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“I amCayetanoArcieri,” he replied.
And then waited,as if his name itself tolled across the field like deep and terrible bells, calling down storms from above.
But it was still the same old Kansas sunshine. Delaney blinked. “I can tell that I’m supposed to recognize that name.”
The man before her was hard and fierce,yet the way his brow rose was nothing short of haughty. “Do you not?”
“Well. No. I can’t say that I do. I’m guessing you’re not a salesman.I doubt you’re here to see about the tractor, which is a pity, because it’s nothing short of poorly these days. And to be honest, I’m pretty sure I would remember that name if I’d ever heard it before.” She shook her head sadly. Because she actually was sad that she was who she was and always had been—and that, therefore, there was no way on earth this man could possibly be looking forher.It felt a bit like grief, but that was crazy. “I thought you were lost, but now I think maybe you have some bad information.”
He no longer looked haughty. Or not entirely haughty. A weather system moved over his face and what was left was a glinting thing that made her feel entirely too warm.
His hard mouth curved. Slightly. “If you are this Delaney Clark, and I can see that you are,I am afraid, little one, that I’m in exactly the right place.”
No one had ever called Delaneylittle one. She had the sense sheought tohave been offended.
Yet thatwas not, at all, the sensation storming around inside of her.
“I really don’t think so,” she said, because it felt critically important to her that she set the record straight. It didn’t matter that every part of herwantedto be this man’slittle one.She would have to investigate that later and ask herself some hard questions. Probably. But she couldn’t cope with extending this misunderstanding.
She had the oddest conviction that humoring this man not only wouldn’t work, but that going along with him only to discover that she was not the Delaney Clark he was looking for would...bruiseher, somehow.
And merely being in his presence felt bruising enough.
The more he looked at her, the more she began to feel as if the burnt gold of his gaze was somehow...insideher. She could feel the flames. And that delirious heat.
Cayetano seemed impervious to the dust beneath him, the breeze, the typical Kansas spring carrying on all around. He seemed to grow broader and taller the longer he stood there before her...and Delaney had never considered herself a whimsical person.
It was difficult to be too whimsical on a farm. There were too many chores.
And yet that was the only word she could think of as she looked at this man.Whimsy.
Except a lot hotter.
“I come from a country called Ile d’Montagne,” Cayetano said. He paused as if he expected her to react to that, so she nodded. Helpfully. His mouth—a thing of wonder itself, stark and sensual at once—curved faintly once more. “It is a small place. An island in the Mediterranean to the north and east of Corsica. And it has been ruled for many centuries by false kings and queens.”
Delaney felt as if she was outside herself. Nodding along while this man who could have stepped out of a Hollywood movie talked to her of kings and queens.Kings and queens, of all things, as ifroyaltywas something he thought a great deal about. In his day-to-day life. So much so that there was a difference between false and un-false kings and queens.
Maybe she was actually still in her vegetable garden. Maybe she’d toppled over and hit her head on her loop hoe and was dreaming all of this.
That made a lot more sense than this conversation.
With this impossibly magnetic man.
Out here in the yard, talking ofroyaltyand Mediterranean islands.
“For almost as long, there has been a rebellious faction,” Cayetano told her. “The mountains that form the spine of the island have been contested since the first false king attempted to claim it. Just because a man comes along and calls a bit of land his, that doesn’t make it so. There have been skirmishes. What has been called a civil war or two, but for that to be the case, all involved would need to be citizens. Subjects. When those who fight do not consider themselves either. Between these conflicts there have also been long stretches where those who reject the false kings merely...wait.”
“Wait?” Delaney repeated. Hoping she sounded like something more than a mere parrot.
But what else was there to do but squawk?
“Wait,” Cayetano agreed, his gaze dark and intent. “Have you never heard the proverb? Wait long enough by the river and the body of your enemy floats by.”
That seemed to take an unnecessarily dark turn, in her opinion, in an already notably violent little tale this stranger was telling her. Out here in the yard where she should have been alone with her plants the way she was every other day.
“I can’t really speak to rebellious factions hunkering down in contested mountains,” Delaney said. Nervously. Her hands suddenly felt like they might betray her in some way. So she shoved them into the pockets of her overalls. “Or waiting by rivers. You do know that this isKansas, don’t you? We don’t really have mountains. Though there are some big rocks.”
Was it her imagination or did Cayetano move closer? Whether it was or not, she found she was having trouble breathing, and instead of being alarmed by that...
