Her Italian Soldier

Lucca seconded the motion. “The minute you’re back in Ravello, come to the farmhouse. I’m going to make you a true Cavezzali breakfast.”

“I’ll be there, Lucca. In fact I’m already salivating.”

“Ciao, Papa.”

With his father’s question about Annabelle going around in his head, he hung up and turned on the side he favored because of his leg to go to sleep. He had no doubts she wanted to stay. She did love the farm. What he’d told his father was the truth. It was very clear in the way she’d put flowers everywhere and sat dreamy eyed on the terrace breathing in the fragrance.

His last thought before he knew no more was that her fragrance was even more intoxicating.

Annabelle left the farmhouse before Lucca awakened and took off for her next destination. If he’d been up to say good-morning, she might have had difficulty leaving at all. Something was happening inside of her she didn’t have the power to stop. Like a color enhancer on a movie cam, the world suddenly had a new brilliance.

She rounded the hairpin turn and fell instantly in love with the Amalfi convertible parked below the steeply terraced vineyards of Furore. The only way to describe the paint’s color was to compare it to a semiprecious sea-green jade stone, light and lustrous. Combined with the creamy leather interior, it took her breath.

The crew hailed her. Basilio guided her to park behind the van as close to the wall of the road as possible. At this dizzying height, it was the only thing keeping all of them from falling into the sparkling blue depths below.

Being that it was a Saturday, everyone was anxious to get finished early and enjoy the rest of the weekend. The hairdresser quickly caught Annabelle’s hair back in a loose chignon. Once her makeup was done, Marcella helped her into an eggshell-toned blouson of pin-tucked thin crepe.

The tucks ran vertically down the front, but were horizontal on the three-quarter sleeves. There was some chain-stitching detail Annabelle loved. The waist pulled it into shape over matching colored wide-legged pants.

After she’d put on sandals with bands of blue and green, Marcella produced a scarf the same color as the car’s exterior and put it around her neck, knotting it loosely at the side. For an added touch, she put her in jade earrings.

The result brought a smile from Basilio, who proclaimed the whole effect perfection. Secretly Annabelle wished she could wear this outfit back to the farmhouse. She wanted to look beautiful for Lucca, but the price tag would be astronomical.

“What we want you to do is lean against the side of the car and reach for the bunch of purple grapes here. You saw these and you couldn’t resist stopping for a taste. Giovanni will film you at various angles to capture the car as well as the view behind you.”

“Be careful you don’t drip juice if you bite into one,” Marcella cautioned her.

Annabelle turned to Giovanni. “Do I have to eat them?”

“I don’t know yet.”

In the end he was satisfied with the shoot without her tasting the fruit. Both Annabelle and Marcella breathed a sigh of relief that the clothes weren’t stained.

Basilio clapped his hands. “Everyone? We meet Monday morning in Sorrento. Eight o’clock sharp.”

For a day and a half she was free. She went back to the van to change into her jeans and T-shirt. After removing all her makeup, she slipped into her car to go home and saw that it wasn’t even one o’clock yet. She felt like a schoolgirl playing hooky for the rest of the day.

Lucca would be surprised to hear her drive in. He wouldn’t be expecting her until evening. Would it be too much to ask that he’d already gotten in touch with his father to let him know he was back in Italy?

Until Guilio knew the truth, there was nothing to work out with Lucca. Once Annabelle reached the farmhouse to freshen up, she would try to get her mind off her worries and take off on a long drive. She would fill her eyes with the mind-blowing scenery found only in this part of the world. But when she pulled up in the drive a little while later, thoughts of her day trip left her mind when she saw another car parked there.

At first she thought it might be Guilio’s. Or maybe it was one of Lucca’s stepbrothers on an errand of some kind for their stepfather. But the car wasn’t an Amalfi, nor was it luxurious. Of course the visitor could be anyone, but it meant Lucca wasn’t alone.

CHAPTER FIVE

ANNABELLE got out of the car and entered the kitchen, not knowing what to expect. Voices drifted in from the living room. One belonged to a female. In between pauses, both were speaking Italian in hushed tones.

If Annabelle stayed in the kitchen, Lucca wouldn’t know she was here. Since she didn’t want him to discover her and think she’d been eavesdropping, she had no choice but to hurry down the hallway past the living room. That way he would see her on the way to her bedroom.

Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a dark-haired woman in his arms. She was probably Annabelle’s age. Sobs punctuated her words. An old girlfriend perhaps? She had to be someone important to Lucca, a person he trusted implicitly, otherwise he wouldn’t have told her she could come over.

The moment she closed her bedroom door, he rapped on it. “Annabelle?”

She wheeled around in surprise, cross with herself for having any feelings one way or the other about Lucca’s personal life. “Yes?”

“When you’re ready, I’d like you to come out and meet Stefana. She’s the wife of my pilot friend Leo who was killed.”

Annabelle’s eyes closed tightly. “I—I’ll be right there,” she stammered as she tried to gather her wits.