prepared, you see.”
It hadn’t snowed like this in Cheshire in years or she would have heard about it. And this was a true storm, the snow coming down in thick silent flurries and the snow stuck, forming dense white drifts on top of the barren window box, the bench in the garden, along the old stone wall. The whirling snow nearly obscured the great oak trees standing guard beyond the garden wall, the trees just dark hulking shadows in silent fields. It just kept falling.
He was rising, moving toward her, and he had such a leisurely way of walking, as if he had all the time in the world and there was something about his easy confidence that unnerved her even more. She’d never felt that confident about anything in life. She’d always been fearful, always afraid.
He stood next to her at the window over the sink to see what she saw. He wasn’t even looking at her but she could feel him, his heat, his energy, his strength. He was so big and imposing, that it was almost as if he’d covered her world with his.
Nothing was the same since she’d met him.
Nothing about her felt the same, either.
Her emotions were all over the place. Her fears had never been stronger. She was on the edge of tears constantly but even then, she couldn’t let go and cry, not really. Yet it would be such a relief to give in to the tears, such a relief to just let go of all the hurt she kept locked tightly inside of her.
But her feelings were too deep, the losses in the past too stunning, that even now, she teetered between pain and nothingness. It was as if she’d shut down somehow, somewhere, given up. Given up hope. Given up life. Given up anything that didn’t have to do with Gabby.
“It was hard for you visiting the Rookery,” Cristiano said now.
His observation was as unexpected as it was accurate. “Yes.”
“How old were you when you were brought here?”
“Six.” Just a year older than Gabby. Sam bit into her lip, fought the wave of dark emotion, the fierce undertow of grief. She couldn’t think, couldn’t let herself be overwhelmed. Stay numb, she told herself, stay in control. Maybe if she hadn’t lost her parents and Charles both she’d be a different person today, but she had lost them, and she couldn’t change the past. She was who she was. She was what she was.
A woman who worked for others.
A woman who only lived for others.
“It doesn’t look like a bad place.”
“It wasn’t,” she whispered, hearing the catch in her voice, hating that she sounded so fragile, as if she could be easily broken. But she wasn’t fragile. She’d been toughened, by time and loss. She wasn’t going to break and she’d get through this. One way or another. She’d manage. She always did. That was the beauty of it. Pain didn’t destroy you. It just made you stronger.
But it hurt like hell until you got to the other side.
She felt Cristiano’s gaze rest on her. “How long has it been closed up?” he asked.
“Years,” she answered softly, the white porcelain sink smooth beneath her fingers. “At least eight.”
He wasn’t even pretending to look outside anymore. He was looking at her, only at her, and the weight of his inspection made her shiver. “How long have you been widowed?”
Sam sucked in air, flinching at the pain. Talking about the Rookery was hard. Talking about Charles—impossible. Her fingers flexed convulsively against the sink’s edge. “Eight,” she said, looking anywhere but at him. Eight long endless years.
To cover her anguish, Sam turned toward the cupboard, reached for a cup and saucer. Her hand shook as she set them on the counter.
She could still feel the weight of his gaze, knew he was watching her, sensed he was remembering what Mrs. Bishop had said this morning about Sam being married and widowed in the same day, and she turned suddenly, faced him defiantly, daring him to speak about something so personal and private it still devastated her eight years later.
Her gaze clashed with his but there was no pity in his eyes, nothing in his eyes, just intense focus.
He continued to look at her with that same long, hard inspection and air bottled in her lungs. Holding her breath, she looked back at him and had never felt so vulnerable, as though she were full of holes and hurts.
Holes and hurts and broken hearts.
If only she could cry, she thought. If only she could let some of this pain out. But it was impossible. The pain was buried too deep, the loss too significant.
Inexplicably emotion flickered in Cristiano’s hazel eyes. His hard jaw gentled a fraction. “You have lost a great deal in your life, haven’t you?”
His sudden tenderness was too much. Sam felt a wall of ice inside her crack and fall, and behind that wall Sam glimpsed a child crying.
She didn’t think she’d made a sound but Cristiano cupped her cheek, then gently sliding his hand down, over her jaw, toward her chin and across the front of her throat. “Hush,” he said. “Things always work out.”
Tears flooded Sam’s eyes and reaching up, she caught his hand in her own and held it tightly. “You’re not helping,” she choked, even as her fingers curled into his. She didn’t understand it. She hated his power, feared his strength, and yet somehow she craved that power and strength, too.
His head dropped and she felt his breath against her face. For a split second she thought he was going to kiss her and then the kettle whistled and he abruptly pulled back.
Sam felt his hand fall away. She took a step in the opposite direction even as she felt a shiver race through her, awareness, tension, desire.
“Your water’s boiling,” he said.
She turned, searched for a towel or hot pad, something to grab the kettle’s handle with and when she turned around again, Cristiano was gone.
Outside Cristiano returned to chopping wood. He’d been pouring his anger and aggression into splitting logs before he entered the cottage. He should have never stopped splitting logs. Shouldn’t have carried an armful into the kitchen, not when Sam was there, not when she looked so completely and utterly alone.
He wished he hadn’t seen that…that he could go back and erase her expression from his memory, the one he saw as she stood at the sink staring out the window. She’d looked so lost.
Goddamn it. She reminded him of Gabriela.
He lifted the ax, swung it high overhead and let it slam down. The impact of metal against wood shuddered through him, rippling from his arms to his shoulders and through his torso.
She wasn’t alone, he told himself, yanking the blade out and turning the log, repositioning it for another swing. She was young. She was an adult. She had friends. She didn’t need Gabriela. Gabriela was her job, not her life.
But, maledizione! The look in her eyes. The grief.
He swung the ax over his head again, a huge powerful arc before he brought it down, crashing into the wood. He felt
