I turned to Rocco, and we both grinned at the same time. He lifted my hand and kissed it. I asked him a few questions about the property as we traversed it. Scarlett and Brando’s place seemed like the tamest area. The deeper we travelled behind their place, the deeper into the woods we were going.
“My brother purchased his home and land years ago. After we connected, he spoke so highly of his home, the three of us decided to purchase land close to his.”
“This area doesn’t belong to Brando and Scarlett?”
“No,” he said. “This is my area.”
“It’s nice how close everyone is.”
“We are Faustis,” he said.
“And that explains everything.” I laughed, but I loved how close they all were, even if the family mostly operated as a royal one would. Hierarchies and roles—I wasn’t fully sure how I felt about it all, truly, but off the cuff…
Rocco and his brothers seemed to carve out their own places when outside of the family’s laws. Small pockets of freedom to live as they wished. I had a feeling Brando was to thank for that.
Rocco slowed the SUV to a crawl before he completely stopped in front of a cottage. It was set amid the trees, as if it was placed there for travelers to find shelter in during a surprise storm they had gotten caught in. Light broke around it through the openings in the trees. I counted a few ancient oaks and endless pines. I could smell sap in the air. Magnolias were growing here and there in between, their petals starting to wilt and droop. I could see a few of them on the ground, already a victim to the oncoming season.
After taking in the cottage, my eyes caught on lines for hanging clothes. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine myselfwatching kids running and playing, a smile lingering on my face as I hung our clothes out to dry. My husband, in a thin white shirt, khaki work pants and boots, standing in the shadows while the sun fell on us—so much love coming from him, I mistook the sun’s rays for his ardor. I had never envisioned him this way before.
In Italy he was royalty.
Here?
I knew he could be a man—only a man. My man. Once we were back on home soil, Italy, and he put his designer suit and shoes on, I knew his roles would change.
To have this, though, so like our place on Aria Island, but even further removed from his formal role…a sigh escaped my lips. My next breath got stuck in my chest when I turned and met his eyes. They were on me—almost as hard as my eyes had been on the new scene in front of me.
“It is small.” He lifted his hand in another direction. “There is another place on the property. I plan to offer it to my sons, if one of them want it for the memories. If not, I will destroy it.”
“Oh,” I breathed, understanding. His life before me. “I don’t care what you do with the big place. Honestly…I don’t even need to see it. I already know. Can imagine how…grand it is.” How horrible it was for him. “I’d love to have this one. It’s perfect, Rocco. Quaint in such a picturesque way. The bigger the place, the more room between us. I’d rather not have it. Too much space is an enemy of love.” Not to mention, I couldn’t stand not to have his body holding me close, especially at night. I couldn’t sleep without him now. I was my husband’s Stage Fifteen Clinger.
“No king-sized bed, then, ah?”
I shook my head. “A terrible,terribleidea.”
A slow smile spread across my husband’s face as he finally let my hand go. He stepped out of the SUV, coming to my side toopen my door. Instead of helping me out, he scooped me out of the seat and carried me toward the door to our slice of heaven on earth, Pisolino following.
I’d never doubted my place in my husband’s life, but the shock of it, how we had been intended for each other, perfectly designed for one another, never ceased to amaze me.
No matter where we traveled together, in his life, in mine, we always fit. It came second nature for me to fall into his space, the perfect little cottage in the woods in Natchitoches, Louisiana, where, after a late harvest of the sweetest and juiciest wild blackberries, I canned and danced in the kitchen barefoot.
Pisolino made a figure-eight shape through my legs and around my ankles. He was purring something fierce.
The sun was low, throwing long shadows along the walls and on the floor. They moved in the kitchen with me and Pisolino, almost whimsical in tempo. Maybe because I was dancing. A long strand of hair came loose from its ties, and I brushed it behind my shoulder, feeling the day on my skin.
The leftover rays of a sun that seemed to belong to late summer, the smell of coconut and spice floating in the air around me. The taste of salt and something unique that belonged to my husband lingered on my lips. My hands were stained from the color of the fruit and sticky from its natural sugars. A slight breeze entered the cottage, and I lifted my hair, allowing it to touch the nape of my neck. The olive-green silk dress I wore shimmered with the tender gust, and I sighed at the feel of it.
It had been a long day of gathering the fruit from their thorny canes, baskets and baskets of overflowing bounties, fighting offbirds and insects trying to get to what we had already picked. A slight smile came to my face when I remembered Rocco and a particularly war-hungry red bird going at it. Rocco was defending my honor, since it was my basket the bird had its sights on, and the red bird…the red bird had an advantage. It had wings and was quick to use them every time Rocco went to shoo the thief away.
I had laughed, and his eyes came to mine, so seriously, it made me laugh even harder. “I’m not sure if you’re allowed to run that one off, my love,” I’d said.
Rocco’s eyes snapped to mine before they instantly softened at the name I’d called him. Brando had wiped sweat from his brow, looking at his wife, who looked between the two of us with tears in her eyes. When the truth in our love moved her, she never seemed to hold back her feelings about the happiness we were both experiencing.
Maybe because she knew what Rocco had been through, how I had shunned love for so long because the men offering it could never live up to my standards. She knew how much we meant to each other. She knew how much we needed each other. She knew how much we loved each other. Our love reflected hers, even if our timing and relationship was different from hers and her husband’s.
At this time, the bird decided to dive down, but instead of going for a berry, it went for my husband’s hair. She got a strand, carrying it off, before she went for another berry. He didn’t even blink.
“Tell me,Piccolo ladro,” he said after a minute. He lifted his arm, wiping his head, which was covered by droplets of sweat.
