Heaven and Hell (27 page)

“He walked away. Five minutes he spoke with
me then he tipped his chin up at me, said, ‘Enjoy your evening,’
and walked away. I thought it was a game. It wasn’t. Three hours we
were at the same party and he didn’t look at me again. I thought he
was trying to make me come to him while I was trying to make him
come to me. Then I saw him leaving and he didn’t even glance my
way. I knew then he was not going to come to me and worse, he was
not playing any games. And it occurred to me that if he left, I
would never see him again. And, I don’t know, I found I simply
could not let him go.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “So I
followed him.”

She fell silent.

I waited.

She spoke again.

“I caught him outside, walking down the
sidewalk. I had on very high heels and I was nearly running. If I
had… if we didn’t have…” she pulled in an unsteady breath, “it
would have been quite humiliating if things did not turn out the
way they did. But he heard my heels, he stopped and I made it to
him. Immediately, he asked, ‘Done with that shit?’” I watched her
profile smile another small, wistful smile. “What could I say?” She
turned her head to me. “I said, ‘Yes’.”

I smiled at her and mine was small too and
probably melancholy.

She looked back to the sea.

“Right then, he said, ‘Tomorrow night, I’m
taking you to dinner. If you make an excuse, I’ll know it’s a game
and offer rescinded. With that bullshit in there, you bought that.
Now, are we going to dinner?’” She paused then whispered, “‘Offer
rescinded’. So Travis.”

“I take it you said yes,” I prompted softly
when she didn’t go on for awhile.

She nodded and looked at me. “Oh yes,
cara mia,
I said yes and that was the most important word I
said in my life until a year later when I said the words, ‘I
do’.”

I felt tears sting my nose and was about to
reach for her hand when she suddenly twisted to me and reached for
mine, grasping it tight, moving into my space and her other hand
came up to cup my cheek.

“Three hours, I played my game,
three
hours,
” she said quietly, quickly, vehemently. “You must know
what I would do to get back those three hours with my Travis.”

My hand grew tight in hers and I whispered,
“Luci –”

Her face got closer. “Do not be foolish as
me, Kia, do not waste even
three minutes
with a good man. Do
not.”

“Honey, maybe we should talk about you,” I
suggested carefully and this was not a fishing expedition for Sam,
this was Luci and me and Lake Como and Travis Gordon having a lock
on her heart from the grave, so tight, it was never letting go.

“No, you are off to Parma tomorrow then
Crete and I am not going home to North Carolina for two months. I
have little time with you and I need you to learn from my mistake,
Kia, I
need
it.”

“Luci, that’s what I think we should talk
about.”

She shook her head, determined to stay on
her subject. “Sam is a good man.”

“I know.”

“And anything can happen tomorrow.”

“Luci, please,” I lifted my other hand and
took hers from my face then holding both of hers in mine between
us, I shook them, “nothing is going to happen tomorrow and –”

“The future is always very bright, Kia,
until suddenly, one day, it becomes nothing but black.”

Oh God.

“Luci –”

“Do not be angry at him but he has shared
with me about you. Not much and not much more than what I have
assumed from hearing you talk to Celeste on the phone. And I care
for Sam, very deeply, he was Travis’s friend and he was mine and
after I lost Travis, I… I don’t… well, I don’t know what I would
have done without him. We have grown even closer since and I want
him to be happy. But I would not steer you or any woman wrong to
make that happen. But he is a good man, through and through, Kia.
He will take care of you. I know this to be true. Let him take care
of you,
cara
, let him make you happy and while he’s doing
it, you make him happy too.”

“Luci, honey, we just met a few days
ago.”

She looked me straight in the eye and
declared, “You know.”

I pulled in breath.

She went on. “And he does too.”

“I –”

“And I did too. And Travis told me, many
weeks later, he looked across that room and saw me and he knew. And
when he approached me and I was not what that looked promised him
I’d be, he was very disappointed. But, three hours later, he was
filled with joy because when I ran after him, he knew he was not
wrong.” She shook my hands. “And he was not. Nor is Sam. Nor are
you.”

I held her eyes, they were fretful and I did
the only thing I could do.

I gave her my promise.

“I won’t waste a minute, Luci. I
promise.”

Instantly, she smiled gleefully, released my
hands but put hers on both sides of my head, pulling me forward,
she kissed one of my cheeks then the other then she pushed me back
and demanded, “You must inform me the minute Sam proposes and I
will immediately speak with Massimo.”

I blinked through a heart spasm and a belly
plummet. The latter was at the thought of Sam proposing. The former
was at the mention of the fabulous designer known only as
“Massimo”.

“Massimo?” I whispered.

“Why yes,” she replied, letting me go and
whisking up the dregs of her drink then sucking them back, she
replaced the glass on the table and informed me, “He designed my
wedding gown. He adores me. We’re the closest of friends, outside
Sam, of course. At my request, he would be delighted to design
yours too.”

I was pretty certain I wheezed audibly at
this announcement but Luciana didn’t hear it because at this point
Sam returned with her drink. Then he sat next to me and wrapped
himself around me again.

Luci started chattering again while I
controlled my hyperventilating and did this by sipping my Amaretto.
Eventually, I got myself together enough to join the conversation;
I finished my drink, Luci hers, Sam his sparkling water and Sam
said it was time to call it a night. He escorted us both to the
pavement, got Luci a taxi, deposited her in it and she was whisked
away while waving.

Sam waited until he had me in the
Lamborghini and we were on the road for the twenty minute drive
back to the hotel before he asked, “Well?”

I took in a breath.

Then I said softly, “As we suspected, it’s
bad Sam.”

“How bad?”

“Bad as in, if there is any possible way
that you think she’d agree to professional grief counseling, she
should start immediately.”

Sam was silent.

Carefully, into the void, I asked, “How did
Travis die?”

“Assignment,” was Sam’s short, uninformative
answer and my mind harkened back to them talking earlier, something
I completely forgot about and since I was not supposed to have
heard it and he didn’t know I did, I couldn’t ask if Travis’s
assignment was official or if, perchance, it was unofficial and
further if, perchance, Sam was also taking unofficial assignments
which, frankly, scared the beejeezus out of me.

So I said nothing.

This time, Sam broke the silence. “How do
you know this?”

“She’s lamenting the three hours she played
a game with him the first night she met him, wishing she had that
time back. Regretting her decision to try and make him dance. She
remembers every word they spoke to each other that first meeting
and can recite it and she told me the most important words she’s
said in her life are, ‘I do’. And last, she said that the future is
always bright until one day, suddenly, it turns black.”

“That’s bad,” Sam muttered.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

Sam sighed.

I remained silent for awhile.

Then I asked, “Should we ask her to come to
Parma with us tomorrow?”

“I’ll think about it, baby,” Sam answered
quietly. “But I think I need to call her father tomorrow. Vitale is
worried, we’ve talked. She listens to him. I’ll tell him this and
see what he says.”

“Okay,” I said softly, Sam reached out, took
my hand and pulled it to him.

I thought he was going to hold it and he did
but first he lifted it to his mouth and brushed my knuckles against
his lips before he dropped it to his thigh and muttered, “Grateful
for that, honey.”

For a second, I didn’t speak. For a second,
the whisper-soft touch of his lips on my knuckles, the sweet way he
did it, why he did it, grateful to me for talking to a friend he
was worried about, took that moment to burn in my brain.

Then I whispered, “Not a problem,” and
squeezed his hand.

He squeezed back.

I kept my gaze steady out the windshield and
thought of Travis Gordon being impatient with the lushly attractive
Luciana’s game, walking away from her and when she ran after him,
asking, “
Done with that shit?
”

That was so Sam. In fact, he almost said the
same thing to me when he thought I was playing a game.

And Sam was so big, so strong, so powerful,
so vital, I couldn’t imagine him suddenly being none of those
things and instead nothing but gone.

So I sucked in breath through my nose and
remembered my promise to Luci not to waste a second.

Fifteen minutes later, my promise was put to
the test when we were standing outside my door, Sam slid my key out
of my hand, opened it and held it open for me to go in. He followed
me, threw the key on the table by the door and stood there.

I was walking in, pulling my purse off my
shoulder when I noticed and looked back at him.

“Come here, Kia,” he ordered gently.

I threw my bag on a chair and walked to him,
head tilted in confusion.

When I made it to him, his arms slid loosely
around me, he tipped his chin down and he said quietly, “I’ve been
pushin’ and today, I see I pushed too hard. I’m gonna give you some
space tonight. You get up, call me and I’ll meet you for breakfast
before we go.”

I stared up at him.

He bent his neck and kissed my nose.

My nose.

“Sleep well and have good dreams,” he
whispered, gave me a light squeeze, let me go, turned, opened and
walked through the door.

I stood there while he did all that except,
when the door started closing, I caught it, moved into it, leaned
into the hall then asked Sam’s departing back, “You’re
leaving?”

He stopped, turned and looked at me.

“You need space,” he informed me.

“Don’t tell me what I need, Sam. Only I know
what I need.”

He held my eyes.

I leaned further forward, stretched out an
arm and grabbed his hand.

That was all I had to do.

In half of one of his long strides, he was
at me, crowding me and I was back through the door. Then he bent
and, with a small, surprised cry, I was over his shoulder. The door
clicked shut and in five strides Sam tossed me on the bed.

Then he followed me down.

* * * * *

Eight hours and forty-five minutes
later…

Sam and I walked into the dining room
together holding hands and, when his eyes caught sight of us,
dropped to our hands then back to my face, I didn’t have to speak
Italian to translate the maitre d’s look of pure, unadulterated
glee.

That Means Somethin’ to Me

Five days later…

It was mid-morning and I was at the pool
waiting for Sam to finish working out so I could make the big move
from the pool to the beach.

This was the way our days were rolling out:
up (make love), breakfast, I would go to the pool, Sam would go to
the hotel gym to work out or take to the streets for a run. Then
Sam would shower, come and get me (this was an added or alternate
making love time slot) and go with me to the beach. In the
afternoon, we’d find food and since Sam would be d-o-n-e, done with
lying around at the beach, I’d shower, we would jump in the Jeep he
rented and explore.

On our first day there, I learned Sam was
not a lying around on the beach man, he was an action man. Although
I was a lying around on the beach gal, it was cool he was an action
man because exploring was fun. It was also cool that, even though
he was an action man, he gave me my time by the pool and beach and
he did it without complaint.

It was a nice compromise, something I’d
never experienced before in my life. With Cooter I did the
compromising, I didn’t know what it was like to have a fair dose of
what I wanted before I gave in to what someone else wanted.

It felt good.

And, with Sam, giving in wasn’t giving in,
as such. Giving in led to some great times.

For instance, we found a tiny, awesome
fishing village set in a spectacular bay while we were exploring.
We got there late afternoon and stayed there well into the evening
because the open taverna where we had dinner had a band that was
killer, Greek music, lots of clapping and, in the end, dancing,
though, Sam didn’t dance, but an old guy pulled me up and I had a
blast.

We also found the cave where Zeus was born
after driving up a hair-raising mountain road that was totally
worth it once we climbed further up the mountain on foot and then
climbed down to Zeus’s birthplace.

We also found another beach, which was the
best seeing as it had absolutely nothing built around it at all,
you had to trek to it and it was pure and beautiful and so
relaxing, regardless of the fact that we were not the only ones
there, even Sam was happy to hang.

And the best part of Sam winding down and
hanging was that a lot of the time he did it, he did it lying on
his side next to me in the sand, elbow in the towel, head in his
hand, chest on display, talking to me quietly. Or he’d roll to his
back, pull me up on his chest and run his fingers through my hair
while we talked quietly. Or he’d get to his feet, pull me to mine,
guide me to the sea and we’d drift around, my legs around Sam’s
hips, my arms around his shoulders, his hands at my ass, him
treading water or floating and we’d again talk quietly.