After dinner, Benjamin had joined the men briefly for brandy and a thinly veiled interrogation by Maria’s father about his plans for the future. He’d escaped before the women joined them. Alone in his room, Benjamin struggled to concentrate on his work.
How had his fascination with Maria survived four months apart? Every time he assigned her to a box marked off-limits, too young, too headstrong—Domingo Galtero’s daughter to boot—he couldn’t stop thinking about the way her skin felt like fine velvet, her hair fell like black silk, her lips shimmered siren red. In truth, he admired her independent spirit.
The heavy table top clock ticked loudly on the dresser. Time neared midnight. Was Maria sleeping? Alone? Or rendezvousing with the Frenchman? Thoughts of her carrying on with another man didn’t sit well with him. Frustrated, he threw down his pencil.
Why didn’t he despise Maria’s sense of privilege? He imagined she easily achieved whatever she wanted through flirtation and manipulation, two traits he’d never respected, particularly in the opposite sex. So why did her efforts to flirt with him make him feel strangely flattered, amused, a rare compulsion to indulge and spoil her himself? She must be a master if he recognized what she was doing and still wanted to kiss her silly. Kiss her so deeply she forgot about any other man, including Pierre.
Checking the clock again, he determined everyone must have retired to their rooms. Hoping the hot Santa Ana winds might blow his brain clear, he left his room. Overheated, he decided against a robe. His cotton pajamas covering him as effectively as a shirt and jeans. Quietly, he ventured out into the hallway.
In the dark, he made his way down toward the library, which featured a wall of doors opening out onto a terrace overlooking the distant sea. It was an orderly room where he worked whenever he needed to spread out notes and maps. As the door to the library swung inward without a sound, Benjamin didn’t bother to turn on lights, making his way around familiar lumps of furniture to the French doors. To his surprise, one door lay cracked open. Had the wind blown it ajar?
Silently, Benjamin stepped out onto the terrace. An angel in a sheer peignoir over a white satin nightgown leaned out over the railing, staring up at thunderous clouds rolling across the night sky. Her long, dark braid created a contrasting line down her back. The winds had died down somewhat, but the peignoir’s delicate hem fluttered in the breeze.
Benjamin stifled a curse. Was Maria meeting the Frenchman for an illicit encounter?
Knowing of the danger of being alone with her himself, dressed in their nightwear, at this hour, he moved towards her like the proverbial moth to a flame, anyway.
As if sensing someone, Maria turned to face him, her face dark and mysterious in the shadows, her eyes as black as her hair, the moon and the view beyond hidden by thick clouds above merging with a heavy sea mist rising from below.
“Maria,” Ben greeted her with a tip of his head. She pulled her robe tight around her waist, but rather than hiding them, her actions only emphasized her feminine curves. His body reacted, his heart-rate speeding up.
“Benjamin,” she acknowledged him, her voice low and husky, and the urge to touch her became a clamoring need. Memories of their past kisses flashed fresh to the forefront of his mind. “Have you come out to watch the lightning and thunder, too?”
Maria curled one bare foot over the other below the loose hem of her nightgown and robe. He didn’t think he’d ever seen such dainty feet, her toes delicate and beautiful. Were they cold? He pictured himself carrying her into the library, setting her in his lap, and massaging them until they warmed.
“I was hoping for some fresh air.”
As a bright flash of lightning lit the sky, cutting through the clouds, she turned away. The damp air distilled the scents of sage, chaparral, and mesquite into something sweet and earthy.
“It won’t be fresh until the storm passes,” she said. “The air is too heavy.”
Apparently, they were going to have a civil conversation about the weather.
“The storm will bring the rain, now the winds have died down.” He joined her at the railing, their bare feet side-by-side. He noted his own feet were twice the length of hers. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. “It originated in the tropics before heading east across the Pacific,” he added lamely.
They turned and gazed out as another bright bolt of fire flashed down into the hills beyond the house.
“I hope we don’t have too much rain,” she said, continuing their polite discourse. “The local creeks are already near flood levels.”
“The ground was saturated along the channels where we made our inspections today,” Ben informed her. “The entire region might be looking at more than flooding. Landslides are a real danger.”
He grimaced out towards where the sea lay. Why could he chat casually with the blonde woman during dinner, but not with Maria?
“And fires, come summer,” she added. “There’s a lot of brush up in the hills. If this lightning sparks a flame, we might see hundreds of acres burn.”
She shifted her feet.
“Nature can be so terrifying, but we depend on it. My uncles welcome the rain for the orchards and the wells, but too much washes us away.”
“I’ll make sure you don’t end up swept downstream.”
As he cleared his throat, wondering what she was thinking, Maria peered up at him through her eyelashes.
“Is this a ceasefire, Benjamin? Where did you disappear to after dinner? You left the salon before the women joined the men.”
He worked to keep their encounter neutral.
“I’m here for work. I am grateful for your parent’s hospitality, the fine meals, and comfortable bed, but I am working on a project to control flooding.”
“You want to channel the river and creeks with ugly concrete.”
Ceasefire over.
“We want to prevent deadly flooding.”
Maria shrugged. “The rivers are beautiful, part of the landscape. Your work will turn them into cold, lifeless arteries, cut off from the plants and the animals.”
“To save human and livestock lives. Life is a compromise, Miss Galtero.”
She tipped her chin up. “You sound like a practical old man.”
He huffed out a laugh. “I was born practical. I’ve been practical all my life.”
They stood in silence, watching clouds roil across the black sky. She shifted her feet again.
“Am I delaying you from meeting someone?”
“What?” She sounded indignant. “No. Everyone is asleep. I didn’t expect to see anyone, especially you.” Some of the tightness in his chest eased. She wasn’t meeting the Frenchman.
“I’m not so old, you know,” he told her.
“Really? You act like an old person who lacks passion. You don’t appreciate nature.” She accused him. “You don’t appreciate art.”
“Wait a minute,” he countered. “You’re leaping to false conclusions. I said I didn’t agree with the monetary value society places on art, and humans are part of nature. But I care more about humans than I do whether riverbeds are made of mud or concrete.”
Benjamin put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. His voice dropped.
“And I have passion.” He didn’t quite keep the defensiveness out of his voice. Women he dated had called him cold-hearted, convenient accusations providing clean exits from those relationships, but some part of him didn’t want Maria to think him indifferent.
Her eyes were so dark, he couldn’t read them, but as she licked her lips, he couldn’t look away. Her face shifted from shy to coy. She’s manipulating me, he told himself. Trying to wind me around her finger, but he didn’t care. He wanted to be wrapped around her.
“Prove you are not as cold or rigid as those concrete waterways you’re going to build,” she challenged.
“Are you asking me to kiss you?”
He realized he’d begun caressing her shoulders over her peignoir. He slid a hand up to the chilled skin of her neck. The shock of bare skin touching bare skin electrified like being struck by lightning.
She looked away and back again, as if she couldn’t keep her eyes from him, either. Benjamin knew he should retreat to his room before this conversation devolved into an argument or another kiss. But he needed to know her answer.
“Are you cold right now?” She placed her hand on his bare chest, under his opened pajama top, and stroked him. His entire body hummed. If she looked down, she’d see his arousal pushing at the loose material of his pants. She looked down, and even in the low light he could see her cheeks darken.
He only had so much control, and what control he had proved tenuous with Maria. He couldn’t remember ever having such a visceral reaction to someone. She was a challenge on levels he didn’t understand. Even with more than a decade of experience, he suspected he was the one who knew less about emotions, about intimacy. His hands flexed as he fought the urge to pull her against him. Walk away, he told himself.
“I’m eternally frustrated around you,” he confessed.
“Kiss me and tell me if you’re still frustrated.”
He pulled her unresisting body forward the last few inches until she pressed tightly against him. He slid one hand to her braid and cupped her cheek with his other. She had already tipped her head up to meet him as he bent down to brush his lips lightly across hers. Once, twice.
He paused, their lips a breath apart.
“Such a polite kiss,” she whispered against his lips. “So controlled.”
Benjamin’s control collapsed.
He wrapped his left arm around her tiny waist and dragged her tight against his chest. Her soft form molded itself to his hardness. He kissed her insistently then, urging her lips to part, her mouth to open to his invasion. He tasted her, forgetting where they were, whose daughter she was.
Maria slid her arms up around his neck and returned his kiss. Passion? Maria personified passion. No wonder she found him lacking it, like wood, too damp to burn. It didn’t matter though, because she was hot enough to set him on fire. The winds whipped around them and they sank into each other, the weather a pale reflection of the ardor and excitement brewing within.
A loud crack of thunder interrupted their embrace. Reluctantly, Benjamin attempted to pull away. The clouds had parted to let the moonlight through, and in the sudden brightness, he saw her lust-hazed face, her half-closed eyes and swollen lips. As they both struggled to breathe, he suspected his expression mirrored hers. She clung to him and his hands cupped her derriere. He heard noises from inside the house, and cursed under his breath.
“You’d better go to your room.”
Maria stared up at him, looking dazed. He understood how she felt. He’d rarely been so affected by a kiss himself. Their attraction had grown while she was away, not diminished. Hell.
He shook her lightly. “Maria, go up to bed.”
“What’s going on out here?”
Benjamin froze.
Domingo Galtero stood at the entrance to the library, his eyes so much like Maria’s, but glittering with a father’s anger.
Benjamin moved protectively in front of Maria.
“Mr. Galtero.”
“Maria, go up to your room. Now.”
As Maria went around Benjamin, he worried for a moment her father might pose a danger to her. He knew plenty of men who thought nothing of hitting their children or a woman.
“Papa, I…”
“Now.”
Maria’s shoulders sagged, and she slipped past her father with a quick backwards glance of apology.
As Domingo stepped back into the room, the skies opened, unleashing the rain. Benjamin took a deep breath and followed him.
Domingo led him through the library and down the hall to another room Benjamin knew to be his personal office.
Once inside, he gestured to Benjamin to take a chair opposite his desk, before walking to the sideboard and pouring a finger of whiskey each into two glasses.
Benjamin accepted the tumbler and waited. Domingo took his time, tidying up the sideboard, carrying his own drink behind the desk, settling into his wingback chair.
“It seems, Benjamin, you and my daughter have developed a tendre for each other.”
What could Benjamin say? To admit anything less would be professional suicide. He’d be called back to San Francisco. Johnson might fire him. Besides. Domingo was right, at least about his attraction to Maria.
“We came across each other by chance tonight, both seeking a little fresh air.”
“It looked like you got more than fresh air.”
He couldn’t say Maria had dared him to kiss her. For some damned reason, protecting her mattered more than his own relationship with Domingo, even more than his relationship with his boss. Benjamin wondered for a moment whether Domingo got maneuvered into doing things he didn’t intend by his daughter. Would he understand? The man looked like he might pull out a pistol on him. Sitting across from Domingo in a room furnished a hundred years ago made the present moment blur with the past. The only way to salvage everything—Maria, the company project, his own job—was to offer for her.
“I’d like your blessing to marry your daughter. Sir.”
Domingo’s expression shifted so fast Benjamin wondered if he had feigned his anger. Had his pleased smile been lurking under the frown the entire time?
Domingo stood and stretched his drink towards Benjamin. Bemused, he clinked his glass against the older man’s before taking a sip, although Benjamin’s might have been more of a gulp for bravery.
Domingo settled back into his chair.
“I am pleased my impressions of you have been proven true. I hoped Maria might choose you over the French cake eater. The man doesn’t even ride horses or know a thing about cattle. Now, we must talk about a gift worthy of your impending nuptials.”
Domingo paused, studying the golden liquid in his glass before pinning Benjamin with his dark eyes. “How about a bit of land by the sea?”
Benjamin choked on his next drink. “Land?” For a moment, he’d forgotten how rich the Galteros were, and that another man—an aristocrat no less—courted Maria’s affections. He was here to acquire land for the water project, not for his own gain.
“My siblings and I have been parceling off land to our children,” Domingo continued, “and I want Maria to inherit a portion next to the coast, south of Laguna. She loves the sea, maybe more than art. You don’t know this yet—one of thousands of things you can look forward to learning about her—but she dreams of living down by the beach. You can build her a home there.”
Benjamin sat stiffly in his chair, already feeling the restraints of family obligations he’d escaped back in Montana. “I have a career in San Francisco, Mr. Galtero.”
“Domingo. After all, you will be my son-in-law.” He ignored Benjamin’s comment. “With a passion as deep as the one you and my daughter share, and with you staying here in the house, we do not want the wedding night to anticipate the ceremony. We’ll need to arrange for the ceremony as soon as possible.”
“But, my job—”
Domingo waved his hand casually in the air in a gesture reminding Benjamin of his daughter.
“Someone else can take over here, at least for a few weeks. Maria can’t live up north, or in Montana, and certainly not in France. Her mother would have my head. She’ll want to see her grandchildren regularly.”
Grandchildren? Dark suspicion reared up in Benjamin’s head. For whatever reason, it became clear Domingo liked the idea of Ben marrying Maria. His outrage over finding them in a compromising situation had been a bluff. Had Maria been party to it? His long-practiced cynicism roused. How many men had she kissed before? Then, he remembered how sweet her lips had been, how he’d had to coax her to open to him, and her surprise when he’d slipped his tongue into her mouth to tangle with hers. She was a fast learner, but she was an innocent.
Domingo stared from across his desk, then leaned back with a satisfied chuckle. What had he seen on Benjamin’s face?
“Something similar occurred with Maria’s mother,” he confessed, “but her father tried to keep us apart. I’d never do that to my daughter. Not when the man promises to be good to her. When people fall in love, nothing can stand in their way.”
Fall in love? Benjamin had never fallen in love. Not once. Not now. He drained his whiskey. But what was this sudden lightness in his chest at the idea of seeing Maria every day for the rest of his life?