Eden crossed the cool patio cement and went into the house and up the stairs to the room that had been hers for over two months. All that was left for her to do now was reserve a seat on the next flight home, pack her belongings, and leave.
The smell of brewing coffee woke Eden. She’d slept fitfully, last looking at her bedside clock at four in the morning. She felt drugged and headachy and knew it was an emotional hangover from one of the worst nights of her life. Groggily, Eden went into her bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. Garret would call it “bracing,” she thought. The memory of telling him about her past flooded back, bringing on fresh waves of inner torture. She needed some coffee but was hesitant to show up in the kitchen.
Eden returned to the bedroom, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and dug her suitcase out of the closet, where she’d stashed it when she’d first arrived. She opened it on the bed, went to the dresser, and began the chore of packing. Never had she expected her trip to end so sadly.
She heard a gentle rap on her closed door. Her nerves tightened. She wasn’t ready to face Garret quite yet. “Um—who is it?”
“Maggie,” came the answer.
Eden groaned. She was even less ready to face Garret’s mother.
“May I come in? I’ve got some coffee for you.”
Perhaps, Eden thought, the woman would throw it at her. But it was her house, after all. Eden couldn’t bar her. Stiff upper, she told herself, using the Aussie words she’d heard locals use when the going got tough. “Come in.”
The door eased open and Maggie entered the room. She saw the suitcase and the clothing Eden was folding. “What’s this?”
“Homeward bound,” Eden said as cheerfully as she could muster.
Maggie came over, sat on the bed, handed Eden a cup of steaming coffee colored with a dollop of real cream, just the way Eden drank it. “You don’t have to leave,” Maggie said tenderly.
“I do,” Eden said, sipping the coffee.
“Come.” Maggie patted a section of the bed next to her. “Sit with me. We’ll talk.”
Eden wanted to sit because her knees had gone rubbery. She sank onto the bed, which was rumpled from her restless sleep. “I’m very sorry about last night. About ruining supper.”
“You’re sorry? I’m sorry about that awful Alyssa. Girl never did have a thimbleful of sense.”
“Has Garret talked to you?”
“Of course. Lad came up last night and told us everything.”
Eden reddened. “Then you know why I’m packing.”
Maggie pressed the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “You can’t go home until I tell you some things that I’m sure you don’t know about our Garret.”
Eden stopped mid-sip. “Garret’s perfect,” she said.
Maggie smiled broadly. “It may seem so, but I’m guessing he’s never shared a word about his brother, Philip, has he?”
Eden blinked. “He has a brother?”
Maggie’s eyes teared up. “Had a brother,” she said tenderly. “Now, no more.”
Eden waited while Maggie gathered herself. Maggie swiped beneath her eyes and cleared her throat. “Sorry. It’s always difficult to speak of Philip.”
“Take your time.” Eden felt upended. Why hadn’t Garret ever mentioned a brother?
“There was five years between them. Garret adored his big brother. Philip was a digger.”
Eden raised a brow and shook her head.
“A soldier. Diggers are army boys. After America’s 9/11, he joined. Wanted to make the world a safer place. Eventually he was stationed in Iraq, part of the UN Peacekeepers. He was almost at the end of his tour and planning on coming home to marry his girl.”
Eden’s heart thudded as she realized what was coming. And she recalled the beautifully painted surfboard in the shed that Garret hadn’t wanted to talk about. Surely it had been Philip’s.
“One of those horrible IED bombs took him out on a roadside where he was driving a jeep in front of a tank. Army sent him home in a closed casket because—” Maggie sniffed hard. “Well, you know.”
Not enough left to recognize. Eden had read reports of U.S. soldiers returning home the same way. Their families never had a final glimpse of the people they’d loved. “War sucks,” she mumbled.
“Garret took it very hard. Inconsolable, he was.”
Eden’s heart ached, understanding too well how impotent a person could feel when death was a victor over someone you loved. She’d felt helpless and angry and grief stricken when Arie had died. And there had been nothing, nothing she was able to do to strike back at Death. She wanted to take Maggie’s hand, but wasn’t sure she should. She didn’t want to overstep her boundaries.
Maggie glanced over at Eden. “This is the part of the story where Alyssa comes in. She and Garret had been school chums for a long time, but when Philip died, he and Alyssa became a couple. The girl could offer comfort that we could not. I’m sure you get my meaning.”
Eden did.
“I never liked the girl,” Maggie added. “Everyone could see she wasn’t right for our Garret. Trevor and I. My sister and I. Our close friends. We all knew she was NQWWW.”
Eden sorted through her memory for the meaning of the letters. She knew dozens of text and email letter add-ons, but not this one. “I don’t—”
“Oh, forgive me. Stands for Not Quite What We Wanted.”
Eden laughed, her first genuine moment of humor since before Alyssa’s bombshell had blown up her world. “Well, if she was as toady then as she is now, I get it.”
Maggie patted Eden’s hand in a show of camaraderie. “We tolerated her because Garret was happier around her. Or he thought he was. But she never played fair with my lad. No need to go into that.”
Eden wasn’t up to hearing the nitty-gritty anyway. “If Alyssa helped him, that’s what matters,” she said, trying to be generous.
“Once the funeral was over and we were all working to pick up our lives, I could see that Garret wasn’t doing well. He missed Philip terribly, and there was a hardness in him like never before. When he was midway through second year of university, he wanted to drop out, enlist, and go kill the ‘bad guys.’ Trevor and I were terrified. Couldn’t face losing another son.” Maggie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “That’s when we offered to send him off on walkabout. I knew he’d been bitten by the travel bug when he was a little lad. When you live in Australia it’s a common ailment,” Maggie said as an aside. “Australians go to the world because the world doesn’t usually come to us. We take the long hours of travel in stride.”
“It is a long trip,” Eden said. “But worth it.”
Maggie smiled. “Garret is bright, always loved to write. Got that job with the travel magazine all on his own. Wrote his own job description. We’re very proud of him.”
“That’s how we met. On his walkabout.”
“Almost didn’t happen, though. He wanted Alyssa to go with him. But the girl was bonkers for her modeling career. She absolutely refused. I thought Garret might beg off. But he held firm. Tom and Lorna stepped up, said they’d join him. And off they went.”
“My good luck.”
Maggie took Eden’s hand. “His too.”
Eden felt almost buoyant when the memory of the night before crashed into her brief spell of happiness. Her shoulders drooped. She removed her hand, glanced beyond Garret’s mother to the half-packed suitcase. “About last night …,” she started.
“Garret’s told us about Alyssa’s nasty paperwork. It doesn’t matter to him, so it doesn’t matter to us. We’ve all done something in our lives that we regret. But after losing Philip, I know life can be short and should be fully lived, not regretted. Whatever happened to you back in the States can’t be changed. Forward’s the only direction you can go.” Maggie stood, urged Eden up in front of her. “Now go on down to the pool. My lad’s out there swimming laps and waiting for you.” She shook her head, smiled. “So many laps, I’m telling you. All morning
long.”
Eden searched Maggie’s eyes, saw only kindness, encouragement. Eden hugged Garret’s mother and hurried to the patio.
The second Eden set foot poolside, Garret burst from the water, hauled himself up, and, dripping wet, went to her. He crushed her against his body, soaking her through. She didn’t care. His embrace was all she needed to find atonement. He kissed her, said, “ ’Bout time. Me mum must have been long-winded.”
“It’s in a female’s genes.”
He grinned but quickly sobered. “I asked her to tell you everything. Still hard for me to—to talk about—”
She shushed him. “I know what I need to know. Wasn’t that what you told me?”
His expression softened. “I told her you’d be up there packin’.”
She felt her face redden. “I was. But, Garret, I really do have to go home.” For several days, she’d been experiencing an urgency about returning to Bellmeade. An uneasiness she found hard to put into words. She started in. “Ciana will be planting soon. I should be there.”
“Why?”
She thought about how to best say what was in her heart. “You have an amazing family. They love and care about you so much. I’ve never had that. All I know about my family is in a letter Gwen left me before she ran off to Florida. Ciana and Alice Faye are more family to me than any I was born into. I love them. And I miss them.” Now that the words were spoken, she felt a lightness. Love. Yes. She watched his eyes, saw quickly that he fully understood. “I—I need to go home.”
His grin was quick. “And so you will. But not before we go on walkabout in the outback.”
“All of it?”
“Course not. Just my favorite parts.” He kissed the tip of her nose.
“Like we’ll be camping?”
“Every night.”
“And … and there’ll be wild animals?”
“I’ll be the wildest animal you’ll meet.”
She gave him a playful shove.
“My grandfather used to take me and my brother hiking in the Blue Mountains. I want to take you there too.”
“I’ve never camped.”
“Then it’s about time you did.”
She wasn’t as sure about the idea as he was.
“And I’ll be with you. I’ll gather up our gear and we can leave today.”
She offered a tentative smile.
“And when we come back, we’ll talk about you going home.”
She nodded, anxious about both possibilities, but for different reasons. Camping was an unknown experience that he would guide her through; home was a place she suddenly couldn’t imagine without him.
At Bellmeade the colors of spring crept across the land—new growth to cover winter’s pale. For Ciana, it meant planting time was close. She had enough seed and fertilizer for extra fields, and while it was less land than she’d hoped to plant this season, it was a step up from the previous year.
The vandals had stepped up their malice also. Jon mended fences almost daily, and once had discovered corrosive lye scattered across a field, a guarantee to destroy any new planting. The continued destruction had brought the sheriff into the mix, but although he had patrol cars regularly drive the road that fronted her property, no one was ever caught. Bellmeade property stretched too far from the road, and had too few people to constantly watch over it.
Enzo drove from Nashville to visit her, and when he showed up, Jon quietly slipped away. So Enzo’s visits meant a break from the pressures of everyday life for Ciana. They rode together and shared good memories, and on sunny days sat on her veranda and sipped fine wine. He was older, urbane, and sophisticated, but the age difference between them had never mattered. She thought him handsome and charismatic, and for reasons she didn’t understand, he liked her enough to want to be with her, both in Italy and now in Tennessee. She decided to ignore Jon’s attitude toward Enzo altogether.
On their first ride together, she brought out Sonata for him.
“Bellissima,” he said, giving the horse’s forehead a rub. “She has intelligent eyes. A good sign.”
“She’s the grand dame of the stable, part Arabian and part Tennessee walking horse. Her gait is smooth as butter.”
Enzo swung onto Sonata and Ciana mounted Firecracker, who snorted, eager to be given her head. “Show me your world, bella Ciana,” Enzo said, looking as if he’d been born on the back of a horse.
Just then Jon came out of the barn. The two men sized each other up, Enzo from the back of Sonata, Jon from the doorway of the barn. To Ciana both men were physically perfect—the one lean, elegant, dark-eyed and aristocratic, the other man cowboy-rugged, green-eyed, and broad-shouldered. And she felt indebted to each of them.
Jon crossed his arms, leaned in the doorframe. “Have a good ride,” he called, his gaze never leaving Enzo’s. Enzo tilted his head ever so slightly at Jon, turned Sonata, and nosed in beside Ciana.
“This way,” she said, feeling nervous but exhilarated. She was eager to show her property to Enzo, just as he’d once shown his to her. Their lands were different and worlds apart, yet she knew how devoted he was to his property and to its heritage, which dated to Old World Roman times. Bellmeade grew no vineyards and olive trees, but it was fertile and rich and full of promise.
They cantered toward the back of the land that encompassed the house, through a line of trees and into a back field, where she pointed to a corral and an oval track. “We can run a bit there. No potholes.”
Together, over the winter, she and Jon had put in the ten-foot-wide half-mile track, a corral, and a covered lean-to. Jon had also dug a well for watering and bathing horses. The entire place had been Jon’s idea. “This will make your stables more valuable to boarders. Safer riding too.” Naturally, he was right, and she’d wondered why she’d never thought of it herself. They’d done the hard work together, with Ciana creating the track aboard her tractor, first towing a plow to break up the partially frozen ground and bring up rocks that she and Jon removed by hand. Then she’d pulled a disc harrow to further loosen and soften the sod; and lastly, once they had filled in low spots with wheelbarrows of fresh dirt, a tractor rake. She raked the dirt often to keep it smooth for riding. The large corral contained small hurdles where horses could be trained to jump, along with a stack of orange cones to practice for barrel-racing events. She was pleased with the site, happy to show it off.
Enzo complimented the work and then turned Sonata toward the track’s entry. “This horse rides bene. May I stretch her?”
“Give her a shake. She knows what to do.”
Enzo clicked his tongue, pushed the heels of his boots into the horse’s sides. Sonata took off into the smooth rolling gait of a seasoned walking horse. She had been Olivia’s prized mount, a blue-ribbon winner in almost every contest entered.
Firecracker moved restlessly. “We’ll go,” Ciana said, patting the horse’s neck. “Let’s give them a chance to enjoy it alone.” The horse snorted and sidestepped, showing her displeasure at having to wait.
After Enzo completed the track twice, Ciana gave Firecracker her head and the horse took off in a full gallop. Ciana leaned low over the horse’s neck, felt the cold wind in her face, the sting of the flying mane against her skin, heard the sound of the hooves pounding the ground. The bay was quick, and Ciana let her horse run, reveling in an adrenaline high. When she pulled up, Firecracker was breathing hard and her neck was sweat-lathered. Ciana took a lap at a canter, then joined Enzo outside the track. He had dismounted and was watching her breakneck run, a beguiling smile on his face. Laughing, Ciana swung her right leg over the saddle horn and slid to the ground. “I love a good run!”
He came close and touched her cheek. His thumb slid down and across her bottom lip. “You are beautiful. Like the wind.”
Her pulse quickened, remembering the familiarity of his hands on her body and of his mouth on hers. For a moment, their eyes held. She thought he might kiss her, but instead he took a deep breath and stepped aside
. “I should like to take you someplace speciale,” he said. “A ball in Nashville for horse people. Do you know of it? Will you come with me, Ciana?”
The Horseman’s Ball, the annual premier social event for Tennessee’s storied and elite horse owners. Of course Ciana knew of it. Olivia and Charles had attended every year until Charles’s death, but Ciana had never gone. Never been invited. His request caught her off balance. “Pretty fancy dance.”
He shrugged. “The man who wants to buy the seed of my stallions has insisted that I join in this event. I cannot ignore or refuse his offer. You understand, yes? Such things are not so much to my pleasure, but I should like it better if you were by my side.”
Naturally, a man like Enzo was used to such social events in Europe, so she realized he wouldn’t be impressed by the all-but-impossible-to-come-by invitation. Eden had once shown her Web photos of Enzo decked out in formal wear and with different glamorous women on his arm. She was nothing like those women.
“Do not say to me, ‘Enzo, I have nothing to wear.’ Such an excuse comes from all women, and yet I have never seen one arrive anywhere without clothes.”
His voice was light and teasing. And irresistible. She burst out laughing. “It’s the heels,” she said. “I hate wearing heels.” In truth her mind was spinning a mile a minute, attempting to think of what she had that was suitable to wear at such an event.
He bowed slightly. “You may go barefoot. This does not matter to me.”
Suddenly she remembered the dress she’d worn to Abbie’s wedding. It was pretty, body hugging, the pale color of champagne, and hanging in the back of her closet. It would do nicely. “Why would I say no? Mama says I clean up good. For a farm girl.”
He laughed heartily. “It will be my pleasure to take you, plain or fancy. No matter, you will shine.”
She squirmed under his appreciative look. “Want to see the rest of Bellmeade?” she asked, swiftly retreating from talk of clothing and moneyed balls.