by Toni Blake
Giovanni smiled as they settled on the blanket. Edna’s summer skirt fluttered a bit in the breeze, revealing her knees for a second, and she simply laughed, pushing it down, but she wondered if Giovanni had noticed.
“You told me that once before,” he said, stretched out on his side, propped on one elbow. “About the creek. That is why I chose this spot.”
Edna flushed lightly, embarrassed about repeating herself. She wanted to seem smart to him. “Guess I just…can’t really get over it.”
“Over what?”
“How…nice it is here. Not like at home.”
“It is not good at home?” he asked, and she instantly wanted to smack herself for being so honest—she didn’t want to answer.
Yet she couldn’t think of anything but the truth. “Well, times are hard,” she explained. “It keeps Mama and Daddy irritable, strained. And…”
“Go on,” he prodded, reaching into the basket for the sandwiches and soda pop.
She pursed her lips, then let out the rest. “Our house ain’t so nice as yours. And you’ve seen our old rattletrap of a truck. And…I like all the color here. We got color at home, of course, but…I like the flowers in front of your house, and the red barn. I guess…everything here just seems brighter to me.” She looked into his eyes as she said that last part, ready to be bolder than usual—she didn’t mind him knowing that when all was said and done, it was really him that made everything seem so bright in her world right now.
“It pleases me that you are so happy here, Edna,” he told her, and another bead of sweat rolled between her breasts. Even in the shade, it was hot, but with Giovanni, she didn’t mind it. “I want you to know,” he said, “that I have been very happy since you came here, too.”
Edna bit her lip, her chest tightening with excitement. “Why’s that?” she asked cautiously.
And his answer came smooth as fresh-churned butter, not at all nervous like when she spoke. “I enjoy being with you very much.”
She glanced down at her sandwich, not quite able to meet his eyes. “Um, same here. I mean, I…I like your company.”
“Edna, you are the first person since I left Italy who has made me feel…almost as if I am at home again, just in a new place.”
She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that, only that she liked it. “Tell me more,” she requested, “about home.” She asked him often, and he told her stories of his past, or bits and pieces of information about his family or the village where he’d been born.
“What would you like to know today?” He always made her come up with a particular question to spur his thoughts.
So she bit her lip, thinking. “How long has your family been in Vernazza?” He’d shown her wonderful snapshots of the village that always reminded her all over again that he came from the other side of the globe. And he’d asked the same recently about her family’s history, listening as she’d explained that her people had been in the Appalachians as far back as anyone knew. “A hundred and fifty years at least,” she’d boasted.
And that had always sounded like a long time to Edna, until he said now, “The Romos have resided in Vernazza since medieval times. The name signifies someone who has gone on a pilgrimage to Rome.”
It left her stunned. “And you don’t mind leavin’ it behind? I mean, that’s a mighty long time.”
But Giovanni only shrugged. “I love Vernazza, but it is a tiny village, trapped between hills and sea—there are no opportunities for a man who longs for open land and wants to build something of his own. If my ancestors saw fit to travel and find someplace new, why should I not follow my own course, as well?”
And in that moment, Edna thought about how fate, or God, or something, had led her to Destiny. And that maybe it was all meant to be.
Soon Giovanni was unwrapping the slices of pie, and teasing her. “Oh, two for me? That is very generous.” Since the apples on his trees weren’t yet ripe, and Giovanni hadn’t stored any last winter, he’d grown impatient and bought some at a produce stand for her to use in a pie. Like everyone, he’d loved it, and this was the third she’d made.
Feeling a little giddy, she reached in the basket for the deep purple grapes she knew he adored—he’d brought the vines all the way from Italy to grow here. “Then I’ll just eat all your grapes,” she said playfully back.
“Hmm—perhaps we can bargain. One slice of pie for half the grapes.”
“Sounds fair enough.” She smiled.
“Except…you must feed the grapes to me.”
Edna met his gaze and something about the demand made her cheeks flush with extra warmth. “Feed them to you?”
Edna met his gaze and something about the demand made her cheeks flush with extra warmth. “Feed them to you?”
Edna didn’t know much about Roman times, but leaning nearer, she eased one plump grape into Giovanni’s lush Italian mouth. His lips closed over it—and around her fingertips, as well. She felt it at the juncture of her thighs, and their eyes met, and she knew he knew. All she felt. Every bit of it.
After a long, hot moment, she slowly began to draw her hand back—surprised when Giovanni caught hold of it and gently pulled her closer, closer, until she was lying down alongside him.
He lifted her hand back to his mouth then—taking her index finger, running the end of it along his moist lower lip. Inside she shuddered but tried to be brave. This was what she’d wanted, yearned for. It wasn’t happening exactly like she’d expected, but she should have known Giovanni Romo would make it more exotic, more intoxicating, than any Kentucky farmboy could.
He lowered a soft, sensual kiss to her fingertip—before turning her hand over and kissing the palm. It was all she could do not to shiver, even amid the June heat. Still holding her hand near his mouth, he met her gaze and spoke low. “I suspect, my dear Edna, that you are as delicious as a fresh grape off the vine, or as your sweet apple pie.”
Then he kissed her. Not her hand this time, but her lips. And then it was like she’d expected, like she’d imagined lying awake in her bed every night the last few weeks. She felt Giovanni’s kisses everywhere, spanning her whole body somehow—both gentle and deep, soft and capturing.
His hands cupped her face, making her feel treasured. Then one skimmed downward, across her breast, over her stomach, caressing her hip through her skirt. Nearby, Sugar Creek still gurgled, and the sun still shone brightly overhead through the thick branches of the apple tree—but Edna knew nothing in her world would ever be the same. Giovanni’s kisses, his touches, were the best thing she’d ever experienced.
And so when he began to unbutton her blouse, it never occurred to her to say no. And when he reached under her skirt, sliding his strong hands up her thighs, she hadn’t the power to resist.
“I’m kinda nervous,” she told him. Because she wasn’t even totally sure what would happen next. And this was all going faster than she’d envisioned.
“Do not be nervous, Edna,” he whispered between kisses, and then his mouth dropped to her neck and his fingers were stroking between her legs and the pleasure almost paralyzed her. “I only wish to be closer to you.”
“I want that, too,” she assured him.
Edna shut her eyes as if to close out the overwhelming sensations—the pleasure was almost too much to take. But she felt her body moving against his hand, and she heard her own breath grow labored, heavy, and she knew that, despite her fears, she wanted whatever he chose to give her.
When he drew her underwear down and settled between her parted thighs, she began to tremble. “I’m…scared, Giovanni.”
His face hovered just above her now—oh Lord, he was handsome—and his warm voice reassured her. “Everything will be all right, Edna. Everything will be all right because I love you.”
Oh. Oh my! He loved her! And she knew then his words were true—this would be okay. “I love you, too,” she whispered.
Giovanni was patient, his touch gentle, sweeping Edna up in the wonder of it all—
when he pulled back to extract something from a pouch in his back pocket. “Wh-what’s that?” she asked.
“Shhh,” he whispered soothingly. “Just something to protect us.”
“Protect us?”
“From having a baby.”
Oh. She didn’t ask any more. She didn’t want to know any more. She just wanted to let Giovanni keep making her feel this good forever. She was almost even relaxed—when the hardness she’d felt between his legs pressed into her, and…oh God! It hurt. She cried out, then crushed her eyes shut, trying not to weep.
But then Giovanni was soothing her again, gently brushing her hair back from her face, promising her the difficult part was over, raining kisses across her forehead, and then her mouth. And she realized with startling clarity that they were connected, deeply. She hadn’t known what that part would feel like, and it surprised her.
And it was true, the hardest part was past. And then an even better, more shocking part came. He reached between them and touched her again. And she soon felt her whole being exploding into bits, as if she’d left her own body for a few seconds, and when she opened her eyes, Giovanni was smiling down at her, telling her she was beautiful.
When it was over, they lay side by side again on the blanket—and Edna knew she’d been right: everything had changed. She knew secrets now that she hadn’t before. She’d just become a woman in Giovanni Romo’s arms. The mere knowledge took her breath away.
Next to her, Giovanni stroked her cheek, then drew his touch gently across her breasts. How strange it felt to have them bared, out in the open that way. “You make me happy, Edna.”
“You make me happy, too,” she breathed, over whelmed.
“Do you think your brothers would approve of me? As your…um, what word do you use here? Your beau? Boyfriend?”
Giovanni was hardly a boy—he was well into his twenties, while she was only eighteen—but she didn’t bother correcting him because she liked the sound of that so much. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure they would.”
“And you would, too, yes?” he as ked with a smile.
It felt like bright lights were being turned on all through her body. “Very much.”
“Then it is official,” he said with the confident manner she so admired. “You and I, we are…um, what would be the word for…?”
She knew what he meant. Something like going steady. But with a man as sophisticated as Giovanni, that sounded childish to her. So, instead, she said, “In love. You and I are in love.”
“Completely,” he a greed, gazing down into her eyes.
Holy God. Rachel sat in Edna’s truck outside the old General Mercantile, waiting as she finished talking to Grampy, and trying to wrap her head around everything Edna had just told her. Mike Romo’s grandfather had been Edna’s first lover! At some point before Grandpa Farris had shown up in her life. Even after hearing Edna had been in love with the guy, she somehow hadn’t realized things would go this far.
Or, more likely, maybe she just hadn’t imagined she’d be hearing about it in such detail. From her grandma!
“Well, what happened then?” she’d asked when Edna had finished the tale of her deflowering.
“I think that’s enough for today,” Edna had said. “Besides, we’re here,” and she’d pulled the Toyota pickup into a parking space in front of the old wood-façade storefront just off Destiny’s town square.
Once Rachel got past her own weird shock, she had to admit that, like before, something about Edna’s story had her feeling oddly…envious. What must it be like to be that young and in love with a man who adores you? Rachel would never know.
She’d never realized she missed that in her life, that maybe she’d actually wanted some romance. From a young age, she’d been all about career and independence, and for her, romance had been mostly about sexual urges and deciding what to do about them and with who. But maybe she had missed having all those other emotions.
Of course, it was too late now. And Rachel was a big girl, not one to get sappy. Soon you’ll be back in Chicago, back in the world you know, and you’ll stop feeling things so much. Yep, that would be good. Because ever since she’d come home to Destiny, nothing inside her had quite been the same.
Mike hadn’t particularly planned to stop by the orchard, but it was his day off, the sun was shining, and he wasn’t in the mood to go home yet after doing some errands. He needed to replace a board on his front porch and clean out a clogged drain, tasks he wasn’t particularly looking forward to, so it seemed easy to put them off a little longer. As he passed by Creekside Park, he made the split decision to flip on his turn signal and cross the stone bridge over Sugar Creek toward Edna’s house.
He hadn’t seen Edna in a while, and he supposed all his run-ins with her granddaughter had the old woman on his mind. It wasn’t unusual for him to stop by from time to time—besides wanting to convince her to sell him the orchard, he figured it wasn’t a bad idea to check on her occasionally, given that she was an elderly person living alone. Of course, Rachel was with her for the time being. But he still felt overdue for a visit to the place that had once belonged to his grandfather.
Never mind that his groin tightened a little at the thought of Rachel Farris. His stomach contracted, too. And it wasn’t the memory of sudden, unstoppable sex that caused the reaction—he’d had that before. And it wasn’t the “forbidden Farris” aspect of it, either. It was…the sex itself. After all, that had been some seriously good sex. When their bodies had come together, the chemistry had felt…almost electrical, like some force that had pulsed through his veins, driving him to deepen the connection with her—over, and over, and over.
Shit. He glanced down. He didn’t need to have a hard-on when he saw Edna.
And Rachel Farris wasn’t the reason he’d come here anyway.
But he guessed seeing her wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. As long as she wasn’t speeding or breaking any other laws. And if they could keep from yelling at each other. Since they had shared some pretty mind-blowing sex in that concession stand last week, he guessed at least saying hello would be the decent thing to do.
Not that Mike generally worried that much about being decent to women he hooked up with—which, according to his mother, was an unfortunate Romo male trait he’d inherited. According to her, even his usually mild-mannered dad had been “a tomcat” in his teenage years.
Though as he parked his truck and got out…hell. Yep, he had a sizable erection now. Thanks a lot, Farris. Damn it, even when she wasn’t around, she was affecting him.
Well, it was a nice day, and a glance at the house showed Edna wasn’t coming out to greet him, so maybe he’d just take a short walk through the orchard and let himself calm down. Maybe he’d think about all the years his family had wanted this land back and felt it should be theirs. Yeah, that should kill a hard-on pretty damn quick.
As he’d told Rachel, he didn’t know the details—his grandpa had never wanted to talk about it, right up to his death almost ten years ago. But he could still hear his grandpa’s voice, gravelly with regret. It was mine and it should have been yours. I built the house and the barn and the root cellar with my own hands, I planted the first trees—and it should have been passed down to all of you.
As the oldest son of Giovanni’s oldest son, Mike would have likely inherited the place directly if the Farris family hadn’t taken it—so maybe that was why he wanted the orchard now. But mostly, he thought it would make his parents and other relatives happy. And as he’d told Edna, he’d welcome a side income and a business to run for whenever he retired from the force, whether that was in five years or twenty-five.
As he meandered through the front grove, then deeper into the orchard as it stretched past the barn, he met his goal—his arousal faded while thinking about all his family had lost. It brought over him a familiar feeling of…emptiness. But he quickly pushed that down. Because he’d gotten pretty good at that. Except for when he thought about Anna.
Yet he wasn’t going to let his mind go there today—no way. And sometimes he could even control that, if he worked really hard at it, if he just turned everything off inside him for a little while.
Besides, it was a good time to focus on better things—next weekend was Grandma Romo’s birthday and his parents would be here. While they kept in pretty close touch with him, he only saw them a couple times a year—so this was no time to be thinking depressing thoughts about Anna or the lost Romo family legacy.
Although—damn—it reminded him that his mother would give him a hard time about the whole bachelor thing, and not just on the phone now, but in front of the whole extended Romo clan. And shit—once Grandma Romo got her hooks into him, it would be even worse. All she’d need is a little ammunition on the subject from Mike’s parents to get her on a roll, too—and probably in Italian.
He felt bad about the situation—although he’d started out with a brother and sister, he’d effectively become an only child somewhere along the way and his parents’ only chance to do the grandma-and-grandpa thing. But he didn’t feel guilty enough to live his life any other way than how he wanted to live it.
Before Mike knew it, that familiar empty feeling began to threaten again—yet like before, he pushed it aside. Because that was what he did—he had to be tough, not let it touch him anytime he could avoid it. Of course, sometimes things set him off—like that asshole in the Mustang a couple of weeks ago. Something like that, something he couldn’t fix or stop or change, was enough to keep him in a bad mood for days. So whenever he could take power over anything—including the emptiness—he sure as hell had to.
Just then, he heard a rustling sound in nearby branches—too big to be a bird—and glanced to the right to see a pair of tennis shoes on a ladder. A woven fruit basket hung from the ladder, and as he stepped closer, he caught sight of a large, billowy smock and, up above, a big floppy straw hat.
“Hi, Edna,” he said.
Then Edna turned to look down at him. Only it wasn’t Edna. It was Rachel Farris—looking like she wanted to die of embarrassment.
