Taken by the Highest Bidder

The farmer nodded, pocketed the twenty-pound note and turned away before turning back. “She told me you’re Cristiano Bartolo,” the farmer said, indicating Gabby. “And I wondered if maybe you’re not Bartolo’s boy. You sure look like him. Italian, and all.”

Cristiano smiled. “I am.”

“Well, I’ll be.” The farmer clapped Cristiano on the shoulder once. “You’re a good man. I like you.” He nodded at Sam, chucked Gabriela under the chin and headed back to his tractor.

But before Sam could organize her thoughts, before she could ask Cristiano what the farmer had meant, Gabriela was dancing around them. “It’s like a fairyland outside,” she cried, jumping from one foot to the other. “Come see, Sam. It’s like The Nutcracker ballet. It’s magic!”

It was indeed magic, Sam had to agree, standing with Gabby at the open cottage door.

The great oak trees were covered in white. Icicles glistened from the edge of the cottage roof. Bright powdery snow glittered beneath bright blue skies and sunlight that had never been clearer or more golden.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Gabby cried, still bundled in her borrowed winter clothes.

Actually a walk sounded exactly like what Sam needed and she went to get her coat while Gabby waited out front.

Gabby looked like a puffy blue marshmallow as she smiled up at Cristiano. “Are you coming with us?”

“For a walk?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “No. I’ll skip the exercise.”

“Exercise is good for you,” Sam said, sliding her arms into her coat. She didn’t have the warm clothes Gabby did but a brisk walk should help warm her up.

“So is a toasty fire,” he answered dryly.

Sam made a face at him then extended a hand to Gabriela. “Suit yourself. We’ll be back in a little bit.”

Outside, the air was biting cold and the snow deep and powdery. They set off for the Rookery, but walked around the back of the old building to what had once been the kitchen garden.

Almost immediately they sank knee deep into a chilly white mound. Gabby gasped even as Samantha did.

“It’s freezing,” Gabriela said breathlessly.

“Look,” Sam said, pointing to the edge of the roof where melting snow had frozen into long spinning strands of ice. “Isn’t that the most gorgeous icicle? Looks like a waterfall.”

“Like in Switzerland,” Gabby agreed, as they tramped further on, slow quiet steps that required lots of concentration on Gabby’s part.

Sam glanced down at the top of Gabby’s head. “You remember that trip?”

Gabby’s fingers tightened. “We went for a ride in a carriage and had bread in melted cheese for supper.”

Gabby wasn’t even three yet then. “That was two years ago.”

Gabby’s hazel eyes narrowed. “It was fun.”

Sam’s chest squeezed with emotion. “It was fun,” she agreed softly. The visit to Bern had been the first—and last—trip Sam had taken with Gabby and Johann. Johann had said he had business in the city and while he attended meetings, Sam and Gabby played tourist, taking a horse-drawn carriage through the city and then stopping later on the way back at a chalet-style restaurant where they sat outside beneath a heat lamp and dunked chunks of crusty bread in a golden cheese fondue.

They were huffing a little as they reached the back garden where dormant rosebushes looked like snow-flecked sculptures.

Sam brushed snow off one of the benches and she and Gabby sat. Almost immediately Sam could feel the chill from the bench seep through her pants.

“Has he come to take me back with him?” Gabby asked, touching Sam’s sleeve.

Sam covered Gabby’s mitten with her gloved hand. For a moment she couldn’t bring herself to speak, not trusting her voice.

“I heard him,” Gabby added. “That first night he was here when you thought I was sleeping.”

Sam tried to sound severe. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop. Because the problem with eavesdropping,” she added more gently, “is that you don’t always hear the whole conversation and you miss the meaning of what is being said.”