Valentine's Day. Nicola Marsh

      But aloud he said, “The ranch you live on, of course.”

      She shook her head. What in the world had Mara told this man in order to get him to spend an evening with her? She knew her friend was subject to occasional flights of imagination, gilding the lily, so to speak, but this was ridiculous.

      “I don’t live on a ranch,” she told him firmly. He might as well know the truth.

      “Ah. I suppose you’re just a normal, everyday Texas girl.” His voice belied his words. His sarcasm was showing.

      But she nodded vigorously, becoming exasperated. “Yes, I am.”

      He chuckled. “What is it with you Texans? The popular myth is that you’re all such big talkers, but all the Texans I meet are always trying to pretend they’re just average folks, no matter how filthy rich they are or how much land they own.”

      She was at a loss. Surely Mara hadn’t pretended she was from a wealthy family—a wealthy ranching family. Mara knew better.

      “But we are mostly just average folks,” she said defensively.

      “Hah. Se non è vero, è ben trovato.”

      The things he was saying were odd enough, but even odder was the fact that she was beginning to detect what sounded like a faint Italian accent, and that last outburst seemed to seal the deal.

      “You know something?” she said accusingly. “You don’t sound like a Texan.”

      “Grazie,” he replied with a casual shrug. “I’m only half-Texan, after all. I hope you can forgive my mistakes.”

      “Oh.” Half-Texan! And the other half was evidently Italian. How had Mara missed that tiny detail? She bit her lip, wondering if she’d offended him.

      “So what did it mean, what you said a minute ago?”

      He smiled at her. “I said it’s a good story, even if it isn’t true.”

      Before she could express fresh outrage, his phone chimed. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen.

      “It’s my mother,” he said, sounding surprised as he pulled over to the side of the road. “She’s calling from Venice.” He flipped his mobile open.

      “Your mother?” Cari gaped at him. She’d heard Italian men were attached to their mothers, but this was ridiculous.

      “Sì, Mama.”

      He said something into the phone in what she assumed was Italian. It sounded like Italian. It even looked like Italian. Cari couldn’t catch anything she recognized, but she watched the whole thing, fascinated. There was a lot of near-shouting and gesticulating, and suddenly he pulled the phone away from his ear and said, “Would you like to speak to my mother?”

      She gazed at him in horror. His mother? Why on earth would she want to speak to his mother? What would she say?

      “Not really,” she said, shaking her head vehemently.

      He said something else in Italian and clicked the phone shut. Turning, he eyed her narrowly.

      “So the old resentments still live, do they?” he noted, his gaze pinning her to the back of the seat with its dark, stormy intensity.

      “What are you talking about?”

      “The fact that you wouldn’t speak to my mother.”

      Oh, this was just too rich. She’d signed on for a few hours of hopefully friendly conversation with a strange man, meal included, and that was about it. There had been no extended-family privileges implied in the deal. Now she was getting annoyed. Really annoyed.

      “What am I supposed to talk to your mother about?” she asked heatedly, then waved a hand in the air. “I suppose I could give her a critique of how her son handles blind dates. But I’d hate to be insulting at this early stage of the evening.”

      He laughed, his gaze traveling over her face appreciatively. She glared at him.

      “But listen,” he said, his grin changing to a thoughtful frown. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. She says someone called and left a message that I was late to meet you.” He shrugged, making a face and looking at her for confirmation. “I wasn’t late. I was early.”

      She held his gaze. “You were late.”

      His frown deepened. “So you were already calling people and complaining that I wasn’t there as early as you were?”

      “I didn’t call anyone.” She couldn’t have called anyone. She had a sudden picture of her phone, attached to the battery charger, still sitting on her kitchen counter where she’d left it. Darn. That made her feel naked and unprotected. A girl needed a good phone, especially when she was on a crazy and confusing blind date like this one.

      “Well, somebody knew about it and called my mother.”

      Cari began to feel as though she were on a rapidly moving merry-go-round with oddly formed horses and scary faces leering at her out of the shadows. This entire date was becoming more and more surreal.

      “Let me get this straight. Your mother’s in Italy. Why does she care about whether you were on time to meet me or not?”

      He gave her a slow smile and a long look, one that made her feel strangely languorous. Funny, despite how annoyed she was, she had to admit this was one sexy man. Given a chance, he could turn on the charm and wipe away most of her irritation.

      “Because she’s a caring person,” he said smoothly. “And she wants us to get along well. For old-time’s sake.”

      As she puzzled that over, his phone rang again. Max saw that it was Tito and barked, “Go,” into the receiver.

      “Where are you?”

      “About a block away. I’ll be there in a minute.” He glanced at Cari. She seemed absorbed in the view outside her window. “Does Sheila know I’m coming?” he asked softly.

      “Well, no.”

      “Why haven’t you told her?”

      “Well…”

      “Have you filled her in on the parameters of the situation?”

      “Actually, no.”

      “Why not?”

      “Listen, boss, like I told you, she’s not exactly here.”

      “But you said…”

      “The baby’s here.”

      That struck him like a thunderbolt. The whole point of this operation had been to find the baby. Gino’s baby. Finding Sheila was secondary, but he hadn’t expected them to be separated.

      “I’m almost there,” he said, signing off and dropping the mobile into the center bay. He turned to look at Cari. Why had he brought her along again? Hmm.

      “Where are we going?” she asked, thinking maybe she should have established things like this before she’d agreed to go along with him.

      “To take care of some…personal concerns.” He put the car in gear. He’d thought he was going to be confronting his brother’s ex-girlfriend, trying to get the truth out of her as to whether she’d had a baby with Gino. Now he knew she wasn’t there. But a baby was. What did that mean? He was going to assume the baby was Gino’s until someone proved different.

      Turning to check for traffic, he pulled the car back into action.

      “It should be right around this next corner. Ah, here it is.”

      “This is it?” Cari gazed at the run-down apartment building and frowned. Loud music was coming from an upper bank of windows. A dog was rummaging in a pile of papers near the entryway. One of the streetlights was broken, casting a pall