himself, he quickly donned the jeans and boots he’d left across the seat, and pulled on a heavy sweater. It felt good to get warm. Donning the helmet, he mounted the bike and kick-started it. The rumble was not unlike the Jet Ski. Did power equate noise? He laughed at that idea and pulled onto the street. The small amount of traffic still surprised him after his time in Rome. Vacations in Lake Clarissa had always been fleeting, too much work waiting at home when he’d been a child. Once grown, he’d preferred his exciting life travelling the world with his job, or the challenges of extreme sports, to spending much time in this little sleepy lakeside village.
Until the bombing had altered everything.
Shortly after one Cristiano got off his motorcycle on the side street by Pietro’s Bistro. Lunch here would beat cooking for himself. His father would be horrified his own son didn’t like cooking. It wasn’t that he didn’t like it precisely, it just didn’t seem worth the effort for only one.
There was a wide patio for dining, empty this time of year. It wasn’t that cool, yet the breezes blowing down from the higher elevation carried a chill. He entered the warm restaurant and paused a moment while his eyes got used to the dimmer light. Pietro’s smelled like home. The restaurant he’d worked in most of his childhood, that his father still owned, was even of a similar rustic theme. Bella Rosa had more patrons and more bustle than Pietro’s, but Pietro’s was free of the ties to Cristiano’s past he was trying to flee.
There were couples and groups eating at various tables—it was more crowded than he’d expected. Some people he recognized and nodded to when they looked up and waved. When Emeliano appeared from the kitchen, white apron tied neatly around his waist, heavy tray balanced on one hand, Cristiano watched. His arms almost ached at the remembered tiredness he’d felt after a long day at Rosa. He hadn’t worked there in years, but some memories didn’t fade. Even when he wished they would.
“Cristiano, sit anywhere. I’ll be there soon,” Emeliano called out as he deftly transferred the tray from his hand to the stand beside the table he was serving.
Cristiano walked toward his favorite table, near the big window overlooking the town square. It was occupied.
He walked past and sat at the next one, then looked at the woman who had taken the table he liked best.
She had blonde hair with copper highlights. She was cooing to a small baby and seemed oblivious to the rest of the restaurant. He didn’t recognize her. Probably another tourist. Even keeping to himself, he still kept tapped into the local rumor mill—enough to know if someone local had a new baby visiting. Italian families loved new babies.
The woman looked up and caught his gaze. She smiled then looked away.
He stared at her feeling that smile like a punch to the gut. From that quick glimpse he noted her eyes were silver, her cheeks brushed with pink—from the sun or the warmth of the restaurant? Glancing around, he wondered idly where her husband was.
“Rigatoni?” Emeliano asked when he stopped by Cristiano’s table, distracting Cristiano from his speculation about the woman.
“Sure.” He ordered it almost every time he ate here.
“Not as good as what you get at Rosa,” Emeliano said, jotting it on a pad.
“I’m not at Rosa,” Cristiano said easily. He could have quickly covered the distance between Lake Clarissa and Monta Correnti for lunch, but he wasn’t ready to see his family yet. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever be ready to go back home.
“Saw you on the lake. You could get killed.”
He and Emeliano had played together as kids, challenging each other to swim races, exploring the hills with his brother Valentino. Cristiano grinned up at him. “Could have but didn’t.” Didn’t Emeliano know he felt invincible?
“You need to think of the future, Cristiano. You and Valentino, why not go into business with your father? If Pietro didn’t already have three boys, I’d see if he’d take me on as partner,” Emeliano said.
“Go to Rome, find a place and work up,” Cristiano suggested, conscious of the attention from the woman at the next table. He didn’t care if she eavesdropped. He had no secrets.
Except one.
“And my mother, what of her? You have it great, Cristiano.”
He smiled, all for show. If only Emeliano knew the truth—all the truth—he’d look away in disgust. “How is your mother?”
“Ailing. Arthritis is a terrible thing.” Emeliano flexed his hands. “I hope I never get it.”
“Me, too.”
Cristiano met the woman’s gaze again when Emeliano left and didn’t look away. She flushed slightly and looked at the baby, smiling at his babbling and arm waving. Covering one small fist with her hand, she leaned over to kiss him. Just then she glanced up again.
“I saw you on the Jet Ski,” she said.
He nodded.
“You fell in the water.”
“But I didn’t fall.”
She shrugged, glancing at the infant. Then looked shyly at him again. “It looked like great fun.”
“It is. How old is your baby?” He looked at the child, trying to gauge if it were smaller than the one from last May. He wasn’t often around infants and couldn’t guess his age.
She smiled again, her eyes going all silvery. Nice combination of coloring. He wondered again who she was and why she was at Lake Clarissa.
“He’s almost five months.”
A boy. His father had two boys and a girl. Wait, make that four boys and a girl. He still couldn’t get used to the startling fact his sister shared a few months ago—about two older half-brothers who were Americans. Too surreal. Another reason to keep away from his family. He wasn’t sure how he felt about his father keeping that secret all his life.
The infant had dark hair and dark eyes. His chubby cheeks held no clue as to what he’d look like as an adult, but his coloring didn’t match hers at all.
“Does he look like his father?”
“I have no idea. But his mother had dark eyes and hair. Maybe when he’s older, I’ll see some resemblance to the man who fathered him. Right now to me he looks like his mom.” She reached out and brushed the baby’s head in a light caress.
“He’s not yours?”
She shook her head.
“A nanny?” So maybe there was no man in the picture. Was she watching the baby for a family? She seemed devoted to the child.
She shook her head again. “I’m his guardian. His mother died.” She blinked back tears and Cristiano again felt that discomforting shift in his mid section. He hoped she wasn’t going to cry. He never knew how to handle a woman in tears. He wanted to slay dragons or race away. Unfortunately he all too often had to comfort women—and men sometimes—in tears at their loss. He always did his best. Always felt it fell short.
Emeliano arrived
