Again they stopped at the village to stock up on groceries, but slowly this time, while he asked her preferences and promised her a whole series of dishes to make her rejoice.
‘Does this mean I can help with the cooking?’ she asked as they got back into the car.
‘Not at all. Stay out of my kitchen. A woman’s place is laying the table.’
When they had driven on a little way, she said, ‘Stop the car. I want to look.’
He pulled in just off the road, and they left the car behind to wander among the trees.
‘You’d hardly know it was the same place,’ Alysa said in wonder.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve thought of you all the time. Say it was the same with you.’
‘Oh yes. You were always with me.’
He took her hand and they wandered higher. The trees grew more luxuriantly here, blocking out much of the light so that the sunbeams slanted down like arrows piercing the shadows.
‘Do you recognise this place?’ he asked, stopping suddenly by a tree.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I guess you wouldn’t. The last time you were here it was dark and snowing.’
‘Is this where you found me that night?’
‘That’s right. You were curled up under this very tree.’
‘I can hardly believe it. It’s so beautiful now, and then it was-’
‘Another world,’ he said.
Leaning against the tree, he raised her hand so that he could brush the back of it against his cheek, hold it there for a moment, then press his lips against it.
‘I’ve been back here often since you went away,’ he said. ‘It’s where I come for peace, and even happiness.’
‘Can there be happiness?’ she asked wistfully.
‘There might be.’
‘It takes time.’
‘Do you know the first lesson a builder has to learn?’ he asked. ‘Not to go too fast. Let things happen in their own time, or you’ll make a mess of the whole project.’
‘And we mustn’t make a mess of the project,’ she agreed.
His smile was fond and warm.
‘Some projects are more important than others,’ he said. ‘Right, let’s go. I’m getting hungry.’
She nodded at his abrupt change of tone. Having moved cautiously to the edge of the precipice, he’d backed off before asking her to look over. And he was right, of course, she thought as they hurried down to the car hand in hand. They had all the time in the world to find out what lay past the precipice.
The sun was setting on the little villa as they drew close, turning the roof to red. Drago parked his car in the garage where he’d once found her standing in the cold and lost his temper. Together they went upstairs to where a fire was already laid in the grate, waiting to be lit.
‘Even in summer it gets a bit chilly when the light goes,’ he said. ‘So I came here a few days ago and got everything ready for you.’
Despite what he’d said, he allowed her to help with the meal that evening. They ate it in virtual silence, but it was silence with a special quality. She could see ahead now, just a little way, but it was enough for this evening. After that, who could tell?
This visit had already shown her that there was more to Drago than she had discovered last time, inspiring her with a passionate desire to explore him further-heart, mind and body.
When the meal was over, by mutual consent they settled down on the thick rug before the fire, leaning against each other.
‘You’re so different,’ he said. ‘You’ve flowered.’
‘Yes, you told me I’d got fat, you cheeky so-and-so,’ she murmured contentedly.
‘I didn’t say that and you know it. When we were here before you were on the same slippery slope that I was. Do you remember that day at the waterfall? If anyone had told me then what you would become to me I wouldn’t have believed them.’
‘Nor me. I just wanted to fight you, and then when you turned up at the airport and tricked me into coming up here-’
‘I never tricked you.’
‘May you be forgiven! That defeated air!’
‘I was frightened. You were a very scary lady.’
‘I scared myself sometimes. It scares me even more to look back at what I was becoming. I put you through it too, I remember-getting lost in the snow and you had to nurse me.’
‘I didn’t mind nursing you.’
‘You did. You suddenly became very bad-tempered,’ she remembered. ‘You kept barking at me.’
‘After finding you in that garage-’
‘No, it was before that.’
‘Oh yes, I remember.’
‘What do you remember? Go on, tell me.’
He hesitated, then said wryly, ‘All right, I’ll confess. When you got that heavy cold I was worried, so I stayed with you.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I actually slept on the bed.’
‘Outside the bedclothes, of course.’
‘Of course!’
Alysa chuckled. ‘How charming and old-fashioned. Positively nineteenth-century.’
‘It’s all very well to laugh, but you were ill, you were trapped with me, relying on me to look after you. Of course I was old-fashioned. At least, I meant to be, but I awoke to find that somehow I’d put my arm over you.’
She gasped. ‘Shocking! How could you?’
‘I was asleep, I didn’t know-are you making fun of me?’
‘Do you think I am?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he said cautiously. ‘I don’t have much sense of humour, but I think perhaps you are laughing.’
‘It took you long enough to realise that,’ she said gently, touched by the humility in his voice. ‘Shall I promise not to laugh at you?’
‘No, I don’t mind if it’s you. Make fun of me if you like. I might even come to understand.’
‘Yes, I guess you might,’ she said.
‘It’s just that I felt awkward next day, which is why I was a bit offhand. Anything was better than have you suspect. What is it?’ Alysa had begun to laugh helplessly.
‘You never guessed?’ she crowed. ‘Oh, I can’t believe this.’
‘What’s so funny?’
‘It was me. I slipped out to the bathroom, and when I came back you’d stretched your arm across the empty space. I eased myself in under it, being very careful not to disturb you, so that you didn’t take it away.’
‘You-?’
‘I made it happen. It wasn’t you, it was me.’
‘But I felt so guilty because-And you let me suffer.’
‘I didn’t know you were suffering,’ she chuckled. ‘But I wish I had.’
‘Yes, you’d have enjoyed it,’ he said, chagrined. ‘You-you-’
‘Come on, you were going to develop a sense of humour.’
‘I guess I’ll need a little time for that. I can’t take this in. I was feeling ashamed all that time and I didn’t need to?’ His tone was outraged.
‘Something like that.’
‘Well, I’ll be-’
There was a light in his eyes that she was beginning to know. She’d seen it across the room on the night she’d
