Instead, I uncovered a beautiful, white-toothed smile and eyes filled with the joy of youth and spontaneity. In the space of a heartbeat, his hands were cupping my face, his fingers sliding through my curls to cup the back of my head.
“Ani.” Paulo murmured my name, his eyes going dark with something I was afraid to acknowledge.
“Don’t ‘Ani’ me,” I whispered back, and closed mine to shut out the need in his.
The gossamer threads tightened around my heart as he drew me down to him, ever so slowly. The kiss began as a question, one I answered. His mouth tasted of sunshine and laughter and unexpected pleasure, and I drank him in.
I made a small, involuntary noise and finally pulled back a little, my breath coming in short, punctuated gulps of air. His hands still held my face, and I still clung to his wrists. I was afraid to let go, afraid of what this meant.
Afraid that it might not mean anything at all to him.
He studied me, his eyes still clouded with something I thought might be doubt, but his smile was genuine and soft. He looked so young, so natural, so right, sprawled on the ground beneath me.
Then he lowered his hands to his chest, and I let go of his arms, and I wanted to whimper at the loss of that physical connection. I dropped my gaze, not to be demure, but because all I wanted to do was sink into him again, to rest my head in the crook of his shoulder, to press myself against the length of him. To feel his arms around me because he wanted to hold me, not because he was rescuing me from my own clumsiness. He rose to sit, propping himself up with one arm.
The silence between us seemed to last an eternity. I waited for him to pull me close to him again, but instead, he rose to his feet and held out both hands to me.
“Come,” he said, and I was at least gratified to hear a tremor in his voice. “Let me help you.” With seemingly no effort whatsoever, he hauled me up to stand in front of him. Balancing on my right foot, I rested my left one on the ground and was relieved to find it didn’t seem any the worse for wear. Then he stepped forward, releasing my hands and easing his arms around me ever so carefully, like I was some fragile little thing. I made that ridiculous bird sound again and laid my head on his shoulder, wrapping my own arms around his waist. I marveled at how perfectly we fit together. My height was often a deterrent to men who didn’t like to look up to me when I wore anything but my Toms. Paulo had several inches on me, however, and my forehead rested comfortably against the delightfully erratic pulse in his neck, his cheek pressed to my temple. We stood together like that, swaying ever so slightly in the breeze, our faces turned toward the water, toward the Madonna, an entreaty for her promised blessing.
I knew I’d never forget this moment. The kiss, yes, it was all that a first kiss should be. Sudden, intense, and bursting with possibility. But this. This embrace, this full body caress. This was a knowing of each other as our hearts beat hard together, our breath mingling, the heat of his body becoming the heat of mine.
“Did I tell you that you look exceptionally beautiful today, Ani?” His voice rumbled in his chest beneath my ear.
“You say that every day,” I whispered, not sure if he could hear me.
“Because it is true every day.”
CHAPTER FORTY
He didn’t kiss me again. Oh, how I wanted him to kiss me again, but he didn’t.
He pulled away from our embrace just enough to bring his hands up on either side of my face. Why is that such an intimate gesture, a guy’s hands cupping a woman’s face? His eyes searched for something in me, pouring over my features, lingering on my mouth. I couldn’t bear the scrutiny any longer and I closed my own. He smoothed my flyaway curls from my face, both hands sweeping back to cradle my head, pulling me close again.
I was so sure he was going to kiss me….
“Breathe, Ani.” Paulo’s voice came soft and fierce in my ear, his breath on my neck making me shiver.
“I don’t know if I can,” I admitted.
“You must.” He lowered his hands to my shoulders, and then slid them down my arms to twine his fingers with mine. The space between us widened and I filled my lungs with air. I opened my eyes just as he said, “I have wanted to do that since you sat across from me on the train. To kiss you, Ani.”
“You didn’t even like me on the train.”
“What makes you think I like you now?” He grinned and squeezed my hands, and I was glad he didn’t let go. I couldn’t seem to regain my footing around him, and with my bum leg, I was doubly handicapped.
“You know what? You’re right. You’re a funny guy.” But I wasn’t laughing. My body ached with wanting him and he was pulling away from me. What was I doing wrong? I glanced around us at the solitude of the place. We were completely alone. I’d seen a blanket in the truck… and bit my lip hard to suppress that runaway train of thought. I was not that kind of girl, and from what I could tell about him, Paulo didn’t seem to be that kind of guy. But I was stunned at the physical intensity between us, and I could not understand why this man was pulling away from me.
“Ani,” he began, his voice breaking just the tiniest bit. I turned away from him, from the regret underneath my name, wondering if he could see what was going on in my head as clearly as I could. I pulled my hands loose from his and reached for the edge of the table, turning to lean my hips against it again.
“Maybe I should try the crutches the right way now,” I murmured. “Did Isa show you how to make them shorter for me?”
“Ani.”
“Please. Please don’t say anything, okay?” I didn’t want to hear him apologize for what had just happened. If he didn’t say it, if we simply pretended like the most amazing moment hadn’t just taken place between us, I could keep moving, keep doing whatever it was we’d been doing before the kiss. I’d be leaving soon anyway, I reminded myself.
He crossed his arms and stared at his feet for a long time, as though debating whether or not to speak. Then he turned and gathered up the crutches we’d inadvertently hurled in opposite directions.
He stood not more than two feet in front of me and adjusted the crutches to the right height, tightening the wing-nuts on the handles. I could feel his eyes on me, but I wouldn’t meet his gaze. He stayed close, his hands out at the ready, while I maneuvered the crutches into place under my arms. Then he walked backwards as I took a few halting hops toward him, feeling awkward, clumsy, and frustrated. I knew I’d get the hang of them, but not with him so close to me. I couldn’t concentrate and kept losing any semblance of a rhythm.
“You’re blocking my path, Paulo. I can’t get my pace,” I finally complained. He moved around to walk behind me… and started chuckling.
“What?” I stopped hopping and twisted to look over my shoulder at him.
“You are covered from head to toe in grass. But I do not think it would be appropriate to brush it off you in front of Mary.” He dipped his head toward the shrine and ran both his hands through his hair, lacing his fingers behind his neck as though to keep from touching me.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So it was okay to roll around on the ground, making out in front of the Virgin Mother, but he wasn’t going to brush a little dead grass off my backside? I took two more careful hops to reach the trunk of the tree. “Here. Take these.” I handed him the crutches, then leaned into the tree with one hand, and dusted off as much as I could with the other. I straightened, peeled off my jacket, shook it out, and put it back on. “There. Better?”
He nodded, his dark eyes narrowed, unreadable.
“Please just bring me the wheelchair, okay?” We needed to be finished here. I couldn’t bear the tension any longer. Disappointment coursed through me and I fought to keep it at bay. How did one simply get on with things after an encounter like that? Maybe I put too much stock in what I considered a fairly intimate exchange, but it bothered me that he didn’t. “I’ll practice with those tomorrow. With Isa’s help.”
He leaned the crutches against the table, frowning, clearl
y struggling with his own thoughts. But he brought my chair to me without comment, supporting it while I sat.
Why didn’t he speak? Say something. Anything. I was desperate to know what was going on in his head, how he felt about me, if he thought there might be something worth pursuing between us….
Who was I kidding? The last thing I needed was to entertain any romance on the heels of my Jacob fiasco, no less a holiday fling. Especially after I’d already drooled all over Cosimo. Paulo deserved better; someone with the same selfless kind of passion he had. The more time I spent with him, the more I was learning how selfish a person I was.
“I think we should get going,” I declared.
But Paulo still didn’t respond. I glared up at him over my shoulder but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was fixed on the tree.
“What?” I asked, not seeing anything unusual from my perspective.
He moved around me with slow steps, and then ran his fingers along the gnarled bark just above the crotch where the trunk forked. “Ani, look.” His voice was hushed, almost reverent.
Without turning to me, he reached a hand back for mine and hauled me up to stand beside him. Just above his fingertips, the twisted bark bore an old scar, healed and puckered. It was a heart about ten inches tall with two names carved into the center. “Paul and Maria,” I read aloud, the letters almost indiscernible. It had been carved into the tree a long time ago.
“No,” he turned bright eyes to me and pointed at the M in Maria. “That is not an M. It is an I and an L. This says Paul and Ilaria.” He squeezed my hand fiercely. “Ani, this is my father and mother. It must be!”
I turned sharply and stared at him, my mouth hanging open.
“My father took my mother along this road on their first date,” Paulo said quietly. “They drove this same back way from Pisa all the way to Florence.” He glanced over at me and laughed. “What? Why are you looking at me that way? A mountain drive is not such a terrible first date.”
“Um, no. I’m sure it’s not.” And in fact, regardless of what we were calling this, up until a few moments ago, it had felt like a really nice first date to me, too. He’d even jokingly called it one last night. “So you’ve never seen this before? Really?” I felt like that fish again, being played by a master.
“No! I have driven this road many times in the last year, but I only came down to the river here once before today. And when I was here that time, it was to explore the river itself. I saw the shrine, yes. I knew it was here. I even crossed over and walked along the river on that side for a way. When I came back, I got in my truck and left. I did not sit under this tree.”
“Really.” It was too much of a coincidence. Things like this didn’t just happen… did they? I eyed the shrine across the way, a tiny jolt of hope prodding at my cynicism. No. No. Not possible, I argued with myself. It all felt too contrived.
“I am telling the truth, Ani.”
I eyed him dubiously, reaching up to run my own fingers over the heart. I could see the letters clearly now that I knew what they were. Paul and Ilaria? “They’re not uncommon names, you know. It might not be them.” Surely there were other couples in Italy besides Paulo’s parents bearing those names.
“It is them. I know it is.” He looked so certain.
“Okay. Fine,” I said, lowering myself back into my chair. “Let’s chalk it up to some freak coincidence that you and I just happened to stumble upon a tree in the middle of nowhere bearing your parents’ names from twenty-five years ago.”
“I do not believe in coincidence.” He was still staring at the heart. “I think it is a blessing from God. The Mother and Child are smiling on us.”
“Okay. Fine,” I said again. “I’ll call it coincidence; you call it Madonna Juju or whatever you like. Either way, it’s a little trippy.” I backed the wheelchair up a few feet so I was clear of the tree’s roots. Paulo, on the other hand, still stood there, his face almost glowing with pleasure at finding what he was certain was a piece of his past. His expression was so rapt, I felt a little like I was intruding on a private moment. The soft breeze tousled his hair, like a mother’s caress, and I imagined Ilaria Durante back at home in Portland, receiving a text or an email with this image. Then I thought of my mom, how moved she would be if something like this happened to me and I shared the moment with her. My heart softened toward Paulo. “Does your phone have a decent camera, Paulo? Do you want me to take a picture of you in front of it? For your mom?”
He crossed the distance between us so quickly, I thought I’d said something to offend him. But when he reached down and scooped me up in his arms, I threw mine around his neck and squealed in even more surprise. “What are you doing?”
He retraced his steps to the tree and carefully set me down, keeping an arm tight around me. With his other hand, he pulled a phone from his pocket and held it out in front of us, resting his head against mine. “Smile, Ani. You will be in the picture, too.”
“But your mom doesn’t know who I am,” I objected, glancing up at our two faces close together on the screen still raised above us. I could see the heart on the tree right above my head. We did look awfully cute together.
After snapping a few different shots, Paulo returned the phone to his pocket and turned to face me. “If my mother was here, she would kiss you for thinking of her, Ani.” He lowered his forehead to mine and looked me in the eye. “But because she is not, I will have to kiss you instead.”
And he did. He finally kissed me again. And there was no trace of a mother’s appreciation in the way his mouth moved over mine, the way he turned me so my back was to the tree, the length of his body pressed against me, holding me upright. My one good knee buckled beneath the onslaught as he kissed me again, and again, and again.
“So may I ‘Ani’ you now?” he murmured against my lips.
“You’re so funny, Paulo.” He pulled back, just an inch or two, and raised an eyebrow, waiting for my answer. “Yes,” I conceded shyly. “You may Ani me now.”
“Ani.” He pressed his lips to mine.
“Ani.” His hand at my lower back pulled me even closer.
“Ani.” He buried the fingers of his other hand in the hair at the back of my neck, and neither of us said anything else for quite a while.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
We took more pictures together in front of the tree before we left, and I insisted on taking a few of just him. I braved using the crutches once more, and this time, I got comfortable enough with them to make my way down to the water’s edge, Paulo’s hovering still a distraction, but a very pleasant one this time. We snapped a photo of us sharing a chaste kiss, the river behind us, the shrine of the Madonna in the frame over our shoulders. We had to try that one several times to make sure we got all three elements just right, especially the kissing part.
“I will send these to you, too,” he said, poised to enter my phone number.
“You’re smooth, Paulo. Real smooth. Why don’t you just tell me you want my phone number?”
“I want your phone number, Ani. And your lips on mine. And your arms around me. And your—”
“Got it,” I cut him off, laughing, and gave it to him, reminding him I wouldn’t have a phone until I got home again. The thought of leaving now hurt twice as much as it had earlier, and I turned away, not wanting to spoil the mood.
I made my way back up the bank and settled into the wheelchair, balancing the crutches across the armrests in front of me. I wasn’t sure how much I would use them today; I kind of liked having Paulo wheeling me around, bending close to murmur in my ear. “How’s your toe?” I asked as he steered me over to the truck.
“My toe?”
“Yes, silly. Your toe. Are you in much pain?”
“I feel no pain at all, Ani.”
Something had clicked when he found that heart, those names carved into a tree that had witnessed the shared kisses of another Paulo Durante and his lady. Whatever reservations he’d had about his feelings for m
e after our first kiss had all but evaporated. He seemed to revel in making me blush, not with crass statements, but with a touch of the hand, a gaze held too long, a whispered compliment about something no one had ever noticed about me before, like the one perfect corkscrew ringlet that curled from behind my right ear that he couldn’t keep from toying with once he’d discovered it.
“So tell me about this date your parents had.” I was cradled up against him, the basket no longer between us. “I’d just assumed it was one of those dinner and a movie or dancing dates. But driving mountain roads from Pisa to Florence? What happened along the way that made them, you know… know they were….”
“In love? Meant to be together forever?” Paulo chuckled. “I do not know for certain, although perhaps, as they say, there is something in the water. Perhaps in the Lima.” The obvious allusion to what was happening between us made my toes curl. “To be honest, Ani, those details are not something a son really wants to hear from his parents, but I will tell you what I do know. My mother worked nights so my father took her out for the day. He picked her up at her parents’ house where they lived outside Pisa in Vecchiano and had breakfast with them, making a point to win my grandparents over, too. They followed the Fiume Serchio from there, and then the Torrentio Lima, stopping at will along the way.” He paused a moment, then added, “The same way we are.”
And it’s working, I thought, the same way it did for them.
“My mother says she would recognize every place they stopped, no matter how much has changed, so I am certain she will know this place when she sees our pictures. The land, she says, holds our memories for us if we will keep our eyes open for them.”
All the Way to Heaven Page 24
