All the Way to Heaven

Chapter 18

I awoke ravenous, my stomach growling in rebuke.

And alone. No sign of Cosimo, thank goodness. No evidence that he'd been in my room at all. The house around me was uncharacteristically quiet, and for a moment, I thought perhaps it was too early for anyone else to be up. But out the window, the sun was high, the birds were chattering away, and I could hear the sound of a tractor off in the distance.

Linking my fingers behind my left knee, I hoisted my leg over the side of the bed and lowered it carefully to the floor, sitting up in the process.

Stretching, my arms high over my head, I yawned widely enough to make my jaw pop. I took a deep breath in through my nose and let it out with a contented sigh. I felt so much better.

Someone had laundered and hung my long skirt in the cupboard, and I pulled it out and slipped it on, mainly because I still wasn't sure I was ready to tackle pants yet. I dug around in my things for a silhouette-enhancing bra over which I donned a scoop-necked lightweight sweater with three-quarter length sleeves, the color of the sky outside my window today. Paired with my bohemian skirt and one cute little black crocheted Toms on my right foot, it was really quite a feminine ensemble.

Today, I'd explore. If no one was around, that might even be better. I could just wander aimlessly, relishing in the possibility of whatever that whole exchange with Cosimo had been last night.

Cosimo. Had he been drunk? How would he behave toward me today?

I shook my head at my self-consciousness. I was a big girl now. He was a grown man. We'd talk like adults do.

Cosimo, like Jacob, was several years older than I, and that was something that attracted me to both of them. I wasn't looking for a replacement father figure. My dad was the best a girl could have; patient, long-suffering, supportive, encouraging, and a steadfast—but reasonable—authority figure in my life. Perhaps, though, because I held all men to the standard of my father, I had a difficult time seeing guys my own age as mature enough to consider as serious relationship potential. I had lots of guy friends and we had great fun together, but that was all I could imagine with them; friendship. I was consistently drawn to older men who carried themselves with confidence and purpose, who exuded a sense of security, who were providers.

Jacob, however, had been a fine example of neither one. Not for me or his wife, in fact. Whether she knew about his adulterous relationships or not—I was sure I wasn't the first college girl to be lured in by the smoldering bachelor professor act—didn't change the fact that whatever security and provision she thought she and their children got from him was only on the surface. There was no security without trust, and financial provision did not make up for the lack of emotional, mental, and spiritual provision.

From what I could tell, at least Cosimo wasn't married. But then, I had no reason to believe he was interested in heading that way, either. And why did it matter anyway? I was heading back to another part of the globe in a few weeks, barring any hold up getting my passport replaced, and Dr. Cosimo Lazzaro would find some other clumsy tourist to assess with those magic hands of his.

On the other hand, it felt rather redeeming to have the handsome doctor fawning over me and flirting so openly with me. I still chafed a little over Paulo Durante's initial response to me on the train, but maybe he'd just been crabby that day, and on any other day, he would have been drawn to me instead of repulsed by me. He'd been very kind to me the day of my accident.

Well, once he'd heard me mention l'Aurora, that is. So then, maybe he'd thought I was flirting with him on the train and he was just being loyal to his woman. If that were the case, I could totally respect that. That was the kind of security a relationship should have.