‘I called him. I said we might pop in.’
‘Okay, so it’s not the winery and we’re not necessarily going to see your uncle... Anyone else in your family?’
‘Give it up, Rose. You’re never going to get it.’
He drew up by the side of the track and she got out of the car, pulling her striped canvas beach bag onto her shoulder and looking around. ‘This is it?’
Matteo smiled. ‘This way.’
He led her up the small, rocky ridge that bordered the cultivated land, and then further uphill. Rose toiled behind him, and he stopped to wait for her, offering her his hand as they slithered together down a small incline.
‘Ugh!’ She pulled a face, covering her nose and mouth with one hand. ‘Is the smell what you’ve brought me here for? Or is that just incidental?’
‘It’s sulphur. A lot of the rock around here is volcanic.’
‘A volcano? You’re taking me to see a volcano?’
‘You’re getting closer.’ Matteo led her to the edge of a gully that cleaved the side of the hill and heard her gasp. Beneath them the wide pool of clear water, beckoned him, just as it had when he was ten years old.
‘A hot spring?’ She tipped her face up to him, and the warm rush of how he’d felt when he’d kissed her left him breathless for a moment. ‘It’s a hot spring, isn’t it.’
‘Yes.’ Matteo couldn’t help smiling at her excitement.
‘How did it get here? Did your uncle...make it? If you make a hot spring, that is...’
‘No. A hot spring’s a gift of nature. My grandfather cleared it, and the family come up here once a year to remove any silt that’s collected. But it’s all natural. There are a lot of small ones, just like this, all over Sicily.’
‘And we can bathe in it?’
He laughed. ‘That’s the general idea.’
* * *
The place was beautiful. On one side was a rocky incline that led down to the water and on the other side a view across the mountains. Rose had scrambled down to the pool’s edge and bent to dip her hand in the warm water, before she realised that she couldn’t just plunge in. She was going to have to change into her swimsuit.
Matteo had that in hand. He pointed to a fold in the rocks that formed a natural screen. ‘You can get changed there.’
Rose bit her tongue before she had a chance to ask where he was going to get changed. Probably here at the water’s edge, where she could see him if she had the temerity to creep to the mouth of her hidey hole. Perhaps he knew that she wouldn’t.
She shimmied quickly out of her dress and put her swimsuit on, glad that she’d decided on the rather utilitarian one-piece. Slipping on her canvas shoes, she clambered across the rocks and saw Matteo’s head bobbing up and down in the water. His shoes lay next to a gradual incline that led down to the water, and she found that she could walk easily into the pool.
‘This is wonderful. It really is hot, like a bath...’ Like one of the best hot baths she’d ever taken.
‘Yep. Be careful, don’t go too far over there.’ He pointed across to one corner, where bubbles sporadically broke the calm of the water. ‘Those rocks get pretty hot.’
‘Is this good for you? Like a spa?’ It felt as if it was doing her good. The slightly effervescent water seemed to be massaging away all of the little aches and pains in her back.
&nb
sp; ‘Of course it is. Come here once a year, and you’ll live to be a hundred.’
‘And that’s your considered medical opinion.’ She grinned at him and Matteo chuckled.
‘Look at it this way, wouldn’t you live to be a hundred, just to come back here one more time?’
She supposed she would, floating in warm water, the sky above her head and the mountains around her. If this wasn’t heaven then it was a very close approximation. She could actually feel the muscles around her shoulders letting go of the stress of the last few days.
They drifted in silence, enjoying the warmth of the water and the cool breeze of the mountains. Every breath she took seemed to clear her mind, to lift some of the weight that had lain so heavy on her chest for such a long time.