“No thanks to you.”
“It’s my fault you were out in a storm?” Well, maybe not a rat. Her clothes were soaking wet, molding her body much too closely for a man’s comfort. “I warned everyone this morning about how serious it could get.” He stripped off the wet slicker and threw it over the saddle. “What happened to your horse anyway?”
“I thought you might have some ideas.”
“I just bet you did,” he groused.
A few more steps, and they were inside the cave that he and Nick and Caroline had discovered as kids. Flashing his torch beam around, Lucky noted the stack of firewood against the far wall. Someone had used the cave in recent years, as well. The remainder of a fire ring decorated the middle of the cave floor, and to one side, a crack in the ceiling dripped water. Though the fracture in the rock offered ventilation for a fire, Lucky knew it wasn’t directly open to the sky.
He dropped Silverado’s reins and shone the light on JoJo. “Get undressed.”
Features indignant, she responded, “Get a life!”
Lucky sighed. “You want to chance pneumonia?”
“It’d be safer than chancing…other things.”
He could sense her squirming inside. On the outside, she appeared every bit as defiant as usual.
“It’s up to you. But there’s a dry blanket wrapped in an oilcloth tied behind Silverado’s saddle. I brought it because I figured you might need it.”
“Oh.”
Setting the torch on the cave floor, beam pointing away from the horse and woman and toward the stack of wood, Lucky busied himself building a fire. He kept his back to JoJo, but the sounds of her wet clothing plopping against the ground one item at a time echoed around him and burrowed inside his head.
As he rebuilt the fire ring—stones on the outside, larger pieces of wood in the center, kindling on top— Lucky imagined JoJo naked, wild red hair flaming around her shoulders, her long limbs pale and smooth, her breasts heavy and inviting. His reaction was not only spontaneous and completely natural, but demonstrated the tightness of his jeans in a particularly uncomfortable area. Before setting a match to the wood, Lucky guardedly adjusted.
A few minutes later, fire roaring, JoJo was seated as close to the flames as was prudent. Next to her, wet clothing was draped over equally wet boots, all drying before the fire. Wrapped in the blanket, she dabbed one corner of the material at the straggles of wet hair trailing her shoulders. She was also wiggling around, an indication the wool was scratchy.
Lucky stripped off his chambray shirt and threw it at her. “This might be a bit more comfortable.”
“Thanks.”
At least she no longer sounded as if she thought he was going to offer her up as coyote bait.
Lucky removed Silverado’s saddle. Fortunately, he’d padded the old horse’s back with double saddle blankets as usual and so was able to use one to wipe down the wet animal. By the time he was finished, JoJo was wearing his shirt and sitting cross-legged before the fire, one edge of the blanket drawn over her bare feet and legs. She’d left plenty of room.
For him to sit next to her?
Knowing trouble was thumbing its nose at him, he accepted her unspoken invitation. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Feeling a little too exposed wearing only Lucky’s shirt, JoJo was thankful he left a bit of room between them. “I suppose I should thank you for coming to my rescue.”
Even though he’d been conveniently at hand when she’d needed rescuing, JoJo reminded herself. Again.
“Now don’t go feeling obligated on me or anything.”
His sarcasm not lost on her, she said, “I don’t. I mean…thank you…really.”
He was staring at her in the same way he had when he’d pulled her out of the drink. As if he were angry or…resentful? Confused, guarded, JoJo shifted her weight, pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. Not that she was cold anymore.
The fire crackled and she stared into its depths as if she could read its heart. “What made you come after me?” As if she could read his heart.
He pulled off a wet boot. “Vincent was busy.”
The answer made her throat tighten. “I mean, what made you think it was necessary?”
“I didn’t realize how far behind everyone was until it started to rain.” Lucky removed the other boot. “I was raiding the fridge. Then Paula and Rocky dragged in, and he said you’d gone back to Rimrock for your wallet. Damn fool thing for you to do!”
Temper flaring, JoJo asked, “Have you ever lost your wallet? Do you know what a pain in the rear it is to replace all your ID and credit cards?”
Again, he gave her the angry face as he threw down the boots near the fire. “Do you know what a pain in the rear it would’ve been if I’d shown up just a minute or so later?”
JoJo knew. She might not have made it. Still, she argued, “I would have been just fine if I weren’t on foot.”
“Whose fault is that? And don’t say mine,” he warned her.
Remembering she’d practically accused him of knowing what happened to Spitfire, and right after he’d dragged her out of the wash, she shifted guiltily.
“At first, I thought maybe Spitfire pulled loose while I was waiting out the storm in the stable…but that’s about as likely as Bushwhacker’s listening to music from the Caribbean because he wanted to dance,” she admitted. Her laugh was shaky. “I’m beginning to realize that someone around here doesn’t like me much.”
“Apparently. You wouldn’t have any guesses?”
“Other than you?” She returned his glare. It was the truth. He’d wanted her out from the get-go. “Try Sister Caroline of the Rotten Attitude.”
He started at the nickname, but she swore he swallowed a smile, as well.
“Caroline can be unpleasant when she feels threatened,” Lucky admitted, “but she’s all talk. She’d never physically hurt anyone.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know my sister.”
“Really? When you haven’t seen her in…how many years were you gone?”
“Six. But leopards don’t change their spots.”
“She’s definitely got some questionable spots,” JoJo argued from personal experience.
“Caroline defends what she sees as hers. She’s got a mouth on her…as do other women I’ve met recently,” he stated flatly, expression saying he meant her. He stretched his damp feet toward the flames. “But she knows where to draw the line.”
Personally, JoJo couldn’t help but wonder if Lucky weren’t fooling himself. She didn’t want to argue about Caroline, though. She didn’t have the energy.
“I hope you’re right” was all she said.
“Who else around here doesn’t like you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take a guess.”
“I haven’t done anything to anyone!” she insisted. “You’re the only one who thinks I have!”
An awkward silence filled the small cave, threatening to smother her. Too aware of the man on the other side of the blanket, JoJo concentrated on her clothes, willed them to dry so she could get properly dressed. Protection. That’s what she needed. Being half-naked and too close to Lucky for comfort, she almost wished he hadn’t found her. Almost. She wasn’t ready to pack it in yet, and who knew if she could have survived the flash flood without him.
“I really did come to the ranch for a rest,” JoJo assured Lucky. “I swear I’m not in on some plot with your father. What is it with you and him anyway?”
He gave her a searing look, then surprised her when he said, “You have no idea of what it’s like to have Sally Donatelli as a father.”
“So tell me.”
“Before or after he was incarcerated?”
“Whenever.”
JoJo could see that Lucky was tight with remembering, his body filled with tension. The newly healed scar on his forehead throbbed, seeming to take on a life of its own. She wondered if he really wanted to
talk about anything so personal. If he could make himself do it.
“Hey, I’m an objective observer here, okay?” she said. “I know you both. I’d like to have some idea of what I’m dealing with. Is that too much to ask?”
Lucky’s tension intensified as he began, “Sally managed to keep us away from the business.” He used his father’s first name as if he were detached from the story. “He kept us fooled, thinking we were a big, happy family. He always said there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for us. And then he was arrested and tried and locked away, and we realized he’d betrayed us all. Mama loved him so much, being away from him broke her heart. She died a couple of years later.”
“And you hold your father responsible.”
“Damn straight!”
More than twenty years after the fact, grief was obviously still ripping Lucky up inside. And JoJo was astonished that he’d allow himself to reveal something so incredibly intimate.
Something that made him human.
Vulnerable.
Till now, he’d kept his emotional space, probably the reason the sparks between them confused her so. She hadn’t been able to justify her being attracted to a man who was so hostile…who was so closed off that he couldn’t take anything at face value…who couldn’t believe her when she told him she wasn’t working for his father.
How could she have known he was hurting and why?
Her own father had died when she was a kid, but she still remembered how much her mother had suffered. She expected that if there was any caring between two people and one died, the survivor would have a difficult time. Especially a survivor who’d gone to great pains to create a “big, happy family” as Sally had.
“You don’t believe your father loved your mother?” she asked.
“How could a man like that love anyone?”
Thinking two decades of repressed anger were talking, she asked, “You don’t believe Sally mourned your mother every bit as much as you did?”
But Lucky skirted the question. “If he hadn’t gone to prison—”
“She might have died anyway.”
JoJo didn’t know the cause of his mother’s death, yet she was fairly certain a person couldn’t really die of a broken heart. But Lucky had been the youngest of the siblings. He’d been just a kid, and had obviously drawn conclusions straight from his own immature, too-tender heart. Conclusions that he’d lived with all these years.
“When my mother was sick, Sally had his lawyer draw up some papers making Vito Tolentino our legal guardian if anything happened to her. Vito took care of us like we were his own kids.”
JoJo already knew Vito Tolentino, Sally’s righthand man and Nick’s best man. “Your father made sure you were all right, even from prison.”
“We weren’t all right. Nick got into trouble running a floating craps game in back of the high school.”
“But Nick told me Vito took care of that problem, knocked some sense into him, made sure Nick studied hard enough to get into Harvard.”
“What about Caroline? She took over for Mama when she was way too young. She became obsessed with Nick and me because she was afraid she’d lose us like she did our parents. She’s never made a life for herself. Never trusted any man enough to fall in love.”
It made JoJo feel some compassion for Lucky’s sister. And for Lucky, who didn’t trust anyone, either.
“I’m not saying the way Sally made a living was okay,” she said. “But he did pay for his crimes with eighteen years of his life.”
“Of all our lives. Nick’s and Caroline’s and mine.” Lucky’s laugh was bitter. “And he went straight from a jail cell back to his business.”
“A different business than before,” she reminded him. “Nick saw to that.”
“Nick was walking a tightrope those years he was in charge. He was trying to change things without making more enemies. That takes careful planning. And lots of time.” Lucky’s visage was grim when he added, “He didn’t have enough time to finish what he started.”
“And you think your father went back to the old ways?”
“Like I said before, a leopard doesn’t change its spots.”
JoJo couldn’t argue with him. Actually, Lucky was probably right about Sally to some degree. His father enjoyed power. Control. Nick suspected Sally’s hanging on to a few old interests was a ploy to get him back running the family business. What better lure than to shake up Nick with the thought that—if he didn’t finish what he’d started—his father might do more prison time?
Convoluted thinking, perhaps, but then Sally was a complex and crafty man.
Thank goodness Nick was too savvy to buy into the scheme. Caroline was a different story, though, JoJo knew. She’d take over for her father in a New York minute. All he’d have to do would be to give her the nod.
And Lucky was still something of an enigma to her. He had strength, will, a fierceness that inspired just the proper amount of fear—all traits that Sally possessed. He’d be furious if she pointed out the similarities between him and his father, however. He plainly wanted nothing to do with Sally, had disappeared rather than meet the old man head to head.
That she was starting to understand Lucky a little frightened her, but JoJo couldn’t help herself from pressing him some more.
“By cutting out your father, you’ve managed to put fact to Caroline’s fears.” JoJo didn’t miss the flash of guilt across Lucky’s features. “And how do you think Nick feels? And Vito, the man who raised you? I know he loves Nick and would do anything for him, and I’d bet he feels the same about you.”
“They understand.”
“All except Caroline.”
“She’s forgiven me.”
Perhaps. JoJo thought about family, how difficult it was for her to be separated from her mother and brother sometimes, even though they kept in contact by letter and phone. How much she wished she had her father. She couldn’t believe Lucky was unaffected by what was his own doing.
“You’ll have to stop running someday, you know.”
Features placid, he stated, “I’m not running anywhere.”
“You are. What are you afraid of, Lucky?”
His features tightened. “Nothing.”
“That you might still have feelings for the man you blame for your mother’s death?”
An outright glare was her answer.
“Or that he might suck you back into the business?”
“Never!”
“Then what?”
A short silence was followed by his quiet certainty. “I’m afraid I might kill him.”
The way he said it sent a shudder coursing down her spine. For a moment, JoJo fully believed that Lucky Donatelli was capable of murder. For a moment, she was truly afraid of him. Then she remembered he’d just saved her life and felt like an ingrate. As he’d said about Caroline, talking and doing weren’t the same thing.
Responding to his pain, she inched closer and placed a hand on his arm. “You’re not just angry at your father. You’re angry at yourself.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he returned, jaw hard, arm tightening under the pads of her fingers.
“I think I do. I fell in love with a man who was using me. I was ready to marry a murderer.” She could see it now like a movie playing in her head. How had she not recognized the villain in her own life? “For all I know, he might have murdered me, too.”
And maybe someone was trying to murder her now, she thought despondently, feeling so out of the loop that she couldn’t figure out why or who.
Slowly, Lucky faced her. Their gazes locked, he asked, “And you’re angry at yourself?” He sounded amazed.
She nodded. “For being stupid. Shortsighted. Gullible. Aren’t those familiar feelings?” He didn’t have to answer. She could see she’d hit a nerve. “The difference between our situations is that Marco never loved me. Sally loves you more than you can probably believe right now. But maybe eventually you’ll understand
that sometimes what a person does, doesn’t dictate who that person loves.”
He digested that for a moment, then asked, “Are you up to forgiving Marco?”
“No.” She had no doubts. Any soft feelings she’d had for the man were vanquished. “But he used me to gain his vengeance. His actions were against me.”
“And what you’re saying is that my father acted despite us?”
“There is a difference.”
JoJo could tell Lucky was considering the fine points of her argument. But if he was swayed, he didn’t admit to it. She knew one thing, though. He loved his father. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t still be carrying around all that anger and resentment from his childhood. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have disappeared just before Sally Donatelli was released from prison so that he didn’t have to face him.
“Are you real?” Lucky suddenly asked, looking at her as if he were truly seeing her for the first time.
JoJo’s mouth went dry, and she had trouble taking an even breath, as if the moment of truth had come…with her not knowing how to respond.
Chapter Eight
Staring at Lucky’s well-formed biceps below the ragged edges of the sleeveless white T-shirt, JoJo joked, “Flesh and blood.” And all woman, she feared, if the light-headedness she was suddenly experiencing were any indication. “Here, pinch me.”
Not expecting him to take her up on it, she held out her arm. His loose shirtsleeve slid halfway to her elbow, the soft cotton whisking along her skin like the lightest, most sensual touch. Her imagination stirred, perhaps because she knew the cloth had touched him before her, and her skin pebbled with an erotic chill. Then Lucky wrapped his fingers around her wrist, gently imprisoning her, sharing his heat with her. As she recognized the imprint of each finger on her flesh, he pulled her closer.
“Either you’re real,” he said softly, slipping his thumb pad along her sensitive palm until she had to stifle a gasp, “or I’m the biggest fool around.”
Heart thumping, she whispered, “Not the biggest fool.”
She reserved that distinction for herself. After what Marco had pulled on her, she should keep her distance from this man. And she only wanted to get closer. Both were sons of crime bosses. Both had been warped emotionally by their fathers in ways she could only try to understand. No matter how open Lucky had been for a few minutes, she knew as little about him as she had Marco.
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