Feeling as if she’d accidentally dropped Jack straight into a shark tank, Mary stepped into the fray by gesturing to the three sets of sparkly heels on the wood-planked floor. “Looks like you have a big Friday night out planned?”

Janeen nodded, then looked back at Jack with a hopeful expression. “It’s a new club Yvette heard about from the photographer on her shoot today. You two should come with us.”

“I’m all danced out,” Jack said with a grin for Mary that brought back every wonderful moment of their impromptu dance in the rain. “But thank you.”

Mary watched Susan shoot the other girls a pointed glance. When Janeen and Yvette didn’t immediately understand, Susan did the world’s most obvious pantomime of Jack and Mary being a couple that included a heart drawn in the air and kissy motions with her lips.

“Oh,” Yvette said as she looked between them. “Of course, you two don’t want to go dancing with us.”

Janeen chimed in with, “We should probably let you two be alone now, shouldn’t we?”

What could Mary do but laugh as she turned on the kitchen tap? “I’m making coffee if you want some before you head out on the town.”

But the girls were now a blur as they strapped on their shoes, grabbed their coats and sparkly purses and headed for the door. “Thanks, Mary, but our dates have already been waiting for us for a while.”

Dates?

Mary followed them to the front door and caught them as they flitted down the front steps. “Be careful, and call me if you need anything. It doesn’t matter how late, I’ll come and bring you home.” Reminding herself that they were young, but that each of them had a good head on her shoulders, she added, “And have fun.”

A taxi immediately skidded to a stop for the three long-legged beauties and they blew her kisses as they got inside. “You, too!” Yvette called out before tucking her feet into the cab and closing the door.

Jack was laying both of their jackets over the radiator when Mary returned. She’d chosen the house not only for its views, but because she loved how big and open the rooms felt. Even with four people living in it, she never felt cramped. In fact, on nights like this when the girls went out, rather than appreciate the quiet, she often found herself counting the minutes until they returned with their noise and laughter and exuberance.

She’d made it sound to Jack as if she was looking after them, but the truth was they looked after her, too.

“Sorry about all of that. It can be a bit of a circus around here sometimes, especially on Friday nights.”

Jack was the first man she’d invited inside her house since moving in a month earlier. Seeing him looking so right in the midst of all the feminine disarray sent her thoughts into a different kind of disarray. What had she been doing before she’d rushed to see the girls off? Thankfully, the half-filled boiler of her moka pot beside the sink provided a clue.

Still feeling flustered as she went back to filling the boiler and then setting it on low heat on the stovetop, she decided to face the situation head-on. “I hope they didn’t make you uncomfortable. Especially,” she added with a small laugh, “with all their flirting.”

He laughed as he pulled up a seat at the bar. “They were charming, although I can see that they could certainly be a handful. I sometimes had trouble keeping a class of engineering undergrads from rioting in the middle of a lecture when I was a teaching assistant. My hat is off to you for taking on three energetic young women.”

She was still amazed that he hadn’t drooled over them the way men always did, especially when they’d been practically throwing themselves into his big, strong arms.

“Oh, we’ve had a riot or two around here in the past month,” Mary informed him as she inserted the funnel in the boiler, then filled it with espresso beans she had ground that morning. “Especially the night they were all fighting over the same worthless guy. I ended up banning all social activities for the rest of the week.” As she spoke she continued with the coffee preparations by screwing on the top container and watching as the coffee began to appear. “Of course, the girls are also a tremendous amount of fun.” Seeing that half the coffee had brewed already, she turned off the heat.

“I’ve never seen that kind of coffeepot. Is it from Italy?”

She nodded. “It’s called a moka pot.” She spelled out the word for him.

“Whenever you speak about Italy, your accent comes through.” His eyes were warm as he said to her, “Tell me about the country you were born in so I can hear it some more.”

She was a grown woman of thirty-two, not a naive teenage girl anymore. So how did Jack manage to make her blush so easily and so often?

“Much like the United States, Italy is a place with many different colors and textures. The golden ruins of Rome. The checkered Duomo of Florence. The canals and opulence of Venice.”

“It sounds wonderful.”

“It is,” she agreed. “And if you’re not careful,” she added with a laugh, “I’ll end up regaling you with stories of Italy like a travel agent all night long.”

“I’d like that,” he said, and then, “Especially if they're stories about your hometown.”

As always, just thinking about Rosciano sent feelings of conflict moving through her. On the one hand, she loved it like no other place on Earth.

On the other, it was where her heart had been broken for the very first time by the person who had mattered most to her.

“On warm summer evenings, the teenage girls flirt with the boys out by the fountain in the middle of the square.” She smiled as she told Jack, “Girls learn early in my town how to walk in heels on cobblestone streets without tripping. And once that flirting turns into something more, every couple in town marries in our church. As a little girl I would watch the beautiful women in their handmade wedding gowns. My mother made those gowns, and I used to help her even though I wasn't nearly as good a seamstress as she was.” Making herself focus on the other memories that were coming at her one after the other, she told him, “I used to love to watch the mustard grass bloom in the spring, the grapes growing plump in the summer, the vineyards turning color in the autumn. And Christmas was a time for celebration like none I’ve ever seen anywhere else.”

Realizing she was rambling, Mary stopped herself with a laugh that was a little bit hollow from speaking about her mother. “See, here I go acting like a travel agent, just like I said I would.”