There are already too many rundown farmhouses on the market.’
I glanced at the list, and my mouth fell open. Some seemed easy enough: fix the front door, re-paint the interiors, clear the clutter, but the rest…! Plumbing, wiring, plastering, the access road to be re-tarred – I might as well re-build the castello from the ground up to make it sellable. Maybe a fire would have been a blessing. I would certainly need a contractor to tick off at least half the items on this list.
I walked them out to the car, the list still clutched in my floury, sticky hand. For one brief moment as we said goodbye, with the estate agent already seated in the car, I caught a glimpse of the Luca who’d taken me to lunch and charmed me with his attention.
‘You need help hiring a contractor?’ he asked. The mischievous spark was back in his eyes, but it didn’t have its intended effect. What was it with all these men treating me like a delicate flower? I needed Luca’s help even less than I’d needed Tommaso’s.
‘I’ll be fine.’ Making a few phone calls and getting quotes was hardly up there with brain surgery. Or with structuring private equity deals.
A day later, I no longer felt quite so confident. I cradled the old rotary phone in my lap and resisted the urge to smack it violently against the bedpost. How was it possible there wasn’t a single building contractor in the whole of Siena province willing to look at the house before Christmas?
I was in the kitchen, pounding out my stress on a fresh ball of bread dough, this time for my own consumption, when Daniele arrived in the farm’s battered pick-up truck to fetch the daily delivery for the trattoria. He carried in a basket of brown eggs and set them on the counter beside the kitchen sink. ‘What’s got into you?’
‘Nothing.’
He chuckled. ‘When a woman says “nothing” it definitely means “something”.’ He leaned against the doorjamb. He wore work-stained cargo pants, scuffed boots, and a checked shirt, and looked as if he’d just stepped off a tractor. I’d never before thought a farmer could be sexy, but I was rapidly changing my mind. If I were ten years younger, I’d be salivating about now. Instead, I simply felt old beyond my years beside his youth and vitality.
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