Microsoft Word - Document1 (3 page)

fast cars like the ’Vette he had back home, but he’d checked a map and San Giuseppe was high

in the mountains. The road to it looked as if it might be more a goat track than anything else, so

he’d opted for the traction of an SUV.

What waited at the curb was not an SUV. It was the one kind of car he actually despised, a big,

black American thing, a model long favored by his father and his pals.

A Mobster Special.

The clerk shrugged and said there must have been a communications error but, scusi, this was all

she had.

Perfect, Rafe thought as he got behind the wheel. A gangster’s son on a gangster’s errand,

driving a gangster’s car. All he needed was a fat cigar between his teeth.

So much for being in a better mood.

Things didn’t improve after that. He’d been far too generous, calling the ribbon of potholed dirt

with the steep slope of the mountain on one side and a dizzying plummet to the valley on the

other a goat track.

It was more like a disaster waiting to happen.

Ten miles. Twenty. Thirty, and he’d yet to see another car. Not that he was complaining. There

wasn’t really enough room for two cars. There wasn’t really enough room for—

Something black bolted from the trees and into the road.

Rafe cursed and stood on the brakes. The tires fought for purchase; the big car shimmied from

side to side. It took all his skill to bring it to a stop. When he did, the hood was inches from the

yawning space that overhung the valley.

He sat absolutely still. His hands, clutching the steering wheel, were trembling. He could hear

the faint tick-tick of the cooling engine, the thud of his own heart.

Gradually the ticking of the engine faded. His heartbeat slowed. He dragged air into his lungs.

Okay. The thing to do was back up, very carefully…

Something banged against his door. Rafe turned toward the half-open window. There was a guy

outside the car and he was obviously dressed for an early Halloween. Black shirt. Black trousers.

Black boots.

And an ancient, long-barreled black pistol, pointed straight at Rafe’s head.

He’d heard stories of road bandits in Sicily and laughed them off, but only a jackass would laugh

at this.

The guy made some kind of jerking motion with the pistol. What did it mean? Get out of the car?

Hell, no. Rafe wasn’t about to do that. The pistol waved again. Or was it shaking? Was the guy

shaking? Yeah. He was, and that was not good. A nervous thief with a gun…

A nervous thief with white, wispy hair and rheumy eyes. And liver spots on the hand that held

the pistol.

Wonderful. He was going to be robbed and killed by somebody’s grandfather.

Rafe cleared his throat. “Easy, Grandpa,” he said, even though the odds were good the old boy

couldn’t understand a word of English. He held up his hands, showed that they were empty, then

slowly opened the door. The bandit stepped to the side and Rafe got out, carefully skirting the

edge of the road and the void beyond it. “Do you speak English?” Nothing. He searched his

memory. “Voi, ah, voi parlate inglese?” Still nothing. “Okay, look, I’m going to take my wallet

from my pocket and give it to you. Then I’m gonna get back in the car and—”

The pistol arced through the air. He tried not to wince as it wobbled past his face.

“Watch yourself, Gramps, or that thing’s liable to go off. Okay. Here comes my wallet—”

“No!”

The old man’s voice shook. Shaking voice. Shaking hand. This was getting better and better. It

would make an even better story than the one he’d already figured on telling his brothers,

assuming he lived to tell it.

“Hugoahway!”

Hugoahway? What did that mean? The old guy’s name, maybe, but it didn’t sound Italian or

Sicilian.

The old man poked the end of the pistol into Rafe’s flat belly. Rafe narrowed his eyes.

Another poke. Another gruff “Hugoahway” and, damn it, enough was enough. Rafe grabbed the

barrel of the pistol, yanked it from the bandit’s shaking fingers and tossed it over the cliff.

“Okay,” he said, reaching for the old man, “okay, that’s—Oof!”

Something hit him, hard, from the rear. It was a second thief, wrapping his arms around Rafe’s

neck as he climbed on his back. Rafe grabbed his assailant’s arms and wrenched the guy off him.

The thief grunted, struggled, but he was a lightweight, and Rafe swung him around, worked his

hands down to the guy’s wrists…

Hell, this one was only a kid. Not just lightweight but flyweight. The kid, too, was dressed all in

black, this time including a deep-brimmed, old-fashioned fedora that obscured his face.

A flyweight, but a fighter.

The kid was all over him, kicking, trying to claw him, damn it, trying to bite him! Rafe hoisted

the boy to his toes.

“Stop it,” he shouted.

The kid snarled something unintelligible in return, lifted a knee and took aim. Rafe twisted away.

“Are you deaf, boy? I said, stop!”

Evidently, stop didn’t translate well because the kid didn’t. He came at Rafe and the old guy

joined the fracas, pummeling him with what looked like a small tree branch.

“Hey,” Rafe said indignantly. This was not how things were supposed to go. He was the tough

guy here; tough guys didn’t get beaten up by boys and old men. He knew damned well he could

stop the attack, just a couple of good punches would do it, but the thought of hitting Methuselah

and a teenage delinquent was unappealing.

“Look,” he said reasonably, “let’s sort this out. Gramps, put down that stick. And you, boy, I’m

gonna let go of you and—”

Bad move. The kid aimed his knee again. This time, he caught Rafe where he lived with

devastating accuracy. Rafe grunted with pain, drew back his fist and managed a right cross to the

kid’s jaw.

It must have been a good one because the boy went down in a heap.

Still struggling for air, Rafe started to turn toward the old man. “Listen to me,” he gasped….

The tree limb whacked him in the back of his head.

And Rafe went down beside the kid.

He came around slowly.

Ah, God, his head hurt. Methuselah had crowned him, the kid had kneed him. He had been

totally and completely humiliated.

Could the day get any worse?

The old guy was sitting in the road, holding the kid in his arms, rocking him, talking to him in

rapid and seemingly anguished Sicilian. He didn’t even look up as Rafe rose painfully to his feet.

“Okay,” he said gruffly, “okay, old man. Stand up. You hear me? Let go of the kid and get up.”

The old man ignored him. Rafe reached down and grabbed a spindly arm. “I said, stand up!”

“Hugoahway!” the old guy shouted, and suddenly the words made sense. What he was saying

was, You go away. Well, hell, he’d definitely oblige, but first he had to make sure the boy was

okay. Stopping this unlikely duo from robbing him was one thing; killing them was another.

Rafe shoved the bandit aside, reached for the unconscious boy, lifted him into the crook of his

arm. The kid moaned, his hat fell off, and…

And the boy wasn’t a boy at all.

He was—she was a girl. No. Not a girl. A woman with a pale oval face and a silky mass of long,

dark hair. He’d KO’d a woman. So much for wondering if the day could get any worse.

Carefully he scooped her up, ignored the old guy pulling at his sleeve and carried her to the side

of the road that abutted the sloping mountain. Her head lolled back. He could see the pulse

beating hard in the delicate hollow of her throat. The angle of her body made her breasts thrust

against the rough wool of her jacket.

He set her down against the grassy rise. She was still unconscious.

She was also incredibly beautiful.

Only an SOB would notice such a thing at a moment like this, but only a fool would not. Her hair

wasn’t just dark, it was the color of a cloudless night. Her brows were delicate wings above her

closed eyes; her lashes were dark shadows against razor-sharp cheekbones. Her nose was straight

and narrow above a rosy-pink mouth.

Rafe felt a stir of lust low in his belly. And wasn’t that terrific? Lust for a woman who’d tried to

turn him into a eunuch, who’d played back-up to an old man with a pistol…

Who now lay helpless before him.

Damn it, he thought, and he caught the woman by the shoulders and shook her.

“Wake up,” he said sharply. “Come on. Open your eyes.”

Her lashes trembled, then slowly lifted, and he saw that her eyes were more than a match for the

rest of her face, the irises not blue but the color of spring violets. Her lips parted; the tip of her tongue, delicate and pink, slicked across her mouth.

This time, the hunger that rolled through his belly made him sit back on his heels. Was this all it

took? Was being on Sicilian soil enough to make him revert to the barbarian instincts of his

ancestors?

Clarity was returning to her eyes. She put her hand to her jaw, winced, then shot him a look filled

with hatred.

Those soft-looking pink lips drew back from small, perfect white teeth. “Stronzo,” she snarled.

It was a word any kid who’d grown up in a household where the adults often spoke in Italian

would surely understand, and it made him laugh. Big mistake. She sat up, said it again and

swung a fist at his jaw. He ducked it without effort and when she swung again, he caught her

hand in his.

“That’s a bad idea, baby.”

She hissed through her teeth and shot a look over his shoulder at the old man.

Rafe shook his head.

“Another bad idea. You tell him to come at me, he’ll get hurt.” Disdain shone in her eyes. “Yeah,

I know. You figure he got me the first time but, see, here’s the thing. I don’t get taken twice. You

got that?”

A string of words flew from her lips. Rafe understood a couple of them but you didn’t need a

degree in Italian to get their meaning. The look in her eyes told him everything he needed to

know.

“Yeah, well, I’m not a fan of yours, either. Is this how you and Gramps welcome visitors? You

rob them? Hijack their cars? Maybe send them tumbling down into the valley?”

Her mouth curled, almost as if she’d understood him, but of course she hadn’t. Not that it

mattered. The question was, what did he do with this pair? Leave them here was his first

instinct—but shouldn’t he notify the authorities? Yes, but he’d heard stories about Sicily and the

cops. For all he knew, this pair were the Italian equivalent of Robin Hood and Little John—

except, Little John had turned out to be Maid Marian.

The woman had a faint mark on her jaw where he’d slugged her. He’d never hit a woman in his

life and it bothered him. For all he knew, she needed medical care. He didn’t think so, not from

the way she was acting, but he felt some responsibility toward her, even if he’d only done what

he had to do to protect himself.

He could just see telling that to a local judge: “Well, you see, sir, she came at me. And I hit her

in self-defense.”

It was the absolute truth but it would probably just give the locals a laugh. He was six foot three;

he weighed a tight 240 pounds. She was, what, five-six? And probably weighed 120 pounds less

than he did.

Okay. He’d drive the duo home. Maybe what had happened had taught them a lesson.

Rafe cleared his throat. “Where do you and Gramps live?”

She stared at him, chin raised in defiance.

“Ah, dove è—dove è your house? Your casa?”

The woman jerked her hand free. She glared at him. He glared back.

“I’m willing to drive you and Grandpa home. You got that? No cops. No charges. Just don’t push

your luck.”

She laughed. It was the kind of laugh that made Rafe’s eyes narrow. Who in hell did she think

she was? And what was there for her to laugh about? She’d come at him, yes, but she was the

one who’d lost the fight. Now she was out here in the middle of nowhere, at the mercy of a man

twice her size.

A man who was angry as hell.

It would take him less than a heartbeat to show her who was in charge, that she was at his mercy,

that he had only to cup that perfect, beautiful face in his hands, put his mouth to hers and she’d

stop looking at him with such disdain, such coldness, such rage.

A kiss, just one, and her mouth would soften. The rigidity of her muscles would give way to

silken compliancy. Her lips would part, she’d loop her arms around his neck and whisper to him

and he’d understand that whisper because a man and a woman didn’t need to speak the same

language to know desire, to turn anger to something hotter and wilder…

Rafe shot to his feet. “Stand up,” he growled.

She didn’t move. He gestured with his hand.

“I said, stand up. And you, old man, get in the back of the car.”

The old man didn’t move. Nobody did. Rafe leaned toward the woman.

“He’s old,” he said softly, “and I really have no desire to rough him up, so why don’t you just

tell him to do what I said.”

She understood him. He could see it in her face.

Rafe shrugged. “Okay, we’ll do it the hard way.”

Her violet eyes flashed. She got to her feet, rattled off a string of words, and the old man nodded,

walked to the car and climbed into the back.

Rafe jerked his thumb toward the car. “Now you.”

One last glare. Then she turned away, marched to the car and started to climb in beside the old

guy.

“The passenger seat,” Rafe snapped. “Up front.”