“Yes. He wanted to catch little Pietro and bake him into a pie.”

“Not this farmer. You know I’m too softhearted for that.”

Hearing the smile in his voice, she turned to face him. Her eyes were at the same level as the base of his throat, and she was close enough to see his leaping pulse as it danced under his skin. She looked up, and he looked down, and there was a moment when neither of them remembered to breathe. He tilted his head, as if he were about to ask her a question.

She nodded.

He kissed her. His mouth was gentle, his touch a whisper, no more. She stretched toward him, her shoes creaking as she rose on her tiptoes, her hands curving over his shoulders. He pulled her closer still, one arm wrapped around her back, the other reaching up to cradle her head.

“Nina,” he whispered against her lips. “We need to stop.”

“Why? I don’t ever want to stop.”

“Neither do I, but the children are just down the hall, and it’s the middle of the day. Later, when everyone is asleep, then we can . . .” He was blushing, the color rising under his day-old beard.

“Later,” she agreed, her face equally crimson. “When it’s time for bed.”

NICO WENT TO join his father in the barn, and it started to rain soon after, so there was nothing else to do but sit in the kitchen, under the feeble light of the oil lamps, for once again the electricity wasn’t working, and attend to the mending. Nina darned sock after sock, found ways to patch Carlo’s trousers that were already nothing but patches, and stopped only when her eyes watered and burned and she could no longer see the needle in her hand.

At last it was time for supper, a meager meal of soup and stale bread, and with the youngest three children still in bed it was far too quiet around the table. They ate in near silence, the rush of pouring rain a numbing melody, and when Rosa pushed back her chair and told the boys to bring out the bathing tub, Nina’s heart missed a beat. They would have their baths, and then it would be time for bed, and then . . .

Rosa was kind enough to share some of her good soap, and after everyone had bathed and washed their hair and had dressed again, she combed through Nina’s curls, working through the tangles and twisting her hair into two neat plaits, her touch soft and certain and wonderfully soothing. When she was finished Nina did the same in return, braiding Rosa’s hair into one thick plait that fell all the way to the small of her back.