Safe Harbor by Marie Ferrarella Page B

“Well—”
    She never gave up, he thought fondly. Stevi was his scrapper. “That didn’t really require an answer, Stevi.”
    She exhaled another long breath. “So you’re not angry?” she asked, still carefully watching him for a sign that perhaps she’d assumed too much.
    “For following the example I set for you?” he repeated. “How could I be?”
    Relieved, Stevi grinned broadly. Her father was a terrific guy and she could think of nothing worse than offending him enough to get him angry with her—or worse, disappointed with her.
    “And, Dad, please don’t blame Silvio for anything,” she added. “I asked him not to tell you. He wasn’t very happy about it. I could see that he really felt terribly disloyal about that.”
    “I don’t blame Silvio for anything,” Richard said honestly. “Silvio is nothing if not loyal.” For now he left it at that. Stevi didn’t need to know that it hadn’t taken Silvio all that long to make up his mind as to where his loyalties were aligned. “He’s a good man.”
    Since they were talking about Silvio like this, Stevi had a burning desire to know more about him. It had been nagging her since she’d watched the gardener sew up Mike’s wound.
    “What’s Silvio’s story?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, he sewed up Mike’s wound like a pro. I watched him,” she added.
    Richard smiled. “That’s because he is a pro,” he confirmed.
    She wanted to be sure she and her father were on the same page. Something still felt off. “Then he was a physician’s aide?”
    “Is that what he told you?” her father asked. There was a touch of surprise in his voice. The corners of his mouth curved slightly. “I see.”
    She was into nuances. The inflection in her father’s voice negated her initial belief. “Then he wasn’t a physician’s aide?”
    Richard paused for a moment, reflecting. “Silvio was a doctor in Argentina. A doctor who didn’t believe that medicine should take sides in a civil war. There were others who didn’t quite see things his way. When he saved the wrong person’s life, he had to flee for his own. Silvio lost everything,” he concluded quite frankly.
    She remembered that story. That much hadn’t changed. “You mean his wife and son, right?”
    Her father inclined his head. “In a way. They left before he had run for it. His wife, he told me later, sided with the opposition. She was angry that he didn’t take advantage of certain opportunities that had come his way, choosing, instead, to honor his Hippocratic oath. She told him she could do better. The next day, she and his son were gone.”
    While she’d known he’d lost his family, she’d never heard the exact particulars before. Hearing them made her heart ache for the man.
    “Oh, poor Silvio,” she murmured. Being deserted after choosing to do the honorable, right thing had to have devastated the man.
    “Don’t ever let him hear you say that,” her father cautioned. “Silvio won’t stand for pity—from anyone.” He knew how fond the man was of his daughters, especially Stevi, who was the closest in age to his own son. Having her pity him would have been a huge blow to Silvio’s pride. “What I just told you was something he told me only after he’d been here for several years. It’s not for general knowledge,” he warned.
    “Why did he tell you all of a sudden, out of the blue like that?”
    “I wondered the same thing,” her father admitted. “He told me that it was his son’s birthday. My guess is that he just missed him more than he could stand and needed to talk to someone.”
    Stevi shook her head. “I can’t picture Silvio needing to talk to anyone, much less confessing something. Can’t see him missing anyone either, even if it was his own son.”
    Richard smiled. It was the sort of smile that was forged out of years of hard living and even harder lessons.
    “People have a way of surprising you, Stevi,” he said.
    She nodded absently, her