insight and obvious deep concern for them warmed Callie’s heart. How could she help but adore him, when he gave so much of himself to children he didn’t even know were really his? Coupled with her own love for them, it could only strengthen the odds in favor of the marriage.
She also suspected Paolo had spoken with his father; perhaps gone so far as to warn him to curb his hostility, because Salvatore grew, if not all warm and fuzzy toward her, at least not as openly antagonistic.
“It is good to see you getting along better with our grandchildren,” he decreed at breakfast, a few days after she’d accepted Paolo’s proposal. “I believe they begin to feel some affection for you.”
Oh, she hoped so—she thought so! Certainly, they’d shown themselves more willing to include her in their activities. “Will you come, too, Zia Caroline?” Clemente wanted to know, the afternoon Paolo suggested a sunset cruise in thet hirty-nine-foot luxury cruiser moored in the protected marina below the villa.
“Of course,” she told him, and had to blink back a rush of tears at the smile that lit up his face.
Her baby boy…her son! Strong and handsome as his father, but with a gentleness that reminded Callie of Lidia, and of her own mother. How proud Audrey Leighton would have been, of both her grandchildren.
Another day, Gina decided the time was ripe for a game of hide-and-seek. “Zia Caroline and I will play against you and Clemente,” she ordered her uncle, shepherding everyone outside to an iron gate overlooking a formal garden in the grand Italian style, “and you will not cheat.”
“If you say so,” Paolo replied meekly, which made Callie smile.
Gina was definitely her father’s child, strong-willed, forthright, and independent. She made up her own mind about things, regardless of outside influence. “I didn’t much like you at first, even though Nonna said I must,” she’d announced bluntly the previous evening, while she allowed Callie to braid her hair,“but you’re actually quite nice now that I’ve got to know you better. I wouldn’t mind if you stayed with us forever. It’s not as good as when Mommy was here, of course, but it’s nice to have someone who knows how to do my hair. Nonna isn’t very good at it, and when Zio Paolo once tried, he made a terrible mess of it.”
“We’ll hide first,” she decided now, directing her brother and Paolo to cover their eyes and count to a hundred. Then taking Callie’s hand, she ran with her along a crushed gravel path lined with marble statuary. “Follow me, Zia,” she said. “I know exactly the place to hide.”
Skirting a pond filled with lily pads floating around an elaborate stone fountain, she ducked between two stone benches and through an opening carved in a hedge. “Behind this,” she whispered, pulling aside a trailing vine to reveal a natural grotto filled with ferns. “They’ll never find us here. This is my secret place. I’ve never shown it to Clemente. Only Mommy knows about it…” Her voice wavered briefly. “And now you.”
“I’m very honored that you’d share it with me,” Callie said thickly, hearing the sudden desolation in the child’s voice, and desperately wanting to comfort her. But she knew well enough that Gina wouldn’t welcome a display of affection she hadn’t initiated herself.
“You won’t tell anyone else, will you, Zia Caroline?”
“No,” she promised. “Nor will I ever come here unless you invite me.”
Sighing, Gina wandered deeper into the grotto. “Mommy and I used to light candles sometimes,” she said, suddenly despondent. “Up there, see, in those little glass jars. Then we’d sit on cushions we brought from the house, and talk about private things that boys and fathers don’t understand. But I don’t think the candles would be a good idea today.”
“No,” Callie said softly. “That’s something special that belonged just to you and your mommy. Also, we don’t want to give ourselves away, and there’s enough light filtering through from outside that we can see quite well.”
In fact, in the dim green light and with the vine swinging gently in the breeze, sending waves of shadow rippling over the sandy floor, the effect was a little like being in an underwater cave.
Suddenly Gina tipped her head to one side, listening intently, then pressed a finger to her lips, her mood brightening. “I can hear them coming,” she whispered. “Let’s hide at the very back. We can sit on the rocks.”
It was darker there, and much cooler. Enough that Callie shivered and wished she’d worn a jacket over her light sweater. Gina must have felt the chill, too, because without waiting to be invited, she curled up close beside her.
Callie held her breath, ever so casually draped her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, and braced herself for a rejection that never came. Instead, to her indescribable pleasure, Gina snuggled closer and said, “You feel nice and warm, Zia…just the way Mommy used to.”
Approaching footsteps ruled out the possibility of a verbal reply, and just as well. The aching lump in her throat would have prevented Callie from doing more than choke on any attempt at a response. Instead, she acknowledged the enormous compliment by tucking Gina more securely in the curve of her arm.
“They couldn’t have come this far,” Paolo said, from immediately outside the entrance to the cave. An inch closer, and he’d have stepped past the vine and found them. “There’s nothing here but a path to the beach, and we’d see them if they’d gone there.”
“Gina often comes this way. I’ve watched her, and even followed her once, but I lost her. Sometimes, she’s almost too smart for me,” Clemente said, an admission that left Gina snorting on a giggle.
Paolo cleared his throat, rather loudly, Callie thought. “We’d better double back, then. They might have run behind the hedge and are already waiting at the gate. If they’re not, we’ll look in the atrium. There are all kinds of places they could hide in there.”
Their voices faded as they hiked back toward the villa. “Boys are so easy to fool,” Gina crowed, once silence descended again. “They’re not a bit like us, are they, Zia Caroline?”
“No,” she said, tearful emotion still swirling dangerously close to the surface. To hold her daughter like this, to share confidences, and private jokes, were gifts beyond price, and she wouldn’t have traded them for all the riches in the world. “Should we make a run for the gate now, do you think?”
Gina shook her head. “I quite like just sitting here with you,” she said shyly, and just like that added the touch of perfection to an already extraordinary day.
Later, over predinner drinks, Paolo cornered Callie, and under cover of the general buzz of conversation, murmured, “Did you enjoy hiding out with your niece in the grotto?”
She laughed, taken aback. “You guessed we were there?”
“Of course I guessed! Even if I didn’t know this island like the back of my hand, I’d have been hard-pressed not to hear the tittering filtering through that convenient screen of shrubbery.”
“Then why didn’t you call us on it?”
Warming her to the core with his slow smile, he said, “The two of you seemed to be bonding. I decided it was best not to disturb you.”
Flustered at the way his gaze lingered
