All the Way to Heaven

Chapter 19

I smiled as though Cosimo had just crowned me his queen for the day.

"There is nothing better than to come outside on a morning like this to find a beautiful bird sitting on my patio waiting for me." He approached the table casually, a large tray in hand. On it was another coffee cup, a bottle of San Pellegrino in an ice bucket and two champagne flutes. Two plates, napkins, forks, and one small, lidded stoneware crock that looked as old as the wisteria over our heads. I picked up the carafe and my own cup to make room for the tray, which he slid deftly onto the table.

He didn't sit down, but came to stand in front of me, forcing me to look up to see his face. For a minute, he said nothing. Just as I was beginning to feel like squirming, he crouched down in front of me and took both my hands. He turned them over, studying my palms, his thumb gently brushing across the top of the scratches still healing on my right one, before lifting his eyes to my face.

"Ani. Last night, when I came to your room, I know I frightened you. I made you uncomfortable, and for that, I can only hope to make it up to you. But you must know that you have made me feel uncomfortable in my own home as well."

"I'm sorry? I what? What did I—" All I'd done was wash the smell of sickness off me last night before scuttling back to the privacy of my own room. I hadn't planned on seeing him, or anyone for that matter. Had I done something to send mixed messages to him in the shadows of my bedroom? Lord have mercy, did I say something in my sleep? Good grief! He was the one who stole into my room! And practically scared me off my chair.

"Please. Let me finish. I am trying, yet again, to apologize, and I seem to be making a disaster of it again." He squeezed my hand gently, his eyes beseeching. I nodded, pressing my lips together.

"There have been some storm clouds in my life lately, but you came into my clinic and brought the sunshine with you, Anica Tomlin. I meant what I said to you last night in your room. I could not stay away. I had to see you again." His eyes did not waver and I couldn't look away. "When I found you had become ill, I did not want to leave your side, not because I was worried for you, but because my heart would not allow me to leave you to the care of someone else. I came home every night to check on you. It is as my sister said. I am a doctor, yes, but I am a man first. You, passerotta, have me enraptured." He reached up and cupped my cheek, his long fingers lacing into the hair behind my ear. "And when I came upon you out here with your eyes alight in the morning sun just now, so beautiful, I thought perhaps my heart would burst with happiness to see you."

Was he joking? Playing me? Did people actually talk this way in this day and age? And mean it?

"You make me feel uncomfortable because I cannot think clearly when I am near you."

Well, that made two of us. I dropped my gaze to my lap, unable to bear the look in his any longer. I felt light, like I was hovering just above the ground.

"Ani?" He dipped his head a little, trying to read my face, his thumb caressing my cheekbone. What did he want me to say to that?

There was a tiny alarm going off somewhere in the back of my mind. Warning. Warning. Warning. It was persuasive speeches and gentle caresses that had blinded me to Jacob's true colors. Were Cosimo's words practiced seduction or was he just as flustered in my presence as I was in his? And if so, what about me had turned his head so completely? I was nothing special. My hair curled a little too zealously just below my shoulders. I wasn't overweight, but I was no health nut, either. I suppose, if I was honest, I might even qualify as being plump. At least certain body parts that I didn't have to look at. I had funny quirks and unglamorous habits, like chewing on the cuticles around my thumbs, which made me look like I was actually sucking my thumb from the right angle, and not painting my toenails because the little toenail on my right foot had been damaged in a childhood bike accident and was only about a millimeter wide. It looked like a racing stripe when I did put polish on it. Tish had dubbed it Toe-Hawk.