Miracle for the Girl Next Door / Mother of the Bride: Miracle for the Girl Next Door

Clara preferred not to look like anyone else, but since film stars made up part of his world she had to assume he’d just bestowed a serious compliment on her. “No. I had no idea. Have you met her?”

He gave a slight nod. “You’re much more beautiful.” His white smile faded and he stared at her with increasing intensity. “What happened to your long hair?”

The hair she’d foolishly hoped would hide the rest of her?

Surprised he’d noticed, let alone changed the subject so fast, she said, “This April has been warmer than usual. Besides, I was due for a change.” Her silky hair, more black than brown, had become too difficult to deal with recently so she’d had it cut in a jaw-length style that fell straight from a center part.

“I liked it long, not that I don’t like it the way you’re wearing it now, of course.”

“Of course,” she teased, wishing she felt better, stronger. “I notice you’re wearing your hair shorter these days.” His midnight-brown hair was now wavy rather than curly. “Remember when you let it grow out to your shoulders? Signor Cavallo thought you’d be perfect for the role of Prince Valiant in the school play.”

A rumble of laughter came out of him. “Are you talking about the time you denuded me?”

“That was your fault. You’re the one who made me cut your hair off so you wouldn’t have to be in King Arthur. Can I help it if I made a mess of it? Those poultry shears from your father’s restaurant kitchen weren’t supposed to be used on humans. I thought Signor Cavallo was going to strangle you when you walked in class the next day.”

His grin broadened. “With your help, I got out of the part. What would I have done without you always helping me squeeze out of trouble?”

“Aminta almost strangled me when you told her I was the culprit. She had the most terrible crush on you. Even back then you could have your choice of every maiden in the land.”

“Tonight I choose you,” he said in a voice of deep velvet. “For old times’ sake, come to the restaurant with me and we’ll celebrate my return.”

“To sneak some bruschetta when the chef isn’t looking?” She kept up the banter. There was no one more exciting in this world than Valentino. “Those were the days, but we can’t get them back.”

“No, but there’s something we can do. Tonight’s your lucky night. For a change we’ll walk through the front door and I’ll buy you dinner. Everything up front and aboveboard.”

His invitation sounded heavenly, but she was growing weaker by the minute. “That would be a change all right, but, much as I’d love to, I can’t. Thank you anyway. It’s been wonderful to see you, Valentino.”

Over his shoulder she saw the bus pull to a stop. She was thankful it had come to her rescue. Seeing Valentino after all these years had brought back the past and drained her of any reserves she had left. Several people started to board the bus and she moved to get in line behind them.

He put a hand on her arm to detain her. “Wait—where are you going?” She discovered a strange tension coming from him she’d never experienced before. Something was troubling him to produce that slight grimace, but she had to admit the years had been kind to him. Despite the lines of experience in a sun-bronzed face—or perhaps because of them—he was more dashing than ever. No other man came close.

“Home. The family’s waiting for me.”

“But I just got into town. We have years to catch up on. Is this evening an important occasion? I know it’s not your birthday.”

He might have forgotten her for nine years, but his razor-sharp memory had an amazing capacity for trivia. Valentino would keep it up until she capitulated. He never did know when to quit, but this was one time Clara couldn’t stay around while he managed to talk her into it. She was embarrassed to admit he’d always been able to get her to do what he wanted.

“Mamma has planned a special dinner for my grandmother. I promised to be on time to help.”

Again he looked mystified. “Then let me drive you. It will only take me five minutes to go for my Ferrari.”

That was too far away. Clara needed to sit down on that bus or she was going to faint from exhaustion. “Thanks for the offer, but my ride is here now. If you’re going to be in town for a few days, maybe I’ll see you whizzing around and we’ll grab a bite together. What color is your car?”

“Black,” he muttered.

“You once wanted a red one.”

“I did buy one, fire-engine red, but discovered I was somewhat a target for the police.”

“Well, you will insist on driving too fast. As I recall, you had the police chasing us on your scooter on a weekly basis at least! Sorry, but I have to run now. Ciao, Valentino.”

She eased away from him and climbed on board, grateful he’d finally let her go without saying anything else. Knowing him, he’d be gone from Monta Correnti by morning to make his next car rally here in Italy or England, probably accompanied by his latest girlfriend.

Clara had seen a clip of him and the newest young French starlet Giselle Artois on the ten o’clock news last month. The journalist had asked him if it was true about the rumors they were planning to marry and settle down in a small palace along one of the fashionable faubourgs of Paris.

He had made a noncommittal remark with his breathtaking half-smile, but Clara had noticed the French vedette wore a mysterious smile on her face. They looked good together. Maybe this was the woman who’d finally snagged Valentino. Up until now he seemed to try new adventures and change girlfriends with the seasons, but whatever had caused him to run from himself all these years, it was nothing to do with Clara.

Taking a fortifying breath, she worked her way to the back of the bus. Every seat was taken and she finally squeezed in the last row between a stout man and a nun in her habit.

Out of the window on the right she watched Valentino watching her beneath his dark, furrowed brows, his expression devoid of all animation. After the bus pulled away, his brooding image remained. His lean, six-foot body had made millions for the companies that produced posters of him doing a solo trip across the Indian Ocean in a one-man catamaran, or flying around the track in Dubai testing out his latest Formula 1 car.

From childhood he’d been a fascinating adventurer who’d had an obsession with speed and breaking records. Though the Casali family had lived on the shores of Lake Clarissa, fifty kilometers from Monta Correnti, he’d actually spent most of his time in town after school working on his motor scooter.

One of his friends, Luigi, had let him tinker with it in the back of his dad’s garage. To hear Valentino speak, none of the existing models were fast enough. Clara had spent many hours in that garage listening to him talk about his dreams of building one that would outperform all existing models.

After he’d left for Monaco to break into the racing world, he’d taken his innovative motorscooter design with him and it had become the prototype for future scooters. By his twenty-first birthday he’d formed Violetta Rapidita, the Italian scooter company that had catapulted him to international financial success.

Long ago Clara had thought of him as a Renaissance man, pitting himself against the clock, against nature, against anything that would give him a thrill. By listening to him she’d experienced vicarious thrills herself, but there were times when she wondered if his fast living served as camouflage for unexplained demons driving him.

Though she didn’t know what they were, she suspected their roots originated from within the complicated Casali family and that they still continued to haunt him. It was interesting that his elder brother Cristiano didn’t come home to Monta Correnti very often either.

Only their sister Isabella had been the constant, spending most of her time at Rosa’s helping her father run the restaurant. How different was Valentino’s family from the huge, hard-working Rossetti clan who always rallied around each other!

She had countless aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins who helped run the farm, so many in fact you couldn’t count them all. Though they lived hand to mouth, even her own four married siblings showed no signs of leaving the farm that had been the hub of the Rossettis’ existence for generations.

Clara was no different. As hard as life had been lately, she loved Monta Correnti and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. But fate had been cruel to have allowed her to lay eyes on Valentino today.

Until he’d called out to her, she’d been holding her own, dealing with her challenges on a day-to-day basis, determined not to let them defeat her. But he was like this overpowering force field, a super-bright constellation in the heavens whose magnetic pull drew the world to him.

His appearance had managed to shatter the fragile shell of her existence. She rested her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes, tortured by her own inner demons that seemed to have magnified a hundredfold by running into him without warning.

The second the bus rounded the corner and was out of sight, a troubled Valentino moved swiftly toward the hub of the village where his father’s restaurant was located. Right next to it—in fact adjoining it by a back terrace—sat his aunt’s restaurant. The courtyard in front of both opened up into the bustling center square.

Sorella, a restaurant started by Valentino’s grandmother Rosa, was now owned by his aunt Lisa Firenzi who’d turned it into a chic, contemporary place serving an international cuisine. His father, Luca Casali, had fallen out with his sister and had broken away from the family business, starting his own Italian traditional family restaurant he’d named Rosa. Isabella was the day manager.

Valentino had kept in touch with her and their father through e-mails, but in the last nine years he’d only come home fleetingly. The most recent had been just last month on the occasion of his father’s birthday. Much to his sister’s chagrin he’d only stayed the evening.

Just remembering that fateful evening and the fireworks that had ensued caused him to shudder. He always experienced an unpleasant sensation in his gut at the thought that two warring factions of the same family would want to be anywhere near each other. Valentino abhorred confrontation and was continually mystified that two intelligent people like his father and his aunt Lisa, who’d had a jealous rivalry going for years, still maintained businesses side by side.

It was a sick kind of symbiosis. They were like organisms surviving in close approximation, not able to live with or without the other.

As he reached the courtyard he was reminded of the ugly confrontation that had gone on out here during the party. Tempers had flared. Uncaring of who might overhear them, his aunt had lost control. In her rage she’d blurted out a sensitive secret about Luca that had rocked the entire family.

Pain had gutted Valentino. Unable to deal with all the ramifications, not the least of which was his bitter disappointment in his father, he’d left Monta Correnti after having barely arrived not knowing when he’d ever be back. If it weren’t for his father’s declining health and Isabella’s plea for help with him, Valentino wouldn’t have canceled his next two races to be here now.

However, his overriding concern tonight had nothing to do with his father. After leaving the furnished villa he’d just rented at the upper end of the village, he’d been making his way down to the restaurant on foot, never dreaming he would run into Clara Rossetti within hours of arriving back in town.

Their chance meeting had saved him the trouble of looking her up at the farm. The knowledge that he could reconnect with her while he was in Monta Correnti had been the only thing he’d been looking forward to on his return.