“Okay, I’m done,” she said, zipping up the bag. “By the way, where exactly are we going? It’s a pretty long way to Salerno, so I presume we’re going to stop somewhere en route.”

“Yeah, it’s just over 1100 kilometers, so…”

“Give me that in good, old-fashioned US miles.”

I laughed. “Seven hundred miles. I thought we’d stop at Genoa tonight—that’s just under 200 miles—take us about four hours.”

Or less, if she let me drive the speed I liked to go.

“How come you know all these distances off the top of your head?” she asked, as I stuffed a map of Italy into my jacket pocket.

“I’ve been planning to do this road trip for a while.” She seemed surprised. “You and I talked about it once, you remember? All the things we were going to do, all the places we were going to see? I just figured that as I was here, I’d go anyway. And … I remembered that you said your dad came from that village near Salerno. I thought I might find … I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted to see it.”

Shit, I was telling her too much too soon. I didn’t want to come over like I’d done nothing but obsess over her for the last ten years, even though that was pretty close to the truth.

She shook her head in disbelief, but at least she was smiling.

Outside, I loaded up the bike, packing everything away into the saddlebags.

“We could go straight to Genoa, using the Mont Blanc tunnel,” I suggested, “but I really like the idea of going up through the high pass. There’ll still be quite a bit of snow around—you up for that?”

I didn’t want to stress her out by saying that the mountain route was 100 percent hairpin turns.

She weighed the options, then said, “I vote for the route over the Alps.”

I picked her up, swinging her around, then kissed her firmly.

“God, you’re amazing, woman!”

“Wait, I should write that down,” she laughed, pretending to make a grab for her notebook.

“No way! You might use that against me in court. Do I have the right to an attorney?”

“Get on the damn bike, Sebastian, before I change my mind.”

I could definitely get used to the feel of her thighs against mine as she sat pillion on the bike.

Before we left Geneva, we had a quick breakfast of sweet rolls and coffee in a café overlooking the lake, then headed up into the mountains. Soon we were seeing heaps of snow at the sides of the road. Some were as high as six or seven feet: they’d been piled up by snowplows clearing the road. I was glad I’d insisted that Caro got some quality ski gloves to keep her hands warm. The woman argued too much.

A couple of miles later we really began to climb; the asphalt disappeared and we were riding on compressed snow. I dropped the speed as the hairpin turns began to take us up the mountain.

Caro lost her relaxed posture and tried to sit up straight when I leaned into the bends. She was throwing off the balance and making the bike wobble. I pulled to the side of the road and flipped up my visor.

“Baby, you’re going to tip us over if you do that, and I don’t know about you, but it looks like a helluva long way down to me.”

“What … what did I do?” she asked, nervously staring at the vertical drop.

“You’re trying to sit upright on the bike: don’t. You’ve got to lean into it or the balance goes for shit. Don’t try and do anything, just sit real tight and hang onto me.”

She swallowed several times as her eyes tracked down the sheer mountainside.

“Okay, good safety tip. Glad you mentioned it.”

Her hands gripped my waist even more tightly as I drove off slowly, keeping the speed low, the bike zigzagging up the mountain. The views were stunning and I decided to stop at the highest pass, allowing Caro to enjoy the scenery.

I cut the engine and turned around to smile at her.

“It’s really something, isn’t it?”

She clambered from the bike awkwardly and tugged off her helmet, shaking her hair free.

“Wow,” she breathed.

I couldn’t agree more—but I wasn’t looking at the view.

While she was staring down to Geneva spread out below us, the lake mirror-like in the sun, the valley of Z-bends that we’d just driven up, the sky too blue to be real, I was looking at her. I felt grateful to be here: this woman, this time, this place. Second chances didn’t come any better.

“Thank you for this, Sebastian,” she breathed. “Thank you for bringing me.”

Thank you for giving me another chance, Caro.

She leaned into my body and I wrapped my arms around her, taking the time to appreciate her soft lips. She deepened our kiss immediately, her tongue moving possessively into my mouth—and I loved it.

Oo-rah.

When she pulled away, her face was flushed, and I was wondering if it was too cold for outdoor sex at the top of a mountain pass in the snow.

She must have guessed what I was thinking, because she said, “Save it, Marine. We’ve got a long way to go yet.”

I stood back while she snapped some photographs, then helped her climb onto the Honda. Moving slowly until the roads cleared, we started the steep descent down through the Alps to Italy. It was strange that I felt such a connection to a country I’d never been to before. Caro’s father was born near Salerno and I wanted to see his village. He’d been the only real parental figure I’d ever met until I was 14 and Ches’s family moved to San Diego. He’d been the one to start teaching me Italian, and it was from him I’d learned what a father should be. Taking this journey with Caro was the past crashing into the present. I wasn’t used to feeling so much.

A short while later, I pointed at a sign that read ‘Italia’, and then we were showing our passports to a border guard who was eyeing Caro with appreciation. Not that she noticed—she never did.

We were 20 Km from Genoa when the ocean came into view. It was a deep dark blue, calm with no waves, and white colonial-style villas followed the tree-line upward.

I took the shore road, passing dozens of concrete docks filled with yachts and expensive motor-cruisers as well as huge cargo vessels. Nothing military that I could see.

We drove through the city center, cruising past buildings that were hundreds of years old and what looked like a real castle on the top of the hill.

I stopped briefly to check the map. “Not far now,” I told Caro.

She gave me a quick thumbs up, and I headed up the mountain. Our route took us off the main drag, and we bumped up a steep and stony road. A sign next to a small, whitewashed villa welcomed us to ‘Casa Giovina’.

I pulled up, but let the engine idle.

“This is it. It only has one guest room, but it’s out of season … want to try it?”

When I’d planned this trip, I hadn’t expected to have company. The places I’d chosen to stay might be a bit basic for Caro’s taste. She was used to upscale hotels on her newspaper’s budget; she might not like my choices. I didn’t need the reminder that I didn’t know her so well anymore.

But then she smiled and I felt the tension ease from my shoulders.

“It looks charming. Let’s go see, but if the owners have a pretty daughter, we’re out of here.”

Was that a joke?

An old woman dressed in black opened the door.

“Posso aiutarvi?”

“I hope you can help us,” Caro replied, in Italian. “We were wondering if you had a room for the night?”

It was a good thing that I’d let Caro do the talking, because the old lady was eyeing me like she was afraid I was going to burglarize the place. I was pretty certain she wouldn’t have let me across the threshold if I’d been by myself.

“Are you married?” the old woman asked, folding her arms across a pair of enormous tits. I was afraid to look at them—I couldn’t help thinking that if they weren’t covered up, they’d be hanging by her ankles. I shuddered at the thought.

Caro was stuttering out a surprised answer when a man in his fifties hurried down the corridor.