Cara Colter - Soldier, Hero...Husband?

It was the idea of cooking for a man.

She stopped what she was doing and sat down heavily at her kitchen table.

“Isabella,” she chided herself, “you are acting as if this is a date. It’s very dangerous. You are out of your league. You will only get hurt if you play games with a man like Connor Benson.”

She was also aware she felt faintly guilty, as if this intense awareness of another man—okay, she would call a spade a spade, she was attracted to Connor Benson—was a betrayal of the love she had had with Giorgio.

Everyone kept telling her it was time to move on, and in her head she knew they were right. Six years was a long time for a woman to be alone. If she did not make a move soon, she would probably never have the children she longed for.

But no matter what her head said, her heart said no. Her heart had been hurt enough for this lifetime. Her heart did not want to fall in love ever again.

Slowly, feeling unreasonably dejected, she put everything away instead of leaving it out to cook with. She would bring anything that would spoil to school tomorrow and give it to Luigi Caravetti. He was from a single-parent family, and she knew his mother was struggling right now.

She opened a can of soup, as she would have normally done, and broke the bread into pieces. She would invite Connor to share this humble fare with her when he arrived. She needed to go over things with him, make clear what she did and did not provide.

It wasn’t very much later that he came in the front door. She felt she was ready. Or as ready as a woman could ever be for a man like that.

“I have soup if you would like some,” she called out formally.

“ Grazie , that sounds great.”

Isabella wished Connor would not try to speak Italian. It made her not want to be formal at all. It made her long to teach him a few words or phrases, to correct his pronunciation. She listened as he went up the stairs. She heard the shower turn on. Her mind went to the memory of touching that perfect body this morning, and something shivered along her spine. It was a warning. If she was smart there would be no language lessons with Connor Benson.

A little while later, he came into the kitchen. Oh, God. He was so big in this tiny room. It was as if he took up all the space. Her eyes felt as if they wanted to go anywhere but to him.

But where else could they go, when he was taking up all the space?

He was freshly showered. He had on a clean shirt. He smelled wonderful. His hair was dark and damp, and towel roughened. He had not shaved, so his whiskers were thick, and she could almost imagine how they would feel scraping across a woman’s skin.

“I hope you don’t expect homemade,” she said. Her voice sounded like a croak.

“I didn’t expect anything at all, ma’am.”

There was that ma’am again, slow and steady, dragging across the back of her neck, drugging her senses.

“Isabella.” Her voice sounded like a whisper. “Please, sit.”

He took a seat at her table. It made her table seem ridiculous, as if it had been made to go in a dollhouse.

“Isabella,” he said, as if he was trying it out. Her name came off his tongue like honey. She wished she had not invited him to call her by it.

“It smells good in here,” he said conversationally and then looked around with interest. “It’s quaint, exactly what I would expect an Italian kitchen to look like. That stone wall must be original to the house.”

She felt tongue-tied but managed to squeak, “Don’t be fooled by its charm. This house is three hundred years old. And it can be quite cranky.”

“I think I noticed the crankiness in the shower just now,” he said.

“I warned you about that.” She did not want to be thinking about him in the shower, again .

“No big deal. Woke me up, though. The water was pouring out and then stopped, and then poured out again. I’ll have a look at it for you, if you want.”

“No,” she said, proudly and firmly. She did not need to give herself the idea there was a man she could rely on to help her. “You are a guest in this house. I have already called the plumber, but I’m afraid with the renovation at the villa, my house is not a priority for him.”

“I don’t mind having a look at it.”

Some longing shivered along her spine, which she straightened, instantly. “Signor, this house is three hundred years old. If you start looking at all the things wrong with it, I’m afraid you will not have time to do the job you came here to do. So, please, no, I can manage.”

He looked faintly skeptical about her ability—or maybe the ability of any woman who was alone—to manage a three-hundred-year-old house, but wisely, he said nothing.

She dished out soup from the stove, gestured to the bread, took a seat across from him. She felt as if she was sitting rigidly upright, like a recent graduate from charm school.

“Relax,” he said softly, “I won’t bite you.”

She was appalled that her discomfort was so transparent.

“Bite me?” she squeaked. She was also appalled at the picture that sprang to mind. And that it involved the cranky shower!

“It’s American slang. It means I won’t hurt you.”

Wouldn’t he? It seemed to her Connor Benson was the kind of man who hurt women without meaning to, and she didn’t mean by attacking them outside the bedroom door in the morning, either. He was the kind of man who could make a woman think heated thoughts or dream naive and romantic dreams that he would not stick around to fulfill.

“This morning excepted,” he growled.

“You didn’t hurt me!”

“Not physically. I can tell you’re nervous around me now.”

She could feel the color climbing up her face. She wanted to deny that, and couldn’t. Instead, she changed the subject. “How was your day?”

“Uneventful,” he said. “I met with Nico and had an initial look around. It’s a very beautiful village.”

“Thank you. I like it very much.” Her voice sounded stilted. What was wrong with her? Well, she’d married young. Giorgio had been her only boyfriend. She was not accustomed to this kind of encounter. “Would you like wine?”

“I’m not much of a drinker.”

“You might like to try this one. It’s one of Nico’s best, from his Calanetti vineyard.”

“All right,” he said. She suspected he had said yes to help her relax, not because he really wanted the wine.

The wine was on the counter. Isabella was glad her back was to him, because she struggled with getting it open. But finally, she was able to turn back and pour him a glass. She could feel a dewy bead of sweat on her forehead. She blew on her bangs in case they were sticking.

He sipped it carefully as she sat back down. “It’s really good. What would you say? Buono? ”

“Yes, buono . Nico’s vineyard is one of the pride and joys of our region.” She took a sip of wine. And then another. It occurred to her neither of them were eating the soup.

Suddenly, it all felt just a little too cozy. Perhaps she should not have insisted on the wine. She took rather too large a gulp and set down her glass.

It was time to get down to business. “I will provide a simple supper like this, Mondays to Saturdays, the same days that I work. On Sunday, I do not. I provide breakfast every day, but I don’t usually leave a tray by the bedroom door.”

“I wouldn’t risk that again, either,” he said drily. She had the uncomfortable feeling he was amused by her.

“It’s not a hotel,” she said sternly, “so I don’t make beds.”

“Understood.” Did he intentionally say that with a military inflection, as if he was a lower rank being addressed by a superior? Was he perceiving her as bossy?