LITMIR.BIZ

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soon as Rafe finished with his questions and left her in peace again, she would take a couple of Tylenol tablets and climb into bed. Lyssa wasn’t due home until some time tomorrow afternoon, which meant she could sleep in for once.

      After that…well, she would deal with the rest later. And deal she would, she vowed with more bluff than conviction. Daniela Mancini Fabrizio was no quitter. For good measure she patted the tiny cherub who was destined to come into the world without a father’s love.

      Don’t worry, little dumpling. Mama intends to smother you with so much love you won’t mind growing up without a daddy. One particular daddy, anyway.

      Her jaw tightened as she thought about the legal steps she would need to take to ensure Jonathan Sommerset or Jacob Folsom or whatever he called himself would never ever have access to her child. No matter what, she intended to make sure that he never had a chance to hurt her babies again.

      Determined to get past this without making it any worse than it already was, Rafe stationed himself at the end of the hall, far enough to give her privacy, but with a clear view of the door.

      As he anchored himself against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, he was so tense his muscles felt hot. As soon as he’d seen her, he’d been all stirred up inside. When he’d carried her up the walk it had brought it all back—the smell of her skin, the taste of her lips, the way she felt in his arms that night as he’d carried her from the pond to the soft grass beneath the long sheltering branches of a weeping willow.

      Her skin had been translucent in the moonlight, her body as smooth as marble, her nipples dark and puckered, ripe little buds he’d been desperate to taste. He hadn’t intended to do more than pet her into opening her mouth for him to explore, but when she turned wild in his arms, he’d forgotten everything but the hot pulsing need between his thighs.

      Oh, he tried to play it cool. What self-respecting seventeen-year-old male would willingly admit he’d never been with a woman before? Especially one who’d been spoon-fed machismo along with his rice and beans. But inside, he’d been terrified. What if he hurt her? What if he was too clumsy to make it good for her?

      As soon as he’d touched her, he’d been lost. Nothing had been more important than exploring every inch of that amazing body. His own had been so hard he’d been in real pain. When she’d touched him with those curious little hands, he’d nearly exploded.

      He’d wanted to be inside her desperately, so desperately he’d ached. In the end it had been his respect for his parents and her father that had him jerking back an instant before he’d breached her maidenhead. He’d often wondered if Fabrizio had appreciated his sacrifice.

      Danni sure as hell hadn’t.

      His heart raced as unwanted feelings crowded him hard. She’d been half-wild with hurt pride as she’d hastily pulled on her suit. No one had ever said no to Daniela Mancini on her father’s land. Especially the bastard son of a Mexican field hand.

      Nothing he said could soothe her. Still, in his halting way, he’d tried, pouring out his deepest feelings in a jumble of English and Spanish. All it had gotten him, however, was a slap in the face and a blast of that fine Italian temper.

      After she’d stormed back inside the big house on the hill, he’d prowled the vineyards like one of the mountain cougars who inhabited the hills above the vines, walking for miles until his muscles burned and his mind blurred. Maybe that was why he’d simply stood there when Eddie and the others had come at him a little before dawn.

      Mark had been leaving after visiting Danni’s brother Vito and had seen them by the pond. Rafe had tried to tell them that he loved her. That he wanted to marry her. He hadn’t gotten out more than a few words before Eddie had smashed his fist into his face, catching him by surprise and breaking his nose. He’d fought, but Ed’s brothers, Vito and Benito, had held his arms while the two older guys had taken turns hitting him.

      Stronger than most, even as a kid, he could take a lot of punishment without going down. Consequently, he’d been in bad shape by the time he’d finally passed out. When he’d come to a few minutes later, his face sticky with blood and every breath an agony, Eddie had laid it out for him, all neat and tidy. He was to leave town that very morning, on the first bus out of Ashland and never come back. He wasn’t to see or contact Danni ever again. If he didn’t agree to those conditions, Ed would see that his father was fired from his job as vineyard foreman and kicked off Mancini land without a recommendation.

      At twenty-four, Ed was already his father’s right-hand man. Both of them knew he could do exactly as he promised. Both of them knew, too, that good jobs for a semi-illiterate Mexican-American day laborer with five young kids were hard to come by.

      Spitting blood and with fury burning in his gut, Rafe had threatened to go to Ed’s father. El Jefe was a fair man, a decent man. He’d even offered to send Rafe to trade school to learn auto mechanics so that he could go to work maintaining the vineyard vehicles.

      He would never forget the satisfaction in Fabrizio’s eyes. Who do you think sent us out here? he’d said with a smirk. Even gave us money for your fare.

      Years later, Rafe had been able to see the logic in it. Eduardo Mancini wasn’t a cruel man, simply a practical one. Danni was his only daughter. In the way of his father and his father’s father, he had promised her to the eldest son of his best friend and rival vintner, Tonio Fabrizio. No mongrel with unknown parentage and few prospects would be allowed to threaten the dynasty he and Tonio Fabrizio had so carefully planned.

      Rafe had known then what it was to hate.

      Like everyone else in the valley El Jefe knew exactly how much Rafe owed to the Cardozas. His birth mother had been a fifteen-year-old druggie from California, who, with some guy she’d met in a truck stop, had stopped over to pick grapes for traveling money. One night during a spring storm the girl had given birth in one of the horse stalls, then split, leaving her hours’ old son wrapped in a flea-infested scrap of blanket.

      At the time Rosaria Cardoza had given birth to stillborn son only days earlier and still had milk. It was natural for her to take the baby. El Jefe had paid the attorney who’d arranged for Enrique and Rosaria to adopt him as their own.

      Rafe had known from early on that he’d been adopted. How could he not know, a green-eyed blonde in a family of dark-eyed, dark-haired Latinos?

      He’d been eleven when one of the other workers had gotten drunk and taunted him with the details of his birth. Rosaria had managed to soothe his hurt, but after that, pride had driven him to be the best at anything he tried.

      As the eldest he’d always felt a responsibility to take care of the little ones. Maybe because he’d been adopted, he’d felt that responsibility more deeply than most.

      After all that Enrique and Rosaria had done for him, he’d had no choice. So he’d swallowed the hate, along with his pride, taken the money and left. His face had been raw from the fresh bruises, and one eye had been swollen completely shut. Every time he’d moved, the splintered ends of his ribs ground together and breathing was agony. But he’d been determined to walk to the bus with his head high and his back straight.

      With sweat pouring down his face and his stomach cramping with nausea, he’d finally made it on to the bus without passing out. He’d gotten as far as San Francisco before the pain of sitting for hours sent him in search of a bed. For a week he stayed holed up in a seedy hotel in the Tenderloin, living on junk food and aspirin while his body healed.

      On the first day he was able to take a deep breath without passing out, he’d taken a cab to the nearest Army recruiter and enlisted. He’d been in boot camp when Danni graduated from high school, in Beirut when she’d graduated from Oregon State, slogging his way through the Treasury’s own version of boot camp when she’d married Fabrizio. By the time her daughter had been born, he was no longer in love with the princess of Mancini Vineyards.

      “Guess she’s still puking her guts out, huh?” Gresham commented as he wandered into the hall from the living room, a fresh cup of

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