“It’s okay. I thought it was Gino at first.” Arms tucked in around herself, she suddenly realized silk pajamas were not Montana-friendly. “I was afraid maybe he’d had a bad dream.”
“No.” Matteo shook his head, still not looking at her. “That was me.” He took a deep breath. “Go back to bed, Peyton.”
“Can’t.” She checked her watch. Four o’clock. “Once I’m up for the day I’m up. I can’t sleep in, even when I want to.”
“Sorry,” he apologized again. “Nightmares sneak up on me. Today must have brought too much back. I’ll get it under control.”
“Don’t apologize.” He wanted her to leave him alone. That much was clear by his clipped tone and his refusal to look at her. But Peyton wasn’t one for doing what people wanted. Not when it was obvious they were in pain. “You want to tell me about the dream?”
Now he looked at her, the disbelief and panic in his eyes reminding her so much of Gino her heart stuttered. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something.” Ignoring the cold, she took a seat in one of the two rocking chairs by the door. She curled her legs in, wrapped her arms around them. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be standing out here freezing in just pajama bottoms.”
It was hard not to notice. That bare back of his was sublime in its definition. The way his hips tapered in and the muscles in his arms tightened as he struggled to find his way out of the hold of the dream. As much as she’d thought about Matteo Rossi—and she’d thought about him a lot over these past few weeks—her fantasies hadn’t come close. With that almost too-long dark hair of his and faint scruff on his jaw, he looked like a wounded warrior praying to the moon for guidance.
“You’re going to freeze out here yourself,” he muttered as he turned to her.
She shrugged. “It’ll help me shiver off dinner.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten one brownie, let alone two brownies for dessert. And that was after a hearty helping of steak fajitas with homemade tortillas, salsa and guacamole. “You’re stalling. You’re old enough to know talking about disturbing dreams helps.” It always had done that for her.
“They’re more like nightmares. Memories are a whole other thing.” He braced his hands on the railing, leaned over enough to see inside to Gino.
“He’s snoring away,” Peyton said with a grin. “He won’t hear anything to make you any less his hero.”
“I’m no one’s hero.” The very idea looked distasteful to him.
“Too late. And is that more stalling I hear?” She cupped a hand behind her ear. “You know I don’t give up until I get what I want, so you may as well spill it.” Irritation was another great cleansing emotion for helping get rid of the darkness.
“There’s nothing to spill. We all have things we wish we could forget.”
“Doesn’t mean the things were any less terrible or impactful. Case in point.” She pointed to the sky. “You’re out here in the middle of the night in the rain trying to outrun them.”
“Yeah.” He leaned back and looked up at the dark clouds. “I am, aren’t I? I didn’t think it would happen this soon. I thought maybe I could keep it under control.” He slammed his hands down hard. “This shouldn’t be happening.”
“But it is,” Peyton said softly. “Matteo, talk to me. We’re friends. Or almost friends.” She honestly wasn’t entirely sure what they were. “I’m here. I won’t judge. I won’t think any less of you because you need to talk something out.”
“You won’t report me to Vilette, then, for being unprofessional?”
Peyton waited for the humor to flash in his eyes, but it didn’t. Instead, she saw honest doubt reflected back at her. “I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t,” she insisted when he let out what she could only define as a divisive snort.
“Even if it meant you could go home and resume your usual routine?”
“I—No.” She had been looking for ways to get out of this, to go home. Not just because she wanted her normal life back, but now she knew for certain that Montana was just not her place. “I’d never use something like this against you. Against anyone. I agreed to come here, to let you do your job. I plan to stay until you tell me it’s safe to go home.” And just like that, any resistance she held about coming to Falcon Creek, Montana, vanished. Not only because it would help her relationship with her sister and she could use a break, but because in the end, it would help Matteo. Fighting against him, resenting him for doing a job he’d taken so he could get his son back was just plain selfish. “Matteo, what was the dream about?”
He took another long breath, shook his head as if his reluctance no longer mattered. “I grew up on a place like this. Well, not as nice as this. I guess compared to here, it would loosely be called a ranch. Out in New Mexico.” His gaze caught hers. “It was a home for abandoned boys.”
“I see.” It was all she could manage around the tightening of her throat.
“No, you don’t.” There was no bitterness in his voice. Not aimed at her, at least. “Be grateful for that. I wouldn’t want you to. I wouldn’t want anyone to.”
“How old—”
“Four.” He seemed anxious to get the details out of the way. “According to my records. I remember the day the social worker brought me there. We drove out in this beat-up truck, dust pluming up from under the tires as we drove. You know those opening scenes of The Wizard of Oz, how it’s in that sepia, noncolor tone? That’s my first real memory. A world without color. I spent the next thirteen years there.”
“It wasn’t...good.” Obviously. She winced. Was she as bad at this as she sounded?
“I would have given my right arm for good. We got the basics, of course. Enough schooling to know how to read and pass tests the case workers would set. Enough food to keep us alive. But mainly we worked, either the cattle or at nearby farms and ranches. The facilitators who ran it, an older married couple and the wife’s brother, had their favorites among the boys. I was not one of them.”
“For any particular reason?” She needn’t have asked. Peyton could see the answer in his obsidian eyes.
“I didn’t look like them or sound like them, so I didn’t belong in their world.” The smile on his face should have been filled with resentment. Instead, it seemed one of acceptance. “One of my earliest life lessons. To never forget how some people saw me. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t all bad. Just...” he seemed to struggle for the right word “...just difficult. I actually learned a lot there. How to hide food in my pockets for later. And that it was warmer to sleep with the horses than in the beds they’d provided. Also, how to sneak books out of the library when we went into town. I’d stay up late reading anything I could get my hands on, including manuals on computers and biographies of soldiers. The older I got, the more I read. Words were my escape. My tether. That’s how I found out about the Marines. My caregivers didn’t make it easy, but I got out.”
“How?”
“Something else I learned—how to hide. I didn’t want to be anyone’s target in case something bad started to happen. I also didn’t like all the shouting and swearing. It freaked me out as a kid, so I’d find other places, quieter places, to be. Fortunately, I grew quickly, and the threat of anything else stopped when I was big enough to fight back. After that, they left me alone.”
“I’m so sorry.” Peyton’s whisper vanished into the night. No child should ever have to go through anything like that. And yet she knew hundreds, thousands, did. “Where did you hide?”
“In the stables. They were off-limits during the night, but I’d made myself a pass-through into one of the stalls. The horses were safe. They didn’t see me as anything else than wanting to help them. And in some ways, they protected me. I’d hide under the loose hay until the sun came up and go straight to work. And then, the morning I turned seventeen, I snuck into the office in the house and printed off my file that included my social secur
ity number and any other information I thought I’d need. By the time the sun was up, I’d walked out the front door and never looked back. Six months later, after busing it around the country, I joined the service.”
The breath of relief he released had her pressing a hand against her hammering heart. “So, the dream you had?” Peyton thought it important he circle back around. “Was it from when you had to hide as a little boy?”
“No.” He shook his head. “No. Those memories I can handle. The nightmare is always that I never escape. That I’m still stuck there, trapped. Hungry. Alone.” He dropped his head back again. “The hunger was bad enough, along with the fear that came with each new day in those early years. But the loneliness. That was unbearable.”
She couldn’t imagine it. Even with all that had happened with her father and stepfather, and the disappointment she held for her mother, she’d never been completely alone because she’d had her sisters.
“You’ve done pretty well since,” she managed, knowing whatever else she said was completely useless. She couldn’t offer platitudes that held no connection to the life he’d led, nor would her apologies for something she’d had no control over mean anything. What she could do was offer support. Encouragement. Friendship. And... She stopped herself before those thoughts went too far. “You’re not alone now, are you?”
“No.” And there it was. Relief and acceptance easing the tense lines on his face. “The only times I haven’t felt that way were when I was serving with my fellow Marines and when Gino was born. The instant I held him in my hands.” He held out his hands now and looked down as if he could see a newborn Gino in his palms. “In that blink of an eye, I knew why I’d made it. Why I’d made a life for myself.” His fists closed. “That little boy was and is all that matters to me. And then two years ago, I couldn’t do anything to stop Sylvia from taking him away. That was the last time I had the dream. Until tonight.”
Until he was back on a ranch. Because of her. Peyton’s heart ached for him. He’d come back here to do a job to earn enough money to get his son back. Whatever pessimism she may have felt broke away. She unfolded herself from her chair and, still shivering, went to him, stood in front of him and reached up to cup his face in her hands. And he said he wasn’t anyone’s hero. “You’re a good man, Matteo Rossi.”
“I’m a survivor,” he said with a tight smile. “Not the same thing.”
“Then, you don’t see what I do. I see it every time you look at Gino. Every time you put yourself between me and whatever you think will harm me. Whoever you were, whoever they tried to make you into, doesn’t come close to who you are now. You have to know that. Somewhere deep inside, you know that.”
He tried to shrug off her compliment, tried to pull out of her grasp, but she held on, raised up on tiptoe to make sure he looked into her eyes as she spoke. “You could have surrendered, and no one would have blamed you. You could have given up, because no one should have to fight that hard to exist. That you didn’t shows me who you really are. One day, you’ll tell Gino what you’ve told me tonight. And he’ll know who you are. Beyond who he sees now. The father who would do anything for him.”
His fingers brushed along the exposed skin of her waist, moments before his hands settled.
“Thank you for telling me.” She knew she should back away, knew she should release him, but the warmth of him, the depths of his dark eyes drew her in even deeper than she’d been before. “Thank you for trusting me.”
He nodded, the question in his eyes. The same question that coursed through her mind as she brushed her mouth against his. The barely there kiss warmed her from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. The feel of his lips, the promise of them had her stretching up and pressing herself into his strength and heat.
All at once, everything she’d never thought she’d feel, everything she’d convinced herself she didn’t need, crashed in on her. He drew her closer, his hands still grasping her hips as he returned her kiss with a control and tenderness that had tears burning the backs of her eyes.
“Peyton,” he whispered when she pulled herself away and lowered her heels to the porch floor. “What are we doing?”
She looked at him, perhaps seeing him fully for the first time, and felt her heart skip a beat. “I don’t know.”
And if there was one thing that scared Peyton Harrison, it was the unknown.
* * *
MATTEO ROSSI WAS in trouble. Not just any trouble. Nope. His trouble was spelled P-E-Y-T-O-N.
The overnight storm tapered off, and they’d retreated to their respective rooms, but neither of them had gone back to sleep. He could feel her energy through the walls, that conscious, constant presence he’d been feeling for weeks since he’d begun working for her.
The tousled sheets lay tangled beneath him as he lay there, trying to get reception on his cell phone. He needed something, anything to distract him from the memory of Peyton Harrison kissing him.
Matteo squeezed his eyes shut. He should have stopped it. He’d seen it coming, seen the admiration-tinged sympathy shining in those sparkling green eyes of hers as she’d approached him. Felt the electric charge shoot through his system when she’d laid her hands on his chest, lifted her face to his. He shouldn’t have found out what he’d been wanting to know, but he did. He knew, down to the very center of his being, what it felt like to kiss Peyton.
“Yeah, that won’t keep you awake at night,” he muttered and tossed his phone onto the nightstand. He had a job to do. Protect her. Keep her safe. Keep her away from whoever wanted to hurt her.
His job did not—and should not—include falling for his charge who was sleeping in the next room.
One night down. Thirteen to go.
If bringing his six-year-old son along on the job was unprofessional, certainly kissing Peyton in the autumn rain was. This had been so much easier before he’d gotten to know her, before he’d fallen into the complicated, fascinating mess that was her family.
It seemed ridiculous to be envious of the situation she found herself in with her grandfather and sisters. But the fact she understood how lucky she was to have those problems made him like her even more. She wasn’t the distant, cold businesswoman he’d convinced himself she was.
She had just as many winding roads inside of her as he had in his past. And all of them had led them both to the same place: Falcon Creek, Montana.
From his bed, he could look out the window, see the sun beginning to peek over the mountains. The pink and blue hues in the sky welcoming them on their first full day was something to behold. How long had it been since he’d taken the time to appreciate the sunrise?
How long before he forgot to appreciate it again?
The soft knock on his door had him sitting up. “Yeah?”
Gino poked his head in, his hair mussed to the point of comedic comment, his eyes still droopy with sleep. “I’m up.” He didn’t look particularly happy about it, a theory proven correct when he came over to the bed and flopped down face-first.
Matteo laughed and reached down to roll him over and tickle him. The sound of his son’s laughter made the last two years without him melt into oblivion. This was why he did what he did. This little guy, right here, with his mischievous dark eyes and early-morning smile, while wearing pajamas that were almost too small for him.
“Shh.” Matteo finally pushed a finger against his lips before pointing to the wall. “We don’t want to wake Peyton.”
Gino nodded and crawled up to stretch out beside Matteo. “What are we doing today?”
“I don’t know what they have planned for the ranch, but you’ve got schoolwork to catch up on.” He expected resistance. How could schoolwork possibly compete with a stable full of horses, outdoor activities and a ranch that by now must be at least half mud?
“I don’t wanna do homework.”
“That’s too bad because if
you don’t get caught up, you won’t be going on the trail ride Tuesday.” Matteo lay back down on the bed and clasped his hands behind his head. “Each of us has a job to do before we can have fun. School is your job, Gino.”
“Can I go see your horse instead? And visit Goldie?”
“Not until you’re done with your schoolwork.” He understood childhood reluctance to learning. No one liked to be told what to study and for how long. But he also knew what it was like to be prevented from studying, period, from filling his brain with information that would make his life better. Gratitude and appreciation were lessons his son needed to learn. When Gino didn’t respond, Matteo looked at him. “Gino?”
“I’m no good at it,” his son whispered, his eyes filling before he looked away and sniffled. “Kids make fun of me. I get everything wrong. And sometimes the teacher makes me stay after to finish, and then I get in trouble with Mom because I’m late getting home.”
Something Mr. Shinto had said about Gino when he’d dropped him off rang in Matteo’s head. Something he hadn’t quite understood at the time. “Did you ask your mom for help with your schoolwork?”
“Yeah.” Gino’s chin wobbled. “She said she didn’t have time and that I was smart enough to figure it out. Jiro helped a little, but he’s always at work, too. He said that was my teacher’s job.”
Matteo struggled to keep his temper in check. “Well, you know what? You’re not with your mom and Jiro anymore. And I love doing schoolwork.”
“You do?” Gino’s eyes went wide, as if Matteo had just admitted to being a secret superhero.
“I do. I think because...” What was it Peyton had said last night? That his son would understand him better, understand the world better, if he told Gino the truth about his childhood. “I think because when I was your age, the people I lived with didn’t want me to be smart. And that’s what books and schoolwork do. They make you smart until you figure out what it is you want to do when you’re older.”
Montana Dreams Page 13