Farrah Rochon - Hot Christmas Nights - Tuscan Nights / Christmas Tango / Tied Up in Tinsel

Aiden didn’t doubt it, but he already had his Christmas miracle. Having her there with him was the only miracle he needed.

* * *

“Are you sure you didn’t want to stay for the concert?” Aiden asked. He strolled alongside her, his hands stuffed in his pockets. They delivered the baked goods to the church, which was already filling up with both tourists and locals eager for the annual concert to begin, then took off for their walking tour of San Gimignano.

“Positive,” Nyla said. “Don’t get me wrong, I find watching a bunch of cute kids sing Christmas carols precious and all, but after about twenty minutes of standing in the cold my feet go numb. Besides, I want you to see the town.”

The snow had finally stopped falling as they traversed Via San Matteo, one of the town’s main arteries, but flakes continued to shuttle down the eaves of the shop roofs that lined the popular tourist route.

Nyla pointed to the structure at the southern edge of the narrow street. “You see that stone tower up ahead? That’s La Torre del Diavolo, the Tower of the Devil.”

“Huh, didn’t realize I’d get to see where the devil lives. I guess that’s cool, though not what I had in mind when planning my Christmas vacation.”

Nyla laughed. “Legend has it that the owner left for a trip, and when he returned, the tower had somehow grown taller. The townspeople attributed it to the devil, thus the name.”

“I think the townspeople just wanted the owner to think he was losing his mind. They probably had those bricks tucked away somewhere and started adding to the tower the minute he left.”

Nyla lolled her head to the side and released a tired sigh. “Your lack of appreciation for good folklore is such a disappointment.”

“Sorry,” he said, humor shading his voice. “I’ll try to lock away my pesky scientific side so I can be more open to your folklore and fairy tales.”

“It’s for your own good. It will make this trip much more tolerable, especially when we get to Rome with all of its ancient legends.”

“I can appreciate good history,” he said. “I hadn’t heard of San Gimignano before learning that you lived here, but I must admit I’m intrigued by these towers. The fact that they’ve survived this long and are still in such good shape is amazing,” Aiden said, his eyes focused on one of the town’s fourteen remaining medieval towers. “When you live in a country as young as the United States, it’s hard to comprehend structures that have been standing for several centuries.”

“I know,” Nyla said with a wistful sigh. “Even though I’m surrounded by it every day, it still takes my breath away.”

Aiden looked over at her and, after a moment, blew out a resigned sigh. “You really do love it here, don’t you?”

She nodded. “I do.”

He dropped his head and huffed out a humorless laugh. “Shit.”

“Don’t be that way,” Nyla said. “Tuscany has been good to me. It’s been good for me. I thought moving to Paris and following one of my lifelong dreams would solve everything, but it didn’t. I was still in such a dark place. There was something about San Gimignano that made me whole again.”

Aiden stopped walking, causing her feet to halt midstroll. He took her hands in his and, with an earnestness in his voice that touched her soul, said, “As much as I hate that you had to leave in order to feel whole again, I’m happy you were able to find a place where you could be happy. Over the tens of thousands of times I’ve thought about you these past three years, the thing I’ve wished for most is that you were happy.”

His words wrapped around her like a warm blanket, eliciting a measure of comfort that only Aiden had ever provided. It scared her as much as it consoled her. The feeling she experienced this very moment—the trust, the tenderness—it was the thing she feared most about being around Aiden again.

Three years ago, she’d fallen for him with amazing ease. As a result, her well-ordered life had been upended. It was only by some miracle that Aiden’s had not been destroyed, as well.

She would not be so stupid—so selfish—as to put them through that kind of turmoil again.

Two days.

She only had to get through two days. It would be a test of her will, but also a testament to how well she’d learned from her past mistakes.

They walked through the narrow arched passageway that led to the Piazza della Cisterna. Nyla gave Aiden a brief history of the triangular-shaped square.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the well in the center of the piazza.

“Probably one of the most visited sites in all of San Gimignano. For hundreds of years that well was where the town’s residents got their water.”

“It’s a cistern. That’s where the name Piazza della Cisterna must come from.” He looked over at her. “Am I right?”

“I knew it wouldn’t take long for that massive brain to catch on,” she said with a laugh. She breathed deeply and pointed to the café just off to the right of the well. “Mmm...do you smell that? That place makes the best ribollita you will ever eat.”

“I make it a point not to eat anything I can’t pronounce,” Aiden said.

She pinched his arm, even though she couldn’t do much damage through his heavy suede coat. “There’s more to life than Quarter Pounders with cheese,” she said, remembering his ridiculous love of McDonald’s. “Ribollita is a thick soup made with beans and topped with fresh red onions to give it a crunch. It’s perfect on cold nights like tonight.”

“I think I’ll stick with the burgers and fries.”

Nyla rolled her eyes, but she had to admit it was nice to see some things about him hadn’t changed.

She pointed out several more structures as they walked through the narrow streets leading back to the bakery. They climbed the stairs behind it, which led to the small apartment she sublet from her boss’s son.

Murano Leoncini had been living in San Francisco for the past two years. But he would be back in San Gimignano at the end of January, which meant she had an important decision to make.

“Well, this is home,” Nyla said, shutting off thoughts of Murano’s return and gesturing for Aiden to enter ahead of her.

He unwrapped his scarf from around his neck, took off his jacket, and draped them both over the arm of her living-room chair.

Nyla took in the size of his shoulders and marveled at how much he’d changed, at least physically, since the last time she’d seen him. His body resembled his brother’s more athletic build, but he wasn’t overly muscular as Cameron had been. Those nicely defined muscles looked very good on him, too good. So good that she was starting to question the wisdom of being confined in a car with him for three hours as they drove down to Rome.

He walked over to the scraggly three-foot Christmas tree she’d placed on a stand atop an end table. A crooked smile tilted his lips as he trailed a finger along the string of popcorn garland she’d made in a fit of nostalgia.

“Give me a few minutes to throw some clothes in a bag,” Nyla said. “Can I get you something to drink while you wait?”

Aiden waved off the offer. Leaving the tree, he plopped down on her sofa, leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Nyla’s breath hitched as memories assailed her. How many times had he assumed that pose after “dropping in” at her home in Kirkwood, exhausted from a day of challenging classes at Georgia Tech? She’d accepted his excuses about not wanting to face the traffic heading home to north Atlanta, and never questioned when an hour of hanging out soon led to two or three. And eventually overnight.

On those few occasions when he told his parents that he was bunking in a friend’s dorm room, Nyla convinced herself that the little white lie wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t as if they’d spent those nights doing anything untoward. They’d watched old movies, or played Scrabble until after midnight. When it was time for bed, she would sleep in her room and Aiden on the sofa. Nothing ever happened.