Page 32 of In Italy for Love

‘Anything can happen in a few weeks, especially in the autumn.’

Alex glanced at his friend and he did not like the glint in the other man’s eye.

14

Jules only worked half a day the following Saturday. Maddalena sent her home early, which Jules appreciated. The restaurant was open Thursday to Saturday for lunch and after helping out two days in a row, she decided she preferred the place without the pressure of impatient customers who didn’t appreciate the effort that went into growing and preparing their food.

The hard work usually kept her mind off the limbo she’d found herself in, but that day her insufficient Italian had made it difficult to help the waitress, and the huffing of the customers as she painstakingly tried to communicate only reminded her again of Luca’s lack of patience with her.

The waitress, Alina – a teen with dyed black hair and a ring in her lip – offered Jules and Arco a lift back into Cividale in her old Fiat Panda. The girl seemed to be in a hurry, so Jules told her to drop her off on the main road and she dawdled along the footpath towards home, thinking guiltily that Arco hadn’t had a proper walk that day, since she’d been busy indoors.

It had been a week full of blue skies over the Friulian plain, leading to frosty mornings and bright afternoons. The yellows in the hills seemed to shimmer with a hint of red. Something aboutthe gentle slopes and thick woods called to her, as though from another life.

As she always did when she crossed the bridge, she stopped to gaze at the river and the grey stone peaks in the distance. In the lovely weather, she almost felt like lazing on the white stones down in the ravine as the emerald water rushed past. She had a whole camera roll of photos of this one spot, but every time, she wanted to take another, to capture something she might have missed.

The view also reminded her she hadn’t called her family since that first day in Cividale, so she paused to chat briefly to her mum, who was about to go to sleep.

Just after she crossed the bridge, the sound of a deep voice, speaking with rare animation, made her freeze, pulling Arco’s lead short. Down a side street was a shop with a row of bikes lined up outside – where Alex was talking to a customer, a smile on his face.

Dropping into a crouch, he inspected the bike the customer held steady, producing a tool and making some kind of adjustment as he continued to converse. She didn’t understand much of the clipped dialect, but that smile took her right back to the first night, when he’d barely been able to stop talking.

After spending a week excusing his grumpiness, she was miffed to see him smiling naturally. Maybe she’d been wrong about him, as she’d been wrong about Luca, and he’d just spared her feelings when he’d told her she wasn’t a burden.

Even more discouraging was the prick of longing she felt as she watched his blue eyes light up and his soft lips, framed by his trimmed beard, curving for the customer. Turning away with a huff, she marched blindly down the opposite side street, the poke of the cobbles into the soles of her feet now familiar.

Past the gates of the old monastery and under ancient stone archways, she reached the road along the river – the placewhere she’d stupidly asked for a goodbye kiss – and continued furiously, without even stopping to admire the water. She didn’t pause until she reached a narrow street of tiny, well-kept terraces with stone windowsills and brown shutters. Some had small gardens perched on the rocks over the river, many with the now-familiar silver leaves of an olive tree or two.

She began to calm down just as Arco grew suddenly boisterous. He barked and pulled and a moment later, a woman appeared, walking an impossibly white poodle – a series of fluffy clouds joined together, with a dog under all that fur somewhere.

Jules stammered some poor Italian, asking permission for Arco to approach the other dog several moments too late. Her cheeky pet had already stuck his nose under the poodle and was sniffing rudely. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled in English.

But the other woman smiled. ‘It’s okay. Is that… Arco? And are you Julia?’

Her gaze snapped up, taking in the woman for the first time. She was slim and slight, with curly brown hair that looked effortlessly stylish – but probably required about as much grooming as the dog – and a cropped jacket. She had a belt around her waist with a pouch of dog treats and a loop to attach a lead, which Jules noted as something useful for farm work when she couldn’t let Arco run free.

‘How do you know who I am?’ Jules asked.

‘It’s a small town. I’m Marisa. I own the dog salon near Alex’s house.’

‘Ohhh,’ she said, unable to stifle a smile. ‘Your dog is a wonderful advertisement for your business.’

‘I watch a lot of TV while I groom Chanel,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘Arco is a Lagotto? Or a mix?’

‘He’s a Lagotto. I might need to make an appointment with you in a few weeks—’If I’m still here. ‘He’ll need a trim.’

‘I’ll give you my card and in the meantime, if you need anything, give me a call. Or if you want to go for a walk – or a drink.’

‘A tajùt?’ Jules suggested with a smile, before remembering where she’d learned that word and heat pooled in her cheeks. She wasn’t sure she’d take the stylish woman up on her offer, not when she spent her days getting dirty on an organic farm and she’d never understood much about fashion – at least that’s what Luca had said and her threadbare wardrobe certainly suggested he was right.

‘Esatto,’ Marisa said with an approving nod. ‘Give me a call.’

As Marisa was about to continue on her way, Jules asked, ‘I was thinking of walking in the forest, but there are no trails marked on the map on my phone. Do you know a route I can take?’

‘There are lots of paths in the hills. Maybe you need an app for hiking?’

When Jules downloaded a different app, the blank space on the map suddenly became criss-crossing trails – and the promise of a long walk to clear her head.

‘These ways are also used by mountain bikers, so keep Arco on the leash.’

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