Page 59 of A Winter Wedding Adventure
But when the door opened a crack, it wasn’t Katy standing there, but Yolanda, the waitress. ‘It’s very cold. What time is it?’
Mattia’s relief caught in his throat.
‘The electricity’s gone off. Do you know where the fuse box is?’
It took a little more explaining, but eventually, Yolanda showed them to a storage cellar off the kitchen, where the big boiler and various other devices usually would have whirred and hummed and ticked. That was the most disturbing silence of all.
Kira located the fuse cupboard and flung it open, but quickly shook her head. ‘The fuses aren’t tripped.’
As the first glow of dawn touched the sky over the valley on New Year’s Eve, Alessandra and Joe’s wedding day, Kira confirmed his worst fears.
‘The power is out.’
‘Here, have some breakfast. Nothing hot or cooked yet, sorry, but the orange juice is nice and cold this morning! The good news is, we’ll be able to make coffee as soon as Kira’s off the phone. Yes, it is necessary for survival, which is lucky. Sit over here by the fire and I’ll join you in a minute.’
Kira leaned heavily on the kitchen bench and listened to Mattia calming the wedding party on the other side of the door, trying to force herself to go out there. She heard him speaking in lilting Italian and imagined him performing the same spiel, this time for Alessandra’s parents rather than Joe’s mother.
It was official. The wedding was ruined.
She couldn’t blame herself for the ultimate nail in the coffin; she was well aware the weather was a greater force than she could hope to tame. But they were stuck here with no contingency plan. These people had not expected a cold night in a mountain cabin and Kira had no idea how to fix things.
Worse, she was dreading facing Alessandra. What a time to understand that she should have taken Ginny’s advice. She was emotionally involved and it was hell – and not only because of her coincidental connection to the groomsman.
No, she hadn’t had a chance of keeping her distance from the moment she’d heard Mattia sing.
Avoiding the issue a moment longer, she rummaged for something to light the stove and found a pack of matches. Filling a saucepan with water, she managed to get the stove lit manually, which was a blessing. She hadn’t been looking forward to going outside with the little gas burner she’d seen in the storage cupboard where Mattia had kissed her.
Yolanda bustled into the kitchen and out again with more bread and cheese. She’d spoken to Katy, the manager, but it was clear she was out of her depth with backup equipment and safety, so it was best if she focused on food. That left Kira to work out the next course of action.
The kitchen door swung open again and Mattia appeared, studying her. ‘Okay?’
She eyed him. It was usually her asking him that, but he seemed to be holding up well. He’d swapped the duvet for his long coat and scarf, but he was still wearing loose sweats and looking far too approachable, his hair curling wildly and a little silver hoop in his ear this morning. She wondered if he’d ever played a baritone pirate.
‘I’ve got water on for coffee. I’ll have to run it manually through the filter, but the stovetop works.’
He hesitated, as though he had something else to say, but changed his mind, heading for the pantry. He emerged with eggs and a bedraggled plant and rummaged for a bowl. Before she’d registered what he was doing, he’d whipped up the makings of an omelette and drizzled olive oil in a pan.
‘Light it for me? I’m not good with fire. Ever since my costume caught alight during a performance of Il Trovatore, I don’t like to get too close.’
More vulnerability. She lit an element under the frying pan and he tossed a few leaves from the plant into the oil.
‘You make your opera performances sound like life-or-death situations.’
His response was a shrug. ‘It took some therapy to convince me that wasn’t the case. Maybe it was all preparing me for this moment, I suppose. Are we snowed in? We’ll be stuck here until Easter?’
She didn’t think he was serious, but she couldn’t be certain. ‘When Ginny joked about the wedding party having to eat someone to survive, I didn’t think it would actually come to that.’
He gagged theatrically. ‘I suspect I know who would be eaten.’
She patted him on the arm as he grated cheese into the egg. ‘There’s not enough meat on your bones.’
When he caught her gaze with one of his warm, prompting looks, she belatedly recognised his ploy: he was softening her up to receive tenderness. Her stomach swooped as she saw it coming.
‘Want to talk through the options? Whatever you think, I trust you. We can tell Alessandra the damage together.’
It was too much. The strain of fitting into the wedding planner box over the past few days, feeling inadequate and out of place and now the responsibility for a wedding that wasn’t going to happen – at least not as planned – sapped her remaining strength. Her shoulders fell and the urge to cry rose up and she hated how Mattia made her feel all this stuff too vividly.
But as soon as her misery began, it stopped again, replaced by the touch of fine wool on her cheek, a warm, vital body pressed to hers, enveloping hers. She needed to repeat this when the heating was on, without coats to interfere with the sublime closeness.
