Space in His Heart (39 page)

She watched his wheels turn, no doubt putting
it all together in that razor-sharp head of hers.

“Nevermind,” she said quickly, reaching for
the phone. “I’ll call Amber back and tell her I solved the
emergency.” Something flashed in her eyes… hurt?
Disappointment?

How about a reality check? Didn’t she realize
that in less than two weeks he’d be boots on the ground in the most
dangerous place in the world?

“Don’t do that,” he said, surprising himself
by taking the phone and closing it. “You know as well as I do
you’ll never steal another day off.”

“Or you could hang with me today and go to
see your uncle tomorrow?”

She was offering him an out. One that would
be easier, and safer. No family ties. No chance for Nino to meet
Sammi and make big old Italian eyes behind her back as if to say,
Ragazzino, she’s perfect! I smell love in the air!

“Nino is counting on me today,” he said.
Christ, that sounded pathetic. Why didn’t he just take her? Nino
would love her. It didn’t have to mean… anything.

“You really should spend some time with the
rest of your family before…” Once more, she couldn’t finish the
sentence.

“Before I leave,” he said flatly. “No use
tiptoeing around it, Sam. I’m going to war in, what? A week and a
half?”

A little muscle in her jaw pulsed as she
nodded. “All the more reason to go see your uncle.”

All the more reason to take her with him. Or
not, depending on his perspective. And ever since he first kissed
this woman all his perspective seemed to do was… change.

“I want you to come with me,” he said
gruffly.

She just looked at him.

“I do,” he repeated, convincing himself.
“Nino will love you.” Which, of course, was the problem.

“All right,’ she said, closing her eyes and
sliding a long, bare leg over his. “But first let’s celebrate my
lying to the boss.”

In a space of one touch, one kiss, one moan
of helpless surrender, he forgot Nino and Iraq and the calendar.
All that mattered was Sam’s slick, soft skin. All that mattered was
Sam’s mouth, trailing a path south to taste every inch of him. All
that mattered was the burning hot need that rocked both of them
every waking minute.

Sex
.

But was that really all that mattered? With
this amazing woman who made him laugh and made him… feel things he
had no right to feel?

Yes. It had to be, at least until he came
back from the war.
If
he came back.

“Hey.” Sam’s voice pulled him out of the fog,
her hair dangling over his body as she looked up at him. “Where’d
you go?”

Where was he
about
to go, that was the
real question. Truth was, he was the one going to hell.

“I’m just thinking.” He reached down to
tunnel his hands in her hair, palming her head, inching her up.
“About how much I want to kiss you.”

She crawled up his body, torturing him by
dragging herself over every inch along the way. “Then kiss me and
stop thinking about anything else.”

Lowering her face, she pressed her mouth over
his, making the connection that had become as natural as breathing
to them. When her eyes closed, he just kept looking at her.

Forget Baghdad and IEDs and terrorists who
lurked around every filthy corner. None of that really bothered
him. But this woman? This kiss? This feeling in his gut?

This scared the holy hell out of him. And
Nino Rossi would figure that out in about four and half
minutes.

# # #

“And this, child, is what Italy smells like.”
Nino Rossi waved the basil leaves under Sam’s nose, his knobby
fingers clutching the stems tightly. She inhaled, closing her eyes
in appreciation of a scent ten times more pungent than any bag of
store-bought herbs, one of a dozen wonderful smells assaulting her
in the backyard garden.

“Beautiful,” she agreed.

“Italy,” he repeated, pronouncing the word
like it had no middle vowel, his raspy voice an aging, deeper
version of Zach’s. Uncle Nino moved around his garden with
surprising ease and grace for a man who had to be nearly eighty
years old, although Zach had warned her he either didn’t know or
wouldn’t admit his actual age.

He looked past Sam to focus his deep brown
eyes on Zach, his dark brows furrowing his forehead into a ripple
of lines that ran up to a balding head fringed with gray wisps.
“You remember Italy,
ragazzino
?”

Zach shrugged, his hands stuffed into the
pockets of khaki pants, his own brow drawn as he ignored the garden
to look over the lake that backed into the yard where he’d grown
up. Although, Sam had yet to hear him refer to the big colonial
where the Rossi family was raised side by side with two Angelino
Italian imports as
home
. “Barely,” he admitted. “Haven’t
been to Italy in a long time.”

“Too long,” Nino said, bending over to pluck
more basil. “Come here, Samantha. Let me show you how to pick the
best leaf for the Genovese pasta. Then I’ll teach you how to make
it.” Looking up, he bared yellowed teeth in a teasing smile. “It’s
Zaccaria’s favorite.”

“Zaccaria?” She threw a smile at Zach before
kneeling. “Is that the Italian version of Zachary?”

“Yes,” Nino confirmed. “And you may call me
pro zio
, which is Italian for Great Uncle. Which, in my
case, is redundant.”

She laughed and let him lead her hand to the
greenest leaf. Wordlessly, Zach walked past the perimeter of the
garden patch and started down the hill toward the lake.

“He seems happy,” Nino said, watching his
great nephew. “It’s good.” He nodded, smiling. “Someone like you
could keep him alive over there. Give him a reason to come
home.”

Her breath caught a little, and she covered
by looking over her shoulder at Zach’s powerful silhouette, his
shoulders so strong and broad, his hips narrow. Right down to her
toes, she felt… everything. Attraction. Desire. Affection. As much
as she tried to convince herself otherwise, her feelings had
deepened faster and harder than anything she’d ever known.

It had become increasingly difficult to think
of Zach as just a fun, romantic fling.

But she was too smart to admit that to Zach,
or this keen old man. Especially when she could practically smell
the fear on Zach in bed this morning at the mere thought of her
taking the next step and meeting Nino.

Zach Angelino, for whatever reason, wanted to
keep this thing… a fling.

“He has plenty of reasons to come home,” she
said, busying herself with the basil. “This wonderful family, for
one.”

“Ehhh!” Nino waved a hand, then pushed
himself up, but needed the hand Sam automatically offered. “He’s
never really felt a part of this family.”

“Of course he does,” she replied. “He
probably just doesn’t show it like Vivi.”

“When those two were orphaned in Italy,” Nino
said. “I was given the greatest responsibility—and one of the
greatest joys—of my life. Their mother, Rossella, was my sister’s
daughter, and even though I moved to this country long before
Rossella was born, she was very important to me.”

Sam listened, the smell of the herbs and the
press of the sunshine making his story somehow more poignant.

“When the cancer took her, nine years after
her husband had been killed, I should have fought her will and let
them stay in their home country.” He blew out a low, sad sigh. “But
I didn’t because, frankly, I wanted them here. For Vivi, it was
good. She fit into the Rossi family like another one of the kids.
For Zach?” He shrugged. “He’s always been on the outside looking
in.”

She stole another look at the young man
standing lakeside now. “I think he could fit in anywhere, with
anyone,” she said. “He’s so confident and capable.”

Nino gave a wry smile. “Don’t be fooled by
all that bravado. He lost his father as a baby and his mother as a
child. Now he’s surrounded by death and dying in this war, his own
life on the line every time he puts on his boots and picks up a
gun.”

“I really don’t know him that well yet,” she
admitted.

“All you need to know,” Nino said, placing
the basil in her palm and closing her fingers over it, “is that
Zaccaria Angelino is capable of great love. He just doesn’t realize
it.”

Her heart stuttered around a little as she
smiled at him. “Really, Nino, we just met less than two weeks
ago.”

“Great love,” he repeated. “You just have to
be patient.”

She turned to look at Zach, who strode up the
hill toward them, his hands still in his pockets, his attention
riveted on Samantha now. Her whole body warmed at the sight of him,
and she knew—just knew—it wasn’t purely a physical reaction. Not
for her.

“He’s worth the wait,” Nino said.

“I know that,” she said softly.

“
La fidanzata
.”

“Excuse me?” The Italian word had gone right
by her. “I didn’t understand that.”

But Nino just smiled. “Some day you
will.”

# # #

Over Sam’s head, Zach was only able to see
the blue numbers of the alarm clock with one eye. But that was all
he needed to watch them progress, minute by minute, second by
second, from 3:18 when she had finally fallen asleep in his arms
until now, 4:57.

In three minutes he would find the strength
to separate his hand from the much smaller one he held fisted
against his chest. He would lift his head from this pillow and, for
the last time, inhale the citrusy scent that always clung to her
hair like she’d washed it in lemon juice. He would pull his body
away from hers, the imprint of her skin forever in his memory.

And he would go to war, a different man than
the one who’d left Baghdad four months ago.

This was never supposed to happen, damn it.
The thought made him tighten his grip on Sam’s hand and she rustled
the sheets, adjusting her body so her backside curved into his
stomach even more perfectly.

He wasn’t supposed to do anything during this
leave but rest and recuperate, readying himself for the toughest
assignment he’d ever face. This time he’d be in charge of four
squads, with the job of supporting Delta ops and Navy SEALs to
clean out al-Qaida caves and safe houses. Death around every
corner, behind every wall. Death.

He blinked at the clock. 4:59.

Without really moving, he pressed his lips
against the cornsilk of her hair, the insane softness of it almost
making him shudder.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Sammi with
her hair and her wit, with her smartass quips that made him laugh
and her flat-out sexy mouth that made him come like a freight train
without brakes. He’d never known a woman could be so compatible, so
comfortable, so… perfect.

Would she wait for him? Of course, he knew
the answer—knew it like he knew his name. But… what if he never
came home?

The very real possibility weighed on his
heart, an anvil of worry. He imagined her counting days on the
calendar, giving up dates with perfectly nice guys in order to wait
for his infrequent calls, having even less of a life than her
career as an advertising exec workaholic afforded her now.

Could he do that to her? Jesus, could he
not
?

He opened his eyes. 5:00.

Time to start the trip that began in an hour
and ended God knew when… however many hours it would take to get
from here to Benning to Bragg to Frankfurt to Kuwait to…

He hadn’t even told her where he was going.
And he wouldn’t. Not until he got back.

And he would get back, he decided, lurching
backward to break the seal that held them with the same force and
speed he’d rip a bandage off a wound. She startled at the
separation, turning with a sigh.

“Is it time?” she asked, sleepy-voiced.

“Shhh.” He kissed her cheek softly. “Go back
to sleep. I’m going to take a shower.”

Like he weighed a thousand tons, he dragged
his body from the bed, heading to the bathroom without even turning
on the light. He flipped on the shower water and stepped in while
it was still ice cold, the punishing spray needling his skin.

Awake, alert, and clean in under a minute, he
twisted the knobs just as the water was starting to warm up. And he
froze at the sound of a soft sob from the bed.

He took a step closer, but didn’t say
anything, his night vision strong enough to see her curled in the
bed, her arms around the pillow, her face buried to muffle sound,
shoulders shaking as she wept.

This. Damn it,
this
. Was. Not.
Supposed. To. Happen.

“I love you, Zach.” The words were mumbled,
sobbed into the down pillow and ragged with tears. She lifted her
head with a gasp, suddenly realizing he was in the room.
“Zach?”

“Yeah?”

For a second, silence, then, “Did you hear
me?”

He just stood there, dripping, cold, helpless
to stop what he never should have started. The least he could do
was… not make it worse. Not make promises that some suicide bomber
could make damn sure he didn’t keep. The least he could do was…
lie.

“No. Did you say something?”

She fell back on the pillow. “No.”

He dressed quickly, in silence, in uniform.
His bag was already packed and by the door. All that was left was
goodbye.

He sat in the only chair, facing the bed to
stick his feet in the boots that would, in a few days, march
through dust and climb onto Humvees and run from exploding
devices.

As he tied the laces, he heard the sheets
rustle. She was sitting up, the covers wrapped around her, hair
everywhere, legs peeking out from the bottom of the sheet, the
first fingers of dawn breaking through the blinds to highlight her
beauty.

He took a minute to snap a mental picture.
That one would pass some miserable nights in Iraq.

“Zach?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”