LITMIR.BIZ

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meeting.

      “Come have dinner with us,” Niccolo said, sunglasses on to cut the bright afternoon glare. “Maggie’s just phoned. She’s insisting I bring you home with me, wanted me to tell you that you can’t say no. She’s desperate for adult conversation.”

      Lucio’s lips tugged. He felt a reluctant smile. Niccolo’s wife was beautiful. Spirited. Like his ex-wife Anabella, but unlike Anabella, Niccolo’s wife loved him.

      His smile faded. “Thank you for the invitation, but I’ve work to do—”

      Niccolo made an impatient sound. “You’ve worked all day. You need dinner. Company. Hotels can be lonely places.”

      Actually being in a hotel was less stressful than being home, Lucio thought bitterly. Home didn’t feel like home, not anymore. In the divorce settlement Anabella had gotten the house, the upper vineyard, the apartment in Buenos Aires. He’d taken a small place, a new place, in downtown Mendoza. It was a nice apartment in an expensive building. His one bedroom apartment was elegant with excellent light and a magnificent view of the Andes, but he’d left it virtually unfurnished, buying only a table, a chair and a bed.

      He didn’t need more than that. He didn’t intend to be in Mendoza more than he had to. Anabella lived—entertained—in Mendoza. He couldn’t bear to be in the vicinity. Too much had happened between them. Too much pain. Too much disillusionment.

      Lucio realized Niccolo was watching him, quietly waiting for an answer. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be good company tonight,” Lucio answered honestly. “Besides, you have three little ones at home anxious to see you. They’d rather have you to themselves.”

      Lucio had met the children a week ago when he first arrived in California and they were delightful. Jared, the eldest at seven, was fair and wiry with intense blue eyes. Then there was five-year-old Leo, the middle one, the second son, dark like his father with green gold eyes; and the youngest, three-year-old Adriana, with dark curls and dimples and constantly in mischief.

      But being with Niccolo, Maggie and the children hadn’t been easy. Lucio found himself envious of his colleague, of the life the Italian vintner had made for himself in Northern California. Lucio, too, craved children but Anabella couldn’t conceive.

      Niccolo’s hand suddenly clapped Lucio’s shoulder. “You’re sure you won’t join us?”

      “Positive.” Lucio started the engine. He just wanted to escape. Niccolo meant well but Lucio couldn’t handle the contact, and certainly wasn’t up for socializing. It’d taken him a number of years, but he was finally good at growing grapes, crushing fruit and making drinkable dinner wine. He was sticking with his strengths. “Give your wife my best. Tell her we’ll have dinner before I go.”

      Lucio drove fast; taking the narrow winding road from Dominici Vineyard to the highway more quickly than he should—far more quickly than the law allowed—but he’d never followed rules, never believed in rules. Rules, his father used to say were made for the man who couldn’t think for himself. Rules, his cowboy culture implied, were for those who needed a norm.

      He didn’t need a norm.

      Even now, despite his success, he didn’t want to be part of the norm, or the exclusive society of his aristocratic wife.

      Lucio’s gaze swept the tight turn ahead and he shifted down, briefly reducing speed until he cleared the turn. The moment he came out of the turn he accelerated hard, practically flying down the stretch of road cutting through the rolling golden hills. Napa was in the middle of an Indian summer and the warm dry air, and the scent of baked earth, ripe fruit, smelled achingly familiar.

      Maybe too familiar.

      Thankfully this fast, rather reckless, drive was exactly what he needed. Freedom. Space. Speed. Adrenaline.

      Racing through the hills reminded him of riding bareback on a young stallion. Danger heightened the senses and Lucio found himself relishing the rush of dry wind in his face, the hot sun burning down on his head, the ease with which the sports car hugged the turns.

      Moving fast, he could almost forget that he’d lost the one person he’d ever loved.

      By the time Lucio made it to his hotel room, his phone was ringing again. He answered, hand on the door, half expecting to hear Anabella’s brittle, angry voice. A small part of him still hoped she’d phone. A small part of him hadn’t accepted reality.

      But it wasn’t Anabella’s voice on the other end of the line. It was Dr. Dominguez, the family physician in Mendoza.

      “Where have you been?” Static on the line made the doctor’s voice sound unnaturally faint.

      Lucio reached for the light switch on the wall. “I’ve been in meetings.”

      “I’ve been calling you, leaving messages—” the connection broke up, and then the doctor’s voice came through again, “danger’s past—” and faded out only to fade in again, “an immediate return.”

      Danger? Where was the danger?

      It was a terrible connection. Lucio couldn’t make out more than a couple words the doctor was saying. He closed the hotel door and headed across the room to see if he couldn’t get better reception there. “Stephen, I missed most of what you just said. Can you repeat that, please?”

      Dr. Dominguez replied but again it was static once more and Lucio drew back the drapes at the window to let in the light. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.” Lucio fought to hang on to his temper. “Tell me again. What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

      “Anabella.”

      “What’s happened to Anabella?” Dread seeped through his gut as he pushed open the glass door to the balcony.

      But he didn’t get an answer. The line went dead.

      What the hell? What had happened to Anabella? Lucio swore, gripped his phone and started to punch in Dominguez’s number but his phone rang, interrupting him.

      In that brief twenty-some seconds of silence his mind had spun a dozen different tragic scenarios.

      “What’s wrong with Anabella?” Lucio demanded the moment he answered the phone.

      The doctor didn’t waste time. “We think now it’s encephalitis.”

      “Encephalitis,” Lucio repeated, wondering if he’d misheard the doctor. The connection still wasn’t the best. What the hell was encephalitis?

      “It’s a viral infection. It’s very rare, almost never heard of in Argentina, which is why we had difficulty with diagnosing the illness. Your wife has been pretty sick, but we think she’s out of the woods now—”

      “Out of the woods? How sick was she?”

      The doctor hesitated, and then cleared his throat. “Encephalitis can be fatal.”

      “How sick was she?” Lucio repeated with quiet menace.

      The doctor didn’t reply. Lucio closed his eyes, shook his head, his heart and mind dark.

      No one had told him. No one had called him. And it hit him all over again, how he’d always been the outsider. He might have married Anabella, but her family didn’t accept him. They’d barely tolerated him and once they knew Ana wanted out of the marriage they did everything in their power to expedite the divorce itself.

      No wonder he and Anabella hadn’t lasted. They were up against too much. Up against virtually everything.

      The doctor cleared his throat again. “As I said, it’s not an easy disease to diagnose. It starts out like the flu and quickly progresses. We had to do a lumbar puncture test. A CT brain scan. An MRI scan—”

      “Goddamn,” Lucio swore, interrupting. A lumbar puncture test? CT scan? MRI scan? They ran all those tests on Anabella without ever calling him…telling him? “When were you going to tell me that my wife might

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