Gold Rush had, somewhat, become accustomed to the soldiers in suits who first arrived with us, but Mariano, Marciano, and Angelo had shaken it up again.
All eyes were on us.
I was about to ask the woman down the bar if she needed a shovel to pick her mouth up from the ground. Instead, my eyes searched his. “What happened, Mariano?” I whispered.
He shook his head. “Not the fucking time.” He nodded to Marciano, who was next to us, waiting for Sam to deliver his drink.
Marciano nodded. I knew something was off when I clocked his lack of eye contact and clothes as well. Marciano was…showy. His clothes were dusted over, even his face and hair. He was being more solemn than usual.
My mouth opened when Mariano leaned in and told me not to fall out of love with him while he was gone. He left me with a lingering kiss on the cheek, the wall built of Fausti muscle moving aside to allow him through before he crashed into them.
I turned to Marciano. He was downing whiskey. When he felt me watching him, he set the drink down and sighed. And then…his eye bore into mine. “Spicy Sissy,” he whispered, “I wouldgive you a Marciano hug, since we’re not in Italy, but my brother would blow a fucking gasket if I did.”
I was about to ask him why, but I knew that was a dangerous question. It could have been a simple answer—Mariano did not allow any man to touch me but him—or one that was more complicated. My bet was on the latter. He felt pity for me.
Why?
Perhaps the Fausti family’s honor was tangled with their motto, but that did not mean they were not allowed to keep silent. He wasn’t going to give me an explanation for why he felt that way. I had an idea of why, but again, did not bring it up.
Mariano seemed to be back in a flash. He had changed. He wore a black cowboy hat, long-sleeved shirt, a vest, slacks, and boots. He took me by the hand and shattered the wall of men around me again.
Sam nodded to Mariano as we passed him.
“Where are we going?” I barely got out.
“My wife came here to dance. She’ll dance.”
“Ah,” I breathed out. “Where is she?”
On the dance floor, everyone around him gave a wide berth. He spun me out and then brought me into his body. My head was fuzzy from the shots and whiskey, and the lights around me seemed to blur when he did.
“I’m looking right at her. The heart living outside of my chest.”
My eyes seemed to melt into his, my body following, especially when a romantic song started to play. “I like the feel of…”
A fast song played after, and he gave me a cheeky grin before he started to move me on the floor as if two-stepped every day.
“Look at Fausti move,” a young guy who Mariano directed on the ranch said. “Making us all look bad—again.”
Everyone around us laughed. Mariano smiled.
When my husband gave me some room to dance solo, he did so with a grin on his face.
After hours and hours, sweat coating my body, we swayed to the beat of a hypnotic song. I did not need anything or anyone but him. I realized my oddness was okay. He was in my bubble with me.
“Can I tell you something, Outlaw?” I whispered drunkenly, a slight smile coming to my face. “Or will you steal it from me eventually?”
“You give me,” he said in Italian.
“You stole my heart,” I whispered, feeling as though we were rocking in the chair outside of our cabin as we swayed.
“Nah. You gave me that too. I just had to work for it.”
“You have.”
“I always will. I’ll work to keep it.”
We stared at each other. The connection between us was moving as hypnotically as the sound.
