Soldier, Hero...Husband?

by Cara Colter

  “How did you do that?” she asked.

  “It’s an app—it turns your phone into a light.”

  “Americans,” she teased.

  “Yes, we have to have all the state-of-the-art toys.”

  “If it brings you happiness.”

  “Isabella, stuff does not bring happiness. This brings happiness.” He rose from the table, and he set his phone on the table and held out his hand to her.

  “Dance with me?”

  She rose from the table and went into his arms with a sigh.

  “No words,” he said of the music choice. “Not English, and not Italian. I think music and art can speak the language of the heart.”

  With the stars watching them and tears spilling down her cheeks at the absolute and complete wonder of this moment, Isabella Rossi luxuriated in the feeling of Connor Benson’s arms closing around her. Her cheek was pressed into his chest, and she could feel the steady beat of his heart in her skin.

  It was homecoming.

  It was as if every event of her entire life had served only one purpose and that was to lead her to this moment, dancing under the stars of a Tuscan sky with Connor swaying against her, his hand on the small of her back, his breath fanning the hair on the top of her head.

  One song became another. She kicked off her shoes. So did he. The grass was sweet and cool under their feet.

  And then, in one smooth movement, he released one of her hands and bent down and retrieved his phone. He shut off the music and the light, plunging them into darkness and silence.

  Only it wasn’t really silent. She could hear the sounds of the night insects chirping and rubbing their wings, the call of a night bird. She could hear her own breath. And his. She was certain she could hear the beating of her own heart.

  It was no more completely dark than it was completely silent. The houses in the vineyards on the hillsides were matched by the pinpricks of light that shined brilliantly in the black velvet sky above them. His face was illuminated in a sliver of moonlight. She reached up and touched his features, running her fingertips along his forehead and his temples, the bridge of his nose, the faint scrape of whiskers on his cheek.

  And then her fingers found the silky plumpness of his lower lip, and he reached out and held her hand there, kissed her fingertips and moaned with a sound of such yearning and longing it sent a wave of tingles up her spine.

  His eyes on hers, he turned her hand over and kissed the palm, and the inside of her wrist, and up the length of her arm, feathery little kisses that the stars that watched over them would have approved of. He put that hand away from him and took up her other one and kissed it, just as thoroughly.

  And then he tugged, urging her against the length of him.

  She went willingly. She’d had hints of what this would feel like—accidental brushings at the pool, going by him in a narrow hallway—but she could not stop herself from sighing at how they fit together so perfectly, how the hard wall of him felt with her body pressed against it. She wrapped her arms around him, melding herself into his contours.

  His hands moved her hair away from her face, and then his right index finger went to her chin and tilted it up.

  He scanned her face, drank it in. She saw the same look of reverence that she had seen when he looked at the fresco.

  “Would it be all right if I kissed you?” he asked huskily.

  CHAPTER NINE

  OF COURSE IT would not be all right if Connor Benson kissed her, Isabella thought dreamily. Her world would never be the same. It would open places in her that could not be forced shut again. But already her body was trembling in anticipation of welcoming him, and so instead of answering with words, she rose up on the tiptoes of her bare feet and took his lips.

  They tasted of wine and starlight and pure masculine perfection. Connor’s lips tasted of everything that was beautiful about the world. Everything.

  He tangled his hands ever so gently in her hair and tilted his head over hers. The plundering was sweet, his lips claiming her lips, his tongue probing the curves and hollows of her lips and then of her mouth. She could feel the gentle scrape of his whiskers against the tender skin of her face.

  She was rocketed into a different world. She was not so much Isabella, and he was not so much Connor. It was more as if they were part of some enormous energy that fused. That energy had been fusing since the dawn of time, drawing men and women together in a way that guaranteed the future of the human race.

  That’s how big what was between them was: the whole human race relied on this fusion that was searing, delightful and painful by turns.

  It opened up a cavernous hunger in her, to know more, to be more, to be filled to the top. It left her with an aching awareness that until this moment, she had been empty.

  She released him and staggered back a step, touching her lips, her eyes wide and searching on his face.

  “What?” he whispered.

  “I didn’t know.” And then she was crying again, the night pregnant with overwhelming emotion. “I didn’t know that it could be this beautiful.”

  He reached out over the distance she had created between them, pulled her back gently against his chest, stroked her hair as her tears soaked his shirt. “Shh,” he said. “Shh, it’s going to be okay.”

  A star a million years away fell through the night sky, leaving a stunning trail of light behind it.

  And she thought that was what she had never really believed. Not in her whole life. She had never really believed it could be okay.

  She went to take his lips again, but he shook his head, tucked her head to his chest and continued to stroke her hair.

  “I don’t think we should start again,” he said huskily. He released her, turned to the table and began to pack their things back in the basket.

  She hugged herself. A whisper of a breeze touched her, and she felt chilly without the protection of his embrace.

  “Why?” Her voice, in her own ears, sounded like a mew of pure need.

  “I don’t want you to look back and regret an impulse.”

  “I won’t.”

  “If it’s not an impulse, you will still feel the same way tomorrow night,” he said.

  “I resent that you are choosing now to show off how disciplined you are.” She went up behind him and pressed herself into his back, reached around and ran her hand over the marvelous strength of his forearms.

  He went very still, and then he turned from the table and caught her up. He kissed her again, but lightly this time, before putting her away from him.

  “Tomorrow,” he promised her huskily. “Tomorrow night. We could have a second date.”

  “There is no tomorrow night,” she said, aware her tone was sulky. “I have to go to Marianna’s shower. As much as I would like to get out of it, I cannot.”

  “Well, then Sunday. Your day off, correct? We could spend the day together.”

  “It’s the fete.”

  “Ah.”

  “Will you come watch?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for anything. And after the fete? Are you free?”

  “Yes.” She felt shy and pleased. She actually felt grateful to him that he had stopped the runaway train of their passion, slowed it down. She thought it showed enormous respect for her.

  “Would you let me plan something for after? That will be our second date.”

  “Yes,” she said, and her sigh of happiness felt like that star she had watched fall from the sky.

  * * *

  When Connor woke the next morning, it seemed to him his whole body was smiling. And that was even though he did not really like his accommodations.

  There had not been much available when he had taken his hurried leave from Isabella’s house, a small, dark room at the back of someon
e’s house. But it had its own bathroom and a separate entrance and compared to some of the places he had laid his head in his life, it was a palace.

  And last night he had been more than grateful that he was not staying under Isabella’s roof. Where would that have gone?

  Where was it going, anyway? Apparently, at his instigation, it was going to a second official date.

  How was he going to live up to the first date? Because really, in the date department, he was pretty sure he had scored a perfect ten, following Justin’s instructions to be original.

  He wondered what he should do next. But then that question pestered him again. Where was it going, anyway?

  He realized, stunned, that he knew where it was going. He knew exactly. It was why he had refused to follow that kiss everywhere it had wanted to go.

  He wanted to marry her.

  Connor knew he would never feel right about having her in the way he wanted her without doing everything right. She was that kind of woman. Without saying a word she demanded a certain standard. Yes, she had a passionate side, and yes, that was easy to coax to the surface.

  She would never be a quick roll in the hay. Underneath that passion, she was old-fashioned and traditional. She was the kind of woman who demanded a man’s respect without ever saying a word out loud. With Isabella Rossi, you would either be committed for life or you shouldn’t even be playing ball.

  Committed for life. He mulled that over. The very thought a month ago would have put him on a plane for anywhere.

  But now he was thinking how easy it would be for him to adapt to life in Monte Calanetti. With phones and computers being so high-tech, with global travel being so easy, there was no reason he could not work with Justin and Itus from here.

  He even thought that children, whom, with the exception of his half siblings, he’d always found mildly repulsive, would be something he could manage with Isabella guiding him through the pitfalls. Maybe they could have a little girl who looked like her. What if the little girl looked like him, though? Maybe they would be better off to have a little boy.

  He got up out of bed, filled with restless energy. He knew how to deal with restless energy, or thought he did. Connor gathered his swim things.

  But somehow he never made it to the river. He was stopped by wildflowers that grew by the road. He wasn’t going to see her tonight. She was going to a shower. He wouldn’t repeat his performance from last time she had gone to a function—he wouldn’t be chasing through the streets looking for her.

  He would leave the flowers for her to find after school. He wanted her to know he was thinking about her. Bonus: they would make her think of him, too.

  Though, when he thought of the reluctance with which she had broken away from their first real kiss, he was happily aware she might not be thinking of much else except him! Being romantic—the thing he’d run in terror from his whole life—had the potential to be all kinds of fun.

  He began to plan their second date in earnest. Connor wanted to do even better than he had done on the first one. She would want to relax after all her hard work on the fete. And so he spent the next few hours figuring out where to get a canoe. They would explore the river and find the perfect place, a secluded meadow of wildflowers that could only be reached by the boat.

  They would have a picnic supper there. He planned an exquisite menu. He thought of introducing her to the mystical experience of swimming in the dark. And then he would paddle them home, the water so inky dark it would reflect the stars. He hoped he could create the illusion they were paddling through the heavenly night sky.

  He left a second vase of flowers on her doorstep, where she would find it immediately after the shower. It contained a note telling her to bring her swimsuit for their second date after the fete. He underlined swim so that she wouldn’t get any ideas about tormenting him with one of those bikinis.

  But then, on thinking about it, he did not want to be in a secluded meadow with her in a bikini. So he tore up that note, and made a new one that simply said what time he would pick her up. He hesitated a long time. Should he conclude with I love you? He tried it. And then felt foolish. He tore up that note, too.

  On the other hand, he wanted her to know he was serious. He wanted her to know the whole course of his life felt as if it was changing. He tried a third time.

  Dear Isabella,

  Life is a river, with calm places and turbulent places. I wonder if you would like to join me on this wild and unpredictable ride? If you are willing, I will pick you up tomorrow evening, after the fete, and we will explore the river.

  Instead of signing it with “love,” he drew a clumsy heart and signed his name.

  He stuffed the note in the vase of flowers before he could change his mind.

  And then he went shopping for a swimsuit for Isabella, uncaring of the raised eyebrows and giggles as he went through the selection of women’s bathing suits, noting the selection in Monte Calanetti at this time of year was quite a bit better than Isabella had claimed it was.

  He purchased a particularly dowdy suit, put the wrapped package under his arm and went back to his humble quarters. He could not wait for tomorrow to come.

  As Connor arrived at the town square the next night, it was already filling up with people. A makeshift stage had been set up at the far end of the square, and someone was testing a sound system.

  For the first time since he had started planning the second date, he came down to earth. Connor could feel some nervousness tickle along his spine at the number of people in the square. As far as he could see, there was absolutely no security for the event. Didn’t the good people of Monte Calanetti know that there were no safe places anymore? Not in the whole world?

  He scanned the crowd and relaxed marginally. Really, it was just a family event. The chairs set up in neat rows in front of the stage were nearly full already, but no one seemed to mind. Farther back from the stage area, families were setting up picnic blankets. There were grandmothers and grandfathers, women holding babies, and children threading through the crowd screaming their delight. Young men stood in defensive huddles trying to pretend they did not notice the young women who sashayed by them in their spring clothes.

  For all that it seemed benign and happy, Connor could not make himself go into the square and that crush of people to look for one of the remaining seats. He found a tree just on the very edge of the square, leaned his shoulder up against it and watched from a distance.

  He could see the kids from Isabella’s school, already seated cross-legged on the ground up front, in front of the rows of chairs. He spotted her class easily, their sunshine and flower headdresses making them stand out from the others.

  There was Isabella, pacing up front, bending over to adjust a headpiece here, to tap a shoulder there, to smile encouragement or to listen to what one of the children was saying.

  She looked extraordinary in a simple shift.

  He realized there was no hope at all that the bathing suit he had chosen for her was going to dim her light. She could have been wearing a burlap sack today and she would have looked beautiful.

  She was absolutely glowing.

  Was that because she had feelings for him that matched his growing feelings for her? Did that light that shined forth from her like a beacon of hope have something to do with him? Did it have something to do with that kiss at the chapel? It felt like quite something to be responsible for a light like that one.

  She turned suddenly, as if she could feel the intensity of his gaze on her. Her eyes scanned the crowd and then she saw him.

  Despite all the noise and motion that separated them, it was as if the world went still. Her eyes locked on his. She lifted a hand in shy acknowledgment. He lifted his back. She smiled, and the glow about her deepened. She turned back to her responsibilities.

  And he turned back to
his. He tried to relax, but it was not in his nature. He simply could not be in a situation like this and not be scanning, watching for trouble. It had been a part of his life for too long.

  A band took the stage and began to play boisterously, if without great talent. They received wild applause and launched into their second number.

  Connor noticed something. His eyes rested on a man who, like Connor, was on the fringes of the crowd. The man was by himself in a sea of families.

  The band finished their second number to wild applause, took bows and began to pack up their things. Two of Isabella’s children, little girls in matching pink dresses, carried the cardboard backdrop for their performance onto the stage. Isabella’s class rose in preparation.

  Connor watched, and then his gaze went back to the man. He frowned. It was a very warm day. Why was that man wearing an overcoat? Why was he looking around like that, furtively?

  The band had vacated the stage and Isabella’s class marched into their places. The boys with their sunshine heads were in the back, the girls in the front. They were so excited, joyous in their moment of being at the center.

  Isabella stood off to one side. She darted forward and made a last adjustment and said a stern word to a boy whose sun was looking decidedly crumpled. Connor recognized Luigi, the boy who had run into him and then told him to watch where he was going.

  And then she went back to the side again and nodded. She beamed with pride as those innocent young voices filled the air.

  Connor did not have to speak Italian to know the song welcomed spring. The suns rose, and the flowers waved happily.

  But he was not transported to that place of innocence and hope. In fact, he felt as if the music and the rising suns and the waving flowers were all fading. Because the man was moving through the crowd, snaking his way in and out of the crush of people.

  Connor pushed himself away from the tree he had been leaning on. With a sense of urgency, he closed the distance between them, following the man through the crowd. Connor ignored the outrage when he blocked people’s views.