Reckless Night in Rio Read online

  “You’re a furnace,” Gabriel said with a laugh as he pulled away. Then he smiled. “I think the baby is glad to be home.”

  “So am I,” she said, then laughed. “For one thing, you won’t be trying to throw yourself in front of trucks, trying to protect me on the crosswalk.”

  “Fifth Avenue is insane,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, all those crazed tourists and limo drivers,” she teased. Turning, she started to walk toward the front steps. She was excited to see Robby, after his first overnight apart from them. He’d had two loving babysitters fighting over him, Grandma Ruth and nanny Maria. “Thanks for a lovely night. It was nice.”

  “Yeah.” Lifting a dark eyebrow, he grinned wickedly, clearly remembering their time alone together in front of the fire last night.

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “I meant with the girls.”

  “Right.” He cleared his throat. “Your sisters seem to be settling well. It’s the first time I’ve seen them since they started college.”

  “You’re not in New York very much these days,” she teased.

  “I have better things to do than work,” he growled. “Like make love to my beautiful wife.” Grabbing her again by the lapels of her warm camel-colored coat, he kissed her again, long and hard, before she pulled away.

  “You are insatiable!”

  He gave a dark, wicked grin. “I know.”

  A flash of heat went through her. After they’d married that blustery day in early March, he’d made love to her without protection for the first time. The sensation was so new to him that they hadn’t left the bed for a full week after their wedding. In some ways, Laura thought, she’d been his first, just as he’d been hers. And they’d gotten pregnant on their honeymoon.

  Laura put a hand on her jutting belly. Their baby, a little girl, was due in just a few weeks.

  “Thanks for moving up here,” she whispered. “I am so happy to be close to my family.”

  His eyes met hers. “So am I. And I have you to thank for that.”

  Maybe it was pregnancy hormones, but Laura still felt choked up every time she thought of the three girls now living in the same city, all going to college. Two of them were her sisters. Brainy Hattie had transferred to Columbia University, and eighteen-year-old Margaret had opted for NYU.

  But the greatest miracle of all—Gabriel’s young niece, Lola, was now at Barnard.

  Last spring, shortly after Laura had found out she was pregnant, she had tracked down Izadora, Lola’s mother, and invited their family to come up for a weekend visit to New Hampshire in the private jet. To Gabriel’s shock, they’d accepted.

  After twenty years, Gabriel had finally made peace with Izadora and met her American husband, a restaurant owner in Miami. Gabriel had hugged his young niece for the first time since she was a baby. And he’d convinced Izadora to allow him to create a trust fund for Lola. “It’s what Guilherme would have wanted,” he’d said gravely, and put like that, how could Izadora refuse? Lola was now at Barnard College studying art.

  “All this family around us.” Wiping away her tears with a laugh, Laura shook her head and teased, “And you paying for three students at college already. Robby will probably want med school. And now this little one. Are you sure you’re ready for more?”

  Gabriel put his hands on her swelling belly beneath her long T-shirt. At nearly nine months along, she could no longer button her wool coat. Half the time she was too hot to wear it, anyway. “Just a few weeks now,” he whispered. Dropping to one knee, he impulsively kissed her belly.

  “Gabriel!” she gasped with a laugh, glancing up at the big windows of the house.

  Her husband looked up at her. His eyes glowed with tenderness and love. “I’ll be here this time, querida,” he said in a low voice. “Every step of the way.”

  “I know,” she said, her throat choking with tears of joy. Tugging him to his feet, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. And as the cold wind blew, carrying dry leaves down their long driveway, she felt only warmth and love in the fire of their embrace.

  And Laura knew two things.

  The fire between them would always last.

  And second, that they had an excellent chance of filling all forty rooms.

  ISBN: 978-14592-0792-9

  RECKLESS NIGHT IN RIO

  First North American Publication 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Jennie Lucas

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