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Angelo kept stride with me while we made it to the ice chests. We were out.

One of our men said more ice was being kept at a cabin on the property, not far from where we were. He took the lead, and we followed at a nice distance so we could talk.

“Something is amiss, cousin,” Angelo said.

I rubbed the back of my neck and nodded. “Agreed.”

“The money.” He shrugged, waving a hand. “This is no matter. I have spoken to Nonna Hannah, and she approved Atta and I building on the land. Atta has a favorite spot, and we will build there. I will pay Nonna Hannah for this, and it will go toward the debt on the ranch.”

I knew this already. I spoke to Hannah as well.

I was going to buy a part of the property too.

She said we respected the land, and therefore it felt right to sell.

Her husband would have approved. Especially since the land was going to family.

She considered Sistine a grandchild. I was buying the land in Sistine’s name.

Hannah had nodded at this, but she told me that was unnecessary, that she trusted me. I was still going to do it that way.

Angelo said he was too. It would be in Atta’s name.

“There is something else at play here,” he said. “Something sinister, I feel.”

“Rattler,” I said.

Angelo nodded. “This name was mentioned. This snake wants the property.”

“Little moves Sistine,” I said. “I’ve never seen her lose it until she thought a snake was chasing her. It could be that she’s afraid of snakes. My intuition is telling me something different.”

Especially after I witnessed afterward how she’d reacted to the stress of it. Just as mamma did. Laughing like something had cracked inside of her, and the madness snuck out of her mouth. I had only seen it once from Mamma. Papà had said it happened often when they were going through wars.

Angelo rolled his shoulders. “The name,” he said. “Ra tt ler.”

“Yeah,” I said. “The fucking name.”

“My wife holds onto me as though she is losing me. She breathed easier after she told me about the property. However, I sense there is more. There is something else she is afraid of, though she is keeping it close to her heart. She cries when she sings. Always sad tunes. It is breaking my fucking heart.” He pounded his chest.

I squeezed his shoulder, feeling his fucking pain.

The way Sistine had reacted to that snake.

The admission about the property and Rattler.

Even how she acted tonight when that assistant had touched me.

She was striking out at something, probably a feeling she couldn’t control.

She wasn’t confiding in me about it. It was driving me fucking mad.

Mad enough that if I didn’t put an end to it, the entire world would have hell to pay.

“I’m going to talk to Rio,” I said. “I want to know who these motherfuckers are, and we’re going to pay them a visit.”

“Welcome home, motherfuckers,” Angelo said, and it seemed like he stood taller, his muscles flexing.

We both nodded and grew quiet as we walked up a slight hill. At my signal, my man nodded at us and started back for the bonfire.

Angelo kept walking, but the sight haloed by buttery light from the many windows stopped me in my tracks. It was a log cabin. A log cabin that had probably been on the property since it was first inhabited by the Watt family.

If Sistine was my home, this was the home I longed to bring her to.

The log cabin was surrounded by trees, and it sat in the middle of them, protected on all sides.

It had plenty of windows. For sunrises, sunsets.

For all seasons. Even the switching of them.

It was a beacon amid being lost in a racing world.

A place where a soul could reconnect with the land at a slower pace.

A couple could exist if it was the two of them against the world.

Angelo stopped and turned toward me, hands in his pockets. “All is good, cousin?”

“All is good.” I nodded.

All was fucking perfect.

Sistine crossed her arms over her chest and quirked her thick eyebrows up. “I am sure this is not animal proof?”

“Nah,” I said. “At best, it’ll just protect us from the rain.”

Sistine had confided in me that she’d always wanted to camp outside. The spot of the bonfire was a prime area. The fire was still crackling, and she would have a wide-open view of the stars. At the last minute, she wasn’t sold on the idea that animals could get to us in the tent.

A slight breeze blew, bringing with it the tinge of smoke from the fire. From the fire of fall too. I could feel a slight chill in the air, especially when I took a deep breath. It touched my lungs.

Her hair trembled with it, and I knew, like I’d known the first time I set my eyes on her, there was nothing in this world as fucking beautiful as she was.

She was staring at the setup when I called her name. I had to call her twice to get her to meet my eyes. I opened my arms, and after sighing, she came into them. I wrapped her up. Her armor.

“I’ll fight a bear for you. I’ll fight lions.”

“I know this,” she whispered, stepping back, looking into my eyes. “I do not want to see you hurt either.”

“We have each other, Annie.”

“I have your back.” Her eyes were fierce on mine. The fire roaring back to life, glowing in the middle of pitch-black darkness.

“Yeah,” I said, the vow in her voice almost choking me up. “And I have yours. I’d die for you.”

“Do not speak to me of such a thing, Mariano Leone Fausti.”

I gently ran my knuckles down her face, and she closed her eyes, breathing in.

“All right,” she barely got out. “This is our date.”

“Yeah,” I said, leaning in, barely setting my lips against hers. “This is our date.”

She shivered and buried her hands in my flannel. She breathed out as soft as the autumn wind breezing past our bodies, whispering secrets.

Our eyes connected, and that same glowing heat moved between us, born by our two bodies.

“I do not know how much longer I can stand this dating,” she whispered, “if it means we do not have sex.”

It took a moment for her words to catch up to my thoughts. I had been so fucking lost in her eyes, words were the last thing on my mind. When they did, I roared with laughter, pulling her in, kissing her all over her face.

I helped her inside the tent, laughing my fucking ass off, until we settled inside. She took a deep breath, gazing up.

“I can see out of it!” She pulled her hands to her chest, breathing out at the view of the stars through the plastic skylight. I had never seen her do that before with her hands.

The reaction was mine.

All fucking mine.

I was addicted. Possessed. Obsessed.

She kept the sitting position. I was already lying on my side, gazing at her. She turned to me, and our lips were a breath apart.

“Ah,” she breathed out.

I breathed her in, holding the breath in my lungs for as long as possible.

The tent was full of fresh air, fresh air and her scent. Sweet apple with a twist of bitter from the oncoming cold. It was consuming my head. My body.

She fixed a strand of my hair that had gone rogue. Her hands were chilled, but when she touched me, there was no tremble. Nothing but confidence when it came to who I was to her.

“Tell me, Sistine,” I said in Italian. “Who do I belong to.”

Not a second of hesitation. “Me,” she breathed out. “ Mine .”

“Tell me,” I said, “who do you belong to.”

Her eyes were serious on mine. “You. Only you.”

“No nickname yet?”

She shook her head. “Not officially, but I do have something in mind.”

“ Bene ,” I whispered.

I heard it when she swallowed down my breath.

“You feel good in my lungs, Mariano Fausti,” she whispered.

“You feel good in my life. In my heart.” Her eyes searched mine.

“Put me out of my misery. Say what I need to say. What I am feeling. Say the words I have never said before to anyone and will never say to anyone else.”

“I’ll feel good inside of you,” I said.

“ Sì .” Her eyes were steady on mine. “When I think of you. What you can do to me. I…ache. It does not stop. It is possessing me.” She laughed quietly, but it was shy.

She looked away from me. “The view. The view is breathtaking. However, all I can think of is the way you watch me, as though I am the stars. The way you smell. I cannot breathe in fast enough. As though my heart is racing, which it is.”

She took my hand and set it over her heart. “You have become my air, as you say I am yours. Your body alone keeps me warm, though being this far from you, I am cold. I am cold unless you are touching me. Then I am a fire. I burn from within, but it does not hurt. It makes me glow.”

Her eyes came to mine. “This is what I was always afraid of. When I first met you. I knew. I knew you had the power to destroy my glass heart. A heart that could never be put back together again if you shattered it to pieces. You could destroy me by walking away. I have never…” She looked down at her hands, then she finally looked at me again.

“I have never felt so helpless in my life when I am with you. I am helpless, but…so strong. So strong because you are next to me.”

I stared at this creature who was baring her soul to me.

She was strong, but as vulnerable as I was.

“I do not have the words…” I said in Italian, taking her hand in mine, bringing it to my mouth, breathing her in.

“There are no words. No words true enough to express how I am feeling. All lies. I cannot speak them to you. None of them are good enough. True enough.”

She ran her hand through my hair. “You do not have to respond,” she whispered. “I can say the soft words. You can say the ones that do not need a filter to say. This can be our thing. I am your woman, and you are my man.”

I grinned against her chilled hands, already feeling them warm up at my touch. My eyes rose to meet hers, and she smiled at me, her eyes glistening with tears. She turned some and grabbed my guitar. She handed it to me.

“Sing your truth to me, Mariano Fausti.”