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Laurel nodded. “Fine. And you?”
“I always sleep well, when I am home.”
It was usually true, though not this time. He’d lain awake half the night, thinking about Laurel, lying in a bed just down the hall from his. When he’d finally dozed off, it was only to tumble into dreams that had left him feeling frustrated. He’d figured on working that off this morning through some honest sweat, but just the sight of his wife, standing like a barefoot Venus with the wind tugging at her hair and fluttering the hem of her sundress, had undone all his efforts.
Laurel cleared her throat. “What are you doing, anyway?”
“Being an idiot,” he said, and grinned at her. “Or so Spiro says. I thought it would be nice to plant a flower garden here.”
“And Spiro doesn’t approve?”
“Oh, he approves. It’s just that he’s convinced that I will never defeat the boulder, no matter how I try.” He bent down, picked up a handful of earth and let it drift through his fingers. “He’s probably right but I’ll be damned if I’ll give in without a fight.”
She couldn’t imagine Damian giving in to anything without a fight. Wasn’t that the reason she was here, as his wife?
“Besides, I’ve gotten soft lately.”
He didn’t look soft. He looked hard, and fit, and wonderful.
“Too many days behind a desk, too many fancy lunches.” He smiled. “I can always find ways to work off a few pounds, when I come home to Actos.”
“You grew up here, in this house?”
Damian laughed. “No, not quite. Here.” He plucked her sandals from her hand and knelt down before her. “Let me help you with these.”
“No,” she said quickly, “that’s all right. I can...” He lifted her foot, his fingers long and tan against the paleness of her skin. Her heart did another of those stutter-steps, the foolish ones that were coming more often, and for no good reason. “Damian, really.” Irritation, not with him but with herself, put an edge on her words. “I’m not an invalid. I’m just—”
“Pregnant,” he said softly, as he rose to his feet. His eyes met hers, and he put his hand gently on her flat stomach. “And with my child.”
Their eyes met. It was hard to know which burned stronger, the flame in his eyes or the heat in his touch. Deep within her, something uncoiled lazily and seemed to slither through her blood.
“Come.” He held out his hand.
“No, really, I didn’t mean to disturb you. You’ve work to do.”
“The boulder and I are old enemies. We’ll call a truce, for now.” He smiled and reached for her hand. “Come with me, Laurel. This is your home, too. Let me show it to you.”
It wasn’t; it never would be. She wanted to tell him that but he’d already entwined his fingers with hers and anyway, what harm could there be in letting him walk her around?
“All right,” she said, and fell in beside him.
He showed her everything, and she could tell from the way he spoke that he took a special pride in it all. The old stone barns, the pastures, the white specks in a lower valley that he said were sheep, even the squawking chickens that fluttered out of their way...it all mattered to him, and she could see in the faces of the men who worked for him, tilling the land and caring for the animals, that they knew it, and respected him for it.
At last he led her over the grass, down a gentle slope and into a grove of trees that looked as if they’d been shaped by the wind blowing in from the sea.
“Here,” he said softly, “is the true heart of Actos.”
“Are these olive trees? Did you plant them?”
“No,” he said, with a little smile, “I can’t take any credit for the grove. The trees are very old. Hundreds of years old, some of them. I’m only their caretaker, though I admit that it took years to restore them to health. This property had been left unattended for a long time, before I bought it.”
“It wasn’t in your family, then?”
“You think this house, this land, was my inheritance?” He laughed, as if she’d made a wonderful joke. “Believe me, it was not.” His smile twisted; he tucked his hands into his back pockets and looked at her, his gaze steady. “The only thing I inherited from my parents was my name—and sometimes, I even wonder about that.”
“I’m sorry,” Laurel said quickly. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, don’t apologize. You have the right to know these things about me.” A muscled knotted in his jaw. “My father was a seaman. He made my mother pregnant, married her only because she threatened to go to the police with a tale of rape, and left her as soon as I was born.”
“How terrible for her!”
“Don’t waste your pity.” He began walking and Laurel hurried to catch up. Ahead, a low stone wall rose marked the edge of the cliff, and the bright sea below. “I doubt it happened as she described it She was a tavern whore.” His voice was cold, without inflection; they reached the wall and he leaned against it and stared out over the water. “She told me as much, when she’d had too much to drink.”
“Oh, Damian,” Laurel said softly, “I’m so sorry.”
“For what? It is reality, and I tell it to you not to elicit your pity but only because you’re entitled to know the worst about the man you’ve married.”
“And the best.” She drew a deep breath and made the acknowledgment she’d refused to make until this moment “Your decision about this baby—our baby—wasn’t one every man would choose.”
“Still, it was not a decision to your liking.”
“I don’t like having my decisions made for me.”
A faint smile curved over his mouth. “Are you suggesting that I am sometimes overbearing?”
Laurel laughed. “Why do I suspect you’ve heard that charge before?”
The wind lifted his dark hair and he brushed it back off his forehead. It was a boyish gesture, one that suited his quick smile.
“Ah, now I see how things are to be. You and Spiro will combine forces to keep me humble.”
“You? Humble?” She smiled. “Not unless that old man is more of a miracle worker than I am. Who is he, anyhow? I got the feeling he’s more than someone who works for you.”
Damian leaned back, elbows on the wall, and smiled.
“What would you call a man who saves not only your life, but your soul?” A breeze blew a curl across her lips. He reached out and captured the strand, smoothing it gently with his fingers. “Spiro found me, on the streets of Athens. I was ten, and I’d been on my own. for two years.”
“But what happened to your mother?”
He shrugged. It was a careless gesture but it couldn’t mask the pain in his words.
“I woke up one morning, and she was gone. She left me a note, and some money... It didn’t matter. I had been living by my wits for a long time by then.”
“How?” Laurel said softly, while she tried to imagine what it must have been like to be ten, and wake up and find yourself alone in the world.
“Oh, it wasn’t difficult. I was small, and quick. It was easy to swipe a handful of fruit or a couple of tomatoes from the outdoor markets, and a clever lad could always con the tourists out of a few drachma.” The wind tugged at her hair again, and he smoothed it back from her cheek and smiled. “I was quite an accomplished little pickpocket, until one winter day when Spiro came into my life.”
“You stole from him, and he caught you?”
Damian nodded. “He was old as Methuselah, even then, but strong as an olive tree. He gave me a choice. The police—or I could go with him.” He smiled. “I went with him.”
“Damian, I’m lost here. Didn’t you have a sister? Nicholas—the boy who married my niece—is your nephew, isn’t he?”
“It’s how his mother and I thought of each other, as brother and sister, but, in truth, we weren’t related. You see, Spiro brought me here, to Actos, where he lived. The summer I was thirteen, an American couple—Greeks, but generations removed—came to the island, sear
ching for their roots. Spiro decided I needed a better future than he could provide and, since I’d learned some English in Athens when I’d conned tourists, he convinced the Americans to take me to the States.”
“And they agreed?”
“They were good people and Spiro played on all their Greek loyalties. They took me home with them, to New York, and enrolled me in school. I studied hard, won a scholarship to Yale...” He shrugged. “I was lucky.”
“Lucky,” she said softly, thinking of the boy he’d been and the man he’d become.
“Luck, hard work...who knows where one begins and the other ends? The only certainty is that if it hadn’t been for Spiro, I would be living a very different life.”
She smiled. “I’ll have to remember to thank him.”
“Will you?” His dark, thick lashes drooped over his eyes, so that she couldn’t quite see them. “If he’d left me on the streets, I’d never have stormed into your life and turned it upside down.”
“I know.”
The words, said so softly that they were little more than a whisper, hung in the air between them. Damian framed Laurel’s face in his hands. Her eyes gave nothing away, but he could see the sudden, urgent beat of her pulse in the hollow of her throat.
“Mátya mou,” he whispered.
“What does that mean? Mátya mou?”
Damian bent his head and brushed his mouth gently over hers. “It means, my dearest.”
She smiled tremulously. “I like the sound of the words. Would it be difficult, to learn Greek?”
“I’ll teach you.” His thumb rubbed lightly over her bottom lip. “I’ll do whatever makes you happy, if you tell me what’s in your heart.”
A lie would have been self-protective, but how could she lie to this man, who had just opened himself to her?
“I—I can’t,” she said. “I don’t know what’s in my heart, Damian. I only know that when I’m with you, I feel—I feel...”
His mouth dropped to hers in a deep, passionate kiss. For one time-wrenching moment, Laurel resisted. Then she sighed her husband’s name, put her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
CHAPTER TEN
