The Heart Of The Game (13 page)

The chime of cathedral bells woke Zoe. The ringtone reminded her of home, which is why she’d chosen it. Every morning back home the bells rang out, heralding a new day.

She grabbed for her phone. Coco’s number flashed on the screen.

“I should’ve set my phone on vibrate.”

“And make me walk all the way over there?” Coco moaned.

Coco used her phone like an intercom. She’d phone rather than walk up from her studio or even from an adjacent room. At least she wasn’t texting. Her text blizzards were worse.

“It’s less than four hundred meters.”

“I saw the guest list for Alana’s party. You’re so much better at persuasion than I am. I need you to extract promises from Alex and Matt while you’re over there today,” Coco said. “And Cody Bond too, if he comes. He’s hot. And Jake Ryder, although he’s shy like Cody, so it might take—”

“Coco, it’s seven in the morning. And no, I won’t ask them. Even half-asleep I still think you need a more high-concept first project.”

Saying no never came easily to Zoe. She wanted to help her sister set up the photography business she had her heart set on, but Zoe wasn’t sure creating a calendar featuring Alex’s teammates was the best first step. People didn’t really use wall calendars anymore, at least not among Zoe’s crowd, they didn’t. And talking American sports superstars into posing half-naked was not a task she wanted to take on.

“What could be more high-concept than hot men? And it’s to support Inspire—how could
anybody
refuse to support a shelter for at-risk women and children?”

Coco didn’t whine—she had a velvet voice that could talk a canary into entering a roomful of cats.

When Zoe didn’t answer, Coco purred, “I’m making huckleberry muffins.”

A bribe indeed. Coco and Leonora had gathered the wild summer berries from the woods near the border of the property. Coco had carefully frozen them, hoarding them as if each was a precious jewel. Her muffins were like a sensual treasure hunt; each bite of warm, dark berries brought back the promise of long summer days.

“Unfair tactics. I’m calling in the
sorella
police.”

“One bite and you’ll turn back into my helpful sister. I’ll bring them up when they come out of the oven.”

It wasn’t easy to say no to Coco. Sometimes that worried Zoe. She didn’t want her baby sister to be jolted by life, to be as unprepared as she had been for heartache and the disappointments that life could throw in one’s path. It was time for her baby sister to start taking initiative in her own life and not foist her responsibilities off on others.
Not
a conversation Zoe was looking forward to having with her.

Zoe tossed off the bed covers. Rays of golden sunlight poured through the French doors leading to her balcony. She threw them open and admired the early morning sun spreading a gold glow over the vineyard and the hills beyond. She closed her eyes and savored the warmth on her face, and, like messengers that refused to be silenced, scenes from her dreams teased into her mind.

She’d dreamed in English. She’d never spoken English in her dreams before. Or had she and she just didn’t remember? Dreams had a language all their own, meanings hard to pin down with words, to parse and make sense of. But she distinctly remembered speaking English.

Less distinct but more shocking was her fuzzy memory of a scene with Cody. A blanket of white had surrounded them, covering everything, muting the light and infusing them with a bone-chilling coldness. But the heat of his body seared into her when his hands explored her and his lips ignited a pleasure she’d never imagined. She fought to bring the images into sharper focus.

The harsh rapping of a woodpecker in an oak beside her balcony startled her. She peered into the branches, but thick clusters of green leaves obscured the busy bird from her sight.

“You have no idea what you just interrupted,” she called out to the invisible bird. But the bird’s unwelcome interruption hadn’t shut down the spike of hot desire that memories of the dream had shot into her.

In the bathroom she splashed water on her face. She ran the shower, sticking her fingertips into the flow to test the temperature. Images of another shower flashed before her, lightning quick, as if crystallizing around the new yearning blooming in her. And not just images of Cody. She was there, with him, naked in her shower. Zoe had felt the heat of his body when his arms wrapped around her, pressing her breasts against the hard-planed muscles of his chest. She’d dipped her head and run her lips along the ripples of his hard abs and down to the most amazing erection she’d ever tasted. He was spectacular.

Heat raced through her. And then, as quickly as they’d risen, the images vanished.

Her pulse raced as she pulled her hand out of the stream of the shower and leaned against the cool marble-tiled wall.

Perhaps she could have a taste of Cody Bond. Maybe she’d better, or she just might drive herself crazy with all the pent-up energy he ignited. People had flings or... What did her American cousins call them—friends with benefits? Alana had been notorious before she’d met and married Matt. And just yesterday Coco had encouraged Zoe to get back into the dating scene, had argued that she’d become a party-pooping recluse since their mother died.

Wait. Now she was taking advice from her wild baby sister?

She was truly losing it.

She stepped into the shower, determined to be done and out before Coco got there.

Maybe Sabrina’s wedding had affected her more than she’d realized. Her cousins were marrying off, true, but she was only twenty-six. There was plenty of time to return to Rome, get her life back in order and find a great man who wanted a family as much as she did.

But in the meantime there was Cody Bond and the hunger he stirred. Maybe Coco was right, that she could use a little joy and fun in her life. If her dream was any indication, Cody could be both. Maybe the very things that made him all wrong in the long term made him all right for the short term. They were adults. They could enjoy one another for a while and then go their separate ways. If the stories she’d heard about bachelor athletes were true, he’d be just as interested in a fling as she was.

She caught herself humming as she rummaged through her bureau and pulled out her laciest panties. She slid the lace up her hips. Not exactly the most sensible choice for an afternoon that was to include a few hours of hard riding, but her favorite lingerie perfectly fit the fantasies racing in her mind.

On her way to the breakfast room, Zoe noticed the door to the library was open. Evidently her father had returned.

She’d wanted to measure her mother’s painting, but the room had been locked up while he was away. She’d gone ahead with final plans for the gallery with Parker’s architect friend in Rome. She planned to ship the small painting and showcase it at the gallery opening. She felt that she was going behind her father’s back—but that was his fault, wasn’t it? For being intractable and evasive. It wasn’t like she was doing anyone harm.

She walked into the library and a piercing, high-pitched alarm sounded. Instinctively she covered her ears with her hands.

“I thought I’d shut that off,” her father said as he came running in from the door leading off the library and into the small study adjoining it.

Zoe pulled her hands from her ears. “You might be overdoing it, Papa. Everyone says there’s no crime around here.” She glanced at the Monet hanging behind his desk. “Maybe you should just send that off to a museum and stop worrying.”

“It was your mother’s favorite.” He hurried to a panel and pressed a series of buttons to shut down the screaming alarm. Then he showed her the code and how to arm and disarm the system.

She slipped a piece of paper from his printer and wrote the code on it, then shoved the paper into her pocket. “I’d be more upset if they took Mama’s painting,” she said with a nod to where her mother’s landscape hung next to the Monet. A bright blue sky draped along rolling golden hills dotted with oaks. It was a haunting landscape, one that both soothed and excited Zoe.

Her father put an arm around her. “We fell in love with those hills. They’re not far from here.”

The revelation shocked Zoe. “I thought we moved here to... to get you
away
from all those memories.” He’d never said as much, but Zoe had assumed that was why they’d made such a drastic move.

He didn’t stiffen, but she felt a wall go up as he slid his arm from her shoulders and walked to the long table in the center of the room.

“This is the house where I proposed to your mother.”

She hadn’t known that. “But I thought we left Rome because the memories were too strong, too overwhelming, there.” She shook her head. “Aren’t they just as strong here, Papa?”

She hadn’t questioned him. None of her siblings had. He’d been so solid through the ordeal of her mother’s death that no one pushed him afterward. He’d never complained, just held them all up, as if carrying them on his back across rough waters. They didn’t want to cause him more stress by asking unnecessary questions.

“That’s true, at least in part.”

She heard the waver in his voice. During all the long hours of her mother’s last horrible days, she’d never heard the tone she heard now.

“I wanted to get back in touch with those early years, not dwell—”

He stopped.

Her mother’s dying had been painful and gruesome until she’d agreed to the morphine. And soon after that she was gone. Just gone. As though the sun had dropped below the horizon never to rise again. The thought of her father tumbling into an abyss of despondency and depression had frightened her, had made her go along with his plans and decisions.

Now was no time to bring up her work on the gallery. It was selfish of her to think only of herself. She could try to accommodate his plans, if only long enough for him to come out of his despair. She’d tell him after the holidays. But would he rise out of the fog that seemed to engulf him? Would she? No one ever talked about how grief could suck the life out of a soul, leaving the grieving one feeling she had to haul up energy and step over a yawning gap just to get on with the day.

“I wanted to remember your mother here, where she was healthy and strong and happy.”

His voice had recovered the confident edge Zoe heard when he talked about business, and the cloudy look in his eyes gave way to the expression she was more accustomed to, the look that said he had life under control, at his command. The look of a man certain about his path. There would be no more glimpses into his soul. Not this morning, anyway.

“And I wanted to grow reds,” he continued in the same level master-of-the universe tone. “Always have,” he went on. “These are perfect soils, and the climate here is better for reds. Not to mention, Europe is becoming too crowded for my tastes.”

She’d be lying not to admit that hearing him confident made her feel safer, less worried. But sometimes she felt manipulated by his evasiveness and his tendency to switch into cool, rational speech when it suited him.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked, curious about his abrupt departures.

“Bordeaux, to visit some vintners. And then London to see Mark Wainwright. He’s thinking of starting a winery in Napa.”

And that quickly she was on shaky ground again because she knew he wasn’t telling the truth. Lucinda and Mark Wainwright were in Paris for the opening of the Rothko exhibit. She’d texted Lucinda just the day before to ask for her help with the gallery opening.

She shivered, but maybe she was being paranoid. Maybe Mark had returned early or she’d read the text wrong.

“How’s the viniculture class going?” her father asked before she could gather her thoughts. He clearly wanted to change the subject.

“It’s fine.” He raised a brow, and she wished she could be more enthusiastic. But she wasn’t going to lie. “Did Adrian tell you that Vico Gualdieri is in the class with us?”

His eyes narrowed. The hard set of his jaw belonged to a man she didn’t know. She’d seen the look rarely, but each time it was as foreign as the last.

“Apparently we aren’t the only Romans interested in the secrets of the California vintners,” he said in a casual tone that didn’t match the calculating look in his eyes. He glanced at his watch. “I’m headed to town. Need anything?”