Melinda Curtis

Michael's Father (Holt Medallian Winner & Golden Quill Finalist: Best First Book)

   "You're not happy to see me." Cori Sinclair could have sworn the house she'd grown up in stared down on her, dark and forbidding. "Maybe I'm not so happy to see you, either."

   It was a long time to be cast out of a family. Nearly five years had passed since that fateful day when her grandfather, Salvatore Messina, had issued his ultimatum - marry the man who no longer wanted her or tell him the name of Michael's father so her grandfather could ruin him. Cori wasn't ready to face her past, wasn't ready to step through the black, double doors into the depths of the three-story mansion with its multi-angled roof, dark-gray brick facings and coal shutters, wasn't ready to step away from the small freedom her dented yellow Mustang represented. Cori hadn't even been able to bring herself to park her car in the garage. She'd pulled up on the far side of the front entry as if she were a guest, then stood in the warm spring sun, waiting, fighting her dread and wondering.

    Home. After so long, Cori still thought of this as home.

    Cori bit her lip and, not for the first time that day, pondered her choice of attire. she'd wanted to wear something stylish and feminine for her mother, something to show her grandfather he didn't control her anymore.

    What had she been thinking to have donned the deep red, form-fitting sheath with its teasing neckline and short hem? Add the high-heeled, scalloped-edged scarlet pumps she'd slipped into upon her arrival and there was no way Cori looked as if she'd come home to fit in with her conservative winemaking family.

    But Cori wasn't here to fit in. She had to remember that. She was here to help Mama, not home to stay.

    The sound of a door being opened drew Cori's attention back to the house. She stiffened as she recognized the man closing the imposing front door.

    He looked up toward the driveway, freezing for a moment when Cori came into his line of vision. Then his chin dropped slightly and he stared at her in a way that made her feel she had his complete attention. The gesture was so familiar that Cori's heart immediately scaled up her throat. With effort, she forced herself to be calm, to look as if he was just another one of Messina Vineyard's field managers.

    Despite his bulky work boots, fluid strides carried him closer. her eyes drank in the changes to his body, easily discernible through his faded blue jeans and T-shirt. He'd filled out since she'd seen him last, but he was still lean and muscular. His red-brown hair, cut short on the sides, longer on top, glinted in the California afternoon sunlight.

    "Miss Sinclair." Blake Austin stopped five feet away from her, hands on his hips as if he owned the place.

    He was far enough away that she could tell things hadn't changed between them, but close enough for her to note how his ice-gray eyes stroked impassively over her red dress, down her legs to her pumps and back over her dress...pausing in the area of her cleavage.

    Maybe not so impassively.

    For once, those ten extra pregnancy pounds she hadn't shed didn't seem so bad. With more courage than she had felt moments before, Cori met the gaze of Michael's father. She was, after all, the woman in red.