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'Have you always liked cooking?'

'It's something I've come to enjoy more and more in recent years,' he confided, starting to chop fresh tomatoes and local, seasonal porcini mushrooms.

Gina noted the intermittent trouble he had with the function of his right hand, his chopping action awkward. She wanted to ask him more about his injury, wanted to offer to help with
the chores, but she refrained
from commenting,
knowing that he wouldn't talk about it and would resent her fussing. The grimace on his face as he wielded the knife attested to his own annoyance and impatience with his limitations. So she remained silent, allowing him to concentrate on his task while her own thoughts turned to the events of the day.

She had no idea how they had crammed so much into a few hours. But they had covered a great deal of ground, and she was exhausted but happy—especially since finding her grandmother in such good form. Sightseeing with Seb had been a wonderful experience. He had been a patient and knowledgeable companion, and being with him had made the day so much more special—particularly given all the kissing and hand-holding and touching. A flush warmed her cheeks as she remembered those stolen moments on the cableway, and how incredible it had felt to have him caress her.

What had begun as basic attraction and physical desire had turned into so much more. The more time she spent with Seb, the more she cared about him. He was warm and funny,
intelligent, and unfailingly kind. He mixed exquisite gentleness with intense passion. She felt comfortable with him—could talk to him, share with him as deeply, if not more, as she did with her close friends. She could explain her feelings and concerns in a way she couldn't with her grandmother for fear of worrying her. Seb made her feel like a real woman again, desired and feminine, and being romanced by such a stunning and sexy man was incredibly exciting. That he was so understanding and good to her grandmother made him more irresistible.

Seb slid a plate in front of her, adding cutlery and a glass of chilled spring water, his warm smile sparking a new tingle of awareness inside her.

'Thank you for this,' she said as he served her a generous portion of pasta and an aromatic sauce topped with freshly grated Parmesan cheese. 'Mmm—it looks wonderful.'

'Tell me more about your new job,' he requested as he sat opposite her.

'With all the new investment in our area, the local council and health authority are taking advantage of private and charitable donations and opening a new drop-in centre,' she began, pausing to take a sip of her water. 'The plan is to provide a wide range of health and social care, bringing services, advice, support and information together under one roof for those who have difficulty coping or accessing mainline health facilities.'

With an impatient sigh, Seb switched his fork from his uncooperative right hand to his left and resumed attempts to twirl his spaghetti around it. 'Who has difficulty getting health care from the hospital or local doctors, and why?'

'You'd be surprised how many people can't or won't use the services provided—and for a whole variety of reasons: fear, suspicion, lack of knowledge. The centre is designed to help the homeless, migrants and refugees, people with drink and drug addictions, those with HIV/AIDS.'

'What does the centre offer?' Seb queried.

Encouraged by his interest, her enthusiasm for what they were trying to do in Strathlochan bubbled through. 'We have clinics for minor injuries, wound care and dressing changes, vaccinations, TB screening, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases. We offer clean needles, also drugs, alcohol and AIDS awareness, and dentistry for those having difficulty accessing NHS dental care. Counselling, chiropody—all kinds of health and social advice... Whatever problems are presented by those who come to us we try to tackle—medical and social. There is a small hostel attached with washing facilities and short-term beds. And we also have a mentoring scheme, where one-on-one help is offered to those making an effort to get off the streets, off drugs, off alcohol and into work and a safe place to live.'

'It sounds excellent,' Seb praised, genuine admiration in his voice.

'I think it's a worthwhile project,' she admitted, looking up to find him studying her intently. 'I want to feel I am helping to make a difference, even in a small way.'

'You are doing a good thing—an important thing.'

'Thank you.'

She followed his lead and continued with her meal, puzzled by the unidentified edge that had been in his voice, the look of sadness and regret that had briefly crossed his expression before he had masked it.

'What about staffing?' he asked after a moment.

'The regular team consists of Dr Thornton Gallagher, who is the clinical director in charge of the centre, a specialist psychologist, a counsellor, and two other nurses besides myself,' she told him, savouring the last bites of the delicious meal. 'For the time being we don't have the funds to employ full-time doctors or a dentist on staff, so we rely on the goodwill of numerous doctors and other local healthcare professionals from the hospital and surrounding GP and dental practices. Everyone has joined forces to back the project, and they volunteer their time to run our clinics. If the centre is a success, we hope funds will be available to expand the full-time medical team.'

Listening to Gina speak with such passion about her work gave Seb even more to think about in terms of his own situation. When had he last felt that real fire in his belly, or had the satisfaction of knowing he was helping people who really needed him? In recent years that genuine fulfilment had only come with his
pro bono
patients. As much as he loved surgery, he had lost his enjoyment and gained little professional or personal gratification from vanity work. Gina, with her honesty and dedication, stripped it all down to the basics, to the things that really mattered most. Need and care. It made him ashamed of the way he had wasted his talents. Perhaps he had deserved to lose them.

His physical scars were fading, and daily exercise was helping his injuries to heal, although he still experienced reduced function plus some numbness and discomfort. He probably always would. But the mental scars at losing his surgical career were harder to come to terms with. What was he going to do with the rest of his life? Was he going to stay in medicine? If not, what else
could
he do? These were the questions he had escaped Florence to answer. Alone on Elba, away from press intrusion, and the understandable but smothering concern of Zio Roberto and Zia Sofia, he had sought privacy to face his future and make decisions.

Maybe things were not as hopeless as he had feared. True, he couldn't operate again, and the knowledge still grieved him. He'd worked so hard and for so long to prove himself that it felt like failure to give in. But meeting Gina, hearing her speak with such passion about her work, posed new questions, and made him look at things in a different way. There were other areas of medicine open to him—other things he could do to make a difference. He could still help people, still heal them. Rico would give him a post at his clinic any time he asked, but that line of work was not for him. What he had to do was find a new niche for himself...and Gina was helping point him in a new and more promising direction.

'How do you feel about people who live on the street?' he found himself asking, playing devil's advocate, shocking himself that he was stepping out on a limb, touching on something he never discussed. 'Many would say that those with the kinds of problems you've mentioned are beyond help, or are taking funds away from others.'

'Well, they'd be wrong. People end up in those circumstances for all kinds of reasons, and they deserve our care and attention the same as anyone else,' Gina riposted, her dark eyes full of sincerity and fire as she met his gaze. Pushing aside her empty plate, she leaned her forearms on the counter. 'It can really narrow your world—make you feel you have nowhere to turn, no choices, no one who is interested in you. We're all one bad break away from needing help and understanding, and everyone is entitled to the care we can offer them.'

'That's true.' He hesitated, wondering whether to take this further, and then Gina herself continued, surprising him anew.

'Both my father and grandfather were made redundant from the shipyards during a time of recession. The industry was being run down. Life was hard. We lost our home, and Mum, Dad and I had to go and live with Nonno Matthew and Nonna Maria. No one had any money. I was ten, but I remember the worry, the adults' constant search for work, the struggle for food, clothes and basics, the feeling of exclusion.'

Seb's heart turned over as she drew in a shaky breath and ducked her head. He took one hand in his, linking their fingers, moved by her story. How stupid of him that he had never once asked about her parents. He had been so focused on Maria—sidetracked by Gina's devoted care of her grandparents—that he had never thought to look more deeply into her motivations, her childhood, her mother and father.

'Gina…’

'Word came of possible jobs on Tyneside, in the yards there. My parents went there but things didn't, work out. They were returning to Glasgow when they were killed in a train crash.'

'I am sorry,
tesoro.'

She shook her head, her voice soft and sad, and his gut tightened. 'It was a long time ago.'

'So your grandparents raised you from the age of ten?'

'Yes. They took me in, cared for me, loved me, were always there for me,' she explained, a sheen of moisture shimmering in her eyes.

No wonder she felt so close to them, needed so badly to feel she was giving back. 'You're amazing.'

'No, I'm not. I told you because it shows that things can happen to anyone—we have no right to judge, to condemn. We don't know what it is like to walk in another person's shoes.'

'I spent a few years living on the streets.'

Seb didn't know why he was telling her. He certainly didn't want pity. Maybe he was testing her convictions, seeing how she would react—if she treated him differently, knowing of his past. He was used to people latching onto him because of who he was now—people who would despise him if they knew what his life had been like back then. Thankfully the reporters who had dug into his background had never discovered the full circumstances of his upbringing. Zio Roberto and Zia Sofia had surrounded him with their protection as well as their love.

He felt Gina's fingers tighten on his and he looked into her eyes. There was concern, understanding, sorrow...but no pity.

'What happened, Seb?'

Affected by the genuine interest in her softly voiced question, he found himself responding, telling her about his mother and those crazy years—things he had never told another living soul. Except Rico. But even his cousin didn't know all of it.

'My father died when I was young—an aortic aneurysm. Knowing his family disapproved of her and their marriage, thinking they would take me from her, my mother ran away with me the same night.' He paused a moment, closing his eyes as he recalled that confused flight from all that had been familiar. Swallowing, unable to look at Gina, he pressed on. 'My mother was unbalanced. Paranoid. Depressed. She drank too much. Took drags. We lived hand to mouth and she dragged me around after her, moving from place to place.. .selling herself to buy us food and her next fix.'

'Oh, Seb.'

Gina's words were a mere whisper, but he nearly choked up at the depth of feeling they contained. He didn't stop her when she slid off her stool. Instead, he turned on his as she came around the counter and stepped up to him, hugging him tight. Burying his face in her hair, he breathed in her intoxicating scent, lingering a moment to absorb the comfort.

'Where did you go? How did you live?' she asked after a few moments.

'She'd shack up with a man for a while—usually someone who was dealing drugs and could get her what she needed. Mostly they tolerated having me around—sometimes not. Now and again we'd stay longer in one place, then things would go wrong and we'd move on again. One day, about three years after we had left home...' He hesitated as the events of that morning came back to him, as crystal-clear as if it had happened yesterday and not twenty-two years ago. 'She had one drink too many—one drug too many. I woke up and found her dead on the floor of the abandoned house we were squatting in.'

Gina's arms tightened around him, her cheek pressed to his so he felt the dampness of her tears. 'Oh, God. How old were you? What did you do?'

'I was eleven. And I was scared, alone. I didn't know anyone—didn't know where I was or what to do. So I ran. I knew how to survive on the streets, how to take care of myself, where to find restaurants who'd let me do some dirty jobs in return for leftover food or an outhouse to stay in overnight. I knew which market stalls wouldn't miss a few pieces of fruit, which bakeries threw out bread, where to go to scavenge discarded pizzas to fill my stomach.'

'No one helped you?'

He shook his head, touched that she sounded so scandalised on his behalf—like a fierce lioness about to go into battle to protect her cub. 'I didn't want help...I didn't trust anyone. But, unlike many street kids, I kept away from gangs and drugs. I spent hours in libraries devouring books, sneaking around museums, using their rest rooms, keeping warm and dry on bad days, using my brain,'

'And in the end?' Gina drew back a few inches, and he saw the residue of her tears spiking long sooty lashes. The fingers of one hand stroked along his jaw, firing his blood. 'How did you get out of that?'

'I got sick. Food poisoning. A priest found me on the street, barely conscious, and took me to a clinic run by the nuns. All I could tell them was my name.' Shaking his head, he took both Gina's hands in his and pressed a kiss to each palm in turn, feeling a quiver run through her. 'Unknown to me, my father's sister and her husband had never given up searching for me, and they had circulated my name and photograph. A nun recognised me and called them. Zio Roberto and Zia Sofia came to fetch me, and took me to their home to live with them and their son, Riccardo, who was my age. I was wild, scared, aloof, but they didn't give up,' he told her with a smile, recalling the endless patience, firmness and love that had finally turned him around.