The Heart Of The Game (9 page)

He laughed, and she studied his expression. Maybe her English wasn’t as good as she thought, because there was nothing funny about a bridal-bouquet toss. At least there hadn’t been until now.

“The woman who catches the bouquet is the next to marry,” she explained.

He narrowed his eyes and put his hands in his pockets. “Guess we’d better head in then.”

Matt’s daughter careened into Zoe as she and Cody entered the hall. Cody caught Sophie under the arms, breaking her fall before she hit the flagstones.

He righted her and set her on her feet. Sophie brushed her dress back into place and crossed her arms.

“Auntie Zoe, they won’t let
me
catch the bouquet.”

It didn’t matter that Zoe wasn’t really her aunt; the girl had latched onto Zoe and already stolen her heart.

Zoe crouched down to Sophie, terrifically aware that she was now at crotch level with Cody. It took all her resolve not to stare. “Who told you such a thing?”

Sophie pointed to Alex’s mother. Zoe wasn’t about to cross Aunt Thea. Not tonight.

“How about I give you my bouquet?”

“With the ribbons?”

“Yes, ribbons and all.”

Sophie uncrossed her arms. “I’m going to tell Alana!” She turned and raced off a couple steps and then turned back and pumped her fist in the air. “Thanks, Zoe!”

Zoe straightened and found Cody staring at her with the same unreadable look she’d seen on the dance floor.

“She likes you.”

“I
adore
her. When I have a daughter I hope she has such...” She searched for the word in English “... such
life
in her.” Cody didn’t smile, just stared in the direction where Sophie had run off. “Do you want a family of your own?”

He didn’t flinch, not exactly. His movement was more a subtle shudder. But she saw it.

“No.” He shook his head then, slowly, still staring into the room. “Nope, not for me. Not a family-type guy. I didn’t get those genes.”

His words shouldn’t have disappointed her. Shouldn’t have mattered. If she hadn’t been going back to Italy, if she’d been considering a relationship with him, that would be different, she might care, but—

Cara walked up with Casey in her arms. “Would you take him for me while I find Ryan?” She passed her squirming son into Zoe’s arms. “We’ll need a HAZMAT crew to clean up the mess he’ll make with the cake—it’s a two-person job.”

Zoe settled Casey on her hip. He immediately reached up and tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled hard.

“
Ahi!
” Zoe exclaimed while laughing.

Casey gave a gummy laugh and tugged again. She couldn’t help but kiss his baby-soft cheek as she reached to unfist his hand from her hair.

“Let me help.” Cody’s fingertips touched along her neck and shot the now-too-familiar sparks leaping in her blood.

“This lady needs her hair.” Cody’s tone nearly purred as he gently unwound Casey’s fingers. “There.” He rocked back, smiling. Nothing about him looked like a man who didn’t love children.

“Caaayyyke,” Casey said, pointing to the towering cake on the table at the end of the hall.

“We’ve lost all track of priorities,” Cody said with a laugh. But his eyes weren’t laughing. He looked from Zoe to Casey and then back. The flash of emotion she couldn’t categorize was quickly masked by his wink. “There’s Ryan.” Cody scooped Casey into his arms. “Best leave all this to the experts.”

“Hand off,” Cody said as they caught up to Ryan. “This guy’s ready for cake.”

“He’s always ready for cake.” Ryan laughed. “Gets his sweet tooth from his mother.” Ryan glanced around the room with a mock-furtive gaze. “But don’t tell her that. She likes to believe that I think she’s perfect.”

Ryan’s gaze landed on Cara, and his face softened into a smile that made Zoe wish for a man to look at her with such love.

“Of course she is. Well, nearly.” Ryan elbowed Cody. “Hey, Bond, meant to tell you—I found a great place for Cara and Casey and me to live during spring training. There’s another condo right next door. Thought you and Jake might want to grab it before someone snaps it up. It has a pool. A
big
pool.” He turned to Zoe. “The desert can be hot, even in the spring. And Casey loves the water.”

Right
. Desert. Baseball. An American with an aversion to family and a professed aversion to children. Well, she didn’t believe that one—but did she need any further warning to shut down the rush of wanting that Cody had sprung loose?

There was no way she could remain around the edges of such a man the way one could walk the perimeter of a lake and toe the water without jumping in. There was power between them, a power that lured with a voice almost impossible to resist. If she wasn’t careful, she’d forget her plans, dive in and have a hell of a time swimming back to shore.

She’d better
re
-rehearse the facts before there was no turning back.

As she dragged on her riding pants the morning after the wedding, Zoe tried to recall her dreams. Dreams were guides, sometimes the best window into the way forward. She trusted her dreams. But the moment she’d thrown back the covers and her feet hit the oak-planked floor of her bedroom, her dreams had slipped back into the mysterious place where they lived, refusing her efforts to coax them into awareness.

She hadn’t slept well.
That
she remembered. When she’d wandered downstairs after midnight, she’d found her father in his library, tapping away at his computer. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have thought he was addicted to some sort of porn or Internet game, but each time she came upon him she saw the same columns of data running across the screen. Some days she wished she spoke the language of that data, as that was what seemed to suck up the best part of her father’s waking hours and all of his attention. He’d flinched when she’d entered the room; that wasn’t like him. He seemed nervous and that wasn’t like him either. She woke to the sound of his car rolling down the drive just before dawn. He’d been evasive when she’d asked about his plans the week before and hadn’t mentioned more travel.

Lured by the sunlight pouring into her bedroom, she threw open the double French doors and breathed in the rich scent of the day. Fingers of mist feathered into the sky as the sun burned back the fog that had crept into the valley overnight. The hills in the distance held on to the blue of dawn, but the vineyard and pastures danced with the greens and golds and reds of autumn.

The slight chill of a breeze reminded her to dig into her bureau drawer and drag out a favorite sweater. Curling her fingers into the soft cashmere, she remembered the many times the worn turtleneck had kept her snug and warm when riding in the Sabine hills near Rome. She raised the sweater to her cheek and closed her eyes. An image from one of her dreams flashed, and she tried to pull the dim memory into focus. There’d been a man, a man she couldn’t make out. Maybe two. Yes, two.

And a fight.

She squeezed her eyes tighter, but the image vanished.

Shaking off the unfamiliar feeling of foreboding slinking into her belly, she stuffed a pad of watercolor paper into her backpack, along with a box of paints. Even though she tried to shrug it off, the foreboding still teased at her as she headed downstairs for breakfast.

“Holy Mother Mary!” Adrian exclaimed as he backed away from the toaster on the sideboard in the breakfast room and sucked at his fingers.

Zoe couldn’t help but laugh. Adrian could outride, out-figure and outclass just about any man she knew, but he’d met his match with the American toaster.

“Toaster ten, Adrian zero,” she said as she poured coffee from a Thermos pot.

“I’ve ordered a Moldani. They promised delivery by the end of the week.”

“In the meantime, should I call the ambulance?”

“Only if it comes with several lovely women in snug-fitting uniforms.”

“In this area it’s studly men only from what Coco tells me,” she said. “Firemen. Her favorites.”

“Maybe we should call them for you.”

Adrian hadn’t given up on his incessant matchmaking. With seven sisters, perhaps he could be forgiven. But since they’d moved, he’d become intent on finding Zoe a man. He liked California. Loved it already. And was sure that if she met a captivating man, she’d come to like the place too.

Some days she wished she lived in Adrian’s simple world—do what you love, enjoy every day, display a generous heart. When had she pushed off from the shore of that idyllic island into the murky waters she now inhabited? She knew only too well: the day her mother had taken her last breath in Zoe’s arms. Everything about her life turned on its head that day. But only her father seemed to understand that. Too well in his case.

“Where’d Papa go off to?” she asked as she piled melon slices and a wedge of omelet on her plate before sitting at the table.

“London. Or maybe Brussels. I forget.”

For all the trips her father had been taking, California seemed like a poor choice to call home. The extra six or eight hours of transit had to be wearing.

Adrian unplugged the toaster, retrieved his now burned bread and waved it at her. “Remember that Gualdieri guy who rode in the polo match two summers ago?”

She searched her memory. “I can’t say I recall his face, but I do remember his riding. He had a hotheaded hook and rode his horses harder than he had to.”

“You have a better memory than me, then.”

Adrian slathered fruit preserves on his toast. “I ran into him at the cafe in town yesterday. Vico. Vico Gualdieri. Seems Papa isn’t the only Roman looking to use the techniques of California’s wine country. He’ll be in our class this morning.”

She’d forgotten about the viniculture class. “I thought I’d ride out into the west hills and paint this morning—the light is lovely. You could take notes.”

“No way.” He took a bite of his fruit-slathered toast. Chewed, but didn’t take his eyes off her. He quirked up the corner of his mouth, playing the know-it-all older brother. “We are in this together, Zizi. It’ll do you good to sink your mind into something.”

Her fork clicked as she lowered it to her plate. Breakfast suddenly held little appeal. One day soon she’d have to face her father and tell him that his efforts to transform her into a vintner were misplaced. Throwing herself into a business she had no passion for wouldn’t accomplish anything. But the time had to be right. He wasn’t back to his usual robust self. Maybe the results of the harvest would cheer him, maybe—

Adrian sat next to her and patted her arm.

“Hey, I miss her too. And I miss what we had in Rome. But making a new life here is important to Papa, more than he says.” He swept his arms toward the French doors open to the sun-splashed terrace that provided a view of the oak-dotted hills in the distance. “There’s a whole new world here. I’m finding I’m liking the challenge. You will too.
If
you give the place a chance.”

In the face of his attempt at encouragement, she didn’t have the heart to say anything that would dim his enthusiasm. Enthusiasm had once been her strong suit.

“I can ride later this afternoon. The light will be different, but I’m sure it will be just as lovely.”

He grinned as if he’d achieved a minor victory. Maybe he had. She lifted a bite of omelet, chewed, but the dryness in her mouth had it tasting like hay.

Zoe sipped at tepid coffee and surveyed the classroom. The pale green walls and boxy structure made the space seem more like a hospital than a place to train the future vineyard scions of the world.

Rapidly spoken Italian had her glancing toward the door. Adrian talked with a tall man with his back turned to her.

Her brother gestured for her to join them. Carrying her coffee, she made her way to Adrian’s side. She gripped the mug of coffee like a torch, holding it in front of her as if it would light her way.

The man turned. He was indeed the rider she’d competed against in the polo match two years earlier, the last summer match before her life had tilted and fate had rolled her to California.

His elegant features snapped last night’s dream into place for the briefest moment. But there was no way this man had figured in her dreams; she was barely acquainted with him and hadn’t seen him for years. She was edgy and being ridiculous.

“Zoe, meet Vico Gualdieri. He’s about to undergo the rigors of the classroom with us.”

She shook his offered hand. His hand was cool, his skin smooth, almost waxy. His fingers were long and tapered, each ending in a perfectly buffed nail. She pulled her hand away.

“We meet again.” At the sound of his deep voice and Roman accent, she met his eyes. Dark. And though he smiled at her, the smile did not warm those eyes.

“Yes. Apparently,” she said in Italian. “Adrian tells me you too have been sent on assignment from your family.” He narrowed his eyes, and she added, “You’d think they could come up with something more elegant than sequestering us in a dismal room like this on such a gorgeous day.”

“We’ll be in the field tomorrow,” Adrian said.

Always looking to the bright side, her sweet brother. They’d once been inseparable in their optimism. Looking at him, seeing his true enthusiasm, she felt the stirrings of wanting to reclaim hers. Maybe Adrian was right. It was time to re-inhabit life and whatever it might bring her way.

But as Adrian and Vico rattled on about the viniculture curriculum—their staccato Italian drawing curious eyes—her longing for Italy ramped up and she couldn’t shove it down. Just as she couldn’t ignore the sweeping glances that Vico sent her way. Or her curiosity about the activities of mutual acquaintances in the Italian polo circuit.

Vico answered her questions with a smooth wit and easy manner. Adrian invited him to sit with them as the lecture began. She noticed that while her brother scribbled furious notes, Vico didn’t take any, instead staring vacantly at the lecturer as if his mind was somewhere else. She couldn’t fault him for that—it took all her concentration to keep her attention on the lecture. She should be grateful for the opportunity to have a leading role in the new family business. She
should
be interested. Images flashed on the screen at the front of the room, but her heart was caught up with images of its own. She wanted to open the gallery where she could display her mother’s works. She wanted to go home. As the class dragged on, her plan took better shape in her mind—along with the careful argument she would make to her father when the time was right.

“Tomorrow we’ll be in the north vineyards,” the lecturer announced, winding up the talk that Zoe had lost track of. “Bring water. We’ll be out there for about two hours.”

The group applauded, and clusters of people talked in animated tones about the lecture as they filtered out of the room.

“Join us for lunch,” Adrian said to Vico as the three of them walked out into the warming day. “We can show you the new irrigation system we just put in.”

“I’d love to. I’m parked just over there,” Vico said, pointing to a brand-new silver Maserati. “I’ll follow you.”

The car fit the man—sleek and polished. Sophisticated.

“Want to ride with me?” Vico asked, misreading Zoe’s assessing stare. She could have such a car if she wished, but sports cars were highly impractical on vineyard roads. But Vico was a piece of home and she found herself saying yes, wanting to hear more news of Rome, wanting to keep alive the flame that talking about her friends and familiar places had kindled. She ignored the niggling feelings of misgiving that gnawed at her for no good reason. It was harder to ignore Adrian’s ridiculous wink as Vico held the car door for her.