“He will, if he’s got half a brain. He knows I’ll plaster the road with him if he tries anything.”
“He outweighs you by two hundred pounds.”
“Three,” Rio said, “but who’s counting?”
She gave a watery little laugh, which was what he’d hoped. The last thing he needed was for her to go into shock.
They walked. And walked, both of them listening for the truck, waiting for it to pass them. The gate was only a couple of hundred yards away but it seemed like miles.
Isabella’s footsteps became hurried. Rio held her steady.
“Slow down. That’s it. Just stay at an even pace. We’re just a couple who made up after a quarrel and we’re on our happy way home.”
“If only he’d pass us—”
The pickup did, roaring by just as they reached the gate, its oversize tires kicking up a swirl of dust and leaves. Rio shoved her through, locked the gate after them, and Isabella flung her arms around him.
He stood absolutely still for what seemed a very long time. Then he gathered her against him, tilted her face to his and gently brushed his lips over hers.
“Easy, cara,” he said softly. “Everything’s fine now.”
“Ohmygod,” she said, her voice shaking, “ohmygod …”
Her face was pale, her eyes enormous. He wanted to kiss her again, kiss her until the fear left her, until she clung to him not just for comfort but for the pleasure of being wrapped in his arms.
The thought made no sense and he knew it. He dealt with it by frowning, clasping her elbows and giving her a not-too-gentle shake.
“What in hell were you thinking? This isn’t a city, or hadn’t you noticed? There are no sidewalks, no people, no lights!”
“Oh, that’s it! Blame me when it’s your fault that—that—” The false bravado faded. “I didn’t think,” she whispered. “I just wanted to—to get away. To find the train station.”
Rio blinked. “The train station? I thought you came by car.”
“I did. It wasn’t mine. It was—”
“Anna’s,” he said carefully.
“Yes. But—it drove into a ditch.”
Despite everything, Rio had to laugh.
“The car drove itself into a ditch?”
“I told you, there was a rabbit in the road. I think it was a rabbit. It had a long, skinny nose and a long, skinny tail, and it just suddenly appeared in front of me.”
“An opossum,” he said, as if it mattered.
“And, of course, I didn’t want to hit it.”
Rio thought of the possum carcasses that littered every country road he’d ever seen, of the trucks and cars that hit them, of the drivers who never noticed or, if they noticed, never cared.
Without thinking, he drew her close again, stroked his hand down her back.
“No,” he said carefully, “of course you didn’t.”
“So the car sort of, it sort of lost direction, and—”
“Where was this?”
“A long way from here. I had to walk. It’s why I was so late.”
“Why didn’t you phone? You do have a mobile phone, don’t you?”
“I didn’t want to ask Mr. D’Aquila for help. I didn’t want to give him any reason to doubt my ability to handle things.”
“Right. Which is why you figured being three hours late was better than calling and saying you needed a lift.”
Her eyes narrowed. She flattened her hands against his chest and managed to put some distance between them, but only because he let her.
“Thank you for your help, Mr. Rossi.”
“What happened to Matteo?”
“You can let go of me now.”
“So you can do what? Go for another moonlight stroll?”
Her teeth worried her bottom lip. She had a habit of doing that. He had a habit of wanting to kiss her whenever she did.
“I’ll take a bus.”
He laughed, and her eyes narrowed.
“No buses? Fine. I’ll phone for a taxi.”
He laughed again. Her eyes got even narrower. By now, they were icy slits.
“Ask nicely,” he said, “and I’ll drive you to the railroad station.”
The look she gave him suggested that she really wanted to ask him to do something anatomically impossible. He kept his face expressionless as he watched her struggle for control. Finally, she nodded in cool assent.
“I need a ride to the station.”
“That’s it? That’s asking nicely?”
Any minute now, she was going to slug him. The thought made his lips twitch.
“Mr. Rossi. Would you be so kind as to drive me to the station?”
He knew what response he wanted to make. No, he’d say, why should I do that when you can spend the night right here, in my bed?
Hell, he thought, and let go of her.
“No problem,” he said briskly, and headed toward the house and his truck, still parked in the driveway. She followed him and he opened the passenger door, left her to get inside on her own because touching her right now didn’t seem a good idea, went around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel.
They made the drive to town in silence. The place was buttoned up for the night. He put the windows down and heard crickets and the wind and, under it all, the distant sound of the sea.
When they reached the station, he shut off the engine and turned toward her.
“You want to tell me the location of that car-eating ditch?”
The look she shot him would have put glaciers on his stretch of beach.
“No.”
Rio shrugged. “Your choice. I figured I’d arrange for a tow but if you’d rather do it—”
“Good night, Mr. Rossi. I’d say thanks for everything but except for you coming along when I was having that—that conversation with that gentleman—”
“Nothing like a nice chat with a homicidal Neanderthal on a dark, deserted road,” Rio said lightly, as he went around to her side of the truck.
“I do not require your assistance.”
“No, I’m sure you don’t. Still, it’s late, the area is deserted, and though you may be up for another talk with a gentleman determined to prove himself harmless, I’m not. So give us both a break and behave while I walk you inside, okay?”
Isabella glared at the man holding her arm as if he owned her.
Matteo Rossi was insufferable!
If Rio D’Aquila was an arrogant bastard, she could only imagine
what he must be like if he could tolerate having someone like this work for him.
Still, there was something reassuring about Matteo Rossi’s hand at her elbow. It was late, it was dark, the place had a forlorn air to it but it wouldn’t, not once she was on the station platform. Surely, there’d be other passengers waiting …
Wrong.
There was a sign on the ticket booth.
Closed.
There would be no westbound trains to Penn Station tonight.
CHAPTER FIVE
ISABELLA stared at the sign.
Impossible. A train station, closed?
She went to the door, tried to force it open. It didn’t budge.
It was true, she thought numbly. Your heart really could drop to your toes.
Matteo, standing just behind her, muttered a word she couldn’t decipher. Just as well. It probably would have turned the tips of her ears pink.
And no wonder.
He was as eager to see her gone as she was to go.
“It can’t be closed,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him. “Trains run twenty-four hours a day.”
Rio’s thoughts were racing. Now what? He walked to the door and tried it.
It was locked.
“Subway trains run twenty-four hours a day,” he said. “But this isn’t a subway, and it isn’t Manhattan.”
She looked at him and all but rolled her eyes. He couldn’t blame her. Talk about useless comments …
And why had he done something so foolish as trying the door himself? Not foolish on the face of it, okay, but he’d had to close the slight distance between them and now he could feel her against him, smell her hair. Lemons? Something light and clean and feminine and, Dio, his all-male-all-the-time brain had gone to far more primitive stuff than what to do about this newest problem.
He took a step back, drew in a head-clearing breath of cool night air.
“This is turning into a comedy of errors,” she said coldly. “First the car. Then your employer not even having the courtesy to wait for me. Then you. And now, this.”
Rio bit back a groan. This was impossible. Who did he stand up for, himself—or himself? She’d just insulted both of them. But that was good. It brought him back to reality.
“Your car went off the road. Oh, sorry. It drove itself off the road. Never mind the rest—the traffic you should have anticipated, the directions you forgot to take with you. The point is, if you still had a car, we wouldn’t be standing in the middle of town, waiting for a train that isn’t going to come.”