The Burning Point (7 page)

"Oh, I don't know. It was a really good-looking German shepherd." A mischievous glint in his eyes, Donovan introduced them. "Concetta Russo, Kate Corsi."

Kate guessed that he wanted to see how a debutante would react to a household of exuberant Italians. Little did he know.

She took Connie's hand in both of hers. "Hello, Mrs. Russo. I'm really not an escapee from Sheppard-Pratt. I had a fight with my father and was starting to walk home, and Donovan rescued me from turning into an icicle."

His aunt nodded approvingly. "He's a good boy. Frankie, let him take the car. Kate isn't dressed for a motorcycle even if it wasn't starting to snow. But first come eat. We're just about to test a batch of marinara."

Donovan looked at Kate. "Are you hungry?"

"Ravenous." Nothing like a family fight to work up an appetite.

The Russos' kitchen was large and shiny clean, obviously remodeled and expanded from the original kitchen. A real estate agent would say the house was over-improved for the neighborhood, but no sane person could not love such a warm, welcoming room, full of oak cabinets and enticing smells.

Connie poured a generous quantity of gnocchi into a pot of boiling water, then stirred the steaming kettle of marinara sauce on the other front burner. "This batch is turning out pretty good. Want to taste it, Katie?"

"I'd love to." Kate blew several times on the spoonful of chunky red sauce Connie offered, then swallowed. "This is great! You use red wine, don't you?"

Connie beamed. "You got it. Nothing like wine to deepen the flavor."

"My mother always puts Chianti in her marinara, even though my grandmother Corsi claims no true Italian ever uses wine. Of course, Nonna is Sicilian, so who knows?" She glanced at Donovan. He was watching her with warm amusement.

"Depends on the family. My mama used wine, my grandmama used wine, every woman in my family since Caesar was in diapers has made her spaghetti sauce with wine." Connie gestured toward a bottle with a handmade label. "I put in some of Cousin Giuseppe's best Chianti, that's why the flavor is so rich."

The chat continued while Connie set the kitchen table, drained the gnocchi, then poured steaming marinara over it. With chunks of bread and glasses of Cousin Giuseppe's wine, it was a feast fit for the gods. Connie gave Kate an amiable grilling as they ate--starting with asking where she went to school.

They were eating Christmas cookies when a toddler pattered into the room, a bedraggled stuffed rabbit trailing from one hand. Connie gave a doting smile. "Meet my granddaughter Lissie, the party girl. Her parents left her here for the weekend in the hope that with a little peace and quiet, maybe they could start a little brother for her."

As the adults laughed, Lissie went over to Kate and looked upward with huge dark eyes. "Princess?"

It took Kate a moment to realize that the question was inspired by her billowing white ball gown. "I'm sorry, Lissie--I'm not a princess."

Lissie looked so crestfallen that Kate decided that honesty was not always the best policy. Dropping to one knee beside Lissie, she said, "At least, not all the time. But every girl can be a princess on special occasions."

Lissie perked up at that, so Kate took off her slightly crushed corsage, removed the straight pin for safety's sake, and gave the lace-trimmed flowers to the child. "Whenever a man gives a girl flowers to wear, on that night she's a princess."

Lissie took the corsage and buried her small nose in it.

"Now that we've settled that," Connie said, "it's to bed with you, young lady."

She was starting to rise when Donovan got to his feet. "I'll take her back to her room, Aunt Connie. I have to get a coat anyhow."

He scooped up Lissie, who shrieked his name happily. The open affection on Donovan's face made Kate melt. He was half-Italian, all right. Adoring babies was in the blood. He was starting to carry his cousin out of the kitchen when Lissie waved the flowers in protest, her gaze fixed on Kate. "Kiss!"

Kate took the child from Donovan's arms, loving the sweet little girl scent and incredibly soft skin. How could anyone
not
love babies? She kissed the gently curving cheek. "May you be a princess many, many times, Lissie."

Satisfied, her lids already drooping, the child went trustingly into Donovan's arms and he took her away. He returned a few minutes later wearing a dark parka dusted with snowflakes. "I just covered the bike. Now it's time to get you back, Kate."

She rose and put on Donovan's uniform jacket again. "Thanks for supper, Mr. and Mrs. Russo. It was lovely to meet you both."

"Come again, Katie," Frank said. "Anytime."

They trailed out to the front porch. Lacy snowflakes were drifting down and frosting the world with a delicate white haze. Connie gave Kate a hug. "This is a nice girl, Donovan. You should keep her."

"I'm just driving her home, Aunt Connie."

Frank tossed him a key chain. "The blue barge is around the corner."

"Thanks. And don't worry, I won't be out too late." After the door closed behind the Russos, he said, "Don't blame me because my aunt and uncle want to adopt you."

"I wouldn't mind being adopted by Frank and Connie. They're terrific." She looked at him sideways. "You live with them?"

"Sometimes. At the moment." He was silent for a half a dozen steps before saying in a voice that didn't invite comment, "My parents are dead, so I kind of shift around between relatives. I always leave before they get tired of having me underfoot."

Kate was taken aback. How horrible it must be not to have a place of his own, where he'd always be welcome. Wordlessly she slipped her hand into his. He threaded his fingers between hers in a warm, intimate clasp. For the second time, she felt tingles.

They left dark footprints in the snow as they walked around the corner to an enormous, white frosted car. "The blue barge at your service." Donovan unlocked the passenger door and opened it for Kate. "When you said your name was Corsi, I thought it was something WASPy like C-o-u-r-s-e-y. Obviously not."

"Hell, no,
paisano
." She slid into the car. "I'm half Italian, just like you."

"
Corsi
. Is the family business Phoenix Demolition?"

When she nodded, he said in an awed voice, "PDI does fantastic stuff. Hell, your father practically invented the whole field of explosive demolition. He's like Red Adair is for oil well fires. Now I understand why he doesn't want you working for him."

"Don't you
dare
say another word about that! I've had quite enough bossy men for one night!"

"I didn't say a word," he said with a grin.

He closed her door and circled to the driver's side. After getting inside and shutting the door, he turned to look at Kate. The windows were covered with a translucent layer of snow, transforming the glow of the streetlight halfway down the block into a dim, pearly luminescence.

All levity vanished, replaced by a tension as old as Adam and Eve. The expression in his eyes made her feel hot and breathless and a little alarmed. Not fear of him, but of an attraction beyond anything she'd ever experienced. This was happening too fast. She fumbled nervously for her seat belt.

"Don't buckle up yet." He reached out and gently rubbed her cheek with his knuckles. "You're so pretty. Radiant. Not quite real."

The skin to skin touch made her heart beat faster. How could something so simple be so arousing?

He slid across the seat until the hard length of his thigh was pressed along her leg. "Your hair looks better down." His fingers caressed her head with a tenderness that was both soothing and erotic.

She felt fragile, ready to crumble under his touch. She really should tell him to stop. A single word from her would prevent this from going any further. He would start the car, drive her to Rachel's, and that would be that.

She didn't move. Scarcely breathed, her gaze locked on his.

"I've wanted to do this ever since you shimmied out of that limo." He lowered his head and kissed her. His lips were warm and soft, gentle in pressure yet sending hammer-beats of excitement through her veins.

She kissed him back, sliding her fingers into that silky, sexy dark hair. Who would have dreamed that a high IQ Hell's Angel type could be so irresistible?

Hesitant exploration dissolved into fire and desire as reality narrowed to his taste, his touch, his closeness. Every sensation was shockingly heightened. She wanted to devour him, absorb him, learn him so deeply that they would become one.

Her sensual haze was pierced by an internal voice that said very clearly,
You will marry this man.

The words shocked her. She broke the kiss and drew her head back to stare into Donovan's shadowed eyes. Marry him? But they scarcely knew each other!

The voice repeated,
You have just met your future husband.

She would have laughed, except that her sensible mother claimed to have experienced the same flash of inner knowledge when she'd met Sam Corsi.

But marriage? She didn't even know his whole name! Yet her certainty was utterly convincing, and surprisingly plausible. Under the biker facade he was intelligent and kind, responsible, with a sense of humor that matched hers. Not to mention liking babies and being drop-dead handsome. Exactly what she would want in a husband--when she got around to looking seriously in ten or twelve years.

But maybe her life wasn't going to run according to her master plan. Silently she raised a hand and caressed Donovan's cheek. Warmth and a faint, alluring rasp of whiskers caused flutters deep inside her.

He turned and pressed a kiss into her palm. "Kate," he whispered. "
Carissima."

Dearest one.
She'd heard the Italian endearment from her earliest days. Desire and tenderness pulsed through her with disorienting force, along with a clear knowledge that he would not always be a comfortable companion, that there was darkness as well as kindness in him.

Struggling for sense, she murmured, "Is it my imagination, or is this something...something special?"

"No. It's not your imagination." He kissed her again, one hand undoing the buttons of her oversized jacket until he could slide his hand inside and cup her silk-covered breast. Mental clarity vanished in a torrent of sensations--and the certainty that her life had changed forever.

Chapter 6

"You don't have to make a decision tonight."

Donovan's low voice--deeper than when they'd met a dozen years earlier, and with no trace of East Baltimore left--snapped Kate back to the family room and her ex-husband.

She took a shaky breath as she tried to reconcile the excitement and wonder of that first meeting with the murderous strain between them now. "I'm not the only one who has to make a decision, Donovan. Would you agree to this nonsense?"

He exhaled roughly. "I...don't know. If you decide you're willing, I'll have to think long and hard about whether I am. I want PDI. I want it a hell of a lot, but maybe not this much. If I'm forced out, I can always start my own demolition firm."

She thought of the long-term PDI employees. Some would follow Donovan to a new firm, but others would stay with Marchetti, fracturing the family that had been Phoenix Demolition. "That wouldn't be the same."

"No. It wouldn't." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Which is why I'm at least considering whether it would be possible to comply with Sam's crazy will."

She thought of the home they'd once shared, and shivered. "I can't imagine living in the old house again. It's so small. We'd be on top of each other."

As soon as she heard the words, she flushed. For most of the three years they'd lived on Brandy Lane, they
had
been on top of each other. Sometimes Donovan above, sometimes her, in every room of the house.

Mercifully ignoring the double entendre, Donovan said without inflection, "For what it's worth, I've done some remodeling. There's more room now. How about if I pick you up in the morning and take you out to Brandy Lane? It might help you decide if you could bear to live there again."

Visit the home they had worked on together with so much love and laughter? Come face to face with their past?

Knowing she had no choice, she said, "Ten o'clock?"

He nodded, then said goodbye.

Relieved to be alone, Kate sank into the sofa opposite the fire. For a long time she stared at the flickering flames, too numb to think.

She needed to talk to someone from her normal life. One of the house's dozen telephones sat on the end table, so she punched in her brother's number. He picked up on the second ring. "Tom? It's me."

"How are you doing, hon?"

Tears stung her eyes as he used a Baltimore endearment from their childhood. She kicked off her shoes and burrowed into the sofa. "Lord, what a day it has been."

After a silence, he said painfully, "I should be there."

His doubt and guilt pulled her up short. This was a hard time for him, and she hadn't called to make it worse. "Forget I said that. Mother and I are doing fine. Everyone has been so kind. The cathedral was packed. Lots of dignitaries, including the mayor, the governor, two congressmen, and a senator. Sam would have loved it." She'd always referred to her father by his first name when she was irritated with him, so he'd been Sam ever since she'd left Baltimore a decade before.