Jack was surprised to hear several young female voices when Mary opened the door and stepped aside to let him in. She explained in a low voice, “I’m an informal den mother to several young models while they’re working in San Francisco. It’s a very exciting and sometimes scary lifestyle to be thrown into, especially for girls who may never have left home before now. Basically, I promise their mothers that I’ll make sure they eat enough, don’t date indiscriminately, and put on something warm when they go out.”

He’d seen how much she’d loved holding the toddler who had rushed onto the set the previous afternoon. With an amused shake of her head, she picked up a stray scarf and hat belonging to one of her modeling charges. She would, he thought now, be an amazing mother one day. Loving but without holding on too tightly. Strict but fair.

Jack’s brother Max had a toddler with another on the way, but Jack had never thought about becoming a parent himself. Not, he was stunned to realize, until this very moment.

Chapter Six

“Mary, you’re soaked!” Janeen was a beautiful twenty-year-old blonde model with legs that went on forever. Her eyes widened even further when she saw Jack standing behind Mary. “Well, hello there.” The girl’s voice had immediately dropped into a husky register as she slunk forward and thrust her hand into Jack’s. “I’m Janeen.”

More than a little disgusted with herself for feeling any jealousy at all where Jack and the girls were concerned, Mary went to grab a couple of dry towels from the linen closet while her housemates finished introducing themselves. By the time she returned to the large, open-plan living and kitchen area, they had Jack in a captive circle of their youth and beauty.

In her experience, even the nicest man couldn’t resist three pretty girls fawning over him, so it wouldn’t have been fair for Mary to expect Jack to not look at them with some appreciation, at the very least. But when she said, “Why don’t I trade you this towel for your coat?” and Yvette boldly stepped forward to help him peel it off, Mary couldn’t see even one trace of lust on his face for the stunning redhead. Only laughter when the wet fabric caught on his watch clasp.

At least until he turned his gaze back to Mary and took the towel she was offering. She’d also taken off her jacket and was standing in front of him in her wet wrap dress. Just that quickly, the desire in his eyes was back.

But only for her.

“Jack is the engineer and inventor I was telling you girls about last night,” Mary explained.

“Mary is so lucky to get to work with you,” Susan said with a seductive toss of her curly black hair.

“My partners and I are the lucky ones.” He wiped his hair and face with the towel. In unison, the three young models all sighed over his gorgeously rumpled good looks.

Well, Mary thought as she barely held back her own sigh of appreciation, could she blame them? Jack really was that gorgeous, especially with his button-down shirt and slacks damp and clinging to his well-developed muscles. Clearly, he must not spend all of his time working.

People always asked Mary about her life because she was a celebrity, but she was just as interested in theirs. Journalist, waitress, mother, photographer, bus driver—they all had interesting stories to tell. What, she wondered, was the rest of Jack’s story? She guessed he was close to his family from what he’d told her at the diner, and she knew he was devoted to his work. But neither of those things explained the slight air of danger—and risk—that he wore so easily. He hadn’t been at all intimidated by the bigwigs in the boardroom.

“If you need any other models for your campaign,” Yvette offered with her most alluring smile, “you know where to find us.”

Feeling as if she’d accidentally dropped Jack straight into a shark tank, Mary stepped into the fray by gesturing to the three sets of sparkly heels on the wood-planked floor. “Looks like you have a big Friday night out planned?”

Janeen nodded, then looked back at Jack with a hopeful expression. “It’s a new club Yvette heard about from the photographer on her shoot today. You two should come with us.”

“I’m all danced out,” Jack said with a grin for Mary that brought back every wonderful moment of their impromptu dance in the rain. “But thank you.”

Mary watched Susan shoot the other girls a pointed glance. When Janeen and Yvette didn’t immediately understand, Susan did the world’s most obvious pantomime of Jack and Mary being a couple that included a heart drawn in the air and kissy motions with her lips.

“Oh,” Yvette said as she looked between them. “Of course, you two don’t want to go dancing with us.”

Janeen chimed in with, “We should probably let you two be alone now, shouldn’t we?”

What could Mary do but laugh as she turned on the kitchen tap? “I’m making coffee if you want some before you head out on the town.”

But the girls were now a blur as they strapped on their shoes, grabbed their coats and sparkly purses and headed for the door. “Thanks, Mary, but our dates have already been waiting for us for a while.”

Dates?

Mary followed them to the front door and caught them as they flitted down the front steps. “Be careful, and call me if you need anything. It doesn’t matter how late, I’ll come and bring you home.” Reminding herself that they were young, but that each of them had a good head on her shoulders, she added, “And have fun.”

A taxi immediately skidded to a stop for the three long-legged beauties and they blew her kisses as they got inside. “You, too!” Yvette called out before tucking her feet into the cab and closing the door.

Jack was laying both of their jackets over the radiator when Mary returned. She’d chosen the house not only for its views, but because she loved how big and open the rooms felt. Even with four people living in it, she never felt cramped. In fact, on nights like this when the girls went out, rather than appreciate the quiet, she often found herself counting the minutes until they returned with their noise and laughter and exuberance.

She’d made it sound to Jack as if she was looking after them, but the truth was they looked after her, too.

“Sorry about all of that. It can be a bit of a circus around here sometimes, especially on Friday nights.”

Jack was the first man she’d invited inside her house since moving in a month earlier. Seeing him looking so right in the midst of all the feminine disarray sent her thoughts into a different kind of disarray. What had she been doing before she’d rushed to see the girls off? Thankfully, the half-filled boiler of her moka pot beside the sink provided a clue.

Still feeling flustered as she went back to filling the boiler and then setting it on low heat on the stovetop, she decided to face the situation head-on. “I hope they didn’t make you uncomfortable. Especially,” she added with a small laugh, “with all their flirting.”

He laughed as he pulled up a seat at the bar. “They were charming, although I can see that they could certainly be a handful. I sometimes had trouble keeping a class of engineering undergrads from rioting in the middle of a lecture when I was a teaching assistant. My hat is off to you for taking on three energetic young women.”

She was still amazed that he hadn’t drooled over them the way men always did, especially when they’d been practically throwing themselves into his big, strong arms.

“Oh, we’ve had a riot or two around here in the past month,” Mary informed him as she inserted the funnel in the boiler, then filled it with espresso beans she had ground that morning. “Especially the night they were all fighting over the same worthless guy. I ended up banning all social activities for the rest of the week.” As she spoke she continued with the coffee preparations by screwing on the top container and watching as the coffee began to appear. “Of course, the girls are also a tremendous amount of fun.” Seeing that half the coffee had brewed already, she turned off the heat.

“I’ve never seen that kind of coffeepot. Is it from Italy?”

She nodded. “It’s called a moka pot.” She spelled out the word for him.

“Whenever you speak about Italy, your accent comes through.” His eyes were warm as he said to her, “Tell me about the country you were born in so I can hear it some more.”

She was a grown woman of thirty-two, not a naive teenage girl anymore. So how did Jack manage to make her blush so easily and so often?

“Much like the United States, Italy is a place with many different colors and textures. The golden ruins of Rome. The checkered Duomo of Florence. The canals and opulence of Venice.”

“It sounds wonderful.”

“It is,” she agreed. “And if you’re not careful,” she added with a laugh, “I’ll end up regaling you with stories of Italy like a travel agent all night long.”

“I’d like that,” he said, and then, “Especially if they're stories about your hometown.”

As always, just thinking about Rosciano sent feelings of conflict moving through her. On the one hand, she loved it like no other place on Earth.

On the other, it was where her heart had been broken for the very first time by the person who had mattered most to her.

“On warm summer evenings, the teenage girls flirt with the boys out by the fountain in the middle of the square.” She smiled as she told Jack, “Girls learn early in my town how to walk in heels on cobblestone streets without tripping. And once that flirting turns into something more, every couple in town marries in our church. As a little girl I would watch the beautiful women in their handmade wedding gowns. My mother made those gowns, and I used to help her even though I wasn't nearly as good a seamstress as she was.” Making herself focus on the other memories that were coming at her one after the other, she told him, “I used to love to watch the mustard grass bloom in the spring, the grapes growing plump in the summer, the vineyards turning color in the autumn. And Christmas was a time for celebration like none I’ve ever seen anywhere else.”

Realizing she was rambling, Mary stopped herself with a laugh that was a little bit hollow from speaking about her mother. “See, here I go acting like a travel agent, just like I said I would.”

“I could never tire of hearing you talk about something that you love.”

He was right, she realized. Regardless of what had happened between her and her mother, Mary only ever looked back on her childhood, and the people who had made it so special, with love.

Just as she had when she’d been speaking of home in the diner the night before and emotion had threatened to overwhelm her, she tried to dismiss it with a joke. “Next thing you know, I’ll have you on a plane to Italy with an itinerary of the best secret spots that no other tourist knows about.”

“I’d like that,” he said, and she could suddenly see it so clearly, the two of them holding hands as they flew across the Atlantic. She’d never taken a lover to her country, had never stolen a kiss with someone in a shadowed alley that had been there since medieval times while the bells of the church chimed above them.

“Has your hometown changed much from when you were nineteen?”

Mary slowly stirred their espresso with a spoon in the pot before pouring it into two espresso cups. Coming to sit beside Jack on a bar stool, she said, “I don’t know.”

He stopped with the cup halfway to his lips. “You don’t?”

“No, I haven’t been back.”

She had never spoken about her family situation with anyone outside her closest circle of friends and confidants. A voice in the back of her head reminded her that it wasn’t wise to reveal so much to Jack when they had met only a day ago. Still, when he lowered his cup and reached for her hands, his touch warmed her better than any cup of coffee could have.