Gambler's Folly (Bookstrand Publishing Romance)

by Mellie E. Miller

  What else was available? Did this world have any mountains? Yes, it did, and some of them were quite high, with year-round snow. Before she had married Trae, she and some of her friends had enjoyed skiing, and at one time, she’d been pretty good. Not expert, but more than just okay. Besides, a little cold weather might be nice after the heat here in Speranza.

  But would Damiano like something like that? He hadn’t given her any guidelines. He seemed fairly active, and while she was sure he could take time to relax, she thought he might be happier doing something physical.

  Ordering another search, she found several places with excellent skiing. She didn’t have any equipment or clothes to wear for such an adventure, though. Maybe she should pick an alternate, just in case.

  How about swimming? Dam liked to swim. Did she want to go to the ocean, or to someplace inland with fresh water? There were some gorgeous islands in the more temperate areas, which offered all kinds of treats. From diving excursions to view the wildlife, to underwater cave exploration, there was something for everyone, divers and swimmers alike. And of course there were the water parks for families. She didn’t like the idea of all those people just now. Someplace more private and off the beaten track was more to her liking. After all, this was really their honeymoon.

  After searching, she found a couple of places to propose. Of course, Damiano might know of someplace else he would like better, but which offered similar attractions. And that would be fine either way. Snow or surf. At least she could get out and see a little bit of this world, where she would spend another year and a half.

  * * * *

  Late in the afternoon, four days after he’d gone, an anxious Damiano entered the suite. Clutching her to him, he apologized for leaving her alone and insisted she must rest.

  “No, really, Dam, I’m fine,” she told him once again. “Dante has made sure everything is right before it comes up to the room. Marco says the kitchen staff is jittery from him poking around all the time, peering into things.”

  Damiano chuckled at the thought, and finally accepting her assurances, grabbed an apple from the dish. “Such a world I was on. They had no apples, can you believe it?” he said, taking a large crunchy bite.

  Karianna laughed. “You and your apples. You must be in withdrawal after four days without them.”

  “There is no withdrawal…” he said frowning. “Oh! You make a joke, cara. Yes, I am nearly in need of medical attention from lack of apples.”

  “So wherever we go for our trip, we must be sure there are apples, right?”

  “You are so funny, cara. Of course there will be apples, as long as we stay on this world.” Finishing up his last bite, he asked, “Have you decided what you want to do?”

  “Well, I’ve got a couple of ideas. It depends on what you like to do. I don’t want to insist on something if you won’t like it.”

  “Karianna, I like most things. Whatever you choose, I’m sure will be fine.”

  “I used to go skiing every winter at home. I haven’t been in a long time, and I’m probably kind of rusty. And I know I don’t really have any equipment or anything, so if you’d rather do something else…” It all came out in an apologetic tumble.

  Laughing, Damiano shook his head. “Cara, cara, per favore! I like to ski. It’s fine. We can buy you some clothes and some skis. I have a lodge up by Monte Calvo. It is beautiful, lots of trees, evergreens. Wonderful for skiing, the snow is polvere, how you say, powder.”

  “Are you sure, Dam? I mean we could go and swim…” she began.

  “Do you want to ski or swim, cara?” he asked.

  “Well, ski, if you don’t mind buying everything I’ll need.”

  “Then we’ll ski. When do you want to leave?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, confused. “I don’t know what your plans are.”

  “My plans are your plans, cara. Why don’t we leave day after tomorrow? Tomorrow we can have the equipment sent to the lodge, so we don’t have to travel with it. And we can leave it there when we come home, for another time.”

  The rest of the afternoon became rather involved. Though a little later than usual, they dined upstairs in the restaurant, their meals brought to them by the dashing and vigilant Dante. After a leisurely tour of the gaming tables, they turned in for some good old-fashioned sleep.

  Chapter 15

  Early in the morning, Karianna and an excited Damiano went to have her measured for ski gear. With Damiano, there was no shopping. He knew exactly what he wanted her to have, and just where to get it. “I order all my ski equipment here,” he told her. “I’ve known these people for several years, and they’ve always given me good service.”

  His enthusiasm over their trip was nearly too much for Karianna. He was like a little boy in a toy store. With jacket, mask, hat, gloves, skis, boots, and everything else finally ordered to measure, they went to lunch in a little hole-in-the-wall place, which was completely independent from his establishments.

  “I thought it would be a nice change for you, cara,” he told her. “You haven’t been out much and don’t know anything about Speranza. And Dante can take the afternoon off.”

  “That will make the kitchen happy,” she responded with a smile.

  “Yes, Dante can be a little, um, intense?” he said. “He does the job I pay him to do.”

  The lunch was very different from what was served at Stella d’Oro. Both were fantastic in their own way, just different. After a relaxed and enjoyable afternoon around town, they made their way back to the suite.

  “Now, we need to pack for our trip,” Damiano told her on the way back.

  “What should I bring?” she asked him.

  “All of your cold weather things will already be at the lodge,” he said. “Anything else you might want you should take. We will probably be gone for a week,” he said with a smile.

  “A week, Dam? Really?” she asked, excited at the prospect.

  “Yes, a week. So you should bring some evening things, for dinner out a few times. Also, some casual clothes for around the lodge and to go sightseeing. Maybe you can bring your flute and play up on the mountain.”

  Watching to see what he was taking, Karianna tried to pack along the same lines. She wanted to keep it down to one bag, but wound up with one large bag and a medium-sized one stuffed to capacity.

  “Well of course, cara,” Damiano told her. “Women have more to pack, with all the accessories to go with everything. It is no problem.”

  Their trip hadn’t been publicized, and when they left, they took one of the smaller vehicles, not the limo. With his personal jet ready and waiting at the private airstrip, their baggage was stowed while they got settled into the most comfortable seats Karianna had ever seen in a plane. Minutes later, they took off for Monte Calvo.

  After nearly six hours, their plane landed at another small airstrip. It was nighttime and really cold compared to Speranza.

  “Aren’t you glad you have your coat, cara?” Damiano teased. “You must get used to flying with me instead of on public transport. Luggage isn’t a problem.”

  While Marco and Paolo put their luggage in the car, Karianna gazed up at the stars twinkling brightly in the thin mountain air. Never having been out after dark, except in the city, she was amazed at the multitude of them.

  “Have you never seen stars before, cara?” Damiano asked her.

  “Well, yes, on Earth. But not since I’ve been here. They’re hard to see from outside the hotel.”

  “Hmmm, yes, that is correct. With all the lights of the city, they aren’t really visible. Up at the lodge, there is even less light than here. We’ll spend one night just watching the stars.”

  The air was crisp and clean on their drive to the lodge, and the trees were a wonder. She had seen evergreens on Earth, like the pines and spruces near where she had lived, but these were quite different. The shapes in the dark weren’t the typical cone shape she was used to.

  “No, cara, these are more of a
dome, sometimes more like an ombrello—umbrella. And the color is more blue than green. Sometimes tinted with violet. You will see, cara.”

  They arrived at the lodge close to midnight. Damiano had called ahead and had the kitchen stocked and the heat turned up for them. She saw a small stack of firewood next to the door.

  “Yes, Karianna, we have a small fireplace inside. Not so much for warmth as to watch. It is very restful, no?”

  The lodge was cozy in a grandiose sort of way. Just like his suite was larger than most houses she’d lived in, the lodge was more like a house than the cabin in the woods she’d been expecting.

  “Why should I be uncomfortable, just because I’m on vacation?” he asked, amused. “There is no need to be cramped when I can relax and stretch out.”

  As late as it was, they went to bed almost as soon as they got in the door. Where Marco and Paolo were staying she didn’t know, but they left the lodge after making sure everything was secure.

  The next morning after some breakfast, Damiano suggested a walk so she could get an idea of the area and acclimatize to the altitude. From the front door, she looked over a cliff and down onto the small village below. Those evergreens she’d seen in the dark were quite exquisite in the early morning sun. Blue green, but more blue than the blue spruce at home, one variety was like a series of disks, or umbrellas, stacked one on top of the other, diminishing in size as they neared the top of the tree.

  Another variety was a darker blue green than the first, the needles coated with a thin layer of lavender powder. These trees were closer to the traditional pine look, only slightly rounded in shape, like they’d been squashed by a giant hand. All the blues, greens, and lavenders gave the purple mountains a crisp, clean, pristine look against the snow.

  “This is marvelous, Dam,” she told him as she looked out over the world. “So pretty and peaceful up here.”

  The next day, Damiano felt she was ready to try skiing. “Where do we go to ski from here?” she asked.

  “Where do we go? Outside, of course.” Damiano seemed confused.

  “I know outside, but is there a resort near here or something?”

  “Have you never skied in nature?” he asked.

  “In nature? What do you mean, in nature? Where else would I ski?” Now they were both confused.

  “I think, maybe, we are talking about different things, cara,” he began. “When I ski up here, I go to the front door and put on my skis. Then I go wherever I like.”

  “From here?”

  “Si, cara, from here. What do you do?”

  “Well, at home, I would take my skis, drive to a ski resort, pay an entrance and lift fee. Then, once I got to the main lodge, I would put on my skis, find the lift to take me to the slopes, and go from there.”

  “So much trouble. Here it is much easier. No fees, no lift, no worries. Can we go now?”

  “This should be interesting,” she said. Locking her boots into the bindings of her skis, she checked to make sure everything was in order and followed her very eccentric husband down the mountain.

  The air was cold, crisp, and thin, so they kept to a moderate pace. The scent of the evergreens in the wintry air was a wonderful pick-me-up. Invigorating even, as Karianna breathed in deeply to catch her breath.

  After an hour or more, they were pretty far from the lodge. “Now, how do we get back up the mountain without a lift?” Karianna asked.

  “Follow me.” He chuckled. Racing on down the mountain, they came to a little road, which led to the town she’d seen from the mountaintop.

  “But now we’re even farther away,” she said.

  “Not for long.” Pulling a communicator from his jacket pocket, he spoke to someone in Italian. “Now we wait for a few minutes and catch our breath.”

  Blue-gray boulders, like giant marbles, littered the roadside, so they sat down to wait. Soon, Damiano’s car came up the road, with Paolo driving.

  “Did you have a good time?” he asked as they got into the car.

  “Ah, yes,” Damiano answered. “It’s nice to get out once in a while, into the fresh air.”

  Seeing the smug look on his face, Karianna shook her head and said, “That’s cheating.”

  “Why is it cheating? In a resort, you would take the lift back up the mountain. Here I have a private car. There’s no difference.”

  She was sure there was a difference, but she couldn’t figure out how to win this argument.

  Her skills were returning quickly with three days of practice behind her. Of course her muscles were complaining at the unaccustomed work.

  “So, this is what you get from not working out, cara,” he teased.

  “Not working out? I’ve been working out since I met you,” she countered.

  “But it is not the same, the treadmill. Now this is real exercise, cara.”

  He proved to be an excellent chef. Karianna was pretty much a soup-and-sandwich cook, and she’d warned him about her skills. So he had pitched in and done most of the cooking for their ski holiday. She’d even had breakfast in bed one morning, with perfectly poached eggs and crespelle filled with preserved fruits and cream cheese. It was a really good thing she was getting so much exercise.

  To cap off their trip, they went into the village for dinner for their last evening. Damiano knew of a nice little place which served the best alpine-type food she’d ever had.

  “This place is one of the reasons I bought the lodge,” he told her. “If I’m going to be away from home, I must be able to have decent food.”

  After dinner they took a walk around the village. “Cara, we haven’t taken the time to look at the stars. And I promised,” he apologized. “Once we are back to the lodge, we’ll dress warmly and go back out to watch them, bene?”

  And so they had, only not quite the way she’d thought. “But I’ve never skied at night, Dam,” she tried to explain.

  “It’s the same thing, Kari, only not so much light.” He laughed at the look she gave him. “No, it is, and we’ll go slowly. You know the mountain pretty well now, so just enjoy.”

  The world was a very quiet place at night, she decided. The whisper of their skis on the snow seemed to echo off every boulder, lending an eerie feeling to the night. The cold air tickled inside her nose, nearly making her sneeze. After a few minutes, they reached a little clearing with a good view of the sky.

  “Here we are, cara. We can sit on the rocks and watch the stars march across heaven. It’s really very beautiful. Much better than from Earth, I think.”

  They must have watched and snuggled for an hour before the chill got to be too much. “And how do we get back from here?” she asked. “Do you have another car waiting down a little road, just around the bend?”

  “No, cara. No car, no road.”

  “Then how do we get back?”

  “If we take it easy, we can walk back up without too much work.”

  “Walk?” she asked, incredulous. “You must be kidding.”

  “No really, we can walk. Come, follow me.”

  Instead of turning up the mountain, he started around it, just slightly uphill. After walking for a few minutes, he doubled back, still slightly uphill.

  “We’re going to be at this all night, Dam,” she complained.

  “You have no faith, Karianna,” he said, shaking his head. “But me, I know this place.”

  About five minutes further along, just around a small stand of trees, they came to a cute little cabin. He unlocked the door and motioned her inside. While it wasn’t warm inside, it was out of the wind. The lantern he lit cast a warm, yellow light on the tidy interior, where she saw, among other things, a neatly made bed.

  “Is this really on the way back to the cabin, or do you simply have ulterior motives?” she asked.

  “Well, there may have been other motives,” he said as he began to remove his coat and hat, “but the cabin isn’t too far from here, if you want to go back up tonight.”

  “What’s the alternative
?”

  “We can light a fire and simply stay here. It is late, and you may be too tired to finish climbing back to the lodge.” He quickly built a fire in the fireplace while she undressed. The bed proved comfortable enough for two, and he had been right. It was way too late, and they were too tired, after evening’s exercises, to make it back to the lodge before morning.

  The next morning they finished their walk to the lodge. Marco and Paolo were there, coffee ready, and breakfast on the table when they got back.

  “After we eat, cara, pack what you want to take back with you. Anything you might want here later, you can leave. Nobody else uses the lodge.”

  The trip back was uneventful, though it took all day. In Speranza, they gave the gaming rooms a miss. It had been a long day after an energetic evening. Though she’d slept in and slept most of the way back, she was still tired.

  “I think the fresh air agrees with you, Karianna,” he said. “You’ve been sleeping well, and you look alert and alive like I’ve never seen you. We’ll have to ski more often.”

  “I do feel good,” she agreed. “I’ve always loved winter. Maybe that’s what it is. Plus some really great fun and exercise in the fresh air. It was marvelous, Damiano. Thank you for indulging me.”

  “What is to indulge? You are my wife and you’ve been very patient with me. You deserve some special treatment.”

  “You won’t have to be away again, will you?” she asked him.

  “Not for a little while, cara. In maybe two weeks, but not for too long, Dio vuole. After last week, I don’t like for you to be alone.” Frowning slightly, he shook his head.

  “Dam, can I ask what is going on? You seem troubled,” she ventured.

  “It is nothing to worry you, cara. Just some business competitors who don’t understand the word ‘no.’ It will be alright soon.”

  “If you say so,” she told him.

  “Trust me, cara. I will keep you safe.”