She picked up the beautiful book and leafed through the pages that shone with love and care. The delicate line drawings revealed such a different side to the gruff landowner she remembered, the man who’d made her mother happy.

And now that she thought about it, maybe her mother had tried to tell her about her late-in-life love. Snatches of fond conversation, chivalrous visits from “the boss,” the new grove of trees, a new light in her mom’s eyes…

And dismissive teenaged put-downs from Anna’s own lips. The voice of insecurity and unease drawing a sharp line between her tiny family and the mighty De Leons who employed them.

Her mother had decided to keep quiet about the love of her life, perhaps not wanting her own relationship, which began as adultery, held up to the harsh light of Anna’s exacting standards.

She bit her knuckle hard, trying not to cry. All or nothing, that’s you, Anna. You have to have it all, or you don’t want any of it. She was no different from Naldo. Wanting everything black and white, with no gray areas.

She wanted marriage, a lifetime of love, a real family where her children had a mother and a father.

Her mom was probably right to keep quiet about her affair with Robert De Leon. She would have poked and prodded and pried. She would have asked, “Why won’t he marry you?” She wouldn’t have understood.

She could understand now, though, after the dismal failure of her own marriage.

True love is not so easy to find.

Her mom must have accepted that Robert De Leon would never marry her. She must have woven that acceptance into the fabric of her life with the quiet strength she’d used to weather so much adversity.

She stood and closed the book.

Could she do the same thing with Naldo? Learn to accept that life wasn’t black and white, all or nothing? Love this proud and demanding man, even though he would likely never want to make her his wife and partner?

Could she? She bit her lip hard. Probably not.

Anna came back from town with groceries to cook herself a real dinner. She’d pulled the van up close to the house, with the plan to unpack her belongings from it tomorrow.

She was about to sit down to a salad of chicken, Asian noodles, and fresh orange segments from the Summer’s Shadow grove, when she heard a car pull up outside. A glance out the window curdled her appetite.

Isabela.

She was up and at the door before Isabela had a chance to knock. “I’m just sitting down to dinner. What is it?”

Isabela didn’t remove her dark glasses despite the setting sun. “Naldo told me you still haven’t sold to him.” Anna heard emotion in her voice and wondered if it was real or fake. “What are you trying to do? Don’t you know that every day you stay here prolongs the scandal?”

“You’ve got some nerve talking about scandal when you planted that story in the paper.” Anna stepped through the doorway, intentionally crowding the chiffon-clad diva.

“I thought I could convince Naldo to sell. That whispers and rumors would make him want to leave. I never intended for them to know that my brother was fooling around with the cook’s daughter. Obviously neither you nor he has any shame. What if the European paparazzi gets hold of this?”

Her voice shook. Her big, black glasses hid her eyes, and Anna could only guess at the fury behind the reflective surface.

She couldn’t help laughing. “You are kidding! Why on earth would the European paparazzi care about what’s going on in a sleepy little Florida town?

“I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand.” Isabela’s lips puckered into a moue of distaste. “The De Leons are one of the oldest families in Europe, and everything we do is of interest.”

In your dreams. Anna crossed her arms and congratulated herself on holding her tongue.

“I have a name in the arts,” Isabela spat. Chiffon ruffles fluttered as she gestured with a plump pale hand. “I’ll be a laughingstock.”

Anna choked back the laughter bubbling up inside her. No sense insulting Naldo’s sister if she could help it. She was his family after all and Naldo was big on family. “I hardly see how, but perhaps you should go back to Paris immediately and try to save your reputation. If you don’t mind, I have dinner to eat.”

“Listen to me.” Finally the glasses came off. Beady black eyes seized Anna’s attention. “If you don’t leave, now, you’ll destroy Naldo the way your mother destroyed our family. You’re casting some kind of sick spell over him, just like your mother did with our father. He’s lost all sense of propriety! You’ve brought nothing but scandal and dishonor to the family since you arrived. Take the money-or don’t take it if you’re too proud and stubborn to admit you need it-but leave before you cause any more damage.”

She turned on her stacked heels and flounced across the unmowed lawn to her car.

Anna leaned against the doorframe, her heart pounding. For a few painful seconds Isabela’s words rang with a degree of convincing truth. But as the sun sank behind the rows of fruit trees, Isabela’s breathless exhortations and any pretense of sense behind them dissipated into the orange-scented evening.

The idea of Naldo losing all sense of propriety almost made her chuckle. He must have defended Anna’s presence to his sister. Told her the cook’s daughter was staying put.

A shimmer of pride in Naldo warmed her, along with the tropical evening breeze. Maybe things would work out for the best in ways she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

She certainly couldn’t predict the future, but one way or another, she was home right now. With that reassuring thought she ate her dinner, went to bed, and drifted into a heavy sleep.

The digital clock read 1:23 a.m. when she woke up. A tickle in her throat alerted her to the smell of smoke in the air.

Smoke? This house didn’t even have a fireplace.

She snapped on the light. Everything looked normal. The hum of the air conditioner drowned out other sounds as she strained to hear something. But something was wrong.

Adrenaline sneaked through her as she climbed out of bed, the acrid smell stinging her nostrils. On instinct she pulled a T-shirt and shorts over her flimsy pajamas and slipped her feet into sneakers.

The bare bulb in the hallway made her blink. She still smelled smoke, not any stronger though. Not thick even.

Nerves crackling, she tiptoed downstairs.

Then she saw it.

An orange fireball of flame framed by the kitchen window. It took a moment to figure out that it was her van, totally engulfed, flames leaping several feet into the air and sending a shower of sparks into the black night.

She grabbed the phone and dialed 911, her breath coming in hard gasps. She struggled to stay calm as she described the emergency, but as soon as she hung up the phone she let out a shriek of terror as she ran for the garden hose.

Where was it? She could barely remember the location of the outdoor faucet in the smoke-thickened darkness. The roar of the fire was deafening. Her heart flew to her throat as she realized that if the van exploded the house would catch fire. The burning vehicle was parked only a few yards away, right on the front lawn.

Lucky thing she hadn’t been able to afford to refill the tank, she thought grimly, as she struggled with the tangled garden hose and the corroded brass knob in the writhing orange light of the fire. It took a full minute to coax out a stream of water, and that pathetic trickle looked to be no match for the seething, crackling mass of light and sound.

She half gasped, half screamed as she noticed the first trail of fire streaking into the grass. Then another, and another. Flying sparks and flames from the van leapt into the dry, long grass now parched by the nearby inferno.

She turned the hose on the stray embers and they extinguished easily, but as soon as she put one out, three more sprang up, leaping and creeping closer and closer to the cottage.

“Hey!” A shout made her jump. Naldo ran toward her, his face tightened against the heat and light of the flames. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine. I just smelled smoke.”

“Give me that.” He grabbed the hose and started to lay a line of water around the side of the van nearest to the house. But at that moment the windshield exploded.

Naldo hurled himself at her, crushing her hard against the ground, knocking the breath from her lungs. Her knees and elbow stung. “Stay down. The gas tank might blow.”

“It’s empty,” she gasped, under the weight of him. “But there’s other stuff in there. All my mom’s things.”

Her heart stuttered as she thought of all the precious things she’d packed, immolated by the cruel flames.

Naldo scrambled to his feet and pulled her roughly to hers. “I called the fire department, but they’re fifteen minutes away. Ricky’s getting water from the irrigation house; he should be here any minute. What happened?”

Anna stamped out a spark in the grass, then another, as Naldo poured more water on the scorched grass.

“I don’t know. I woke up and smelled smoke.” The heat of the fire was becoming unbearable, like fierce midday sun on unprotected skin. “The van was already engulfed.”

She stamped and stamped at a stubborn patch of smoldering grass, only to notice too late that a thick ember had leapt from the van onto the grass in front of the steps. In an instant the ancient wood steps ignited, flames licking along the paint and into the dry wood.

Naldo ran forward and poured water on the flames, but the thin stream from the hose was no match for the burst of flame that ran up the wood trim and ignited the small decorative cornice above the door with a loud whoosh.

Anna stamped at the grass, losing ground against the hail of sparks and streams of fire spreading across the lawn in all directions.