all gone wrong. Who wouldn’t be disappointed? And Mara had been so excited. She groaned internally. But she would take care of things when she stopped by her friend’s house. Face-to-face it might actually be possible to give her a better picture of exactly what had happened.

“In the meantime, uh, do you have Randy’s number?”

She was tempted to put it off for a while, but she steeled herself and called the man. Once she had him on the phone and explained who she was, he reacted well. Instead of demanding an explanation, he was apologetic that he’d been a little late.

Which only made her feel more guilty. It was hard to explain why she’d dumped him for some suave Italian guy. There was no good excuse for it, actually. One look into Max’s deep dark eyes had mesmerized her and she’d been ready to follow him anywhere. But how could she tell Randy that?

“Well, it was certainly an interesting evening,” he said. “I haven’t had many like that.”

He sounded just as likable as Mara had said. She was impressed that he didn’t seem at all disgruntled. She had a quick flashback to how her husband, Brian, would have reacted to what had happened, and the memory of his volatile temper made her cringe.

“Did you wait for long?”

“Only for an hour or so.” He chuckled. “Actually, I met the woman who was supposed to be dating the man you ran off with.”

“Ran off with” seemed a bit harsh, but she let it go. After all, the man deserved a little dig here and there, didn’t he? He’d paid his dues.

“Oh. C.J.?”

“Celinia Jade. Do you know her?”

“No, I don’t, but Max told me something about her.”

“Well, she’s somethin’ else.”

His voice conveyed a sense of awe. Cari tensed a bit.

“Is she?”

“Oh, yeah. She’s dynamite.”

For some reason, that didn’t make her smile. She chewed on her lip and wondered if Max was going to be as impressed with the woman once they got together. But what did that matter, anyway? Grimacing, she avoided the impulse to slap herself.

“We were both wandering around with red roses,” Randy went on. “So we started talking. It didn’t take us long to figure out what must have happened. So we hung out for a while, sort of commiserated, so to speak.” He chuckled again. “She had some funny stories to tell. That passed the time for a while. But when y’all didn’t come back, we called it a night and headed home.”

She nodded. It sounded like he’d enjoyed the evening with C.J. as much as he might have with her. Maybe more. She frowned at the trend in her own thoughts.

“So it wasn’t a total waste,” she said quickly.

“Oh, no, not at all.”

“Well, would you like to try it again tonight?” she said, knowing she pretty much had to suggest it. “I sort of promised Mara I would.”

“I guess we both promised Mara, didn’t we?”

“She can be persuasive.”

“Oh, yes.” He chuckled again. He seemed a happy sort. “Let’s do it,” he agreed. “Only this time, why don’t I pick you up at your place? I’m not sure that red rose thing works very well.”

She hesitated. The rationale for meeting at the club had been to avoid letting a strange man know where she lived. She was wary these days. She didn’t want to risk any man getting the upper hand in a relationship. But he seemed so genuinely nice, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to give him her address.

Maybe all would go great. Maybe she and Randy would get along so well, the crazy night with Max would be forgotten, a relic of history, a strange interlude in what she was hoping to turn into a sensible, placid life. Maybe.

Max was restless. He’d spent the afternoon hovering over the nanny, second-guessing everything she did. She’d snapped at him once, and he’d almost fired her. But he’d quickly realized that he had no replacement lined up. If she left, he would be on his own. And what he knew about taking care of babies could be blurted out in one quick epithet.

Tito was no help. Every time the baby cried, he stuffed cotton in his ears and went out on the hotel room balcony, plunked himself down into a plastic chair and tried to sleep. But Max couldn’t sleep. His existence was caught up in this baby for now, and that was all he could think about.

That, and Cari Christensen. She was the one person he knew who could help solve a lot of his problems. But he had to forget about her.

He’d come to Dallas with two clear goals in mind. First, he’d wanted to find Sheila and discover if the baby she claimed she had was really Gino’s. That was pretty much in the works. He had no idea where Sheila was, but when you came right down to it, that didn’t matter. He had the baby. And he would soon know the truth about the baby’s parentage.

He’d never been a baby person, never been around the little things. And he hadn’t expected to feel much of anything for this one. Babies were nothing but potential people—little blobs of flesh and noise. Puppies had more personality.

But the funny thing was, he’d felt something of an instant connection when he’d seen baby Jamie. One look at that little face had torn a hole in his heart. He was as sure of this as anything—this baby was his brother’s.

When word had come that Gino had died in the crash of the plane he was testing out, Max had felt his world tilt on its axis. His big brother had been his guiding star all his life. For a long time, he’d thought he might never feel joy again.

But he’d had to suppress any overt mourning, because his mother’s despair had been so deep and so complete it had taken all his effort to pull her out of what he was afraid could have developed into a suicidal impulse at any moment. And now, to think he might be able to bring her Gino’s baby—the thought took his breath away. He couldn’t allow himself to get too invested in this until the tests proved the connection. But he was pretty sure what the results would be.