by Lilian Darcy
‘Friday sounds good,’ she answered him, her smile polite and cautious, and he made a mental note to include Emma in the invitation.
The two women were around the same age, early to mid-thirties, and were both single. They were just a couple of years younger than Gian himself. The right age, both of them, if he was eager for any involvement at the moment.
But he wasn’t. Not yet. The sense of frustration and anger engendered by his divorce was still far too fresh, even after a year and a half, and he didn’t feel remotely ready to embark on something new. He told himself this very firmly as he made a phone call at the nurses’ station, watching the way the light fell on the back of Kit’s head when she focused on her notes once more.
CHAPTER TWO
‘I’LL pick you up at seven,’ Gian had said, but he was late.
Fifteen minutes late, at last count, and the clock was still ticking.
During this time, Kit rediscovered how nervous it was possible to get when you were about to go out with a group of near strangers, and had a vested interest in earning their good opinion. She smiled a little at her own foolish reflection in the bedroom mirror, and told herself, ‘It’s dinner. That’s all.’
Emma was supposed to be coming, too, but had told Kit at work today that she wouldn’t be able to get there until later in the evening. Her stepmother wanted to be taken shopping.
‘I probably don’t need to say this, but Dr Di Luzio’s still getting over his divorce.’ She’d added bluntly, ‘I wouldn’t guarantee that he’s in the market for—’
‘Neither am I, Emma,’ Kit had cut in quickly. ‘I’m not in the market for anything. And anyway, he’s only doing this because his mother and my aunt are friends. This is about signing off on his responsibility for helping me to settle in, nothing more.’
Understanding this didn’t tempt her to treat the evening casually, however. Relief that Gian was late because it gave her time to get her make-up right soon turned into the creeping fear that he’d forgotten all about it—forgotten to invite anyone except Emma, who couldn’t come until late, forgotten to make the promised reservation at the restaurant, forgotten even to phone and apologise for forgetting—and wasn’t going to show up at all.
His car pulled up to the gate at seven-twenty, and she hurried out to meet him, wishing Aunt Helen hadn’t picked today to give the hens a run in the yard. She had to skirt several offerings of fresh fertiliser on the way.
‘I’m sorry,’ Gian said through the driver’s window as she opened the gate. He leaned a bare, brown forearm across the sill. ‘I had a delivery and couldn’t chase up my mother just now to get your number to phone. Shall I come in and say hello to your aunt?’
‘Oh, no, that’s nice, but she’s at my cousin’s.’
Kit stepped through the opened gate and closed it behind her. Seated beside him a minute later, she felt a little breathless, swamped unexpectedly by the potent aura of his dark masculinity. Was this still the effect of their difficult first encounter, earlier in the week?
Whatever it was, she wasn’t used to it. His bulk, his colouring, the way he wore his clothes, all of it was unfamiliar and somehow disturbing. James was compact, clean-cut, civilised. He’d been her blueprint for male good looks for a long time. Despite the fact that Gian Di Luzio’s frame was covered by another expensive and very urbane Italian suit, minus the jacket, he seemed a lot less tame than he should.
‘Didn’t have time to put on a jacket or tie,’ he said, as they drove, and she wondered if she’d let her eyes linger too long on his body.
The jacket was lying on the pale leather of the car’s rear seat, and his shirt-front had a couple of buttons unfastened. The sleeves were rolled, too, as the March evening was warm. He had strong arms, a testament to the work he must do around his mother’s farm, and she guessed that his skin would retain its natural tan even after weeks away from sunlight.
‘Will you need to put your jacket on at the restaurant?’ she asked him, a little short on small talk suddenly. ‘Does Glenfallon run to that sort of formality?’
‘Kingsford Mill will expect it of the town’s obstetrician,’ he answered. ‘Do you know it?’
‘The restaurant? No. I think I remember when it was still a flour mill, when I used to come here for holidays as a child.’
‘They did a beautiful conversion on it, and now that the gardens are growing up it looks great. There’s a bed and breakfast there as well.’ He must have caught the nervous way she smoothed the skirt of her black dress across her thighs, because he added, ‘So you’re dressed just right.’
The reassurance didn’t take away the jittering inside her, and she wondered if he’d noticed just how tense she was. There was an abruptness and a distance to his manner that might be explained by his reaction to her own nerves.
The drive took only ten minutes, and there were several people waiting for them at a table in the bar. The GP who’d assisted in resuscitating Laurel Murchison’s baby girl on Monday, Pete Croft, was there with his wife Claire. She dominated the conversation to begin with, talking very fast. Pete looked ill at ease and unhappy.
Also present were Clive Alderson, the anaesthetist, and another GP and his wife, who was a local pharmacist. Finally, there was the couple who owned the Glen Aran winery and leased Federica Di Luzio’s land, across the road, for some of their vines.
‘Sorry we’re late,’ Gian told the group. ‘Mary Fantauzzi had a healthy boy, Pete, you’ll be pleased to hear.’
‘At forty-seven. That’s great!’ he answered.
‘She did well, too, but I’m giving her another couple of days in hospital because there’ll be no break for her once she’s home with her brood.’
‘Yes, I was going to have a word with you about that.’
Gian made introductions and they moved to their reserved table in the restaurant. Emma joined them just as they were about to sit down. Kit was relieved.
‘I thought you couldn’t get here until much later,’ she said quietly to the other midwife.
‘I know, but…’ Emma flapped her hands. ‘Never mind.’
She looked as if she’d dressed in a hurry and hadn’t made much of an effort at that. It was the first time Kit had seen her out of uniform. Her mass of dark hair was loose, but not very carefully styled, and her black trousers and cotton top didn’t look quite dressy enough with flat shoes.
Something had obviously happened at home. Her colour was high, and she seemed upset and angry, with none of the calm and control she displayed in the unit.
‘Are you OK?’ Kit whispered, when she found herself seated on Emma’s right.
‘Thanks for asking…Thanks for noticing!’ Emma gave a short laugh and bunched her glossy hair with one hand, to let it fall down her back. ‘I had a big fight with my stepmother. A huge fight,’ she amended.
‘Oh, not good.’
‘No. She says she’s moving out. I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry…or to take no notice because she won’t actually go. She’s threatened to before. This time, it seems more serious. She said some awful things!’
‘Take a deep breath,’ Kit said. ‘Don’t worry about it tonight. Enjoy yourself.’
‘Thanks. I’ll try. Certainly don’t want to lay it all on you. This has been going on for a while. Sometimes I wish my dad had left her the house. But then—Oh, lord, stop me, will you?’
‘Here are the menus. Decide what you’re going to have.’
Emma thanked Kit again, and turned her attention to mulling over the possibilities of soup or salad or seafood. Kit caught Gian’s gaze directed at her down the table. He was checking that she was all right. They were a long way apart, and on opposite sides. She smiled at him, to show that she was doing fine, and he smiled back.
Something happened.
Just in the space of that smile.
A recognition of possibilities, and a connection. A reason offered for her earlier jitters in his company. A new dimension to the friction between them a
few days ago.
It was silly, and strange, when they’d smiled at each other several times before. Why now? Why should it crystallise into something different now? Was it the soft lighting, perhaps? Or the white wine she had begun to sip?
‘I want her to go,’ Emma said. ‘That’s terrible, isn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Kit answered.
She dragged her gaze away from Gian’s, heart thudding, no idea what to think or feel.
‘It’s five years since Dad died. I felt I had to give her a home. She only has just enough money to live on as it is. She and Dad were only married for two years, before his death. Stupidly, of course, I thought she’d be grateful, even though, to be honest, we never got on very well even when—Oh, Kit, I’m so sorry!’
Emma slumped in her seat.
Gian was looking at Kit again, frowning a little. ‘Everything OK?’ he mouthed.
‘Fine. I’m fine. I’m having the Caesar salad and the seafood linguini,’ she said to him, across a gabble of voices.
‘So am I,’ he said.
Beyond the surface of their words, much more was exchanged.
‘Emma, please, talk about it, if you need to, and don’t apologise,’ Kit said to the other midwife.
There was a string with a magnet attached, and it was pulling her head to look back down the table at Gian. Or that was how it felt. His mouth looked smooth and soft, and there was a light in his eyes, and a depth she could have drowned in.
‘Seems like you need to download,’ she added, turning quickly back to Emma again.
‘Yes, well, the old emotional hard drive has been getting pretty clogged lately.’ Emma dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. ‘I mean, I’m thirty-three years old, and I can’t bring a boyfriend home. When I have a boyfriend. Which hasn’t been for…’ she looked at her watch ‘…eight months, three days and twenty-two hours. Not that I’m counting. And he and I had nothing in common anyway.’
‘If she really does go, will you feel guilty?’ A tiny glance told Kit that Gian was still looking at her, despite contributing very adequately to a lively conversation between the vintner, the vintner’s wife and Clive about wine. His face showed the same intrigued, confused and rather awestruck expression she had to fight to keep from appearing on hers.
‘Yes. Very guilty. And blessedly free,’ Emma said. ‘Guilt may win, and I’ll end up begging her to come back.’
Focus, Kit!
‘Doesn’t sound like she should count on that!’ she said.
‘She says she’s going to her daughter’s, but I know they don’t get on too well either. She’ll probably land back on my doorstep again in a month.’ Emma suddenly sat up straighter. ‘Do you know what? I’m not going to take it!’
‘That sounds like a decision.’
‘I’m going to tell her that I understand how she feels on several of the issues she raised, but I did not take anything from her purse, and if she leaves now, with these accusations still hanging in the air, she’d better understand that I’m not taking her back. Do you know, she hasn’t once acknowledged that I’ve kept her under my roof and paid numerous bills of hers as a kindness! She’s never thanked me for anything. She’s always acted as if it was her right. Really, Kit, I’m so sorry. I’ll stop now.’
‘Honestly, it’s fine. Wicked stepmother stories are a great ice-breaker, you know.’
She was rewarded by Emma’s surprised snort of laughter.
Gian raised his glass and called out, ‘What do you think of this, Kit?’
She picked up her own glass and it caught the light, the contents looking mellow and golden. ‘Lovely! Very…I know nothing about wine, by the way…fragrant and fresh. I’ve got a terrible head. I’ll only have this one glass, but it’s scrummy.’
‘There you are, Rick,’ Gian drawled. ‘Put that on this year’s label. Scrummy.’
Why was it so hard to take his eyes off Kit? he wondered. It wasn’t the wine. They’d smiled, and something had happened inside him. He’d suddenly felt as if he’d known her forever, and at the same time as if there was a whole world called Kit McConnell that was just waiting for him to explore.
It wasn’t at all the way he’d felt about his distant cousin Ciara. He’d fallen in love with Ciara nine years ago, against the backdrop of her native Sicilian soil, when he was twenty-five and she was just nineteen. She’d been darkly beautiful, passionate, illogical, open about her own selfishness, charming most of the time and exhausting the rest. He was in love with a tornado, he had sometimes thought.
He’d waited five years for her, flying to Italy whenever he could and flying Ciara out here. She was too young, he considered, and he hadn’t wanted to force a commitment from her too soon. He’d thought he was doing everything necessary to make sure that they were both certain of what they felt, and yet it had all fallen apart after less than three years.
Whatever the meaning of these smiles and these clashing glances, he knew Kit was nothing like his ex-wife.
‘Scrummy?’ Rick Steele echoed, grinning and sceptical.
Gian returned to the here and now, a much better place to be.
‘It’s a technical term,’ Kit said. She realised belatedly aloud, ‘Oh, is this one of yours, Rick?’
She reached for the bottle, which Gian was passing solemnly down the table, and took a closer look. ‘“Glen Aran Cloverfield Chardonnay”,’ she read aloud, and remembered that there was a field on her aunt’s farm, bordering the Di Luzio’s property, which was planted with pink and white clover in some seasons. This gave the wine a personal connection, and made Kit herself feel as if she was already halfway to belonging here in Glenfallon.
She read the whole of the wine label at a muttered volume, raising her eyes at the mention of ‘peach and citrus notes’.
‘Sorry, Rick,’ she said. ‘Gian’s right. I’m perfectly happy with “scrummy”.’
Gian laughed again.
‘That was a nice night, last night,’ he said the following afternoon, in the sunny yard of the farm.
‘I enjoyed it very much,’ Kit agreed. The words were as bland as could be, but she knew the tone gave away too much. The awareness between them was already thick and warm and making her dizzy.
‘Pete and Claire seem to be having some problems.’ He frowned, and his eyes narrowed. A breeze caught his hair, ruffling it. ‘It did get a little tense, towards the end, when they let some of it show. They separated for a while last year, and I’m not sure if the reconciliation will last. Nice if it did.’
‘Emma was upset, too, about her stepmother.’
‘I think a lot of people know that relationship’s not too sweet.’
‘But I appreciated the fact that she confided in me. I like Emma.’
‘And she’s good at her job.’ He raised his voice and called, ‘Bonnie, sweetheart, can you not yell and jump near the chooks’ fence? You’ll upset them, and they won’t lay.’
He and his little niece had come to collect some eggs, which apparently Bonnie was very excited about. They didn’t keep fowls at Federica’s. The child quietened down a little at her uncle’s words, but not enough, and he went up to her, crouched down to her level to speak more firmly. His shirt stretched across his strong back.
‘Hey! Shush, OK, or I won’t let you help me,’ he said. ‘We have to collect eggs quietly.’
‘O-tay, Untle Zian.’ She nodded solemnly, her big, brown eyes fixed on his face.
Kit’s eyes were fixed there, too. Or rather, they were fixed on the whole scene. She felt ridiculously jittery and churned up. Had done so ever since Aunt Helen had casually mentioned at lunch that the pair would be coming over later, while Helen herself was out.
Gian had brought a bag of freshly picked Roma tomatoes from Freddie’s vegetable garden, and a big bunch of pungent basil as well. The aniseed-like aroma of the leaves still clung to him after he’d deposited them on the kitchen table. It was drowned only by the gamier odour of the farmyard when Kit accompanied him and
Bonnie outside.
Bonnie was gorgeous. A mouth full of little white teeth that showed whenever she smiled. Dark ringlets all over her head. At almost two, her hair had never been cut. Darker eyes, just like Freddie’s…and like Gian’s.
He was dressed like a farmer today, in old denim jeans, which clung with loving emphasis to strong thighs and a tight rear end, and a khaki shirt with rolled sleeves and a frayed collar. Brown, elastic-sided boots and a battered Akubra felt farmer’s hat tilted low on his brow completed the picture. His white teeth emphasised his olive skin, and the tiny crow’s feet around his eyes made him look as if he was perpetually ready to smile.
‘You need a truck, instead of a European car, today,’ Kit told him, following her own train of thought. ‘And slightly more sun-damaged skin.’
He frowned. ‘Oh, I do?’
‘That didn’t make sense, did it? To make the “farmer in his natural habitat” picture complete and accurate, I mean.’
He laughed, the same way he’d laughed last night. The sound was soft, appreciative, musical, thoughtful. ‘Mum has the truck,’ he said. Kit loved the way his mouth moved when he spoke.
‘Borrow it next time,’ she suggested. ‘I’d like to see you with your elbow stuck out the open window, and a sheep-dog panting over your shoulder.’
Good grief, was she flirting with him? That was insane! They had to work together. Why was she letting one or two delicious yet dangerous looks and laughs last night make her so bold? Even if there was something to it…a seductive possibility hanging in the air…she didn’t want it. She wasn’t ready for it. She ought to run a mile!
He muttered something, and it might have been those same words.
I ought to run a mile.
Then he stepped closer.
‘Look, this might be a little sudden…’ he began.
Bonnie was circling his legs as if they were a tree trunk and she was playing a round-and-round game. He was standing close enough for Kit to see the way his sooty eyelashes feathered so darkly against his skin.