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“Yes, signor.”
“Argh!”
The first leg of the trip was ghastly. I swore he was being purposefully reckless as I clung to him for dear life while trying not to cling to him for dear life. Every time my hands touched his stomach he would stiffen, so I slapped my palms to his tummy and there they stayed until we were into the Tuscan countryside racing southeast. My aggravation began to wane as we moved from city to country and the scenery began to register. I leaned into his back as we rolled through winding roads, through groves of red grapes that went on for miles. The bike dug into the slim roads like a cheetah, easing us around hairpin turns along roads thick with shady trees. We rode by small farms with goats out in the pasture that sat by a red brick building with a rollout awning that shaded two tiny bistro table and chair sets. The sign with a blue duck proclaimed it to be—and this was all conjecture—The Blue Duck Caffè. Il Caffè dell’Anatra Blu in bright yellow letters shouted from the weather-ravaged sign.
My eyes couldn’t drink in enough of the gorgeous countryside. I began taking videos shot over his wide shoulder. Vineyards shifted to olive orchards, then back to grapes, then over the olives. The air out here was cooler, much like it was along the Arno in the morning when Donvino would row in, all sweet smiles and—
Something that sounded like a gunshot startled me. Donvino cursed aloud as he slowed the bike, his foot hitting the road as the bike tried its best to lie down. I buried my face into his back as he kept the bike moving straight. When we limped to the side of the country lane we were on, he eased the Suzuki off the road, paused to catch his breath, and then looked back at me.
“We have a blowout,” he explained. I nodded, unable to release my grip on his purple tee despite the fact we were now stopped and safely off the road. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I managed to croak out, forcing my knees to loosen from his lean hips. “Oh God, I thought someone had shot you.”
“Who would shoot me out here?” he asked as he released the handlebars, his hands shaking a tiny bit, I noted before he placed his palms on his thighs.
“Angry sheep farmer?” I drew in a shaky breath, then slowly slid off the rear of the bike. The rear tire was flatter than a fritter. “Damn, it’s really bad.”
He got off the bike with some major attitude. Then he fired off a long and lusty tirade of what I had to assume were colorful Italian curse words peppered with flying hands. I stood back so as not to get walloped. The man was stunning in his anger. I smiled a little as he wound down, his chest heaving, his eyes darting to me. When our sight met, his lips twitched.
“I get mad,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“With good reason,” I replied, doing my best not to let the corners of my mouth pull up any further. I removed my helmet and sighed. “I hope you have a good cell carrier?”
“It is so-so,” he confessed, removing his cell from his back pocket. After a moment or two of him pacing about with his phone over his head, he turned to me and shook his head. “Perhaps we walk back to that restaurant for some Wi-Fi maybe or to find a signal?”
I nodded, then took a few steps closer to the road, my helmet dangling from my fingers. We’d not passed a lot of traffic in the past hour, but eventually someone would toddle past, surely.
Or we could walk.
“Sure, let’s walk. The sooner we get a signal, the sooner we can call for a tow,” I commented while looking for a car or truck to appear.
“No, no tow. I will call Bianca. She will bring a tire.”
“Oh okay, sure.” I fastened my helmet to the handlebars next to his, then fell in beside him as we began the trek back to the tiny eatery. The sounds of songbirds filtered down to us as I hustled along to keep up with his longer stride. “You handled that blowout nicely,” I offered as we walked. He shot me a look that I couldn’t decipher.
“You did not want to be scraped,” he replied flatly. I really disliked this emotionless golem he had turned into over a mere twenty-four hours. So I called him on it. Right there on that serpentine road in the middle of the Tuscan hills.
“Okay, what the hell have I done to twist your nuts into such a knot?” I barked, jogging ahead and planting myself in front of the beautiful behemoth.
“Nothing. You do nothing to me because what you do to me is not something that we can do to each other.”
My nose scrunched up in confusion. He spat something out in Italian. I jerked my chin higher to fire back, but he was already stomping down the road, his phone held aloft.
“Well, I never,” I gasped before jogging up to catch him. His legs were much longer than mine, but he’d not gone far, so I was beside him in a few seconds. The distant blatting of sheep moved through the trees on a gentle zephyr. “Exactly what is up your ass?” I demanded, leaping in front of him with my arms out as if I were trying to block a bull from reaching a downed bull rider. A clown is what those men and women are called. I felt the part, that’s for sure. Especially when he moved around me to continue onward. “Oh no you do not!” I flung myself around him, skidding slightly on the smooth roadway in my shiny penny loafers. He stopped abruptly, his face void of any feelings. “You are going to tell me why you’re being so cold to me right now!”
“Will you fire me if I do not?” His query was brittle. All the wind kind of left my sails.
“No, of course not.”
“Then I do not need to tell you my personal things. If my job hangs on a thread for you knowing then…” He stared down at me, those dark eyes broiling with emotions he was not sharing.
“What did I do?” I asked plaintively, feeling the sting of his pulling away far more deeply than I should have given we’d only known each other for such a short time. “I thought we were friends. Maybe even more.”
His jaw flexed. “We know each other less than one week. You and me are…” He searched his memory banks for the correct word in English but came up blank. Which made him angry, but he swallowed that ire down. Shame really. Maybe if he were mad at me outwardly, we could get to what had caused him to Jekyll and Hyde on me. “We are…boss and employee. It is not fitting for us to be—”
“Okay, that is my aunt talking right there!” I declared loudly enough to be heard back in Florence.
“No. Signora no says anything to me.”
