The Vengeful Groom

Dear Reader,

When I left my home near Plymouth, England, and flew across the Atlantic to Massachusetts to research The Vengeful Groom, I imagined myself as nervous as any Pilgrim. I found woodlands, clapboard houses, glorious beaches and historic inns. “English” scenery, and yet everything felt so foreign.

I filmed, I researched, I learned new languages. Pudding is dessert, estate agents are Realtors, cafés are diners…. I also walked in Giovanni and Tina’s footsteps, living their lives, dreaming on beaches, talking to students, exploring mansions, a garage and small-town life. I visited Harvard and Boston’s Italian quarter.

There was also time for playing hooky—wandering the wilder shores of Cape Cod, boating up silvery rivers and across vast salt marshlands. At Plymouth Plantation, I told a costumed carpenter that he’d find old Plymouth much changed if he went back! We drew maps for each other in the dirt and talked about the Old World and the New.

I wasn’t as daring as the settlers who’d made the journey from England long ago, but I felt an affinity with them. I’d come from a great distance, with high hopes of adventure and a broadening of my world. I gained a deep respect and admiration for the American way of life—for its energy and enthusiasm and family values.

I think we need those strong, caring qualities in a marriage; Giovanni and Tina have them in The Vengeful Groom—a tough grit, a regard for family and a “can do” attitude. With a never-dying love for each other, they’ll be happy together for eternity. Hope you agree!

With affection,

Sara Wood

INVITATION TO ALL COUPLES IN LOVE

We, the citizens of Eternity, take great pleasure in inviting you to hold your wedding at the Powell Chapel. Remember the legend: Those who exchange their vows in the chapel will remain together for the rest of their lives.

So let us help plan your special day. We’ve been making dreams come true for more than a hundred years.

Weddings, Inc.

Eternity Massachusetts

Weddings, Inc.

Directory

Your guide to the perfect Happily-Ever-After

BRIDAL CONSULTANT…. Bronwyn Powell

INVITATIONS & STATIONERY…. Jennifer Thompson

ANTIQUES & GIFTS…. Patience Powell

HAIR SALON…. Dodie Gibson

CATERER…. Manuel Silva

BRIDAL GOWNS…. Emma Webster

FLORIST…. Julianna Van Bassen, Marguerite Van Bassen

LIMOS…. Daniel Murphy

RECEPTION/ ACCOMMODATION…. Lincoln Mathews

TRAVEL AGENCY…. Jacqui Bertrand

PHOTOGRAPHER…. Sarah Powell

LINGERIE, ETC. ….. Christine Bowman

JEWELRY…. Marion Kent

BAKERY…. Lucy Franco

GIFTS…. Jean Stanford

FABRIC…. Marg Chisolm

SHOES…. David Guest

BAND…. Kerry Muldoon

The Vengeful Groom

Sara Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For David Santa Maria, who helped me build the True Love Ranch

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

SHE OUGHT to go over there. Even a Lamborghini could break down—otherwise why would that guy be lying underneath it? Tina shut the apartment door, mesmerized by the seductive lines of the dark green automobile on the derelict lot next door. From beneath the megasize front bumper emerged a pair of leather shoes and a small pool of oil.

Man at work, she thought in amusement, and there was the obligatory crowd—almost a dozen students! Though why the guy had run the car up the clamshell path and parked by the ruined barn, she couldn’t imagine. Her grandfather’s garage stood within pushing distance.

With a quick gesture, she thrust back the disorderly chunks of black hair that had flopped into her eyes from the dash downstairs and contemplated leaving the Lamborghini owner to cope. A slow smile curved the poppy red of her mouth as she speculated on the shock the poor guy must be in!

She could ignore his predicament since her grandfather had ordered her to concentrate on her own pleasures for once and let everything else go hang. Since he’d taken Adriana away on an extended birthday treat, the weekend didn’t involve planning a whole heap of the enriching experiences Adriana needed if she was to progress. Although Tina loved them—from the hilarious cooking sessions at breakfast to the stories she read at night to help Adriana unwind—it meant she never had a moment to herself.

Today she was as free as a bird, with nothing to concern her but which pickle to put on her sandwich. She’d felt a little guilty, a little lost, that morning. Scrambling into her T-shirt and shorts, she’d realized she needn’t hurry for once. No dependents. No detailed planning. No mental exertion. No dealing with emotional dramas. Bliss!

Seven-fifteen. The part-timers would arrive at the garage in half an hour. And business was business. She clambered over the picket fence and strolled toward the students.

“Hi, everyone,” she called amiably.

“Hi, Miss Murphy!” they answered with enthusiasm.

She beamed back and found she had to stretch all of her curvy five-foot-two frame to get a glimpse of the low-slung auto above the milling heads.

“Are you guys studying chiropody this term, or is this a customer for my grandpa?” she asked, nodding in amusement at the leather soles sticking out from beneath the car. To her surprise, the feet wagged as if they enjoyed the feeble joke.

“More’n that, Miss Murphy! Come see!” cried Josh Davis, good-naturedly shoving his neighbors in all directions to clear a space for her.

“Oh, boy!” she murmured in approval, running a connoisseur’s eye over the auto. It would snarl and roar and overtake everything in sight, leaving a choking cloud of dust behind. She smiled. “Grandpa will die to hear he’s missed it!”

“Yeah. Awesome,” breathed Josh. “It’s a Countach! Smooth!”

“As silk,” she agreed fervently, her fingers reaching out with due respect to stroke the satiny finish on the curvaceous bodywork. She loved to touch sensuous objects. She leaned over and sniffed the leather interior. Wonderfully evocative. And then she frowned faintly. Cream linen pants weren’t the most likely gear for wriggling under low-slung cars. How very odd.

It dawned on her that Mr. Rich-in-Trouble had chosen that spot in the sunken path of the garden so he could shoehorn himself beneath the hood and work on the underside. Doing what? she wondered, a little baffled over the limited possibilities. Intrigued, she studied the pool of oil and concluded that it looked rather…arranged.

Lisa Powell distracted her from the mystery. “And sexy,” she sighed dreamily. “Moves like molasses.”

“The car?” murmured Tina dryly.

“No! Him.” Lisa sighed, gazing at the few inches of linen-clad shins as though she coveted everything above and below. “Sex appeal,” she announced with all the assurance of a sixteen-year-old, “is a matter of body language. And eyes that melt tarmac.”

“No wonder he’s got a hole in his car,” said Tina gravely. The students all laughed and the feet did their annoying jiggle. “Since you never mentioned you’ve got X-ray vision on your profile forms for college, Lisa,” she added with a grin, “I suppose you watched the guy slide under there.”

“Yes, and wait till he slides out again!” Lisa gloated. “He’s very exotic. Or do I mean erotic? And his hair is the most extraordinary white-blond…”

Giovanni, Tina thought at once, his name shocking her with its sudden arrival in her head. Giovanni moved with an undeniably erotic grace, and his hair sat like whipped cream on his tanned Latin forehead, making a startling contrast.

Back came that star-burst moment when she’d fallen so helplessly in love with him. He’d walked into her class when she was an impressionable fourteen and he’d been a year older—a tall, graceful Polish-Sicilian from the back streets of Palermo, with pride and apprehension and defiance fighting in his expression.

“I prefer dark guys myself,” she stated emphatically, wrinkling her small nose.

“How’s it goin’, sir?” called Josh respectfully to the feet and cream pants.

“Great.”

The muffled reply came as a relief because it meant she didn’t need to hang around. But she couldn’t help wishing he was some rich guy who’d turned up to buy the garage. Then her grandfather could retire and stop creaking himself into gear every morning. Even with the part-timers and guys on school placement sharing the work, he ended up exhausted. Having Adriana around with her innocent demands didn’t help, however much happiness she brought.

Tina’s expression grew soft and affectionate when she scanned the small Murphy’s Garage, with their cramped apartment above and a For Sale sign in front. Then her gaze returned to the burned-out buildings of the derelict Alden place a few yards away. Brent Powell—now Josh’s stepfather, she reminded herself—had nearly lost his life in the fire there a couple of years ago. A terrible scene, an awful memory.

It was a scandal that the old colonial house and outbuildings were still standing in ruins and that the town couldn’t enforce the destruction order. The place was an eyesore, and the blackened timbers and collapsing clapboard facade had badly affected Grandpa’s asking price.

And then she gave a wry grin. She’d promised Grandpa she wouldn’t think of anyone but herself today, and already she’d checked on a crowd of students and a tinkering Lamborghini driver, and worried about selling the garage!

“Well, if everything’s okay, I’m off to pick up a picnic for the beach,” she said cheerfully. “Hang around, you guys. Awed hayseeds sometimes get dimes thrown to them!”

Lisa giggled. “I’m not going! Bet you’d stay, too, if you were sixteen.”

“You got it!” Tina admitted. “But I’m more than ten years beyond that sell-by date!” She grinned, knowing how old that must seem to Lisa. “Only a senior citizen with a decent pension would give me a passing glance now.”

Something hit her small sandaled foot. A silver coin. She blinked. “What the…?”

Everyone was laughing. “A dime for a hayseed, Miss Murphy!”

“It’s his pension—you hit the jackpot!” cried Josh.

“Then he’s got sound judgment,” she said simply.

The blueness of her eyes deepened with warmth at their laughter. She loved it that they could crack jokes together and that they regarded her as a friend. The relationship she’d evolved with them over the years had gotten to be as comfortable and familiar as an old sofa. Too comfortable sometimes, she thought ruefully; the students seemed to think she was available all hours of the day—and night. But then, they knew she’d move heaven and earth for them and she’d root for them till she dropped. Though, come a crunch, she could do some tough talking and deal with a drama or two.

A second coin landed on her red-painted toe. Fascinated, she pushed her hands into the pockets of her shorts. Skillful, she thought. He didn’t have much room to maneuver under there.

“I’m being targeted,” she marveled. “Hey. I’m a high school guidance counselor, not a slot machine!”

“He’s pretty accurate,” Brad Phister said admiringly.

“Perhaps he pitches for the Red Sox,” she suggested.

Feeling curious, she crouched down, tipping her head sideways in an attempt to see under the car. She got a view of a male body clad in discreetly toned cream, a hunky quarterback chest soaring up and preventing her from seeing beyond, and a bared flexing arm and the flash of a gold watch as another silver coin whizzed in her direction.

“Hi, there! You practicing stone skipping?” No answer. “Okay, I give up. What are you doing? Try dollar bills! I take credit cards! Gold!” she called, unable to keep the laughter from her voice. It was crazy! The guy still didn’t answer, and she stood up in puzzled defeat.

Then the glove-soft shoes shot forward, the girls taking in a collective breath as the long legs and slim hips of a young, athletic-looking male came into view. Rich, too, thought Tina, highly intrigued. Those immaculately pressed pants weren’t from a thrift shop. Her curiosity soared as questions of who, why and what skated around her brain.

Under her fascinated gaze, the discreet cream knees bent and the leather-clad heels propelled the body out a little more. Now they could all see that the guy had been lying on a proper mechanic’s trolley. The mystery deepened. A trolley wasn’t the kind of thing a rich man kept handy.

“I think he’s Italian,” stated Lisa, “despite the blond hair. Wait till you see his pecs!”

“Pecs? I’ve seen pecs,” said Tina mildly, but she stayed nevertheless, dying to know why a blond Italian would throw coins….

She took a step back in shock. Her small hand went to her brightly painted mouth. A blond Italian. Italian car. Italian shoes.

Oh, God!

Her skin paled beneath its tan, washed with gray from head to toe, her huge, dark-lashed eyes suddenly great sinking navy pools in her horrified face. Suddenly she didn’t want to stay around the dime-tossing stranger any longer. Just in case. Her heart stopped beating for a brief moment as the ground seemed to heave beneath her feet and she tried to steady herself.

It could well be Giovanni.

Hazily she focused on the feet, the legs, the dancer-slim hips. It couldn’t be. No, some other guy. Why had she thought of Gio? Her intuition had gone crazy. He could never afford to rent a Lamborghini, let alone buy one. Surely… She swallowed. No man in his position would want to come back. The shame, the accusing stares, the stony silence from everyone would be unbearable for him.

Yet there was the familiar thud in her chest that came when Giovanni was close, the melting of her body into a molten heap, ready to erupt when he touched her, spoke, fixed her with his brooding, heavy-lidded eyes.

Since his departure so long ago, nothing had changed the way she felt deep inside. A crowd of guys had dated her; a few had kissed her. She scowled, firmly pushing back the inevitable thought that none of them had taken her all the way to heaven the way Giovanni had.

Perhaps it was just as well. The lush red of her lips parted in a grimace of pain. Never again in her entire life did she want to feel that she was dying inside because of a man’s rejection and his casual betrayal. Or to realize that the man she’d loved was without honor or backbone. No wonder Gio’s adoring parents had disowned him!

She inhaled sharply, slamming the door on a pain ten years old. That was how you dealt with tragedy; when it was too huge, too hurtful to cope with, you eliminated it from your mind and threw yourself into work one hundred percent and made some kind of a life for yourself.

Her mouth trembled. Every now and then, a word, a gesture, the angle of a jaw or a word spoken on the television, caused her to learn the cruel lesson that her love for Giovanni had never faded; it was merely suppressed. Which made her a mindless fool, because only a mindless fool carried a torch for a cheat and a liar.

Men like Gio were virtually programmed to build up a woman’s hopes, to deceive and disappoint—then to vanish. He was a coward. No, worse than that, she thought unhappily. Much worse. As bad as a man could be.

She pressed a trembling hand against the cerulean blue of her T-shirt. Beneath her soft breath, her heart beat in an alarmingly erratic rhythm.

“Miss Murphy? You okay?”

“I…oh, too many waffles for breakfast,” she told Brad, taking a quick gulp of oxygen to fill her crushed lungs. “I’ll give the pecs a miss. They’re a dime a dozen now that everyone works out,” she continued hurriedly. “Ask him if they do Countachs in a ragtop!” Her attempt to sound casual began to fall apart. The feet and legs had edged forward ultraslowly, and the beefy torso was being revealed in all its masculine glory. Giovanni, her brain told her. “Have fun, you guys! Gotta go!” She whirled around, striding fast as a whippet toward the street.

To her acutely tuned ears came the rasping sound of trolley wheels on the clamshells. She hastily flung open the drunken gate and strode onto the sidewalk. “There’s no earthly reason that it should be him!” she muttered to herself. “None at all—”

“Teeenaaa!”

“Ohhhh!” she gasped.

Quickening her pace, she pretended she didn’t recognize the rich, rolling, elaborately drawn-out extension of the syllables of her name. But no one in the world except Giovanni had the ability to caress even the most ordinary word. Those lilting cadences, a rough edge and an Italian’s way with women had given him advantages over other men, and the easily won adoration had flawed him fatally. Women came willingly to his arms, she thought, sick at heart.

“Teeenaaa!”

Grim faced, she faked deafness and forged on till a painfully remembered musical whistle stopped her as dead as if she’d hit a brick wall. Their call!

Their secret call, when they’d needed one another. How could he? How could he? Emotions coursed through her in destructive waves. Love. Regret. Shame. Anger. And contempt by the bucket. Too much to cope with. Tina got her leaden feet working again, her mind still in turmoil. Giovanni! Not in a million years had she expected to see him again—or ever wanted to!

Why had he come? Her dazed mind whirled, seeking an explanation for his hiring an ostentatious car when it was unlikely he could afford such extravagances. He’d never made it to college, and there’d been that period in… Tina’s white teeth savaged her lower lip as she fought to keep her emotions under control. Jail. She’d said it. Jail had taken up two years of his life. Not much opportunity to make money with that track record.

Reluctantly she faced the truth she’d been avoiding. He’d sworn he’d return one day—and make everyone sit up and take notice.

An image burned itself in her mind. She closed her eyes briefly in anguish, but the image was even clearer, and when she snapped them open again he was still there—in court, just after the sentence had been read, his eyes flickering in malediction between her and her once-dear friend Beth, because they’d provided the evidence that had damned him.

“I’ll be back!” he’d yelled across the courtroom, her heart breaking at the way he’d struggled with the restraining officer. The hurt racked through her now and then; Gio had protested his innocence to the last and never admitted his guilt. “I swear to God you’ll all know when I’ve hit town!”

Ashen faced, Tina stepped up her pace, driving her wobbling legs toward the café a few hundred yards down the street. She wished it wasn’t Saturday, because only a handful of people were stirring—mainly students and those like herself who’d become accustomed to getting up for school at seven-thirty. She wanted crowds. The safety of numbers and friendly faces because that day in court was one she wanted to forget forever. And suddenly it was here and now, and she couldn’t bear it.

The whistle sounded again, louder, more imperious, as though she’d turn and run to him like some obedient dog. Her heart tripped a beat. He’d called her a bitch of the first order, his eyes glittering with hatred, the promise of retribution in every inch of his powerful body.

Sicilian vengeance. Cold, calculated, final.

And now he was here. Giovanni, having been brought up a Sicilian half his life, would be nursing a grudge he would take to the grave if it wasn’t satisfied. The past swept relentlessly into the present: everything she’d seen and felt that day in court, Gio’s black malevolent eyes, staring, condemning, the nervous sips she’d taken of the water they’d given her when her voice had failed, the physical sickness….

The wave of nausea now made her stumble. Hot, sweating, she recovered, thrust her hand through her hair and plunged blindly on. She’d gotten to the bank. Nearly up to the bridge, the café, the haven that lay inside.

By the time she crested the old bridge she was out of breath and could feel his presence close behind her like an evil force. Suddenly her legs lost their ability to move and her feet just gave up. She hung on to the parapet wall and looked down at her legs in bewilderment, willing them to obey her. Failing.

“Ciao, Tina,” Giovanni murmured, so softly, so slowly it could break a woman’s heart. “Ciao.”

Small flurries of nerves rippled right down to her bare and wriggling toes. The punch of pure delight had knocked her brain away and left space for her sensuality to flow unheeded. Her small hands screwed into tight hurting balls, because the old magic was still there despite everything he’d done, and her whole emotional inner world had roared into life. Tina gritted her teeth against the long-forgotten ability of her brain and physical body to melt when his voice caressed her in that sexy indolent way. It was nothing but a memory quirk. A cruel reflex action.

“Arrivederci!” she flung behind her shakily.

“Turn around, Tina. Allora, turn to me.”

The warm, languid and silken voice slid over her shoulder, shivering up her sensitive neck and then crawling over every inch of her body. And the memories flooded back like the remorseless tide, washing away all her flimsy barriers and leaving her stranded, high and dry, with only one focus. Giovanni.

Weakly she lifted her face to the early-morning warmth of the sun, and she could almost feel his firm dreamy mouth on hers, teaching her how to kiss, how to enjoy her body without shame. Dark with anger, her eyes narrowed. Of course he’d taught her that! Look what he’d gotten in return!

“I don’t want to see you. Or speak to you,” she said huskily. “I’m on my way to the café.” She was afraid, unwilling to look him in the eye. This was the man she’d loved, ached for. Betrayed.

“You might as well face me,” he drawled. “You can’t run from your mistakes forever.”

Stunned, she whirled around, every inch of her quivering with the injustice of his remark, her Irish temper flaring as she tasted in her throat the bitterness of her error in giving her love to a sham.

“You were my mistake, Gio! You were a mistake!” she cried incoherently. “It was a mistake that you were ever born!” With that, her hand swept up and connected with his sardonic mocking face in a resounding crack that went right through her, shuddering down into her bones. She uttered one strangled broken cry of horrified remorse and turned, planning to run, her mind reeling from the terrible image of Giovanni’s savage mouth, his malefic eyes, her fingers tingling from the electric sensation when they’d connected with warm satin skin clothing the rock of his jaw.

A huge hand closed on her slender arm, stopping her with its crushing force before she’d taken one faltering step. “That slap, Tina,” he said with a dangerous softness, “was your mistake.”

“Take your hand off me!” she said jerkily. Being touched by him was a shock. They were joined again, the tension between them firing her with a sensation of uncontainable volcanic energy. Appalled, she tugged at his hand, but it only tightened, drawing her closer, and she knew with sinking heart that she’d have to look in his accusing eyes again and face the situation.

She could deal with this. She wasn’t a guileless teenager any longer. She had a track record of dealing with trouble. Anyone who could handle unwanted pregnancies, knife fights and anxious parents could pull herself together and show a bit of cool in a crisis.