Page 64 of A Winter Wedding Adventure
Tears pricked in her eyes and all the heightened emotions collapsed on her at once in an avalanche she could no longer hold off. With a flash, she saw the decorated church, Alessandra and Joe toasting the gathered family and friends, Mattia’s rich, haunting voice travelling through the violent landscape – and her thoughts raced back to a day she’d hoped she’d left behind, but was evidently still as fresh in her memory as though it had been yesterday.
‘I wish it made no difference,’ she began grimly, ‘and I don’t want sympathy, or for you to think any differently about me, but maybe you should know.’ Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to continue. ‘I was engaged once, when I was very young – too young. I nearly got married. But on the day of the wedding, he… he left me at the altar.’
A noise made her turn, slowing in horror as she began to suspect who was behind her. Gathered in the doorway of the kitchen, ears pricked and eyes round with shock, stood Joe, Rav and Hugh, the parents of the couple, Tonya and even Yolanda the waitress – all witnesses to her mortifying confession.
25
‘Do I look like I’ve been crying?’
‘Not at all,’ Mattia assured Alessandra, the lie falling smoothly for once from his lips. ‘You look absolutely beautiful, as always.’
She smacked him on the arm. ‘I have got the message,’ she said with a sniff.
He trailed her and Carla out of her room, feeling five years older than the moment he’d gone in, but rather brightly thinking that would make him a year older than Kira.
Bracing himself as they reached the door to the dining room, he was expecting an uproar as the group came to terms with avalanche risk and frozen bodies and no wedding, but what he saw instead made him stop short.
Kira sat at a table with a coffee cup in front of her, a pained grimace on her face, while Tonya clasped an arm around her shoulder and Alessandra’s mother held her hand, stroking it periodically.
‘What’s happened now?’ Alessandra asked.
Kira stiffened, glancing from him to Alessandra. ‘I have to, um, get more wood.’ Her face was flaming as she scooted out of the door to make her escape. He found Rav giving him a pained look and with a lurch in his stomach, he guessed what she was upset about.
He squeezed Alessandra’s arm. ‘Are you okay, now? I just have to—’ He gestured wildly after Kira, his feet already moving in the direction she’d gone.
She gave him a perplexed smile. ‘You have another fire to put out?’
‘I’m a real firefighter today,’ he called over his shoulder as he took off after Kira.
He lost time lacing his complicated boots and once he’d swung open the door, he had his breath knocked out of him. The valley sparkled and glowed in bright sunlight. The sky was such a vivid blue, it hurt his eyes. The air was so still, he heard the muted mumble of running water under ice and the cry of a bird of prey in the distance – and the loud crunch of Kira’s boots in the snow.
There was two feet of it, in lopsided piles with vivid shadows and blinding, untouched white. Studying the surface uneasily, he tried not to think of what might be underneath, which didn’t work very well, and he eventually had to make himself move anyway.
Limbs flailing as though he were a giraffe walking in quicksand, he stumbled in the direction Kira had gone, to a lean-to built against the rock face behind the chalet. Hunks of wood were stacked against the back wall, under a snow-covered tarpaulin, and Kira stood in front of an old, pockmarked stump, wielding an axe.
Mattia jerked a step back as she hauled the axe over her head and brought it down with a precise thwack, neatly splitting the piece of wood in front of her. The sound rang in his ears, the violence of the blade meeting rough wood digging into his chest. Picking up one side and setting it back on the stump, she repeated the action – thwack – sending the two smaller pieces flying. He flinched, but he was more fascinated than concerned by the outward manifestation of Kira’s prickly defences.
‘Wow.’
She didn’t even turn around. ‘Go back inside,’ she snapped. ‘It’s too cold out here for you.’
‘It’s rather nice in the sunshine,’ he responded mildly. ‘But I think after the conversation I just had with Alessandra, I’m the one who should decide what’s too cold for me or not.’
That earned him a wary glance. ‘What conversation? I thought you were going to talk to Carla.’
‘Oh, that too. She’s not as stubborn as Alessandra. But we’re all friends again. Just friends. I’ve got to make my own way through the confusing world of relationships.’
Her only response was another juddering thwack of the axe. Her strength struck him under his skin, like beauty – with awe. But today, it was clearer than ever that she was trying to protect herself – and not quite succeeding.
‘Will you tell me what’s upset you? Did Rav say something?’
She gave a snort and turned to face him. ‘You can ask anyone inside. They all know now.’
Even someone without sensitive hearing would have made out the hurt in her voice. ‘Can I hear it from you instead?’
‘Why?’ She swung the axe again, the sound ringing out through the still valley.
‘I’m not asking because I’m curious – well, not only because I’m curious. I’m asking because, whatever it is, I want to understand.’ I want to protect you.
