“Oh?” I said, then cleared my throat again. It burned, like I’d been screaming for ours. Even after all this time, he had the ability to sneak things in on me. “When?”
“As soon as possible.”
“The kids—”
“The kids will be ecstatic.”
“Put me down,” I ordered.
“No.”
“Put.Me. Down.”
He glanced down, caught my eye, and then did as I had said. He’d learned how to pick his battles. So had I. Earlier my strength had left me, but things were different at that point in time, and he knew it. He was the one who lacked strength.
A beam of light struck through a break in the canopy, and we stood on either side of it. Ants were visible, making a chain gang through the floor, and small things seemed to twitch under fallen leaves. A bird took flight overhead, squawking from one branch to another—calling out for friends or warning other feathered things away.
I lifted my hands, prepared to bring them down with a slap against my legs to emphasize my irritation, but instead, they seemed to open to him. Helpless.
“You made the right decision,” I whispered. “Bringing us here. Bringing us home. Mia is learning how to dance while still being able to live a normal life. Matteo—he’s so different now. He’s in a good place. Or getting there. I’ve been meaning to tell you this. The other day I overheard him talking to his friends at school.
“He was going on and on about his father, the man who jumped into dangerous water to save lives in the Coast Guard. How you broke records. How no one can out-swim you. The picture you thought I took down? The one you told me to—the one of you in Alaska during that time. He took it, Brando. To show his friends. He still has it with him.”
I took a deep breath, then released it slowly.
“Mariano doesn’t base his every decision because his brother does it first. He’s becoming his own person. And Marciano…”
Despite the tension, we both grinned. Marciano was still Marciano. He was too young to have been swayed by his grandfather’s power. Though he definitely had Fausti ways. Some things were just in the blood when it came to them, I had decided. Honor one of them.
“And you, my husband,” I continued, my voice still soft. My hands came to my heart, wanting to protect it. Because the words about to come had the power to break it in two. “You laugh—Oh God.” My hand came over my mouth, refusing to allow the sob to break free. We had enough of that.
He made a move to come toward me, but I held a hand up. Shaking my head, I refused to give sorrow the run of my emotions.
“You laugh,” I said with more fire in my voice. “So freely now, Brando. If it took everything we went through for me to hearthat…well, it was all worth it to me, ah? Every hard time—it made all of this.” I breathed in and out—the freshness of the pine touching my lungs. “It made where we stand today worth it. I love being home with you and our children. It’s all I ever wanted. I know we’ll travel. We’ll still explore the world. But at the end of it all, we’ll always come back home. Roots before you fly, Brando. That’s what you gave me. I’ve never thanked you for that—”
“Enough,” he snapped. “You thanking me for loving you is like the lottery thanking the winner for taking it.”
“All right.” I shrugged. “But I won’t go. I won’t leave. Not now.”
His eyes narrowed, suspicious. “Give me a reason.”
“I just gave youfive.”
“No, a reason whyyou want to stay.”
It took me a moment to think this through. Not able to dance around it, I sighed. “Whatever is going to be is going to be, Brando. We deal afterward and make the best of it. But we can’t stop life.”
Then I went to walk off, huffing as I did. One extreme to another—was I pregnant? Possibly. But I didn’t think that was the source of the…uncertainty. The mood swings.
Right before I stepped over a log that had been down for a while— moss had crept over it, covering it in a fine green carpet—Brando swept me off my feet, hauling us over the stump himself.
“The hell we can’t. You’re mine, Scarlett Rose Fausti. I dare anyone or anything to try and take you from me.”
After a few minutes, he said, “Ifuckingdare them,” like he had been thinking about it, and his tone was as final as I’d ever heard it.
15
Brando
