Pride (In Wilde Country Book 1) (4 page)

Travis blinked. “
You
went out of your way to accommodate
me
?”

“Uh, Travis,” Travis’s wife, Jennie, said quickly, “why don’t you introduce—”

“I can introduce myself, thank you,” the woman said, her tone making a mockery of the polite words. “I’m Cheyenne McKenna, and I sincerely hope the rest of you have heard of an invention called the telephone. You know. A thing that makes it possible to contact someone and say ‘Sorry, I’m going to be late
.
’”

“Okay,” Travis said tightly, “okay, Ms. McKenna, that’s e—”

Jennie shot to her feet.

“Everybody,” she said brightly, “Cheyenne bought a piece of land a few miles east of our place. The old Sweetwater Ranch? Anyway, we met in town and got to talking and it turns out that she’s going to run horses—Arabians, wasn’t it, Cheyenne—and the Sweetwater’s barns and outbuildings need work and she said she had some questions about what could and couldn’t be repaired and I said, well, my husband knows all there is to know about ranches and horses and barns and that I was sure he’d be happy to drive over to check things out and make some suggestions and…”

Jennie’s words trailed away. She flashed an imploring look at her husband. He sighed, his expression softened, and he went around the table to her, tilted her face to his and kissed her gently on the mouth.

“It’s okay, honey,” he whispered. Then he straightened up and looked at Cheyenne McKenna. “So,” he said briskly, “tell you what. Why don’t you join us, have some coffee while I—”

“I had plenty of coffee, thank you very much, while I waited for you.”

Travis’s eyes turned icy.

“Listen, Ms. McKenna—”

“I have a better idea.”

Everyone stared at Luca.
Cristo
, if it were possible, he’d have stared at himself.

What was he doing?

The answer was that he was walking toward Cheyenne McKenna. She watched him approach from under a sweep of dark lashes almost too full to be real, but he’d have bet they were real.

As real as the rest of her.

That attitude.

That mouth.

That body.

A tightness formed low in his belly.

Ridiculous.

He had not been with a woman in a while. Still, he was not some teenaged idiot with an out-of-control libido. He was only trying to ease a tense situation. That was all. Things were difficult enough at El Sueño this morning without adding this nonsense to it.

“And who,” the McKenna woman asked coolly, “are you?”

Despite her height, despite the nosebleed-high heels, she had to tilt her head back to look at him. He liked that. Liked that she had to give up a little of her arrogance in deference to him.

“I am Luca Bellini.”

Her smile was lethal. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“I know something about construction as well as ranches and horses.”

She took her time looking him over, head to toe and back up again. He knew what she saw: a man in a four thousand dollar suit, a man she was sure had never had dirt under his fingernails or horse manure on his custom-made shoes.

“I believe there is an American adage,” he said softly. “Never judge a book by its cover.”

“And?”

“And, rather than take Travis from his breakfast, I’ll go with you and look at your property.”

“There’s another old saying, Mr. Whatever-You-Said-Your-Name-Is. Talk is cheap. And,” she said, waving him off as if he were a pesky housefly, “I’m not in the mood to play games with a make-believe carpenter or cow—”

She caught her breath as Luca wrapped his fingers around her wrist.

“You have a short memory, Ms. McKenna. My name is Luca Bellini. I am not a make-believe anything.” His hand tightened on her, just enough to draw her closer. “And if I choose to play a game, I am the one who issues the invitation.”

The people gathered at the table had gone silent.

They were all staring.

Staring at her, Cheyenne knew.

She felt all those eyes on her as surely as she felt the pressure of Luca Bellini’s encircling fingers on her wrist.

She’d made a fool of herself.

She knew that.

Bursting in here the way she had…

The housekeeper had politely suggested she wait in the living room, but Cheyenne, angry as hell—unreasonably angry, though she had not wanted to admit it—had brushed past her and said she was tired of waiting

Well, she was. But that really had nothing to do with the Wildes.

It had to do with her and her life, and why she’d decided to let her anger out on people who had no part in any of it was beyond her.

So what if she’d waited an hour for Travis to show up? Really, did she have anything else to do?

Not anymore. No deadlines. No shoots. No interviews.

Her time was her own.

Another adage and a bad one. Who wanted their time to be their own? People needed to have commitments. Things to do. Places to be. That was one of the reasons she was buying Sweetwater Ranch. She needed to feel as if she had purpose, dammit, and because she was on shaky ground when it came to that, she’d taken it out on these absolute strangers.

And on this man.

His hand still clasped her wrist.

She looked up, and their eyes met. His were blue, so blue they were almost black. He had what her makeup stylist would have called a Roman nose. His mouth was full; his chin was square and had an almost indiscernible cleft.

She came from a world filled with handsome men, but this man wasn’t handsome. He was beautiful in the way a hawk or a wolf is beautiful, as if there were a tightly contained wildness in him, a kind of savagery.

Something hot hummed through her blood.

The sensation shocked her. It had been a long time, a very long time since anything or anyone had made that happen.

Logic warned her that the smart thing to do was turn down his offer, but it had been an equally long time since she’d paid attention to logic.

“Very well,” she said. “I accept your offer.”

“What offer is that?”

“The one you made. To take a look at my land.”

“Are you asking me to look at your land, Ms. McKenna?”

How subtly he’d changed the meaning of her words, she thought, and smiled.

“One more adage, Mr. Bellini. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Luca laughed. He walked back to where he’d been sitting, picked up his mug of coffee and drained it dry. Then he put down the empty mug.

“How can I turn down such an enticing offer?” he said, and he followed Cheyenne McKenna from the room.

CHAPTER TWO

O
nce outside the
house, Luca started toward the car the Belllinis had rented at the airport.

Cheyenne McKenna headed for a bright red pickup.

“I have a car,” he said.

“Trucks do better on these roads,” she replied, yanking open the driver’s side door and getting behind the wheel.

He hesitated.

He didn’t like being a passenger. Not in cars, not in life, not in anything.

Women always sensed that, or maybe they liked it. Whatever the reason, if he rode in a woman’s car, she always tossed him the keys

The man was in command, the one who decided on speed, route and destination. That was the unspoken agreement.

Apparently, Cheyenne McKenna wasn’t aware of it.

He thought about telling her that he wanted to drive, thought about how she’d have to provide him with directions and how ridiculous that would be, even assuming she agreed, and instinct told him that she wouldn’t.

“Well?”

He looked up. She’d reached across the cab and flung open the passenger door. “You up for this or not?”

Attitude, and in spades.

He considered turning around and going back into the house, but that was probably what she wanted.

What she expected.

She was impudent, and in-your-face rude.

But it was amusing, especially after the tension of last night.

She stood up to him, and women never did. They were invariably eager to please, almost pathetically so.

“Make up your mind,
signore
. Are you getting in, or have you changed your mind about what I’m sure is your considerable expertise?”

Changing my mind would probably be smart,
he thought…

And he got into the truck.

“Fortunately for you,” he said, “I have not.”

She laughed.

He slammed the door behind him, she turned the key, hit the gas and the truck practically stood on its rear wheels as it shot down the mile-long gravel driveway to the road.

* * *

She drove fast enough to make the scenery blur, and gave no ground for the endless bumps and dips in the gravel. She swerved once, but that was to avoid a coyote that shot out ahead of them.

When they reached the sooth-surfaced main road, it was that American phrase—pedal to the metal.

Luca would have been surprised at anything less.

He took his Ray-Bans from his inside jacket pocket, slipped them on and glanced at her.

Everything about her said that she didn’t believe in taking the easy way. The safe way. She was impetuous, outspoken, arrogant, hot-tempered…

And gorgeous.

And there it was again, that whisper in the back of his brain that said they’d met before.

He thought about asking her if they had. No. He wouldn’t do that. Even though he’d mean it, the line was so old it was a bad joke.

Besides, he had an excellent memory. You had to have a good memory when you spent your time talking numbers with clients.

If they’d met, it would come to him.

For now, he’d concentrate on watching her. The way her one hand rested on the steering wheel and the other lay in her lap. The proud profile. The determined set of her jaw. He couldn’t see her eyes—she’d slipped on a pair of oversized dark glasses—but he could admire her mouth, the fullness of it, the slight overbite.

She was stunning. And interesting. An enigma. So much temperament, such disdain for what most people would call simple civility.

She was, in a word, a puzzle, and he’d always been fascinated by puzzles.

Dammit.

Luca folded his arms and shifted his long legs under the dashboard.

Be honest, man.

What she was, was a woman he wanted to take to bed.

He’d only known her for, what, fifteen minutes? Still, he was fantasizing about having sex with her. He wanted her beneath him, his hands cupping her ass, her mouth lifted to his, her legs wrapped around his hips, all that impudence giving way to submission as he took her.

One thing he’d learned early in life was that it didn’t take long to know you wanted a woman. Pheromones, hormones, whatever, you saw the right woman and the message went from your brain straight to your balls.

Luca frowned.

Still, what was with him and this fixation on a stranger? He came across beautiful women all the time and he often considered what they’d be like in bed—he was a man, after all—but this was a little overdone.

Or maybe not.

He sat back, looked straight ahead and thought about his life these last few months.

Sex was probably what he needed to make a full return to sanity

Ever since his mother’s death, he’d been immersed in a quagmire of ugly secrets and even uglier realities.

For a long time, he and Matteo had suspected that their father was not a government spy. That he led some sort of secret life in the United States. And after looking through a box of old documents when they’d had to make some necessary repairs to the house they’d grown up in, they’d come to the conclusion that their parents’ marriage might not have been legitimate.

Still, they hadn’t delved too deeply into things.

They’d wanted to protect their mother as well as their sisters.

They thought they had kept their suspicions from the girls, but the day of their mother’s funeral, Bianca and Alessandra confronted them. They said they’d long suspected their father was keeping some dark secret and they’d demanded to be part of whatever it took to find the truth.

The following weeks had been spent untangling years of lies, of illusions. They’d devoted their days and nights to the search for facts.

The fact that their father had never really been married to their mother had been the worst shock of all.

Luca had been in the midst of opening his offices in New York. He’d set all that aside. Except for staying in contact with his administrative staff in Rome and his people in Manhattan, he’d pretty much abandoned his own existence. No dinners with friends. No long weekends at his Tuscan ranch.

In other words, when had he last been with a woman?

He actually couldn’t remember. Truth was, he’d all but given up noticing that women existed.

No wonder he couldn’t stop thinking about sex.

About Cheyenne McKenna.

He gave her one last appraising look from behind the anonymity of his Ray-Bans. Then he turned his head and focused his gaze on the outsized Texas landscape rolling past the windshield.

Cheyenne McKenna—and wasn’t that one hell of a name—Cheyenne McKenna was attractive. Under other circumstances, he’d have been interested in seeing where things went. He suspected she might feel the same. He’d sensed a little buzz between them and he was never been wrong about those unspoken messages, but he was expected in Manhattan this evening.

He had no time for sex, or at least for what sex meant to a woman. Drinks. Dinner. Conversation. All the little games that went into an affair, no matter how brief. He was down with that, with seduction, but the last thing he had time for right now were those frills.

So he’d do precisely what he’d offered to do.

Take a look at her land, ask some questions, make some suggestions…

A tree that had been long-ago split by lightning loomed on the side of the road. Cheyenne McKenna turned the wheel hard and zipped past it onto a narrow strip of gravel road. The truck hit a bump and all but flew into the air. The instant of weightlessness would have been enough for him to have banged his head on the roof if he hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt.

“Sorry.”

She didn’t sound the least bit sorry. If anything, she sounded pleased. He shot her a narrow look. Had she deliberately taken the turn too fast?

“I should have warned you this was going to be rough.”

He was certain of it now. She’d spotted that gully and accelerated on purpose. She was playing with him; she’d written him off as an urban cowboy, and she was having fun at his expense.

Luca felt that tightening low in his belly again.

If only he had the time…

But he didn’t, so he said nothing as a handful of buildings came into view and when she slowed the truck, he hardly waited until she shut off the engine before he undid his seatbelt, flung open this door and stepped into the hot Texas morning.

* * *

In some ways, Sweetwater Ranch reminded him of El Sueño,

Endless meadows stretched toward a distant set of hills, low and peaceful under the sun’s fire. The grass was a rich, brilliant green. The house itself was built on a low rise.

That was where the resemblance to El Sueño ended.

The El Sueño house was a mansion.

This house was a disaster waiting to become a wreck.

The roof was shot. So was what had once been a huge brick chimney. The porch hung askew, as if it were clinging to the house by metaphorical fingernails. Almost all the windows were gone. The massive front door was tightly closed as if to safeguard the place.

A bad joke.

There was nothing here to safeguard, and Luca made that clear with a blunt statement.

“This is a disaster,” he said.

“In its present state,” Cheyenne replied.

“Let me rephrase that. The house should be razed.”

“I have no intention of having it destroyed.”

“It is unsafe.”

“It’s unlivable, not unsafe.”

Luca sighed. “Perhaps I’m not making myself clear. The house is not worth salvaging.”

“It is.”

“Dammit, Ms. McKenna…”

“The house was built in 1842. It’s withstood blizzards, hurricanes and tornadoes. It even survived an influx of Yankee soldiers during the Civil War. It’s salvageable, Mr. Bellini, and I want it salvaged.”

Luca looked at her. Her head was up; her eyes blazed. Her lips were set in a firm line.

He wondered what it would take to soften those lips. To have them part in sweet, eager anticipation of his kiss.

Dio!

A muscle danced in his jaw.

When he got to New York, it might be smart to cancel that business meeting and spend the evening with a woman. He knew a lot of people in the city; he’d met several women at parties and charity functions over the last months. He was certain it would not be difficult to find one who’d be more than happy to spend some time with him.

Clearly, his celibacy needed to come to a swift conclusion.

“Did you hear me? I know the house needs work, but—”

“Stay here,” he ordered, and he took a cautious step onto the porch.

“The inside needs work, too, and—”

“A shocking revelation,” he said grimly.

He was almost at the door when he heard her footsteps behind him. He swung toward her and caught her by the shoulders.

“Perhaps it is
you
who did not hear
me
. I told you to stay where you were.”

The look she gave him could have brought on a new Ice Age.

“Do not tell me what to do, Mr. Bellini.”

“Then do not behave foolishly, Ms. McKenna.” Luca’s eyes narrowed as he looked down into hers. “I have to fly east later today and I won’t be able to do that if I’m stuck here, waiting for an ambulance to arrive.”

Her teeth flashed in a smile that drove the temperature down another ten degrees.

“Such charming concern for my welfare. I’m touched.”

“Just stay where you are while I take a quick look around. Do you understand?”

She wrenched free of his hands, folded her arms and glared at him. He figured that was as close to a ‘yes’ as he was going to get and he crossed the porch and stepped cautiously through the door.

Surprise, surprise.

The floor seemed sound enough. He squatted down, rubbed away some leaf litter and ran his hand over the wood he’d exposed. Oak. And, under layers of time and dirt, undoubtedly handsome.

He took his handkerchief from his breast pocket, wiped his hands and got to his feet. He looked up. The ceiling rose a full two stories; an enormous crystal chandelier hung from it. Another surprise. The chandelier seemed intact.

He moved further into the house.

The wide staircase to his right hadn’t been that lucky. Same as the porch, it seemed to be clinging to the house for its very life.

He took a step back, and bumped into Cheyenne McKenna.

“Dammit,” he said, swinging toward her, “didn’t I tell you to stay outside?”

“I’m not good at taking orders,” she said, “or haven’t you figured that—”

A dark shadow swooped down the decrepit staircase. She gave a little cry and Luca caught her by the shoulders and pulled her toward him.

“A bat,” he said.

She gave a quick little laugh.