Two! I was winning at life that day.
“I feel the same!” I said, almost out of breath. I pulled my shirt down some and showed him the scar on my shoulder. “They are big. Huge, in fact.” I showed him my teeth, about to say a hundred times bigger than mine, and then automatically stopped when I realized how ridiculous I looked.
It was like the time Mariano and I had sex in front of a mirror and I told him how ugly the faces I made were. He got insulted. How dare I insinuate that any part of his heart was ugly! He took me again, and the entire time he made love to me, he pointed out how beautiful I was. I would only speak words that reflected that.
I had to remind myself to clear my head of these thoughts. I had started to get hot, and I fanned myself with Mariano’s—my—flannel.
“They are so good,” I said, apropos of nothing, meaning how Scarlett and Mariano were on horses. My voice sounded lame to my own ears. Brando Fausti might not have been Luca Fausti, but he might as well have been.
Brando nodded, somehow understanding the drunken path my conversation skills were taking. “My wife is part Scottish. Her father’s family has property there. She loves it. My son inherited that from her. Add that to my father teaching my sons how to ride war horses and sword fight, and it stirred something romantic in my son.”
“A little of you and a little of her makes Mariano Leone Fausti,” I breathed out.
He nodded slowly, then turned around to find his wife. My husband was looking for me. I had given him a little wave. He narrowed his eyes at me underneath his cowboy hat.
“We both do not enjoy things with teeth bigger than ours…” I allowed this thought to linger as my husband turned his horse around and went after his mamma again. “Would you like to tend to the baby animals with me?”
Brando Fausti’s mouth quirked up before he exploded with laughter. He turned and started walking toward the barn that held the baby animals. He stopped and waited for me, and I took this as a sign he was enjoying my company.
“Stop thinking about my old man,” Mariano said, taking a deeper drink of the whiskey. He pulled my head against his and shared it with me again.
It burned on the way down, and I knew for the rest of my life, no matter where I was, what I was doing, if the smell of the alcohol passed underneath my nose, or something burned me similarly, I would be brought back to my husband’s mouth and how sweet and spicy his tongue was.
Magic.
“I was thinking of you and your mamma on the horses,” I said. “I would…like to ride with you that way someday.”
So far, I had only ridden with him. He was able to swoop me up and sit me behind him. It was a harrowing experience, at first, but if the horse’s teeth were far away from my flesh, all was right, and it was exhilarating racing with him.
Clinging to him for dear life.
Baby steps, I reminded myself.
He did not say anything. Only nodded, his eyes serious.
I had given my husband a partial truth. Brando Fausti had been wrapped up in the memory. How he had helped me clean the barn. How he would use his pointer knuckle to bop the noses of some of the animals. How Rocky, the fiercest kid in the babybarn, had hit him in theculowhen he bent down to pick up the shovel I had dropped, and I could not stop laughing.
Brando had made a noise. A noise that sounded like a cross betweenungandhoa.
“This is why…” I had started laughing again, holding my stomach. I waved a hand. “I am sorry! This is why they call him Rocky!” I rushed out, exploding again.
Scarlett and Mariano had entered the barn not long after, and Mariano gave his father a narrow look before he took me in his arms and brought me so close to his body, it was as if he was trying to set me in his bloodstream.
I laughed even harder.
Not at him, or the way he loved me. It was the way he was mad that I was laughing at what happened with his father, and that he was not the man causing it. Scarlett started laughing too, and together, we played with the animals while the men took care of the baby crap.
Even above Luca and Brando, I was a bit overwhelmed with the thought of Scarlett Fausti. Not only was she a ballet legend and Brando Fausti’s wife, but…she was Mariano’s mamma. Italian mammas were protective over their sons, especially. Instantly, however, we seemed connected through him, not at war over him. She seemed able to let go, without letting go, if that made any sense. It did to me. She loved all her children. This was so clear to feel and see…
Her eyes…
Her eyes unnerved me a bit.
At times I caught her looking at me, and it was as if she could see clear through me, if she wished to. It seemed as if she only went as far as her instincts instructed her to so she would not miss a thing. Although I was not as “feeling” as Scarlett and my sister-in-law, I had a feeling Scarlett was waiting to talk to me alone once it was announced that her son and I were married.
If there was a reason we were not acknowledging our…it…to the world, she would wait until we did before she spoke to me alone.
She was beautiful and special—of this, I was sure. Hannah was drawn to her from the moment the two of them met. They spent hours in Hannah’s garden. Hannah even invited Scarlett to her private area in the yard to see her paintings and baskets. I had a feelingZiaBianca was a bit jealous. I was as well.
