“As in legend, Itus is sworn to protect the innocent from those who would do them harm.”
Intrigued, she went and read the mythology around Itus. A while later, Isabella shut off the computer and squared her shoulders.
A month. Connor Benson was going to be under her roof for a month. After one day, she was feeling a terrible uneasiness, as if he could, with just his close proximity, change everything about her, even the way she looked at her past.
“I have to avoid him,” she whispered to herself. And it felt as if her very survival depended on that. She went to bed and set her alarm for very early. She could put out his breakfast things and leave the house without even seeing him tomorrow. There were always things to do at school. Right now, she was preparing her class to perform a song and skit at the annual spring fete, and she had props to make, simple costumes to prepare.
She had a feeling with Connor under her roof and her badly needing her schoolroom to hide out in and something to distract from the uncomfortable feelings she was experiencing, she was about to produce the best song and skit the good citizens of Monte Calanetti had ever seen!
CONNOR RETREATED TO his room, annoyed with himself. He was not generally so chatty. What moment of madness had made him say yes to that wine? And why had so very little of it made him feel so off balance?
Intoxicated.
Maybe it hadn’t been the wine, but just sharing a simple meal with a beautiful woman in the quintessential Italian kitchen, with its old stone walls and its deep windows open to the breeze, that had brought his guard down.
He had told Isabella things he had not told people he’d worked with for twenty years. Justin knew about his hardscrabble upbringing on the wrong side of Corpus Christi, but no one else did.
The soft look in Isabella’s eyes as he had told her had actually made him feel not that he wanted to tell her less, but as though he wanted to tell her more, as if his every secret would be safe with her.
As if he had carried a burden alone for way too long.
“Stop it,” Connor snapped grimly at himself. He acknowledged he was tired beyond reason. You didn’t unload on a woman like her. She, cute little schoolteacher that she was, wouldn’t be able to handle it, to hold up to it. She’d buried her husband and that had sent her into full retreat. That’s why someone so gorgeous was still unmarried six years later.
So there would be no more wine tastings over supper that loosened his tongue. No more suppers, in fact. Tomorrow, rested, his first duty would be to find a nice little place to eat supper every night.
With none of the local wines. That one tonight had seemed to have some beautiful Tuscan enchantment built right into it.
And if avoiding her at dinner proved to be not enough defense, he would go in search of another place to stay.
Not that he wanted to hurt her feelings.
“The Cat does not worry about people’s feelings,” he said, annoyed with himself. What he needed to do was deal with the exhaustion first. He peeled off his clothes and rolled into bed and slept, but not before grumpily acknowledging how hungry he was.
Connor awoke very early. He knew where he was this time. Again, he could hear the sounds of someone trying to be very quiet. He rolled over and looked at his bedside clock.
Five a.m. What the heck? He had the awful thought Isabella might have gotten up so early to make him breakfast. That made him feel guilty since he knew she had a full day of work to put in. Guilt was as unusual for him as worrying about feelings. Still, he needed to tell her not to bother.
He slipped on a pair of lightweight khakis and pulled a shirt over his head, and went downstairs to the kitchen.
She had her back to him.
“Isabella?”
She shrieked and turned, hand to her throat.
“Sorry,” he said, “I’ve startled you again.”
She dropped her hand from her throat. “No, you didn’t,” she said, even though it was more than obvious she had been very startled.
“Whatever. I think we’ve got to quit meeting like this.”
The expression must have lost something in the translation, because she only looked annoyed as she turned back to the counter. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be up so early.”
“I wasn’t expecting you up this early.”
“I’m preparing for the spring festival,” she said. “I have extra work to do at school.”
“And extra work to do here, because of me?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, and then looked quickly back at what she was doing, silent.
“I wanted to let you know not to fuss over me. A box of cereal on the table and some milk in the fridge is all I need in the morning. And coffee.”
“I’ll just show you how to use the coffeemaker then—”
He smiled. “I’ve made coffee on every continent and in two dozen different countries. I can probably figure it out.”
She looked very pretty this morning. Her hair was scraped back in a ponytail. It made her look, again, younger than he knew her to be. The rather severe hairstyle also showed off the flawless lines of her face. She had on a different sleeveless dress, and her lips had a hint of gloss on them that made them look full and faintly pouty.
“All right then,” she said, moving away from the coffeemaker. “So, no breakfast?”
“I don’t need supper tonight, either. I’m kind of used to fending for myself.”
And he did not miss the look of relief on her face.
So he added, “Actually, I probably won’t need dinner any night. Instead of letting you know if I won’t be here, how about if I let you know if I will?”
The look on her face changed to something else, quickly masked. It only showed him the wisdom of his decision. The little schoolteacher wanted someone to look after, and it would be better if she did not get any ideas that it was going to be him!
“I actually like to swim before I eat anything in the morning. This is the perfect time of day for swimming.”
“It’s not even light out.”
“I know. That’s what makes it perfect.”
Whenever he could, Connor had begun every morning of his life for as long as he could remember with a swim. That affinity for the water had, in part, been what made him such a good fit for the SEALs. But when he left the SEALs, it was the only place he had found where he could outrun—or outswim, as it were—his many demons. Despite Justin’s well-meaning advice to take a rest from it, Connor simply could not imagine life without the great stress relief and fitness provided by the water.
