She pointed at him again because she still couldn’t talk, and he just grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “I bet you do. And now I know what I’m going to be thinking about for the rest of the day.”
“You’ll be too busy catching the bad guys, remember?”
“I’m real good at multitasking,” he said.
She let out a laugh, though it was rusty as hell. It’d been a while since she’d found something funny. Not that this changed her idea of him. He was still too sure of himself, too cocky, and she’d had enough of that to last a lifetime. But she also was good at multitasking and could both not like him and appreciate his sense of humor at the same time.
What she couldn’t appreciate was when his smile turned warm and inviting, because for a minute something passed between them, something she couldn’t—or didn’t—intend to recognize.
“Maybe I could call you sometime,” he said.
Before she could turn him down politely, the little cupcake twins came running, leaping at him, one of them yelling, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Look what we got!”
Catching them both with impressive ease, Mark stood, managing to somehow confiscate the cupcakes and set them aside before getting covered in chocolate. “Why is it,” he asked Lanie over their twin dark heads, “that when a child wants to show you something, they try to place it directly in your cornea?”
Still completely floored, Lanie could only shake her head.
Mark adjusted the girls so that they hung upside down off his back. This had them erupting in squeals of delight as he turned back to face Lanie again, two little ankles in each of his big hands. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said into her undoubtedly shocked face. “I think it every day.”
Actually, even she had no idea what she was thinking except . . . he was a Capriotti? How had she not seen that coming?
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m one of them, which is why I get to bitch about them. And let me guess . . . you just decided you’re not going to answer my call?”
Most definitely not, but before she could say so out loud Cora was back, going up on tiptoes to kiss Mark on the cheek. “Hey, baby. Heard you had a real tough night.”
He shrugged.
“You get enough to eat?” she asked. “Yes?” She eyed his empty plate and then, with a nod of satisfaction, reached up and ruffled his hair. “Good. But don’t for a single minute think, Marcus Antony Edward Capriotti, that I don’t know who sneaked your grandpa the cigars he was caught smoking last night.”
From his seat at the table, “Grandpa,” aka Leonardo Antony Capriotti, lifted his hands as if to say, Who, me?
Cora shook her head at both of them, helped the girls down from Mark’s broad shoulders, took them by the hand, and walked away.
No, Lanie would most definitely not be taking the man’s call. And not for the reasons he’d assume either. She didn’t mind that he had kids. What she minded was that here was a guy who appeared to have it all: close family, wonderful children, a killer smile, a hot body . . . without a single clue about just how damn lucky he was. It made her mad, actually.
He took in her expression. “Okay, so you’re most definitely not going to take my call.”
“It’s nothing personal,” she said. “I just don’t date . . .”
“Dads?”
Actually, as a direct result of no longer trusting love, not even one little teeny, tiny bit, she didn’t date anyone anymore, but that was none of his business.
He looked at her for another beat and whatever lingering amusement he’d retained left him, and he simply nodded as he slid his sunglasses back over his eyes. “Good luck today,” he said. “You really are going to need it.”
And then he was gone.
He thought she’d judged him. She hated that he thought that, but it was best to let him think it. Certainly better than the truth, which was that the problem was her, all her. She inhaled a deep, shaky breath and turned, surprised to find not just Cora watching, but Mark’s sisters, grandpa, and several others she could only guess were also related.
Note to self: Capriottis multiply when left unattended.
Chapter 2
Anxiety: Look out.
Me: For what?
Anxiety: Just look out.
That night Lanie got into bed at eight o’clock with a book and a glass of wine. The book was because she liked the idea of reading and also because it made her feel like the wine was justified and not a necessity.
Even if it was a necessity.
The habit had started six months ago on the night of Kyle’s funeral, which was when Kyle’s boss had to tell her that another wife had popped up.
Lanie had promptly moved out of the condo they’d lived in and rented a small town house in a different neighborhood. She hadn’t yet made it her own, so she didn’t have any plants or pets to worry about while she was gone, and any friends she’d had were work friends or had been Kyle’s friends as well, and everyone had seemed to fade away.
Or maybe that had been her.
With a sigh and a big gulp of wine, she sat back against the pillow. Usually when she was to-the-bone tired like this, she couldn’t think too much. But tonight she sighed and . . .
Proceeded to think too much.
This wasn’t a big surprise given all the recent changes. She was still on Capriotti property, for one thing. Room and board had been part of her two-month deal, and she’d been promised her own cottage.
She’d jumped on it.
Ten acres of land had been cordoned off on the far west side of the winery property, just north of a small, hidden lake. There the Capriottis had built several houses, all belonging to family members, and a small series of cottages lined up like a motel, dedicated to employee housing.
There was both good and bad to this. Good because it was free. Bad because it was very interactive and there was little to no privacy.
Even as she thought it, there was a knock on her door. She froze for a beat and then got out of bed and put her eye to the peephole. A guy stood there looking back at her. He was lanky but solid, wearing jeans, boots, T-shirt, a military buzz cut, and an impassive expression. She’d met him earlier when Cora had introduced him. Holden worked as a horse wrangler and extra ranch hand whenever he was on leave from the army. Though he was in his early twenties, apparently he’d lived here at the winery for a long time. He stood there holding—be still, her heart—a plate of cookies.
Lanie opened the door a crack.
“From Cora,” he said with a slight, slow southern drawl, and thrust the plate at her.
“Oh, but I couldn’t—”
“I’m not supposed to take no for an answer,” he said.
And then he was gone.
Okay, then. She went back to bed with her plate of cookies and ate far too many of them because they were little bites of heaven. At this rate, by the time she left here in two months, she’d have gained a hundred pounds. But surprisingly, it was actually hard to feel any kind of anxiety at the moment, even though she’d given it a good ol’ college try. The fact was, she was away from the city and she was in a gorgeous place with a fun job, and she was going to take her first deep breath in months and find herself again.