Page 8 of In Italy for Love

Exercise she had never been able to give him properly, as all her time had been invested in the B&B. Perhaps that was why he didn’t quite feel tame.

‘He’s a bit unpredictable. His first owner was elderly and could never handle him and, to be honest, neither can I.’

‘He’s an animal,’ Alex said gently, his expression twitching with discomfort a moment later. ‘Now he’s licking my hand,’ he explained, extricating himself with a laugh that made Jules suspect he was ticklish.

‘Yeah, a pack animal,’ she added, ‘and he seems to want you to join his pack.’ She froze when the implication of her sentence struck her. ‘But you are not interested in joining a pack right now,’ she said, meeting his gaze and nodding sagely. ‘Don’t worry. It came through loud and clear.’

‘I didn’t mean to sound like such an arse when I said it. He’s a sweet dog and you’re a beautiful woman and if things were different… We should at least go to dinner. I’d like to and you shouldn’t eat alone.’

‘You should have tried the ham.’

‘You’re treating this like a personal affront, Alex. I’m sure the ham was delicious.’ Jules sighed contentedly and gazed up at the strip of clear, dark sky between the wooden eaves of the buildings.

She couldn’t really afford a restaurant meal, but thankfully Alex had insisted on splitting the bill, even though she’d invited him, and he surely didn’t make much playing the accordion. She was inclined to think the expense was worth it that night. Her belly was just a touch past pleasantly full and the fireplace by their table in the rustic taverna had worked its warm magic on her thoughts and her body.

Everything was going to be all right. She would arrive at the farm tomorrow and get herself in order.

‘It’s a local speciality,’ Alex insisted. ‘Prosciutto di San Daniele is famous across the country.’ Over the course of the drink and dinner, he’d gone from nervous and earnest to droll, speaking with shrugs and twists of his brow, and Jules could have watched him and listened to him for a lot longer than a few hours on a single evening.

‘I understand and appreciate the Italian obsession with local specialities, and that you are proud and defensive because I lived in Parma – whose prosciutto I’m sure is inferior,’ she added with a teasing smile. ‘But I did not feel like eating ham. Your other local specialities were delicious.’

‘But if you’re leaving tomorrow, you should have tried the ham,’ he insisted.

‘You’re pouting,’ she accused him with a chuckle. ‘Stop it. I already give in to Arco’s puppy eyes far too often. Another reason he’s not well behaved.’

‘I don’t have puppy eyes.’

Gripping his forearm and peering into his face, she smiled and said, ‘You really do. You should be careful where you flash them.’

‘I’m sure they don’t work on you. You didn’t order ham.’

‘I’ve had enough of the ham and I didn’t even eat any!’

Arco pulled ahead, finding an interesting smell as they passed under a rugged stone arch. The humpy cobbles dug into the soles of her feet and every corner they turned seemed to take them back another century.

‘I do approve of the prominence of cheese and potatoes in Friulian cooking,’ she added with a smile. ‘The fricowas delicious.’

‘It was invented as a way to make use of the cheese rinds, but it’s definitely comfort food. We’re simple people. Put a pig over the fire and add some things we found in the forest – that’s Friulian cooking.’

‘Sounds like I should try it. I’m a terrible cook,’ she admitted, stuffing her free hand in the pocket of her jacket. She wasn’t uncomfortably cold, just noticing the nip of autumn in the air, which only added to the scent of change in her life.

Alex had said she looked travel weary and the comment had struck her. She’d only been living out of her backpack for a week, but she recognised a deeper truth to what he’d said.

‘How can anyone be a terrible cook?’ he asked doubtfully. ‘Perhaps you didn’t have anonnato teach you, but anyone can learn.’

She grimaced. ‘I tried, trust me. I tried all these Italian lifestyle things over the years and I’m just not cut out for them.’

‘Italian lifestyle things?’

‘You know, fresh ingredients, make-it-yourself, grow-your-own, slaving in the kitchen and pretending to enjoy it – at least that was how it turned out.’ She bit her lip, shoving Luca and his criticism forcefully out of the conversation. She didn’t want him in her head right now.

‘You don’tenjoycooking. That’s different.’

‘Maybe I would enjoy it more if I could get actual results. But I even failed to grow tomatoes and that’s probably breaking some kind of law for residents of Italy. I can’t believe the government still granted me citizenship.’

‘You are Italian?’

‘Technically,’ she admitted with an apologetic shrug. ‘I’m a Volpe from a long line of Calabrian Volpes, one branch of which emigrated to Australia in the fifties. That was good enough for citizenship, after I completed a mountain of paperwork and waited two years for the rubber stamp. Lucky there wasn’t a question on the application about tomatoes.’

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