realize what had happened until Annia fished him out.”
“Where is Annia?” Marcus asked as casually as he could muster.
“I don’t know. She gave Julius back to me, said something about dogs barking and then snatched up her baby and sprinted for the olive groves. The woman is like no one I’ve ever met. She swims like a fish and runs like the wind. Who is she, really, and where is she from?”
“That, my friend, is a very good question,” Marcus said. The less the women knew about one another, the safer they all were.
“Well, when you find her, let me know,” Lucia said. “I need her to teach me how to take care of the sheep.”
“It looks as though you’ve got your hands full looking after your own little lamb,” Marcus said, indicating Julius. “Are you sure you don’t want to find something inside the inner garden to do? Might it be safer there for your little one?”
”Perhaps I should consider harvesting the flax. That field is the farthest away from the water,” Lucia said, shaking her head.
Marcus laughed and headed toward the olive grove. The silvery-green leaves and gnarled trunks comforted Marcus. He had spent many happy boyhood days in the shady grove, imagining himself a soldier.
“Annia?” he called, but there was no answer. He walked among the trees. Where could she be, and why would she be hiding?
The olives would not be ready to harvest for another two months. What could she be doing out here?
He thought again about what Lucia had said about Annia hearing dogs barking and understood her fear.
Just then he heard the baby cry, a tiny mew, followed immediately by Annia. “Shh,” she whispered, “it’s all right.”
She was very close.
“Annia,” he said, and heard her sharp intake of breath. “I am alone. No one else is here. The dogs bark at everyone who comes to the front gate for my father. No one knows who you are but my mother and me. Please don’t be afraid.”
Annia crept out from behind an olive tree, her infant in her arms. He wanted to comfort her.
“And how do I know I can trust you?” she asked, her eyes dark and serious.
“I don’t know how to prove myself to you,” he said, calmly, evenly, looking deeply into her soft brown eyes. “All I can say is you must try to trust me.”
His encounter with Janius gave him some insight into her fear. Most of the women felt safe and secure behind the thick concrete-covered stone walls of the villa. He wondered if Annia would ever feel safe.
She looked at him warily. Then glanced beyond him—it seemed she needed to verify the truth of his words.
Her gaze returned to study him. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she nodded. “All right,” she said. “I think I can do that.”
He relaxed a bit and was suddenly overcome with a very uncharacteristic lack of assurance as to what he should say next.
But she spoke for him. “Now,” she said, “why don’t you come help me shear some sheep?”
Just like that, she shifted from a frightened deer to a cheerful companion. He admired her verve.
He laughed, and tired though he was, he followed her to the sheep. There would be plenty of time for sleeping in the afternoon. For now, he was going to enjoy her company and maybe learn something about shearing sheep.
And he was going to think of a way to put Janius off the trail of this woman and her baby. Permanently.
Chapter Five
The presence of Marcus calmed her, and she was able to focus on the task at hand. Shearing sheep.
The shears were dull. Annia sent Lucia to the kitchen with them and a request to have the cook sharpen the shears with her stone.
Lucia was happy to get Julius as far away from the stream as possible.
Meanwhile, Annia directed Marcus in the fine art of sheep bathing.
“We have to bathe them before we shear them,” she said. “We need to get rid of all the excess matter in their coats that might dull the shears.”
Apparently, whoever had been in charge of the sheep had not paid attention to this nicety.
“That sounds reasonable,” Marcus said, nodding agreeably and awaiting further instructions. She liked that he was willing to learn from her. Most men resisted instruction from a female.
“Where is your sheepdog?” Annia asked.
Marcus seemed surprised by the question. “I think all the dogs are in the atrium,” he said.
“Not those dogs,” Annia said, “your sheepdog. The one that is trained to herd sheep.”
“I don’t think we have an actual sheepdog,” Marcus said. “Our coin comes from olive oil, not sheep. I think all of our sheepdogs are in Britain.”
She raised a quizzical eyebrow but didn’t have time to question him further about her homeland. Instead, she had a challenge in front of her. One that was proving to be more difficult than she expected. She tried to remember if she had ever bathed sheep in a stream without a sheepdog helping her.
She hadn’t.
“Well, it looks as though you’re chosen,” she said to Marcus.
“Chosen for what?” he asked.
“To be the sheepdog,” she said.
She hoped he was as affable as he pretended to be. If not, this was going to get very interesting very quickly.
“You are going to run behind those bedraggled creatures you call sheep and drive them, one at a time, into the stream.”
He looked at her for a moment and then burst out laughing. “You want me to play the sheepdog?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling.
Marcus shook his head. “I’ve done many things for women. But never this. Pretending to be a sheepdog to these bedraggled sheep?” he said, cocking his head to one side and grinning.
”Yes,” she said, then continued her instructions. “When I finish giving the beast a quick dunk in the spring, you are going to need to drive her right back into the pen.”
Marcus grinned. “Are you trying to make a fool out of me, or is this what must happen?”
Annia smiled. He really had never worked with sheep.
“Well, you may look a little foolish,” she said, “but the sheep will be washed and ready for shearing.”
Annia was quick to fashion a hanging cradle for baby Maelia.
First,
