The Tender Vine (Diamond of the Rockies #3)(105)

“I’ll tell her.”

Flavio led his horse to the railed octagonal gazebo and tethered him to graze on the spring grasses shooting up around it. He climbed the three steps and circled the open wooden structure. Each side opened on beauty.

Flavio appreciated his father’s open pastures dotted with cattle and sheep. But he loved Dottore DiGratia’s groomed vineyards and fields, his gardens and orchards, the orange trees heavy with fruit all year. He wanted a stock in this farm as Nicolo had. But if that were all he wanted, he could have had Nicolo’s share.

He took the mandolin from his back and stroked the strings, then hummed a cantilena, adding his own words as he saw Carina approaching. Her face was shadowed, and it broke his heart to see it. The song took a melancholy tone as she climbed the stairs. “Tesora bella, my heart must sing in your presence. . . .”

She frowned. “Tony said you wanted to talk to me.”

His fingers lightened on the strings. How many times they had sat together in this very place as the evening stars came out and his hand made a sweet melody. “I remember your face in the star~light, the curve of your lips when you smiled. . . .”

“Stop it, Flavio. What do you want?”

He stopped strumming, caught her hand, and drew her to him. “You know what I want. Carina mia, t’amo. Ti voglio bene.” Yes, he loved her. She must know it, must hear it in his voice, his fingertips. Only her love would heal him, take away the pressure that would destroy him. He felt her shaking. She would see; she would relent. She would love him again.

She looked up into his face, but with pity. It was like a knife severing his thin restraint. “I’m sorry, Flavio. I truly am.”

The last threads that held him together snapped. “No!” He yanked the mandolin from his body and smashed it into the post, splintering wood and mother of pearl in a strident wail.

She cried out and gripped her hands together. “Please.”

But he spun and slapped her across the face. Then, hand stinging, he leaped over the stairs and yanked the stallion’s reins free. He threw himself onto its back, numb to Carina’s crying, calling out to him. She was sorry? Not so sorry as she would be. No, not so sorry yet.

He kicked the horse, driving him through the softened fields and vineyards of his neighbors to the empty hills beyond. Insult spurred him like a brand in his flesh. He had put it all into place. Hoping he would not need to follow through, he had nonetheless prepared. Giocco should have done his part; yes, certainly he would have done his part, for Flavio had paid him well. He rode harder now, the horse laboring beneath him. Flavio felt the animal’s strain as fierce as his own, but he kept kicking the flanks, eating up the ground that stood between him and his purpose. He reached the quarry but circled around, coming to it from the top of the hill behind.

Only a few men were beginning their work below. But he knew Quillan Shepard would be among them. Giocco had told him the man came early and stayed late. Flavio dismounted and searched for the bundle Giocco promised to leave for him, under the rock that looks like the Virgin. Flavio saw the tapering formation and searched its feet. Yes, there it was, a bundle in oilcloth.

Carefully he lifted and unwrapped it. A stick of dynamite. He balanced it in his hands, its fuse trailing over his fingers. He’d never held destruction before. His hands were made to create. But no longer. Nothing but the destruction of that man could satisfy him now.

And so he waited, lying at the top of the hill until he saw Quillan Shepard making his solitary climb up, his wagon pulled by two caramel-colored Clydesdale horses, a chestnut, and a black. Fine animals, a good strong wagon, clattering more with an empty bed than it would full of stone. And the driver, Carina’s lover, her husband, sitting atop it like a king.

Flavio’s heart pumped thunderously. Could he actually do it? And how? Quillan must be on the wagon, not have time to leap free and run. It must look like an accident, like a mischarge of his own explosives. He must have some with him to dislodge the face near the top where Giocco said he worked.

Flavio looked down at the single stick. He had asked for a bundle, but Giocco refused. Only small charges were set, he told him, to loosen the stone, not blow it to smithereens. No one would believe an accident of gross proportions. It was safer for him that way, too.

Flavio watched the wagon draw nearer. It must look like an accident, but he wanted Quillan Shepard to know, wanted him to see whose hand it was that threw the stick. He took out his knife and cut the fuse shorter. He only needed a moment to show himself, throw it, then dive for cover.

He’d chosen his spot well, thanks to Giocco’s direction. Quillan brought the wagon within twenty feet, then reigned in. As Quillan raised his foot to set the break, Flavio lit the fuse. He stood up, and Quillan saw him, made an instinctive motion of his hand to his hip, then gripped the edge of the wagon to jump down.

With bocce accuracy, Flavio hurled the flaming stick of dynamite. It landed underneath the wagon bed at the moment it exploded. The wagon jumped into the air, tearing the horses from their feet and hurling Quillan Shepard to the ground. He screamed when the wagon crashed down on him.

A second explosion sounded, Quillan’s own charges detonated by the first, and flame burst over the grasses. The horses thrashed in panic, trying to free themselves from the wreckage of the wagon, but they were tangled in the traces and couldn’t stand. Trapped beneath the wagon, Quillan writhed. Flavio stood transfixed, terrified. He wanted to flee, but he couldn’t.