Path of Love: Cinque Terre, Italy

Chapter 1-2

“How do you figure that?”

The brunette climbed out of the blazingly pink Ferrari. She was tall and generously built. She wore simple Italian chic: a silk blouse with the same warmth as her deep brown eyes, tight jeans, and stylish black suede boots with the little zipper on the side that Erica always wanted but could never seem to find. The light leather jacket looked to be for style rather than warmth on the fine spring day. It worked. She radiated a woman in her prime.

Much of Italy struck Erica that way, which made her want to stamp “Warning: Dowdy American” on her forehead—maybe with a little red reflective triangle logo.

A rotund brown-and-white Cavalier King Charles spaniel lumbered down from the low door sill of the Ferrari and came over to sniff at Erica’s hand. It appeared immune to the triangular warning sign blazing brightly on her countenance, so she pet it. The dog sighed happily, so she pet it some more. The first thing to make her feel good all day.

“I’m Bridget. He’s Snoop. And I am guessing that you need a place to stay.”

“Well, I’m thinking that I shouldn’t leave town until that is dealt with.”

“Oh pfft!” Bridget waved a hand at the car as if it was of no consequence. Maybe not in the land of buxom brunette Englishwomen wearing Italian elegance like a birthright, but it definitely was in dowdy American land.

“Shouldn’t I contact the police or something?”

“Conrad can take care of that for us. Can’t you, darling?”

Erica turned to see that the man who had been inspecting her car had now climbed the hill carrying her pack. He handed over both it and her cell phone very solemnly. He was an older gentleman who looked to be far above such menial tasks.

“Is that your tree?”

“They all are. You have parked your conveyance in my olive grove.” His smile was unexpectedly easy and made his blue-gray eyes brighten. His English was as high brow as Bridget’s was common. Again, England English. Again she wondered why she was always explaining things to herself. Especially since the one thing she couldn’t explain satisfactorily to herself was…herself.

Grove. It was a grove of olive trees. A new fact learned and filed. Perhaps a second ray of hope other than the surprisingly solid little dog leaning happily against her thigh as she continued to rub his ears.

She turned back to the grove’s owner. “I’m terribly sorry. Let me know if there is any damage. I’ll repay it…” somehow. She was an unanchored craft in the storm that was her life. She had savings—some scraps of it dating back to a near continuous stream of babysitting jobs that had defined her teen years—but it wasn’t as if she had some deep bankroll to survive whatever was happening to her. What did a tree cost anyway?

“These trees have been standing since long before the Medici first rose to power in the 1400s.”

It sounded as if they cost a lot. Maybe that’s what hope looked like—somehow to remain standing through the ages. Even when people were busy running cars into you.

“They have seen far worse than your piccola macchina. I shall call Marceto and see that it is returned where it must go. Would you perhaps desire a replacement?”

“Not on your life,” Erica blushed. Conrad did not seem like a man who should be addressed so casually. As a matter of fact, he didn’t seem to her the sort of man who should be addressed while sitting at his feet. She rose to face him, much to Snoop’s disappointment. “Sorry, but no thank you. I’m quite done with driving in Italy.”

“É finito!” He snapped his fingers as if he could work magic.

She peeked. Nope, the car was still parked very solidly against the olive tree below.

“Hal, my love?” Bridget was talking into a cell phone. “Do we have a room open? Sì? Perfetto! I will be home soon and bringing a guest.”

The woman stepped up and kissed Conrad on both cheeks.

Was Erica supposed to do the same? Unsure of herself, she held out a hand. Rather than shaking it, he bent over it and placed a kiss on the back of her hand like a gentleman of old.

“Conrad, Conte di Evenston, at your service.” Conte was a count or earl. His English fit that—pure upper crust. And she’d wager that his Italian would sound equally sophisticated to any ear more discerning than hers.

“Erica Barnett at yours.” She felt as if she should curtsy but knew it would look even clumsier than her twenty words of guidebook Italian sounded.

“Oh, Connie, you old hound,” Bridget teased him, but Erica felt touched.

And no way could she imagine ever addressing the sophisticated Count of Evenston as Connie.

“We must find another woman for you. Your wife is long gone now, rest her soul.”

“She will have to be a very special one,” his smile teased that Erica was the model for any future candidates. As if. Besides, he was at least twice her age, maybe closer to three times. He was handsome, polite, and at least wealthy enough to own an olive grove, but there were limits. Besides, she had an image in her head, had it since she was a little girl. The image had looked almost exactly like Dwayne who—she was so done with the older-but-wiser-man scenario. Fantasy. Thing.

“Come!” Bridget called as she popped open the trunk. “We have a most charming B&B. You must see it. You will never want to leave.”

With a little squooshing of the corners, Erica’s pack filled the Ferrari’s tiny trunk. She’d filled the big hiking pack, which she’d purchased used years before with the best of intentions, with the things she wanted to keep no matter what. If Becky’s garage was robbed or a temporal wormhole opened and sucked up her small stack of boxes, delivering them to a bewildered Queen of the Faeries, she wouldn’t care. Not really.

If one sucked her up, would she care? Erica looked at the beautiful woman buckling into the spaceship-like Ferrari, then rested a hand on the luxurious leather of the seat. Perhaps that’s exactly what was happening to her. Alien dog who only looked like a Cavalier King Charles spaniel but was actually the secret ringleader of the Rocky Horror Picture Show: Revisited. She, the hapless Susan Sarandon, sucked into the wormhole of…downright foolishness. Though she liked the idea of waking up and being Susan Sarandon. Susan wasn’t Italian-elegant, but there was no questioning that she had her act totally together.

Erica slid into the car’s passenger seat, which felt even better than first class looked after a twelve-hour flight in economy. It even smelled like she’d always imagined fine, Italian leather would smell—like a Gucci store only better. She pulled on her seatbelt, barely in time. Snoop climbed up to sit on her lap and rest his chin on the door’s edge over the lowered window.

The engine roared to life—like the quiet, throaty sound of a mountain lion moments before it jumped down and snapped your neck before dragging you away as dinner. Bridget flashed a wave to Conrad who waved a solemn hand in reply from the verge above his olive trees. The Ferrari leapt forward, slamming Erica back into the seat as they raced down the narrow, twisting road she’d barely been able to creep along. Snoop leaned his side into her chest and she wrapped an arm around him as his ears flapped out in the wind.

“Snoop for Snoopy?” Erica asked the dog, who turned to roll his eyes at her as if he’d heard that far too many times.

“Snoop,” Bridget slalomed through the descending twists of the road as if it was built into her DNA. “As in Snoop Doggy Dogg.”

“You rap much?” she asked him softly. He just put his head back out into the wind and let his ears flap to some secret canine rhythm.

She was in the hands of strangers and had no idea what came next.

Ridley Claremont III slowed to a stop and looked at the sign.

Chiuso.

It wasn’t much of a sign, but then it wasn’t much of a road—so that, at least, fit. The meaning was clear enough though—even if he didn’t know Italian.

Behind the knee-high steel tripod with its one-word sign, someone had dumped a load of boulders across the one lane of pavement. Cliff above, steep fields below, and not a single gap big enough to slide his Indian Chieftain Classic motorcycle through. Even if he did, the prospects weren’t good.

Closed.

The sign was weathered by more than a week or month. Several seasons’ detritus had gathered around the base of the boulders. Beyond must lay a washout that they’d fix…someday. When they got around to it. As if. This was Italy. He was no longer in France. Or Switzerland. Or Germany. Time moved very differently here and he still had no handle on it.

He wondered how many signs on his way here had warned him, in Italian, that this route was closed. On the map it had looked fine. The high coastal road wandering above the seaside cliffs had seemed like the route to follow rather than the autostrada. He was in no rush. The scenic route suited him just fine.

He’d picked it up at the French border and spent the last couple weeks following its wandering way south as it climbed up inland to Apricale and back down to Portofino. This time, not far past Monterosso (and the lovely Magdalena—a Polish housewife seeking an adventurous holiday—whom he’d been only too happy to accommodate) and Vernazza (with a harbor so lovely that he hadn’t minded exploring it alone), the coastal road had finally let him down.

To backtrack fifty or more kilometers inland across the winding hills to pick up the autostrada was more than he could face. At least for today. Maybe tomorrow too. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere he had to be…or anywhere to be at all, for that matter.

There had been another road just five or so twisting kilometers back. No bigger than this one, but he’d decided to give it a pass. It was just another tiny path down to another tiny cliff town he’d never heard of—Cornflakes? No, that couldn’t be right. He’d been able to see it down the coast and a thousand feet below, perched atop a cliff-wrapped prominence. Just like a hundred other scenic little Italian towns, clinging to the rocks for dear life. It wouldn’t be any different than the others he’d rolled through since entering the country.

He shrugged his shoulders inside his black leather. It had been too hot rolling slowly along the twisting road. Now, stopped in the sun and staring at the blasted chiuso sign, it was cooking him alive. He’d never liked the damned thing anyway, preferred his old denim jacket. But women could somehow tell that he was wearing a couple thousand bucks of Fendi and it seemed to work for them. Besides, it was one of the last gifts his mom had given him. Bibi had been the best mom in history. Four months wasn’t near long enough to accept her loss. He still turned to her without thinking, multiple times a day, but she was no longer there.

Resigned, he kicked the Indian Chieftain back to life and backtracked. It turned out to be only three kilometers but it was so slow and twisty that it felt like twenty. Twenty that he’d never intended to retrace. His goal had been to always keep moving forward until he’d seen what Europe had to offer. The place was no bigger than the continental US, shouldn’t take that long to catch the highlights. Maybe he’d hit Australia next, rolling the big bike across the vast Outback and see what the deal was.

“All part of the adventure, Ridley,” he told himself without much enthusiasm. That had been lacking lately. “Some grand adventure.” Barely three months on the bike and he’d already covered whole chunks of Europe. Nothing seemed to hold him for long—not even the women. Of course, they never had.

He stopped at the turn and looked back over his shoulder: no hint that the road was closed ahead. At least nothing that said chiuso or anything similar. Maybe you were supposed to just know. Yeah, that had worked just so well for him up to now. He “just knew” jack s**t!

Taking the turn, he rolled down the cliff road. It followed torturous switchbacks too tight to really unleash the bike’s 1800cc engine and have any fun. Napa Route 121 and 128. Now that was the place for a midnight ride on a big bike with a long-legged blonde just hanging onto him for dear life. Winding through the scrublands and vineyards, wrapped in the warm smell of dry grass and laurel, climbing over the ridge to run along the shores of Lake Berryessa. If he got lucky—and he was skilled at getting lucky—a little moonlit skinny-dipping and even closer contact with said long legs.