Emma Read online

  New heat that had nothing to do with an unexpectedly warm day tickled her skin. She’d known that final glance would ruin her. She looked away to the house instead. ‘I’d like to see if I can entice Louisa, Ned’s widow, Angus’s stepmother, out to the group. She should be with us.’ And I need to get away from you.

  ‘I have not yet met Louisa and would like to do so. May I come?’

  Gianni fell into step beside her and though her brain said, please don’t, she could feel the thrum of awareness between them like those swarms of nuisance gnats that often dusted the lake in the late afternoon. Prickling skin and discomfort. All strange feelings she wasn’t usually disturbed with.

  She remembered something Angus had said about this man and went for lightness. ‘I hear you’re good in the kitchen?’ It was easier to tease and the thought made her smile. He looked anything but the kind of man who would prepare a meal with his own hands.

  To her surprise he inclined his head. ‘I enjoy cooking. My parents had a wonderful housekeeper who humoured me in the kitchen. Especially my national dishes. I find the sensuality of food delightful.’ An unexpectedly wicked light shone in his eyes. Dark bedroom eyes that slid sideways to her with teasing of his own and left heat in her cheeks.

  Best she shouldn’t be caught alone with Gianni in a kitchen any time soon and dropped the topic like the hot gnocchi it was.

  The silence lengthened and she tumbled into speech. ‘I tried to encourage Louisa to join us before,’ she said, ‘but she seemed happier focussed on the catering rather than being a part of the group in her loss.’

  He didn’t answer, didn’t help the silence with his own attempt to lighten the awareness between them. You could add to the conversation, Gianni, she thought silently. Even the way they moved in perfect synchronisation towards the wide wooden steps, his hip not quite brushing hers, stretched nerves.

  She had no experience of anyone like him. But then Lyrebird Lake was her life. She’d never had a chance to travel and meet such men.

  Chapter Three

  Gianni

  Politely, Gianni paused to allow her to precede him up the steps. He should say something, but he could think of nothing except the way he was aware of her every movement. His eyes were drawn again to the swing of her slim hips. Hips that enticed as easily as his breath eased in and out.

  Heat flowed between them as she slid past his body, and even though they didn’t touch his flesh prickled. It was the Queensland sun raising both their temperatures, he told himself sternly. Nothing more.

  The house was a large, many-gabled country home with a stained-glass-edged front door that led to a central hallway. It was dim and cool inside, to his relief, and the scent of furniture oil and eucalyptus grounded him. He glanced into high-ceilinged bedrooms that led off the hallway and the old-fashioned furniture looked warm and welcoming. Like everything in this town.

  ‘The doctor’s surgery and clinic rooms are in the back of the house and have a separate entrance.’ She must have seen his look. ‘Visiting medical and nursing staff can stay here and Louisa caters for them.’ Then they came to the back half of the house. ‘This is the heart of the home—Louisa’s kitchen.’

  Louisa, a round dumpling of a woman with soft pillow breasts that many a tiny child had snuggled into, stood at the old stone sink and stared out the window, a dishcloth lying still in her hand against the cup she held.

  She had the look on her face he’d seen too many times in his work – the grief for a loved one passing, Gianni thought with a rush of sympathy. The look he had seen more recently in Samoa after the tsunami. Grief that stayed with him late in the night and never allowed his own demons to settle.

  Emma crossed the room and rested one hand on the cup in case she startled Louisa into dropping it, and the other arm she slid around the little woman’s waist.

  ‘Hello, there dear Louisa. I’ve brought Angus’s friend Gianni to meet you.’ Emma’s voice was melodic and soft with caring, and made the twists in his belly ache harder. He watched her hug Louisa softly in sympathy and Louisa turned her lined face so she could rest her head against Emma’s shoulder for a moment.

  He could almost taste the comfort the older woman gained. Despite her pain she smiled at him. ‘Hello, Gianni.’

  ‘My condolences,’ he said feeling inadequate as always at grief.

  ‘We’ve come to spirt you outside. Are you okay with that?’

  Who was this Emma Rose, compassionately maternal to a woman three times her age? He wondered what had happened in this young woman’s life to give her such wisdom beyond her years. It was better to think of this than his whimsy for a hug himself.

  But the glimpses of Emma’s effect on him had been enough to warn him she was far too dangerous for hugging. Dangerous in a way he hadn’t been susceptible to for too many years. In ways he didn’t want to be susceptible to again.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ Louisa sighed and Gianni saw the effort she made to smile. ‘I’m just thanking the Lord for the last six years, and the twenty years as his friend before that. He was a good man.’

  Emma squeezed her shoulder one more time and then stepped away. ‘I know it. And he loved you dearly, as we all do. Is there something we can do for you?’ Gianni saw her glance back at him and even that brief acknowledgement was enough to make his belly tighten.

  But this Emma was a woman from the other side of the world. A side of the world he was leaving tomorrow. He’d need to remember that.

  ‘Bless you both. No.’ The Yorkshire accent seemed broader as Louisa jollied herself back into efficiency. ‘I’ll come out and sit in the shade with you, though, and enjoy the company of Ned’s family and friends.’

  ‘Your family and friends,’ Emma corrected gently.

  ‘Aye, of course,’ she said, and sighed.

  Together the three of them moved out to the lawn and Gianni walked on Louisa’s other side so that she was ushered into the group under the tree and settled in a comfortable chair.

  Gianni watched as she was fussed over by all and sundry and one of the women handed her a baby to cuddle. Instantly Louisa was diverted. He looked at Emma who unobtrusively nodded with satisfaction.

  He liked it that she derived pleasure from the older woman’s comfort. The mood of these people made him think of the best times he’d had as a child. Times he and his brother had escaped to play with the happy-go-lucky village children where such a sense of support and warmth had been unburdened by the responsibility of being part of the most important family.

  Carefree. Like Emma made him feel.

  He needed to put distance between them. Space to prevent his fingers from stroking her cheek because he could imagine the silk beneath his fingers too vividly. ‘Perhaps you’d like a glass of punch, Emma?’ Gianni indicated the cloth- covered table under another tree.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ Emma glanced down at Louisa, who had buried her nose in the baby’s hair. ‘Louisa is settled.’

  ‘Well done,’ he said quietly as they walked away. ‘The innocence of children is precious and a comfort even in terrible times.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Emma said, looking up at him. ‘Is that what you see often in your work?’

  He had no idea why he would talk of something he never mentioned but it kept him from touching her. He shrugged and ladled a glass of punch, watched her take a sip and found himself talking to distract himself from her mouth. ‘I have seen many families suffer great losses but the safe delivery of one child can restart hope and life like nothing else.’

  Her gaze lay steady on his. ‘Angus said you began working with the rescue forces not long after he did.’

  ‘If not for Angus, I wouldn’t be here. Did he tell you he pulled me from an earthquake’s landslide? I’d been buried two days and all others had given up.’ Gianni wondered silently, Did he tell you I had been on a road to wasting my life before that?

  She smiled gently, her eyes intent on his face. ‘Yes, but very briefly. Did you think he would tell me much?’

  Gianni laughed, but without relief. ‘No. I suppose not. We do tend not to speak of what we see. And he spoke of his work even less than I do now.’

  Her beautiful lips firmed. ‘Which comes at a cost as tragic memories accumulate,’ she said with great insight. She returned to the thing he wished she’d forgotten. ‘Two days buried would give a lot of time for thought.’

  ‘Hmm. A long time to regret things in my past.’ He’d almost come to peace with those memories but perhaps that healing had been covered under the new pains he’d collected. He’d never actually taken off the armour of protection from his youth.

  ‘I like to think good comes of everything.’ She tilted her chin at him and he felt her concentration not as curiosity but as soothing balm to his hurts. ‘Even something that seems horrible at the time has a gift. What good came of that, Gianni?’

  He was distracted by the way she said his name. Softly, rolling the vowels as if savouring the strangeness of them. He supposed his name was strange in this place of Jacks and Johns and Joes. But she was waiting and he needed to think of his answer.

  Normally he would have ignored such a question, not that it had been asked before, but for this Emma, strangely he found he could answer honestly. ‘It was a long time ago but, yes, being trapped, almost dying, changed my life and created a need to do something useful. Like Angus had done, giving back my life. I would not waste it again.’

  Her lips curved. ‘Had you been so useless before?’

  He thought of the fast cars, the wild and thoughtless men and women he’d peopled his life with after Maria’s death...but that was in the past along with another tragedy, though one without a good result. ‘I fear so.’

  His voice lowered as the memories returne
d. Memories he had to banish every time he was confronted with a similar event. ‘Lying there, unable to move, barely able to breathe as I listened to those around me grow silent, made me swear that life was too precious to waste.’

  He shook away the memories and forced himself to smile at her, ‘But enough of me. You say you are a midwife. Have you always wished that? Like your little Grace has told me she has?’

  ‘Some of the best people I know are midwives.’ She grinned at him. Daring him to dispute a fact he knew little about. He had not known any midwives well enough to judge but he knew he liked this one. ‘We have Montana and Mia and Misty. Tammy.’

  She gestured with her hand at the colourful throng of people gathered beneath the tree, the people she worked with at Lyrebird Lake. ‘Wise women and wonderful friends,’ she went on. ‘Like them, I consider my work a privilege.’

  He understood that but it was rare for a person to say so. ‘As I do mine. So now we can be happy we have worthwhile lives, though I fear I may be a trifle too focussed on the excuse not to lead a more facetted life.’ He grimaced in self-mockery. ‘And what do you do for yourself, Emma?’

  She glanced around for her daughter. ‘I am also a mother.’

  He smiled down at her perplexed frown. ‘A mother, yes, and a good one, I think. And for Emma—the woman?’

  She narrowed her eyes at him and declined to answer, preferring to fire it back at him. ‘What do you do for the man, Gianni?’

  Someone called out to her and she looked away. And then she smiled at him and was gone. He watched her go. Couldn’t not watch her. An intriguing and magnetic woman he hadn’t expected to meet.

  Chapter Four

  Emma

  Two hours later Emma found herself looking around for Gianni.

  He would be gone tomorrow, which was as well because the fascination inside her seemed to revel in every smiling – or brooding – glance he sent her way. There was an escalating excitement in her stomach unlike anything she’d felt before, and as she checked on her daughter she realised that she missed seeing Gianni in her peripheral vision. She needed to remember he’d go back to the drama and tension of emergency rescue with the international taskforce that Angus had retired from many years ago and she’d go back to her work.

  But her mind wasn’t ready to relegate Gianni to a past experience. And she rearranged the knowledge she had in her brain and teased at it like a ball of tangle wool, as if she could glean more from threads she had free.

  So, Angus had dragged the barely conscious Italian from the rubble and inspired him. Well, it had certainly sparked an unlikely friendship between the two men, with Angus at least ten years older.

  Where had she been ten years ago when that had happened?

  At school certainly. Not a teen mother yet. Her own mother still well and oblivious to the cloud that would destroy her life and cast a shadow over her family.

  But she wouldn’t go there, today. There was enough grief despite the air of celebration. When this Italian doctor was gone, Emma would go back to life in Lyrebird Lake as if he’d never been, which was a good thing.

  Ah.

  There he is.

  She found him talking to Angus and as if he’d felt her gaze, he looked up. For a moment their eyes held and then Angus said something else and Gianni looked away.

  Hurriedly she walked on and berated herself for being drawn to him. But what could a girl do when she found herself so aware of a man that she searched him out? Not normal Emma behaviour.

  She wasn’t the only one drawn. Since their first conversation, whenever she’d moved to another group to talk, shortly afterwards he too would arrive to join the circle and always that ripple of awareness thrummed between them. He’d seemed no more than a few steps away from her all afternoon, despite the fact they’d barely spoken.

  She wished he’d stay just a little longer.

  She sifted through everything Angus had told her as she waited for him to come to her again. Strange how she knew he would.

  ‘So, you’ll be gone tomorrow,’ she said without preamble when he appeared to stand beside her.

  ‘That is true.’

  A tennis ball from the cricket game rolled to her feet like a faceless yellow bird and she picked it up and tossed it back to the bowler, glad of the distraction while she bolstered up her courage. ‘It’s a shame you can’t stay a while and see more of the area around Lyrebird Lake.’

  His glance swept over her. ‘If I had known it would be so beautiful here—’ a small smile-laden pause ‘—I would not have made plans. Would you have shown me around, Emma?’

  She could have found a little time. If he was that attracted to the place, why leave so quickly? ‘Perhaps. And your plans can’t be changed?’

  He gestured fatalistically with his hands and she had to smile at the pure Mediterranean gesture. ‘I go to see my brother. It is arranged. We haven’t spoken in years. It is time.’

  More snippets of the man. ‘Did you fall out? Is he married?’

  ‘Such questions.’ But he smiled as he said it. ‘He too has lost his wife now, so the reason for our disagreement is past.’

  That sounded even more intriguing and just a little tough on the poor wife, but she hesitated to persist. She was glad she hadn’t offended him with her inquisitiveness.

  Everything about him spoke of a different culture, a different life experience, and sometimes she despaired of ever experiencing a world away from Lyrebird Lake. She’d begun to think that she’d pinned her lack of experience of the world onto Gianni’s multiculturalism and that was what was drawing her to him. It was as good a reason as any.

  Maybe it was the fact that he was going that gave her permission to try and peer into that other world. ‘Tell me what it was like, growing up in Italy. Tell me about your parents.’

  When he raised his impossibly black eyebrows at her questions, she realised how bold she’d sounded.

  ‘I’m not normally nosy,’ she said quickly, ‘but you intrigue me. Please don’t answer if you prefer not to.’

  ‘And if I don’t, will you walk away?’

  She almost said maybe, and then corrected herself. She’d never been a tease. Why lie? He was altogether too compelling. She smiled. ‘Of course not.’

  He shrugged his broad shoulders as if to say he couldn’t imagine why she would be interested but he would humour her. ‘Then I will tell you a little. My parents were both doctors but died in a boating accident when I was a teenager. I was held above the water, unconscious, by my brother until help came.’

  ‘That must have been heartbreaking for two teenage boys.’

  He nodded. ‘If I had not hit my head, perhaps we could have saved them both, but that is all in the past.’

  The bleakness was back in his eyes and Emma wished she could retract her question about his parents. She resisted the urge to touch his shoulder in sympathy. That would be a step too far.

  But he went on, almost as if he too was aware time was running out for both of them. ‘Leon, older by two years than I, runs the Bonmarito Private Hospitals in Rome. In our family it is our custom for the sons to attend medical school and then marry the wife chosen by the family.’

  She couldn’t imagine being married to a man she barely knew, especially one as blatantly masculine as this man, but bizarrely she had no problem picturing the scenario in his world. ‘You and Leon did that? Yours was an arranged marriage?’

  When he nodded, she shook her head at the concept. What must his wife have thought as he’d approached the marriage bed? Or had she been glad he had been young and handsome?

  Nobody had forced Emma to marry, even when Grace’s father had offered.

  ‘Si. And no prospect of divorce if it didn’t work in the beginning.’

  A flicker of sardonic amusement crossed his face as he watched her shock. Apppeared to enjoy it. Even at her expense, she was glad to see him lighten his mood a little.

  ‘The statistics for good marriages in my country are similar to yours,’ he added.

  But still. ‘Was your marriage a happy one?’

  The bleakness swept back into his eyes. ‘We both wanted it to work once it was done. By the time Maria died I had feelings for her. Yes.’