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She smiled at me. “That dress is lucky to have you ,” she said.

“Look…whoever you feel you are, Sistine Fausti,” she whispered, “own it. So what if you’re not like Willa?

I could spend the rest of my life by your side.

I can only tolerate her for a little while.

She’s not the easiest pill to swallow. And not everything is as it seems. Sometimes people cover who they really are with glitter and fun.

” She squeezed my hand. “You want to sing one with me? Sam would love it!”

I smiled. “You’re right. I’m already too drunk.”

“Lightweight!” She planted a smooch on my forehead and then, with five Fausti soldiers behind her, made her way to the stage.

I was not sure why I felt…not like myself.

I had never considered if I was fun or not.

It did not matter to me. I had a job. Create pieces of jewelry for my family, for the Fausti family.

I had my side interest in attending all the country concerts Italy had to offer.

Enjoying time at the Watt Ranch while in Wyoming. Even singing to the baby animals.

I laughed at myself when I thought of how some of them ran from me, except for Rocky, who gazed at me with a glazed look in his eyes, and I realized then…how odd I was.

I was odd.

Odd and quiet and reserved, although I was spirted, as my family called me. I did not do well with bullshit and had a temper when it rose to the surface.

Then Mariano Leone Fausti charged into my life.

He told me the earth bled for me—bled all its colors around me.

If so, it was not until he nicked, shattered, its skin for me.

He saw me in a different light than the rest of the world. Even than I saw myself.

Whenever I looked in the mirror, after his heart collided with mine, I could spot the difference. I could see the colors he so clearly saw, and perhaps they gave me a glow I had never had before. Still.

I was still me.

Quiet, serious, Sistine…Fausti…who did not mind getting lost in her own mind, music playing in the background, and creating a tangible piece of jewelry from it afterwards.

Everyone started to sway to the song Atta was singing.

It was about a woman who was about to break a man’s heart—her heart breaking in the process.

Her voice was heartbreaking. Clear, but soft, and her folksy accent shone through.

After that, she sang a few fast songs, and the winker from outside winked at me again and invited me onto the dance floor with a “come on” hand gesture.

Remo stared at the man, a hard look on his face. The winker had attempted to bridge the wall around me earlier, on the guise of grabbing a drink, but he could not. I turned my back on the winker and downed another drink, sighing into the glass.

It was pathetic, but I missed my husband. Did that make me a husband’s woman? Because I felt as if I was. I felt melancholy and out of sorts. All I wanted to do was return to our cabin in the woods and have him sing to me while he ran his fingertips up and down my bare back.

He would seduce me to open to him as if I was a wildflower in the fields in spring, and enter me, pure bliss on his face while he made an animalistic noise in his throat…

I threw back the rest of the drink, choking on the fire.

Willa pounded me on the back. “All right there, Italian Cowgirl?”

“All right,” I forced out.

She nodded, lifting her finger for another drink. She glanced at me. “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but…you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

I choked on the drink that had just gone down, adding to the scald of the previous burn. Willa laughed, pounding me on the back again. She asked Sam for a glass of water. He set it in front of me, narrowing his eyes.

“I’ve never known Ms. Sistine to cough over a little thing like whiskey and Coke.”

I waved my hand. “Went down the wrong way,” I rasped out.

“Sorry if I took you off guard, but it’s the truth.

” Willa played with her glass, moving it back and forth between her hands.

“Physically you’re stunning.” She sighed, then turned to me.

“You have something else, too, something that usually drives a woman like me mad—and not in the good way. You have something that can’t be bottled or recreated.

Something that can’t be stolen. It’s unique.

Keep it close and guard it, Italian Cowgirl.

I tolerate you for Atta’s sake, but if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be as nice to you as I am.

“I’m not a girl’s girl. I’m a feral cat.

Get in my way and I strike. And you seem the same, even though there’s something innocent about the way you look.

Then again. Your eyes. I recognize the defiance in them.

Your eyes are cat-shaped too. Like I said, we’d have a problem if it wasn’t for Atta.

That man you’re always eying? He’d be mine, at least for a night.

” She thanked Sam for her drink and went for the guy who had been winking at me.

An interesting admission, but I did not care enough about Willadeene Sharp to waste my time or energy on her. If she kept my husband’s name out of her mouth, kept away from him, and was good to my cousin, we had no problem. We were not friends.

Sighing, I closed my eyes, finishing my drink.

I swayed a bit.

It was not from the drink.

It was from the scent suddenly hitting me square in the chest, cutting my air off. My stomach flipped with the wings it suddenly grew.

A warm hand came to my lower back. “Steady, Cowgirl.” His breath was as warm as his hand, but nowhere near as heavy as the pressure he was applying—a show of sole proprietorship—to my lower back, and it was close to my ear. I could almost feel the brush of his lips.

My hands flattened on the bar top, but my knuckles curled, seeking purchase.

“Your husband’s a fucking fool for releasing you to the world without him next to you. I’ll be the man who’s lucky enough to spin you around this fucking dance floor.” He looked me up and down. “Fuck. You’re gorgeous. This dress is mine later. So is the belt.”

A slight smile played at my lips. It was not even the flirting. It was the relief. My eyes slowly opened, and I turned to him. His hand moved from my lower back to my hip, then the other did the same, keeping me steady.

He felt it.

The moment I softened to almost the floor from his proximity and his sensuous eyes on mine.

It hit me then.

The truth.

He was still in the same clothes from earlier, which was unlike him.

He dressed for whatever the occasion was.

Gold Rush wasn’t a hopping LA club, but men and women still dressed in their finest western wear to come out and dance.

His ball cap was turned backward. His flannel and jeans, even his face, was smeared with dirt and oil.

I could smell the petrol on him. His boots were always filthy, but they were worse than usual. Clumped with mud and grass.

He was still the most stunning man in this place, this state, in the world.

Gold Rush had, somewhat, become accustomed to the soldiers in suits who first arrived with us, but Mariano, Marciano, and Angelo had shaken it up again.

All eyes were on us.

I was about to ask the woman down the bar if she needed a shovel to pick her mouth up from the ground. Instead, my eyes searched his. “What happened, Mariano?” I whispered.

He shook his head. “Not the fucking time.” He nodded to Marciano, who was next to us, waiting for Sam to deliver his drink.

Marciano nodded. I knew something was off when I clocked his lack of eye contact and clothes as well. Marciano was…showy. His clothes were dusted over, even his face and hair. He was being more solemn than usual.

My mouth opened when Mariano leaned in and told me not to fall out of love with him while he was gone. He left me with a lingering kiss on the cheek, the wall built of Fausti muscle moving aside to allow him through before he crashed into them.

I turned to Marciano. He was downing whiskey. When he felt me watching him, he set the drink down and sighed. And then…his eye bore into mine. “Spicy Sissy,” he whispered, “I would give you a Marciano hug, since we’re not in Italy, but my brother would blow a fucking gasket if I did.”

I was about to ask him why, but I knew that was a dangerous question. It could have been a simple answer—Mariano did not allow any man to touch me but him—or one that was more complicated. My bet was on the latter. He felt pity for me.

Why?

Perhaps the Fausti family’s honor was tangled with their motto, but that did not mean they were not allowed to keep silent. He wasn’t going to give me an explanation for why he felt that way. I had an idea of why, but again, did not bring it up.

Mariano seemed to be back in a flash. He had changed. He wore a black cowboy hat, long-sleeved shirt, a vest, slacks, and boots. He took me by the hand and shattered the wall of men around me again.

Sam nodded to Mariano as we passed him.

“Where are we going?” I barely got out.

“My wife came here to dance. She’ll dance.”

“Ah,” I breathed out. “Where is she?”

On the dance floor, everyone around him gave a wide berth. He spun me out and then brought me into his body. My head was fuzzy from the shots and whiskey, and the lights around me seemed to blur when he did.

“I’m looking right at her. The heart living outside of my chest.”

My eyes seemed to melt into his, my body following, especially when a romantic song started to play. “I like the feel of…”

A fast song played after, and he gave me a cheeky grin before he started to move me on the floor as if two-stepped every day.

“Look at Fausti move,” a young guy who Mariano directed on the ranch said. “Making us all look bad— again .”

Everyone around us laughed. Mariano smiled.

When my husband gave me some room to dance solo, he did so with a grin on his face.

After hours and hours, sweat coating my body, we swayed to the beat of a hypnotic song. I did not need anything or anyone but him. I realized my oddness was okay. He was in my bubble with me.

“Can I tell you something, Outlaw?” I whispered drunkenly, a slight smile coming to my face. “Or will you steal it from me eventually?”

“You give me,” he said in Italian.

“You stole my heart,” I whispered, feeling as though we were rocking in the chair outside of our cabin as we swayed.

“Nah. You gave me that too. I just had to work for it.”

“You have.”

“I always will. I’ll work to keep it.”

We stared at each other. The connection between us was moving as hypnotically as the sound.

“I remember what I wanted to tell you now.”

“That I stole your heart.”

“No.” I smiled. “You’re my favorite person in the entire world. You’re in my bubble with me.”

His eyebrows drew in and I laughed, smoothing them out.

“You are.” I sighed. “My favorite person in the entire world.”

“I’m in the bubble,” he repeated.

“Yes, us, together, for always.” I gazed into his eyes. “Mariano Leone Fausti, you make me feel like…me.”

“You love me,” he said, his voice rough.

“Is that even the right word for it?” I whispered.

He shook his head. “That’s why I haven’t used those words. They feel like a lie. But for the sake of not finding another word yet, I do. I love you so fucking much, Annie, it breaks my heart.”

He lifted me up, bringing my mouth to his, kissing me.

When I felt as if I could not breathe, I was about to beg him to bring us home, keep me up all night until dawn, then we could watch the sun rise from our window.

Lock ourselves in the cabin for days, months, years, centuries, wrapped up in each other.

Then a thought hit me.

“Did you eat?” I asked.

The comment took him off guard. He roared with laughter. He sighed. “ You haven’t eaten, and you’ve had too much to fucking drink. Jack and Coke. Fuck me sideways. My woman likes the burn.”

I held up a finger. “Unless we’re lounging on our porch. Then I enjoy wine.”

“Only red,” he said.

His truth seemed to hit me in that moment. My stomach suddenly revolted from too much whiskey and not enough food. It grumbled, and he heard it over the music.

He lifted my hand and kissed it. “Yeah, I’m starving for food, but the kind of food only your body can provide.” He led me toward the door. “Come, Annie,” he said in Italian. “Time to eat.”