LITMIR.BIZ

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begun to wonder if David Carerra had a death wish.

      The bike slowed, but she didn’t look up. She felt much safer with her head tucked against David’s back and her fingernails slicing through his clothing to the bare skin beneath.

      They turned, then stopped, idling. He put a booted foot on the ground and the bike tilted, just enough to make a squeak fly out of her mouth.

      He chuckled. “You can open your eyes now.”

      “Are we here?”

      “Yep.” He cut off the motor. She continued vibrating. “Trattoria Vicenzi. My favorite North End Italian restaurant. Take a look.”

      She unclenched her hands and lifted her head. The steamy visor obscured her vision. Apparently she’d been breathing after all.

      David twisted around to lift off her unwieldy helmet. She swiped a palm over her sweaty forehead and took bearings. They were in an alleyway. A narrow, shadowy, stinking alleyway, complete with an overflowing Dumpster and a wraith of a cat that disappeared behind a heap of produce containers.

      “It’s beautiful,” she said, regretting her promise to kiss the ground if they arrived safely.

      David swung a leg over the front of the bike and stood with a groan that told her he was still feeling the effects of his accident. “Don’t go by looks, darlin’.”

      Brooke nodded without taking her eyes off him. He was not smoothly handsome or sophisticated like most of the men she’d dated. But it was that very difference that had engaged her. His earthiness, his lack of pretension was refreshing. With every minute they were together, she felt herself easing away from the uptight Brooke and inching toward the freedom she craved.

      Her job was all about visuals. She was an aesthetic creature, raised with money and privilege, accustomed to the finer things in life. But she’d also learned to look for beauty in unconventional places, thanks to Elway Sinclair, a window dresser as revered as Worthington itself. Elway had taken Brooke under his wing when she’d first been hired at the store. He’d sent her out onto to the streets of Boston with a camera, sketchpad and the instruction that she must find inspiration from every nook and cranny of the city, before she became an uptight Beacon Hill Brahmin.

      David was a good reminder that she had become complacent in recent years, forgetting to stretch her boundaries beyond Newbury Street and Hawthorn Lane.

      Brooke traced a finger across the fogged visor. Not tonight. Tonight, she was alight with sensation. Her body was cold and trembling on the surface, but ridden with rivers of molten fire underneath.

      David extended a hand.

      She gave him hers, sliding off the bike as discreetly as she could in a dress that was slit up to mid-thigh. His hand felt like a baseball glove—big, warm, leathery, enveloping. She glanced sidelong at him as they ducked beneath a low brick arch and descended a short flight of steps to an underground back entrance. Even stiff and bruised, he moved like a well-oiled athlete. The fire inside her bubbled another millimeter closer to the surface.

      A short, dank hall gave way to bright lights and stainless steel, steam and heat and noise. Cleavers swung, water sprayed, pans sizzled. Shouts went up when David appeared. Brooke lost his hand as he was surrounded by cooks in dirty aprons, who clapped him on the back and called out, “Paisano!”

      “Can we get a table—something out of the way?” David broke free and put his arm around her. “This is Brooke.”

      Gestures of approval punctuated the calls of “Ciao, bella,” and “Caldo.”

      Brooke’s bare skin prickled despite the heat in the kitchen. Overwhelmed by the lively greeting that was so different from the murmuring maître d’ she’d expected, she could only lift a hand and give a tiny wave. She wanted new experiences and this certainly qualified.

      They were led from the kitchen by one of the cooks. The dining room was dark and labyrinthine, with several private nooks. They were given a nice corner spot, with a round table so small they knocked knees when they sat. David asked for the night’s special and a bottle of expensive wine.

      “Pio Cesare Barolo?” Brooke opened the napkin, a big one that covered her lap. “Do good old southern boys know about wine?”

      “They do when they were adopted by Italian sugar beet farmers.”

      “Italian sugar beet farmers?” She was delighted. “Is there such a thing?”

      “Sure. Mama and Papa Carerra. But I was thirteen when I went to live with them, so I call them Marie and Geno.”

      She chafed her thighs beneath the napkin. “Isn’t it unusual to be adopted when you’re thirteen?”

      His gaze held steady. “Sixteen, actually. They were my foster parents before the adoption.”

      “I’m sorry you lost your parents.”

      “I didn’t lose them. They lost me.”

      “Oh.” She wasn’t sure what he meant. They were alive? She wanted to ask, and the hard, bright jewels that were his eyes practically dared her to ask, but her Bostonian reserve wouldn’t allow it. “I lost both of mine,” she said instead. “My dad of a heart attack. My mother passed on only a few months ago. Pancreatic cancer.”

      David touched her arm. “That’s rough.”

      Brooke nodded, having to swallow the wave of grief that rose unexpectedly. When she was certain she could speak without a tremor, she unclenched her teeth. “It’s been complicated, too.” She found herself speaking in a rush, telling him—a virtual stranger—about the events that loomed so large in her mind. She didn’t know why, except that she was comfortable with him. And she wanted to make a connection beyond wearing a sexy dress and flirting. “My sisters and I recently learned that my mother had been hiding a secret past during her entire marriage. We have a half-sister we never knew about.”

      His eyebrows went up.

      A brief chuckle rasped her throat. “Turns out that our family history isn’t as stodgy as we’d always believed.”

      His gaze dropped to her plunging V-neckline. “You don’t seem stodgy to me.”

      “My ancestors.” On impulse, she sat taller, letting her lightweight coverup slip off her shoulders. David scanned the dress—her body—with an appreciation so intense his gaze was like a green laser beam passing over her. A scorching green laser beam. “I’m not stodgy,” she said, which would have usually been a lie, but not tonight. “Not in the least.”

      “Absolutely not,” he echoed in a lazy, singsong voice so warm and welcoming it felt like lounging in a hammock on a summer day.

      She wanted to bask in it, even though she suspected that he’d seen through her charade and was teasing her again. “I like your accent, Georgia.”

      The corner of his mouth twitched. “I like yours, too, Boston.”

      “Brookline,” she said. “I live in Brookline now. Again, that is. I grew up there, and moved back home when my mother became ill. We had a nurse, too, but she wanted—I wanted—we all wanted a family member there with her.”

      “And they chose you, the artsy rebel of the bunch?”

      Ah, the power of a sexy dress. He really had the wrong idea about her. She loved it.

      “I’m also the oldest,” she explained. And the most responsible. But both Joey and Katie had been there to help, visiting often, spelling Brooke whenever they saw she was overwhelmed, especially in those final months when her mother had been in and out of the hospital.

      “You’re not anymore,” David said.

      “What?” She pressed her fingertips to the corners of her eyes and gave her head a shake. “Oh. You mean being the oldest. I keep forgetting about that. It’s strange.”

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