Such beautiful name for such beautiful woman.” I blushed at the old shopkeeper’s flattery, and shook my head quickly. No, I wasn’t beautiful. I had frizzy brown hair and skin far paler than any native-born Texan should ever condone. My clothes were wrinkled. My jeans were too baggy. And my short-sleeved T-shirt was purposefully one size too big. If not for the rather prominent swell of my chest, I doubt the old man would have known I was a woman at all. But still, the flattery was nice. I was standing inside a leather shop just a few blocks south of the Florence train station. Alone. I should have known better, but the old shopkeeper was so nice, and besides, my cousin was still shopping at the seventeenth century farmacia just a few streets over. She’d made four trips to the monastic shop already, and though I still thought the frescoes were gorgeous, there was only so much time I could waste looking at scented oils. And anyway, I still hadn’t found my leather souvenir. Since beginning our grand tour of Italy, Erica and I had sworn to pick up one cheesy, Italian-made trinket from every city we visited.
