by Cara Colter
What he needed was that safe place, where it was okay to make mistakes, where nobody died or was in danger because you had been wrong.
She knew exactly what Connor Benson needed. He needed her. But how on earth was she going to let him know that?
* * *
Over the next few days she tried to find clues to where he had gone, but he had disappeared as if he had never been. He was gone completely, without a trace and without a trail. Her initial fire sputtered out. Isabella sank into the deepest despair of her life.
Where there is deep grief, there was deep love.
It complicated her sense of losing Connor that what she felt now was worse than the loss of her husband. It made the wild tumult inside her worse now that she wondered if she had ever truly loved Giorgio. What had it been, if not love?
She could not eat and she could not sleep. Her whole house was a reminder of Connor—the bed he had slept in, the shower he had saved her from, the kitchen table where they had sat together. She was ashamed with how impatient she was with the children at school. But it seemed she spared Luigi, even though his behavior was worse than ever since his father had come to the fete.
Still, she recognized in the child a great mourning, a great sense of loss. She recognized he was acting out in frustration against helplessness.
And then she was shaken out of her own pity when Luigi disappeared. He didn’t arrive at school one morning, and she had received no note from his mother saying he would be absent. The whole town was in an uproar. Had he been kidnapped by his father?
The police were called, and a tense day and night later, Luigi was found asleep under a shrub, a backpack beside him, his face tearstained but his spirit as fierce as ever.
“I am not going to have a life without my papa,” he screamed, unrepentant, at his mother in front of the police station.
And this time, she heard him. She wrapped her little boy in her arms and said she understood. That she had been wrong to make him suffer because of her pride. That she would change her stance toward Luigi’s father, that she would not stand in the way of them loving one another anymore.
Within days, Isabella could see the changes in Luigi. His father was reintroduced into his life. Luigi was calmer. He was happier. He brought her flowers one day, as if to apologize for all he had put her through.
It was a victory of love, and it made Isabella think.
Was she going to mourn for another six years, then? What if she had been wrong? What if deep love didn’t cripple you with grief?
What if deep love made you stronger? What if it made you fight to the death for what you wanted? It was the force that had sent a little boy out looking for his father, knowing what all the adults around him had not known—he needed that love.
She needed Connor’s love. She wanted to be fully alive. She wanted to feel the way she had felt when she was with him.
She realized there were different kinds of love. There was the kind of love Luigi had for his father. And the kind of love Luigi’s mother had for her little boy that had helped her overcome her own bitterness and put what was best for him first.
Yes, there was the kind of love that Isabella had had for Giorgio. Because she had loved Giorgio with gentle compassion did not mean she had loved him less. It meant that she had loved him differently.
And it was all part of her journey to know love completely.
She had to find Connor. She had to convince him not that she was worthy of his love, because she suspected they both knew that. She had to convince him that he was worthy of hers.
She went back to the chapel, sure she could find there some clue to where he would go. What she found was workmen gone for the day and the fresco, reminding her that beauty was true greatness, and that beauty survived when all else fell away.
She went to the river where she had waded with him. It was warmer now, and there were signs the little boys who had a hung a rope and tire from the tree so they could swing out over the water came more often.
There was no one here now, though, and she took off the cover she had put over the plainest of her bathing suits. She hesitated and then climbed the slippery bank, grabbed the rope with both hands and planted her feet on the tire. She swung way out into the river, where the water was definitely over her head, and even though there was a possibility she could lose everything if she let go of that rope, she let go anyway.
It was exhilarating. It felt wonderful to live life without a safety net. It felt wonderful to take chances. It felt wonderful to be brave.
Life was, indeed, a river, with calm places and turbulent places. It was indeed a wild and unpredictable ride. She had never seen it like that before Connor. She wanted to explore completely the wild and unpredictable ride. She wanted to explore it with him.
It came to her—that incident at the fete. It wasn’t just that he felt he had made a mistake. It was the whole thing.
It was the realization he could not stop bad things from happening. He could not stop the tragedy of a marriage not working, children being the victims. He said he had seen that before with his SEAL buddies.
If Luigi’s father had had a weapon concealed under his coat, Connor could have stopped that particular tragedy from unfolding, but his work had made him so aware of the next one, waiting. His inability to save his friend had made him way too aware how powerless even the most powerful of men could be.
Isabella suddenly felt drenched in light. She felt as if she was the soldier, not him. She had to go get him. She had to rescue Connor from the lonely world of perfection and protection he had made for himself.
And suddenly, there in that deep pool, enjoying the gift he had given her—a freedom from fear—she knew exactly how to find him.
A day later, her confidence felt more shaky as she dialed the number.
“Itus, Arnold speaking.”
The voice was curt and no-nonsense. It shook her that it was not a name she was expecting.
“I’m looking for someone named Justin.”
There was a moment’s silence and then wariness. “You’ve got him.”
“My name is Isabella Rossi. I am looking for Connor Benson.”
“You and half the civilized world.”
“What does that mean?”
Silence. “What did you say your name was?”
“Isabella Rossi.”
“I’m going to guess you’re from Monte Calanetti, aren’t you?”
“That is correct.”
“Ah. I should have guessed.”
“Guessed?”
“That there was a reason he came back from there grumpier than a bear with a sore bottom.”
“I’m that reason?” Grumpier than a bear with a sore bottom?
“I’m asking you. Are you that reason?”
“I think I might be,” she said with a sigh. “I need to talk to him. You don’t know where he is?”
“He came back, checked in, made my life miserable for a few days, then cleared his schedule and disappeared.”
It confirmed exactly what Isabella had suspected. He had not gone back home and dismissed all that had happened to him. He was somewhere nursing his wounds. Alone. Her heart felt as if it was breaking.
Not for herself. For him. For Connor.
“So, you don’t know where he is?” Her disappointment felt as sharp as shards of glass.
“I don’t right this minute. But if there’s one thing I am very, very good at? It’s finding people.”
“Who don’t want to be found?”
“Especially people who don’t want to be found. Up until this point, I thought I’d leave him alone. And I will. But if you want to go find him, I’m okay with that. More than okay with that.”
In two hours he called her back. Two hours after that, she
was on a bus to the city to catch a plane, a ticket for the first flight to Switzerland clutched in her hand.
* * *
Connor stared out the window of the mountain cabin. There was really nothing as glorious as the Alps in springtime. He wasn’t sure why he had picked a place to hide where he couldn’t swim, though.
No, that choice had not been an accident.
His whole life he had chased away strong feelings. It was what his military training had taught him to do. Emotion always got him in trouble. He could swim it off, shake off nearly anything with enough punishing physical activity.
So he couldn’t swim, but the mountains all around beckoned. He could hike or climb mountains, or go down to that little public house in the village at the bottom of the mountain and drink himself into oblivion.
But it was the oddest thing that had ever happened to him.
Connor wanted to feel this. He wanted to feel the devastating loss of Isabella. He wanted to feel the consequences of his actions. He wanted to wake up in the morning and wonder what the point of life was, to feel his all-encompassing emptiness.
He wanted to remember, in excruciating detail, every second they had spent together. He wanted to remember her joy in the pool, and the way her face had looked when she saw the fresco of the Madonna and child.
He wanted to miss her.
He wanted to feel it all intensely. That was his mission. Miss Isabella. And then be over it, completely, and get back to his life.
Except he had expected the getting-over-it part to be much faster. He was beginning to think the completely part was out of the question. He might have to settle for getting over her a little bit. Enough to function. After all, he’d been in his little cottage in the Alps for a week and if anything, he felt more morose than when he’d begun.
And that did not bode well for whoever knocked on his door. He’d specifically told his landlady he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances.
But of course, she could not control a lost hiker at the door. Or the Swiss equivalent of a Girl Scout selling cookies.
So he swung open the door in a bad temper, ready to be equally unwelcoming to Heidi selling cookies or the lost hiker seeking refuge.
The shock reverberated up his spine when he saw who was there. For a moment, his heart was so filled with gratitude to see the face he had told himself he would never see again that it felt as though he might fall on his knees.
But then he straightened his spine and drew in a deep breath.
He needed to protect her. From himself. From the damaged person he was. From the incomplete person he was. She deserved so much better.
“Isabella.” He heard the coolness in his voice and saw the purpose in her posture falter just a bit.
“Connor.”
Again, his knees felt weak at the way she said his name. It came off her lips like a blessing, as if she saw all of him and accepted that completely.
“Why are you here?” he asked harshly.
“I’m here to rescue you. I tried to send a Saint Bernard with a cask of whiskey around his neck, but apparently they don’t do that anymore.”
He did not want to be charmed by her!
“You look horrible,” she said softly.
He already knew that! He had looked at his own reflection this morning in the mirror, made the decision not to shave, again. His hair was uncombed, his clothes were rumpled—he looked like a wild man, as if he was holed up in a cave, not in a perfectly civilized cabin.
“Can I come in?”
“There’s no point.”
She ignored him and slipped under his arm into the cottage.
“Hey!”
“Wow,” she said, looking around.
He turned and saw the place through her eyes. It was an absolute shambles. Clothes on the floor, dirty dishes on every surface. There was a bag of groceries by the small kitchen that he had not even bothered to unpack. A trail of cookie crumbs went across the floor and disappeared under a pair of socks.
It was as if it was the first time he’d really noticed it in days. Who had he become? He was a fastidiously neat person.
Undeterred by how the mess spoke to his character, Isabella went over, frowned at the couch and then delicately moved two newspapers and an empty container of chocolate fudge ice cream out of her way. She sat down as if she planned to stay.
“What do you want?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest. He tapped his foot and glanced at his watch. She looked so unperturbed by his show of impatience that he felt almost panicky. He was going to have to be mean to her.
To Isabella? That was impossible.
But it was for her own good. He took a deep breath, soldiered himself. This was what he did. He did hard things. He did impossible things.
“Look, you’ve traveled a long way for nothing,” he said. “If you’re going to tell me you can’t live without me, forget it. I’m not moved by emotion.”
“Hmm,” she said, again unperturbed.
He frowned at her.
“I think I came to tell you that you can’t live without me,” she decided. He contemplated the awful truth of that, and he contemplated the fact she had seen it so clearly. This was not about her. Not in any way. It was about him.
“Well, I can. Live without you. And I will.”
“Quit being so damned strong,” she said softly. “You’ve had to be so strong your whole life, Connor. You started working when you were eleven years old to help look after your mom.”
“That’s hitting below the belt,” he said, “bringing my mom into it.”
“What is this, below the belt?”
“You’re an adult woman—I think you can figure out where men don’t like to get hit.”
She nodded, mulling that over, but then kept on talking as if he hadn’t warned her. “So you’ve always felt protective of your poor mother, who had you very young and was abandoned by the people who should have supported her. Is it any surprise you were drawn to a profession where you protect people, where you try and fix things? Everything?”
“Look, Little Red Riding Hood, just skip on home. You’re playing with the Big Bad Wolf here, and that story does not end well, if you recall.”
She cocked her head at him. She didn’t look even slightly intimidated. He considered the possibility he was losing his touch.
“You have carried the weight of the whole world for way, way too long,” she decided softly.
“Says you.”
She sighed as if he was no more irritating to her than Luigi Caravetti yelling swearwords. “I thought we should have a discussion. About the river of life.”
He groaned. “Have you no pride? Picking through the garbage?”
“None at all,” she said. “Not when it comes to you. It’s your turn, Connor.”
“My turn?” he said warily.
“Your turn to be rescued.”
“You’ve already said that. Saint Bernards on strike, you have come in their place, without the cask.”
“I brought something better than the cask.”
He went very still. He knew what she had brought. He could see what she had brought shining from her eyes. He could see it shining from the very fiber of her being.
He could fight anything. That was what he had been trained to do. To fight. And he was so good at it.
But he was not sure that he could fight this. Don’t ask her, he begged himself, don’t ask her what she brought. You aren’t strong enough, Connor, you aren’t.
“What did you bring?” His voice was a rasp.
“You know,” she said softly. “You already know what I brought.”
Even before she said the words, he could feel his every defense beginning to crumble, like a dam made out of mud and sticks
giving way after holding everything in for way too long, so long that its strength had already been compromised.
“I brought love,” she said. “I brought my love to rescue you.”
“No, please. Isabella, don’t do this.”
She was up off that sofa in a heartbeat. She navigated the mess on his floor and stood in front of him. She shined with a fierce light.
So, love could be this, too. Not just gentle and sweet and quiet and compliant. But this: as strong as steel forged in a fire.
She put her hands on both sides of his face and forced him to look her in the eyes, look into those great green-and-gold pools of strength and compassion.
“You be whoever you need to be,” she said softly. “You be a warrior going to do battle. You be the man who rushes into burning buildings. You be that man who seeks out danger like a heat-seeking missile seeks warmth. You be the man who sees the potential for bad things on a beautiful spring afternoon in the village square. You be the man who would lay down his life to protect a bride on her wedding day. You be those things.”
Her words were like the final drops of water adding pressure to the already compromised structure of the dam. Her words broke Connor wide-open. He felt as if he had waited all his life for this one moment, for these words of acceptance, these words of someone seeing him exactly as he was and moving toward him anyway.
She continued to drop words, like healing raindrops, into the brokenness inside him.
“And then you come back to me,” she said, and her voice was a promise that he could feel himself moving toward, that every ounce of his strength could not have stopped him from moving toward.
“And you show me all the bruised places,” Isabella said, her voice fierce and true, “and the brokenness of your heart. You show me, and me alone, what it has cost you to be these things. And you let me place poultices on your bruises, and you let me knit my love around your wounds.