Emma Read online

  Ouch. Conversation stopper. What was she doing asking such personal questions? And at a funeral? Weren’t they all depressed enough?

  The last golden rays of the sun began to dust the trees across the lake and it was time for the party to break up. Time for her to say goodbye to this tragically enigmatic Italian and get on with her own life.

  ‘Thank you for your company, Gianni. I’ve enjoyed talking to you. I hope I haven’t annoyed you with my silly questions.’ She smiled at him but didn’t offer her hand. Pure self-preservation on her part. ‘Have a safe trip home.’

  He didn’t say anything but Emma could feel the weight of his intense gaze on her face. Could feel her own response deep in her belly. Flustered, she looked across at the activity.

  ‘I must help clear up. Louisa is going to Angus and Mia’s house for tonight.’ Emma could see Misty and Montana gathering glasses and plates from benches.

  Gianni nodded and inclined his head but she could feel his eyes on her as she walked away.

  She heard Angus call out to him and saw Ned’s son gesture at the bench he wanted to move. Gianni strode across, looking like he was glad to have something physical he could do.

  They brought the last of the chairs inside as Montana touched Emma’s shoulder for attention. She was conscious of the Italian so close and aware of her.

  ‘Emma. I know it’s a favour, but I wondered if Grace could sleep over with Dawn tonight... ’ Montana pointed out of the kitchen window to the veranda. ‘She’s really missing Ned. I think a little friend might help just for tonight.’

  ‘Of course.’ Montana had been the first midwife to board in Ned and Louisa’s home and Dawn had been a baby then. Dawn had considered Ned like her grandpa. Emma glanced out the kitchen window toward the two earnest young heads nodding together on the swing.

  ‘That’s fine. We were having an early night anyway. I’m taking her up to see Mum tomorrow afternoon.’ In her peripheral vision she saw Gianni’s strong shoulders heft a table up and she tried not to stare. Then he had the next piece of furniture to shift and moved out of sight.

  Chapter Five

  Emma

  As Gianni and Angus move outside to search for more chairs suddenly it was easier to concentrate. Montana nodded her thanks. ‘How is your mother?’

  Emma thought of waving hands and erratic attempts to walk. ‘She didn’t seem sad last week, but her moods swing pretty wildly. I just wish I could keep her at home but there are times when she’s even too much in the care she’s in. I don’t know what I’ll do if she has to leave the centre in Brisbane. And Dad misses the Lake.’

  Montana hugged her. ‘There’s no easy answer but we’ll be here for you if you need to talk.’

  ‘I know.’ Emma shook off the melancholy of worry that she worked so hard to hide and returned to the practical. ‘What time do you want me to pick up Grace in the morning?’

  ‘It’s Saturday. Sleep in. We’ll go shopping early and I’ll drop her home before lunch, if that’s okay.’

  Emma nodded as Louisa came back into the kitchen with her overnight bag and suddenly everyone was ready to leave. Home wasn’t far and Emma declined the offer of a lift in Montana’s bus-like vehicle. The evening was cool and it would be good to clear her head in the twilight breeze.

  It wasn’t far to her house, out of sight but an easy walk. She and Grace would have done so and her daughter would have nattered all the way along the tree-lined, lakeside path to home. Alone, it would be good to have space to mull over the day on the silent walk home.

  The sudden loud snap of a breaking twig pierced her reverie, and her head flew up. Then she heard the unmistakable scrape of a shoe on gravel behind her just as a tall shadow loomed over her.

  Emma’s heart flipped like those silver fish did every afternoon in the lake and her hand came up to her throat as if to hold back a squeak. Up until now the idea of being nervous of the encroaching darkness had never crossed her mind. This was Lyrebird Lake and the safest place she knew. But at that moment her heart galloped crazily as she tried to pierce the gloom to see the person’s identity.

  ‘Who is looking after you?’ Gianni spoke quietly, but there was a tinge of outrage in his voice.

  She peered through the dimness and confirmed it was his face. ‘Gianni!’ Her shoulders dropped as she breathed heavily out in an exasperated sigh. ‘Around here we don’t sneak up and scare people. As long as no one does what you just did, I don’t need looking after.’

  She huffed out a breath as her pulse rate settled. She tapped her chest as if to reassure her heart all was well. ‘You frightened the life out of me.’ She started to walk again.

  His dark brows drew fiercely together. ‘I am sorry to startle you. I decided to drive fully around the lake on my way to the guesthouse when I saw you. But you should not be walking alone when it is almost dark. Please, let me drive you to your house.’

  Emma rolled her eyes. ‘I thought accepting lifts from strangers was dangerous?’ she said dryly. She glanced around. Now they were standing closer to the streetlamp but between the orange pools of each lamp it was pretty deserted and darker than she’d realised.

  Until the silly man had put the notion in her head she’d been happy. She’d never considered walking anywhere in Lyrebird Lake as dangerous.

  ‘Come,’ he said imperiously, and held out his hand.

  Emma looked down at his strong brown fingers, even darker in the dim light, and considered the implications of his touch. Did she want to feel the warmth that she just knew was going to stay with her? She didn’t think so.

  Emma avoided his hand but turned toward his car. She must have been deeper in reverie than she’d thought because it was right behind her. ‘All right.’ But as she reached for the door handle his fingers were there before her.

  ‘Please allow me?’ he said.

  Emma stood back as he glided the door open. Touchy Italian, she thought. ‘No problem. Feel free. I’m just out of practice with people opening doors for me.’ She sank into the low-slung seat and glanced around the interior of the European sports car.

  She studied the trident emblem in the middle of the steering wheel and had no idea what make the car was. Her door clicked shut beside her shoulder and she forced herself to relax back into the seat. The leather was doeskin soft and she wiggled her shoulders in it. Nice. Different from what she was used to, that’s for sure.

  When he climbed in and secured his seat belt she leaned forward slightly, anticipating the car’s forward movement. When it didn’t happen she frowned and resisted drumming her fingers. He continued to linger and she turned to look at him with narrowed eyes.

  And you’re waiting for...? she thought with rising suspicion.

  ‘Would you like me to fasten your belt for you?’ He’d turned to face her and she realised she’d forgotten the obvious. She bit her lip. The man was scrambling her brains the way her hands were scrambling to get the clasp done up before, heaven forbid, he did help her.

  ‘What does the trident stand for? Does the roof go up?’ She was gabbling but suddenly it was very close inside the car. And she had zero control over her tongue.

  ‘No.’ He reached forward and the engine started with a muted roar. ‘It is a Maserati. The trident is based on the Fountain of Neptune in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore. A Cambiocorsa 2007. I have one at home.’

  ‘Really? Only one?’ she said straight-faced. The car was black and low to the ground. She could see that. But she doubted she’d ever feel the need to hire one. ‘So you drove down from Brisbane? This is a hire car?’ And he had one at home. He was certainly from a different world.

  His profile shifted as he glanced at her. ‘Are you interested in cars?’

  Was she? The subject wasn’t one she’d buy a magazine on. ‘Not really.’

  He nodded as if the answer was what he expected. ‘Then let us discuss more interesting things.’

  End of discussion. The guy was douche.

  Emma blinked. He
’d assumed a protective and almost fatherly role, and Emma didn’t like it. In fact, she was beginning to regret accepting a lift from this guy who now felt like a complete stranger.

  ‘Don’t patronise me. You are not my father. And it’s your turn to come up with a more interesting subject.’ She crossed her arms.

  When the silence stretched she said, ‘I live straight down this road. Barely worth driving, in fact,’ she said with less than subtle pointedness.

  ‘Si. And I also do not live far from here as I have rented a chalet at the Lakeside.’ He glanced across and then away. ‘They have a fine restaurant. Italian, where patronising people enjoy the food.’ She could hear the smile in his voice. She wondered if it was just because it was almost dark and she had to rely on other senses or if it was because for the first time today he’d smiled broadly enough that it affected his voice. She was glad she couldn’t see the curve of his lips. She’d been trying not to look at the sinful promise of his mouth all day. No doubt the sight would haunt her.

  And he had taken her call on his attitude. She liked him better for it.

  He turned to her briefly. ‘I am out of practice with attractive women, with no experience of Australian women and their independence. My apologies.’

  That was comprehensive as far as apologies went. She could be magnanimous.

  ‘Will you join me?’ he said.

  What on earth was he saying? ‘Join you for what?’

  He sighed. Patiently, as if with a child, and she frowned at him. His mouth twitched and he held up a hand.

  ‘Patronising again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you join me for a meal, please, Emma?’

  Her heart did that fish thing again. Now? ‘Aren’t you going back to Angus’s?’

  He shook his head once in the dimness. ‘Louisa is there tonight. I dined with him last night and we talked. I will lunch with him tomorrow before I leave.’

  Emma filled the silence while she considered the implications of his invitation. ‘Angus had a wonderful relationship with Ned after they reconciled.’ Her mind skittered to the idea of dining alone with Gianni in an intimate setting and away again. Her thoughts went back to Angus. A bolt away from the real topic she thought about. ‘He seems to be at peace with Ned’s passing.’

  ‘Yes.’ Gianni inclined his head while he contemplated her profile. ‘Thankfully they had time to enjoy each other’s company. Angus is a good friend and instrumental in my recent contact with my brother. But you haven’t answered my question.’

  The guy had a single focus. She went with the answer she’d known she’d make from the beginning. To live dangerously. At least once. And Grace was away. ‘Perhaps. I do need to eat.’ She looked down at her grubby skirt, stained from that lunge to catch the cricket ball earlier in the yard. ‘I’d like to get changed, though.’

  He nodded again. ‘How much time do you need?’

  She thought about it. How much did she really need? Five minutes. ‘Half an hour,’ she decided.

  ‘Good.’ Satisfaction was obvious. ‘Much faster than I expected.’

  She tried vainly not to smile and she hoped he didn’t see or think she was making fun of him. ‘It’s this house, with the roses over the gate.’

  She lifted her hand to the handle and his fingers came over the top to stay it. ‘Please wait for me to open your door,’ he said quietly, and her hand froze under his. She sighed and leaned back against the leather. Old-fashioned rather than patronising this time.

  The door opened. He offered his hand and the car was low. Heat shot through her as they touched. She’d been right. His skin was warm and made the gooseflesh pop up on her arms like bubbles in the muddy sand at the edge of the lake. His hand moved away and she would have sworn his fingers were still there. Hot over hers.

  Secure. Strong. Seductive.

  If he could do that with just a touch, she was in big trouble if she invited anything else. But she wouldn’t. It was just a meal and, hopefully, conversation to widen her worldview. She was feeling flat after the funeral and Grace was away. She didn’t get to eat at the Lakeside often. Never had, actually.

  He opened her car door and she climbed out. It seemed a waste of energy to her but the cosseting was strangely compelling. He ushered her through the gate and up the path to her front door like an old-fashioned footman. Then waited while she unlocked the door and only left her when she entered her house.

  He didn’t drive away until she’d shut the door.

  She heard the roar of the car as it accelerated away and Emma’s heart flopped around as she leant back against the closed door. Her hand actually slid to her throat where her pulse pounded. What had happened to her in the last five minutes? It had just been a lift a few hundred metres but she felt vibrantly alive. Ridiculously so.

  There were a hundred good reasons not to be attracted to this man – or any man for that matter – and fifteen good reasons to wallow in it.

  The hundred were all complications and she didn’t need them.

  The fifteen were about the number of good years she estimated she had before the disease that had turned her graceful and gracious mother into a tormented bedridden shell of a woman could begin to do the same to her.

  Fifty per cent chance of having the gene. In the last few years Emma had toyed briefly with the idea of taking the final genetic test, a test that could prove her fate irrevocably, but she’d always come back to that spark of hope that she’d not inherited the predisposing gene. She didn’t think she’d cope without that hope. She couldn’t give up the tiny beam of optimism that once lost would never return.

  Her arms crept around her waist and Gianni was forgotten, everything was forgotten, as her worst nightmare touched her again with cold fingers of dread.

  The fear was for Grace, her daughter, and the fact that if Emma was shadowed then Grace had a fifty per cent chance of having it, too. Emma couldn’t do it. At this time in her life she couldn’t live with Grace being positive for Huntington’s disease.

  Instead, Emma lived her life as if she had only until she turned forty, like her mother had before she’d become ill, and she saved every penny to ensure Grace would have the choices for the support Emma might not be able to give.

  But for this moment Emma was alive, she was well, and apparently she was an attractive woman. Not something she’d thought about for a very long time. She didn’t know when she’d decided that she wanted to savour a little of what Gianni had to offer. If he was offering anything apart from a meal, that was.

  She’d never looked for another boyfriend after she and Tommy had drifted apart. She’d been too busy. Too focussed on motherhood. Career. Caring for others.

  As sixteen-year-olds she and Tommy had discovered they had little in common except baby Grace, and Emma had been sensible enough not to tie herself to a man she’d already grown out of. Tommy had left to see the world with relief and Emma’s blessing. But maybe she missed the subtle thrill of a man’s appreciation.

  In fact, even with the little exposure to Gianni’s attention today she’d begun to revel in the unfamiliar feeling of being a fragile flower to be cherished and taken care of. Not something she had any experience of and no doubt it would irk her very quickly in the real world, but this was an out-of-the-ordinary opportunity to let herself be spoiled.

  And there was something about Gianni that called to her in a way she’d never experienced before. A compulsive magnetism for the man. As long as she was careful and it didn’t get out of hand.

  Yep. Gianni was right out of her comfort zone.

  And he was leaving soon.

  To go back to Italy. If she made a fool of herself, he was a ship in the night with a home port she couldn’t get much further away from in her inland Queensland home.

  She looked at her watch and bounced away from the door as if someone had poked her with a cattle prod. She’d wasted five minutes!

  Twenty-five minutes later Gianni knocked on Emma’s door and th
e sound echoed through Emma’s chest and under her ribcage. Boom. Boom. Boom. He was here. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a real date. Probably never.

  She sucked in her breath and ran her tongue inside her gums to make sure she didn’t have any lipstick on her teeth. Still not convinced, she grimaced toothily at the mirror on the way to her door. Yep. All was well.

  Another deep breath as she paused and hoped she’d dressed right.

  She opened the door.

  Chapter Six

  Gianni

  Christo. Gianni sucked a lungful of air. Emma’s blonde hair fell loose over her shoulders and she’d abandoned the pink lipstick for a deep sultry red that matched the lush material of her blouse. To call it a blouse was a blasphemy. The soft material clung like a second skin and lingered like his eyes on the swell of her breasts and plunged, also like his eyes, down into a V of paradise.

  His breath jammed for a moment and then resumed. All this in half an hour?

  He’d never been attracted to trousers on women, preferring the femininity of a swirling skirt, but when she twirled, the way her firm buttocks snuggled into the stretchy black material made his eyes blink. Then she moved back further to open the door for him and he could see in the front the garment hung like a skirt, lots of fabric swirling around her legs from the tight tapering waist, teasing him with the thought of it in a pool of darkness at her feet

  ‘Hello?’

  Her voice broke the spell and he blinked and swore again in his head. What was it about this woman that grabbed him by the throat and demolished his brain? ‘Bella. You are beautiful and took my breath away.’

  She laughed. Softly, and to him like the musical bells of his favourite chapel. Everything she did entranced him. ‘Thank you.’ she said. ‘The men around here would be far too embarrassed to say that out loud.’

  He frowned. He did not understand why any man would not see what he saw before him. ‘I speak the truth.’ He glanced at the inside of her house. A welcoming room, evidence of a family and very clean. But he wanted her in the dark, beside him in the close confines of the car, somewhere he could inhale her scent and absorb the vibrations her body caused in his. With no distractions. ‘Shall we go?’