LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Dedicated to my own special kind of family.

       And to Pamela Morrell, honorary family member.

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      As always, a huge thank-you to my agent, Jay Poynor. He has always been my biggest supporter.

      Thanks also to Margaret Marbury, for her absolutely brilliant eye, and to Jessica Regante at Red Dress Ink. A note of thanks to Laura Morris, marketing genius at Red Dress Ink, who appreciated the heroine of this tale. Thanks to Dianne Moggy (we still have to go out for spaghetti and meatballs), part of the great network of support I have for my books, as well as publisher Donna Hayes, for her vision. I also have to say this cover is my favorite of all my books so far—so a special thank-you to the terrific designers at Harlequin in Toronto.

      You can’t write a novel about a special kind of family without having a tight-knit one of your own. Thank you to my parents, Maryanne and Walter Orloff, Stacey, Jessica, extended family members, Gloria and Joey, and the memories of my grandparents, Robert and Irene Cunningham. Wherever my grandmother is, along with my grandfather, they’re likely playing pinochle. Love to all my nieces and nephews: Tyler, Zachary, Pannos, Cassidy, Tori.

      To the members of Writer’s Cramp, Pam Morrell, Gina De Luca, Jon Van Zile, thank you for faithfully meeting every two weeks. I know the food and wine are enticements, but it’s also the hard work we do. Your comments are always dead-on.

      My friends, Cleo, Nancy, Mark DiBona (my resident bookie and gambling expert), Kathy Levinson, Kathy Johnson and Chris Richardson, for being rock-solid supports.

      And last but not least, Alexa, Nicholas and Isabella, for being truly happy and extraordinary little people. And to J.D. For it all.

      Contents

      Preface

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Preface

      Every other Friday from the time I was born until I was sixteen and allowed to start dating, I slept over at my grandma and Poppy Marcello’s house. My brother slept over, too, and my parents used the free night to go out for dinner and have some time alone.

      My brother and Poppy used to go down to my grandfather’s wood shop and make birdhouses. Then they’d watch the fights on cable or would play checkers. My grandmother and I cooked in anticipation for Sunday’s big family meal, hand rolling meatballs with chopped veal and beef and bread crumbs. She taught me all the secret family recipes, passed down from her mother and her mother before that.

      After cooking, Grandma and I would go sit in the den and have sweetened iced tea in summer or hot tea with lots of milk in winter. One Friday night, when I was about eleven, I remember dragging out the heavy family photo albums lining the bookshelves. I brought one over to her on the couch and plopped next to her and opened it.

      “What’s this a picture of?” I asked on the first page.

      “Oh…” Her eyes misted over, and her smile was bittersweet. “My goodness, but the time flies, Teddi. That was your mother’s fifth birthday party. Your grandfather… Every birthday had to be better than the last one. That was the year we had pony rides.”

      “Wow.” I wanted a pony. I turned the pages, and each photo brought on a story. I knew most of the tales already, but I never got tired of curling up next to my grandmother and hearing them again. Then I found a page that had somehow gotten stuck to the page before it. Gingerly, I pried the pages apart. There, in black-and-white photos, was a man I had never seen before. “Who’s that?” I asked.

      Grandma’s eyes welled up, and she heaved an uncharacteristic sigh. “That, my darling, is my youngest brother. He’s your great-uncle Mario.”

      “And who’s that lady next to him? She’s beautiful.”

      “Yes, she is. Was. That woman is Mariella.”

      “How come I don’t know them? How come I’ve never met your brother, Grandma?”

      “He was struck by the thunderbolt.”

      I looked up at my grandmother’s face, still relatively unlined, rosy-cheeked, her dark hair, graying at the temples, pulled up in a topknot and secured with bobby pins. I furrowed my brow. “A thunderbolt? He was hit by lightning?”

      She laughed, even as she dabbed her eyes with a little handkerchief she kept in her apron pocket. “No…it’s an expression we Italians have. When you’re older, you’ll fall in love and get married. Maybe it will be someone you’ve known a long time…a friend you suddenly see in a different light. Or maybe you’ll go off to college and meet a boy you could imagine yourself spending the rest of your life with. Someone with good values. But maybe…just maybe…you will be struck by the thunderbolt. That means you’ll look across a crowded room, or you’ll bump into someone on the street…and from the very second you look into his eyes and he looks into yours, that’s it. You know. He is the one. It won’t make any sense. People will tell you that you’re crazy, but you will know. There’ll be this voice, this feeling deep inside…you will just know, and your life will never be the same, because none of it will matter until you finally get to be with him. Your love.”

      I looked down at the picture of my long-lost uncle Mario. “So what happened to him?”

      “He’s in prison, dear.”

      “Prison? For what?”

      She hesitated, and then said, “He killed a man.” She said it as if she’d said, “He ran a red light.”

      I shivered slightly and snuggled closer to her. “Why? How?”

      “Oh…it’s a long story.” She looked at me, and I clearly wasn’t going to let the matter drop. “All right, then. Your uncle Mario saw Mariella at a dance. And that was it. They were both struck by the thunderbolt. You’ve never seen two people more in love than your uncle Mario and Mariella. It was like electricity ran between them. When people were around them, it was intoxicating.

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