She sighed, and it was long and wistful sounding. “Mamma’s father is not going to approve of the relationship.”
Atta did not call our grandfatherNonnoor any other word that would give him the title. He had not earned it in her life, she felt, so she refused to call him anything but “mamma’s father.”
“No,” I said, no hesitation. “Neither will my father.”
“I expected.”
“Ido not approve of it, Atta.”
“Juri,” she said with a scold to her tone. Juri had tried edging her head out of the window even further. Her dogs were well trained, but they were almost like two hairy children. They tried to be naughty until she caught them. She shook her head. “Let me tell you something about relationships, Sis. I always find them to be like an outfit. Sometimes an outfit will look great on the rack, but it’s truly horrible when you try it on.
“It might look amazing on someone else, but on you—it just wasn’t meant to be. Then we find something we absolutely love in a store that’s too expensive for our pocketbook, but we don’t try it on because we’re afraid it won’t look good. Or rather, if it does, we won’t be able to sacrifice enough to make it ours. It’ll never be ours, because…let me count the ways.”
“Or an outfit that does not look good on the hanger might look good on,” I said, adding to her point. “Does that mean it will look amazing on me?”
“I don’t know. But that’s the point, isn’t it? You’ll never know if you don’t find the courage to try it on.”
An old romantic country song started to play on the radio, and I leaned forward to change it. Another older song, but this one was a duet with two women—it was faster, more upbeat, and that was what I needed. Not something to feed my mood, but something to pull me out of it.
The truck bumped and rumbled along. After the song had ended, Atta leaned forward and turned the radio down. It was almost nothing but static in the background of the wind.
“I have to ask you a serious question.”
I nodded, knowing this was coming. I sighed again, but it stole nothing from the pressure in my chest.
She squeezed the wheel. “His hands?”
A simple question made of two words.
His hands.
The memory of them sent butterflies spinning in my stomach. There were so many of the winged things, it felt as if they might combine and carry me out of the window.
“Rough,” I said, and my voice matched the word. “Calloused. Uneven fingernails. The state of them does not make sense with the rest of him.”
“That’s why he’s different,” she whispered, but I heard her. I heard her as well as Judge and Juri could hear the call of a bird from hectares away. “Do you ache, Sis?”
I sighed, long and heavy. “I do.” I set my hands over my chest. “Somewhere in the vicinity of my heart.”
Again, we said nothing until the Watt family ranch was in view. She pulled into the three-mile drive, kicking up dust in our wake. At the end of the road, she parked in front of the main house, as everyone called it. Sighing she rested her head on the steering wheel, knocking her hat back, and turned her face so she could meet my eyes.
“You’re in big trouble,” she blurted.
“I know,” I whispered. “This is why I am here.”
Chapter 8
Sistine
One week since I had left Venice. One week since I had been at Watt Ranch, and even though time did not permit it, my feet dragged as if weights had suddenly appeared on them. Perhaps because my heart had inherited a weight it did not have before.
This weight?
It had a name.
Mariano Leone Fausti,aka, The Casanova Prince.
To the rest of the world, the connotation to carry around a weight might seem negative, but it did not feel wholly negative to me. It felt as if I suddenly had a home, and that home was a place that rooted me. Perhaps “anchor” would be a better description. The sudden root in my heart felt like an anchor during a storm.
