Valentino's Love-Child

Were they still on that? “Yes.”

“How?”

“A car accident.”

“When?”

“Six years ago.”

He ran his fingers through his morning tousled dark hair. “You never told me.”

“Did you want me to?”

“I would think that sometime in a year you would have thought to mention that you were a widow.” He came into the kitchen and leaned against the counter near her.

“Why?”

“It is an important piece of information about you.”

“About my past.”

He frowned at her.

“You prefer to focus on today, not yesterday. You’ve said so many times, Tino. What’s going on?”

“Maybe I’m just curious about the woman I’ve been bedding for a year.”

“Almost a year.”

“Do not banter semantics with me.”

“I’m glad you’re curious.”

“I…” For the first time in memory, her lover, the ?ber-cool Valentino Grisafi, looked lost for words.

“Don’t worry about it, Tino. It’s not a bad thing.”

“No, no, of course not. We are friends as well as lovers, si?”

“Yes.” And she was more relieved than she could say that he saw it that way, too.

“Good. Good.” He was silent a second. “Do I get breakfast to go with my coffee?”

“I think that can be arranged.”

He got a borderline horrified look on his face. “You do know how to cook, don’t you?”

She laughed, truly tickled. “We aren’t all filthy rich vintners, Tino. Some of us can’t afford a housekeeper or to eat out every meal—thus, knowing how to cook is essential. But I don’t mind telling you, I’m pretty good at it as well.”

“I’ll reserve judgment.”

She laughed and launched herself at him to tickle the big man into submission, or at least a lot of laughter before he subdued her wandering fingers.

Faith finished the third form of a pregnant woman she had done in as many days. She hadn’t done women enceinte since the loss of her baby in the accident that had killed Taylish and any chance Faith would ever have at a family.

Or so she had believed.

Her clay-spattered hand pressed over her still-flat stomach, a sense of awe and wonder infusing her. It had taken her four years and fertility counseling for her to become viably pregnant the first time.

Her first actual pregnancy had occurred a mere two months after she married Taylish at the age of eighteen. They’d been ecstatic when the home pregnancy test showed positive, only to be cast into a pit of despair short weeks later when the ectopic pregnancy had come close to killing her. And of course, there had been no hope of saving the baby with a tubal pregnancy.

Her near death had not stopped her and Tay from trying again. They both wanted children with a deep desperation only those who had no family could appreciate. After a year of trying with no results they’d sought medical help. Tests had revealed that she’d been left with only one working ovary in the aftermath of her ectopic pregnancy.

The fertility specialist she and Tay had sought out had informed them that the single working ovary significantly decreased their chances at getting pregnant. However, she gave them a regime to follow that would hopefully result in conception. It had been grueling and resulted in an already passionless sex life turning flat-out clinical.

But it had worked. When the test strip had turned blue, she’d felt as if it was the greatest blessing of her life. This time she’d felt as if it was a full-on miracle.

Tino was careful to use condoms every time. The number of chances they’d taken by waiting to put the condom on until after some play, and the single time one had broken (Tino had changed where he bought his condoms after that), could be counted on one hand. With fingers left over. However, one of those times of delayed sheathing had occurred a couple of months ago.

With only one working ovary, her menstrual cycles were on an erratic two-month schedule. She hadn’t paid any attention when her sporadic period was later than even normal. It wasn’t the first time. Pregnancy had never even crossed her mind. Not when her breasts had grown excessively tender. She’d put it up to PMS. Not when the smell of bacon made her nauseous. She wasn’t a huge meat eater, anyway.

Not when she got tired in the afternoons. After all, most Sicilian businesses were closed for a couple of hours midday so people could rest. Maybe she was just taking on the habits of her adopted home. She hadn’t even clued in she might be pregnant when she burst out crying over a broken glass one morning when she’d been preparing a heavier breakfast than usual. She’d been craving eggs.

The shoe hadn’t even dropped when she made her fourth trip to the bathroom before lunchtime one day. She’d made an appointment to see her doctor to test for a suspected bladder infection, only to be stunned with the news she was carrying Tino’s child.

She pressed against her hard tummy with a reverent hand. All the symptoms of pregnancy now carried special significance for her. She, a woman who’d had every chance at family she’d ever had ripped from her by death, was expecting. It was almost impossible to believe she’d been so blind to the possibility. With her fertility problems, Faith had assumed there wasn’t even a remote chance she could or would ever get pregnant again.

Yet, according to the test her doctor had run, she was. She was.

Oh, man.

She hugged herself while looking down at the faceless pregnant figure she’d been working on. The incredible awe and joy she felt at the prospect of having a baby— Tino’s baby—could be seen in every line of the figure whose arms were raised above her head in an unmistakable gesture of celebration. Faith turned to look at the first woman she’d done after finding out she was pregnant.

That figure showed the fear that laced her joy. This woman had a face, and her expression was one of trepidation. Her hand rested protectively on her slightly protruding stomach. Faith had done the woman as a native African. Clinging to one side of her traditional dress was another small child, not so thin it was starving, but clearly at risk. The two figures were standing on a base that had been created to look like dry grass.

It was a moving statue, bringing tears to her own eyes. Which wasn’t exactly something new. The one place Faith allowed herself to express her inner pain, the feelings of aloneness that she accepted but had never quite learned to live with, was her art. While some pieces were filled with joy and peace, others evoked the kind of emotion few people liked to talk about.

Despite that—or maybe because of it—her art sold well, commanding a high price for each piece. Or at least each one she allowed to leave her workshop. The pregnant woman she’d done yesterday wasn’t going anywhere but back into a lump of clay. It was too jumbled a piece. No single emotional connotation strong enough to override the others.

Some work was like that. She accepted it as the cost of her process. She’d spent the entire day on that statue, but not late into the night like she had on the first one. Part of it was probably the fact that Tino had called her.

He rarely called her, except to set up assignations. Even when he traveled out of country and was gone for a week or more, she did not hear from him. But he had called yesterday. For no other reason she could discern other than to talk. Weird.

Really, really.

But good. Any loosening of his strictly sex relationship rule was a blessing. Especially now.

But still. Odd.