At this child’s age Gianni had been interested in a rocket ship and moon walks, or Formula One racing. Life had been carefree then, before his father and mother had died, and unlike his brother he hadn’t been sure he would be a doctor. But then he hadn’t known about the realities of life, or near death, hadn’t even met Angus.
He shook Grace’s hand seriously and exerted himself to be less formal, less pompous around children, which he’d been accused of before. But when had he had the chance to learn? The nearest he’d been to fatherhood had been another man’s child that had died with his wife.
He swallowed the familiar bitterness and forced a smile. ‘Hello, Grace. You must call me Gianni, as everyone seems to be on first names here.’
As the little girl took her hand back he noted the she had the same vibrant lip gloss on as her mother. Perhaps a family make-up party? He tried not to grimace at the idea of frivolity in a time of grief. Not something he was used to but, then, everything seemed different here. Even himself.
‘Your lipstick matches your mother’s.’ He looked back at Emma and the thrum in his belly growled louder, like a sleeping beast he seemed unable to control.
Now her blue eyes had softened compassionately as she concentrated on his face and he found himself drawn into her gaze, unable to break the connection.
When she said, ‘Ned bought that lip gloss for my daughter for Christmas, and we wore it today to honour him,’ Gianni sighed internally. He’d been wrong there, too.
Still she drew him in like a siren. Such sympathy, such warmth and promise of healing as he’d never felt before, as if she recognised his pain and shared the ache. Like the peace inside a tiny church on an Italian hillside.
He dragged his eyes away from her to her daughter. Ridiculous feelings needed to be ignored. Especially ones that left him floundering for composure.
‘No school today, Grace?’
Grace looked suitably downcast for a second as the reason they were there returned to her. He watched, annoyed with himself for the obvious question and the distress it had caused. Children brought out the worst in him, and he wanted to walk away and save them from his gaucheness, but he couldn’t.
The little girl forced herself to smile and explain. ‘It’s Ned Day. The school shut for Dr Ned’s “happy” wake.’
Emma rested one elegant hand on her daughter’s shoulder. ‘We all loved Ned. It must feel different for someone from another country. Funerals can be celebrations as well as sad events in different cultures, Grace.’ She smiled again at Gianni. ‘Ned said we had to celebrate life, not be maudlin at its natural conclusion. Hence the children and the balloons.’ She gestured to the youngsters playing on the grass. ‘And the back-yard cricket.’
He glanced at Angus, Ned’s son and his friend, the man who had pulled him many years ago from the earthquake debris when all others had given up. The man who had turned Gianni from a thoughtless playboy bent on self-destruction into a dedicated medic.
To be honest, Angus perplexed him, too. Gianni didn’t understand why Angus smiled as he struggled with the bagpipes he hadn’t mastered fully before his father had died. But, then, surely the fact that Angus could smile was a thing to feel relieved about.
Apparently this place was not for gravity and ceremony. He wished he’d met the man who inspired such warmth and feeling of life even after he’d gone. Perhaps he, Gianni, had needed somewhere like this in his grief because it felt he’d been in the darkness for such a long time.
Emma too looked across at Ned’s son. ‘Angus told me you lost your wife.’ He winced at the memory of all that had happened that day but then she leaned forward and kissed his cheek in unselfconscious sympathy. ‘I am sorry to hear that.’
The scent of strawberries hung on his face where she’d brushed her lips and he could feel the breeze on the exact spot, fanning the heat from her mouth.
In all his life strawberries had never caused such upheaval! Why had she kissed him? Though, when her blue eyes softened even more with empathy, it was strangely acceptable.
‘And now,’ she went on, ‘you’ve come to be with Angus for his loss. That’s kind. He’ll miss Ned, sorely.’
He dragged his mind back to her words and couldn’t believe how disorientated his usually clinical mind had become since she’d arrived beside him. ‘Thank you. I regret I didn’t come in time to meet Dr Campbell.’
‘He was a kind man, too.’ Her hand lifted and with one gentle fingertip she wiped the trace of colour from his cheek. ‘Oops. Sorry.’
‘It smells very nice,’ he said, and allowed himself another slow glance at her mouth, unobtrusively. No law against that, and he imagined what her lips would taste like. Where was his brain going? To a place it hadn’t been for a long time. He needed to stop these fantasies. ‘Perhaps you would like to introduce me to your husband?’
She tilted her head and he saw the second she mentally stepped back. ‘No husband.’
‘A widow perhaps, or divorced?’ She shook her head with a mocking little smile that made him want to taste her even more.
He was too interested in the facts. Looking for a reason not to be drawn to her. She must have been very young when her daughter had been born. Too young to be a mother and not the child herself. Whose fault was it she was not protected?
‘None of those.’ She didn’t elaborate. He felt rather than saw the wall go up. Her expression remained friendly but there was a more assertive tilt to her delightful chin that dared him to judge. This woman had him far too intrigued for a man who would be leaving tomorrow.
He persisted. ‘Your parents are here?’
‘My parents don’t live in Lyrebird Lake any more.’ She lifted her chin higher. ‘Have you any children?’ Her turn to question.
Not of his own. And never would. ‘No.’
She lifted an ironic eyebrow and glanced down at Grace, and the subject spluttered out like a candle in the rain.
From the gate a dark-haired girl of about Grace’s age waved at them and Emma touched her daughter’s shoulder until she saw her friend. Emma nodded. ‘There’s Dawn. Off you go.’
She ignored his flat ‘no’. ‘Dawn is the daughter of Andy, the medical director at our hospital, and his wife Montana,’ she told Gianni. ‘Montana began the birth centre in Lyrebird Lake and now we have seven midwives and a great team. People drive long distances to give birth here.’
Emma was filling the silence. Not something she usually did. He probably wasn’t interested. She kept her eyes on her daughter as she skipped across the grass, but she was tempted to drink in one more close-up appraisal of the drop-dead gorgeous Gianni Bonmarito. Who for some reason she enjoyed teasing. There was something about the snippets told by Angus that captured her imagination. And confirmed the absolute tragedy and darkness she saw in his eyes.
She didn’t know why he affected her so deeply, so achingly that she wanted to draw his big swarthy head down on her breast and soothe his brow. Maybe kiss those heavy, lash-framed eyelids and comfort the inner demons she could see in his soul. Grace ran off with Dawn, and Emma turned back to the man beside her and glanced quickly one more time.
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 better see if I can entice Louisa, Angus’s stepmother, out to the group. She should be with us.’ And I need to get away from you.
‘I will 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 a tiny swarm of nuisance gnats that often dusted the lake