Dreaming of Love (26 page)

“No. She hates it.”

“And yet she knows it’s part of who he is and loves him and supports his riskiness. And Rebecca knows Pierce will always try to do everything for her, and when he’s able to control that protective nature, it’s done with so much restraint that he practically has smoke coming out of his ears.”

She smiled at the thought of her eldest brother reining in his protective nature. “So, you’re saying that I need to decide if I can love Dae no matter what he decides about this house or any other property?”

“Yes. One day he might implode a building that you feel is an architectural masterpiece. Then what?” Her mother pushed her even further than she’d dare push herself.

Emily pressed her lips into a thin line, fighting against the discomfort of the truth in her mother’s words.

“I guess I need to be okay with whatever decision he makes, now or in the future, and I have to trust that his decisions are made with the best intentions.” Emily groaned. “I’m being selfish, Mom, and I know that. I mean, I know all of this on some level, but I haven’t wanted to see it or think about it.”

“I know you do, honey.”

“Yeah.” Emily laughed a little. “Only you would push me up against a brick wall until I opened my eyes. Thanks, Mom, and I don’t mean that as sarcastically as it sounds.”

“I know.” Her smile was evident in her voice. “It’s only fair to you and him if you deal with this now. I’m not going to give you a lecture about the differences between men and women. You’ve lived through it with your brothers. But you see what the house represents on an esoteric level, and he’s a man. Chances are, he sees the tangible structure, the house and the property.”

“Yeah, I know that. But honestly, he’s so thoughtful that I can’t imagine he doesn’t see what the house means to the community. He might choose not to think about it, but I’m sure he sees it.”

“I guess with you as a girlfriend he has to, because you’re not very good at keeping your opinions to yourself.”

She heard her mother’s smile in her voice. “I wonder where I get that from.”

They both laughed, and Emily felt a little better.

“Here’s the thing, Mom. I think I know all those things, but it doesn’t lessen the hurt I feel every time I think about that house coming down.” She thought about their
preserve or demolish
lists and wondered what his said.

“I know, honey. And unfortunately, that’s how you’re wired. It’s in your makeup to be emotional. When you love, you love with your whole heart and your whole being. And whether the focus of your love is tangible or intangible, anything that hinders whatever it is you’re focused on feels like a betrayal.”

“Like Coco.” Coco was the stuffed bear Emily’d had since she was a little girl. When she was young, her brothers would hide Coco in the closet to tease her, and Emily would cry because she believed that since she hated being alone in the dark, Coco would, too. It didn’t matter that Coco was a stuffed bear. To six-year-old Emily, Coco was very, very real. Emily still got a pang of sadness every time she thought about Coco being locked in a dark closet. Gosh, could she still be like that?

“Yes, like Coco. It’s a house, Em.” Her mother laughed, and then her voice became serious. “Myths and traditions survive within us. It’s what they mean to us that carries them forward. A house is just a structure, something to focus on while the other stuff is taking place. Honey, the thing you need to figure out is if you love Dae no matter what. If you trust him to make smart decisions that are right for him, even if they’re different from the decisions you might want him to make.”

Emily sighed. She knew all of this; she really did. It was just piecing it into making a decision that was hard. She couldn’t even begin to think she’d walk away from the relationship. She just needed to figure out what was going on in her own head. Talking to her mother helped. It always helped.

“Every time I think of him, I
feel
him, you know? Like he’s right here with me. He does this thing where he says,
Hand or arm
. It’s stupid, but it’s so him. It’s like he doesn’t have to think about
if
I’ll let him hold my hand or put his arm around me; it’s just a matter of which one I choose. He knew we were right for each other from the moment we set eyes on each other, and here I am being a doofus.”

“A sweet, lovable doofus, at least.”

“Thanks.” She rolled her eyes.

“Emily, let me ask you something. I heard through the grapevine that Mr. Mangione talked to you about designing the private school he’s going to build in Allure. If Dae asked you not to build it as a passive building, would you listen to him and build by conventional standards? Or for that matter, would you turn down the job altogether?”

“This is different.”

“Is it?”

She plunked back down beside her purse and journal and exhaled loudly.

“Oh, Em. The heart isn’t a rational organ. Nothing ever seems to make sense when you’re in love. But I have faith in you. You’re a smart woman with a heart bigger than the state of Colorado. You’ll figure this out.”

“Thanks for believing in me, Mom. Right now I don’t feel very smart at all.”

“That’s what love does to you. It takes you as high as the clouds, and then suddenly you’re freefalling toward the ground at breakneck speed. If you’re lucky, you figure it all out before you crash and drift comfortably until the next crisis. Or until the next exciting thing happens. Either way, one thing’s for sure, and you’re not going to want to hear it.”

“It can’t be worse than half the things I’ve thought of myself lately, so go ahead; give it to me straight.”

“I always do, sweetheart. If it’s true love, he won’t need to change a thing about himself or what he believes in. And neither will you.”

ON HER WAY back to the resort, Emily stopped at the sunflower field she and Dae had visited on their way to Chianti. With the photo of herself in hand, she tried to figure out exactly where they’d been when Dae had taken the picture. She looked out over the sea of yellow petals reaching for the sun and sighed. How on earth was she going to do this?

This is impossible
.

Dae’s voice floated into her mind.
When you love someone, anything is possible.

She held the photograph out in front of her, scrutinizing the flowers and her profile. She didn’t feel like the relaxed, happy person in the picture. She felt like her nerves were pinched, and after her mother’s advice, even her stomach felt like it was being squeezed too tight. Was it really true? Did true love mean neither of them should change? At all? What about compromising?

Maybe she should make an offer and buy the damn house. Take the issue out of the way.

Temporarily.

What about the next house?

Her arms dropped limply to her sides as she wandered along the edge of the sunflower field. She was never going to find the place this picture was taken. She needed clues.

Why would he ask her to do this?

She looked at the picture again.
What was I looking at?

Memories slid in, soft and welcome. The face she’d made when he first took their picture. His laugh when he said it was a
keeper
.

The tree. Standing sentinel
. “That’s it.”

She looked past the sunflowers to the ridge behind, scanning left, then right, and finally landing on the tallest tree. She inspected the picture again, then sprinted down the edge of the field until she was sure she was close to where she was when he’d taken the picture.

She looked out into the field. What did he want her to see? She walked a little farther, searching the beautiful blooms. Their dark centers were like eyes watching her. Like they were expecting her to see something, too. Her heartbeat quickened.

“Give me a hint, Dae. Is it something about the tree?”

She dropped her eyes to the thick sunflower stems, racking her mind about that afternoon. Had he said something that she’d forgotten? She looked out at the road, then back at the field, and finally scanned the ground in one last frustrating attempt to decipher why he wanted her to go there. Her eyes caught on a flash of red. Anticipation tingled her limbs as a small bouquet of poppies came into focus. It was pushed back between the spiny stems of the sunflowers and tied with a white ribbon. She reached in to retrieve it and realized the bouquet was set on top of the two memo pads they’d used to write down their
preserve or demolish
lists.

Holy crap
.
What if I hadn’t found them?

He had faith she would.

Of course he did
.

As she lifted the package from the ground, she noticed the tiny white flowers layering the ground and remembered Dae asking her to look down when they were there the first time.

“You’re a tricky creature, Dae Bray.”

She walked back toward her car and read what he’d scrawled on the cover of one of the pads.

Read these while you’re sitting where we shared our first bottle of wine. I’ll be thinking of you. Love, Your sure thing

Emily stopped walking and clutched the memo pads to her chest, fighting the urge to read them right that second. She closed her eyes and thought of Dae, and when she opened her eyes again, she looked back over the sunflower field. This time it wasn’t the giant yellow flowers that she noticed. It was the gentle breeze whispering over her arms, the near-silent shiver of the leaves rustling against one another, and the way Dae felt very present, even though he was thousands of miles away.

DAE SPENT FRIDAY morning watching the demolition videos on his YouTube channel. He’d begun posting the videos years ago. He liked to show them to his friends and his brothers and sisters. Hell, he liked to revisit the work he did and relive the thrill of the explosions, the perfection of the tumbling of stone and steel into one beautiful mess.

Around the time he’d decided that flings were no longer an option for him, he’d stopped watching the videos. The thrill of the job had come less from the actual blast and more from the ability to be the best and safest damn demolitionist around. Watching his younger self, arms flung high in the air, eyes wide and excited while a building imploded behind him, he thought about how much he’d changed over the years. He’d never been particularly reckless, but he had never been what he’d consider a candidate for a settled lifestyle, either. He might have nixed having flings and stuck to dating a handful of women for a few months here and there, but he’d never felt one-one-hundredth for any of them as he felt for Emily in the course of a few short days. As if on cue, his phone vibrated and Emily’s smiling face appeared on the screen. He opened the message and another picture of her popped up. She was holding one of the memo pads he’d left for her in the sunflower field. The accompanying text read,
Sneaky, sneaky, Mr. Bray. Can’t wait to read them. Counting down hours until we Skype. Xox.

He smiled to himself, glad that she’d found the memo pads. He was prepared for the meeting with Frank as far as data was concerned. It was a pretty straightforward job, and in a few short hours he’d look Frank in the eyes and tell him just that. Emotionally, however, he was nowhere near prepared to make the decision on whether he was going to tear down the House of Wishes or not. He’d forced himself to begin thinking of the property by its name. He could no longer separate the myth, and the community’s reliance upon it, from the structure he had been hired to destroy.

Hanging in the balance between his decision and a life with Emily felt like torture. His career was vital to the growth of businesses, areas, even communities, and he was damn good at what he did. He wasn’t a hack who tore buildings down for the hell of it or did it haphazardly. He was an expert. A leader in the field, just as Emily was a leader in the passive-house movement. He didn’t feel as though his and Emily’s ideals were that far apart, but after hearing the hesitation in her voice last night, he had to wonder if she would ever be able to see past the destruction of property to the beauty and the value in what he did.

EMILY STOOD ON the back patio of the resort, holding Luca on her hip while Serafina went inside to get his favorite blanket. She and Marcello were going to take a walk with Luca, and Emily planned on reading through the lists she and Dae had created. She’d stopped at the House of Wishes on the way back to the villa, and she was surprised to see the driveway once again full of cars. There were no tables set up, no meals being shared, but the sense of community and camaraderie remained. Women greeted her warmly. Some she recognized from the other evening; others she hadn’t seen before. Women gazed up at the back of the house and the glorious olive tree, and once again, the trail of stories of past wishes ran thick.

The trunk was now decorated with fresh pieces of paper and fabric, spilling out of every crevice in the rough bark. Emily wondered if previous owners had minded women coming from all over, at all hours, and leaving their hopes and dreams in the trunk of the tree.

Before leaving the property, she’d made another wish. A selfish one.

She wished she could understand how to handle the conflicting feelings coursing through her. Now, standing with Luca on her hip, his pudgy little hand in hers, his thick mop of dark hair standing on end, she had another unfamiliar sensation to contend with. A tug at her heart and something else deep inside her. Luca touched her lips, and she instinctively puckered, kissing his little fingers. She sank down into one of the chairs and turned him on her lap, gazing into his dark eyes. It had been ages since she’d held a baby. Her cousin Treat and his wife, Max, had a little girl, Adriana, and she smothered that little cutie with love every time she saw her, but she’d never experienced the desire to have her own children as strongly as she was feeling at that very second. She imagined her babies with Dae’s eyes, his silky hair, and his full lips. She even dared to imagine Dae carrying a baby—their baby—in his strong arms, watching everyone who came near, protecting their child.