Mad at him and hurt by him and needing to keep her distance from him didn’t seem to affect being attracted to him one bit. What in the world was wrong with her?
“Good news, Benedetto. No fracture.” Enzo’s voice warmed the whole sparse room. “So Nurse Aubrey is going to get you bandaged up while I go take a look at your bike. See if I can fix it so it’s good as new. Is it outside?”
“Sì.” The boy’s eyes lit in surprised excitement. “Can you do that?”
“I’m going to give it a try. Aubrey, when you’re done, please get a tube of topical antibiotic from the drawer for his papà to pick up later when he comes back for us to change the dressing. And will you look in the cupboard next to yours to see if there are any pants that would work for him?”
“Of course.” She watched his tall frame leave the room, completely failing in her determination to not admire that beautiful dark hair and his broad shoulders and the elegant way he moved.
Ugh. She quickly turned back to Benedetto. Being sweet to this child and fixing his bike didn’t erase the reality that the man had virtually accused her of hunting him down just moments ago. A Jekyll and Hyde type, to be sure.
When she had the boy’s leg securely bandaged, she stood and smiled. “I’m going to look for those pants. Be right back.”
The first cupboard had a neatly stacked pile of all kinds of clothes, but after fishing through them she couldn’t find a single pair of pants. The one next to it had what looked like running shorts and a few T-shirts, and a lone pair of gray sweatpants. More searching proved there was nothing else around, so she took the sweatpants back to the exam room, dug into her purse for her sewing kit, and showed the child the pants. “This is the best I can do, I’m afraid. They’re way too big for you, but I’m going to make them fit as best I can. Okay?”
“Okay.” He eyed them doubtfully. “How can you make them fit? They are huge.”
“Ah, I have many talents, young man. You just wait. Can you stand up without it hurting too much?”
She helped him from the table and held the pants up to his waist. They draped a good foot and a half onto the floor, and she made a pencil mark. Then she took scissors from the drawer, cut off the bottom half of the legs, then cut into the elastic waistband. Removing a big chunk of fabric, she then stitched it back together as the boy patiently watched.
“Eccoli!” she said, feeling pretty satisfied with her work and her ability to come up with a good Italian word to boot. “Step into them and see if they’ll stay on you now.”
Once he’d pulled them on, he stared down at the pants, then up at her with a big smile. “They are okay! I didn’t think you could. Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome. Here’s that tube of antibiotic Dr. Affini wants put at the front desk for your dad or your nonna to pick up. Now, let’s go see how he’s doing with your bike.”
She tried hard to ratchet back the way her heart squished as they stepped out to the piazza, trying to shore up her negative feelings about the man currently crouched on the stone pavement. His head was bent over the bicycle wheel as he used some kind of wrench on it. He’d taken off his lab coat, and his necktie was askew and tucked inside the buttons of his shirt. Midmorning sunshine gleamed in his hair, and his eyes were narrowed as he concentrated on his task.
“Can you fix it, Dr. Affini?” Benedetto sounded both worried and hopeful.
“Good...as...new. You’re going to ride like the wind.” One last turn of the wrench, then he stood to pump a little more air into the tire. Obviously pleased, he brushed his hands together, beaming a smile at the boy. “How’s your leg feel?”
“Okay. Thank you so much. I’m going to get the things my nonna wanted, then go straight home.”
“Here are the instructions for your nonna and papà on when to come back, and later, for changing the bandage again and using the antibiotic ointment.” He pulled a folded paper from his pocket, and his eyes met Aubrey’s. “You did put the ointment at the desk?”
“I gave it to Nora after we set him up with new pants.”
“Bene. They—” He stopped short as he looked at the child’s pants, then, after a long pause, laughed out loud.
“What?” she asked, bristling that he obviously thought her sewing job was amusing. Or bad. Or something. “There wasn’t anything that would fit, so I made a bigger pair fit at least a little.”
“I see that. They look very good on you, Benedetto. Very good.” He reached to give the child a quick hug. “Now you go run your errands. Come back tomorrow to let us take another look and change the dressing, and ask your nonna or papà to call me before that if they have questions.”
“Okay. I don’t think Papà will be as mad now that my bike is fixed. Thank you again!”
Aubrey watched the boy mount the bike and ride it slowly and carefully away, and she smiled. “He’s being very cautious now, I see.”
“Not for long, I’m sure.” Enzo’s amused gaze met hers. “Good thing you made the pants fit so the legs wouldn’t get caught in the chain and make him fall again.”
“Yes, good thing. So why were you laughing at my sewing job?”
“I wasn’t laughing at your sewing job. I was laughing because those are—were—my pants.”
Her mouth fell open. “What? They were in the cupboard you told me to look in! With some shorts and T-shirts and...and...” The vision of the neatly folded shorts and manly T-shirts in that cupboard made her voice fade away. Why hadn’t she realized those items were all the same size, when the ones in the other cupboard had been a total mishmash? Heat washed into her face. So much for showing she was indispensable around here. “I’m so sorry. Really sorry. I thought—”
“Aubrey.” He pressed his fingertip to her lips. “It’s fine. Sometimes I run when the clinic’s slow, and I keep clothes here for that. Obviously, they served Benedetto well. Between you and me, his father is very old-school and can be hard on him when he makes mistakes. Not having to show up in bloody, torn pants with a broken bike is a good thing.”
“What about his mother?”
“She died a few years ago.”
Her heart squeezed for the little boy who had lost his mother far too soon. Having her own mother for twenty-seven years hadn’t been nearly long enough. She looked into Enzo’s eyes and could see they’d shadowed with sadness for the boy, too. Probably for the child’s whole family, since he obviously knew them fairly well, and seeing how much he cared melted her heart. Just a little, though. “Poor little thing,” she said softly. “It’s good that you fixed his bike for him, then.”
“And I thank you for making the pants work. We Venetians take care of our own.”
Not being a Venetian, she knew he wasn’t talking about her, but somehow it felt absurdly nice to be included in the thought. Which reminded her how much she wanted to stay here for the next few months, and how Enzo Affini had implied just a bit ago that he didn’t want to work with her in the clinic at all.
“So.” She squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “We were having an important conversation about my job and future here, and you need to know I’m not leaving.”
“No?” His lips quirked at the same time that suspicious frown dipped between his eyes again. “And if the director of the clinic, who would be me, says you have to? That he’ll find you employment somewhere else in Italy?”
“I’ve already worked