“My nephews, who are under five, are more of a man than him. A quarter of one of my men can replace him.”
She waved a hand at me but did not argue. She couldn’t. She knew I was right. She motioned toward the stables, and I followed behind her. We were headed to the “older” stables where all the work took place on the horses—medical, shoes, etc. Not far away was a new European-style prime stable that had two rows of stalls on the inside, the horses facing each other.
Sistine emerged from the dimness of the barn and blinked at me. She took her aunt’s side, and when we met up with Hannah, Sistine wrapped her arm around Hannah’s, giving me a quick glance. As the two women looked out at the land, Sistine brought up bison and Hannah’s latest sketch of them.
Sistine made eye contact with me as I passed them. I nodded to her but didn’t hang around for long. We’d been dancing around each other ever since I’d arrived three days ago. I always knew where she was, and it almost seemed like she found me, even if she avoided the stables when I was in them.
Her eyes were on me until I disappeared. Another set was on both of us. Hannah. It seemed like she had eyes all over the ranch.
Bianca sighed as she walked ahead of me to the stables. She nodded to the entrance. “The Faustis are a variety of men, but I do not think in all my years in Italy, I have ever met a man ofyour blood who enjoyed getting his hands dirty as much as you do—with animals, of course.”
“Of course,” I responded in Italian.
She seemed to enjoy speaking in her native tongue. Her children knew the language, or most of it, so maybe us being here brought back the good side of home to her. Not her family or mine but being an Italian. She hadn’t brought up her Fausti experience with me, and I doubted she would. Even the situation between her daughter and Angelo wasn’t discussed. Whatever existed between them was moving fast.
Bianca seemed to be a woman who would stop her children if they were in danger, and maybe in the darkness she gave Atta her experience with my family, but it also seemed as if she gave them the freedom to live, even after she had lost so much. It seemed she was doing the same for her niece.
She sighed when she looked at me. It was like she was following my train of thought. “I do not love this situation, but we must make choices for ourselves. My family did not allow this. Neither does yours. The situations on this ranch will work themselves out, however they are meant to be.” She turned and left.
I entered the dim stables with a lot on my mind. A lot being Sistine Evita, aka, my Annie. Not only had she taken over the vital organ pumping in my chest, but my mind too. It wandered to the point that I lost track of time while I took care of the horses.
My head snapped up at the sound of someone rushing into the stables. My instincts were too ingrained in me not to. I could be consumed with my Annie while keeping my back in check. The cadence of these steps was rushed, anger behind them, judging by how heavy they fell. No surprise attack, then.
Apple, pear, rose, and a hint of leather floated through the air, and I was instantly on alert, my heart pumping overtime.
Sistine came to a sudden stop in front of me. She was a few paces away and keeping as far from me as she could. She didn’t want to get too close to me or the horses. They stirred in her wake.
“You smell like apples to them,” I said. “They can’t help themselves.”
“Help what?” she snapped.
“Being attracted to you. They want to eat you up.” I winked.
I heard her intake of breath before she seemed to compose herself.
She waved an accusatory hand at me. “You almost killed a man!”
“Nah.” I got back to work. “He’s fine.”
“You could have broken his windpipe!”
“I didn’t.”
“Is that something they teach you in Fausti school? How to exert just enough pressure not to kill a man?”
“Does your family teach you to only send a warning shot and not a deadly shot with a gun?”
“Stop, this, ah, answering a question with a question!” Her eyes moved to the right, where the horse in the stall was sticking her neck out so far, it was straining. The mare was even moving her lips, like that was going to bring her closer to the apple orchard. Sistine glued herself to the wall, but she said to the horse politely, “I do not have any apples, so you can forget about biting me.”
“That’s why you’re afraid of horses.”
“Amnot.”
I nodded to the distance between her and the horse, as if to say, the distance states otherwise.
She rolled her eyes at me. “You had no right to choke Hiram out!”
I moved away from the horse, close to her, and she backpedaled until she realized I was moving her. She planted her feet on the ground and lifted her chin in defiance.
