The white broderie anglaise dress was sleeveless, cinched at the waist and came to just above the knee, and it allowed the light breeze skimming through the open driver’s-side window to caress Lara’s skin. Her hair was freshly washed, and drying in long ringlets. She smelled of roses—it might be old-fashioned, but she loved it. She pressed her lips together, tasting the vanilla lip gloss she’d applied. Her sandalled foot pressed down on the brake and she acknowledged a slight tremor in her hand as she cut the engine. There was soft light coming from the windows of Matteo’s cabin, and when she opened the car door she could hear gentle mandolin music playing inside. She stood, placing her feet firmly on the ground, smoothed down her dress and breathed.
She still had time to back out.
But she didn’t want to, even though she’d stared at her scar in the mirror for a long time and known there was no way Matteo wouldn’t notice it.
Suddenly, she felt sick. What was wrong with her, organising a sex date?
Then again, maybe it wasn’t a sex date. Maybe Matteo just wanted to share some food and get to know her better. Share more wine, talk more about their lives.
Who was she kidding? It was a sex date.
Oh, popsidoodles.
The front door opened. The light from inside the cabin backlit Matteo’s body like a golden halo.
‘Lara, please come in,’ he said, striding to the car. He stopped in front of her, smiling broadly, holding out his hands for hers, his gaze running down her body. ‘You are beautiful.’
‘Thank you.’ Her heart beat wildly under the dress. She registered his newly ironed cotton shirt and it touched her, thinking of him going to that trouble.
He kissed her on each cheek before resting his forehead against her own. Her stomach flipped with nerves. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of him once more. Toothpaste. Laundry powder on his cotton shirt. And something else. Raw sexiness, maybe.
He lifted his head, his eyes dark and liquid. He traced his fingers lightly down her bare arm, sending waves of goosebumps spinning across her skin. Blood drained from her head, gathering force further down.
She giggled. This situation was overwhelming.
‘You are nervous,’ he whispered.
‘No, not at all.’ She wanted that to be true.
Then he kissed her, his lovely lips catching hers and holding them there, his beard rubbing against her skin and igniting new sensations. A small moan escaped her throat and his lips smiled against hers. He lifted his head and admired her as if she was the loveliest thing in the world.
‘Come inside,’ he said, his voice husky.
She followed him, shimmied out of her sandals at the door and left them near his filthy work boots, and crossed the threshold. Inside the cabin, Matteo had lit a dozen candles, which flickered inside glass jars. A bunch of fresh pink flowers overflowed from a pottery vase on the tiny dining table. His bed was made with fresh white sheets.
He scratched the back of his head, suddenly not as confident as he had seemed a moment ago. ‘I forgot to make dinner,’ he said, heading to the cupboard doors.
‘No, please, I don’t want dinner, really.’ Lara caught his arm and pulled him towards her.
‘Wine?’ he suggested, but it came with a raised corner of his mouth, a knowing smile. He was just going through the motions.
‘No,’ she whispered, pulling him even closer, relieved to feel the sharp edge of manic power coursing through her, turning her into someone confident and stunning. She wanted this. She needed it.
He gathered her to him, crushing her against his chest. One hand cupped the back of her neck as he kissed her again, this time harder, hungrier.
She longed for him to take her out of her mind and into her body and bring her to the edge of madness and maybe even just over it, where she could spin in the light and the ecstasy and fly free of her past.
Very gently, he inched her towards the bed. She went with him, her eyes closed, lost to his touch as his lips traced down the side of her neck and along her collarbone. When they reached the mattress, he broke their embrace, smiling, holding onto one of her hands as he flung back the sheets and sat on the edge with her standing in front of him.
Her fingers wound through his soft curls as he kissed her hip, his hands holding the backs of her thighs, slowly raising the hem of her dress.
Her fingers moved to the buttons on his soft shirt and worked them open, unwrapping his torso. Her palms moved over his hot skin.
His lips nibbled their way around her navel.
And then they found her scar. She froze.
He leaned back, dropping her dress, his hands still on her body, and looked into her eyes. She held her breath, waiting for the questions. But he continued to hold her gaze with his.
Before he could speak, she bent and locked her mouth onto his and climbed into his lap, her legs either side of his muscly thighs. She hadn’t come here to dredge up her past. She’d come here to feel even more amazing than she already did. She’d come here to cross the final threshold of moving on.
He welcomed her, his hands running up her spine, sending bursts of pleasure over her skin. He murmured words of appreciation in Italian—words she couldn’t understand but which filled her with excitement. He was relishing her body.
She ran her hands down his upper arms and helped him free himself totally of his shirt. Those muscles. So perfect. Just muscly enough. Muscles that could just lie back and relax under the sun or could save you from drowning in a river if the need arose.
All the pain of the past six years fell away and she was here, almost naked—and almost with no secrets—starting life all over again.
But suddenly Matteo froze, his arms wrapped around her. He turned his head to the side, his chest rising and falling.
‘What is it?’ Lara looked down at him in the candlelight as she returned from the stratosphere, the hard edges of reality gouging into her skin. ‘What is it?’
‘Shh. Do you hear that?’
Lara looked at the walls, as if she’d be able to see through them into the night. ‘No,’ she said, feeling a mixture of rejection and confusion.
Matteo gently but firmly lifted her body away from his and moved her to the bed so he could sit up properly, leaning forwards, his ear cocked towards the walls.
‘What is it?’ she asked again, worried now.
Matteo didn’t answer but sprang off the bed, at the same time gathering his discarded shirt and deftly slipping his arms into the sleeves. He managed to get a couple of buttons done up before he reached the door and flung it open. Lara searched for her dress, with no clue what was going on.
She found it, fumbling to pull it the right way over her head. Matteo already had his boots on. And now she could hear what Matteo must have heard.
Terrified bleating.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked, following him, struggling to get her sandals laced.
‘Lupi.’
‘Lupi? Do you mean wolves?’
But Matteo was already off the small porch and crunching over the ground towards the main casa. Lara followed him into the darkness. She’d had no idea Italy even had wolves. One thing she did know was that they were supremely intelligent and first-class hunters.
They must be after the goats.
It was terrible. Those poor animals.
She kept as close to Matteo as she could, not knowing if a wolf might sneak up behind her.
As they reached the casa, outdoor lights sprang on, and there were shouts and people moving.
‘Domenica!’ Matteo shouted, jogging the last few metres to the house. ‘E i lupi?’
Lara, a step behind, was puffing when she stopped in the blinding floodlight.
Domenica, a short, wiry woman with cherry-red hair, answered him in staccato Italian, ignoring Lara, who briefly wondered if she was simply used to seeing Matteo with strange women. Domenica threw open a wooden trunk, the metal catch rattling as the lid hit the stone wall behind it. She reached inside and pulled out a rifle.
Lara gasped.
Domenica handed the rifle to Matteo. Lara wrapped her arms around herself and stepped backwards, further into the dark.
She was awash with horror, simultaneously terrified for the goats’ safety, pushing away images of bloodshed and carnage, and also of this thing in Matteo’s hand. This weapon. A thing constructed to inflict injury and death, to give power to the person wielding it.
The only thing worse than seeing Matteo holding a long, dark weapon was that he appeared to know his way around it with ease, holding it deftly, moving parts around that made ghastly metal clanking noises, exactly the type she’d heard in movies or on television. She began to shake.
She could hear more shouting now, down at the goat shelters, and urgent bleating from hundreds of goats. She was scared for them, the sweet young goats that had climbed into her lap. She didn’t want them hurt. But still, she didn’t want the wolves shot down either. Guns…they were…
Leonard, home after three weeks on the streets, a gun in his hand. Lara thought it was a toy. Tried to smile and say thanks for the gift, even though it was an odd thing to bring a nine-year-old girl. She reached for it.
‘Lara! Stop!’
Her mother lurching from the bedroom, everything in slow motion, Leonard swinging to face her, his smile disappearing, his eyes going hard, Eliza’s body between Leonard and Lara, her hand on the gun.
Leonard’s other elbow jabbing at Eliza’s throat. Her mother falling, gasping. Lara screaming, backing away. Sunny running up the stairs from the yard, noise, noise everywhere. A struggle. Lara hiding behind the couch, her hands over her ears. Don’t hurt them, don’t hurt them.
Matteo and Domenica were oblivious to her distress. They were already jogging down the hill, their rifles at their sides. She knew they needed to protect the goats, yet she still felt terror in her body at the memory of a weapon smashing open a peaceful afternoon. She stood rooted to the ground, both clenched fists at her mouth. Paralysed.
A gunshot cracked open the air and bounced around her skull. She doubled over, her hands over her ears. Another shot. She screamed and held her hands to her ears even harder.
A cacophony of shouts from down the hill.
Lara pulled herself upright, tears sliding down her face, her feet moving towards the car then back towards the casa. She threaded her fingers together in front of her while she waited for the others’ return. And it seemed she waited an eternity in the dark, her senses on high alert, not knowing what would come next.
Finally, Matteo appeared, walking gingerly around the casa and into the light.
‘What happened?’ She went to him, casting her eyes down at his filthy pants. It looked as if he’d tripped and slid on his knees. She stopped a few metres from him. The rifle hung at his side, the veins in his arm engorged. He looked stricken at whatever he’d seen or done.
‘What happened?’ she asked again. And then, more gently, ‘Are you okay?’
‘F-f-fine,’ he said.
She took a breath; he’d stuttered, and she’d noticed. Her stifled sob was still audible. ‘Did you…find a wolf?’ she whispered.
He looked her straight in the eye. ‘Sì. Due lupi.’
Two wolves. Two shots.
‘Did you kill them?’
‘No.’
‘But you would have,’ she said.
‘If I h-h-had to.’ The gun was still in his hand. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she said, not long ago feeling nothing but passion and adoration, and now feeling nothing but horror.
‘Lara, they had already attacked three g-g-goats. We’ll have to put them out of their misery.’ His face twisted. He stepped towards her, metal still glinting at his side. She recoiled.
‘Get that away from me!’
Matteo halted, as if she was a frightened animal.
‘I have to go.’
There was another shot in the distance. Lara yelped and jumped, then spun on her heel.
‘Wait,’ he called, as she strode up the hill.
Another shot.
‘Lara, please wait.’
And another shot. A sob erupted from Lara’s chest. But by then, she was climbing into the Alfa Romeo and starting the engine, not allowing herself to look back.