Her mother began to cough, and Mary handed her the mug of tea. “Mama, I can’t tell you how much it means to hear you say these things, but I promise you, I know how much you love me, because I love you just as much. I don’t want you to wear yourself out. We have time to talk about all of this later, once you’re well.”

“We’ve wasted enough time,” Lucia insisted, and Mary had to smile at the stubborn expression so similar to her own. “I will talk, and you will listen.”

“Okay, Mama.”

“Before I met your father, I had dreams like yours—to travel and to have people applauding for me as I sang and danced on the stage.”

Of all the things Mary had thought her mother would tell her tonight, learning that they’d shared similar dreams had not been anywhere on the list of possibilities. Lucia had always hummed as she worked in the kitchen and the garden, and Mary had found her parents waltzing together in the moonlit garden more than once as a child, but she’d never realized that performing had been her mother’s dream. Yet again, they were more alike than she’d ever realized.

“What happened? Why didn’t you follow your dreams?”

Her mother lifted her hand to Mary’s cheek. “I found a new dream. Your father was so handsome, so much more exciting than any stage had ever been, that he swept me off my feet. And then you came, exactly nine months to the day after we were married. My greatest achievement. My biggest joy. I saw those same dreams in you, watched them grow bigger with every year. Your beauty was so stunning that the other mothers would make jealous comments sometimes. Did you know, strangers passing through town would often stop on the street to take your picture?”

Mary shook her head. “No. I didn’t know.”

“You were too beautiful for the nice boys in town to have the nerve to approach you, but I saw the way the dangerous ones watched you. I was terrified that you would be swept off your feet, but not by a good man like your father. He often told me you had a good head on your shoulders, but he didn’t know what it was like to be a young girl, especially one who wanted so much, who longed for everything life could give her. All I wanted was for you to find true love and have a family that would give you as much joy as you and your father gave me. But when you came home that day to tell us you had been discovered by an agent and that he wanted you to go to New York City with him—”

“All of your fears came true.”

“With every awful word I hurled at you, it was as if I was watching myself from a distance, knowing the tighter I tried to hold on to you, the further you were going to slip away.”

“I’m sorry,” Mary said, “so sorry we both hurt each other so badly.”

Lucia gently wiped away the tears falling down Mary’s cheeks. “Go to the closet and bring me the red box on the top shelf.” The box was the size of a large hat and was quite heavy. “Look inside.”

Inside the box was a photo album her mother had put together of photos from Mary’s childhood. She smiled as she looked at the photo on the cover—herself as a chubby-cheeked baby. Her first thought was that Jack would love to see it.

“You and your Jack will have beautiful children. Smart, lively, passionate girls and boys that will fill your arms and hearts with endless joy.”

As they went through the pictures one by one, Mary watched herself grow from baby, to toddler, to school-age girl with skinned knees, to lanky teenager, to young woman. The last few pages of the photo album were empty, and her heart clenched yet again as she closed the leather-bound book.

“I never stopped collecting pictures of my baby,” her mother said as she lifted a thick divider from inside the box and revealed hundreds of glossy magazine covers and photo spreads.

Mary was beyond amazed to find a print from her very first photo shoot. “Where did you get these?”

“Your agent, Randy, mailed these to us. At first, I think it was to reassure us that you had come to no harm with him. But when your father wrote to tell him how much we appreciated it, he mailed us a new package every week.”

“I can’t believe he never told me.” Then again, if he had, wasn’t it possible that she might have insisted he stop, simply because she’d nursed her anger and hurts for so long that she couldn’t see beyond them?

“I should have come back long before now, Mama.” Just as Jack had told her, family was what was important. Both she and her mother had done what they felt they had to do, and both of them had made the mistake of being stubborn or holding a grudge about decisions they’d made while simply being true to themselves. “I never meant to stay away this long.”

Again, her mother wiped away Mary’s tears, even though she was crying, too. “You’re home now.” Lucia suddenly smiled through her tears, as happy as Mary could ever remember seeing her. “I’ve been thinking about your wedding,” she began, and this time Mary knew better than to try to get her mother to save her breath and rest.

Lucia Ferrer had been waiting for more than a decade for this wedding, and Mary knew her excitement and joy over the celebration would heal her illness faster than any pills or hours of bed rest possibly could.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The moon had fully risen in the winter sky by the time everyone in the house settled down to sleep. Mary had waited impatiently for her father to finally tire and join her mother in the master bedroom.

It had been less than a month since she’d met Jack in downtown San Francisco, but there was no question in Mary’s mind that she was utterly, completely addicted to him. She’d enjoyed her solo walk through town and the time she’d spent reconnecting with her mother, but though it had only been a matter of hours since Jack had been holding her close on the airplane and in the taxi, it felt like forever. And if she wasn’t mistaken, from the way he’d been looking at her in the living room when her father had insisted on one more round of cards, he was just as addicted to being with her.

That evening, she’d told him and her father about her conversation with her mother, about seeing the pictures her parents had collected of her over the years. Her father had teared up with the same tears of joy she’d been crying herself all day. Jack’s eyes, and his hand over hers, had been full of so much love for her that she could still hardly think what she could have done right in her life to find him.

Now, Mary stepped out of the cooling bath, dried off, then wrapped herself in the soft silk robe she’d packed in her bag. Feeling like a naughty teenager, instead of heading for her own bedroom, she tiptoed down the hall, through the kitchen and living room until she reached the guest room on the far side of the house. Her heart pounded hard with delicious anticipation as she put her hand on the doorknob.

Making sure to open the door quietly so that the hinges didn’t creak and give her away, she almost forgot to close the door as she stared in wonder at the beautiful man waiting for her on the bed, the sheets at his hips leaving his chest gloriously bare. Jack was smiling at her, but desire was simmering just beneath the surface.

“I thought my father was never going to let you go to bed. All this time I believed my mother was the one desperate for me to marry. Now I realize my father was quite possibly even more desperate for a son-in-law.”

She’d spoken in a whisper, but she and Jack were so attuned to each other that she knew they could probably have read each other’s lips—or minds—if they’d needed to.

“Your father is a good man. He’s agreed to teach me some Italian. Want to hear what I’ve learned already?” She laughed softly at the list of sports terms he rattled off in perfectly accented Italian.

When she stood at the bed and slipped off her robe, he said, “But he forgot to teach me how to say ‘You’re beautiful.’”

“Sei bellissima.”

After Jack repeated the words she’d just taught him, he reached for her. “Come to bed, Angel.”

Sliding beneath the covers into his open arms made an already amazing day even better. “You and my father are so much fun to watch together, especially when you’re communicating with increasingly wild hand gestures.”

“Funny you should mention my hands, because I’ve got a great idea for what I could do with them tonight.” Jack slowly skimmed his large, warm hands down over her curves, from breasts to hips.

Mary was a heartbeat away from being lost to everything but sensation, to everything but how much she loved him. Forcing herself to keep her eyes from fluttering closed with pleasure for just a little while longer, she said, “My mother is just as excited about you as my father is. In fact, she’s hoping that we’ll—”

“Get married.”

“Well, yes, of course she’s expecting that,” Mary said with a tap of one finger to the top of her engagement ring. “But more than anything, she’d like for us to—”

“Have the wedding here in Italy.”

Would he ever stop surprising her…and pleasing her in equal measure?

“That’s exactly what she’s hoping. And it would truly be a dream come true for her if we decided to have the ceremony—”

“Just before Christmas.”

Awareness finally dawned. “My father must have said something to you, didn’t he? Did he draw you a picture of a bride and groom standing in front of a Christmas tree?”

Jack grinned. “Actually, I’m the one who drew him the picture. It seems your mother and I had the exact same idea for how to make this a perfect Christmas.”

Mary’s heart skipped a beat as she shifted against him so that she could look into his eyes. “You did?”

Jack’s expression grew serious. “I know I only just convinced you to wear my ring, and that most people wait a year between getting engaged and getting married, but I’ve been waiting my whole life for you.” He stroked the back of his hand over her cheek. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”

“I don’t want to wait, either.”

“So you’ll be my Christmas bride?”

Tears threatened even as she teased, “Just as long as you promise not to dress up in a red suit and long white beard for the ceremony.”

The next thing she knew, she was lying back on the bed and his big, strong body was levered over hers. “How did you know that’s what I was planning to do at our wedding?” he teased back.

“You’re not the only one who can read minds.”

“How about we do a little scientific experiment then?” he asked, her skin heating from the sensuality underlying his question. “Tell me, what am I thinking about right now?”

She made a show of mulling it over as she ran her hands down from his broad shoulders over his well-defined abdomen to his hips. “You’re thinking about kissing me right here,” she said as she lifted one hand to her face and lightly touched the tip of her index finger to the center of her lips. “Did I guess right?”

“You did.”

Running his hands back up her naked curves, he slid them into her hair. As he lowered his mouth to hers, she met him in the middle, more desperate for his kiss than she’d ever been for anything in her life.

The first touch of his lips to hers was gentle. Sweet. But the long hours apart had taken their toll on both of them, and though pure love was at the heart of every moment they shared, and they knew they needed to make love as quietly as possible in her parents’ house, desire’s demands couldn’t possibly be ignored.

Mary didn’t know who nipped at whom first, just that she needed more than gentle or sweet. She needed to devour and be devoured, needed to fill her senses with as much of Jack as she could take in tonight. With tongues and teeth, they both took what they needed so badly. There were no boundaries, no rules left between them, their passion so pure and true that they each gave more than they took.