He looked at her sideways. “I wanted to buy you a present. But C.J. wasn’t as enthused about that.”
“No kidding.” Cari laughed again. She shook her head of wet curls. “You don’t have to buy me any presents,” she told him. “Just being here, taking care of Jamie, is enough.”
He smiled as though he enjoyed her laughter. “The whole time, I wanted to be back here with you,” he said softly.
She rolled her eyes. “Right.” She turned away, bouncing Jamie in her arms.
“No, really. You don’t believe that?”
Looking back at him, she flushed. She could see his honesty in his eyes. Yes, she believed it. But still, she didn’t trust it. She sighed, remembering the morning kiss. If she didn’t take care, they would be right back there again. She could see it in his eyes.
“Max, we have to talk.”
“About not getting involved?” he asked gruffly.
She looked at him, marveling. What—did he read her mind?
“Exactly.” She shook her head. “Especially if you’re going to be marrying C.J. for heaven’s sake.”
“Marrying C.J.” Slumping down onto the couch, he groaned, his head in his hands. “It’s not going to be as easy as it seemed from a distance.”
“You don’t seem to like her very much.”
“You can tell, can you?” He looked up, adorably cha-grinned, with his beautiful black hair falling over his eyes. “It’s not really fair to say I don’t like her. She’s okay. For someone.” He chuckled suddenly. “Randy, for instance.”
She agreed, smiling. “He does seem to have a major crush there.”
“Oh, yeah. He can’t take his eyes off her.”
She threw a hand up in the air. “Then let him marry her.”
“Good idea. One flaw. That doesn’t get me the ranch.”
She dropped down beside him on the couch, sitting with her feet up on the coffee table and Jamie propped by her legs. The baby laughed at them both and they played with him for a moment. Then she turned to Max.
“Are you seriously considering marrying her just for her ranch?” It did seem a bit of a stretch.
“Yes, I am.”
That was like a knife through her heart, though she knew it shouldn’t matter to her at all.
“Why?”
He looked at her, his eyes clear and determined. “For my mother’s sake.”
He’d said something along these lines before but she had a hard time buying it. “Your mother tells you whom to marry?”
“No.” He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
She shrugged. “You got that right.”
“Okay. I will try to explain.”
“Please do.”
He sat very still for a moment. She waited, her heart beating just a bit faster, anticipating what he might tell her. She knew it would involve heartbreak. When reasons seemed irrational, heartbreak was usually lurking somewhere in the mix.
“My brother, Gino, the one who died recently, he was just the best.”
Max moved restlessly and Cari could see that this wasn’t going to be easy for him to get through. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. She resisted the impulse to reach out and run her fingers through his thick, lustrous hair.
“Gino did everything right. He was a skiing champion and a world-class swimmer. He danced like Fred Astaire and sang like Caruso. He was smart and good at business. He turned a small pair of cafés he took over when my uncle died into a major chain with restaurants all over Europe. He was handsome and loving, the sort of man whose smile was always his first reaction.” His voice cracked, but he went on. “He was flawless.”
Her breath caught in her throat. She gazed at Max with a compassion that threatened to overwhelm her.
“It’s so tragic that you lost him.”
“Yes.” Clearing his throat, he looked up at her, his eyes dark and troubled. “But for my mother, it was more than tragedy. It was the end of her life.”
Cari shook her head, confused. “But she still has you.”
He nodded, but there was something that looked like anguish in his face. “Yes. Of course. But you see, it was Gino that she …” His voice trailed off and he looked away. For a moment he couldn’t say the words. “Gino was the oldest, and he and my mother had a special bond. Gino was her helper when she went through some very bad things. I was too young to understand at the time, too young to be of much help. Gino was her right arm. When my father left her, she always said she couldn’t have survived without Gino.”
Cari frowned. She didn’t really understand this. He was implying that his mother loved his brother more than anyone or anything—even Max himself. And yet she couldn’t detect a bit of bitterness in him. He seemed to accept it in a way she’d never seen before. She didn’t get it.
“Are you telling me you didn’t resent her attitude?”
He looked up, shocked. “Resent it? Not at all. I felt the same way about him that she did. He was my best friend. He was my idol, my mentor, my guiding star. I would have given my life to save his.”
Cari was struck by a sense of admiration. She wasn’t used to a man who could put others before himself quite this way.
Brian had lived on bitterness. He always thought everyone he dealt with was out to cheat him and he tried to cheat them first, just to protect himself from their schemes. It had been hard to try to get him to see that others weren’t really against him, because every attempt she made to do that just cast her in the role of his enemy, and he would accuse her of doing it, too.
Poor Brian. Now, at this distance, she could pity him. At the time, understanding had been harder to come by.
“My brother died trying out an experimental small plane. He was considering investing in the company that made it. It was a tremendous blow to us all, but to my mother, it was the end of her world. I had to have her closest servants watch her night and day to make sure she didn’t take her own life. My heart was already broken by the death of my brother, but every time I saw the tragedy in her face, my heart would break again. I resolved that I would do anything—anything I could think of, to bring back her smile.”
“And you think getting the ranch will do that?”
“Yes.” He straightened and looked her full in the face. “I know it will. You see, her family settled the area where the Triple M Ranch is located in the nineteenth century. Her great-grandfather cleared the land. Her grandfather started the first profitable herd. She grew up on that ranch.” He shook his head and his voice turned a little bitter. “And it was her own father who gambled away the family fortune and sold the ranch to C.J.’s father to keep from going to prison.”
“I see.”
“From the time I was a little boy, I was raised on stories of the Triple M. It just tortured my mother to think it was in C.J.’s family’s hands instead of where it belonged. C.J.’s mother, Betty Jean, was my mother’s best friend, but when C.J.’s father took over the ranch and then married Betty Jean, they broke all ties. My mother went to Europe and met and married my father. But she never got over losing the ranch.”
“I think I’m beginning to understand some of the intensity here,” Cari said tentatively, watching Jamie fall asleep propped against her legs. “But it still seems a bit extreme. Maybe it’s an Italian thing?”
“My