Until today he would have sworn that she had an unlimited capacity to forgive, but he was no longer so certain. He studied her as she danced. There was something different about her tonight that went well beyond the chopped hair, the dress, even her anger. Something…
His eyes settled on her bare wrist, and the panic he’d been trying to hold off hit him like a sucker punch. Her bangle was missing. His mouth went dry as all the changes she’d made in herself suddenly fell into place.
Isabel had forgotten to breathe.
Isabel’s hands curled into fists, and she couldn’t draw enough air into her lungs. She pulled away from Andrea and stumbled through the dancers to the edge of the loggia. All around her, faces shone with happiness, but instead of calming her, their joy became gasoline to her anger.
The children raced past in a rowdy, noisy group. Andrea was heading toward her to see what was wrong. She turned away from him and stumbled into the garden. A shutter had come loose in the wind, and it banged against the side of the house.
Her anger consumed her, no longer directed just at Ren but at herself. Her orange dress burned like acid against her skin. She wanted to tear it off, to grow her hair smooth again, to scrub the makeup from her face. She wanted her calmness back, her control, her certainty about the order of life-everything that had been snatched away from her three nights ago when she’d read those letters and prayed by the fire.
The canopy snapped like a sail in a storm. The children shrieked, boys against girls, racing too close to the posts. They darted past the table where the statue stood. She stared at it, a solitary female figure holding the power of life.
EMBRACE…
The word hit her like an assault, no longer the quiet whisper from her prayers by the fire that night, the whisper she hadn’t quite been able to hear. This was a shout.
EMBRACE…
She gazed at the statue. She didn’t want to embrace. She wanted to destroy. Her old life. Her old self. But she was too afraid of what lay on the other side.
Ren started to come toward her from across the garden, concern etched on his face. The racing boys catcalled; the girls squealed. Isabel made her way across the path toward the statue.
EMBRACE…
There was more. She knew it. The voice had more to tell her.
EMBRACE THE…
Anna cried out, ordering the swarming children to stay away from the canopy. But her warning came too late. The boy in the lead stumbled and crashed into the corner post.
EMBRACE THE…
“Isabel, watch out!” Ren shouted.
The canopy wobbled.
“Isabel!”
The voice roared in her head, and joy surged through her.
EMBRACE THE CHAOS!
She grabbed the statue from beneath the falling canopy and ran.
24
Isabel’s orderly world had split open, and she rushed into the heart of it. The voice snapped at her heels, rang in her head. Embrace the chaos!
She raced around the side of the house, the glorious statue clutched to her chest. She wanted to fly, but she had no wings, no plane, not even her Panda. All she had was…
Ren’s Maserati.
She ran toward it. The top was down, and on this day of chaos she saw keys dangling from the ignition where Giancarlo had left them. She skidded to a stop next to it, kissed the statue, tossed it into the passenger’s seat. Then she lifted her skirt and climbed over the door.
The powerful engine roared to life as she twisted the key in the ignition.
“Isabel!”
Cars blocked her on three sides. She wrenched the wheel, stepped on the accelerator, and shot across the lawn.
“Isabel!”
If this had been one of his films, Ren could have swung up onto a balcony, then dropped into the car as she drove beneath. But this was real life, and she had all the power.
She kept the car on the grass, racing between the rows of shrubbery toward the road. Branches lashed the sides, and turf flew. A limb took off the outside mirror as she shot between the cypresses to reach the drive. The tires spit gravel. She shifted gears, and the Maserati fishtailed as she turned out onto the road, leaving them all behind on her way to the mountaintop.
EMBRACE THE CHAOS. The wind tore at her hair. She glanced over at the statue next to her and laughed.
A wooden sign splintered against her fender as she took the first turn. On her next she destroyed an abandoned henhouse. The dark clouds swirled lower in the sky. She remembered the way to the castle ruins from the day she and Ren had driven there to spy, but she overshot the road she was looking for and had to make a U-turn through someone’s vineyard. When she found the right road, the deep ruts jarred the car. She pushed hard as she climbed. For a while the Maserati lurched along, then bottomed out just before she reached the top. She turned off the engine, grabbed the statue, and jumped out.
As she hit the trail, her sandals slipped on the stones. The wind blew stronger at the higher elevation, but the trees protected her from the worst of it. She gripped the statue tighter and kept climbing.
When she reached the end of the trail, she stepped out into the clearing. A gust caught her, and she stumbled but didn’t fall. Ahead of her the ruins loomed against the stormy sky, and the dark clouds swirled so close overhead she wanted to sink her fingers into them.
She bent into the wind and made her way through the crumbling archways and fallen watchtowers to the wall at the very edge. She clutched the stones with one hand, the statue with the other, and climbed on top. Fighting the gusts, she rose to her feet.
A sense of ecstasy gripped her. Wind ripped at her skirt, clouds boiled above her, the world lay at her feet below. Finally she understood what had escaped her before. She had never thought too small. No, she had thought too big and lost sight of everything she wanted her life to be about. Now she knew what she had to do.
With her face turned to the sky, she surrendered to the mystery of life. The mess, the uproar, the glorious turmoil. Bracing her feet, she lifted the statue high above her head and offered herself to the gods of chaos.
The confusion after the canopy’s collapse had slowed Ren down, and Isabel was already climbing into his Maserati by the time he reached the front of the villa. Bernardo had been on his heels, but since he wasn’t on duty, he was driving his own Renault instead of the town’s police car. They threw themselves inside and set off after her.
It hadn’t taken Ren long to figure out where she was heading, but the Renault was no match for his Maserati. When they finally reached the base of the trail, he was in a cold sweat.
He managed to convince Bernardo to stay with the cars and went after her himself, racing from the mouth of the trail out into the castle’s ruins. The hair rose on the back of his neck as he saw her in the distance. She stood on top of the crumbling wall, silhouetted against a sea of furious clouds. The wind battered her body, and the jagged hem of her dress flew around her like orange flames. Her face was turned to the heavens, and she had both arms raised, the statue held aloft in one hand.
In the distance a bolt of lightning split the sky, but from where he was standing it seemed to come from her fingertips. She was a female Moses receiving God’s second set of Commandments.
He could no longer remember a single one of his well-reasoned arguments for walking away from her. She was a gift-a gift he nearly hadn’t found the guts to claim. Now, as he watched her standing fearless against the elements, her power stole his breath. Cutting her out of his life would be like surrendering his soul. She was everything to him-his friend, his lover, his conscience, his passion. She was the answer to all the prayers he’d never had enough sense to pray. And if he wasn’t as perfect for her as he wanted to be, she’d just have to work harder to improve him.